Speakers Bureau
Keynote and session speaking by international speakers
Norm Trainor, Yves Delvallet, George Hartman, Herb Koplowitz, and others.
We can speak on a number of topics including:
Practice Development
Top performing advisors build their business in a manner that gives them control over their income and quality of life. Practice development is the act of strategically building a business. The Business Builder model is the process through which you implement your strategy. The model consists of five phases:
- Mindset – unlocks the potential
- Target – identify the key steps in building your brand
- Engage – if you know how to open, you don’t have to close
- Commit – become a trusted advisor
- Expand – create client capital
In this presentation, we will examine how business owners can achieve new levels of profit and productivity, and redefine performance by implementing the Business Builder model.
The Entrepreneurial Challenge: Mastering the art of business
The foundation to practice development is business management. Business management, the act of working ‘on’ the business, is one of the key distinguishing characteristics of top advisors. By contrast, most advisors spend the bulk of their time working in their business, as opposed to on their business. While working in the business is a way to ensure revenue continues to flow, it’s not a growth strategy. Real growth comes from the effort of working on the business — strategic planning. However, the challenge to work on the business is so great that 80% to 90% of advisors don’t have the one key tool of strategic planning — a business plan. Our speaker will explore the essential ingredients of business management — defining the business, analyzing the current situation, creating objectives, developing effective strategies, and diagnosing problems. Our speaker will also pay particular attention to financial management, a much-neglected aspect of the advisor’s business. Here, we will explore how to create a successful business through the control of five essential levers:
- product mix
- average case size
- # of cases
- seasonality
- cyclicality
The Infinite Game
Most entrepreneurs play the finite game. They believe that there is only so much business; that they have to get it themselves; and that they cannot depend upon others. Many of them operate as a business of one, bumping up against a ceiling of complexity that limits how much they can produce. They think that in order to be more successful they have to carve out more of the pie. In this presentation, our speaker will explain that it’s not about getting a bigger piece of the pie; it’s about creating a bigger pie. Our speaker will show the attendees how they can break through their ceiling of complexity by redefining the game, and by harnessing the time/energy/creativity and intelligence of others. Ultimately, our speaker will illustrate the two key principles of playing the infinite game:
- Principle One: Optimize your business
- Principle Two: Leverage your business
The 8 Best Practices: increasing productivity by building a business
The world’s top financial advisors are not the world’s best salespeople - they are the world’s best entrepreneurs. Our speaker will explore how the paradigm has shifted in our industry over the last thirty years - from a sales paradigm in the 70s to a marketing paradigm in the 80s and ultimately to today's business paradigm. Today, being a great relationship builder is not enough. To be at the top today, you need to master the art of business. The 8 Best Practices provide the foundation for mastering the art of business and building a total practice. This is a practice that integrates four essential systems: business management, marketing, relationship management, and resource management. In this presentation, our speaker will delve into actual cases, exploring in-depth how various advisors have transformed their businesses by adopting The 8 Best Practices of High-Performing Advisors.
Succession Planning
With the average age of advisors in North America at 50, many of the advisors who have helped build their sponsoring organization are closing in on their retirement years. These advisors are looking to transition how they are doing business. Many want to choose how, when and with whom they will work while others intend to sell their business and retire fully. The challenge for these advisors, and for their sponsoring organization, is that many have no plan for how they will complete such a transition. They don’t clearly understand the issues and challenges they will face. Our speaker will explore the following areas and they can help solve the succession planning challenge:
- Creating a vision for the advisor’s life and business
- Finding a buyer/successor/partner
- Preparing the practice for transition and possible sale
- Valuing the practice
- Making a smooth transition, ensuring clients are well taken care of
The presentation will reflect the fact that succession is a two-way street. Obviously sellers cannot exist without buyers, and buyers have their own biases when it comes to the central issues in succession planning. Whether your advisors are selling or buying, understanding the other party’s needs will help them through a more satisfying transaction for all those concerned.
Cross-selling
Cross-selling isn’t an option anymore. Consolidation and convergence in the financial services industry have made cross-selling necessary for retaining your clients and keeping them away from your competitors ¾ who might not be other insurance professionals. The banks, the brokerage houses, the investment firms and planning houses want your clients. And those clients want one-stop shopping. Unfortunately, while many insurance advisors know what cross-selling is, many don’t practice it at all and few practice it effectively.
Our speaker will explore:
- The cross-selling process
- Specific strategies to develop and implement a cross-selling plan
- How to forecast the potential value of cross-selling
|
