I have always found that the great benefits of summer holidays are not only the chance to recharge your batteries, but also a fantastic opportunity to reboot your plans for the year.
Most successful advisers start the year with a clear plan of goals they want to achieve in the coming 12 months.
Unfortunately, life sometimes has a habit of getting in the way, and by the half-year mark we can find we are already slipping behind on our objectives.
Then, just as the implications of this underachievement are starting to dawn on us, we are thrust headlong into the July and August holiday season.
The big danger is that you compound your underperformance by assuming all your clients are on holiday.
I well remember being told in my first year of work that nobody did much business in July and August, which I concluded was ridiculous, so for my first 10 years as an adviser I tried to make sure that August was my busiest month.
The big danger is that you compound your underperformance by assuming that all your clients are on holiday.How wrong such negative assumptions proved to be, as I continually found that clients felt it was the perfect time to get their affairs in order.
The real key to maximising the benefits of the holiday months is to use them critically to review your original plans and goals for the year; summertime gives you a wonderful opportunity to revisit your objectives and plan how to achieve them in the coming months.
For most financial planners, the four months from September to December are potentially the busiest and most successful of the year and it is not uncommon for an adviser to help more clients move towards achieving their financial goals during this time than in the whole of the previous eight months.
So, along with your bucket and spade or walking boots, I urge you to take a pen and paper on holiday with you.
Then, as you unwind and mentally recharge your batteries, you can analyse your goals and plan how you will use the last four months of 2018 to achieve your objectives for the year.
Do this, and I believe you will achieve more in the last third of the year than in the first two-thirds.
Ken Davy is chairman of SimplyBiz Group
