50 Insights for 52 Weeks

What is the best way to fast-track business growth?

Pershing Advisor Solutions developed a guidebook that provides 50 easy-to-implement ideas to sustain and strengthen your business in all market conditions. Because well-managed firms capitalize on opportunities and shine a light on current practices to find areas for improvement.

Now is the time to delve into our 50 key insights and focus on what matters most. If your current approach is working well, we offer new ideas to help you get even better. If you are struggling and looking for ways to give your firm a business-building boost, read on. You may find tactics to help secure your firm’s place in an increasingly competitive industry.

Not all of these ideas will apply to your firm, nor are the recommendations exhaustive. Below are three ideas for you and your firm to consider. Click here to obtain the full 50 insights.

Insight #1: Educate your staff about the business
Does your staff fully understand your business? When clients call with questions, do they receive confident and knowledgeable answers? The more your staff understands the market and how it impacts their business, the more effectively they can talk to clients and other constituents.

This education can take the form of informal brown bag lunches or internal training sessions on different types of investments, the markets or even business jargon.

Be sure to include information about what you do and what prospects or clients are most likely to ask about. Help your staff understand how you define your business, and the different products and services you offer. Be sure they are knowledgeable about anything your clients might ask about.

Staff members who understand what is happening in the industry will often be more productive and more engaged, and they will certainly present a more confident, knowledgeable face to the outside world.

Insight #2: Have a plan—work the plan
Everyone knows you need a plan to run a business, but how many people actually create one, communicate it and follow it? Unfortunately, few advisors seem to work from a plan or spend time articulating what they intend to do. You may know the asset level you are targeting and you may have set revenue goals, but what about marketing strategy? What about a client retention strategy? What about succession planning or staffing and motivating?

Many firms only create plans when faced with an urgent challenge. This creates more anxiety, uncertainty and stress. Successful firms proactively operate with a written plan that has been communicated to staff and is revisited on a regular basis. The plan should include your current state, what success “looks like” to you, and how you plan to address the gap between the two. What will the firm specifically do, who will do it, what steps will you take and what information do you need?

Most importantly, how will you keep the plan on target? Who will revisit it to track progress and when? Your plan needs to be thorough, thoughtful and understood by everyone. Share it with your employees—the people who are invested in the firm's future so they can help you to reach goals.

The plan should be short and to the point—not vague. Be specific about your vision and the steps necessary to accomplish it. Have your staff participate in the development of the plan—the team building process of putting the plan in writing can be energizing.

Insight #3: Create a growth minded culture
If there is one thing many advisors struggle with, it is fostering an internal culture that supports, encourages and affirms the importance of new business. Most people do not go into the investment business to be "salespeople," and many do not even want to be associated with salespeople. In fact, “sales” is sometimes considered to be a dirty word in this business. You may call it "new client acquisition" or “revenue growth”— but never “sales.”

However, the firms that prosper in all market conditions do so because they have created a sales culture. A sales culture puts an emphasis on activities that create new ways to attract clients—and ways to make existing clients so happy they become a natural sales extension for the firm. The best salespeople have a true objective to understand and meet the needs of the prospect. Every interaction with an existing client is a selling opportunity (to resell the value of doing business with you).

To ignore the importance of selling—and what it can do for your firm—is to take a short-sighted view of a core element for long-term stability and growth. Infusing your firm with a sales culture—embrace rather than fear it—means looking for new ways to position yourself to take advantage of market opportunities.

In both good times and difficult times, opportunities exist.

Click here to download 50 Insights to Help Fast-Track Business Growth: A Guidebook for Registered Investment Advisors.