Don’t Be a Loser.

I’m sick and tired of seeing good financial advisors struggle on a day-to-day basis. It’s been frustrating in the past year to watch so many otherwise great people, accomplished business people, and sincere entrepreneurs struggle financially. Advisors just struggling, sacrificing along the way, and not running their practice as well as they should. They need the right tools and tactics to rise to the occasion and succeed.

Don’t get me wrong. The conversation among the consultants is “you can’t fix losers” — that some people just won’t rise to the occasion. It’s also that the population skews 5%, 15%, 80%; with 5% big winners, 15% winners, and 80% who’ll just do little or nothing. Frankly, nothing I’ve seen contradicts these bleak assessments of human nature. However, I’ve also got to assume you are a 5% type, or at least a top 20% in reality or potential, or you wouldn’t be reading this. 80% of people simply wouldn’t bother.

From loser to WINNER.

Now to point out what may already be obvious to you: The transition to a winner as a business owner requires you move from being an employee or freelancer to actively taking charge. You must become an excellent leader who can lead by example. Be an amazing salesperson to keep clients buying your services and products. You educate your staff members so they market your business effectively. By the way, you also must master at some level keeping track of your results (accounting and keeping stats), hiring and managing employees, and other administrative and management functions of your business along the way. This will make it easier in the long run if you get these admin and finance tasks out of the way. Keeping them near can help when you need information in the future.

The vast majority of the 80% types will never get to the successful business owner stage, nor master any of the other skills. Frankly, many never move beyond their development as an employee and end up failing as an owner of a business. Those types rebel against learning to be a salesperson (a big red flag). They believe if you are a good enough as a business owner, then you don’t need to “sell” your products or services.  You will get enough revenue from clients just by word of mouth. Both are failure mentalities you must avoid at all costs. When you get trapped into these mindsets, you can’t see the forest for the trees. And you won’t become the successful business owner you envision yourself to be.

How to Rise to the Occasion

The next pieces of advice I give you are some things you may already know, but they are very important to remember as you continue your pathway in business. The majority of your time and focus as a successful business operator must be on two things: Raving Fans & Marketing.

Raving Fans

First, have “raving fans” among your client base. These aren’t just any clients. They’re not even returning clients or ones you’ve retained throughout the years. These are the diamonds among the pebbles. They’re the clients who champion you and your business no matter what. They get involved with any community service you do. These are clients who will always comment and like on your social media platforms. They’ll also write positive reviews and feedback for you to showcase. You can almost see them as part of the wider family of your business.

Your employees should also be raving fans. They are like a big extended family, led by you and your management team who show and teach them skills for leadership, life, and success. As an aside, it’s difficult to teach people success skills if you don’t have them yourself. It’s why I’ve always focused more on teaching my staff life skills than on having specific scripts for them to parrot in different situations when they are representing the brand of my company.

Marketing

Second, most of your time and effort, if (and only if) you are developing “raving fans”, must be spent on marketing. You must be constantly thinking about and working on how you get more new clients buying products and investing in your business. If you are developing “raving fans” and sharing life-changing skills with your customers, then you must be a “raging thunder lizard evangelist” for your program. And you must insist your staff and clients are as well.

On this point, there are a couple of issues. What marketing effort will you master? And, how many ways can you implement to get new clients? It’s important to have a few things you truly master to generate new clients. And it’s important to always have a “Parthenon” of marketing activities. In other words, 10 or more different ways you are attracting new clients each month. Never rely on just one mechanism.

If you’re struggling to think of at least 10 different ways to gain clients, we’re here to help. Schedule a free, no obligation, no sales pitch practice evaluation here to get started on your parthenon.