Delegation – A Vital Key to Your Continued Success!

There is no escaping it.  At some point down the road, you are going to have to delegate work if you’re going to grow.  You can delegate to in-house staffers or you can delegate to qualified outsource partners but either way, there is no getting around it.So, then it follows that you must be a good delegator or learn to become one quickly.  A few questions to ask yourself.

1.  Have I properly trained my staff or found qualified outsource partners that I feel comfortable delegating to?

2.  Do I recognize that there are different styles for getting to the same result and that my style is not the “only one”?

3.  Do I recognize the importance of delegating in my continued growth?

4.  Do I recognize that by not delegating I am directly inhibiting my growth by not sticking to the tasks that generate revenue and growth?

5.  Do I have a Practice Policies Manual in place so that I know my directives are being followed?

6.  If I know I’m a micro-manager, can I bite my tongue and allow my folks to do their job?If you answered “no” to any of these questions, you are not ready to delegate and you need to address these issues ASAP.

Get a good coach or some training to help you make all of these a “yes” and you’ll be ready for the growth that you worked so hard for! 

The Fork in the Road

Last September, I had the opportunity to meet with Mark Tibergien who was in last days with Moss Adams at the time.  Among other issues, we discussed one very difficult hurdle all advisors face at one point is “The Fork in the Road”.

What do I mean by this?  Ask yourself these questions:

1.  Are you working more and more each week and feeling like less and less is being accomplished?

2.  Do you feel like customer might be slipping or could be better?

3. Is there an increase in errors? 

4. Are you spending more and more time on your back office and less with clients and prospects?

This is the fork in the road and the decisions you make here are going to have long lasting effects on your firm and your life.  Mark likes to say that ”all advisors want to get to heaven, they just don’t want to die”.  I interpret this to mean that we all want the rewards without having to really address the problems.

This is the point where you need to spend some money to leverage yourself.  The question becomes whether or not you outsource it (are you comfortable delegating this work to outside work partners?) or do you hire a top notch COO and keep it in-house.  Both decisions are good options…you just need to decide which you feel most comfortable with.

Advisors have never had more opportunitites to create a successful firm both from a financial side and a personal satisfaction side.  However, when you come to the fork in the road, make the decision which way to go or better yet, hire someone to help you take an objective look at your goals and then the two of you can write a plan for making it happen!

Don’t be afraid of the fork in the road but don’t ignore it either.  You’ll be sorry you did. 

Defining your services

As I work with my existing clients, I have found many recurring themes. One of them is the definintion (or lack thereof) of the services they are giong to provide.  Not having a clear definition of these services can get you in trouble quickly.  Let me explain.

You get a new client and of course, you want to do the best job possible. So, in addition to the services you would normally provide, you start doing all kinds of extras – running spreadsheets, analyzing documents, etc. – services that are outside the normal range of offerings.  Now what happens?  You’ve just set the bar to a new level and not only will this client continue to expect this service level but any referrals they bring you will as well.  Now all of the sudden, you can service less clients because of the increased time it’s taking you and my guess is, you are not charging them additional fees.

Sit down and define your services carefully and then stick to it.  If a client needs extra work, make sure they understand there will be additional fees for this work.  It’s okay to perform additional work as long as you are charging appropriately for it.  If you charge appropriately for it, you can hire someone to assist you and still maintain a healthy profit margin.

Write yourself a model day

In my work, I frequently hear recurring themes among my clients…one of them is usually time management.  How do I do I the things I need to do each day without stopping and starting every few minutes.  Frequent stopping and starting, as we all know, is an obstacle to doing things efficiently and correctly the first time.

 I suggest you track your activities for one or two weeks…you can create a simple daily calendar in 1/2 hour blocks…and see what kinds of things you’re doing.  Then, compare that to what you should be doing and map out a model day.  What do I  mean by this?

You know you are going to have a certain number of calls to make within a day.  I suggest you make them twice a day…in the morning and in the late afternoon.  That way, you are bound to reach 90% of the folks you need to reach and with the others, leave some timeframes in your message to them outlining the best time to reach you.  If you have an assistant, have him/her set up a specific time to talk to the folks that are hard to reach.

Do the same thing with your other tasks…reading, reviewing files, reviewing portfolios…do them at the same time each day.  Additionally, I suggest that you block out at least one day a week (maybe in two 1/2 day increments) where you do not meet with clients or prospects.  This is time you are setting aside to do tasks that need to be completed each week so you do not get behind and add to your stress level.

The key here is it’s YOUR calendar.  You can manage it anyway you want.  If you let others dictate the management (other than an assistant), you will become extremely inefficient and in the end, your performance will suffer and it will add to your stress level.

Let me know what other ideas you have for managing your calendar!

Service Push or Client Pull

How well do you know what your clients really value from you?  Are you client-centered or advisor-centered?

I suggest my clients take a close look at their service model from time to time and try to get a handle on whether or not what they are doing adds value to their clients or does it just generate more paperwork?  Many times, we do extras for our clients because WE feel the client will value them…our heart is in the right place but we’re going way overboard on fancy graphs, charts, etc. that just don’t bring any value to the client.  Then, we’re frequently disapppointed when they don’t just jump for joy at all the hard work we’ve done and all the extra paper we’ve produced.

Take some time to sit down with some of your top clients and ask them what they really value from you.  Then, translate these comments to a systemitized process for your service model.

You’ll be glad you did because your clients will be getting what they truly value from you and you won’t be spinning your wheels with unnecessary work and wasted time! 

Retaining Your Staff

A recent white paper published by Moss Adams and Pershing “Fast Forward: The Advisor of the Future” talks about, among other things, how the presence of dominating firms will be felt strongly in local markets and will create competitive challenges for other firms.  It goes on to say “The effect will be felt primarily in the competition for staff, not necessarily for clients”.

I believe this should be a wake up call for all advisors to make sure they are taking care of their staff and aggressively hiring additional staff to be ready to meet the growing demand for their services.

Additionally, make sure you have clearly defined career paths, timely and consistent evaluations and good working culture.  If you do not take care of your staff, you will become a training ground for other firms that do!

I’d like to hear any ideas you use in your practice with respect to retaining, training, rewarding, compensating, etc. your staff to help them claim ownership in what they do!

Practice Policies Manual

Everyone knows they need a Practice Policies Manual (aka Procedures or Systems Manual).  We’ve all heard the reasons…compliance, they make your practice more valuable, consistency among staff, assist in turnover situations, etc. but just how do you tackle one?

I suggest my clients break it down to categories first.  For example, portfolio performance.  Take this one category and write down everything that happens with respect to these functions.  The daily feeds, the reconciliation, running returns, billing, etc.  Then, commit 15 minutes every day to writing one policy.

I also suggest you start with the first step in the process and the last step.  The last step should always be a variation on this…the billing is completed successfully with all monies collected and verified.

Don’t try to tackle it all at once.  That is a recipe for failure.  Take it in small pieces and in no time, you will have your manual written.  Then, I suggest everyone in the firm signs off on it verifying they will follow the procedures.  I would also suggest you retain it electronically where everyone in the firm can find it but make them “read only”.  If a procedure needs to be changed, make sure all change go through one person for consistency sake.

Good luck and go get ‘em