Fee Per Service

Clear Your Roadblocks | March 2010

Welcome to the March 2010 edition of our Clear Your Roadblocks E-Newsletter.

As I approach my first speaking road trip of the year to speak at Advocis London and Advocis Sarnia on March 25th, both Advocis Chapters on the same day which is a first, I am reminding myself to search for the positive versus getting consumed by the BMWs on the road.

I would rather not get into what The Scientific American’s March 2010 issue calls The Brain’s Dark Energy – Brain regions active when our minds wander.

Isn’t there a book out there called, “The Joy of Traveling”? On the other hand I’m sure there is one called “Travel while getting the best out of your BMW – Bitching, Moaning & Whining – 101 tips on how to get yourself in a bad mood along with everyone around you”.

I hear conversations all the time, Air Canada this and Air Canada that … not that I have not done this myself and I have even done so in one of my blogs from time to time – happy to say that I have stopped this bad habit.

So to get into the right state of mind, I am going to make my own list about the “The Joy of Traveling” because it is all about choice.

This edition of our Clear Your Roadblocks E-Newsletter includes;

The Buffer Week
The Joy Of Traveling
The Attraction Invoice
New Book – Clear Your Roadblocks To Practice Management?
Fee Per Service
The Secret Language of Compliance
Old Salespeople Never Die
Twitter Mash Up

Thank you for the opportunity to be of service.

Simon Reilly
The Financial Advisor Coach
1 877 248 6019

The Buffer Week

If you have been a financial advisor for any length of time, it is pretty safe to say that you have heard of Dan Sullivan’s;

Focus Days – days when you work with clients; work in your business
Buffer Days – days when you work on your business not in it
Free Days – days when you are off

With the projects that I have managed to attract I am celebrating the idea of Focus Weeks and
Buffers Weeks and I’m just now at the beginning of a Buffer Week at the time of this writing on Monday, March 15^th with the writing of this edition of our March 2010 E-Newsletter. Next I will return to working on PowerPoints for Advocis London, Sarnia and Vancouver and The Million Dollar Road Table.

Next week will be a Focus Week when I will be on the road tele-coaching, speaking and meeting with a client for a live one day visit.

I shared the idea of Focus Weeks and Buffers Weeks with an incoming Advocis Chapter President and he exclaimed that this was a great idea. He expressed his frustration with booking appointments with his clients on back to back weeks and feeling like he had no time to complete the paperwork. One Focus Week On with clients and one Buffer Week off with clients will allow you the time to work both in and on your business.

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The Joy Of Traveling

It is three months since I have done any long haul business traveling not counting the magical holiday trip that we had to The British Virgin Islands in late January.

I’m taking the liberty to use this space to get right minded about my travel week from March 21^st– 27^th.

This trip will create the opportunity to;

Express our values, vision, mission and purpose through the coaching and speaking that we offer;
- Our values include; Attraction, Currency/Energy, Encouragement, Partnering/People, Professionalism/Quality/Service, Sense/Wisdom, Teaching, Understanding/Empathy and Venture
- Our vision is to help our clients and their teams to feel fulfilled through the development, realization and enactment of their values, vision, mission and purpose. We define fulfillment as a deep, soul-orientated feeling that one experiences when they are expressing their values, and
  being themselves.
- Our mission is to help our clients and their teams to wholeheartedly engage in their businesses to identify, enjoy and profitably deliver their best talents for the benefit of their clients, teams and themselves.
- Our purpose is to seek wisdom, provide encouragement, and teach understanding.
Meet new financial advisors, managers of career agencies and principals of MGA firms
Be off the e-mail and telephone grid for blocks of time while in the air
Have space to reflect on and work on project work like;
- Create MDRT PowerPoint & practice presentation
Create the space for the absence of thought;
- “The mind is everything. What you think you become.” Buddha
- “A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.” Gandhi
- “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7
Have space to be conscious of my routine, to watch what I am eating and to exercise
Read from great books!

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The Attraction Invoice

My March 1st Blog is entitled BCF – Projected Profits + SAC = Serendipitous Results!!!!!!!!

This blog entry talks about the benefits of having a Budget Cash Flow combined with a separate Sales Activity Calculator.

calls per hour
x conversations per hour
equals prospect bookings per hour
x hours of calling
x days per week
equals prospect bookings per week
x weeks prospect calls made
equals prospect bookings per month
x closing ratio
equals sales bookings per month
x average income per sale
equals total income from sales

We created sales activity calculators for;

Prospects that I had already had a conversation with – as far back as 4 years ago
On-line purchasers of my book to ask them for a follow up appointment
Contacts from social networking
Our clients asking them for referrals by sending a cover letter and copies of our book
Centers of influence that we have a good relationship with asking them for referrals by sending a cover letter and copies of our book
Speaking at associations, brokerages, career agencies, life insurance companies, MGAs and mutual fund companies

We walked ourselves through the entire process of what I talk about in the blog and to cap it off, we created an Attraction Invoice for the $42,000 of additional sales that we intended to attract by March 31, 2010. While we didn’t take as much action as we would have liked, at the time of this writing, March 15th, 2010 we have $41,000 in extra sales towards our $42,000 goal.

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New Book – Clear Your Roadblocks To Practice Management?

I’ve written the title with a question mark because I’m not going to write the book at this time and I’m
thinking that I am going to make the content of the book available free on line via the contents of my blog and e-newsletter.

You can view what motivated me to create the table of contents for the book in this blog entitled; In Your Mind Is Compliance A Wish Or A Demand?

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Fee Per Service

My friend and business coach Chris Barrow has a byline that reads, “all problems exist in the absence of a good conversation” and I’m taking the liberty to modify his byline to read, “all problems exist in the absence of a good script”.

No doubt Fee Per Service is a hot topic and it will become even hotter.

I do not profess to be an expert in this area.

What I can tell you is that as we approach tax season, I once again find advisors that choose to, (and have the experience to) complete their clients’ income tax for under market value.

I’m taking the liberty to offer this script to stimulate your thinking to get you started on fee per service, raising your fees and addressing client segmentation … all rolled up into one client communication.

Dear ____________,

Thank you for the opportunity to be your financial advisor to provide you with the following services:

Investment and estate planning
Tax preparation

Significant changes are going on in our industry brought on by the following factors:

The consumer spending driven baby boomer population is growing older without a plan for retirement and they need a financial advisor now more than ever
The despicable business practices of the likes of Bernie Madoff in the US, and Phillip Thow in Canada have made the regulators clamp down with more and more regulations requiring more and more paper work and study to maintain licenses
The average age of today’s financial advisor is 64 years of age and less and less younger people are joining the profession because they are challenged by the learning curve

For these reasons, I’m having to work with clients with assets over $____________ and higher to maintain the level of service: offsetting the administration and compliance costs related to providing you with the service that is required for me to remain compliant with the insurance and mutual fund licensing.

An asset level of $_________ will provide the earnings to provide the service that is required to properly look after an account.

I am happy to have a discussion with clients who wish to increase their levels of assets that I have under management so that I again can provide the service that they require.

For the client with asset levels lower than $___________ I am happy to provide the following services for the following fees:

The fees will be billed quarterly and due in advance.

Thank you for your understanding.

Yours truly,

___________________

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The Secret Language of Compliance

The secret of compliance is that compliance is not done by you. Your job is to create the vision and the plan and then hire someone else to do the paperwork. This will allow you to do what you do best and that is STP – See The People – which is right brain creative work and respectfully let go of the left brain work to someone else that is far more suited for the task.

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Old Salespeople Never Die

There is a lot of talk about the Pros and Cons of Social Media. One thing that I know for sure is “Old salespeople never die, they just lose contact with the heirs to their clients’ portfolios” because they fail to take the time to create a presence on FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Twitter – the ‘Big Three’ as they are called.

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Twitter Mash Up

In my opinion, for me, the jury is still out on Twitter and I say this because I have not taken the time to use it properly.

One thing that we are using it for is to Tweet our blogs and e-newsletters to FaceBook and LinkedIn and I can Tweet to my Blog, Facebook and LinkedIn … thank you Kim Black.

Here us a list of Tweets that I have done from March 15^th to February 28^thwhich gives you a snapshot of what is going on in our business and what is going on in the industry from our perspective.

For every hour a speaker spends in front to the room, a speaker spends scores in prep … rackup another 25 hrs for the accreditation. #
Seven core drivers of success for today’s world http://tinyurl.com/yenr5vu #
A well respected life insurance advisor once told me that their performance gauge was having 33 open cases. #
60 is the new 40. When those that are now 40 become 60, will they be able to find you on Google, FaceBook, LinkedIn or Twitter? #
Laura and I are taking an afternoon break at Starbies to do our weekly planning review. #
5Ds to Project/ Task Management – Deadline, Do it, Delegate, Defer, Dump #
It’s 6Ds toProject / Task Management – Deadline, Do it, Delegate, Defer, Dump, Detach #
It could be 7Ds to Project / Task Management – Define, Deadline, Do it, Delegate, Defer,Dump, Detach #
A full one on one tele-coaching week and it is different because I don’t have 7am calls booked for Wed & Thu #
Big thank you to Tiffany for calling prospects I spoke with 3 years ago to set up follow up appointments, we have new clients as a result! #
Financialadvisor speaking window June 11th – 21st could be busy; 11th & 15thVancouver, 17th & 18th Lake Tahoe, 21st Toronto #
Overwhelm iscreated by limiting beliefs like; I don’t know, I don’t have, I can’t do enough. There will never be enough, only overwhelm. #
RT @ThisIsSethsBlog Seth’s Blog: Creating the list http://bit.ly/9zK7hz #
Fortunate to have a time window on Thursday afternoon to debrief this week … it turns into a business appreciation process #
Add expense tobudget and change computers every two years because it is inevitable that the hard drive, mother board or RAM is going to go. #
Updating ourspeaking marketing material and we are going to remove the title; How To Thrive In A Recession !! #
Tiffany is calling the on-line purchasers of my book to offer a follow up & a conversation about becoming a client; 10 calls, 5 appointments #
All is well in Canada, end of the 1st period Canada/USA hockey game for gold, Canada 1-0 #
2-0 Canada, We Believe! Keep going! #
March 1 and a buffer day to start the month to id projects, prioritize and act after a record breaking month! #
The key is not to get busy, rather get busy with the right things. #
Canada’s economy grew by a better-than-expected 5% in the final quarter of last year http://tinyurl.com/ycjn8pl #
Updating my Clear Your Roadblocks PowerPoint to 2010 CLU Institute’s Practice Guidelines for Financial Advisors and Planners. #
Gaining speaking presentation CE Accreditation for 2010 causes empathy for financial advisors & what they go through to remain compliant #
The CE Accreditation for 2010 is reminding me about the number one thing I learned when I wrote my book; first write a table of contents #
We just sold 600 copies of my book Curing The Unmet Needs Disease; http://tinyurl.com/5nvma2 #
Just has a great catch up call with my friend Robert Gignac, author of Rich Is A State Of Mind http://www.richisastateofmind.com/ #
A job description provides focus and helps to measure what; is working, not working,needs to improve, help is needed & action is required #
Just joined linkedFA, a social networking site designed for financial professionals,investors, and recruiters. http://www.linkedfa.com #
We just sold 200 more copies of my book Curing The Unmet Needs Disease; http://tinyurl.com/5nvma2 – 800 today!! #
Another day on CE Accreditation, the adage for every hour spent out front as a speaker, it takes ten behind the scenes is WAY out of date #
Appreciating the Buffer Days that I have this week to practice in private on 2010 CE Accreditation to be rewarded in public! #
Research to create 2010 CE Accreditation helps me to appreciate the content that I have developed – research + content + blog = new book! #
Greed rhymes with need. Justice Jocelyn Palmer concluded Thow’s fraud was motivated by simple greed … http://tinyurl.com/yj3cx3n #
The Future Of Money in March Wired Mag http://tinyurl.com/yzc3cdz + how FaceBook becomes a Checkbook http://tinyurl.com/yexoj7s #
Bart Wisniowski of AdvisorWebsites.com did an excellent job on his first video blog http://tiny.cc/xnSjB #
Check out instouch – the insurance industry’s social network http://www.instouch.com/ #
Almost living the life of Reilly, investd 2½ dys this wk dvlpng cntnt, sold 800 books, 13 spkng gigs bkd in Feb, 5 yrs since 1st blog post #
RT @ThisIsSethsBlog Seth’s Blog: The doormat, the jerk and the lizard brain http://bit.ly/97p6cC #
Clients ask WHAT to say to ask for referrals and WHAT to say to new prospects; WHO do you need to be to say it? #
Is the work that you are doing for your clients 100% complete? Do you find that your clients are calling you to remind you about loose ends? #
Laura just booked me to speak at an Advocis Education Day in Niagara Falls on April 14! #
7 financial advisor coaching speaking presentations booked this month and still counting! #
[Clear Your Roadblocks] Finding Your AuthenticSocial Media Voice http://aweber.com/b/1iWEb #
RT @ThisIsSethsBlog Seth’s Blog: It’seasier to teach compliance than initiative http://bit.ly/9sMKkO #
Speakers wake up unemployed every morning. We did 33 financial advisor speaking presentations in 09 & booked 13 this month alone to total 16 #