To all our highly valued clients and acquaintances:
As we quickly move into August, many managers and advisors with whom I speak are increasing their focus on productive, clean business growth that will sustain them through thick and thin. For now, we see August as a time for year-end achievement and the start of new year thinking.
Question - no matter what kind of challenges you and clients may be encountering in today’s marketplace, what are you building? How will you know if you are effectively moving forward?
What does that mean you need to accomplish by the end of the year, no matter what? What’s your current thinking about your goals for 2009? What do you need to do now to set that up?
I am always pleasantly and happily surprised to hear such reports as these in the last few weeks:
- "My business is up over 25% over last year – I can’t be grateful enough”
- "I just had my best month ever in June – unbelievable in these markets;"
- "I just brought in $3 ½ M in Assets for June, got another $4M en route for July and
$4 ½ to $5 M lined up for August – staying with this referral process really works"
Are any of these advisors and others without challenges? Absolutely not – and yet their resolve to sustain is strong, they protect their attitudes and keep themselves in great communication with their clients, vigilant to provide leading edge service and available to open new relationships.
Their clients not only experience being well-served, their clients also know that their Financial Advisor is ready, willing and able to meet other people who may not be as happy as they like.
We want to reinforce these fundamental referral request practices – during these kind of market conditions, upon the foundation of the best possible service you can offer, many of your clients are willing to introduce you to other family members, friends, neighbors and/or colleagues who would highly value another confidential, professional perspective or want to explore another way in which they can receive great service – the kind that only you can deliver on a consistent basis.
All of your growth can be built upon personalized, great service. As I often like to quote from speaker Zig Ziglar, “You can get anything in life that you really want if you just help enough other people get what they want”. Much more than a slogan, it’s really a value and a way of life.
John Marks Templeton was known to say, “Think less about what you can get and more about what you can give, and your life may take on a luster you never dream possible”. As we now know, the pioneer global investor who founded the Templeton Mutual Funds and for the past three decades devoted his fortune to his Foundation's work on the "Big Questions" of science, religion, and human purpose, passed away on July 8, 2008. (http://www.templeton.org/)
One of my favorite role models over the years, Paul J. Meyer, recently turned 80 years old. (www.pauljmeyer.com) In a recent e mail that I received from his organization, he talked about how he was looking forward to the next 10 years. I often remember him saying that there are 2 things that none of us can know for sure in life. The first is how long we are actually going to live. And the second is how great we can become. And John Marks Templeton exemplified both.
As several of us have discussed in recent weeks, our current life is not a dress rehearsal for a more real life to come – the clock is ticking now and this is it. Sustainably in business, as well as in life, often has to do with a continuous orientation for expanded service to our existing clients and our growing circles of business relationships. We can call that marketing (which some of my colleagues call “the truth made fascinating”). We can also call it a great way to live and work.
We encourage you to keep yourself freshly inspired and energized on a continuous basis -whatever you have to do to further develop and keep your leading edge. A suggested book to read to that end, designed to help you create a great life and build a multi-million dollar practice?
Tested in the Trenches: A 9-Step Plan for Building
and Sustaining a Million-Dollar Financial Services Practice
Product Description: “Build a great financial services practice, AND a great life filled with passion, purpose and enthusiasm.
With more than one million financial services practitioners in the United States and Canada, competition for clients can be intense…differentiating through service, brand and relationship is the only sustainable way advisors can compete.
In Tested in the Trenches: A 9-Step Plan for Building and Sustaining a Million-Dollar Financial Services Practice the authors explain how investment advisors can do just that . . . and create great lives along the way. Based on concepts taught in professional coaching workshops worldwide, Tested in the Trenches outlines:
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The four ""foundation"" steps to success.
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Four ways to generate revenue.
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15 habits of top achievers.
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Forms and checklists to organize your financial services practice.
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Online sources for additional business-building ideas and tools.
If you have the sincere desire to make significant improvements in your financial services business – and your life – clear your schedule, read Tested in the Trenches, then go back and implement each idea in the order it is presented. By doing so you'll be prepared to join the rarefied group of personally fulfilled and professionally successful top achievers.”
We appreciate our relationship and we thank you for keeping us engaged and allowing us to do our best to be of service – til the next time we speak, meet or connect, we are…
Always looking to serve you with productive and revenue generating ideas.
Best – Coach Don |
