How to develop new skills for success

They need not only the specialist technical skills that one might automatically think of, but also people and relationship building, business development, business management, marketing and process management skills, to name but a few.

During the full calendar of events run by the NMBA each year, I endeavour to touch upon all those business areas whenever possible, ensuring that attendees are receiving a day full of really valuable event content.

However, the sessions that receive some of the most enthusiastic feedback from advisers are those which offer them the opportunity to really interact and engage with other advisers.

The best practice sessions we facilitate help advisers share and generate ideas, and grow in popularity and attendance numbers every single round.

As is the case with many issues in the financial advice industry, there are more grey areas than black or white definitive answers and the choice of what to do often comes down to what suits an individual adviser or firm.

The one thing that all attendees have in common is the desire to pick up one or more ideas that can make a difference to them personally, or to their business.

The format of these sessions, and the areas covered, are dictated by the attendees themselves, and tend to be either successes they have recently achieved, and how they have achieved them, or the challenges they are currently facing.

Variety of topics

Despite having chaired dozens of these meetings during the 18 months I have been at the NMBA, I’m constantly surprised at the wide variety of subjects which are raised.

There are a few which come up at every single meeting, in one guise or another, showing that some issues are shared across the entire financial advice community, and there is always at least one in every meeting that I’ve never encountered before.

Topics that are regularly raised for discussion include time management, creating business efficiencies, using technology, enhancing the client experience and charging structures.

As is the case with many issues in the financial advice industry, there are more grey areas than black or white definitive answers and the choice of what to do often comes down to what suits an individual adviser or firm, rather than a blanket approach working for everyone.

Different approaches

One method may work for some but not for others, which is why we see such a varying spread of business practices. The idea of these meetings is to discuss these different approaches, and for each attendee to determine what approach would best suit them and their businesses.  

Due to the subjective nature of some of the subjects covered, it has always been a useful idea to determine best practice by asking what ‘good’ looks like. Of course, there are often as many different views expressed as there are delegates in the room, but this wide range of opinions and perspectives only offers more value to those in attendance.  

During our recent round of best practice meetings, we used a well-established management technique known as a ‘balanced scorecard’, to help categorise the activities highlighted for discussion.

The balanced scorecard is a tool generally used for looking at business practices and strategies, and aligning these to the vision, goals and objectives of that business.

Although there are different theories on how it is best used, it usually consists of four main areas: Financial, Customer, Process and People. Each area can be looked at individually and focus can be given on improving each area to meet the ideal holistic vision, which in our case, is what ‘good’ looks like.

There is often lots of overlap with these four categories, where some business activities fit into more than one area. However during our best practice meetings, there were no topics suggested by our attendees that didn’t fit into at least one of these categories on the balanced scorecard.

During the open forum sessions, we therefore started our discussions with the ‘financial’ and asked what good looks like from a financial perspective in relation to financial advice businesses. We then moved on to customer, then process and then people.

Here is some of the output from what was discussed across our round of events:

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list and many attendees left the meetings with more to discuss and consider than those they had arrived with.

However, the vast majority also left the meetings with a number of ideas, plans and objectives that they could apply to their businesses going forward. 

Yet, as we all know, the greatest challenge of having ideas is how they are implemented.

My advice to the delegates at our meetings, which I would also give to all advisers considering amendments to practices in their business, was not to try and implement their objectives and actions all at once, but to prioritise these and execute them in a way that is both realistic and achievable.

I believe that trying to introduce too many actions and changes at once can be over-ambitious, often more confusing for both the team and your clients and, in the worst case scenario, can lead to nothing changing at all.

While there is clearly great benefit to discussing different issues in a group forum in order to achieve many varying viewpoints and outlooks, this isn’t always possible.

For any adviser considering ways to develop their processes, I would strongly recommend considering the four category approach to help align their thinking and create their new strategy.

Tom Hegarty is managing director of the New Model Business Academy