Advisors are business owners. While you may work for a large investment firm, at your core you are a business owner. What do business owners do on a regular basis? They take a step back and examine what they are doing. In a general sense, they try to do more of what is working well and either improve or eliminate what is not working well.
It is incumbent on an advisor to do the same thing. There is a simple way to get that process started. Print two lists. The first list is your entire practice high to low by assets and the other list is high to low by revenue. When you review these lists you are probably going to receive some surprises. Among the surprises may be clients who rank higher or lower than you thought they would. How can someone you seldom speak with be doing more business than someone who calls you three times a week? You may find people you don’t recognize. Believe me, it happens. You might find clients who should have their accounts linked by for some reason they aren’t. Guess who else you may find. You may find people who no longer fit into your practice.
My all-time favorite is the advisor who looked at the bottom of the revenue list and saw a negative $39. When I asked how a client could have negative revenue the advisor told me he was waiving fees. The advisor then said, “I am paying this client to do no business with me!” Why not take a step back, review those two lists. You might not find anything quite this entertaining but you will find a few things that you will want to address.