From best to better: How to become an extraordinary producer

And that requires a change in behavior, to wit: focusing on skills and best practices that will enable you and supporting staff to grow professionally.

“All increases in production and all increases in efficiency, profit and client success derive from your ability to grow yourself and your supporting team,” said Sanborn. “If you don’t have a learning agenda, then you’re not committed to doing better.

“You have to always ask yourself, ‘What’s the one thing that will most impact my business and the success of my clients?’” he added. For many advisors, the missing element is an emotive one: elevating the client experience through the positive feelings it generates in the individual served.

To illustrate, Sanborn called to mind a salesperson who, stranded on a highway because her car needed servicing, faced a dilemma: whom to call using a cellphone that was nearly out of battery life. If she had called her client to reschedule their appointment, she would not have had enough power in the phone to call to a towing service. Conversely, a call to the latter would have left the former in the lurch.

Instead, she contacted the dealer representative who sold her the car. The rep rushed to meet her on the highway, gave her his cellphone to reschedule the client appointment and lent her his car while her vehicle was being serviced at the dealership. And before returning the car, he gave it a thorough washing.

It’s outstanding service like this, Sanborn said, that leads to happy and loyal clients — people who can be counted on to spread the good word about you to friends, family and colleagues.

How close are you to achieving such excellence in your practice? To make a proper assessment, said Sanborn, you need to ask clients these questions: (1) what do you like best about doing business with us? And (2) what do you tell others about us?

If the client has been extraordinarily well served, then praise and accolades will follow. And making just one client very happy can have an huge impact on an advisor whose practice is new or in a growing phase.

“Tell everyone on your team, ‘Do a good job for everyone, but find one person – one client – that you’ll do something extraordinary for,” said Sanborn.

“If you choose to live your life in an extraordinary manner, then you can shift your thinking and change your behavior,” he added. “But first you have to change what you think is possible. The next time someone asks you what is possible, you tell them anything is possible.”

“Why would you choose to be ordinary when extraordinary is within your grasp?” he continued.