How to Save Over 100 Hours of Time this Year as a Financial Advisor
Grant Hicks, CIM
Practice Management Expert, President of Advisor Practice Management, Author, Speaker, Coach for Elite Financial Professionals. Are you looking to grow your practice in 2025?
How to Save Over 100 Hours of Time this Year as a Financial Advisor
Capacity is the number one challenge for #financialadvisors and wealth management. There are only 168 hours in a week, and that is the one thing that is not changing. How can you build more capacity in 2021? Here are some technology strategies that I have helped advisors implement to save them time, and you can too.
Online Meetings
One advisor I worked with saved 75 to 100 hours of travel time by offering clients an online meeting instead of a face-to-face meeting. The clients found traffic difficult in their city, so it limited the time to set up appointments. The advisor thought they would then go to the client's house to save them time. But who’s time did it waste? The advisor. Instead, he decided to offer online meetings instead. Not only did it save time, but the clients also enjoyed it more because the advisor prepared their whole review using PowerPoint. It then became an emotionally engaging conversation. Consider using software to do online meetings. Get a good camera, headset and microphone, and software such as GoToMeeting (which I use) or zoom. Check with your firm, branch manager, or compliance officer before proceeding, as your firm may already have it set up for their advisors. (full disclosure I do not get any compensation from software firms recommended in this post, I just like using it).
Online Calendar
Have you ever played phone or email tag with a client or prospect to find a mutual meeting time, only to get a follow-up email that they want to change it because the time doesn’t work? Then you start the process over again and it takes months to see ideal clients and prospects because they are busy people. Sound familiar. I work with some of the busiest and successful advisors and I can book appointments with them and their teams using an online calendar scheduler. It is a simple but effective tool for you and your staff to book appointments. Check out Timetrade ( I Use ) or Calendly or others. Check with your CRM system as all CRM systems should have this feature built-in. This will save you and your staff hours per month on emails and the phone.
Paraplanning
Do you think your accountant puts the data into their software system and prepares your personal and corporate returns? Or do they have an assistant that is trained on the software to prepare everything for the accountant, so they can review and confirm it for their clients? You should be delegating as much as possible on your goals-based planning software to your admin or team members. This will free up 10 hours per new client and if you acquire 10 new clients this year there are another 100 hours saved. Paraplanning refers to the administrative duties of a financial planner carried out by junior members of a financial planning group. The function of a paraplanner was created to allow financial planners to focus on working closely with clients and identify their investment needs. Paraplanning includes analyzing clients' needs and researching and recommending suitable advice aligned to those needs (according to invesopedia.com).
Time management- 6 areas
There are six areas of time management for financial advisors I will discuss in a future article. The six areas are 1. segmentation 2. human capital ( team) 3. Key processes 4. Implement technology successfully 5. Time management habits and time blocking and 6 delegation strategies. In an exercise with financial advisors that take 30 minutes, we can usually find 50-100 hours of time. These six strategies can free up major capacity bottlenecks in your practice when implemented!
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What is your time worth?
If your time is worth $500 per hour then saving 100 hours this year is worth $50,000. This article then can provide great value to your practice, only if you implement it. The challenge is investing time to implement software and train staff. You can also hire this out as well. That is one of the things we do in our Capacity program, help you implement. Remember to check with your firm, branch manager, or compliance officer before proceeding, as your firm may already have the software set up for their advisors.?How can you plan to save 100 hours of time this fall?
How about your goals for your practice in 2021? Our Practice management checklist or fee audit checklist?
While each financial advisor's practice may have a different approach, advisors need to understand where their practice needs help, and will they get the right help for the right part of their practice. What areas does your practice need help with? Get a copy of our updated 21-page “Comprehensive Practice Management Strategies checklist” by going to our website
Fee audit checklist for ideal prospects, click here?https://feeaudit.getresponsepages.com/
Become a “Future-ready Advisor” get our 21-page technology checklist here https://technologychecklist.getresponsepages.com/
Let’s Talk
Contact us to help get clarity around your goals on paper, and having the goals conversation by contacting grant at?[email protected]?or click on the link to set up a no-obligation 20-minute discussion?https://my.timetrade.com/book/JMTNJ?regardless if we work together, let’s have a chat and listen to your biggest practice management concerns to help you get clarity around your future business.
Grant Hicks, CIM, is President of Advisor Practice Management and co-author of “Guerrilla Marketing For Financial Advisors” 1st and 2nd edition.?www.advisorpracticemanagement.com?for speaking, workshops or coaching, contact Grant at?[email protected]?Grants combined financial advisor clients manage over 4 billion AUM, and earn over $40 million dollars combined!