May 11, 2018

5 Point Checklist for IFA’s Growth and Success

Nandish Desai
Partner-jagoinvestor.com

5 Point Checklist for IFA’s Growth and Success

I know you want to expand your business, you want to increase your client list, you want to build your organisation and you want to become a successful entrepreneur.

But do you have total clarity about what exactly you are going to do with your time in the coming 12 months?

Have you created your time map for the year or not?

We all have 168 hours with us in a week, and I know it never seems to be enough. As you are self-employed, you are your own boss and so no one is going to ask what to do with your time and hence there is no accountability.

But, I want to ask you some straight questions. Be honest with your answers

  1. Do you feel you use your time effectively?
  2. Do you complete business matters during business hours?
  3. Do you plan your week activities in advance or not?
  4. Do you have your list of most important projects in hand?
  5. Do you have a list of your highest priority projects on hand?
  6. Do you spend most of your time on high paying activities or not?
  7. Do you think you should restrict the time you spent on social media?
  8. Do you check your email or facebook account every now and then?

Come on, tell the truth and stop lying about what you do with your time. Any entrepreneur, who lies about time, never grows in his / her business. It’s time to accept what you do and what you don’t do with your time. Let me share a simple system that I have devised, it can help you to build your practice. This system has some checklist in it. These individual lists together will form your success checklist.

1. Innovate

For the next 12 months make a list of those areas where you can bring innovation. Here you will encourage your free-ranging mind to think of new ways of doing things. To innovate you have to keep asking yourself “Why can’t I do something that makes me different from other advisors?” Or “How can I improve upon the value that I add to my clients?” or “How can I create simple things that people can easily identify with?” In every corner of your business, you always have space to innovate. You don’t need any creative jeans to innovate, all you need is the commitment to innovate and continue to question all that you do. Take some time out and make your TO-DO-INNOVATE list.

2. Engage

In business, you get what you deal with. It is extremely important to engage with good books, inspiring projects, challenging tasks or study groups, programs, and workshops or something like a mastermind group (like the one we started on the 10-may). Spend some time and compile a list of books, projects, tasks, groups, and programs you are going to use in the coming year. This TO-DO-LIST is extremely important because your training and development depend on it.

3. Automate

As an advisor, use more of technology to automate your business operations. Invest your time to learn about automation. There are so many tools and software applications available that you can use to automate your business operations. Automation gives leverage to your business. So, devote some time to build your To-Do-Automate list. In our business, we have lots of things on automation, which helps us increase and do many things simultaneously.

4. Implement

In the last few months, I am sure you must have learnt several new things which you can apply to your business. A lot of people learn new things but what about their implementation? A financial advisor who learns things, but does not take any constructive action is exactly the same as an investor who gets a financial plan from an advisor but does not take further action thus leaving the plan unimplemented. What is the difference between you and your clients who do not take action? You will have to create your To-do-Implement list if you want things to move upwards in your business. Implementation can help you to bring a turnaround in your business. Knowing + implementation is = successful advisor.

5. Delegate

As you grow your business, you will have to learn to delegate. If you’re committed to growth, start delegating work, and start building your team. Think of expanding your team when you are clear about your work and responsibility. Are you forming your second line or not? Who is the person you can count on? Make a list of all the current tasks that you are performing in your business and from it, make a fresh list of those activities that you can delegate.

Make a promise to expand your productivity with this system.

This article was published in Nandish’s book “How to grow your business as a financial advisor” and is republished with permission from the author


4 Thoughts to “5 Point Checklist for IFA’s Growth and Success”

  1. Himanshu dani says:

    Very well drafted . Very basic but imp things

  2. Awesome way to structure and manage our time…

  3. Marlys says:

    This is truly helpful, thanks.

  4. Noe says:

    Thanks for the terrific post

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