4 Self-Defeating Beliefs That Keep Advisors Stuck

When you're first starting out as an advisor you don't have many clients. So you have time to market and prospect. You do it and your practice grows.

Then when you finally get over $20 million assets under management with over 100 clients, you find yourself stuck. You hit a wall.

You can't figure out how to manage servicing clients, run your business, manage your staff and still have time to promote growth.

The problem is your old ways of doing business just don't work anymore. Your business has outgrown your wingspan. You need to learn new ways of doing things.

The main reason advisors stay stuck and can't grow is because they have one or more of these four common self-defeating beliefs that keep them stuck.

Here they are:

Self-defeating belief #1

Believing no one else can do it right. You don't trust others to help you.

The truth is you simply can't do it all yourself. You need to let somebody else do those things that keep you away from being in front of your clients and prospects.

As a financial advisor, you know the value of leveraging money. So leverage yourself the way you leverage your money. When you delegate and outsource, you're leveraging yourself.

Being a good delegator is a skill. It's a skill you must learn if you want to continue to grow your practice.

Self-defeating belief #2

Thinking if you limit yourself to a niche, you will lose prospects.

You know you can help anyone and fear you might lose a prospect if he thinks you specialize in a different clientele. You believe that the wider your net the more prospects you'll catch.

That wider net theory works to a degree if your chasing butterfly size clients. But if you want to get eagles, you need to carefully aim a gun.

And don't worry about losing that prospect who thinks he's an outsider. They will see you as a specialist and ask you if you can make an exception for him.

More importantly, prospects in your niche will see you as special and be attracted to you. They'll choose you over a generalist every time.

Self-defeating belief #3

Thinking you have a niche when all you have is a specialty.

There are two parts of a niche for financial advisors. The first part is your specialty, what you specialize in; 401(k)s, 413b, IRAs, retirement saving for college, small business retirement plans, comprehensive financial planning, investment management, estate planning, insurance, etc.

The second part of a viable niche is whom you serve; wealthy divorcees, parents of children with special needs, executives at Gotham  Industries,, federal employees due to retire, etc.

When you marry your specialty with your target market, you have a true niche, marketing becomes easier and you have to spend less time at it. You also get bigger, high net worth, more profitable clients who will pay you more for the time you spend servicing them.

Self-defeating belief #4

Believing if you hand off a small client, you are losing ground.

If you just look at your assets under management and see the number going down when you hand off a small client, it feels like you're losing. That's because you're looking at the wrong metric. Instead of looking at your total AUM, you need to look at your profitability.

You're making much less money when servicing a small client than when serving a large one. It's those small clients that are keeping you working long hours away from your family.

So when you think of handing off a small client, instead of thinking about your AUM going down, think about the time you're saving. You can use this time to acquire bigger, profitable, high net worth, clients or you can use this time to be with your family.

How about you? Are these beliefs getting in your way and putting a ceiling annual revenue? I'd like to hear if you had one of these beliefs and how you overcame it.

Meanwhile, you can learn more by attending my monthly webinar. Please click here.You'll be taken to a page with more information and an opportunity to register.

Best wishes for a rich and rewarding business and life,
Stan Mann