Earlier this year I was coaching an FA.  The FA had gone through Phase 1 Supernova training but was still not where he wanted to be from an organization standpoint.  He liked his CSA a lot but didn’t feel that everything he needed to be done was getting done.  I asked him a question that I have asked many times in the past – “Does your CSA know what your priorities are?”  In a hesitant voice the FAs response was, “I think so”.  I asked him to answer three questions for me.

  1. If your CSA could only do one thing for you each day what would it be?
  2. If your CSA could only do two things for you each day what would they be?
  3. If your CSA could only do three things for you each day what would they be?

After a little thought he gave me the answers.

In a later meeting with his CSA present, I asked her three questions.

  1. If you could only do one thing for this FA each day, what would he want it to be?
  2. If you could only do two things for this FA each day, what would he want them to be?
  3. If you could only do three things for this FA each day, what would he want them to be?

How many of the CSA’s responses matched the FAs answers?  Only one and that was the third thing on  the list.  In other words, the CSA didn’t know the two most important things that the FA wanted done consistently each day.

If an FA reading this and you think your CSA knows your top 3 priorities, why don’t you make your list and see if your CSA’s list matches yours.  My experience tells me that they won’t.

Don’t force your CSA to be a mind reader.  Make sure that he or she knows what you think is most important.  Both of you will be happier and less stressed at the end of the day.

 

RK withbluebackgroundRectangleReflective accountability is a term you may not have heard before. We were looking for a way to describe the personal experience of having a gameboard within a Supernova practice. Accountability arrives preloaded with meaning: responsibility, maturity, integrity and so on. Reflection is how accountability grows, collectively and individually. No one can force a person to reflect on his or her performance. It’s self generated and it helps if the generator is continually on. That’s what the public posting of the gameboard goals does. Am I working as hard as I can to reach these goals? Do they accurately reflect my values? Should I ask for help? Should I help someone else? Can I get better? It’s what everyone in every organization should be asking and there’s no reason to keep the answers to themselves…

I suggest you have a Monday GB meeting and a Friday accountability meeting. At the Friday meeting, the people representing the 5 VPs report. That will be performance based. How did we do in planning? How many plans did we get done? Are we going to generate some business from them? How did we do production-wise? How are we doing marketing? What are we doing in term of each of the vice-presidencies?

The Monday meeting is a pure activity meeting. If we get the activity right we’re going to get the rest of it right. Did we meet with our clients? Did we meet with our prospects, our COIs, our mastermind group, or our two community boards? If we did all those things, then we’re going to get the results because we all know the only thing that keeps us from success is not enough of the right activity done the right way.

We measure activity with the GB. Everybody gets a number for what they are supposed to do for that week such as five appointments per day with clients, meet with two prospects every day. If you meet with two prospects per day for five days your number up on the GB would be ’10’ for prospects. If you do five client appointments per day for five days you get credit for 25 appointments for the week. It is a chance to give your CSA some kudos for their success in this.

Those that have interns have them go get an erase board; put it up in a prominent place that you all can see and can’t avoid; set your goals for the week. Your numbers would be up on the board as goals all week and at the GB meeting see how you did versus your goals on the activity. Everyone puts down their own goals and then reports on themselves. The GB is our accountability and you are accountable to yourself and the GB. It is not the leader standing up there asking how did you do it’s everybody reporting on how did I do versus what I said I’d do. It’s very powerful. It is a productivity kicker for all of you. You can make it a game to see if you met your goals. The GB will work. Some will say it is the most important thing they got out of the program.

Don’t discount it. Some say they don’t want it up in front of the clients. All you have to do is put numbers and initials up. You can use initials for the activity and your name so your clients will not know. If someone says, “what’s that?” You say that is the way we control the quality of the client experience. It impresses clients. It will also have impact on your COIs when they see it. It will help productivity because everyone stays on track. For the leader the two most important things are the Gameboard and the folders for each of the players.

Make it a game; give prizes; clap for them. Use whatever for a mini reward system. You don’t have to be the biggest producer to win this game. You just have to be the person who is the most diligent about hitting his goals.

I was recently asked to create a list of the roles and responsibilities for the primary members of a Supernova team.  Here’s a quick way to break them down:

Practice Manager’s Rolls and Responsibilities

  1. Create and update Gameboard
  2. Team Meetings-Schedule at the direction of the VP of Leadership daily, weekly, monthly, Quarterly, Semi-annual, and annual team meetings
  3. Client Meetings-Schedule and client confirmation at least 1 week in advance
  4. Agenda-Email to client 3 days before meeting
  5. Meeting Summary-Email to client
  6. Prospect meeting-Schedule and confirm
  7. Folders-Create, prepare, and file
  8. Mini Me Folders-Create, prepare, mail or hand out
  9. Schedule-Become familiar with scheduling and put all appointment times into scheduler and populate calendar
  10. COI-Build and manage folders, schedule monthly meetings, email agenda, and meeting summary
  11. Mastermind Group-Build folders, schedule monthly meetings, email agenda, and meeting summary
  12. VIPSA-confirm by email VIPSA Introductory Meeting from each in-person meeting of 12/4/2
  13. Niches-Build and manage folders and schedule monthly meetings
  14. Community Boards-Build and manage folders and confirm meetings as scheduled
  15. Web Marketing-Update website and LinkedIn page

Rapid Response Manger’s Rolls and Responsibilities

  1. Contact clients within one hour of notification of problems
  2. Resolve all problems within 24 hours
  3. Establish time line and notify client if problem is not solved in 24 hours
  4. Follow-up on produce and service sales issues
  5. Establish time line for sales issues that will require follow-up such as Mortgages and Insurance Sales

FA’s Roll and Responsibilities

  1. Be prepared and on time for all appointments
  2. Prepare and update agenda for each meeting
  3. Prepare and communicate to PM summary of meeting
  4. Update Gameboard before each meeting
  5. Adopt the 5 star model of team rolls and responsibilities
  6. Build business plan around VP responsibilities
  7. Commit to clearing all folders off of desk by close of business
  8. Establish 6 Centers of Influence and commit to meet monthly
  9. Establish one Mastermind Group and commit to meeting monthly (2 hours).
  10. Establish 2 Niches and commit to developing these monthly
  11. Join two boards in your community and commit to 6 yr. process
  12. Commit to web marketing through your web page, LinkedIn sites
  13. Build pipeline of high quality prospects (no more than 90) and call or see monthly utilizing the Supernova Client Model

 

 

Leadership can be a burden. On the other hand, it can be a great opportunity for growth. Whether you are a team leader, producing manager, or managing director, you are entrusted with the future of your people. Shirk from that duty at your own peril.

So if you have to do it, how do you do it right? How do you avoid disaster?

  1. Establish your sacred values. These will be tested at the toughest times. If you waver, you will let yourself down and your teammates.
  2. Write those values down. If you don’t write them down, they will not grow in strength. They need to be stronger than the temptation to compromise. I had mine posted in my office, so that I never made a decision with looking at them.
  3. Share them with your team and others. This will create a contract with those around you so if they see you violating your values, they will come to your rescue. One of the values in my District was a Commitment to Excellence. I was about to accept “good enough” when hiring an Administrative Manager for the District when my Service Manager caught me in the hall and said,”You are about to violate your values.” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “You are about to hire the best of your three candidates, not the best.” I said, “Wow, you are right.” We later found and hired the right person.
  4. Write a Purpose, Mission, and Vision Statement incorporating those values. My purpose statement is “To release the human potential by choosing growth over fear and by so doing, help others to do the same.” What values are in that statement? Optimism, courage, belief that people change, and the desire to help them grow.
  5. Learn them by heart and commit yourself to living it every day.
  6. Once you have done this for yourself, have the team come together and build the same for the unit. Your experience will help you guide them through the process and ensure that as they build out the Purpose, Mission, and Vision, it is aligned with your core values.

Why is this so important? Because if you review the collapse of most major companies, you can trace it back to the breakdown of their core values. For example, when Dan Tully was running Merrill Lynch, the core values were put up all over the company in the form of our mission statement. They were followed with real enthusiasm and taught to every new FA and Manager. When return on equity became the number one goal of the board, they chose a leader who had no interest in the firm’s values and was known, publicly, to make fun of them. A reckless series of decisions followed with no regard to the history, legacy, or core values of the firm. The collapse of the firm soon followed as greed followed ignorance and disrespect for legacy of the past.

In contrast to that is the story of River Blindness. This is a disease that infected and blinded nearly 20 million people living in developing regions, particularly countries in Africa. The disease is carried, much like malaria, from one person to another, by a black fly that bites its victim and deposits parasitic worms. The worms grow up to two feet long and eventually blind the victim. A scientist for the leading pharmaceutical company Merck named William Campbell discovered a potential cure as he was researching a cure for worms in cattle. Although there was no possibility of potential profit, he was encouraged by his boss Roy Vagelos to continue. In the end Merck spent over 300 million dollars developing a drug that they knew would have no economic benefit for the company. Why did they proceed? Because the core value of “Preserving and improving human life” was stronger than their desire for profits. Their mantra is “Health precedes wealth.” In the end, the good will that they achieved around the world combined with the reinforcement of their core values continued the tradition of courageous decisions in the face of challenges.

They cured River Blindness and erected a statue in front of Merck’s headquarters of a child leading a blind elder in the village to further reinforce their culture. Ironically, I met a salesperson from Merck on an airplane and was excited to ask about the statue and its impact on her. She said that she had never seen the statue and never heard of River Blindness. I sold the stock.

Leadership is absolutely critical to creating a perpetual growth machine. One of the key components of leadership in the Supernova program is making a senior member of your team responsible for one of the 5 key areas (known as the Five Star model) of your practice. Those five areas are:

Affects the client:

1. Planning

2. Implementation and Investments

3. Service

Affects your team:

4. Marketing and Sales

5. Leadership

Use your Game Board…

The ‘Vice President’ assigned to each area is held accountable for their performance using the Game Board. The Game Board is simply a dry erase board you have in your office that you bring out for your weekly meeting to measure the weekly scheduled activities of every one on your team by comparing their goals with their results.

If, for example, you are the Vice President of Implementation and Investments and your goal was to implement 10 new portfolio plans and you actually implement 15 then you have surpassed your goal. If you are the Vice President of Marketing and Sales and your goal was to meet with 10 new prospects and you only got around to 5 you haven’t made your goal. This is a very effective way to reward those who are doing a good job and will also identifying issues early so you can turn them around.

What’s you GAP?

You can measure general outcomes in the 5 areas using the GAP analysis. It is a tool that helps companies compare potential performance with actual performance and is called a GAP analysis because it measures the gaps you may have in your practice.

Here is an exercise you can do right now: Ask each member of your team to rate the 5 key areas on a scale of 1 – 10 for capability and outcome. Compile those results and put it up on your Game Board so the team sees where they feel they are. Then the leader assists each Vice President in putting together a plan to bring themselves up to speed.  How did you do? Post a comment on the Discussions page.

You have heard it before: “form a team — it will help your business” and “teams make more money.” Bull! Unorganized, poorly managed teams can hurt productivity and your bottom line. Most FA’s take a productivity hit when they form a team and really never get the leverage from the team that they anticipated. Granted most large producers have teams. We, therefore, make the assumption that it is the teaming process that somehow makes them successful. Wrong! They were successful long before they formed their team and would be without a team. They are just more productive with a team because they take advantage of the leverage teams provide. Your average FA does not.

Here is an example: two average FA’s join together and form a team. Their goal is to make their lives more manageable by having a partner that they can trust. They share CA’s, cover for each other during lunch and vacations, and enjoy each others company. No real productivity increase, but they have improved their lives. They still make all their own outgoing calls, set their own appointments, keep their own calender, manage their own portfolios, do their own research, portfolio reviews, asset allocation modeling, profiling, and updating of account information. They do all of their own marketing and sales when they have the time. They rely on their CA to answer phones, solve account problems, and be nice to their clients. This the typical top down authoritarian pyramid model. Nothing happens here unless the FA’s initiate it. When the leaders are on vacation, the team has a chance to catch up from the chaos but no business is initiated. When the vacation is over, the chaos begins again and everyone is once again in the soup. If you studied this case as an MBA student, you would have a few suggestions for management. Our excuse for accepting this model as the norm is that this is how most everyone built their business and they are a successful…so, if it’s not broken…

Studying the best practices of other professional groups, such as dentists and doctors, tell us that there are more productive models. For example, one of the most productive dental practices in the country’s model depends on an administrator to make and confirm appointments and keep the entire staff on schedule. The administrator handles the greeting of patients and management of the practice’s calendar, including setting appointments, confirming, and scheduling follow-up appointments. We call this the Inverted Pyramid Model versus the typical Top Down Pyramid Model. The  senior dentist in the practice is at the bottom of the pyramid and waits for orders from the administrator. The dentist is told where to be and at what time. Since the dental hygienist (Relationship Manager) has already prepped the patient and identified obvious issues, the dentist simply shows up, greets the patient, diagnoses any issues, and writes or administers the appropriate prescription for a cure. Prior to leaving the office the patient once again meets with the administrator who resolves billing issues and sets the appropriate appointments. Very simple and very professional. Although the dentist is the head of the practice, the administrator is the brain.

Shall we review our model? The FA calls the client, makes the appointment, confirms the appointment, prepares for the meeting by doing a portfolio review and financial plan update, types up an agenda, meets with the client in the client’s office, writes up a summary of the review and the action steps to follow, follows up on the review and sets a follow-up appointment. He then calls again and again to be sure the client executes everything critical for the client’s success. This is a great model for a new FA with ten clients. This is a disaster for a senior FA’s. Yet this is the model.

The sad thing is how little it takes to turn these inefficient FA’s into a highly productive, creative, team-oriented machines who build client loyalty and grow the practice. What does it take for this kind of a makeover? First, it requires that the FA believes in the New Model and sees the real advantages in remaking his or her business. This new model we call Supernova. Organization is very simple under the Supernova model. Everyone concentrates their energy where they have the most interest and talent. This model encourages people to love what they do for a living and focus on being the best in the world at that job. We have adopted the dentist model in its entirety, less the drilling. We create the administrator’s position from a previous CA who loves this type of work. The FA takes on the role of the Dentist and assumes a leadership role. He or she no longer makes outgoing phone calls to clients since that is now the job of the administrator. The FA is no longer playing phone tag, but instead is doing reviews or meeting new clients in person or on the phone. Each CA is assigned to a book of business. This can be by alphabet or production, but it is critical that a CA have full responsibility for each client relationship. We now refer to the CA as a Relationship Manager (RM). The RMs are responsible for the entire welfare of that client. Although they do not schedule the appointments, they make sure they happen. Since under Supernova each client is contacted each month, the RM is responsible for 100 clients thus producing five reviews and follow-ups per day. With Supernova, each FA has committed to having no more than 100 clients. This  gives each FA time to market their practice and gain larger clients. Because we restrict the maintenance time for the team by controlling the number of accounts, we create the opportunity and time for growth.

Next time you go to the dentist for a check-up, pay a little closer attention to their model. It just might bring a brighter smile to your practice.

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