Two of the most important words in sales and advisory practice are:

What’s Next?

These two words can be applied to a number of professional practice areas, including new client(s) acquisition, service items, client reviews, marketing, and basic daily responsibilities, duties, and activities. This morning I was talking to nationally known marketing guru David Newman, from Bryn Mawr, PA. David works with hundreds (maybe thousands) of professional service providers, including speakers and others who want to use speaking as a tool to help grow their business. He said something that was short and NOT so sweet:

No SOU™ Leads To IOU’s.

We all know that IOU is an acronym for “I Owe You.” However, I had to ask him what “SOU” stands for, and he told me it is an acronym for:

Sense Of Urgency

All of need to have an acute “Sense Of Urgency.” Every day we need to to approach each day with a list of activities prioritized by the impact of the completion (or lack thereof) of those activities in light of our dreams, goals, and objectives. Often these lists are long, and sometimes we do the things right at the expense of doing the right things. Mark LeBlanc, another marketing genius says to take that list, and break it into a series of high value activities. Select three activities from the list, do them, and select the NEXT three most important high value activities and do them next! Repeat as needed!

This simple strategy for planning your day will provide the SOU™ that prevents piling up IOU’s!

Work Hard & Have Fun!™

This is going to be a big week! Two weeks left to complete Q1 of 2012. Last week a client stated, “This quarter is over.” I DISAGREED!

A big part of business – and life – is how you finish. What can YOU do to finish the quarter strong? Consider five (5) simple steps:

1. Review your Q1 Plan. Take a look at your plans and ask, “What’s left?”
2. Build a list of your ten (10) BEST clients and/or prospects and call them TODAY.
3. Look at your daily task list and circle the top three things that create the greatest value AND drive revenue.
4. Set a goal of breaking a weekly sales record. It could be new accounts, GDC, FYC, sales calls, referrals; what ever you choose!
5. Execute!!!

Late in the week, pull out your Q2 Plan, and make certain you and your team prepare to execute that plan.

Need a boost? CLICK HERE to see Matt Cutts’ TED™ Talk on doing something new for 30 days. It will take a whopping three and a half minutes. What are new things YOU could do to improve your business, your relationships, your community, your LIFE?

Advisors frequently struggle with client reviews in three ways:

1. Preparing For Reviews
2. Getting Clients To COME IN for The Review
3. Generating Additional Business & Referrals From The Review

Client reviews provide tremendous benefit to the client and to you when executed properly. Consider the following tips to help your clients – and you – get the maximum benefit from regular client reviews.

1. Plan Ahead: Prepare a written Client Meeting Agenda; we will circle back to this at the end of the end of this post.
2. Focused Goals Review & Affirmation: Revisit the WHY’s of previous meetings. Make certain the client’s goals have not changed.
3. Develop Client-Specific Benchmarks: Clients should have non-performance related goals, such as annual saving targets, increasing income with inflation, creating/maintaining/growing emergency funds, will reviews, etc. It makes no sense to use performance as the sole or leading benchmark. Furthermore, the S&P500 as the primary benchmark is only appropriate if the clients goals indicate 100% investment in a broad range of stocks. Create customized Personal/Family/Business Benchmarks, of which performance is only one element, and then the performance benchmark will be a blend or series of different indices and/or benchmarks.
4. Review Past Decisions: This section reviews past planning decisions, risk management steps, and risk-adjusted performance of portfolios in light of the customized benchmarks.
5. Where We Go From Here: Changes and additions to existing plans, products, and services.
6. Building A List Of To-Do’s: Product/Service changes, additions, & replacements. Collaborative plans to meet with other associated professionals on behalf of the client. Service items.
7. Setting The Next Review Date: Dentists do it. Oil Change Services do it. YOU do it.

Building a Client Meeting Agenda involves the previous seven points, plus one additional item:

A List Of People To Whom You Wish To Be Referred

When client reviews are executed properly, this last item is almost a given. Advisors regularly get three to ten referrals using this strategy. Review your client agenda meeting protocol to maximize the value of your meetings, your relationships, and your business.

Work Hard & Have Fun!™