In The Game

Jordan recalls a situation he brought up with Sclafani. “A local radio station wanted us to do a weekly lunchtime financial show. We went through the process of looking at timeslots, meeting with the program manager, looking at cost structure, and talking about sponsorship.” Eventually, Jordan realized it wasn’t right for him or his business when he worked through it with Ray. “We’re not looking to cast the world’s largest net [to get] clients; we’re much more focused,” Jordan explains. “We focused on business expansion. I have numerous employees and now we’ve branched into eight different locations. A lot of it was managing people, managing growth, and managing client acquisition while still servicing existing clients.”

ClientWISE coaching engagements are at least six months long and include 20 coaching sessions. “We have a ClientWISE conference center and each client receives a confidential PIN number so they can call in,” Sclafani says. He also mentions that there’s a great deal of debate in the profession about whether to coach in person or over the phone, and notes that there’s plenty of research at the CEO level suggesting that face-to-face interaction is more effective, “but I think that can be distracting.” Sclafani blames it on the physical dynamic of connecting, shaking hands, looking around the client’s office, and noticing what each is wearing. “If you dial in, you have 50 minutes focusing on exactly what’s going on without these distractions,” he explains. “Our clients are paying us for results and a highly productive session.” Conducting sessions over the phone also helps ClientWISE retain better talent and not worry about shipping coaches all over the country, according to Sclafani.

Defining the Agenda

“Coaching may be the only time in an advisor’s day when he can pick his head up from the business and work on the business,” Gray says. “Most advisors are not good at picking their head up and working on the systems and their business and that’s what coaching is for.” Gray says that the meeting frequency will vary by client, but is usually around three 45-minute sessions each month. “Much of the time it’s over the phone because it’s easy for the advisor to close the door, tell their assistant they have a 90-minute call, and then talk to the coach for 50 minutes and spend 40 minutes doing some work.”

Keeling and Ray worked together for a full year. “Initially, there was a fairly long interview where Doug asked me a lot of questions about my business, where I wanted to go, what my strengths and weaknesses were, how I wanted to approach the business, what kind of clients I was looking for, etc.,” Keeling recalls. Based on that, the two had three coaching sessions a month for three or four months. “The first few were used to set up plans for the specific actions I could take. It was helpful because Doug had worked with other financial planners before and was more specific, throwing out ideas that worked with other people. It wasn’t all theoretical,” Keeling says.

According to Gray, most people will define their agenda with a coach, whether it includes bringing on an assistant, growing their assets by a specific number, or penetrating a new vertical market. “That series of initial conversations are about helping the advisor to get the tools that they need to get great, and then the advisor solves his own problems–that’s the distinction between coaches and consultants,” Gray points out. Keeling agrees, “It has been extremely helpful to me and I don’t think Doug necessarily told me anything that I didn’t intuitively know if I’d really thought about it. He was just reinforcing the things that I already knew that I was either suppressing or didn’t want to do. He got me to do things I knew I really needed to do but without his accountability, wouldn’t have done.”

For Keeling, it was about how to market without ads and seminars, but rather through contacts and other professionals. “We set up various game plans for how to do that. Once we had done that, each session was broken up into two parts: an accountability piece of ‘What did you do that you were supposed to do and what were the results, and why didn’t you do what you said you were going to do last time?’” notes Keeling. “Then the second half was setting up for the next week or two–what specific actions to take.” Keeling says the coaching sessions and preparation for the sessions added quite a bit of time to his work day. “I tended to do the work on certain days, like spending all of Friday afternoon working on the coaching stuff. It probably took about four hours or so a week, but it was very specific, targeted actions, not just floundering around. I accomplished quite a bit during that time.”

First-Rate Results

The shared characteristic in each advisor’s coaching success was motivation. Jordan’s firm revenue is up 10% from this time last year and he attributes the increase to his sense of purpose, as well as a coach that held him accountable. “Someone that clearly isn’t motivated can go out and get a coach, but may still be disappointed,” Jordan explains. “It’s like getting a personal trainer, but having no motivation to do the exercising–you won’t get results just because you have a trainer.” Jordan continues to work with Sclafani. In fact, Sclafani says that 92% of clients renew for an additional six months. “It’s a very high return on the investment; some renew three times,” he says. (For more on returns on investment, see the Compensation sidebar.)

Keeling points to motivation and accountability as well. “The hardest thing is that I was pushed out of my comfort zone on a lot of things, but it ended up being very worthwhile,” he says. His personal business is up 58% over last year. “I did one year with Doug and toward the end it was really more of a counseling session. He had gotten through to me on how to approach things and what to do,” he notes. “My hope is that I get to a point fairly soon where I need to look at some time organizational issues where I don’t have time to deal with all the business that’s coming in. We’re getting there, so I will look to be coached on that as well.” Gray says the average client sticks around for 18 months, and several have come back. “But coaching is about helping people get the tools they need and then have them leave us,” he says. “I encourage all your readers to really push for results. It’s not about a series of friendly conversations–it’s about results; it’s business,” Gray concludes.