"Behaviorists suggest that we take a minimum of six weeks of free days on average annually. How many of us take even half that amount of time out of our businesses?"

Making Your Vision Your Reality

By John Bowen

Every great business needs a plan. Take the time to create a plan that will set the foundation for your success.

All financial advisors want to have a great business. But because we are so busy serving our clients every minute of the day, we seldom take the time to examine if what we're doing makes sense if we want to achieve our own success. By formally scheduling the time with ourselves to be introspective about our business, we can substantially increase the probability of realizing our vision. If we just step away long enough from the day to day activities of "just doing it, doing it, doing it" to refine a written business plan for realizing our vision, we will be much more effective in the business.

While most will agree with the concept, the challenge is how do you find the time? Consider that, by not allocating the time for this process, you are most likely spending hours every day inefficiently—taking your business in the wrong or even worst multiple directions and possibly doing a disservice to your clients.

The first step is to schedule time away from your office and all the distractions there to create a written executive summary. Many successful business owners take a three-day introspective break, or retreat. I have used this myself with great results. Involve your peers, employees and consultants. Putting your plan in writing and having it reviewed by other people who understand your industry can uncover blind spots or breaks in logic that can be easily addressed. No great businesses have ever been created by one individual; it is collaboration with your trusted advisors that will get you focused on how to achieve your goals.

Your business should be built around the lifestyle that you want to achieve. Ask yourself: What type of life do I want to have three years from now? Walk yourself through what a typical day three years from now might look like. Start with waking up in the morning and see how the day progresses. Once you clearly have that vision, you can break it down into what you need to do to make it a reality. Do not get overwhelmed; break the action steps into 90-day milestones that you will have to achieve to create the lifestyle success you deserve. Don't forget to build in the free time that you need to recharge yourself to be most effective in serving your clients.

Behaviorists suggest that we take a minimum of six weeks of free days on average annually, and that doesn't include going to conferences or checking email, voice mail, etc. How many of us take even half that amount of time out of our businesses? Wouldn't it be great to plan for that without disrupting service to your clients? That's exactly what is required—planning. If you are reading this column you do not want to be average so you may want to schedule even more than six weeks as part of creating the lifestyle that you want. The key is to schedule it in advance or it will not happen.

A great software package that will make it relatively easy for you to put together a detailed plan once you have the vision of where you want to go is Business Plan Pro from Palo Alto Software. The software comes with a Plan Wizard that will make your job of creating your business plan a lot easier. It will ask you the questions about your business and then take your answers and create a custom text outline and financial tables for your specific needs. You can use the sample plans as well to assist you in completing your plan. Best of all the software only cost $89.95 with a sixty-day money back guarantee. You can download it at http://www.pasware.com.

Here's an overview of a seven-step business plan:

Step One: Create a compelling vision.

Take the time to be introspective. What is going to get you excited every single day to move ahead? You need to be passionate about your vision because there are going to be many roadblocks in your path. Try writing down how you got to where you are today. We are all products of our past experiences, and by summarizing them, oftentimes we will be able to identify leverage points that will help us achieve our vision.

Step Two: Begin thinking systematically.

Design systems to insure that each and every client has the same high quality experience with your firm. Think of your business systematically. What are systems can you implement to make sure every client has the same experience whether you are present or not. Great value is created in the business if you can delegate responsibility to your employees to deliver your high quality client experience. Keep it simple for example many successful financial advisors limit the number of investment solutions they handle rather than trying to be all things to all people. Get to know everything there is to know about those investments and track them carefully. Become personally acquainted with every investment option you deal with.

Monitor procedures and benchmark results to discover opportunities to improve the systems that are in place. Develop client-tracking systems. It's only through consistent experience that you create value.

Step Three: Scrutinize your management process.

Create a flowchart of every major step in your business process. For your business to be valuable, it has to be able to run without you, while still delivering consistent service. Flowcharting is one of the best ways to make that happen so that everyone else in your business understands the process. The best software program I have found for this is SmartDraw5. It's a very easy flowcharting tool that will help you lay out your business processes with clarity to see what steps are missing. You can download a 30-day trail version at http://www.smartdraw.com.

Create organizational chart and job descriptions for your employees as well. Who does what and when? What are your standards? Who manages the employees and makes certain that they meet the established standards? Even if initially it's you who fills most of these positions, by defining and documenting them, you will more easily be able to delegate.

Step Four: Fine-tune your marketing plan.

Understand your target market. Determine the demographics of your target market, how you market to and monitor prospects and why key prospects chose to work with your firm. This may involve working with top marketing consultants to become more strategic in your marketing. When we each first started in the business, any prospect that walked through the door was qualified. The more focused we get on who we can serve effectively the more successful we become.

Perform a client assessment of your target clients. Develop an ideal profile of the clients you want to work with, and then ask what these clients really want. In most cases, clients are looking for a trusted financial advisor who will simplify their financial life—not highest performance. Most importantly, ask your clients how you can best serve them and design your business to address their needs.

Design a plan for your client assessment. One of the easiest approaches is to simply call each of your top ten clients. Tell them that they are one of your favorite clients and you really respect their opinion. Say that you would like to get together to ask them a series of questions so that you can be more effective in serving them. I've found clients never refuse. Typically, one of the reasons they're a favorite client is that they trust you and want you to be successful.

Step Five: Conduct a competitive analysis.

Take a good, objective look at the firms that are successful in your marketplace. Most firms have at least brochure-ware readily available on the Internet these days making it easy for you to do a preliminary competitive analysis. I've found AltaVista to be a most effective search engine for identifying these sites. Just type the names of your competitors in a search engine and see what comes up. Particularly look at what their offering is and how they promise to deliver these services to the market. Are there components that you should be offering that you are not or possible refinements that may help to differentiate you from the competition?

While your examining your competition you also have to look at your own internal and external capabilities. What are you capable of delivering today? Be honest with yourself. The way businesses succeed is by delivering on their promises, not by over-promising. You could choose to outsource any shortfalls you have. Identify vendors or strategic alliances that can fill in your offerings.

Step Six: Develop hard, soft and information systems.

Hard systems are the physical things around you—the material tools used in your business. Soft systems consist of intangibles—what you say when you answer the phone, how you make presentations at meetings and seminars, all the systems that are made up of content. Information systems have to do with software development for quantifying and monitoring. All must be used on purpose to deliver the high quality experience your clients need.

Step Seven: Develop the business.

Recognize there is no one right way to do business. What works today is unlikely to work tomorrow and get the same results. To be successful requires constant innovation, finding a better way.

You may want to create an informal advisory board, including between four to seven people whom you trust for their business expertise. Share your business plan with them and encourage them to pick it apart and find things that don't make sense. You're not looking for compliments; you're looking for breaks in logic or for ways in which you can better serve clients so that the firm and your clients can be more successful.

Once you collect the feedback, which can be done one-on-one, either in meetings or over the phone, then you can rewrite the business plan and ask the informal advisory board to review it one more time. Every time I've done this, I've found that there have been a number of people who have given me ideas and, more importantly, ways of executing those ideas that have helped me build substantial businesses. Don't forget to ask if you can contact them as a member of your informal advisor board from time to time to get their thoughts on issues you are facing.

As you reach toward every higher level of success, greater opportunities will present themselves. Do not be tempted to constantly change your plan. If something doesn't fit your plan, don't do it. Be consistent and specific. Be strategic, not tactical. Stay the course, working the plan, fine-tuning with the new feedback the market will provide and you will be well on your way to realizing your dreams.

Reprinted from: FINANCIAL PLANNING