Do you believe achieving a record production year in your business happens by chance or design? If you said design, you are right! However, while most advisors start a new year with big dreams, few finish reaching them. The reality of creating a record-setting year is more than just great intentions and luck, you need thorough and consistently used systems.
As a rookie financial advisor over twenty-plus years ago, I struggled my first year. During my second year, things were a bit better because I gathered three times the assets, but I was still in no position to stop eating ramen noodles. It wasn’t until my third year that I made a commitment (and a plan) to create my success.
As a result, I tripled my income from the previous year! I then repeated the process the following year and doubled my income following the same system. I’m telling you this not to impress you but rather to impress upon you that you cannot leave success up to chance.
The following is a brief outline of how you, too can plan for your success with a little upfront work:
Create an Unwavering Commitment
It was a simple statement to myself, “I’m never going below $10,000 gross per month this year,” that led me down a path to changing my belief system that I could actually do it. I used this same strategy years later but doubled the number and I was able to hit a personal record high production month five out of the first six months of the year! Why? Merely because I chose to believe that it WAS possible. Remember, the more you believe in your own potential, the higher the probability that you will hit your goals.
The Daily Discipline of Prospecting
Part of that unwavering commitment was to start prospecting everyday. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s not easy unless you do one important thing, learn to enjoy doing it. It might sound crazy, but if you make a game out of how many dials, contacts and appointments you do while prospecting, it can become a lot of fun!
A Systematic Way of Selling
Although hope is a good thing, it’s not the best strategy for sales success. Instead, you need a systematic way of selling so that you can duplicate every step of the way, from the initial contact to closing the sale. In my third year, I also learned from a top producer how to cross-sell to my client base. This opened my eyes to how to gather additional assets and commissions, but more importantly to increasing my value to my client base.
A Detailed Tracking System
In order to keep the momentum of activity and results going, it was important for me to create a great tracking system that was simple enough to fill out during the day but effective enough to keep a tally and tell me if I was going to achieve my monthly goals. I created a Daily Score Card, that tracked my contacts, presentations, orders asked for and gross commissions. Next, I created a sales pipeline of prospects and clients so I knew how many people and how much potential business was possible. Finally, I tracked daily gross production and knew exactly if I was above or below my goals at any given time. When you make tracking a priority, you get excited to achieve more!
A Strong Reward
At the end of my third year, I was shocked at the amount of success I had achieved by greatly surpassing my goals. Looking back at it now, it’s not about the numbers it’s about all of the other things that are obtained when you surpass what you believe you are capable of, confidence, pride, and increased self-esteem, to name a few. However, that’s not to say that you shouldn’t have a strong reward system. In fact, I went from eating ramen noodles the previous year to buying my first house! When you have a strong reward system, you have added incentive to achieve your goals.
Old Dogs CAN Learn New Tricks
By now you might be saying to yourself, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” If so, just know that isn’t reality. In fact, in my book 101 Advisor Solutions: A Financial Advisors Guide to Strategies that Educate, Motivate and Inspire, I tell a true story about my client Gale Z., who after 25 years was forced to realize that she was barely hitting the corporate minimum production standards at the end of a year. We applied the aforementioned strategies and by the end of the first quarter, she was the top producer in her region. She exceeded her numbers by reaching 66% of the previous year’s production goals.
In addition, in my newest book ADVISOR LIFE: A Business Coach’s Collection of Story Stories with Tools, Techniques and Transformational Moments, I tell a short story that I titled “Writing the Next Chapter,” in which I explain that a financial advisor’s career is essentially made up of chapters. Each chapter hopefully brings a greater level of awareness, action and accountability. Typically, we do not realize that we have moved on to the next chapter until we have an “a-ha” moment, but it should not and does not take “a-ha” moments to start and end a chapter; more subtle wins and losses contribute to change too. In Gale’s case we had both; and, as a result she had a record year!