Time Management for Financial Advisors

With fall upon us, prospecting for new clients is about to kick into high gear. An often forgotten first step in preparing to prospect is creating the time to do it. Time management for financial advisors is crucial to ensuring a productive workweek and maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

The Importance of Time Management for Financial Advisors

One of the monumental challenges financial advisors face in this business and especially the RIA space, is consistently making enough time for client meetings, prospects, administrative tasks, and everything else that needs to get done. So, without any doubt, a financial advisor’s most valuable resource is their time.

As an advisor, your time is worth $25 a minute. (Yes, you read that right.) For every minute you work, you could be making $25. But only when you are providing financial advice in client meetings and onboarding qualified prospects. That is the monetary value of your time.

We came to this figure after several practice management studies, seeing what successful financial advisors do with the time they have. And more importantly, we discovered what they don’t do with their time.

If your time is only worth that much when you are meeting with and talking to interested, qualified clients and prospects, what happens to derail that? Some might say compliance. Some of you will answer that it’s service issues. You’re all right. But it can be summed up as one thing. Your production ceiling is created by the non-sales tasks you are doing yourself. These cost you time which in turn can cost you money.

So, the first thing we tell any financial advisor who is looking to break through their production ceiling and get to the next level is this:

“DELEGATE ALL NON-SALES, NON-ADVICE DUTIES TO YOUR STAFF.”

And the second thing we tell them is this:

“ENSURE YOUR TEAM PROTECTS YOUR TIME.”

By study, interruptions can take as many as 23 minutes to refocus and return to a normal workflow. That means for every interruption, you lose $575 just trying to refocus, never mind the cost of the time the interruption takes for itself. (OUCH!)

To that end, interruptions need to be rare, which makes it your team’s job to protect your time.

So, how can you avoid unnecessary interruptions to ensure you meet the $25-a-minute baseline?

Two things.

The Model Day and Daily Planning.

Two Time Management Tips for Financial Advisors

1. The Model Day

To maximize your productivity, you need to follow our “Model Day Principles.” These principles are designed to help you manage your time effectively and ensure you are focusing on high-value activities.

1. Group Similar Actions: Always group similar actions and activities into their own blocks of time. This is called a “mini-day.”
2. Optimize Time Blocks: Always position each time block at the time of day when you are statistically most likely to be successful. (For example, make all your sales calls in the morning, usually between 8:00-10:00 am.)

By following these simple tricks, you can develop momentum and focus. Both things that you will not enjoy if your workday has no structure – or even the wrong structure.

2. Daily Planning

What should you cover in your daily planning session?

1. Appointments: Look at your appointments and client meetings for the next business day. Get any financial planning documents or reports sent to your team to collect and make available. Is there anything you can do for that particular meeting to make the experience great for the person you are meeting with? If so, get it prepared. This ensures nothing is left to the last minute and sets the tone for a great meeting.
2. Opportunities: Scan through your money opportunities list each day; you will find some inspiration on occasion. Maybe you read a report from your favorite economist the night before that would be perfect for that prospect with heavy exposure to senior loan funds.
3. Top Tier Clients: Look for things you can do to add to their client experience. Maybe you see a name you haven’t personally spoken to in a while (sign of a good team). You could include them in some of your proactive call time today. You might see a name or two where you get an idea of a “Wow” gift you could send as a “thinking about you” note.
4. Proactive Time: Every advisor should spend at least 20% of their week in proactive work. That could be rainmaking or better client experience work. Either way, take this allotted amount of time to plan activities that help further your business.
5. Checklist: How often in the last couple of weeks have you left for the day feeling like you were really busy, but can’t think through what it was you actually accomplished? If it has happened at all, it is probably because you don’t have a to-do list you can check off. So, as part of your daily planning, write down several things that need to be done. There is something powerful about checking things off. It removes that feeling of doing a lot but getting nothing done.

The hardest part of doing your daily planning is making it a habit. If you can push yourself to do it for three weeks straight, you will see and feel the benefit, especially when your $25-a-minute salary starts to show up in your paycheck.

Why Time Management Matters

Having a time management strategy is critical no matter the type of business you run as a financial advisor. Whether you are still running a transactional business, are a CFP and do full planning, or focus on the ultra-high net worth as a CPWA. It’s all about squeezing more time into your day that you spend in front of clients and prospects. It’s about working smarter, not harder. By adopting these time management techniques, you can reduce inefficiencies and create more time for business development, client service, and your personal life. Tools like CRM systems and automation software can significantly aid in this process.

According to numerous industry studies, the number one thing most financial advisors wish they had more of (besides assets, of course) is TIME.

Our own studies here at Bill Good Marketing show that you are worth at least $1,500/hour in gross revenue when meeting with and talking to top-tier clients and qualified prospective clients.

But how often do you spend meeting and talking with clients and prospects? Probably not nearly as much as you would like.

Fortunately, we’ve developed LOTS of simple ways to get more out of the time you already have. The Model Day Principles described above are some of the best, as they solve the problem of being pulled in dozens of different directions at once. But there are numerous other strategies that can help you create more time-savings to prospect, meet with clients, or do whatever else you want to do!

Learn more with our webinar: To dive deeper into these strategies, watch “Mastering Time Management” featuring our very own Sr. VP of Consulting and previous advisor, Matt Hicken.

The Bottom Line

Time management for financial advisors is not just a buzzword; it’s a necessity for anyone serious about growing their practice and enhancing their client experience. Implement these time management tips and watch your productivity soar. Whether it’s through better workflow management, leveraging team members, or using tools like Microsoft Teams and LinkedIn more effectively, you can achieve more in less time.

Bill Good Marketing – There’s a Reason Our Slogan is “Double Your Production or Work Half as Much.”

Back in the 1980s, we were the first – literally, the very first – to ever conduct studies on how advisors spent their time.

We were also the first to advocate the team concept, at a time when most advisors preferred to do everything by themselves.

And we were the ones who discovered that financial advisors are worth at least $1,500/hour in gross revenue when meeting with and talking to clients and prospects.

So if at any point in your career, you say to yourself:

• “I’d like to do more prospecting, but I just don’t have the time.”
• “I’d like to meet with clients more often, but I’m always too busy.”
• “I wish I could spend more time with my family/friends/on the golf course.”

Then, it’s worth looking at how our time management strategies can help you create more time, and our marketing strategies can optimize the time you have to double your production or work half as much. Whether it’s helping you build your team, improving your time management skills, or providing you with the tools, resources, and software to make the daily grind easier and more manageable, we can help you. We’ve helped thousands of others do it already. If you’d like to learn more about just how our team can help feel free to contact us!