Come Fly With Me

More than 25 years ago I was invited to ride in a friend’s helicopter, which he had to collect from a maintenance service and fly home. I had imagined that like driving a car, we would pitch up, get in, and fly back. What I had not expected was how much planning was involved by Roland. First, he plotted and charted a route home, marking landmarks, roads, railways, and other visual clues so that he would be “on track.” Second, he calculated the distance, the fuel, and the time points expected at each of the landmarks.

Before leaving the airfield he handed in his plan to the air traffic control tower so that it would have the route, the landmarks, and the timescale he had planned. This would allow the authorities to track our journey and know our anticipated timescales. Third, he spent a long time checking every possible mechanical aspect of the helicopter to ensure that we would have a safe trip back. Finally, he investigated weather forecasts to ensure that we would have a clear and safe journey. When I asked what would happen if bad weather was forecast, he was quite clear that we would need visual navigation and he would postpone the trip.

Eventually, we set off in a machine that he had checked and cross-checked and then recorded all of these checks on the log. We set off on a flight plan that he had created, with checkpoints to ensure that we would stay on route, according to our plan.

Once airborne, I had not planned that he would practice a routine called autorotation, in which the pilot turns the engine off, tilts the helicopter toward the ground, and hopes that the gravitational plummet will jump-start the engine. Neither did I know his plan consisted of “hedge hopping,” in which we careered across fields and then seemingly at the last minute “hopped” up and down over hedges, much as a hurdling racehorse would do. However, with my adrenalin racing and my breakfast somewhat nervous, I was becoming very impressed with Roland’s skills, and his confidence was inspiring to me.

All of a sudden, his big grin turned to a serious frown and the boisterous commentary stopped. Our visibility disappeared as we were shrouded in fog. There was no radar or autopilot; Roland’s only tool was his vision, and this had just been taken from him.

He said that he had to find his way around the fog. I asked if we could climb above it, but I think there were issues about the height he could fly, and if we went high, we might have encountered light aircraft, so this was not possible.

Roland measured on his altimeter how high we were, as we had lost all bearings and sense of direction, and he kept moving to what he thought and hoped would be the side of the fog. My memory is blurred as to how long we were in this unknown, unexpected, disoriented state. But seemingly, as soon as we were enveloped, we had our vision restored.

Roland did not panic; he took action and he stayed calm. He was much more serious and considered the now.

“What happens now?” I asked. “We have to find another route to get home,” he said. All his best-laid plans and expectations had been taken from him. We couldn’t exactly pull into the nearest fuel station and ask for directions.

We saw some road signs and worked out bearings and headed south, which was our plan. Roland decided to keep flying south until we came across the River Thames, which flows west to east through London. It is also one of the world’s busiest flight paths for Heathrow traffic, which is heavily regulated and monitored by air traffic controllers. We would have to fly low to stay below the aircraft-approved flight paths.

This to me was a wonderful journey-to see so many London landmarks from such a close bird’s-eye view. At that point in time we both lived near Greenwich, which is alongside the river (home to the meridian line and starting point of all time measurements). It was exciting to see our houses and local identifiable places.

Our journey was completed at Redhill Aerodrome. We had used a different route, with a different plan, and had arrived at a different time.

Roland and I both worked in sales within the financial services profession. This experience brought into sharp awareness some of the similarities with our job and the flight.

o There has to be a starting point, with an intention, a goal, or a target.

o There is a known destination. (This could be for a single meeting, a day’s intentions, a week, a month, or perhaps an annual target.) If our plan hits “fog,” can we navigate around it and stay calm in adversity and remain resolved to do whatever it takes to get to our destination?

o There is a timescale. How many months should we have in our annual target? If we haven’t achieved our targets toward the end of our year, is it okay to put the year back a little?

o Proper preparation prevents poor performance. Check the machinery of our business. These may be (a) our advisor skills, (b) the courses we attend to remain on top of our game, (c) our knowledge and readings to ensure that we remain current within our profession, (d) our IT equipment to ensure that we are maximizing the use of technology, and (e) defining that we have a process to check and record.

o Share the plan. Give the plan details to someone you trust, such as a fellow MDRT member, who will encourage you and not be a threat to you. This will make us accountable and give us the chance to check off milestones to ensure that we are on track.

Since that day I have flown on many airplane trips for holidays and business. I enjoy the metaphor of a flight and our MDRT success, and many analogies are interlinked reminders for us. So what follows are various reflections that I have made.

Our clients’ “journeys” are their own financial goals, aspirations, and dreams.

Mostly, from making a reservation to check-in to the flight to leaving a plane, it is a predictable experience. We know what we should expect from our selected airline. New things and changes in procedure and format may become very unsettling.

o Do we have all our work organized into processes?

o Do our clients know what to expect?

o Do we deliver a consistent and predictable client experience?

How are we judged and measured by our clients?

My father used to judge a restaurant by walking straight to the toilets, and if they were not clean, he would leave.

If we board a plane and our seating area is dirty and unclean, what message do we get? They have skipped their attention to detail, or their process has broken down. If the ground crew has skipped cleaning the inside–the place I can see, experience, and have a view on-I wonder whether this has happened to the mechanical servicing, which I can’t check. Should I be worried?

o When a client visits your office, or receives any communication from you, is it correct, and have you paid attention to the details?

o If a client is aware of errors on things that they do know, how are you looking after them with the stuff that they don’t know? Will this give them less confidence in you?

Dan Sullivan refers to this as “front stage” and “back stage.” Front stage is everything that the client experiences, and back stage is everything that needs to happen to produce an impressive front stage performance.

Always check your work, which represents you. Everything counts! A carpet fitter measures twice and cuts once; he can’t afford mistakes and neither can MDRT members.

No matter how crowded it is at the airport, there is plenty of room up in the sky.

There are millions of advisors scratching around on the ground and not knowing how to take off in their careers. The higher we fly, the more space there seems to be–and there doesn’t seem to be competition up there! MDRT members have stopped scratching on the ground and have learned to soar with eagles.

Sometimes the weather conditions on the ground at the airport are not nice, and we don’t want to start our journey. Sometimes we don’t want to make the calls and see the people, and our business feels covered in clouds. No matter how cloudy the weather is on the ground, once you break through the clouds and climb high enough, it is always sunny high up.

Do our perceptions of local weather ever limit our thinking and our desire to take off, or do we believe that the ceiling of clouds is just our imagination? As successful MDRT members, we believe in ourselves and focus on the sunshine that is beyond the clouds!

Small planes take small journeys, and the flight may not be so pleasant.

Small journeys can be undertaken on our own, but this can be a lot of responsibility and energy sapping and it takes us longer to achieve our goals.

If you want a big journey, then fly higher and farther and get a crew! Bigger journeys need co-pilots and support crew to take care of all the routine stuff. The pilot maintains responsibility, but he doesn’t fuel the plane, load the bags, and distribute the food and drinks; he just sits up front-and he has tools and instruments and copilots to help out.

o What could we delegate to others while we focus on safety and navigation toward our journey and at the same time provide an enjoyable client experience?

o Do we need to do everything in our business?

o Do we introduce all our support crew to our passengers?

o What routine aspects of our business could we “autopilot” and that do not require 100% hands-on by us?

There are strict aviation rules over pilots’ health. They have regular physicals, they have eye tests, they are not allowed to have any alcohol for eight hours prior to a flight, and they are granted rest after a flight. They are fit for their role!

o Do we always pitch up fresh, rested, concentrating, with our flight plans prepared? Or have we ever “winged it”?

Prior to every departure we receive a safety briefing from the airline’s crew. Even if we think we have heard it before, we are always reminded of the safety and emergency procedures for that flight.

o Do we always keep the risks that our clients take at the forefront of our presentations and ensure that they are understood?

o Do we explain all the risks each time: for example, the inflation risk, the investment risk of not diversifying appropriately, the currency risk, the risk of running out of money, the institutional risk?

This is what could happen, and this is what you need to do about it!

An interesting aspect of the safety brief is to take care of yourself before helping others. Can we hold ourselves up as perfect clients, before we invite our prospects and clients to entrust their lives to us? It is difficult to sell to others a greater value than we hold for ourselves, so why not plan to be your own best client?

o Are our own houses/cabins in perfect order?

o Do we have a will?

o Do we have sufficient life cover?

o Do we have disability cover?

o Do we have income protection?

o Are we saving short term and for retirement?

A further aspect of safety is peer review. Doors to manual and cross-check.

o Could any of our reports, plans, and thinking be improved further and enable us to remove potential error if a colleague did a cross-check for us before we tried it out on our clients?

o Have we forgotten anything, or taken anything for granted?

Many travellers are fearful of flying.

Many clients find our subjects of money, insurance, investments, and retirement planning very scary. What is normal to us fills many with dread, perhaps what it feels like to go to the dentist.

o What are we doing to provide an environment of confidence, reassurance, and perhaps even fun?

o Are we acknowledging their fear and working on our soft skills-our emotional intelligence-to minimize this perception?

o Learn about behavioral finance. Confront a fear and it goes away. Avoid a fear and it reappears. Be the advisor that took their fear away!

It is possibly true that for many people, they want the destination, not the journey, so our role is to make their “flight” as easy for them as possible.

o How attentive are we to delivering a smooth and relaxed journey while selling the benefits of the arrivals destination?

o Can we minimize the administration that we involve them in?

o Can we streamline their underwriting?

o Can we reassure them that they are in good hands and will arrive at their destination if they trust us and follow our instructions?