While some top producers make it look easy, the truth is, behind every successful advisory firm, there's a solid business growth strategy in place that’s being actively executed. If you’re looking to become a top producer and grow your financial services business, follow these steps for creating an effective business growth plan.

Take a Step Back

As is the case with most small business owners, advisors have a tendency to approach their business tactically — that is, occupying themselves with day-to-day activities. However, over time, in order to ensure growth, it’s critical to take a strategic approach. This entails taking a step back and assessing one’s business against the competitive landscape as well as the broad market. While operating tactically allows agents to “get it done,” thinking strategically ensures they’re “getting it right.” 

Without a strategic approach, advisors will often find themselves in places and situations by default or by accident instead of by design. Thus, becoming a top producer requires that one pivots from tactical-only to strategic-first — which together add up to “getting it done right.”

Taking a step back can be as easy as setting a day of the week to regularly review your strategy and operating plan and follow up on execution.

Avoid Shiny Object Syndrome (S.O.S.)

Marketing and client acquisition is the number-one challenge for the majority of advisors. Some producers suffering from so-called “shiny object syndrome” have a tendency to look for the latest marketing hack in order to overcome that challenge. 

Because producers are so experienced at tactical implementation, they’ll pivot in a different direction as a result of coming across what looks like a good idea. While there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that approach, not every good idea is a good fit for your situation. 

So how do you find good ideas for your own business? It’s important to examine your client base and look for patterns — not only patterns in the types of clients, but also the methodologies you used to find them. Additionally, assessing your unique strengths and core competencies that you’ve already exhibited can help you predict future opportunities in client acquisition far more accurately and effectively than studying someone else’s successes.

Think More, Do More

Tyler Norton has had a successful 17-year career in the financial services industry and served as senior VP and chief distribution officer for several multibillion dollar organizations. He is a serial entrepreneur, having founded a number of companies over the past ten years, including Strategic Link, which uses a proprietary planning and management consulting process to help businesses adopt and execute a strategic growth plan.

Jerry Toombs, the president of Summit Group Wealth Advisors, as a client of Tyler’s has experienced the benefits of shifting from tactical to strategic in the way he manages his business. Jerry is an accomplished professional in the financial services arena and started the business in 1978. His focus has been on estate planning, insurance and risk management, as well as retirement and investment planning, and he’s been a member of Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) for 33 years. When Jerry met Tyler and implemented his strategic planning methodology, his business increased 400 percent during the first two to three years.

Tyler learned his strategic plan development process from his father, Verdis Norton, the head of strategy for a $36 billion company, in an effort to become more successful in his career in insurance financial services. What Tyler’s dad told him was that most people aren't willing to invest in the mental energy that success requires. “He said that in his experience, careful and well-informed thought requires a lot of work.” Tyler says. “And he’s right. This type of thinking is hard work.”

So what should producers think about it? Tyler uses a four-quadrant model of twelves steps that begins with these four questions: 

• Assessment: What does the playing field look like?

• Introspect: How do you feel about it?

• Strategies: What do you plan to do about it?

• Integrated Execution: Specifically, how is it going to get done?

By following these steps, producers can craft a strategy that feels intuitively appropriate for their own strengths and purposes but is also competitive and serves the needs of one’s client base. 

Critical Issues

One step in Tyler’s process consists of analyzing “critical issues.” Jerry considers this to be one of the most important steps he completed in developing his strategic plan. After realizing he needed to work with more centers of influence, he found that he had a CPA bringing in 60 percent of his business. The question then presented itself: what would happen if he lost that referral source? In this way, he identified a critical issue. Jerry’s strategy for solving this question led to a strategy that ultimately grew his business significantly. Don’t be afraid to examine your own business ruthlessly to identify critical issues of your own. Working through these could very well lead you on the path to unprecedented growth.

Consistency: The Key to Continued Growth

It’s not uncommon for producers to search for a one-time answer to the problem of business growth. However, guiding your business strategically isn’t a one-and-done solution. The key to growth is consistently putting in the mental energy to think and operate strategically, week after week.

Ready to get started? Download our exclusive Producer Sensei Strategic Game Plan book which contains an exclusive look at Jerry’s full quadrant model of 12 steps, so you can start getting it done and getting it done right as you grow your business. 

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