ChrisNotes

Chris A Little Behind on His Reading

I have SO much to read these days... I am prioritizing my books that are in line for review.  Here is a list of what to expect in the coming weeks:

• How To Run Your Business So You Can Leave It In Style - John H. Brown
• The Ten Trillion Dollar Opportunity - Jackim / Christman
• The 4-Hour Workweek - Tim Ferriss
• Clear Blogging - Bob Walsh
• Wikinomics -
• Financial DNA - Hugh Massie
• Book Yourself Solid - Michael Port
• How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci - Michael Gelb
• Clients Forever - Doug Carter
• Cultivating the Middle Class Millionaire - Ross Prince
• 28 Laws of Attraction - Thomas Leonard

How's that for a start?

Business Development for Advisors

Ever feel like you have too much to read?  How bad am I?  I pick up a book I recently read to write some ChrisNotes and I realize, geez, I better read this again!

So today we go with a summary.  Here are Five Keys to Business Development:

1. Work so that you get paid for the results you create, not how much time you put in.
2. Live the idea that you are not a Professional Advisor, but you are an Entrepreneur with a specialty in your professional area.
3. Put methods and processes into place that run the business side of your office.
4. Commit to building a dependable, respectable network of friends and contacts who are growing, future oriented people and are achieving tremendous results in their lives.
5. Be determined to improve your business skills:  Selling, Negotiating, Delegating, and Measuring Results (Accounting).

  Strategic Coach will help you with Keys 1-2-3.  Please be sure to say I referred you.  I get free books and once I get 10 people in the program, I get a big discount.  :) 

The Middle Class Millionaire

I read The Middle Class Millionaire by Lewis Schiff and Russ Alan Prince in three hours on the flight back from Chicago last week.  Prince has to be the most quoted author by financial services people there is when they want to make the point that people should listen to them.

Prince's gig is to survey wealthy people and write books about his findings.  Here, he and Schiff identify a demographic that unitl now has been un-labeled.  The Boomers and X and Y Genners that have a net worth between $1MM and $10MM, yet live like middle class people. 

Well, not exactly like the middle class, because MCMs do spend a lot to support their lifestyles.  According to the book, they set the trends for the rest of America.  Their buying habits drives the economy.

A smart reader will note that in order to become a MCM, all you have to do is adopt the habits that this research turned up and maybe, one day, you will be part of the 8% of the population, too.

1. Work hard-  70-80 hours per week.  (I, for one, will take a different approach!)
2. Maintain a dependable network. (Couldn't agree more)
3. Build equity.  (Someone will become a MCM as a result of your work, why not you?)
4. Commit to improving your business skills: Negotiating and Measuring results, in particular.

There may be one or two more, I have to go back, first book I read with my new Speed Reading technique.  More on that, later.  :)

Quarterly Planning

I wrote about The Common Denominator of Success and I agreed with Mr. Gray that the key to success can be boiled down to two things:  A burning desire (purpose) and good habits. 

If you put me on a Waterboard and aske me what is the most important habit to form, I would divulge the secret:  Set aside fifteen minutes every day for reflection and planning.  Hobbs calls it "Solitude for Planning."  It should be so obvious, yet hardly anyone does it. 

The psychologists tell us that our brains focus on the goal that we give it.  (Psycho-Cybernetics, Maltz)

The Time Management folks tell us to write down three things we want to accomplish the next day before we go to bed at night.  (Andrew Carnegie, I think)

Maltz also teaches us that it takes twenty-one (21) days to form a habit.  This one will change your life.

Seawolf class submarine

Seawolf class submarine, originally uploaded by friedmad.

There is so much to learn about the Web 2.0. If you have not explored Flickr, you must.

I'm currently reading Wikinomics. In addition to being a very interesting book ,similar to The World is Flat in its currency, there are hundreds of references to the New Web that we need to know about.

Private Client Lawyer

Have you ever read anything by Russ Alan Prince?  You probably have even if you don't recognize the name.  He writes a lot for Worth Magazine and has 20 or more books in publication.  His gig is to survey HNW people and their advisors then write on his findings.  What he says is based on extensive research. 

In The Private Client Lawyer, he reveals that HNW people, many times, do not follow the advice of their Advisors.  In many cases, the Advisor comes as a referral from a trusted source, has all the credentials, is very successful and experienced, yet their clients don't do what they are told.

I say, no wonder.  Who likes doing what they are told?  There are a number of lessons here.  Three of the findings from the research as published in this article:

1. Advisors do a poor job of getting Clients clear on their goals.
2. Advisors do not design plans that are congruent with Clients' goals.
3. Clients do not understand the technical solutions that Advisors propose.

How should Advisors change?  They should spend a lot more time discussing what the client wants to accomplish.  They should make sure that every solution they propose be directly related to solving a Client's concern.  They should spend more time educating and explaining technical solutions.  If the Advisor is not particularly adept at any of these essential client relationship skills, the Advisor would do well to invite another person on to the team who has these abilities.

More Partner Income

One of the most popular law firm related blogs is More Partner Income orignally written by a man who taught me how to be an entrepreneur, Tom Collins.  As founder and President of Juris, Inc. he developed Law Firm Business software that grew to dominate the mid-size firm market in the USA.  He realized that making good accounting software wasn't enough to get lawyers to make their practices profitable businesses so he began to write about how to do so. 

The result has now been taken over capably by Brian Ritchie since Tom sold the company to LexisNexis and retired. 

There's at least two ways Private Client Advisors can make more money.  One is develop more business (stick with Chris on this one); the other is to catch the money that is falling through the cracks in your firm's policies and procedures and MPI will show you how.

Communication: The Power to Connect

Today's we look at The Power To Connect by Teresa Easler <website>.   The book goes into the process and thinking behind preparing for an important communication event.  This can be a Client meeting, a speech, a presentation of CLE, an important letter- anytime you need to get your point across.

The overall theme of ChrisNotes is going to be how to grow your professional practice as a Private Client Advisor.  The way I can help you is by sharing what I have learned about Selling, Networking, Referral Cultivation, Planning, and Communication. 

Next week, we will get into the nuts and bolts of why Advisors sometimes fail at growing their practice at the pace that they want to.  Poor communication is a big reason.  This book will help you.  It provides a logical, step-by-step approach to preparing and organizing your communication.

Easler achieves this with a one-page worksheet.  Eight boxes are laid out in two columns.  In each box, you write the answer to a question that you ask yourself as you compose your communication.  Or as Churchill said, "prepare your extemporaneous remarks."

1. Who is your audience?
2. What do I want my audience to remember?
3. How do I want the audience to feel after my speech/letter/phone call, etc.
4. What action do I want them to take?
5. What do I appreciate about my audience?
6. What are the existing obstacles to this communication that I need to overcome?
7. What can I say that will benefit my audience?
8. Who do I have to be?

You want to be a more successful advisor?  Order the book, sign up for an online training, or best of all, attend Easler's Workshop.  You will be a better communicator because you will use this tool before every important opportunity to talk with someone or a group of people. 

I Owe a Lot to Strategic Coach

The purpose of ChrisNotes is to provide education, inspiration, knowledge, skills, attitudes, and habits to Private Client Advisors.  (See definitions)

If the content and message of this blog resonates with you, I believe you need to enroll in The Strategic Coach Program.  I have a voluminous Success Library that contains works by hundreds of authors.  Even given that, I believe that Dan Sullivan surpasses them all when you consider how well he synthesizes and integrates the personal achievement universe of ideas and combines it with his original concepts.

Boiling it down to a 250 word blog entry, here is what I have learned from Strategic Coach. 

1. To be successful, you must manage your time.  The Time Breakthrough
2. Your job should be doing what you love doing.  Unique Ability: Creating the Life You Want
3. The easiest path to happiness and success is through strategic planning.  (The Goal Cultivator Series is no longer available for purchase-- he wants you to sign up for the program to get it.)
4. Capture your wisdom and package it for sale- stop giving it away for free.  The D.O.S. Conversation and Great Value Creator Escape (no longer available).
5. Once you get good at selling your wisdom, you can sell your process to the competition.  That is, once you learn how to bake the cake, you can start selling the recipe.  This is the focus of the Coach 2 Program.  Only open to qualified applicants who have completed three (3) years of Strategic Coach.

Strategic Coach is one of the most important competitive advantages that a Private Client Advisor can have. 

"Bear" Makes it Awesomely Simple

My friend John Spence <website> (his nickname was "Bear" when we played Rugby together at UF) says his unique ability is "Making the complex awesomely simple."  He has the most extensive Success Library of anyone I know.  He makes his living reading business books, chewing them up and digesting them for his clients in terms of seminars, workshops and personal coaching. 

Last week he blogged on The Four Most Important Things I Have Ever Learned.  He encourages his readers to comment with four most important things of their own.  I responded with mine, but I realize now I can't keep it to four things.  There are at least a few more lessons that are too important to omit- they are impossible to prioritize off.

My original four:

1. Cultivate great relationships
2. Always be learning
3. Tell the truth
4. Today not tomorrow

I have to add:

1. Form good habits and become their slave.
2. The less you eat, the longer you will live.
3. Learn from your mistakes.
4. Give yourself solitude for planning every day.
5. Save 10% of everything you earn.
6. Take a lot of vacations.
7. The world expects you to do the most with what you have.
8. Do not tolerate negative people.
9. Rid your life of unacceptables.
10. Lighten your load.

I am going to keep thinking about this and adding to and editing this list.  Maybe it needs to be 100 items long.  Thanks, Bear- a worthwhile exercise.