Many advisory firm owners today want to grow at their maximum potential. But it takes a well-thought-out plan and carefully implemented process to create a successful business boost.
Let’s review the most fundamental — and thus most important — challenge for owner advisors striving for success time management. If you don’t master this first, nothing anyone can tell you about growing your business will be of help.
Time is the highest hurdle to growth. That’s because growing your firm means making good decisions, which take time to think through. By taking the time required, you will learn to deeply trust your decisions to run a business.
In my work with some of the top advisory business leaders, I’ve found the most successful of them don’t manage their time through a tracking system, or though unrealistic deadlines, agendas or long meetings.
Nor do they manage time by telling themselves they have to become morning people or by neglecting their families and working long hours. They manage their time well through good communication and by building trust: trust in themselves, their employees, partners, clients and the people at the institutions with which they do business.
The foundation of trust begins with mastering the these five simple communication techniques:
1. Set boundaries.
You can do this by using the word that starts with an “n” and ends with an “o.” This means you have to find the courage to be disliked, sometimes.
You can’t please everyone, so stop trying. To grow, you and the rest of the leaders in your organization have to stay focused on the most important priorities in your business and its growth. You can’t get derailed by people who “want” something from you.
The best way to remove all the distractions that take countless hours of time is simply to start saying “no.” Trust that you don’t have to give everything to everyone.
2. Look for solutions within what you already have.
The growth solutions you need, you already have. The “silver bullet” doesn’t exist.