Whether your financial advisory is a small business with just you and a part-time assistant, or you manage a bustling office, keeping you and your team motivated can be a challenge. Just like all business owners, you have to deal with the ebb and flow of business with a smile on your face.
Your attitude goes a long way to determining the attitude of everyone else in the office, so it is important to stay positive, but that isn’t always easy. Motivation is a finite resource and it is important to manage it wisely. Here are a few ways that you can keep your enthusiasm up even through tough times.
1. Reevaluate your goals
Building your schedule and business around concrete goals can be a great way to motivate yourself and your team. If you’re feeling lost, take the time to reevaluate your existing goals, or set some up if you don’t have any yet.
The best goals are broken into small milestones, which makes them more approachable and manageable. A goal of “grow my business this year,” isn’t going to help much. Instead, think about how many new clients you want to gain by the end of the year. Work backward and break that into leads, then figure out how many events you need to put on or emails you need to send in order to get those leads.
Always be realistic about what you and your team can accomplish with the time and resources available to you. Unattainable goals will only hurt you in the long run. But creating strong goals and aligning your team on the steps needed to meet them can provide great motivation for financial advisors.
2. Talk to your clients
If you need some inspiration, speaking with your clients can get you back on track. This feedback can first help you find new opportunities to improve your business. In talking with them, you may realize a common pain point that you could address in a blog or whitepaper on your website. Plus, you’ll establish open channels of communication, which decrease the chances that your client will leave you for a different advisor.
Look for positive feedback and reviews from your clients, and take the time to write them up for yourself. While you can’t share testimonials on your website, you can share them with your team and keep them handy to look at when your motivation as a financial advisor wains.
3. Remember why you started your advisory
As a busy financial advisor, it’s easy to get bogged down in the day to day and forget about the big picture. If that’s you, take a step back and reflect on why you went into this industry and started your advisory in the first place. Look at how far you’ve come in your years of business, and congratulate yourself on your accomplishments – then use your own success as a financial advisor as a motivation to keep going and hit that next milestone!
In this reflection, it may help to build a mission statement for yourself and keep that handy in your office. Encourage your team to do the same! What is your overall goal as a financial advisor? To help people? To guide clients through retirement? To ensure families can send their children to college? Find that hook that will keep you working even on the toughest days.
4. Look to your peers
Sometimes you just need to speak with someone who gets it. Do you have a network of other financial advisors or small business owners that you can talk to and get advice from? Building a support system of like-minded entrepreneurs can be extremely helpful in getting yourself out of a rut.
The next time you attend a financial conference, make an effort to connect with other advisors. Maybe join a Facebook group, or find a local meetup of entrepreneurs or those in the financial industry. Consider reaching out to those fellow advisors when you are feeling lost or need advice on an aspect of your business.
Even reading blogs for financial advisors or small business owners could give you the motivation you need. By reading tales from other business people, you can remember that everyone starts somewhere, and businesses are bound to have ups and downs. The right TED Talk about entrepreneurship might be the perfect remedy to get you back on your feet.
5. Get out of your comfort zone
After years in business, you may find yourself in the same routine. While routines can be great, they can also be boring. If you’re feeling stuck in the same routine day in and day out, you’re bound to lose some motivation. To revamp your business and mindset, try getting out of your comfort zone and trying a new approach.
Start to question your standard processes, and introduce a new way of thinking to get past complacency and renew your motivation.
The first way you could step out of your comfort zone is giving your business a facelift with a new website or automated marketing campaigns. You may be motivated to learn about this new technique and end up growing your business along the way.
Even approaching aspects of your non-business life in a new way could help inspire you. Go to a new spot for lunch, take a different route to the office, or sign up for a class like painting or a foreign language that you wouldn’t normally do. Mixing things up might be just what you need to inspire your business.
How do you stay motivated as a financial advisor? Let us know in the comments!
