3 Ways to Make your Practice Work for YOU So That YOU Can Create the Life You Want

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As an independent financial advisor, you are a business owner. You are in charge of your own income, production, and asset building. If not for your own efforts, you will have no income. Whether you know it or not, you are an entrepreneur!

Entrepreneurs tend to be risk-tolerant because starting a business is risky. Not everyone is cut out to be a business owner which is the biggest reason why so many advisors don’t make it. Leveraging your business skills will help you set up your ideal life.

Employees get a paycheck on a regular basis. Entrepreneurs get paid when they get new clients or when they finish a project. There’s a big difference. Being your own boss and creating a life of freedom is the paycheck entrepreneurs get and the reward for taking the business risk.

Many advisors don’t understand that they CAN create the life they want and they don’t understand what that would look like if they could. This article will explain how you can create the life you want and what that means for YOU.

You are the beneficiary of your hard work!

What does it mean to “create the life you want”?

Employees work nine to five. They have a boss who tells them what to do. Entrepreneurs create their own work hours and no one tells them what to do (except if they hire me as their Business Coach). A financial advisory practice doesn’t have to be managed in an office. Because you have taken the risk to start your practice, you get to call the shots. If you want to take a day off, you certainly can. If you want to work remotely, you can. If you want to take a month of vacation, you can figure out how to do it, with some creative thinking and organization.

How do you make your business work for you?

The first thing to do is to take an inventory of your skills. What do you do well? When you look at your typical week, what gives you the most pleasure? What parts of your duties give you a big headache? How can you delegate your headaches?

The second part of the equation is creating goals to grow your practice. Start with where you are now and figure out where you want to go. My most successful coaching clients are advisors who have created motivating business goals that move them forward enough so that they never take their eyes off of the end result.

The third part is what you get paid. You can’t create the life you want if you don’t have the income to support delegating your headaches. So let me ask you: Are you charging enough? What’s keeping you from increasing your fees? How can you overcome this? Are you being bold in your business and asking for what you want?

Create the life you want

In my affluent retail days, I was lucky enough to have a very successful, wealthy mentor who advised me to leverage my business to support the life I wanted. While your CPA or accountant won’t tell you this, because you have taken the risk to start your business, your business should support you in living a better life by helping support an improved lifestyle (provided you have the income to do this).

What does this mean?

You don’t have to accept the “business as usual” parameters placed on most professions. You can create periods of time where you are on “Work-cation.” Let’s say you want to take a month of vacation every July by renting a home in a vacation destination. With a little pre-planning you can do this!

Here’s what you need to do to create the life you want:

1. Follow the steps above to create a profitable, productive practice.
2. Set boundaries with clients and vendors that you will not be doing face to face meetings during the time you’ll be away.
3. Rent a home with an excellent internet connection in a beautiful location with a nice view.
4. Purchase a phone that works with VOIP (voice over internet protocol) that has a local phone number from your base location area (your clients never need to know that you’re out of the office unless you tell them).
5. Bring your laptop, ipad, and VOIP phone. Many of my clients have a mobile office and you can too.
6. Head off on your “Work-cation.” Take calls as necessary. Plan for down time to visit tourist spots and eat in trendy restaurants.
7. Enjoy your life. You only live once.

You are the entrepreneur in your business. you don’t have to accept business as usual. You can create the life you want. Plan for it. Look ahead. Never be satisfied with what you’ve got now until you create the life you want.

To further investigate creating the life you want, download my Marketing E-book for advisors.