Insights

Segmenting your clients is an absolute necessity if you want to grow, but doing so without a plan for scale will stagnate your business quickly.

Let's be honest: most advisors jump right back on their proverbial hamster wheel when they get back to their offices post-conference. Most never look at their pages of notes again after getting off the plane! I'm here to tell you: That's OK.

The reality is that you can do everything 'right,' as a leader, and still there will be employees who will leave to pursue other opportunities. Here are five tips to move on after that happens.

We spend an inordinate amount of time in this industry training advisors how to craft statements: elevator pitches, unique value proposition (UVP) statements, mission statements, vision statements, etc. But we spend virtually no time teaching advisors how to use those statements to help shape and lead their practices.

Non-Broker Protocol breaks can be challenging if you are not prepared for what could happen before, during and after your transition. If you are considering transitioning out of your firm, the first thing you should do is find out if your firm participates in Broker Protocol. The Broker Protocol is an agreement between firms enabling advisors to leave one for another amicably. The agreement outlines the pieces of client information that the advisor can take with them and dictates the process for leaving and communicating with clients.

Last week, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman told his 60,000 employees to come back to the office. "If you can go to a restaurant in New York City, you can come into the office. … If you want to get paid New York rates, you work in New York," Gorman said. "None of this 'I'm in Colorado...and getting paid like I'm sitting in New York City.' Sorry. That doesn't work."

For years I would send a reminder out to advisors at the end of every quarter: “Don’t forget to schedule professional development reviews with your team members.” I would usually get one of two responses: “Thank you! I completely forgot. We’re so busy we barely have time” or “I dread these meetings because I end up doing most of the talking and no one ever comes prepared.”

If I ranked all the questions I get from advisors by order of popularity, “Why can’t I find the right person to be my associate advisor?” would place in the top five. Perhaps even top three. I have found that the answer to this question has much more to do with the way advisors structure the role, rather than being an issue of the talent pool they are selecting from. Think about it this way: Our industry is obsessed with “rainmakers;” those who have a superior ability to sell and/or gather assets. We have taught advisors that if you cannot “produce,” you cannot be an advisor. As a result, advisor-leaders tend to have tunnel vision as it relates to what they want an associate advisor to look, think and act like. In fact, advisor-leaders are almost always looking for an associate advisor … who is exactly like them.