Your time is a precious commodity that can’t be replaced. When your plate is full, it can feel like everything requires your immediate attention. This can make it especially tough to prioritize tasks based on their urgency or importance. If you don’t make a conscious effort or plan which allows you to focus on the big picture and delegate the daily administrative “stuff”, it may be impossible to spend your time working on anything besides the minutiae.
The workload which naturally accumulates within a thriving financial advisory practice can take you away from your long-term business goals. The more your business grows, the less time you have to spend on the activities you’re best at—those things which probably drew you to financial planning in the first place. If your to-do list never seems finished, how can you ever make time to step back and make sure you’re building and maintaining a successful, balanced, profitable, long-lasting business?
We’ve consulted with many advisors about what their ideal advisory practice looks like. Then we help them adjust how they handle their daily workload so that these processes align with their long-term goals.
Do you feel like you’ve gotten away from your ideal business? Bring yourself closer to it again by jotting down the answers to these questions:
- How much do you enjoy focusing on investments, performance, and research? Do you enjoy it more than sitting down with clients or gathering assets?
- Do you need to be involved in too many of the day-to-day administrative details?
- Do you enjoy managing, hiring, training staff?
- Do you spend too much of your time keeping up with the latest technology? Is your office virtual enough to suit your needs? Is the suite of technology you’re using adequately integrated?
- Describe the clients you truly enjoy working with. What type of client do you attract?
- How many more ideal clients would you like to bring on? Is marketing to them feasible given your current schedule and list of responsibilities? Would you have the capacity today to service these new clients at a high level?
Depending on your answers to some of these questions, hiring more staff may or may not be the answer to any time or capacity issues you might be facing. At some point, in order to achieve a healthier, more rewarding life outside of your business, you may decide you need to outsource various tasks to a trusted partner or service provider. Today, more than ever, there are many options available to independent advisors. Once you decide which tasks you’d like to delegate in order to free up more of your time, finding the right outsourcing solution may be easier than you think.