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Financial Advisor Coaching.

• Want to increase income growth in your financial advisory practice?
• Feeling overwhelmed with ideas?
• Not sure where to turn or who to ask for help?

Hello, I am Suzanne Muusers. For the last 18 years I have been a financial advisor coach helping clients build a better business through branding, prospecting, and strategic business planning.

As a financial planner, growing your practice can be a confusing proposition. You’re an intelligent advisor (all those credentials you’ve earned didn’t come easy), but you may not have taken on the job of growing your firm wisely.

You may be growing the firm’s assets, but perhaps only through unsolicited client referrals, and with a slow growth rate at that (just imagine what could happen if you were growing intentionally!)

You’re the firm leader, yet delegating growth to your employees just doesn’t work. They don’t have the same buy-in that you do. They don’t enjoy the same rewards you do. It’s not their company.

You’re doing the investment management. You’re preparing the client review meeting documents. You’re doing the portfolio research. Who has time for strategic planning and business growth?

I know what you need.

• You want to start or build your business with professional guidance.
• You don’t want cookie-cutter solutions.
• You don’t want to look like other advisory firms.

What happens when you work with me?

• #1 Build your custom Brand.
• #2 Develop your Prospecting Strategies.
• #3 Implement Business Development Strategies.

What makes me different?

• Custom service: I offer custom solutions for your unique practice.
• Experience: I have been working with advisors since 2004.
• Me: You work with ME, not a subcontracted coach.
• Clients gain access to my Private Client Website with private content.

Why do most financial planners look the same?

• You’ve never invested in your business or personal Brand.
• You’ve never worked on your Value Proposition.
• You’re too involved in your business to see what I can see.

Do you run your practice like a business?

A professional financial planning practice is a well-oiled machine that runs efficiently, grows by providing excellent service to its clients, and generates more recurring revenue every year.

3 Strategies for growth:

1. Branding:

• Develop a brand that consistently attracts ideal clients.
• Differentiate your firm from thousands of others.
• Create your firm’s Value Proposition.
• Focus your practice on affluent niche markets.
• Showcase your Client Service Experience.

2. Prospecting:

• You will only grow if you learn to prospect effectively!
• Do you have a defined prospecting strategy?
• Did you know income growth without prospecting is difficult?
• Are you asking for the business or letting it walk out the door?
• Are you allowing fears and limiting beliefs to stop you?

3. Build a professional firm:

• Create job descriptions & an organizational chart.
• Find where your firm is inefficient.
• Develop a Junior Advisor and create a Succession Plan.
• Encourage your team to help you grow the firm.
• Support a positive work environment.
• Mentor and coach your best assets, your people.

When should Financial Planners hire a coach?

• When you need help growing your firm.
• When you’ve tried to “do it yourself” and it hasn’t worked.
• When you want to build a professional firm and delegate everything else.
• You’re thinking about a life-style practice based on an ideal work/life balance.
• You want to convert from a commission-based practice to an advice-based practice.
• When you want to develop key relationships with Centers of Influence.

I ask my clients to think about:

• • How many new clients have you brought in this year?
  • How did you acquire your clients in the past three years?
  • What is the lifetime value of one new client?
  • Are you adequately servicing the clients you already have?
  • Do you regularly receive high quality referrals?
  • What message do you need to attract new clients?
  • Do you have strong relationships with Centers of Influence?

As a financial planner, you may be knowledgeable about financial planning and investment management, but do you understand the factors that hold you back and keep you under-performing and under-earning?

Partnering with me as your financial advisor coach can help you make a plan to implement change in your firm step by step. My approach is custom to your needs. There are no cookie cutter solutions here.

Learn where you need to FOCUS.

According to recent study, advisory firms that focus on investments have an average annual pre-tax income of $279,000 versus $881,000 for firms that offer comprehensive wealth management with a team-based approach. Furthermore, there are 6.15 million households with over a million in investible financial assets – a market that is waiting for you to find them.

Learn key success strategies.

Wealth managers maintain contact with their best clients 15.4 times per year.* What strategy do you have in place to contact your clients? What success rituals do you use to stay on top?

Sixty-five percent of wealth managers ask clients for referrals regularly.* What strategy do you have in place to generate referrals?

Are you receiving professional referrals from CPA’s, Estate Planning Attorneys, and other professionals? Wealth managers say 81.9% of their non-client referrals come from these source*.
*(Dow Jones “Best Practices of Elite Advisors”)

Questions to ask before hiring your Financial Advisor Coach:

1. How long have you been coaching?

Coaching is a hot field right now. When I began coaching in 2004, I was one of the only coaches specializing in working ONLY with advisors. Now there are more coaches in this space. But how much experience do they really have? Generally nowhere near the experience I have in this field.

2. Who will be coaching me?

Corporate coaching companies will use a placement consultant trained in sales when they interview. They will push hard to get you as a client and then match you with a coach who may not have the experience to help you achieve your goals. When working with me, you get me as your coach.

3. What resources do you use?

Most “coaches” are not expertly trained and are really consultants who have decided to call themselves a coach because it is the “hot new field.” As such, they do not have the training and experience that I have had going back to 2004, and the resources I have developed and house on my Private Client Website.

4. How many advisors have you worked with?

Since coaching is a hot new trend, your coach may not have worked with many advisors. I have worked with 100’s of advisors since 2004 and my expertise speaks for itself.

5. What are your coaching fees?

Most corporate coaching companies have large marketing budgets and of course they pass on this cost to you. When you work with me, you are not paying this type of expense.

Coaching is an investment in YOU and your skills, and as such, you should do your due diligence when making your decision. Please keep these questions in mind when you are interviewing your coach.

As an investment manager, what’s your ideal business model?

I coach clients on many issues, one of them being their business model. There are many different types of business models, but what is most important is learning the most appropriate model for your practice! You may prefer not being the lone ranger. You may prefer becoming more streamlined and productive as part of a team. No matter your model, it may be necessary to adapt. Whether you are member of a Wirehouse team, an advisor who has decided to Go Independent, or a fee-only Registered Investment Advisor, coaching can help you think through the most important decisions for you.

Questions to ask yourself when considering your business model:

Are you an investment manager or portfolio manager? Are you an advisor to elite investors? Relationship manager to the affluent? An asset gatherer? A financial planner or per project planner? How do you want to spend your time?

Time, technology, freedom – becoming a virtual advisor

I encourage my clients to think outside the box when reinventing themselves and growing their revenue. This could mean many things to many people, but ultimately what I would like you to think about is any type of technology that can make your life easier.

Client Acquisition.

Are you utilizing the most current tools to get prospective clients into your sales funnel? Often, clients may not be ready to jump on board with you right away. They may want to research your ways of working with clients, your mission and vision, and your onboarding process. In other words, they could be ready to date your firm but not quite ready to get married. What are you doing to keep them in your funnel?

Time.

What could you do that would optimize your most precious resource, time? Are you using automated scheduling software to allow prospective clients to book their own introductory calls with your firm? Are you using Zapier to integrate and automate your processes such as Dropbox and Todoist? If you are spending too much time at the office, technology can give you freedom!

Client Meetings and Engagement – Zoom, WebEx, Go-to-meeting, Skype.

Do ALL your Client Review Meetings have to take place in person? Could you utilize Zoom to work with clients in many geographic regions outside your home state? Is there a procedure to follow for client meetings? What can you do here to improve? How are you engaging with your clients? Are you using Bonjoro to easily send video emails straight from your Iphone? Are you using Wealthbox CRM to manage your clients?

Processes and Procedures.

Are you running your business by the seat of your pants? If so, you may consider the need to document your processes and procedures. To create internal controls so that you know where an application is in the approval process; where money is in motion; how to make a trade; how employees are expected to perform; how to track prospects through the pipeline; and so much more!

Getting paid.

Are you charging for all your time? Or do you perform activities where you don’t get paid? Then do you wonder why you’re going home at 8pm? Well, it might be time to start charging for all your time! Can you bill for advice? Do you want subscription clients who pay a monthly fee for financial coaching? Are you using AdvicePay, a compliant payment processor for financial advisors?

Freedom.

Working ON your business will help you create the freedom you need to live a better life, one where you are NOT chained to a desk and you can work from anywhere. Most successful financial advisors know that working with an experienced coach can help them gain clients effectively, build processes and procedures, and create more time and freedom for what’s important in life.

I specialize in helping you attract your ideal clients through target marketing.

Check out my blog post series:

The Financial Advisor Ideal Client – Target Client – Niche Client – Blog Post Series