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A Roadmap For Independent Financial AdvisorsTHRIVEHOW TOYOUR FINANCIALFUTURE-PROOFADVISORY FIRMAND RUN THINGSYOUR WAYCOLLIN GRANT

DisclaimerWhen future-proofing your business in a world of constant change, the Asset CEO™ principles do not guarantee success. It is impossible for me to know your personal situation and exactly what you’re doing. There are also times when external influences cause a company to run into diculties beyond its capability to cope. What these principles do guarantee is that you will have an ability to conduct your business in an appropriate manner and have an optimal result even in event of a business financial failure. You will get a life-time asset that will strive to constantly improve and advance the interests of all stakeholders of your organization in both the short and long-term.All my examples are for information purposes only. Always check with your individual company and compliance before doing anything I suggest.

Thrive - How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way By Collin Grantwww.TheAssetCEO.com© Copyright 2021 Collin Grant Produced and Printed by Lunch Break Books™54 W 40th StNew York, NY 10018www.LunchBreakBooks.comNo parts of this publication may be reproduced without written permission and correct attribution to the author of this book.For more information on Lunch Break Books visit www.LunchBreakBooks.com

“The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus.”Bruce Lee

5Thrive How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your WayCollin GrantCONTENTSIntroduction .................................................................................. 71. My Story, Your Story ......................................................92. Destroying the Myth ....................................................213. Establishing Your Firm’s Baseline: Quiz - How Future Prepared Are You? ...............................294. What Financial Advisory Firms of the Future Will Look Like .....................................................................375. Here’s Your GPS: A Simple 4-Step Plan to Take You from Here to There ......................................476. Who Will the Asset CEO System Work Forand What to Do Next ......................................................77About the Author ...................................................................... 81

“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” Winston Churchill

7INTRODUCTIONIn the early nineties, I found myself in a very similar position to the one you’re facing now in the financial services industry. Today, I’m going to introduce you to a simple methodology that will enable you to take control of your firm’s future.This methodology will help you unlock the full potential of the business you already have that you’ve worked so hard to build up over the years.It doesn’t require you to make broad-sweeping changes. Instead, the methodology builds on what you already have. It doesn’t force you to implement a brand new system of anything or give up any of your control.There is no risk or cost to you implementing this system. It does not require you to stop what you’re doing and start over.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way8Instead, it works on a process of incremental improvement to provide a sensible return on investment of your money and time. This isn’t about making a single wholesale change, and your team will not lose productivity as you transition—that’s key. It results in greater productivity immediately, because now you’re focused on doing the right activities.After talking with business owners over the past thirty-two years, what I’ve found is that most just don’t have the time to see past everyday problems and tap into the tremendous growth potential of their business.If you are interested to learn more about how the Asset CEO System works, read on. If you are a “quick-start” and want to jump ahead to test drive the system for your firm and create your “first CEO system asset” then turn to page 77.Coin Grant

9CHAPTER 1MY STORY, YOUR STORYA Panicked Industry, a Small Business Under Siege and the Birth of the Asset CEOI am not a financial advisor, nor have I ever owned a financial advisory firm.However, I have been through, and thrived through, everything you’re about to go through. It’s just that my Armageddon came twenty years ago. The only dierence is our industries. Mine, also heavily regulated, was the pharmaceutical industry.Like you, I had started my own business—an independent pharmacy—to have financial independence and freedom, and to ensure I never had to work again for “the man”.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way10It was the late 1980’s. My new bride, Lorraine, and I had just purchased a small family business from my father called Fyfe’s Friendly Pharmacy. The pharmacy was in Alberta, Canada, in a tiny town with a population of 4,200. The business had developed a solid reputation over the years, and my wife and I worked hard. We hired employees, made a good income (especially for a small town) and we created a happy life for ourselves. But, as time went on, we both started noticing big changes happening within our industry. The changes didn’t happen overnight but crept up slowly, in much the same way a frog doesn’t realize the temperature in a pot is gradually heating up until one day it does and by then, it’s usually too late. Here’s what happened:1. Competition skyrocketed. In our tiny town there were now five pharmacies, all serving the same miniscule population of 4,200 people. But, we also had big box stores moving in who wanted a piece of the action. Then, in much the same way big brokerage houses like Charles Schwartz is trying to lure away your clients, Walmart and Target were trying to lure away mine—and my employees. And, if that wasn’t enough competition, the number of internet pharmacies was also rising quickly.

11My Story, Your Story 2. Regulations and rules increased at an alarming rate. Government and industry watch dogs imposed compliance changes almost daily. It was so crazy. Rules seemed to change every time we looked at an industry bulletin. It seemed impossible to plan anything beyond a few weeks.3. Margins were slashed because of the big box stores’ pricing strategy. They chose rock bottom pricing as their strategy to attract customers. We knew we couldn’t survive going head-to-head with them in a price battle.4. We lost major revenue streams sometimes overnight with little warning. As the government started cutting its own budgets, some of our services were cancelled almost overnight, while others were significantly reduced.5. Consumer perception of the value of a pharmacist was rapidly diminishing as more generic o-the-shelf options became available. The cold reality was that a good plumber was making more per hour than the average pharmacist.6. The tallest tree must always fall. At the time, pharmacies were being pegged as a license to print money in many people’s minds. This was not a good position to be in. Every time we read or watched the news, it was in big bold headlines for everyone to see: “Pharmaceutical industry

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way12is ripping you o and stealing money right out of your wallet. This industry must be held more accountable.” Sound familiar?7. Pharmacy owners were rapidly losing the ability to fulfil the potential of a traditional pharmacy business.Tough TimesI remember having to kiss up to my bank account manager to re-mortgage our house so we could keep the business afloat. I had to sign personal guarantees. I drew on savings. This was not an experience I would wish on anyone. Interest rates at the time were floating between 12 and 19%. It was a very scary time.We wondered what we should do. Was this an industry even worth staying in?Lorraine was a pharmacist. It was her life’s calling and it had always been our dream to take her family business to the next level. So, we dug in. I vowed that I would never let outside forces ever take over our lives again.I knew we had to make a lot of changes—big changes. But where to start? Should I look at other independent pharmacy owners and see if I could identify best practices to adopt?

13My Story, Your Story It quickly became apparent this approach wouldn’t work. The problem was that none of my other colleagues in the pharmacy business were taking much notice. When I asked them what they were going to do, most shrugged and had no clue. Their plan—which was really no plan at all—was to keep on keeping on. Using Best Practices from Other IndustriesIt was around this time that I started getting very interested in marketing. I wanted to better understand what made successful businesses successful. I wanted fresh new ideas to try in our business, so I started following marketing experts like Dan Kennedy. Understanding the power of marketing was like unlocking a whole new world. It was fascinating to understand how something as simple as a direct mail campaign could almost double our company’s monthly revenue, even a bricks and mortar store in a tiny town like ours. It was also around this time that I realized we had an urgent need to add multiple revenue streams to our store. We couldn’t just rely on being a pharmacy, especially with the big industry changes that were coming down the line. Our pricing was being set and controlled by the government, and the compliance and paperwork aspects were growing in complexity and requiring more of our time, which was precious time taken away from our family.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way14My father had always told me I needed to develop assets. A business is the most valuable asset we have, because its money-making abilities are only limited by our own thinking. So I decided to try running our business dierently—as the asset it really was, instead of just as a vehicle I could get a paycheck from. So, I set about starting a process to run our business that would become the Asset CEO System.Here were my goals:1 Create a business that was self-managing. I wanted to be able to take every afternoon o to be there when the kids came home from school. I wanted a secure income, but one that would grow independently, without requiring our own sweat and tears. 2 I wanted to hire people who brought the best out of everyone who worked there, which in turn would give customers the best possible experience and would keep them coming back.So, taking best-of-the-best strategies from the ideas of other business owners in other industries, here’s what we did:1. We repositioned ourselves as a local-owned family store that included a pharmacy, instead of a pharmacy that also sold other stu. Our product

15My Story, Your Story range diversified into children’s toys, Christian books, gift cards—whatever our customers had been asking us for. However, we then found ourselves competing with the other local gift stores in Barrhead, and people began complaining that our prices were too high. We fixed that objection, not by dropping prices, but by implementing one of our projects (see below).2. We became an early adopter of one of the first inventory control systems in our industry when no one else was even entertaining the idea. This replaced thousands of dollars-worth of manual labor. We spent the time we’d saved developing new systems that would increase human interaction time. This added so much value in the eyes of our clients that no one in our industry could match us. Clients wanted to be lifelong patrons to our business (and it also helped the price objection to go away). 3. We then doubled down on our project eorts to increase the client experience along with our revenue streams. Here are a few example projects that were game changers:1) The VIP Smart Shopper Club – The objective behind this project was to make our clients feel like they were family. Our team loved this process, and clients naturally became evangelists without us asking them to be, because of the eort our team made to keep

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way16improving this system. We truly had everyone on our team truly wanting to make people feel and be part of our community, showing at deep level that we did care. This project gave the team a huge boost of positivity. The challenge of creating incredible experiences for our clients became top of mind for our team. They really felt they were making a dierence for others and improving their capabilities every day.2) The Thank You Club Project – it was so cool to get thank yous back for the thank yous we sent out. We had two binders (brag books) full of thank you notes that we strategically left in our waiting area. Clients were constantly reading through these binders and being reminded they were at the right place with their friends and family. I wish I could show you these binders. We left these brag books with the new owners when we sold the business (more on that later).3) Our Best Year Ever Project – As we developed into a stronger, more highly functioning team, I asked myself, “how cool would it be to lead our team on a path to double our profits in one year?” I made it my mission to have our team be laser focused on five key elements within this project. It was so successful we ended up redoubling our first year profits the following year, and again for a third year. This was all made

17My Story, Your Story possible by putting together what I had been working on for over 25 years. The foundation for the Asset CEO System was developed from this very challenge.4) Multiple Streams of Income Projects – Mini businesses within one main business. Knowledge of our customers at a deeper level (an asset) allowed us to expand our traditional pharmacy business (also an asset) and add what I called mini businesses (multiple streams of assets) within the main business. We had many stand-alone businesses within our building. We had a stationery and oce store, gift store, bookstore, health and wellness center, massage therapy service, coee and tea bar, veterinary supplies, full-service Post Oce, bottled water delivery service, as well as our core pharmacy. Some of these mini businesses stood the test of time and some didn’t. It was all about filling a void in our niche market and knowing when to fold the cards if we needed to move onto more profitable oerings. We live in a world of constant change. A system that can help you use the power of many assets to adapt to constant change is a powerful tool to have in your back pocket. The key driver to keeping all this under control was the Asset CEO System. It wouldn’t have been possible without it.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way18How Powerful Is This Method Today? Lorraine, my business partner, wife and mother of our kids often joked by asking, “What do you do in a day? It looks like you are having way too much fun at work.” I was always home in the afternoon to meet the kids from school. We took vacations that were three and four weeks long, multiple times a year. And our pharmacy business thrived so much that eight years ago we were tapped on the shoulder and bought out for a multi-seven figure deal by a pharmaceutical conglomerate.What Does This Have to Do with Your Financial Advisory Firm?As you can see, since the day I decided to shift gears to become an Asset CEO, and to develop our business by building more assets, the Asset CEO System became the focal point for getting more things done, for future-proofing our business, and for inspiring a team to want to work with us. In other words, it’s the reason we were able to survive and thrive in such drastic times.The Asset CEO System is a simple four-step system that can be applied by any business in any industry. But it’s particularly powerful when applied to a financial advisory firm because your industry, like ours was, is about to undergo a radical reinvention. You can do more than survive it: you can thrive through it. Together, we can make a dierence in so many ways.

19My Story, Your Story It is my hope that this book will serve as your GPS to navigate your future with confidence.Are you ready to get started? First, let’s clear the air…

21CHAPTER 2DESTROYING THE MYTH“You have to work harder to hold on to what you have.”How many times have you heard someone make that statement?In my experience, most business owners are really hard workers, especially those like you who have survived insurmountable odds to build a highly successful financial advisory firm that has grown and thrived over the years. I’m sure that you, like most business owners, have had to spend decades—maybe most of your lifetime—building your success, brick by brick.But to have achieved this, you probably also had to have given up something in your life that you paid a high cost for. Maybe you couldn’t spend as much time

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way22with your family as you wanted, or maybe your health and fitness has suered.In the present chaotic economic climate, it is not surprising so-called experts believe that the “hard work or lose everything” myth is true. It’s not their fault. It’s simply because that’s the way most people have been taught to run a business. Which brings us to an important question about your firm. Who runs who? Is Your Firm Working for You, Or Are You Working for It?I’d like to ask you a few simple questions.• How many hours do you work in an average week? Forty hours? Sixty hours? More?• What about weekends? Are you able to close your laptop on Friday afternoon and not check your email until Monday morning, without guilt or even a second thought? • How about text messages? Do you feel able to switch your phone o over the weekend, or do you feel pressure to always be available?• What about your free time? Is your golf handicap where you’d like it to be, and are you giving yourself enough vacation time—two, three or four week blocks at a time so you’re able to really unplug and not worry about things back at the oce?

23Destroying the Myth In my experience, most business owners work far too many hours. They don’t take enough vacations, they spend many nights worrying about their business and they sacrifice family time or things they love. This is all because they’ve been taught to run their business one way—as a business that they work for, and not as an asset they can leverage. It’s easy to understand why so many financial advisors feel like they’re running on a conveyor belt that’s going faster and faster. They haven’t been taught any other way to run their business. The default position to combat any threat to their income is to get through it by working harder.This strategy of doing more of the same may have worked great in the past, when changes happened gradually, almost in a linear fashion, enabling owners to dig in and respond by working through it. But this approach isn’t going to help you navigate the threats of the future. There are too many coming at you. Fortunately, there’s a much better way to succeed. Instead of treating your business as an asset you work for, treat it as an asset you manage. As an asset manager, you know better than anyone that the goal is to maximize the asset.Your business is quite likely the greatest money-making machine you own—your most valuable asset. By running your business as an asset rather than as a

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way24preferred method of getting a paycheck, it means that like any other asset, it can grow and multiply into a value building machine.Managing your business this way also provides certainty that you will be well equipped to navigate the future. Your business machine, instead of being on the back foot and reacting to changes, can predict future actions, needs and solutions, creating more assets for you and more certainty and control as time goes on.How can you achieve this?1. By changing the way you think about your business. You’re the owner, but no longer the engine of your firm’s operations. 2. Using one proven system to allow you to deflect all the chaos around running a business and the uncertainty of the future and make it orderly. This is where my system comes into play. It’s called, not surprisingly, the Asset CEO System, which I’ll be explaining here in a minute. 3. Transitioning your team to running your system using a decision-making process that frees you up from day-to-day tasks, empowers your sta to grow your asset for you, and enables you to increase your time and money ROI.This might sound complex, but it isn’t.

25Destroying the Myth In fact, your firm might already be very close to achieving this kind of operational breakthrough. You’re likely a lot closer than you think.For example, I’m sure you have some excellent ideas about how to improve the running of your business. What happens when you take a new idea to your team? I’ll tell you what typically happens. In my experience, the team sounds enthusiastic and may even take small initial steps towards implementation. But in a few weeks or a few months, the idea is forgotten because the team can’t, or for whatever reason doesn’t, continue to implement.The problem is that most businesses lack a system that enables the CEO to implement not just his own ideas, but also those of his team’s.The Asset CEO System is a simple four-step methodology that unlocks this hidden value and provides certainty and accountability with minimal involvement from you. If you can’t wait to learn more about the Asset CEO System (built on the same system as Amazon), then skip ahead to Chapter 5.Otherwise, if you’d prefer to get more clarity about your firm and some of the biggest future trends bearing down on the financial services industry, let’s keep going.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way26Let’s start by asking the big question—because, as they say, if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you arrive?What Profits Are You in Business For?Everyone has a dierent idea about profit. Some say profit is a better lifestyle, making more money, acquiring more wealth or getting more recognition. Unbelievably, there are still people who run a financial advisory firm who think that profit is simply the amount of money left over after they’ve deducted all their expenses (bless their souls). Profit is defined dierently by a wide range of people. To clarify, let’s use the definition of profit from the Random House Dictionary: 1. Financial Gain resulting from the use of capital in a transaction after all expenses are paid. 2. An advantage or benefit.Unlike most experts, I don’t beat about the bush. I emphasize that making a profit is the number one reason to be in business. Using the Asset CEO System, I’m going to show you how to save time, love going to work, play harder and make more profits.What could be better?

27Destroying the Myth To get started let’s do a quick quiz to gauge where your firm is at today—it’s readiness to meet the future and its ability to make you more and more profit, the less time you work in it.

29CHAPTER 3ESTABLISHING YOUR FIRM’S BASELINE – HOW FUTURE-READY IS YOUR FIRM? It’s no secret that today’s wage earner has a hard time achieving a work life balance. Just because you own your own business, don’t think you’re not a wage earner. All too often I see the CEO of a firm—the owner—busy doing work his employees should be doing. He has forgotten why he went into business in the first place.As I’ve already talked about, an owner’s time should be spent working on his or her business, not in it! Which leads us to the first question in our self-assessment quiz:

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way301. On a scale of 1-10, how burned out would you say you are? (1 = not burned out at all, 10 = I’m ready to quit)A recent survey of financial advisors by the Financial Planning Association found that advisors were even more stressed out than investors. When asked to evaluate the level of stress in their lives, 71% of advisors said they experience moderate (34%) or high negative stress (37%), compared to 63% of investors.What’s more, survey respondents felt their situation is getting worse. Twenty-eight percent of them said they were feeling higher stress than they did 12 months ago, and 44% are feeling more stress than they did five years ago. The main reasons cited for increased stress levels was fee compression, shrinking margins and increasing competition in the field. This brings us to question number two.2. On a scale of 1-10, how much have your client’s expectations changed over the past twenty-four months?While managing your clients’ portfolios may be a very straightforward process, managing their expectations can be much harder. As you know only too well, many clients have unrealistic expectations when it comes to investment returns and interest rates. Most financial advisors are very rational, analytical thinkers; however,

31Establishing Your Firm’s Baseline – How Future-Ready Is Your Firm? many client decisions are based on emotion, which creates friction. With the global pandemic, many advisors have found themselves playing the role of the psychologist to keep their clients calm and focused on a long-term strategy, instead of having short term knee jerk reactions to the media and stock market fluctuations. This in turn adds more pressure and stress, which then leads back to challenge number one—burn out. Sounding familiar?3. On a scale of 1-10, how robust is your firm’s hiring and team development programs, and do you have a succession plan in place?According to another study by the Financial Planning Association, 73% of financial advisors lack a formal succession plan. This means most advisors build a business and do a great job, but when it’s time to retire, or if someone passes away, either the business falls apart or they’re forced to sell. Neither of these outcomes are good for clients, but they’re especially bad for the advisors (and their families) who have spent a significant portion of their lives building their business asset then never get to realize its true value.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way324. On a Scale of 1-10, how dierent is your firm from your top three competitors?To put it bluntly, marketing to attract new clients is the most dicult it has ever been. As organic growth rates slow for the entire financial advisory industry, there aren’t as many “unattached” clients as there used to be. Further, as more and more advisors step up to deliver financial planning and wealth management services, being an experienced and credentialed advisor is no longer the dierentiator it once was. In turn, this slowing of advisor growth rates means the competition is fiercer than ever for the few new clients that are available, and for many firms, growth will only come at the direct “expense” of taking clients from competing firms. That’s dicult, since most advisors define their “dierentiators” in a substantively identical way. For example, “we provide customized, individualized financial advice, delivered by well-educated, highly credentialed advisors who have several decades of experience.”Doing customized financial planning as an experienced and educated advisor is no longer enough to be compelling to a prospective client, especially when trying to draw a client away from an existing advisor with similar experience and credentials. This puts greater pressure on advisors, which again leads to challenge number one—burn out.

33Establishing Your Firm’s Baseline – How Future-Ready Is Your Firm? But here’s the real reason, in my experience, most financial advisory firms struggle to dierentiate themselves.There are issues within their service model and the way their business is set up, as opposed to their marketing practices. This is often because they are so dedicated to serving their existing core clientele that they’re not appealing to new markets. That concludes our short quiz. Here’s the scoring guide:4-20: RED ZONE. No doubt there are many great things about your business, but today your firm is in the danger zone when it comes to being ready to meet future challenges. Don’t worry, you’re in the right place. The Asset CEO System can help you.21-30: ORANGE ZONE. You’re doing a lot of things right. Now it’s time to leverage what you’ve already built.31-40: GREEN ZONE. Bravo! You’re doing brilliantly. Now imagine being able to leverage everything you’ve created using business multipliers to ensure you’re right there at the forefront of your industry, forging your own path.How did you fare in the quiz? Did you get any a-ha moments when answering the questions above?

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way34Becoming an Asset CEO Is the Solution to All These Challenges Let’s Talk About LeverageI know you know what leverage is, but do you apply this principal to your business? We leverage time and energy by delegating routine tasks to our employees, but unfortunately, we often forget about leverage. We forget the real reason we went into business. We wanted the freedom of being our own boss. We get caught up in the daily grind.It’s time to change this.The Asset CEO System will show you how you can leverage all your time and money investment to date to maximize your happiness, and your profits in your business.We’re nearly ready to begin the Asset CEO System, but before we do, let’s examine what the financial advisory firm of the future will look like.

“Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life.” A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

37CHAPTER 4WHAT FINANCIAL ADVISORY FIRMS OF THE FUTURE WILL LOOK LIKEHave you ever stopped and wondered why small, independent financial firms might be headed for extinction? Some answers to this question can be found in the fact that our world seems to be turning upside down. Everywhere we look we see change. Politicians, big business, communism, inflation, interest rates, and our education system all influence the economy and therefore our lives.If they change, so must we.We must find new solutions to new situations. To find these solutions, we have to change our belief systems and our habits. This info-tech age can present you with a great opportunity if you prepare yourself for it.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way38Remember, the people who are willing to prepare for this change now will be in the driver’s seat of the future.Here are the four key changes brought about by the info-tech age that you need to prepare your firm now for:1. Robo investing and AI investment technology 2. The transference of wealth from Baby Boomers to Generation X and Millennials (those firms that predominantly serve current retirees are serving a shrinking client base) 3. The rise of the fiduciary. Heavy government regulation has been delayed, but it’s definitely coming4. 100% fee transparency. Firms will be forced to move to regular periodic retainers instead of commissionsWhen these trends take hold, we will see advisory firms divided into two main categories: 1. The transactional, volume driven, advisory firm. These firms will be forced to compete head-to-head with robo-advising. Robo advisors will follow very sophisticated strategies that employ a measure of judgment regarding buy and sell decisions. “Quality” financial planning will become available at no cost when financial technology’s use of artificial intelligence has evolved enough to accurately

39What Financial Advisory Firms of the Future Will Look Likepredict clients’ risk tolerance and time horizon and formulate an appropriate investment strategy. Clients will refuse to pay for advice and service that they “perceive” technology to do equally well. Firms made to compete with robo-advisors will also be forced into a volume-based model, having to serve even larger numbers of clients with razor thin margins to remain competitive and profitable. This is not where you want your firm to be. Fortunately, there remains a better, more profitable option. See below.2. The relationship-driven financial advisory firm that is “specialist” and will never be replaced by technology. This kind of financial advisory firm will oer its clients specialized services and a human-trust relationship that cannot be replaced. Clients will expect exceptional human service coupled with sound financial planning and strategy and will pay top dollar to receive it. The client base of this type of relationship-driven financial firm will comprise mostly the mass-auent and the ultra-auent—the cream of the industry. This division of businesses is exactly what happened to the pharmacy industry in the 1990s when it was going through the same changes you’re going through now.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way40I saw the writing on the wall with our own independent pharmacy and knew that continuing to follow a traditional business model wouldn’t be enough to ensure our survival. We had to find a way to build deep relationships with customers, and with our team, that couldn’t be replicated anywhere else. I realized it wouldn’t be possible unless I changed the way I managed my company, which meant in one sense letting go of the reins of the day-to-day operations. However, by doing so, I gained even greater control because it allowed us to focus on proactively building our competitive advantage instead of reacting to things happening to us.Already, we can see the kind of business division I discussed above, playing out in another large industry—real estate. Zillow, the online real estate marketplace, which attracts over 200 million unique views every month and grosses over 3 billion dollars in advertising dollars each year, disrupted the real estate industry in a massive way when it launched in 2006. How? By bringing unprecedented fee and data transparency to the process of buying and selling a house and enabling buyers and sellers to do their own market research. Instead of calling an agent and getting their “expert opinion” on what their home is worth, buyers can find

41What Financial Advisory Firms of the Future Will Look Likeit out for themselves in five seconds or less using Zillow to get access the exact same information, including recent sales, tax information, and even a complete sales history of a property. No agent is needed. But that’s not all. Today, people can even buy and sell houses using Zillow, for substantially less than using a real estate agent. No agent is needed at all. As a result, the traditional role of real estate agents is fast becoming extinct. I can get instant notifications of new listings on my phone from Zillow—far faster than an agent’s system can send it to me. Now, the same listing data on a property is as visible to me as it is to them. Where is the value in having an agent? That’s a great question. For many people, there IS no point to having a real estate agent. They’re getting a 3 or 6 percent commission for just what, exactly? In order to survive, many real estate agents are having to cut their commissions and compete head-to-head with what Zillow provides.That doesn’t mean the role of a real estate agent is extinct, it just means it is morphing. In my experience, there will always be a role for specialists—those people who are human relationship driven, who make life easy for their busy clients, who can trouble shoot closing and inspection issues, impart specialized local knowledge and recommendations that can’t be obtained online, and so on.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way42It is my prediction that the changes coming down the pike to the financial advisory industry will be more dramatic, and swifter than those already underway in the real estate industry.Which brings us back to your firm. How can we take your firm from here—where it is today—to the future?Any success in your business depends on you creating a strategy that works, so constantly remind yourself of these key principles:1. Your business is unique so don’t look like everyone else’s Your sta, your clients, your vendors, no matter how good or loyal they are, only care about one thing: how will this aect them? Need proof? If you use an outside agency to do your marketing—maybe they built your website or designed all your marketing collateral—go onto their website. Look at the other websites they’ve built for wealth management firms. How similar do they look? If you switched out the logo on your website and your photos, for one of their other clients in your industry, is there much dierence between that one and yours?2. Strive for excellence Everything can be improved. This is a mantra used by big profitable businesses every day. Always be on the look-out for areas of your business that need improvement.

43What Financial Advisory Firms of the Future Will Look Like3. What do you want out of your business? You must be clear about your objective. Are you looking to generate more income? An income stream to retire from? Do you want to build an asset you can sell? Do you want a business that can run without your day-to-day involvement, so you have more time for yourself and your family?Tomorrow’s financial advisory firm will be nimble, fast, and client-centric like never before. It will run circles around it’s bigger competitors in the process. Discover ways to meet client requirements through your business, and you will prosper.Are you ready to get your GPS?

“Long term consistency beats short term intensity”Bruce Lee

“Success is … knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others.” John C. Maxwell

47CHAPTER 5YOUR GPS - A SIMPLE 4-STEP METHODOLOGY TO TAKE YOU FROM HERE TO THERE(TRANSITIONING YOUR FIRM TO RUN THE ASSET CEO WAY)Do you feel like a firefighter some days? Running from fire to fire, not knowing what you’ve accomplished in a day? Every day just seems the same. The financial services industry has been almost foolproof in the past. However, with the changing times, and competition for new clients growing tougher, the financial advisor has to develop a new plan of attack.I’ve mentioned that Asset CEO System consists of just four simple steps. You might be wondering how four simple steps could make such a dierence in your

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way48business. The Asset CEO system is modeled on the same principal that Je Bezos used to build Amazon and still uses today.It’s based on the principal of a flywheel. The mechanical engineering definition of a flywheel is “a machine that increases momentum and builds up a reserve of energy and provides stability. It is dicult at first to start the momentum, but once it starts, it is easier to maintain that energy and rotation.”The key word here is stability.Below is a simple diagram of how Amazon’s flywheel works. You’ll notice that there are two intersecting “wheels” on Amazon’s flywheel. Each wheel powers the other, and each input—the lower cost structure, the lower prices, customer selection, etc.—powers the whole, making it easier to “turn the wheel”.These in turn provide a stable structure for Amazon to base its growth on. Not only that, but as each of these inputs is improved, so is the overall system, making it run more eectively, providing the business control and dependability.Amazon manages its business as an asset, using the flywheel process to make continual improvements that each time add more value to the overall business.

49Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to ThereUnder each input sits countless dierent systems that the business runs by.Every input is, of course, an asset of the business, just as each system comprising a small part of the input is an asset. Together, they form and power the flywheel using the collective energy of all the parts to create even more momentum and stability for the business. Applying this principal to your business is what I have been referring to as the Asset CEO System.Why do I call it the Asset CEO System?Because, first and foremost, it requires a mindset shift—from business owner to asset owner. As I’ve already talked about, most businesses are run as businesses, from the top down. They require large amounts of time invested by the CEO or business owner.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way50This is the most common way to run a business, but it is also the most antiquated. Using this traditional model, employees tend to be “busy” rather than productive. They act on orders from their managers or executives, sometimes adding value to these orders, sometimes not.A more ecient way to run a business is to manage it as an asset—a simple tool you can leverage to help you achieve the vision for your life—not as a job.When you run your business as an asset, your role as the business owner becomes more strategic and less operational. Yet, you remain in full control, because you have a set of systems in place to create your flywheel, which in turn empowers your sta, increases productivity, delivers a higher level of service to the client, creating stability and more forward momentum for your firm. Here’s how it works:

51Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to ThereAt the center of your flywheel is exceptional client service. Every component of your system has the singular purpose of improving client experience in some way.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way52This makes sense for two reasons:Reason #1: Powering Your Referral Engine and Maximizing Your Client BaseYour industry is taught to keep chasing new business, placing marketing and lead generation at the forefront of your activities. But the reality is that your own client list is quite possibly your most underleveraged marketing asset. You no doubt already receive regular referrals, but what would it mean for your business if you doubled or tripled your client referral rate? Referrals from existing clients are the best kinds of new clients to have, because they arrive at your firm presold, almost ready to be signed on as a new client. No selling is required. In my experience, you can leverage more new business from your current client database by turning existing clients into champion clients, meaning they are “super referrers”. I had no choice but to do this with my bricks and mortar pharmacy store because we were operating in a tiny and hypercompetitive market. It was in a town of just over 4000 people. Not only that but we had five direct competitors and multiple big stores within easy driving distance. The only way to ensure our business would

53Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to Theresurvive and thrive was to create systems that turned regular, run-of-the-mill customers into champion clients. But that’s not all. When I attend industry conferences and I hear business owners chatting among themselves about growing their business, I hear this all the time: “Oh, I just have to take care of my best clients.” Well, what about all the other clients they have? Their other clients could become their best clients if they had a system in place to nurture them. Your typical sales training never teaches this. It tells you to skip over your smaller clients and focus only on the “cream” of your client list. But if you do this, you are leaving a lot of money on the table! These people are already your clients. You already have a trusted relationship with them. They could, with the right nurturing, entrust more of their assets to your care, or they could turn into their own referral engine for your firm.Reason #2: Creating Your Competitive AdvantageShifting your firm’s focus from new client acquisition to client care above their expectations now, also solves your dierentiation crisis discussed earlier, and provides your firm with a true competitive advantage.If you doubt the power of exceptional service to create a true competitive advantage, think back to the last

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way54time you really had a company you trusted go above and beyond your expectations. If something springs to mind, that’s great. It’s a rare occurrence because usually our experience is to prepare for disappointment at some level—the contractor who leaves a mess behind him, the attorney who over-charges and doesn’t seem to do much, the fine-dining restaurant with lack-luster service. We are inundated with poor experiences.According to Investopedia, here are the top complaints made about financial advisors:• Financial advisors don’t explain the investment products they’re selling to their client in enough detail.• Financial advisors sell investment products through which they earn a high commission, even though they understand there may be better products for their client.• Poor customer service and long delays in returning calls and emails. • Putting their own wants and needs above their client’s needs. • Investment churn––buying and selling investments in an excessive manner that results in commission.• Promising unreasonable rates of return. I hope you can see how big an opportunity there is for your firm to excel in the area of client service.

55Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to ThereSo, now that you understand the principals behind the Asset CEO System, let’s look further into the four operational aspects of the flywheel, and what implementing them could mean for your firm.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way56Your 3 Strategy PillarsIn looking at the Asset CEO Flywheel, what are the three main areas you should be focusing your attention on? These three pillars will ensure you are focusing your attention, time and resources on the right things:1) Business building2) Operational excellence3) Financial eciencyBusiness Building – this is everything related to your marketing activities—what your firm does to attract, convert and retain new clients. Does your firm get lots of anxious calls from clients about the share market’s volatile swings? If so, a good project to incorporate might be to hold a short webinar to educate them (and reassure them). This project could do double duty by helping you retain existing clients and attract new clients.Operational Excellence – I define this as any project that helps your business run more smoothly. It could mean systematizing certain key aspects of a person’s job so that it’s clearly documented (see my discussion on playbooks below), providing them with clear guidelines and building an asset for your firm at the same time. If the employee leaves, you’ll have a playbook a new starter can use to get up to speed.

57Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to ThereFinancial Eciency – this refers to any key initiatives that help your business run by the numbers. Projects like calculating and improving the financial profit per employee, increasing average revenue per client and so on.So far, this isn’t exactly rocket science, right? The beauty of this system—simplicity and adaptability—is being able to meet your business wherever you’re at.Now let’s move onto discussing the four “gears” of your flywheel system.Gear ONE: The Asset MaximizerThis step is all about identifying and leveraging the assets you have already accumulated in your business.Examples of assets are:• Your client list• Your team• Your own internal processes and procedures• Your relationships with key people in the community• Your vendorsWhen I do this part of the exercise with my coaching students, most can quickly and easily identify an inventory of at least twenty dierent assets they already have working for them.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way58Identification is the first step, and prioritizing their importance is the second. This is where your strategic thinking comes into play because your priorities are going to be very dierent from anyone else’s. No one has the team that you do. And no one has the client list you do. Chances are, you also operate in a very dierent market and face unique opportunities and challenges.Becoming clear about what your assets are, then prioritizing them is critical. This is the first step in creating an Asset CEO Flywheel for your firm. Remember, no two flywheels are the same. Curious about what your Asset CEO Flywheel could look like? I’ll help you create your own for free so you can test drive the Asset CEO System and decide if it’s right for your firm. (But more about that later).Setting Up Your Business For the Best Year EverOn we go to the second gear.Gear TWO: Multiplying Your AssetsStep two of the Asset CEO flywheel focuses on identifying asset multipliers in your business and creating an environment that enables them to expand—namely, putting in place projects in “a fully supported environment.” I’ll get to what I mean by fully supported environment in a minute.

59Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to ThereLet’s talk about your most vital business assets—which also happen to be the most under-leveraged. Your team.What often happens in a traditional business model is the team players believe busy work is what will score them points. But that’s not what’s best for you as a business owner. You want your team to focus on the key projects and parts of your operation that are going to drive your business forward.Maybe your firm has hit a ceiling and is “stuck”.Maybe you take new projects to your team, and they sound excited about doing them, but then… nothing happens because there’s no system to support them.The Asset CEO Flywheel method changes that.By getting your team to shift their focus to the Asset CEO Flywheel methodology (which they are now an integral part of), their core focus shifts to always looking at improving the system.And conversely, when something in the business doesn’t go as planned, there are no fingers pointed because it highlights a “system failure” that needs to be fixed.Do you see how this shift of focus can dramatically increase your team’s productivity (and happiness)? We haven’t even scratched the surface yet.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way60Introducing Playbooks to Your BusinessI spoke earlier about creating a “fully supported environment” for your team to implement their projects in. Each project that they do is a system. It has a Playbook of how the project is initiated, managed, and improved upon. The team members create their own Playbooks for each project, which in turn creates more assets for your firm, which add to the forward momentum of your flywheel.When you have an employee leave, now there is a system in place that can enable the next person to get up and running in no time, potentially improving the old system, thereby increasing the momentum of your flywheel, and increasing the value of your asset—your business. This approach resonates with the team, makes the players feel more useful, encouraging them to do better for themselves, to feel appreciated and become more productive for your company, which in time many start to view as “their company”.Now, you might be thinking, Playbooks sound big and dicult and cumbersome. A Playbook could be something as simple as a three-ring binder that contains a couple sheets of paper in it. Or it could be a simple digitized document that is housed in a productivity app. Your Asset flywheel is made up of a series of systems within systems. Every repetitive task in your firm is

61Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to Thereturned into a system and is documented—not by you, but by your team. What if your key employee retires, or goes on maternity leave, or leaves to work for one of your competitors? (The latter happened to my business because they left for more money, but it didn’t happen very often. Of those who did leave, over 50 per cent returned because they found the new job unfulfilling, and they were even happy to go back to their old pay level.) What if the person who runs your firm’s marketing suddenly gets sick and has to go on extended leave? No problem to any of these situations. The Playbooks save the day.As I’ve said before, the great thing is that YOU don’t have to create the Playbooks. Your team create their own Playbooks as part of their buy-in to the flywheel system and helping you run it. We have a simple course that teaches your team how to create the playbooks for their jobs and their projects to best support you. So, to recap, you have three strategic pillars on which you’re now focusing your time and attention:1) Business building2) Operational excellence3) Financial eciency

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way62You’ve identified your existing assets; you’ve identified projects to maximize those assets and build new assets. (The next gear in building your flywheel—Gear 3—shows you how to do this in a very simple and achievable way.)Your team understand the importance of the flywheel and love the idea of running the business on systems, because it provides them with more freedom and autonomy and responsibility—something almost unheard of in the modern workplace. All the while, these systems are giving you more control over your business than ever—no more old-school style, top-down management.But here’s another big benefit: having your own Flywheel System in place means you no longer have to hire for experience.When I started running my pharmacy business as an asset and started using the flywheel concept, my team experienced a major shift. Those who understood it, embraced it and made the system their own.There were a few who didn’t get it. They weren’t invested in doing their jobs to the best of their abilities and were far more interested in just clock watching and collecting a paycheck. I realized later that these same employees who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—transition to the flywheel way of running a business, would have left anyway.

63Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to ThereSome simply didn’t have the right attitude. I let these people go, which was in both my interest and theirs. This freed me up to find better people, which now was a lot easier thanks to the Asset CEO System, because I no longer had to hire for experience.The number one thing I hear when people are trying to hire people, is that they want people with experience. That’s fine if you can find them, but they’re going to cost you a lot more to hire. And it means your firm is going to have to pay higher salaries to attract them in the first place—and to keep them.What if you had a system in place that attracted good people to you in the first place, not because they had the experience, but because they admired your business and were eager to work for it? Your flywheel system attracts them, and then takes these eager hires and trains them from within, giving them a job with purpose and a level of autonomy they can’t get elsewhere.Working with Millennials – Made EasyMillennials grew up in a totally dierent education system than any of us who are over the age of 40. They’ve typically been in school till the age of 25 or 27. Most of us went to work while we were still in high school and worked our way through college. Broadly speaking, Millennials haven’t had this kind of upbringing, and they’ve been protected from working because

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way64their education was given a much more singular focus. As a result, they’ve been completely enclosed in an education system until their mid-twenties and have come to the workforce with very little real-life work experience, but they have tons of theory and new ideas. If you have any millennials on your team (or have had), then maybe you can relate to what I’m saying.They require a very dierent style of management and a large degree of autonomy (within reason) to get the most out of them. They are used to following systems because that’s how they graduated school and ended up in the workforce. They like seeing results instantly, and they’re focused on continual improvement—of themselves and their work environment. That’s why the Asset CEO System works so well for them. Businesses can often make the mistake of always looking for people with experience when maybe we need to be looking for people who have the right attitude. My first goal when hiring someone, is to find out if they can follow a system. If they can, and they have the kind of attitude that we’re looking for, we can hire someone at a lower salary and develop them using the Asset CEO System.This brings us to the third gear of the Asset CEO Flywheel.

65Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to ThereGear THREE: The Simplified Operations ExpanderGear Three is where all the fun happens. Your team is now simplifying operations so that they can build and compound. This is not about making widespread wholesale changes—throwing out what you have already built and starting over. It’s about taking your business where it’s at today and making it better by leveraging the principal of marginal gains. Let me explain by telling a true story.The British Cycling Team StoryWhen Sir Dave Brailsford became Head of British Cycling in 2002, the team had almost no record of success. British Cycling had only won a single gold medal in its 76-year history. That quickly changed under Sir Dave’s leadership. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his team won seven out of 10 gold medals available in track cycling, and they matched that achievement at the London Olympics four years later. How did he achieve this? Brailsford, a former professional cycler who holds an MBA, applied a theory of marginal gains to cycling. Aiming for gold was too daunting, but he was fascinated by Kaizen, and the study of other process-improvement techniques. So instead of thinking big, he thought small, by adopting

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way66a philosophy of continuous improvement through the aggregation of marginal gains. It wasn’t about focusing on perfection, but about focusing on progression and making small improvements that would have a compounding eect.He reasoned that if the team broke down everything, they could think of that goes into competing on a bike, and then improved each element by 1%, they would achieve a significant aggregated increase in performance.For example, by analyzing the mechanics area in the team truck, he discovered that dust was accumulating on the floor, undermining bike maintenance. So, he painted the floor white to spot any impurities. He hired a surgeon to teach his athletes about proper handwashing to avoid illnesses during competition. (His team decided not to shake hands during the Olympics.) He had his athletes bring their own mattresses and pillows so they could sleep in the same posture every night. He and his team searched for small improvements everywhere and found countless opportunities. Taken together, they created a significant competitive advantage.The Asset CEO System is all about helping your team implement a system that fosters continuous improvement. But the important thing to know is this: 1% better each day, compounded, is 3,800% better each year. 1% worse each day, compounded, means you lose 97% of your value each year. That’s a big dierence.

67Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to There“Perhaps the most powerful benefit is that this approach creates a contagious enthusiasm. Everyone starts looking for ways to improve. There’s something inherently rewarding about identifying marginal gains. People want to identify opportunities and share them with the group. Our team became a very positive place to be….If everyone is committed, in my experience it removes the fear of being singled out — there’s mutual accountability, which is the basis of great teamwork.” – Dave Brailsford

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way68The Asset CEO System increases the intensity of doing the right activities. As the owner, you don’t lose control because you’re in control of the focus. You can see where the decisions are being made, what metrics are changing, and you’re building on your team’s individual strengths and your firms unique strengths. Everybody has a sense of family because they’re all now pulling in the same direction. But, it’s not just about building the assets of your team and your firm. What about your outside assets—your relationships with your vendors and suppliers? How can you leverage these assets to work as profit multipliers?Maybe you’re aliated with a mutual fund company. You can team up with them and come up with ideas about how to maximize the relationship. I did that with my suppliers all the time. Here’s the first question that came out of my mouth to most of them: “How can you help my business?” “Well, I don’t really know how,” is what most of them replied.So, I would say, “Well, what if, instead of us spending an hour or two discussing products when you next visit, we go for lunch instead, and you show me the order that in your opinion would make me the most profit?” It changed the whole game. Suddenly, that guy was responsible for everything he sold me, because he knew if it didn’t sell, I didn’t want extra inventory hanging around.

69Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to ThereBy putting the onus back on the supplier, it made him truly consider what he was recommending and turned him into a multiplier. I didn’t look at suppliers as just people pitching me, trying to sell stu. I said, “No, you’re going to have this square footage of my business. And then you’re going to tell me how we’re going to make money with it.”That took business to the next level, and I had one of my team players oversee this as part of their job. They got to go for lunch with the guy. it was a reward for my team player too. So, I made them part of the success program. That’s the power of this system.Leveraging Your Team’s Unique AbilityOne of the key aspects of the Asset CEO System is that you’re building momentum using the strengths of your team players. All of us have what one of my coaches, Dan Sullivan, calls a “Unique Ability”. That is, something we are naturally good at and love to do. For some people it might be poring over financial statements and focusing on the tiniest of details, while for others it’s talking to people and interacting, so their unique ability would be something best suited to customer and client service. Some are much more strategic and greater with the big picture, but not as great at implementing. Conversely, others love implementing, but don’t ask them to think big picture—their brains are just not hardwired that way.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way70When we leverage the natural skills of our team, two things happen. Productivity shoots up because now they’re focused on doing work they love to do, that they are great at, and secondly, they’re happier. Can your team be asked to do tasks that are not part of their unique ability? Yes, they can, and with training they can be decent at it, but this isn’t going to maximize productivity at your firm or their happiness with their work.I have a method we use to identify what everyone’s unique ability is. It’s a simple test for which there are no wrong or right answers. At the end, you find out what areas are your strongest, which ones you’re ok at, and which are not your strong areas. This information is so powerful for building a team, and when used to build your Asset CEO System around, it’s another multiplier for your business.Coaching, Not DelegatingManaging your firm, the Asset CEO way also means you are moving away from a top-down delegation model to that of a coach—a much more collaborative operations model. It’s about creating momentum with the strengths of your team players, where you look at the unique ability of the individual first, and then look at what you want to accomplish as a team second. This doesn’t mean delegating task lists.

71Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to ThereWhen you manage your team—or coach them as I prefer to now call it—if you can let your team player have and own an idea, it’s so much more powerful. Now, they have real ownership of it. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lot of other work to be done, but what you’re trying to do in building this flywheel is have them be part of the solution. And that comes from coaching, not delegating. Now, in case you’re thinking to yourself, “I’m a CEO, not a coach. That’s not MY unique ability.” Don’t worry. You’re ready to shift up into fourth gear where you’ll learn how to replace yourself as coach and automate the day-today running of your flywheel. Gear FOUR: Automating Your Flywheel – Creating Exponential Leverage with a Miracle EmployeeThis gear is about letting the system do the work for you. This is going to be perhaps the most exciting stage of all, now you’ve created this powerful wheel that’s starting to turn. You’ve identified your key strategic projects, prioritized them, taken inventory of your team and their unique abilities. They’ve learned the power of the Asset CEO System and have started creating their own value-add projects as well as run with the ones you’ve prioritized for the firm. Things are starting to move.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way72You’re focusing on your three strategic pillars, and now you just need to guide the projects of your team. And I mean guide them. You don’t steer them. So now, how do you keep the wheel turning with less and less involvement from you? You’ll notice that the Asset CEO Flywheel system is made up of two separate systems, or wheels. The first wheel is what I call the Strategy Wheel, and this is where your focus lies.The second wheel is called The Input Track, where you add inputs (people, projects, etc.) to create more assets using the four gears.You’ll see that there is an overlap section between the two wheels. This meeting of the wheels is where the person called The Miracle Coach sits.

73Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to There

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way74What Is the Role of a Miracle Coach?A Miracle Coach is the person in your organization who helps guide and manage your team in the day-to-day operations of your flywheel. They assist in helping pull together playbooks, strategize about the best way to approach a new project, come up with new ideas and improvements and motivating the team. In the same way a sports coach motivates and brings out the best in his or her team players, the Miracle Coach does the same for your business team. They act as the spark plug of the engine, communicating, and ensuring both wheels are kept on track.The important thing here is that you are not relinquishing control to this person. You’re just delegating the operation of the flywheel to them. There’s a big dierence.Some CEOs are naturally gifted at team building. They love developing people and guiding them. But for anyone who doesn’t enjoy this kind of nurturing role, the next level of the Asset CEO System is to identify and develop your Miracle Coach. All business owners can be this person at the beginning, just to get things going, but then you either promote from within the skill set of your existing team (if you have someone with that skillset) or find the right person to fit that role.

75Your GPS - A Simple 4-Step Methodology to Take You from Here to ThereHow Do You Find a Miracle Coach? You Might Have One Already Hiding in Plain Sight.Perhaps you already have someone on your team who you know would be a great Miracle Coach? If you don’t, don’t worry. I have the tools to help you identify one, develop one or recruit one. Or I can even do it for you in the short term to get things going and help you find one in the process. We also have a support network for Miracle Coaches to help them become more productive and ecient, to help get them up to speed quickly, and save you time.Here is the key question to ask yourself about a prospective Miracle Coach:If you owned your favorite football team or hockey team, what attributes would you look for in a new coach to help build the team into a powerhouse using today’s new athletes?We’re nearly there. There’s just one question remaining.

77CHAPTER 6WHO WILL THE ASSET CEO SYSTEM WORK FOR AND WHAT TO DO NEXTSo, who will this methodology work for, and will it work for your firm? I can answer the first question but not the second. You should be free to make up your own mind about that.But here’s what I can tell you. If you have two or more of the following factors, you’ve likely hit the ceiling of how you’re managing your business, and the future is very likely going to be a rocky ride:1. You’ve hit a wall with the growth of your business2. You feel your business is controlling you3. You don’t have the time or freedom to do what you want when you want to

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way784. You feel it is seemingly harder to be motivated at the level you are at, and you’re used to operating5. You’re tired of how you’re running your firm day in and day out and are feeling burnt out 6. You’re concerned with the competition stealing more of your business or that not enough new business is coming your way7. You feel your new, younger hires are not working out the way you had hoped, or you’re just having a hard time hiring good people8. You’re worried about your firm’s ability to navigate the future and being replaced by technologyLet’s Set Your Business Up For The Best Year Ever.Attending a Live Masterclass Training with Me Together, we’ll design your own flywheel—the first asset of many to be created for your business using the Asset CEO System.During the Masterclass, we explore the fundamentals of how to make the flywheel work in your firm (remember, no two are exactly alike). By the end, you’ll get a good feel if this system is right for you or not. At this point, you can decide to either take your flywheel and implement it on your own, or continue with more

79Who Will the Asset CEO System Work For and What to Do Nextsupported training and get our help in implementing it. The program has four more sessions, plus we have a separate program to train and manage your Miracle Employee, if you need it.Is this system right for you? I don’t know. But it was right for me and for the hundreds of other business owners who have implemented it and are now free from the day-to-day operations of running their business. Register to attend a free Master Class training with me and create your own Asset CEO Flywheel. Just visit the website below to claim your seat.www.TheAssetCEO.comThis leads into my next question: “What assets are you and your team going to want to start building today?”Go for it! Never look back.How could you have me on your team?Or better yet, can you create an asset that would replace me on your team? (Now, you’re getting the picture!)Take control of your firm’s future today – look forward to seeing you at my Master Class.

“Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.”William A. Ward

81ABOUT THE AUTHORCollin Grant is an entrepreneur and business coach whose original bricks and mortar store, Fyfe’s Friendly Pharmacy, defied all odds to become a multi-million dollar enterprise in a town of just 4,300 people. With five direct competitors and nearby big-box stores grabbing market share, Grant’s business thrived for over three decades despite heavy government regulation, fierce price competition and declining industry margins. His secret? Charging higher prices and engendering extreme customer loyalty using a process called The Asset CEO System. In 2015, Grant sold Fyfe’s Friendly Pharmacy to a pharmacy conglomerate, who chose to run it “traditionally,” eliminating his systems and cutting costs. Within three years, the pharmacy closed for good, and today, six years later Grant’s old customers and sta still lament his exit from the business.

How To Future-Proof Your Financial Advisory Firm And Run Things Your Way82Collin Grant is a contributing writer to multiple trade magazines and has written three industry-specific books. His no-nonsense approach to helping business owners future proof their company and make it run by the numbers is rooted in his own “in-the-trenches” experience using strategies he shares with financial advisory firms, veterinary practices, independent pharmacy companies, and numerous other small businesses throughout North America.www.TheAssetCEO.com“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” Ralph Nader

“All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.” Michael John Bobak