‘Success Principles’ Archive
New Book: Live Life with No Regrets; How the Choices We Make Impact Our Lives
My wife’s new book, Live Life with No Regrets; How the Choices We Make Impact Our Lives, has been receiving rave reviews by Advisors. I thought you would want to know about it and check it out for yourself. Go to http://www.accountabilitycoach.com/coaching-store/book-store/
Here are a few comments already received about her new book.
“Where was this book 30 years ago so that I might not have so many regrets? The choices we make do impact our lives in many ways. Making smart choices and not dumb choices you will regret later will save a lot of precious time we don’t want to waste. You’ll want to choose to read and implement the ideas in this book to help you.”
–Rod Carson, CLU, ChFC, CFP®
Spectrum Wealth Advisors, Inc.
is an independent firm
“I really love your book! One of the highest of all human values is to be able to live your life with no regret. This fabulous book is filled with wisdom and advice for guiding you to make the most out of your life!”
–Thomas Moore
Entrepreneur and Values-Based Financial Planner
“What I like best is that the book is brief, to the point, and very actionable. It reflects Anne’s direct style which I find refreshing. This book is definitely a must read for anyone who wants to accelerate their results.”
–William S. Hart, CFP, MBA
Retirement Strategies, Inc.
“If you want to live a life with no regrets, this is the book for you! Simple and sensible concepts that can be quickly implemented. Grab a copy of this book for yourself and any other business people you care about.”
–Brian Fricke, CFP
author of Worry Free Retirement
Named Top Financial Planning Firm
– Orlando Business Journal
“Living without regrets shows us how to achieve the results we want. Living life without regrets helps us look at the big picture to make sure we’re leading the life we want to lead. The exercises are valuable and the concepts are powerful. Anyone who reads this book will get a lot of value.”
–Ariel Acuña
LTG Capital LLC
“Love the book! While much is written on finding purpose, goal-setting, etc., very little attention seems to be focused on how you actually accomplish what’s important. Anne brings her real-world experience as The Accountability Coach™ to provide illuminating examples and great tools to help people make the choices that will improve their lives on a variety of important fronts. Thank you for writing this book.”
–Donn Sharer, CFP, ChFC, CLU, CLTC
Sharer & Associates LLC
Go to http://www.accountabilitycoach.com/coaching-store/book-store/
Drop Me Anywhere!
What is Drop Me Anywhere?
Drop Me Anywhere is an attitude. It’s a way of being. It’s a skill. It’s confidence. It’s not arrogance or cockiness. It’s relaxed. It’s comfortable. People are attracted to people who are drop-me-anywhere good.
A person who can be dropped anywhere is a person who knows, that with very little money in their pocket, they can be ‘dropped’ in a town where they don’t know anyone and they will figure out how to add value to the people in that community in a way that makes them money. And it won’t take long.
Would you like to be drop-me-anywhere good? How would being drop-me-anywhere good impact your life, personally and professionally? What does it take to be drop-me-anywhere good?
First, you need a product or service that helps people. It should be something that a fair number of people in any community, in any economy would be able to afford and find valuable.
Once you have such a product or service you will need the ability to strike up a conversation with just about anyone you meet in just about any situation. These are called people skills.
A key people skill is the ability to ask questions during a relaxed a conversation at a social or business function to determine if your product or service would be valuable for the person you are speaking with. You will make a friend, develop a prospect, or both.
If true value exists, your ability to make the connection between the value of your product or service and something the person you are speaking with cares about will be vital.
Once you have helped the person with whom you are speaking discover that you can add value to their life, you will need to be effective at making an offer or proposing a next step. You’ll be more successful if your next-step initial offer does not cost anything. An initial consultation or quality experience of some kind works great as the logical next step to exploring if and how you might help this person.
During the step where you create a good experience for your potential customer or client, you will have to have the ability to monetize the relationship. All this means is that there comes a natural point in the relationship where it’s appropriate for them to begin paying you for the value you deliver. You will want to be very good at explaining how much it costs, what they get, and how the value to them easily exceeds the cost.
Last, but not least, you must deliver what you promise on time. By delivering the value you promise in a timely manner you are establishing the good reputation that will make you a long-term and welcome member of your new community. It’s also your ticket to getting referrals and being warmly introduced to your customers’ or clients’ friends, families, and colleagues. A person with drop-me-anywhere abilities does not leave referrals and these introductions to chance. They are effective at asking for referrals and facilitating a warm introduction.
As a person with drop-me-anywhere skills, you will get hired often enough to make enough money to cover your basic expenses, soon, thereafter, you will be making enough money to live a very comfortable life, and soon after that you will be making enough money to achieve all of your goals and fulfill your values.
Question: What’s a great drop-me-anywhere business that requires no capital to get started, helps people, and pays well?
Answer: Financial Services.
Make a commitment to be drop-me-anywhere good. You’re already in the perfect business.
Mastery is the Key to Success
What does a Financial Advisor need to master in order to build a successful business? Six things.
Client Service Mastery
Helping your clients get their entire financial house in perfect order and keeping it that way forever. This starts with the implementation meeting, which is the first meeting after youve been hired, and cycles through three meetings per year to help your clients keep their financial house in perfect order.
Client Acquisition Mastery
Mastering four elements:
1. Asking for referrals.
2. Making follow-up calls in a way that is engaging and leads to a reasonable percentage of referrals agreeing to a more in-depth phone appointment about how you can help them.
3. Facilitating this phone appointment in an effective way so a reasonable percentage agree to a face-to-face initial client interview at your office.
4. Conducting brilliant client interviews so a reasonable percentage hire you.
Leadership Mastery
Building and leading a team of Best-in-Class™, Subject-Matter™ Experts, technical and administrative, who help you help your clients get their entire financial house in perfect order and keep it that way forever.
Communication and People Skills Mastery
Asking the right questions, being an empathic listener, and when it is your turn to talk, giving your advice with conviction in a way that’s all about them so that your clients take action and implement.
Mindset Mastery
Thinking like a business owner instead of like a practitioner. Focusing on what you can control and not being distracted by events out of your control like the market, or the economy, or world problems and conflicts.
Time, Priority, and Calendar Mastery
You running your business instead of it running you. Know your priorities, put them on your calendar as appointments with yourself and others, and develop the habit of honoring your calendar.
Embark on the master’s journey and you will acquire all the Ideal Clients you need to generate all the business revenue to cover your expenses, pay your taxes, and have all the net income you want for a great present lifestyle, and all the money you need to fund your future goals and financial independence.
Too Many Clients, Working Too Many Hours, for Too Little Money (Part 2 of 3)
Working too many hours. This challenge is driven by two admirable character traits. One is truly caring about helping people and, therefore, trying to serve them even though the amount of time that will take per client multiplied by the number of clients you have make it unworkable. Remember the Rule of 168. There are only 168 hours in the week. How you choose to invest those hours determines your success in business and your happiness in life. No matter how much you care, there is a limit to how many people you can help. Trying to serve too many people can wreck other areas your life and create an unsustainable business.
The other admirable character trait is integrity: “By God, I promised to take care of these people and I’m going to do whatever it takes to do that!” This is a noble goal, but futile given the unchangeable truth of the Rule of 168. Please don’t be upset with me for delivering this message about the Rule of 168. It wasn’t my idea. God did not consult with me when he or she decided how long it would take the Earth to achieve a full rotation or how long it takes the Earth to revolve around the sun. It is what it is. Your job is to make your business and your life work within the boundaries of the Rule of 168.
If you are working too many hours it’s likely because you are choosing to do things with your time that are not as necessary or as important as you might think and because you are working with too many of the wrong the clients. Notice I didn’t say “bad” people. I said the wrong people to make your business life effective so you can work a reasonable number of hours to generate the money you need to make your life work.
What does it mean to make your life work? That’s really up to you. For most humans their life “working” includes some common elements: financial health, physical health, relationship health, mental health, and spiritual health. Exactly what you do and how you do it in each of these areas can vary greatly. It is a great life and this is a great profession for achieving success in all five areas.
Are We Just Like Kids?
What’s wrong with our education system? Why are so many kids under-performing their potential? And, how is this relevant for you as a Financial Professional who would like to be more successful?
Principal Steve Perry, renown for his success in helping parents help their kids succeed in school and in life, says that parents who have the most success with their kids:
-Are consistent
-Have a structure in place
-Monitor the structure
-Follow through
According to Perry, one of the biggest mistakes parents make is giving their kids too many choices. Another mistake parents make is spending too much time being friends with their kids. They are too nice. Perry says, “Parents are not holding their kids feet to the fire to do what’s necessary for them to be successful.” According to Perry, kids actually value consistency, structure, and parents who follow-through with monitoring and accountability. They know they need it and no matter how much they may rebel in the moment, they recognize this as a sign they have parents who care and love them.
Without consistency, structure, monitoring, and follow-through kids become adults without the habits required to create predictable, recurring, and lasting success.
What does this have to do with being a successful Financial Professional? Everything.
You might be thinking, “But I’m not a kid!” -not any more. Yet, you probably have the same challenges: scattered, fragmented, distracted, too many choices, and under-performing your potential. You get to the end of the day and compare what you actually did to what you know would have produced the best results for your clients and your business; and, you can only shake your head hoping tomorrow will be better.
Wouldn’t the same things that Principal Perry says are important for kids be valuable for you and your professional success: consistency, structure, monitoring, follow-through; and someone to hold you accountable?
As an adult it’s up to you to recognize your own need and choose to opt into a community where you can get this structure and support. Your mom and dad are no longer in a position to make you do it. Everyone is more successful when they have structure and someone to “hold their feet to the fire.” It’s not a kid thing or an adult thing. It’s a human thing.
The most successful people recognize this and take action.
At Bachrach & Associates, we have a proven process, the structure, the monitoring, the follow-through, and accountability to help you tap your true potential, acquire more Ideal Clients, create your Ideal Business, and live your Ideal Life. We have helped thousands of your colleagues and can do the same for you.
Stop Educating Clients
This idea that the purpose of financial advisors is to educate their clients is a fundamental error in our industry. As a financial professional, you need to focus on getting them results, not information.
Would most people you know rather pay for education or results?
We now have a house with a pool, and there’s a fellow we’ve hired to take care of the water and cleaning and other pool maintenance. If something is wrong, I just leave him a note about whatever I’ve noticed that needs to be fixed. Can you imagine if he were to knock on the sliding glass door to my office, which overlooks the pool, and say, “Hey, Bill! Come on out here and let me show you what I’m doing. I want to explain how I’m going to balance the chlorine in the water.”
Why would I want to know that? I just want my pool to be clean, safe, and comfortable for swimming whenever I or guests decide to get in it. I don’t want to think about chemistry, much less spend time getting “educated” by my pool guy on something that I couldn’t care less about.
This is not unlike those people who try to “add value” by explaining Modern Portfolio Theory or any number of other technical aspects of financial planning to clients or prospective clients. Can I really compare being a financial advisor to the pool guy? Yes, absolutely. You’re just more highly compensated because you do a more important job. But it’s the same in concept.
What value do you really provide?
Consider this. I cycle with a recently retired professor who’s made a name for himself as the author of college textbooks. He’s written more than 20 bestsellers on subjects such as personal financial planning, fundamentals of investing, corporate finance, and so on.
In fact, he gave me a few of his books not too long ago. They’re impressive tomes, complete with software and website support. The books are filled with theory, practice, case studies, study guides, plus comprehension and retention tests.
My point? If you were going to really educate someone about financial planning, you’d be using a textbook like this. This is where serious students go to learn. Serious students aren’t learning about finance from Money magazine and chats with their financial professionals. (Incidentally, the financial media aren’t in the business of educating, either; they’re in the business of marketing magazines.)
I’ve been in this business for my entire career, and I’ve never seen anybody who advocates educating clients actually test for retention. So let’s call it what it really is: It’s education used as a sales tool. Let’s call it “edu-sell.” If we were really going to educate people, we’d be using textbooks, testing, and the rest.
Just so we’re clear: The book my professor friend wrote on financial planning is 685 pages, printed in small type on ultra-thin paper. That book is heavy! How many of your clients do you think would like to haul this book around in a backpack, study it for hours on end, and take all the tests? (Now, that’s just personal financial planning. Next up: Let’s talk about investing! This book, with similar typestyle and kind of paper is 718 pages.)
The beauty of a relationship with a financial advisor is that without having to read all this, learn it, pass the tests, and then implement it, your clients can get the benefit of all this knowledge.
You may be reading this and thinking, “Well, how are they getting the benefit? Cuz I don’t know all that stuff, either.”
How do I know that? I’ve spent my life with financial advisors, and I’m well aware of how little we know. What do we know about investing? Definitely not as much as a professional money manger. They’re the ones who, when they were in college, actually liked the classes with these monster textbooks. They’re the reason you don’t have to know all of it, either.
However, I do suggest you buy these books. Go to www.swlearning.com, and acquire at least the ones on personal financial planning and investing. And here’s how you may want to use them: If you have a client who insists on being educated, you produce the book and say, “This is the best-selling college textbook on personal financial planning, and you can’t have my copy; however, I invite you to buy your own, read it, study it, and take the tests. About the time you’re ready to retire, you should have learned what you need to know to start implementing this stuff.”
You can do this seriously, or do it like I would, with a little levity: “Oh, and by the way, when you’re done with that one, here’s what you’ll need to know to handle your investing.” Produce the 718-page volume with a flourish.
Then pull out the CCHs for taxes and drop them on the desk. Boom! “You’ll need to keep up with this every year because it changes all the time. And this is what you’ll need to know about long-term care. Here’s the book on disability … homeowner’s … long-term care … Or you can harness through me all the experts who know what you need to do because they’ve already learned all this stuff.”
The point is that you’re in the business of helping people get results. If it’s education they want, then they should go to school. If it’s results they want, they can get that through you. That’s the purpose of a financial professional. That’s how you help your clients.
Don’t be a salesperson. Be a Trusted Advisor.
3 Ways to Tell If You’re Running a Smart Business – Part 3 of 3
3. Do your clients give you all of their financial business? In other words, do you have all the money? In a smart business, you want your clients to give you all of their money and do whatever you tell them to do with it. You want clients who want more from you than state-of-the-art schmoozing; they want you to be a Trusted Advisor, and they expect you to handle their financial affairs. Most people want to work with one person that they trust. If you aren’t getting that level of trust and all the money, you’re running a dumb business. The smartest and most successful people aren’t the ones who question authority and try to do everything themselves. The smartest, most successful people outsource. They defer to someone with greater expertise. Andrew Carnegie, one of America’s most successful and wealthiest men, understood the wisdom of this philosophy, as reflected in the words he chose for his tombstone: “Here lies a man who knew how to bring into service men better than he was himself.” Yes, it’s true—in a smart business, you get to work with clients who tell the whole truth about where all money is, do what you tell them to do, do all your prospecting and marketing for you, are more influenced by you than anything else, and don’t let events you cannot control diminish your working relationship. They sincerely value your advice and their relationship with you. That’s the proof of great client relationships, and the sign of a very smart business. Given the choice, which type of business will you pick? Which kind of business do you think your clients would want you to pick?
3 Ways to Tell If You’re Running a Smart Business – Part 1 of 3
Basically, there are three ways to build a business in the financial services industry. What kind of business are you running? Here’s a three-step litmus test to help you find out.
1. How full is your appointment calendar? Are you spending your time prospecting and marketing because you’re not earning the referrals you’d like? Are you meeting with people three or four times before they hire you? Are you sitting down with clients to discuss irrelevant, superfluous topics that waste your time and theirs? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re running a dumb business.
Don’t allow your clients to pull you into discussions about what I call financial pornography. If I was your financial advisor and you wanted to have a discussion about how the war on Iraq was going to impact the market, I would not even entertain that conversation with you. Instead, I would explain to you why that’s a waste of your time and mine, and remind you that we have an investment philosophy where we focus on what we can control. I would also remind you that we have a long-term financial strategy, so regardless of what happens in the economy, the market, or the world, my job is to help you achieve your goals for the reasons that are important to them, not time the market.
Although this flies in the face of conventional wisdom, educating clients is a waste of your time and theirs. Discussing the war in Iraq as it relates to investments is academic. It’s not practical and it doesn’t alter the outcome of your clients’ investments. At most, it provides nothing but a false sense of security. “But it makes the clients feel comfortable,” you might argue. Well, do you want to be in the business of giving your clients a false sense of comfort, or telling your clients the truth?
Telling the truth is actually an interesting and surprisingly effective marketing strategy. When you take a rational approach—when you have rational discussions with rational people—they respond rationally. If you’ve got an irrational approach to try to move irrational people to buy investments and insurance from you, you’ll end up with a high-maintenance clientele and your primary function will be to accommodate their baggage. There’s a whole group of advisors who say, “Yeah, that’s what it’s like to be an advisor. You have to accommodate people’s ineffective and false beliefs.” If you want to run a smart business, don’t focus on educating clients and having these kinds of conversations. Instead, fill your appointment calendar with meaningful, rewarding engagements.
Success Leaves Clues (Don’t Shoot the Messenger) – Part 3 of 3
Here’s what else that I have learned about Universal Truths and Natural Laws:
You can’t change them. You can’t fight them. They have no emotion. They have no investment in whether or not you succeed or fail. In fact, they don’t care if you live or die. It’s impossible for them to care about you because they don’t even know you exist. They don’t care about your background, your upbringing, your personal story, your personal tragedies, or your strengths and weaknesses. They don’t care if you suffer from depression, addictions, or were abused as a child. They don’t care about your race, your religion, your gender, your age, or your heritage. They don’t care if you grew up poor, middle-class or wealthy. They don’t care how unique you are, how special you are, or how important you are. They don’t care how much potential you have. They don’t care how much you are loved by your parents, your grandparents, your children, your spouse, your friends, your pets, or how much you love them back. They don’t care if you are attractive or unattractive, healthy or unhealthy, fit or out of shape, able-bodied or disabled. They don’t care how smart you are, how experienced you are, or how much you care about helping people. They don’t care if you are having a bad hair day or a no-hair day. They don’t care if your house burned down, your spouse left you, or your dog died. They have no interest in your needs, your wants, your goals, your aspirations, or your values. They don’t care about your religion, your faith, or your beliefs. They don’t care how much value you bring to your community or how much of a difference you are making in the world. They are not mean or malicious. They have no agenda. They don’t have any emotional capacity to be concerned about anything or anyone. They are what they are. The Laws of Success. Universal Truths. Natural Laws. Please don’t shoot the messenger. None of this is my idea. It is what it is.
There are simply Universal Truths and Natural Laws that exist for every Financial Advisor who chooses to be successful at acquiring and serving clients.
To whatever degree you choose to deny, resist, or fight Universal Truths and Natural Laws is the degree to which you will fail to achieve your potential. Whatever time and energy you expend to change them or resist them is wasted time that you will never get back.
Surrender to these laws and you will immediately experience more inner peace. Embrace these truths and you will move to a higher level of professional success and happiness in life.
Commit to developing more skill, more confidence, more emotional fortitude, and more discipline in each area described above and you will soon be enjoying far greater results.
And, remember, don’t shoot the messenger. None of this way my idea. I didn’t get a vote either. I’m just trying to help and do the best I can on my journey… just like you.
Success Leaves Clues (Don’t Shoot the Messenger) – Part 2 of 3
As with the Rule of 168, there are Natural Laws and Universal Truths about what is necessary to be a successful Financial Advisor. I did not invent these truths any more than I had input into how many hours there are in a day or week. I have just been a diligent observer taking good notes. This may not be a complete list, but I doubt you will disagree with anything on it. What you do with this information is your choice. Remember, don’t shoot the messenger.
- Must have the skill and confidence to engage people in conversations that could lead to the next step of them potentially doing business with you. These can be with people you already know, people you meet in the course of your everyday life, or referrals. The result of these conversations must be enough appointments on your calendar to yield enough clients to make your business successful.
- Must have the skill and confidence to conduct an initial client interview where you establish a bond of trust and the outcome is that a high enough percentage of these people hire you so your business is successful.
- Must have the skill and confidence to answer any question any prospect, or client, could ever ask at any time.
- Must have the skill, confidence, and resources to create a plan of action that gives your clients the highest probability to achieve their goals.
- Must have the skill and confidence to articulate how much you charge, what they get, and that it’s a good value for them.
- Must have the skill and confidence to set the right price for your services so your business is successful and your life works.
- Must have the skill and confidence to give advice to clients about the necessary action required for them to achieve their financial goals in a way that inspires them to act.
- Must have the skill and confidence to conduct regular, productive progress meetings with your clients so they stay on track to achieving their goals.
- Must have the skill and confidence to have crucial conversations with your clients when they become “their own worst enemy” and want to do things that are not consistent with them achieving their goals.
- Must have the skill and confidence to build and lead your team of the Technical and Administrative Subject Matter Experts necessary to deliver on your promise to your clients. (The Rule of 168 mandates that there is not enough time to do it all yourself.)
- Must have the skill and confidence to conduct referral conversations that generate referrals.
- Must have the skill and confidence to make follow-up phone calls and engage the people, to whom you have been referred, in constructive conversations that could lead to the next step of them potentially doing business with you.
- Must develop the skill and confidence to recognize high pay-off activities, fill your calendar with high pay-off activities, do the high pay-off activities, and delegate or drop lower pay-off activities.
- Must develop the emotional fortitude and discipline to develop these skills and confidence.
- Must be willing to learn these skills from others if you were not born with them.
- Must develop the emotional fortitude and discipline to consistently and repeatedly implement the skills and confidence that produce results both on the days when you feel like it and the days when you don’t feel like it, regardless of events out of your control such as what’s happening in the market, the economy, or the world.
- Must document the processes and systems that will be repeatedly used to acquire clients, serve clients, and lead the business.
- Must generate enough business revenue, so after paying your business expenses and taxes, there is enough money left to pay for you to live a good lifestyle now and enough money for you to fund your future goals, such as your own financial independence. In other words, you have enough money to get and keep your own financial house in order.
- Must develop the ability to produce these business results in a reasonable amount of time per day, week, month, and year in order for other important aspects of your life to get the attention they need and to be enjoyed. Ie: family and friends, health and fitness, fun and recreation, spiritual growth, mental health, philanthropy, etc.
Perhaps you can think of a few other “musts” in order to have a successful financial services business. This list truths will at least get you started.
