If You’re a Financial Advisor, It Pays to Be a Great Boss

If you’re a financial advisor whose practice is structured so you are responsible for managing people, you have special needs. You have to delegate effectively, stamp out reverse delegation, develop your people so they can take over some of your responsibilities and be super-efficient with your time so you can enjoy your family and your life.

If you do not have the skills to do this, your dream practice will start turning into a nightmare — maybe it already has.

Highly successful financial advisors whose business supports their desired lifestyle know the secrets of being a great boss.

First and foremost, they decided which activities they need to do. Everything else is delegated. If you fear nobody else can do it right, get over it. Otherwise, you will doom yourself to be chained to routine details.

Your skills as an advisor is worth somewhere around $250 an hour. You don’t want to be doing $20, $30, or $50 tasks. Next you must choose subordinates whom you can trust to do the job right. Start out by delegating less important duties. Take the time to train them to perform higher-level tasks.

You might complain this takes too much time. This is minute wise and hour foolish. If time is money, it is also penny wise and pound foolish. Investing time to develop new people will save you huge amounts of time in the future. Also, a worker you engage this way will find more job satisfaction, be more loyal and stay with you longer

Take steps to be sure your orders are not misunderstood.One advisor told a new employee to call his client base and arrange appointments for their routine portfolio reviews.The advisor went home to enjoy his family that evening. When he returned to his office, he expected to see he was scheduled to see clients who were due for their reviews. He was shocked when he saw he had an appointment with a client who he had just reviewed last week. He had to hurriedly call this client and explain the mistake. Fortunately the client was understanding and had a sense of humor, but it was still embarrassing.

The advisor had neglected the cardinal rule of delegation.Always remember to ask your employer to describe what he is going to do. Again this takes a little more time, but you’ll get far superior results. It also it also saves you from wasting time correcting mistakes.

The key to helping your people grow into being efficient, helpful and loyal is to get their input. Engage them in the problem solving process. Ask for their suggestions. How do they see themselves fulfilling the job? You will be helping them to stretch and think better. They will become more self-reliant. Also, if they have ownership in the process, they will be much more motivated to make it work.

A wise boss will listen to his employee’s suggestions. He will allow the employee to do things the employee’s way if feasible. You might have a way of accomplishing the job that is better. Share this with the employee and let him decide what he will do. Your employee will have a bigger investment in his own ideas. He will work harder to prove his right.The whole idea is to co-create solutions with your employees. Sometimes, your employee will come up with ideas that are better than yours.

Follow these steps and you will maximize your people’s talents. They will become highly motivated and more productive. You will start to free up huge amounts of your time.

You will be on your way to being a great boss who has more time to enjoy his business, this family, and his life.

What has been your experience in managing your employees? I’d love to hear from you. I bet you have some funny stories you could share.