The Self Aware Financial Advisor

The best & first thing financial advisors should do to grow, succeed, and thrive.

I am fortunate enough to speak with many advisors each week. Some are figuring out if they want to be an advisor, some are new to the industry and still cutting their teeth, and some are veterans.

A common question I am often asked by all of them is; "Derek, where do I start?"

One may think this would only apply to advisors just getting into the industry, but I see it coming from advisors who have been around a long time.

As advisors we are taught to help our clients realize their hopes, dreams, and goals. We do this by gaining a deep understanding of our client's desires and then helping them use their money to make it all come true.

I would argue we should do the same for ourselves and in fact this is the advice I give.

It's OK to get a little Touchy-Feely

No, I don't mean in the physical sense! I mean that it's OK and actually very important to get in touch with WHO YOU ARE.

Being an advisor we tend to put blinders on, focusing a lot of our efforts in helping our clients. Everything from high level financial planning to technical aspects of financial products and investments. This is very important work indeed but we tend to stay in the trenches to do it and lose site of bigger ideas, opportunities, and our own lives.

When advisors or those looking to become one ask me, "where do I start", I first ask them; "what is the single most important thing you are looking to accomplish by being an advisor."

It's fun to see the facial expressions when I ask this question as most advisors have never been asked it! Initially the response is usually something around wanting to help others. Which I love, but the answer should be deeper than that.

As the advisor, what do you want in life? What are you passionate about? Why is being a financial advisor so important to you? Will being a financial advisor help you do everything that is important to you and your family?

Most advisors are not taught to think about these things, or have forgotten them the longer they are in the trenches. Most advisors are presented with how much money they can make, how great the company and products are that they will represent, how to get new clients, and so on. All important, but all secondary to the very important question I mentioned above.

How to answer this important question

It starts with you. What are your hopes, dreams, and goals in life? What are you passionate about? What are you looking to accomplish?

Most people, not just advisors, don't spend more than a few minutes thinking about these things. I suspect this is because it can feel odd, awkward, emotional, etc. So we summarize our most important desires with words like "happiness and success" and then go on our merry way to the trenches.

This isn't enough, not if we truly want these things and more. Being general with our hopes, dreams, and goals is like target shooting without a target. We have no idea what direction to go.

We are talking about the most important aspects of our lives, don't they deserve more than 15 minutes and a yellow pad?

How do we actually do this? Time. Thought. Articulation. Get Specific.

My family and I did this by spending many hours over many days thinking about and discussing what we really wanted in life, what was important to us, what we wanted to accomplish. THEN we went deeper and created physical vision boards with pictures we cut out that represented EXACTLY what we wanted in life. We also memorized what Napoleon Hill calls your Definite Chief Aim and say it out loud every single day. We review our progress monthly.

I teach advisors how to do this over at Conneqtor. It is core to being successful. And in fact this process directly led me to have an epiphany moment where everything came together and I knew exactly what I needed to do. It just so happens that this moment occurred in the middle of the night somewhere over the South Atlantic. Ask me about it sometime!

This is how you answer the question, but why should you?

Why you should answer this most important question

Simple, it will drive everything about how you build your business as an advisor.

• Knowing who you are means you can now figure out who you want to serve as your ideal client.
• Knowing who your ideal client means who now know what your brand should be.
• Knowing your brand means you now know what your messaging (marketing) should be.
• Knowing all of these things impacts your website, content, messaging on social media, your sales process, and so on and so on.

Is this starting to make sense? It may seem foreign to you, it was to me. I, like so many other advisors, was not taught any of this when I started and didn't learn it till I was almost 10 years into the industry.

But when I did learn it (and embraced it) my world changed. Things became clear. I knew exactly what I needed to do to realize everything that was important to me.

How you answer these questions will differ, but the process speaks for itself and I firmly believe that if you do it like I have laid out that you will not only be able to answer the most important question but will find the direction you have been looking for.

It has been my experience that the best, most successful financial advisors (or really any profession) are the ones that have gone through this process, answered the question, and continue to review it all on a regular basis.

Are you willing to try something new, something that may feel odd but in the end make you more self aware then you have ever experienced? It's up to you, perhaps now is the time to try something different.

I hope this resonates with you, it sure did with me!

Cheers,

Derek Notman