Road to Independence

How many times have you had an idea and wondered why you didn’t think of it
sooner? Also, how many times have you had an idea, written it down, only to
realize sometime later that you never acted on it? Both of these
things happened to me last week. Let me explain.
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I remember early on in this endeavor saying, “It’s not the company with the best business plan that succeeds, but the company which executes their plan best.” Now that I am that “company” and I have to ask myself if I’m executing my plan very well. Perhaps one of the most challenging things about this business, especially for the RIA, is that there are so many ways to proceed. Not only do you have to decide what services to provide but also how to price them and how to market them. It’s the numerous options available that can really bog you down.

Let’s talk about software for a minute and specifically as it pertains to investments.

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One day last week over breakfast, I was watching CNBC as I usually do, when I noticed the Dow Futures were down 126 points due to the continuing saga of the subprime debacle. I pondered the question, “How much more of this will we have to endure?”

I recall a couple of months ago hearing that this would probably take several months to work itself out. This was during the time when the markets were feeling the fallout from Countrywide and other lenders, as they were faced with the likelihood of writing off large blocks of nonperforming loans. Within the past few weeks we saw the problem extend to others such as Merrill Lynch and last week it was Citigroup’s turn. Who will it be next (E*Trade, anyone)? So what’s my point? Why, our clients of course.
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There are a lot of tasks that must be performed in order to build a successful advisory business. Each task must then be analyzed and if inefficiencies are present they must be addressed. As a solo practitioner, you must be especially conscious of this since there is a limited amount of time available. Last week I identified and resolved some of these issues.

Months ago, I chose ACT as my customer relationship managment (CRM) software. I have created additional tabs and fields to allow me to gather additional information. Here’s what I did. In preparing financial plans for clients, the speed of the process depends upon you and the client. The client must provide you with the required information in a timely manner and you must use this information to hold up your end of the agreement. I can control my end just fine but sometimes the flow of information from the client can require a prompting from the advisor. Since necessity often is the mother of invention, I made some decisions as to how I would handle this.
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