The world of financial planning has evolved into a highly complex, competitive market. With many advisors already stretching their work hours thin in order to manage their current client base, any activities pertaining to business growth seem to take a back seat. To take back control of your time (and finally take that much-needed vacation), follow these 3 time management tips for advisors.
Make a plan
In an industry where time is money, making a plan for how and when you’ll exert your energy is vital to the success of your business. Think about which of your day-to-day tasks are high-income-generating vs. low-income-generating.
Idealistically, your high-income-generating activities, such as prospecting, should take priority over low-income-generating tasks, such as filing paperwork and setting up meetings. Monitor your activity for a week to get a good grasp on how you should be blocking out your time – you’d be surprised by how much time you spend inefficiently.
Don’t bite off more than you can chew
Whether you’ve been in the business for 2 years or 35 years, every advisor has a personal capacity. Your personal capacity is the number of client relationships you can physically manage. While you may think that “the more, the merrier” applies to your business, the fact of the matter is that if you try to serve too many clients, something will suffer. Whether it be the quality of the client experience, your sanity, or both – biting off more than you can chew will only damage your business in the long run.
To find your ‘real’ capacity, consider the following:
- How many hours per week do you want to work on average? Remember, work-life balance is important, even for advisors.
- How many hours per week should be devoted to client-related activities vs. business development activities? (See Strategic Planning)
- How many clients can you realistically serve at the level of service you want to give at one time?
Make workflow enhancements
Whether you work independently or within a firm, the best way to improve your structural productivity is to first focus on improving processes and workflows. Workflow enhancements include everything from updating client onboarding procedures to implementing a new system for properly delegating portfolio allocations.
The simplest and most efficient way to make workflow enhancements is by leveraging new technologies and is often the piece to the time management puzzle where advisors fall short. This is because of the industry-wide hesitation of implementing new technologies into their practices.
It’s understandable, though, as there are many myths and misconceptions about what new technology means for advisors. But the opportunity for growth and longevity that implementing technology brings to the table is far more valuable than the fear of the unknown.
At Wela, we’ve been working hard to create Benjamin, a tool for advisors that leverages all three components of an effective time management strategy. By integrating Benjamin into your day-to-day operations, you’ll be able to…
- Intelligently group your clients to improve communication.
- Create tasks and schedule meetings to strategically plan for proper time allocation.
- Integrate Outlook and other important tools.
- Increase your personal capacity to bring on new clients.
If you’re interested in becoming more efficient and implementing a better time management strategy, reach out to us here. We would love to get you a started with a free demo of what Benjamin can do for you.
