Tip of the Month Newsletter December, 2007 In this issue: Using the Holidays to Strengthen Bonds and Get Referrals : Part One Digging Out When You Are Over-Loaded Step Three: Recommit to time blocking How to Make December Productive Thinking of Hiring a Coach? Now may NOT be the time. Five Principles for Higher Quality Referrals Using the Holidays to Strengthen Bonds and Get Referrals : Part One While it may be more difficult to schedule appointments during the holiday season, it is a great time to strengthen bonds with clients and advance your referral objectives. As you reach out to clients this month, ask them about their holiday plans and their family traditions. Learning about family traditions and stories helps build stronger bonds with clients. It may also provide you with client appreciation ideas. During the conversations make a point of asking "Who will you get to see over the holidays?" You can apply this to Hanukkah, Christmas, and the New Year. If you want to establish relationships with your clients' children and heirs, talk about them during these conversations. There may be a way to meet them when they visit from out of town. At the very least, your conversation about them now will make it easier to ask for the introduction in your next review. In our next edition, we will show you how to use conversations about the new year to strengthen your bonds with clients and enhance the way your clients value the relationship they have with you. It is a powerful strategy for developing clients into advocates. Back to top Digging Out When You Are Over-Loaded You know you are in trouble when: You have to use the floor for stacking files because there is no room on your desk You cringe when you think of all the leads you have yet to follow up You feel you are sprinting at full speed just to prevent "blow ups" this week. What do you do? When there is barely time to breathe, it's tough to create a master strategy or re-design your processes. How do you catch up on the backlog when there is more stuff flowing in every day? Here are some emergency measures to help manage the load. Step One: Don't make it worse. Squeeze the flow of new inputs. The easiest way is to give yourself permission to say "NO" to as many things as possible for the next 1-3 months. Start by sorting your reading into two categories (vital and not vital). That which is not vital to the survival of your business gets put into a stack for reviewing in 1 month. This includes magazines, newsletters, emails, joke lists, company reports, Step Two: Uncover Chunks of Time Sort your activities into vital and not vital. Meeting with clients is vital. Meeting with potential product vendors is not vital. Place a 1 month moratorium on the non-vital. If you are an officer in a community organization, recruit a volunteer to help with the most time-consuming activities. At home, drastically cut down watching television for a month. The quality of time you spend with your family will improve and you will create time for reading, exercise, or connecting with friends. If you have a TV in your office, turn it off for the next month. Put all your stacks in front of the screen. When all the stacks are gone, you can decide whether to turn it on again. Exercise is vital. Discussing Sunday's NFL game with colleagues is not vital. Shorten or reduce the conversations with non-vital people during your dig-out phase. Use the "vital/non-vital" rule as your guide until you are caught up. Back to top Step Three: Recommit to time blocking You will never consistently execute the vital (prospecting and client contact) if you don't structure your time to make it happen. Your choice is to proactively be in attack mode or passively try to cope with the onslaught. Time blocking provides the structure to organize the work so you can be proactive. Otherwise, you end up as a "victim of the urgent" - scrambling to do the most urgent so you can hold off disaster. Stimulating, perhaps. Fulfilling, no way. During your dig out phase, you will need to schedule time to address the backlog. You will likely have some lighter periods between now and year end to get this done. List out all the work to be done and make appointments to get them done. Just as you would a client appointment. Don't miss out on these next few weeks to get caught up. These steps will help you dig out. If you want to build a more streamlined business so can grow more rapidly and be current on an on-going basis throughout 2008, write to mike@referralmastery.com. Back to top How to Make December Productive Make a special effort to contact the hard-to-reach people like those that travel a lot for business. Their travel schedules typically slow down during this period. The intensity of work projects is slowing down. Many are more available. Schedule end-of-year tax planning. Portfolio adjustments can be made to mitigate taxes. This presents you the opportunity to examine client holdings in outside accounts. Examine insurance policies for anniversary dates and deadlines for upgrading insurance coverage. The potential savings from taking action before the deadline may provide the urgency to agree to a meeting. Take advantage of the holiday parties to network and meet interesting prospects. Evaluate the gatherings of target groups such as the trade organizations or country clubs where you belong and see what opportunities exist to meet the type of people you want to meet. Be careful if you are over-loaded (see above) Back to top Thinking of Hiring a Coach? Now may NOT be the time. The beginning of new year can be an excellent time to commit to new changes and many advisors consider hiring a coach to help them map out a new strategy, upgrade processes, and commit to behavior changes. However, it may not be the right time for you. Over the 19 years of coaching advisors, we have learned many lessons on who is a good candidate for coaching and who is not. We have also learned (sometimes painfully) when is a good time and when is NOT a good time to hire a coach. If you or one of your colleagues is considering a coach or enrolling in a coaching program, ask for the special report "5 Reasons Not To Hire a Coach". It will help you make a better decision on if you are good candidate for coaching, when is the right time to use a coach, and what type of program is a better fit for you. It's free. Just email to info@referralmastery.com or call 800-865-2867. Back to top Five Principles for Higher Quality Referrals You have taken a step toward developing your referral capabilities by subscribing to this Referral Tip Series. You know colleagues who need or want to generate more and better referrals. We published a special report entitled "5 Critical Principles to Generate More and Better Referrals" In the 18 years we have been helping advisors dramatically increase referrals, we know there are 5 critical principles which much be embraced if you want to drive your business growth through referrals. This special report will detail the 5 critical principles to significantly increasing both the quantity and quality of referrals. We will be happy to send it to your colleagues FREE. Just email me at mike@referralmastery.com with their name, email address, and phone number. If you want to receive a copy as well just say so in your email. Your providing them assess to the special report may provide the insights they need to get on the path to dramatically increasing their referral effectiveness. Sharing a helpful resource is one characteristic of a true professional. May you have a joyous holiday, connect with loved ones, and create memories that last a life time.