Financial advisors are always asking how they can dramatically increase their business. The answers are simpler than you think. I tell these advisors they need to focus on PMC:
1.Prospecting
2.Meeting with clients
3.Closing the sale
Here's an example: A few years ago I had the amazing opportunity to work with 12 financial advisors--each averaging $1.2 million in fees and commissions. My mission was two-fold: To see from the inside what it is like to be a million-dollar advisor and to test out all of the advice I had been giving audiences for years. Did my techniques for building trust and solidifying relationships still work?
Have you ever been in a situation where one-plus-one added not up to two--but to 50 instead?
That is just want happened when I dusted off my Series 7 to work at Blue Bonnet Advisors (to protect their privacy, the names of the firm and its advisors are fictitious)--sitting across from investors for the first time in a decade.
Blue Bonnet had an amazing reputation for creating multimillion-dollar advisors out of "Middle-America" investors. One advisor--not even 30 years old--was generating more than $750,000 by the end of his second year there. What makes his story so remarkable is that he did it entirely with "B" leads--prospects with less than $75,000 to invest. His success depended on a great sales process and sticking to the basic formula: prospect for new clients, meet with clients and close the sale. That was it.
One of the secrets to Blue Bonnet's success was that everything that did not qualify as PMC was delegated to someone other than the financial advisor. And I do mean everything.
On my first day there, my new assistant handed me my cell phone. Normally a new cell is a big drain on my time, causing me no end of frustration! I am extremely un-mechanical, and it can take me hours to figure out the most basic functions of a sophisticated phone.
Everything was different at Blue Bonnet. My assistant did not just hand me my phone; she also spent 10 minutes tutoring me on how it works. She had even pre-programmed my husband's and children's phone numbers. She took the time to set up the pass code to my voice mail and explained everything to me in language befitting a kindly kindergarten teacher...a simple thing to do, and one that saved me two full hours!
Many times I will ask an audience to consider why she did this for me. The answer is the key to becoming a multimillion-dollar advisor. Spending two hours trying to figure out a new phone is not PMC. The time I would spend reading the instructions was time much better spent meeting with clients, prospecting and closing the sale. Someone else would need to do everything else.
In fact, during the entire time we tested out our systems and theories at Blue Bonnet, I never made a call to the hairdresser, dentist or doctor to set up a visit. Sure those calls only take five minutes each, but making those appointments was not PMC. If you add up enough of those five-minute calls--along with answering voice mail and e-mail--it easily turns into three or four extra hours each week--hours that should be spent in front of clients. And that can also mean generating thousands of extra dollars every week!
Blue Bonnet's system was so beautiful, so elegant, so successful, that we have used variations of it with every client since.
In short: This system can turn a $200,000 advisor into a million-dollar advisor in about 18 months. If you are already at a million, it can get you to $3 million, $4 million--or even more in a relatively short period of time. Case in point: The woman in the office next to me had been working for another firm. She had never made more than $200,000 a year. Her first year at Blue Bonnet? She made $1.3 million! All she did was stick to the system and focus on PMC.
Once we saw what this system could do for average advisors as well as superstars, we have used it with large broker/dealers, smaller advisory firms, and every other type of financial advisory business in between. If they follow the system, they will get great results.
Blue Bonnet understood that the key to helping everyone there make a lot of money was to free up the advisors' time so they could meet with clients. To do this, every financial advisor--even me with no client base--was assigned at least one registered sales assistant. The big guys--those generating $3 million or more--might have five or six assistants. We called them Client Service Managers (CSMs), and they worked much like a chief of staff or even the COO of the advisor's book of business.
The CSM became the hub, the interface between the FA and all other departments. During the entire time I was there I did not fill out a single application, create a financial plan, review an insurance policy, analyze an investment portfolio, or handle a service complaint. Other staff members did all of these vitally important tasks so I could focus on meeting with clients. I didn't even meet with the insurance department, and my dealings with the planning department were minimal. My CSM interfaced with them all.
On a typical day, I would arrive at work having no idea with whom I would be meeting. It was not unusual to have three or even four new prospect meetings in a day. Every advisor, including me, had a goal of 15 face-to-face client meetings per week. Since most of my meetings took me two hours, I tried to spend at least 30 hours in front of clients each week.
After each client meeting, I would review the case with my CSM. We would jointly fill out a short form to let the planning department know how I wanted to handle the case. I might suggest some investment solutions or I might let the planning department come up with answers. This short review meeting took no more than 15 minutes of my time.
When everything was working smoothly, I never thought about the case again until shortly before the clients were due back for their plan presentation. My CSM would make sure the plan was completed on time. It was she who filled out all the applications and who made sure any missing pieces of information were transferred to the planning department so they could complete the plan accurately.
Before the clients were due back in my office for the "solutions meeting," I would review the plan. My CSM also had prepared all the sales literature I would need and pre-completed the applications. All I had to do was to focus on the client.
This model was great for generating a lot of business. However, it certainly rubbed one advisor the wrong way: George had a background as an experienced financial planner, and didn't like the plans that the financial planning department created for him. He decided to create his own plans and frankly, they were probably better. Unfortunately, his production dropped because he was spending so much time in front of the computer that he was not meeting with clients. He was a good planner, but he was not willing to stick to the Blue Bonnet sales process, and took on too much of the work himself. Even though his production was $500,000 a year, the principals eventually fired him! Creating plans is not PMC.
Here are some things you can do to start focusing on PMC and getting into the multimillion-dollar circle:
1. For two days, keep a log of how you spend your time. Try to do it in 10-minute increments through out the day. Next to each item, note if it is P, M, C or O for other. Then add up how much time you are spending on PMC and how much you are wasting on things that don't necessarily add to your bottom line. Compute what percent of your time is focused on PMC. If you are new to this system, a good goal would be 50 percent of your time. If you want to make over a million per year, your goal should be over 80 percent.
2. Take a look at all the things that are marked "O." Pick out the biggest time and energy drains and create a plan for delegating them to someone else.
3. Aim for 15 face-to-face meetings with clients per week.
The results will be pleasantly surprising.
Katherine Vessenes, JD, CFP and president of Vestment Advisors, addresses thousands of advisors nationally every year, offering a bumper-to-bumper system to build up their business. She can be reached at: Katherine@vestmentadvisors.com
