Be Authentic & Real

A financial advisor business coach and financial advisor public speaker needs to be authentic and real.

Members of the November 4^th and 5^th Toronto Independent Financial Brokers Summit audience commented “you are the best financial advisor public speaker that is here” and “you are so authentic and real, you can really tell that you have gone through a lot”.

Financial advisors and financial planners attend The Independent Financial Brokers Summit to receive ce credits / continuing education credits and to gain insights on;

• acquiring clients
• asking for referrals
• assistant hiring
• branding
• business building solutions
• business development
• business planning
• business strategies
• business to business marketing
• customer service
• client acquisition
• client retention
• client segmentation
• compliance
• delegation
• do not call solutions
• e-mail marketing
• e-mail newsletters
• goal setting
• guerilla marketing
• high net worth client marketing
• hiring a general manager
• hiring a junior advisor
• hiring an assistant
• increasing income
• increasing sales
• marketing tools
• niche marketing
• packaging
• practice management
• professional development
• prospecting for insurance leads
• recruiting
• referral marketing
• sales and marketing plan
• sales prospecting techniques
• selling skills
• selling techniques
• staff training
• succession planning
• team organization
• time management
• value added selling
• viral marketing
• vision and business planning

Today’s financial advisor blog is a demonstration of being authentic and real.

Not even last week’s equipment failures and transportation problems could overshadow the joy that we are feeling with the realization of our vision coming true with the launch of our new book, tradeshow booth and web site at last week’s Independent Financial Brokers Summit in Toronto.

Click here to claim the first six free chapters of my new book; Curing The Unmet Needs Disease – How to Prosper in Business by Meeting Your Unmet Needs ~ Financial Advisor Edition.

We arrived home early Friday morning 12am PT / 3am ET from our late afternoon Thursday flight from Toronto to Vancouver because our flight from Vancouver to Nanaimo could not land due to limited visibility caused by heavy rain and wind. By the way, the wet coast 7°C, limited visibility caused by heavy rain and wind was a far cry from the 20°C that we had been enjoying in Toronto. So our flight was redirected to Victoria where we rented a car for the 111km trip back to the Nanaimo airport to pickup our vehicle rather than waiting a half an hour for a bus and enduring the multiple stops on the way to Nanaimo. Thank goodness that we were not re-routed back to Vancouver because we wanted to wake up in our own beds to recuperate over the weekend for the tradeshow and the trip.

I am sharing this to remind all of us to create and focus on a big vision rather than getting sucked into the fear based vision of the world that is being compounded by the media along with your fear and survival based primal ego mind.

Taking a time out in these times for “no thought” and “reading your vision” are essential because one can get sucked into the negative by the mishaps that we run into in pursuit of our vision.

I see the mishaps as a mere distraction and a test to see if we can stay awake and focused on our vision.

Arriving home three hours late, travelling a total of ten hours after what was supposed to be a seven hour flight with layovers and ground transportation could be one of them.

Funny, as I write this, upon reflection, when I talk to some people about the travelling that I do to speak publically, I can hear their faint echoes; “ how can you do it, I can never do it, travelling is so hard”. In their mind, they are right. With respect, they just don’t have a strong enough vision, the passion and the understanding that in order to be successful, one must have a vision from 40,000 feet that includes identifying a niche market, finding a problem and providing a solution.

With out vision it is so easy to get distracted. The book hasn’t been out two weeks and I am being approached by readers telling me that my book can be so helpful to entrepreneurs and small business and speaking invitations are coming in that I am reluctantly turning down. Even though a part of me wants to follow what appears to be the easy way, I can’t specialize helping every entrepreneur and small business person because these are a demographic and not a niche market. Keep in mind that a niche is financial advisors that happen to be entrepreneurs and small business.

The idea is to drive our roots down as deep as we can in the financial advisor niche and with this in mind I plan to approach the editor of every financial advisor publication in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US for an article or book review in.

Equipment failures could be another that could throw some into a tail spin. My tried and true Gateway Tablet PC has been on its last legs for a while having replacing the hard drive last year and the latest screen flickering is an early warning to retire it as a failure in the midst of a PowerPoint presentation to four hundred financial advisors just would not do.

Replacing the Gateway Tablet PC started about two months ago and I’m now on my third new laptop since Simon Parsons, our computer expert started this project.

Gateway Tablet PCs are no longer sold or serviced in Canada so I purchased an HP Tablet PC from Future Shop in a rush only to find out that the key board was simply too small and the undersized shift key would not do. Even Laura with her expert typing agreed that she would have a hard time putting up with the keyboard. So back the HP Tablet PC went to Future Shop and it was exchanged for a HP Laptop PC dv 4 – 1014nr. Thank you to Future Shop and I am just acknowledging the extra insurance / service contract that we purchased because this is one of those times when we really needed it. Can you imagine a being stuck with a computer that you didn’t like or having to wait 4 – 6 weeks while the computer went back to the factory for repairs.

Keep in mind the clock was ticking as The Independent Financial Brokers Summit in Toronto was approaching, I was pouring everything I had into completing the new book, tradeshow booth and web site and the two month lead time that I had for this project was evaporating.

Simon Parsons worked his heart out getting the second laptop up and running with all our data, software, on-line back up, virus protection, networks along with MS Exchange.

I just got the tradeshow booth completed with a few days to spare in advance of the summit and completed the two new Power Points for the summit … now it is time to turn on and start using the new HP Laptop PC dv 4 – 1014nr along with my first go at Microsoft’s Vista.

Note to self, the next time that Microsoft launches a new operating system that doesn’t have all the bugs out, don’t go out on the road with it along with a new laptop computer even though your old tablet may be acting up. 

I am not finding Microsoft’s Vista an easy software to use … why would one move the spell checker away from the main menu in MS Word and bury it four menus over? My ego mind suggests that Microsoft, in their pursuit of profit just re-juggled the menus of existing systems and gave it a new name to sell more products. This kind of makes me wonder, have I fallen into the negative group think about Microsoft and Vista and did my continued frustration with Vista build into enough anger to fry the HP Laptop PC dv 4 – 1014nr altogether?

The A/V support team at The Independent Financial Brokers Summit in Toronto seemed to have as much experience with Microsoft’s Vista as I did as they struggled to get my PowerPoint files off my HP Laptop so they could run the slides for me on the conference A/V equipment for my November 4^th main stage presentation.

It is always a treat for a speaker as equipment failure is the last thing that you want just minutes before speaking. It gets better.

I spoke again the next day and the A/V support team worked on the HP Laptop for over half an hour, past the presentation start time to conclude that the video card in the HP Laptop was too small and it could not drive a signal through the long cable from the speakers podium all the way to projector … Simon’s solution with no time left, hook the HP Laptop direct to the projector and run it from there.

My presentation was outstanding and eleven members of the audience asked me to call them to discuss working together.

On Thursday’s flight home the HP Laptop PC dv 4 – 1014nr died altogether. 

The weekend was supposed to be a time out.

Friday morning included unpacking and investing one and half hours working with Simon Parsons via LogMeIn to trouble shoot why the HP Laptop would not charge or hook up to the wireless network that we have in our home office. The conclusion, we have a lemon. Hopefully not two, as we bought two of the HP Laptop PC dv 4 – 1014nr and I trust that Laura’s will be OK.

So back to Future Shop on Saturday with the HP Laptop PC dv 4 – 1014nr along with extended warrantee and thank you to Future Shop for exchanging it for a HP Laptop PC dv 35 10nr which had a better screen and a stronger video card.

So you see there is a silver lining in everything … you just have to look for it.

So I have both feet on the gas again and there is no letting up for November. This month’s priorities are;

• Empty My Head / Get Organized / Get Rid Of Tolerations
• Research Financial Advisor Publications in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US
• Research Financial Advisor Publication Advertising
• Client Coaching Calls
• Follow Up The Independent Financial Brokers Summit Data Base
• Securing a 2009 Presentation for Advocis Toronto
• Writing the November Article for Advisor.ca
• Improve CRM,  Sales Funnel and Auto Responders for Services
• Preparing the PowerPoint for the November 18^th Presentation for Funeral Plans Canada
• Preparing the PowerPoint for the November 20^th Presentation for Advocis Ottawa
• Writing our November E-Newsletter
• Proof New Web Site
• Start the Bi-Weekly Book Purchasers / ( Vlog in 2009 ) E-mail
• Send E-Book offer to The Elite Advisor
• Write a new Book & Speaking Marketing Plan
• Sign and Send Books
• Plan Time for December – Time Off & Vision Time for 2009
• Cycle Three – Four Times a Week and Go To Metal Beach ( Sun Tan Bed = Light Fix 🙂 )
• Complete Computer Insurance Claim

Simon Reilly

The Financial Advisor Coach