Look Away!

Now that we have made it through the eclipse…hopefully with our eyes intact, it got me thinking, what are some things to look away from in our business. A lot of times advisors get caught up with a rule change, or outside forces they can’t control, or platform changes, etc. Although these are important to pay attention to, don’t “look directly” at these things 100% of the time.

I have spent countless hours with advisors helping them build their businesses over the last 18 years and I often see advisors in the mid to twilight years of their career get paralyzed (or burnt retinas, to keep the analogy going) focusing on all the noise around them. We wear many hats in this business already and it’s a challenge to keep up with just our day to day routine sometimes, why make things more complex by focusing too much energy on the things outside of our control.

One of the ways I have seen advisors attack this is by establishing guidelines for their days. For example they separate their days to address three different types of activities they want to focus on. Some refer to these as focus days, buffer days, and free days.  For focus days (say Tuesday, Thursday, Friday) the advisor focuses 80% or more of their time on revenue generating activities. They are focused on building the business. For buffer days (say Monday and Wednesday) the advisors focuses 80% of their time on running the business, either operations, business management, etc. For free days you guessed it, they are free from work, giving you a chance to recharge that battery.

So I would challenge you, if you are hitting a point in your business where you are starting to feel frustration, decide where your focus is. There will always be things that creep in and drag down your energy, but the key is knowing that right around the corner is a focus day, a free day or a buffer day that will allow you to refocus on the parts of this business you enjoy.