What Advisors Say They Want

Over the past month I have been surveying advisors of every type who have passed $100K in annual revenue from all sources, to find out what their biggest challenges are.

Here are the questions I asked over 50 life insurance agents and financial advisors:

When it comes to growing your business:

1. What keeps you up at night?

2. What makes you most anxious?

3. What makes you angry? Is your anger directed at someone else or at a personal behavior?

4. What 1-3 things (other than tech, Compliance, and Underwriting) makes you most frustrated?

5. What trends are happening now and what trends keep re-occurring that challenge your efforts?

The results surprised us.?Where I thought the big issue was being stuck on an earnings plateau because advisors weren’t getting in front of enough qualified prospects—the number one problem for advisors who have not reached the $100+ level yet, only 5 mentioned this as a challenge for them.?

Most advisors grossing more than $10K/month have different concerns:?

Growing the business, but having more free time. The number one response was about free time.?With a few exceptions, advisors at this level were less concerned about growing the business to a specific number and more concerned about growing it while spending less time working.?Managing their time, spending less time training and managing their people, and being much more organized were top concerns.

A way to be better focused and avoid distractions.?A big concern was how to accomplish the first goal when their focus constantly drifts from the most important activities to the multitude of other things, including distractions for their assistant or team.?

Having better systems and delegating better.?Getting work that should be done by someone else off their plate and having systems that improve follow up and a reduction of NIGOs.

Overcoming anxiety. Many advisors recognized that negative thoughts, fears, lack of confidence, imposter syndrome, and other limiting thinking is holding them back.?They want a way to get past these so they can act with confidence.

Growing ethically and with integrity.?This issue came up often in the responses. Advisors railed against misinformation people were receiving from competitors and from members of their own team and worried that they might be promising clients and others more than they were capable of delivering.?

Building their book of business for eventual sale.?This issue came up a few times.?Most advisors recognized that a book of business that comes with “turnkey” systems for maintaining and growing it is more valuable than a book of aging clients who are not being well served. ??

While a good portion of my work with advisors is about increasing production, advisors who work with me usually get to work on all of these, but until now, they have been “side” issues.?The survey made clear that these issues are more important than reaching a certain level of gross production.

If you’re a $100K+ producer and your biggest goal or challenge is different from what we discovered in this small survey, please comment, and let me know how you would answer these questions.?

And message me if you want to talk about getting help with any of these issues.

Keep REACHING…