The No. 1 challenge when bringing in new technology

I wrote a piece recently on getting the most from your CRM in which I explored some of the ways to identify and maximise the features of the system for your business. I got a very insightful comment back that rightly pointed out that “the most critical element with any CRM system is that the people using it actually enter the data they are supposed to – and keep it current. All the bells and whistle features in the world are of very little use if that isn’t happening”. I thought that a focus on users of new technology deserves a post all to itself!

The No. 1 challenge when bringing in new technology is very often fully engaging the people who will be using it. We see this time and time again, you’ve got to bring the people with you. We see CRM systems that are only partially updated if at all, and financial planning firms where only some advisers have learned how to use future cashflow software. More often than not, the reasons are down to poor implementation and management, as opposed to the individuals being unable or unwilling to learn how to use new technology. So how do you give your business the best chance of engaging your team with new technology?

 

Have a clear strategic rationale

Why are you bringing in the new technology? Is there a clear, undeniable need for it in your business or to improve your client proposition, or are you watching what everyone else is doing and have decided that it’s time to join the party? Being able to demonstrate a clear strategic reason for the solution is a critical first step in engaging your team. If they don’t see the reason and the value, it’s going to be an uphill struggle getting them to engage.

Don’t brush over this point with your team, instead spend time walking through the reasons. Then later as problems arise, which will inevitably happen at some point, you can bring people back to this point – this is why it’s being done. Know your Why.

 

Engage the team early

Your team are going to be the ultimate users of the technology, so engage them as early as possible in the process. First of all, if they are centrally involved in the choice of technology, the implementation plan and identifying workload impacts, their ownership of achieving the success of the project increases. Secondly, their knowledge and thoughts will add immensely to developing the very best solution for your business and your clients.

 

Have a documented rollout path

Some of your team will argue they are too busy already without having to “do this too”, while others may be daunted at the prospect of learning how to use new technology. For the first group, listen to their concerns and then bring them back to the strategic rationale – why you are introducing the technology and how ultimately it will add value. Yes, workloads may be an issue to be addressed, so this needs to be considered as part of the implementation plan.

For the second group – the technophobes, you need to be able to demonstrate a clear training and support plan for them. What training they will get, when this will happen, who will deliver it, how it will be delivered and where they can go with follow-up questions as they start using the technology. Consider internal “champions” of the solution – maybe a “CRM ninja” who knows the system back to front and who is ready and available to help struggling teammates.

 

Have clear expectations and build them into objectives

If advisers are only rewarded based on income, that is only what you will get. While income of course will be their dominant goal, on its own it is not enough. If you want consultants to capture rich information in a CRM system, they need to see the value of it first of all – back again to the strategic rationale. However you also need to be crystal clear that capturing such information is a formal expectation of them, to help drive the business forward. They potentially should be rewarded / penalised via a behavioural goal that feeds through into your performance management system for the quantum and quality of engagement with the new technology.

 

Recognise it’s not always easy – be patient

Introducing new technology always hits bumps on the road. Have formal feedback loops to deal with these. Encourage your team to identify and highlight issues that then need to be fed into a plan to be considered and addressed. Check in with the team at scheduled sessions to chat through how they are finding the new technology. Are they seeing the value, or is it just not happening for them? Go back to the rationale and the agreed implementation plan. Or else review the technology, if itself is the issue…

 

Your team are your greatest asset and they are the key to unlocking the potential offered by new technology. Engage them early, listen to them and help them to make a success of your technology improvements.

 

What’s in a good client report?

I know a lot of advisers go to a good bit of trouble trying to create really impressive reports to give to clients at their annual review meeting. Having seen many different outputs that are given to clients, they vary widely from dull and ineffective reports right through to excellent quality and engaging documents.

So let’s get the poor quality ones out of the way first. They typically only contain,

  • An update on policy values / premiums etc. that has been downloaded from a CRM / policy data system.
  • A stock few pages on the economic environment / market update.

While both of the above are important, they won’t engage anyone on their own. There typically is little or no commentary that really connects the data with the client’s plan. The result is likely to leave the client underwhelmed and not feeling that a lot of expert analysis has gone into the development of a truly personalised report for them.

So what does a good report look like? I think it includes some / all of the following sections,

  • Executive Summary: Some people will read every word in the report, others won’t give it the time but want to be able to quickly digest the really important points.
  • Review of performance measures: This is a statement that shows changes in the likes of
    • Net worth
    • Investment portfolio increase
    • Pension portfolio increase
    • Protection premiums saved
    • Effective tax rate
  • Review of 12-month activity: What was carried out in the past 12 months, and how these actions were aligned with the financial plan.
  • Progress towards financial plan outcomes: There are any number of ways of presenting this information. Some advisers prefer a brief written update, others use a dashboard / traffic light system with commentary on the key points. The underlying assumptions used can also be included here or otherwise in the Appendix.
  • Objectives and actions for the next 12 months: This section highlights changes as needed to the existing plan. It also captures product / portfolio changes that are required and any money management / behavioural recommendations.

The above should form the main part of the report. However, an Appendix is really important too, as the likes of relevant cashflow graphs and a revised client balance sheet (with a greater level of detail than in the main report) will also add value.

So, that’s the required content identified, the next step is to make it engaging. Here are a few tips to help you.

  1. Don’t cram in the information: Keep it easy to read, let the content breathe. Spread it out into bite-sized chunks. A page with too much text and figures is very daunting for the average reader.
  2. Be succinct: Don’t view this as your opportunity to impress, instead it’s your chance to inform. Your client already trusts that you know your stuff, you don’t have to demonstrate your knowledge at every turn. Less is often more when it comes to reports.
  3. Avoid jargon: Similar to the previous point, you want your client to understand the report rather than leave them feeling a little dim-witted financially.
  4. Make graphs easy: Any graphs or charts used need to be intelligible in seconds. If the client has to spend time trying to work it out, the likelihood is they probably won’t bother.
  5. Don’t fudge the message: If your recommendation includes that the client needs to save more / spend less / stop changing course with their investments, spell this out very clearly. It’s for their own good!

 

Excellent annual reports add a lot of value to clients. They also commit them to the plan for the coming year and keep them engaged with the valuable advice you are providing. This in turn enables you to easily justify your ongoing remuneration. The client wins and you win.

 

Succession planning in a family advice business

While there has been a very welcome influx of young, qualified individuals into the financial advice profession in recent years, a significant proportion of successful advice businesses continue to be led by older, experienced advisers who built up these businesses from scratch. A high number of these businesses have seen children of the owner join the business, build up their experience, gain relevant and valuable qualifications and help bring the business to a higher level.

And the time then comes when the business owner wants to step back, take life a bit easier and start enjoying the fruits of their many years of toil. They also want to pass the business to their children as seamlessly as possible, a situation that we have seen played out many times in Ireland. With a consistent stream of advice businesses undertaking a succession process, there are a number of lessons that can be learned from previous successions that delivered on all of the intentions, and from those that didn’t.

 

Planning needs to start many years in advance

Succession planning is definitely a carefully planned process as opposed to a transaction event. The most successful successions are those that are planned from many years out – there are a lot of elements to get right! Careful thought needs to be given to the timing of the succession, the terms and basis of the transaction, the tax opportunities that can be leveraged, how the transaction will be funded, the ongoing role (if any) of the parent who established the business, the future direction of the business and the roles of the various children who will be taking the business forward.

This all takes well-executed planning. A poorly planned succession process will be quite unsettling and will likely introduce tension and sometimes fractured relationships among the family members.

 

Be open and inclusive in the planning

While the business owner often started and built the business pretty much on their own, succession planning is not something to be carried out unilaterally.  A seamless transition and the future prospects of the business will be enhanced by involving the family from the get-go. If the children (future owners) of the business are involved in the planning, they will be more engaged and committed to the process.

 

Don’t paint yourself into corners

Another advantage of the business owner not planning the succession alone, is that they can avoid making decisions that ultimately don’t fit with the ambitions of the children and that become difficult to row back from. Involving the children in the planning may uncover some unexpected surprises – maybe the expected future leader of the business doesn’t want that role at all, instead they want to have a strategic voice but not be the leader of the business.

The children as a group may have a different future vision to the current owner – their parent. Maybe the new owners see a future as a specialist financial planning business as opposed to a more transactional business. While the latter may have been the preference and right course for the business today, the new owners may see a different future.

 

Get external help

Surprisingly often the downfall of a succession plan is the family believing that they know what they want and can sort it all out themselves. This may very well be the case, but it can fall down in two areas.

First of all, external oversight brings a new dimension and often identifies additional opportunities and sometimes issues with the chosen plan. Family members can become so immersed in the whole process that they end up not seeing the wood for the trees. External people bring additional rigour and valuable challenging of the plan, which otherwise may be missing. This can happen quite easily in a family scenario where everyone is on their best behaviour, treading cautiously around the whole succession and not wanting to cause offence. The second area where external oversight can help is in drawing out the thoughts, goals and contributions of the quieter or more reserved members of the family. An external can make sure that every voice is heard in the process.

 

Don’t forget about non-family staff

Don’t forget about non-family members of staff throughout the process. They can feel very side-lined if the whole focus of the business is on the succession process. It is really important to keep them informed and motivated throughout the process, as their contribution and commitment to the business is needed before, during and after the succession happens.

 

An effective succession within a family business is a momentous milestone in a family’s life. Give yourself every chance of this happening smoothly.

 

 

Are you getting the most from your CRM system?

In the last few years, there has been a significant upsurge in financial advice firms wanting to unlock the opportunities offered by CRM systems. For some, this has meant seeking to place it at the heart of their sales processes. For others their challenge has been to begin using it as more than a glorified address book. For others again, they are now taking the jump from an excel spread sheet for the first time! It can be a bit daunting in the beginning…

Here are a couple of thoughts to help you reap the benefits while minimising the frustration.

 

Understand what you want it to do

There are a number of excellent industry specific CRM systems that many of the advisers in the Irish market are using today. These systems offer a very broad range of valuable features and offer functionality to help deliver many of the activities carried out by advisers every day.

But when you’re new to the system, the array of features can be quite bewildering and can leave you wondering where to start.

The place to start is not with what the system can do for you, it’s to identify how the system can help you address your specific challenges. So you need to identify what these challenges are; do you need a system to help you in the segmentation of your client base or is to help you identify the right clients to contact at the right time? Is it to track interactions with your clients or indeed is it to ensure you are delivering a more compliant business process?

Once you know what you want from the system, these are the areas to focus on with the system supplier rather than the 200 other features! Once you get comfort that the system can deliver what you need, then it just may be the one for you.

 

Capture hard and soft data

The record keeping aspect of the system is obviously very important, capturing all of the key information that you need to retain for your clients and being able to access the downloaded policy information from the providers you work with. Having this data in your system obviously makes it easier to retrieve information and indeed to use it again in the future. And your CRM system can provide a very useful audit trail in relation to your client interactions, which will assist you from a compliance point of view and may prove very useful down the road.

But it’s equally important to pick up and capture softer information about your clients that may not necessarily feature on your average factfind; the client’s financial goals and dreams (which should be central to your advice in any event), their aspirations for their family, their interests and indeed their likes and dislikes in relation to the method and frequency of communications. All of this information can make for a much richer relationship.

 

Talk to other users

Find out how others are using the same system. Ask your peers to even demo what they’re doing – from my experience most advisers are only too happy to help each other improve their business. You are a very collaborative group of people, now is the time to reach out!

 

Use all the time saving features

Ok, so now you’re up and running and using the system. Now is the time to start investigating how you can leverage the system beyond your initial aspirations. A good place to start is by investigating the many time saving features of the system. These will come in many forms. The capability of downloading data from providers will enable you to avoid a lot of the tedious initial data entry. Then look at the features that allow you to easily import data from for example factfinds completed online by your clients, which will save you or a member of your team having to type in the information.

Also consider how the system integrates with other systems that you use; capturing your client emails, quotation systems, scanning and document management systems and cashflow planning software.

It also has the potential to become the hub of your client communications, helping you to stay in touch with clients at the right times.

Get help in these areas. Getting help from an IT professional and/or the CRM system vendor will result in a lot less frustration and lower blood pressure.

 

Stay close to the vendor to leverage the full capabilities of the system

At the end of the day, nobody knows the system like the vendor so stay close to him or her. Give them feedback as they are always looking for ways to improve the system. Tell them what else you’d like the system to do, what you find difficult or “clunky” – after all, their main aim is to retain you as a user! Look for tips and help from them as to how you can better leverage the system. Show them how you’re currently using it and look for their advice as to how you might improve your usage of their system. Also, look for insights into where the system is being developed, as these developments could result in improvements to core parts of your business and advice processes.

 

Yes, starting to use a CRM system can be a very daunting experience. But it need not be. Focus on what you want from the system, seek help and then commit. The results in terms of saved time and effort, deeper insights into your clients and better business processes will make it all worthwhile.

 

 

Are you finding it hard to finish work?

Many financial advisers that I speak to these days have discovered a new lease of life in working from home. They love saving the commuting time and the flexibility offered in working from home. I’ve also never had as many questions about my own garden office, as many consider a more permanent shift to home working, at least on a part-time basis.

However working from home comes with challenges, not least those posed by an unsuitable working environment or by family distractions – topics that I’ve covered previously. There is another challenge that quite a number of rookie remote workers face and one that I struggled with myself when I started working from home – finishing work. People jump to the conclusion that actually getting started in the morning will be a challenge – it rarely is. Finishing in the evening is another matter though. Suddenly it can be 8pm and you’re still at the desk, or instead the laptop never leaves your side and you never turn off.

 

So what can you do?

 

Set your work times

While you will of course argue that you didn’t have set hours when you went to the office every day, in reality most people had a routine – some were very early starters, others began a bit later and worked on at the end of the day.

These routines are now gone by the wayside, it’s time for new ones. Now that you are working remotely, what hours work best for you, your business and your family? These don’t have to be timed down to the minute, but having a broad routine creates a useful expectation for yourself, your colleagues and your family as to when you are in work… and when you are not.

 

Have a finishing ritual

When you went to the office every day, you had a ritual to finish work. It might have been locking the office, starting the car engine or even putting the key into the hall door at home. When you did this, your workday was over and family time began. But now you’re not doing these anymore, so you need a new ritual. For me, it’s locking my office in the garden – even though I can see it when relaxing after work, it’s pretty much out of bounds to me in the evenings!

You need a similar ritual that you then carry out every day, and you then must respect the ritual. So whether it’s closing the door of the home office, turning off the PC or laptop at the end of the day or something else that you will do every day, have a ritual and stick to it.

This is really important, not just for you, but for your family. Your kids need to know that you’re finished working and now it’s their turn for your attention!

 

Educate your colleagues

Rituals are great because you’re in control of them. But that doesn’t mean others will respect your time. Because your colleagues may be working from home too, they may be working to a different schedule to you. While you might be finishing at 5.30 / 6pm each day, maybe they are doing more work in the evenings. This can mean emails are pinging in to you at night, trying to gain your attention.

There are two ways you can deal with these. First of all, you can simply ignore them or turn off your email notifications in the evening. Not easy to do for some people, and you may want to keep an eye out for any client emails that are landing in the evenings. An alternative might be to ask your colleagues to “schedule send” non-urgent emails to you for early the next morning. This way, they get them off their own desk while they are working, but they only land on yours when you are in work mode.

From time to time an issue will arise where a colleague needs your immediate attention and engagement. Agree a process for this – maybe they phone you first? Of course, when this is respected, it will be the exception rather than the rule.

 

The key to working remotely in a way that suits you, your colleagues and your family is to get work done while at work, and not just let the lines blur between work and your home life. It takes a level of structure and some tweaking but it’s worth it – get it right and your quality of life increases immeasurably.

3 apps and 3 phone actions that will save you hours every month

Every summer I give one of these articles over to the subject of apps that I use regularly. This year I’m taking a slightly different route… I’m only going to highlight 3 apps that I use pretty much every day, however they each save me hours of work over the course of every month. I’m then going to set out 3 actions you can take with your mobile phone that will also give you back many hours every month.

First of all, let’s take  a look at my 3 most useful apps.

 

Xero

I’ve been a very satisfied user of Xero, an online accounting system for a number of years now. It has had a transformational effect on the financial management side of my business. It delivers real-time profit & loss statements, balance sheet and a host of other useful reports that are available at the press of a button. All my invoicing and bank reconciliations are done through Xero, as is management of expenses, and my accountant and I can both view the up to the minute real time information about my business.

Specifically the phone app provides a great overview of business bank accounts and of invoices and purchases. Bank accounts are reconciled with Xero as transactions happen, and I’ve a full view of my outstanding invoices and other important information. I now have all the information I need, and am saving hours (if not more) every month with Xero. If you’re still sending files / receipts etc. to your accountant every month and manually issuing invoices, you need to have a chat with your accountant. There’s a better way…

 

Feedly

Feedly is an app that I use all of the time in seeking out useful content from the web to share, and indeed for content ideas to write about. It enables me to track blogs / news feeds that provide content I don’t want to miss. Rather than receiving an email every time there’s a new blog post or news article, instead the new content is sent to Feedly which gathers all of these articles in one place. It is like a magazine rack for online articles, waiting for me to go through them.

I can then flick down through hundreds of articles in minutes, reading only the headlines, dipping into an introduction or indeed the full article if I think it is actually worth reading. And I can mark them all as “Already read” very easily as I go along, ensuring those particular articles don’t appear again. I’ve categorised the different feeds into groups, which further speeds up the process too. The benefit of Feedly is the time it saves me in getting through huge numbers of articles.

 

Pocket

And then there’s Pocket, which is my scrapbook of articles that I’ve “cut out” and saved for later. As I see articles of interest on the web or that come through to Feedly, some catch my attention to be read later when I’ve a bit more time on my hands. With 2 clicks, I put them in my Pocket and can also tag the articles for different purposes – it might be to share out later, to rewrite with my perspective, maybe to help me develop a new angle for my proposition etc.

I can then go back into Pocket when I want to carry out an activity and simply click on the article that I’ve saved for that very purpose. It’s all very easy and it means you don’t lose great articles that you’ve read.

 

And now for 3 actions you can take with your mobile phone that will also save you hours every month.

 

Delete the Facebook app

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be on Facebook, I’m simply saying to get rid of the app from your phone. It has to be the greatest distraction out there. Facebook is so clever at putting content that you want to read in front of you, it is next to impossible to just quickly dip in and out of. I deleted the app from my phone, and this saves me lots of time now during the working day. Because I can only access it through a browser, I rarely bother. Facebook is something I now really only access in the evenings when I’m chilling out…

 

Turn off notifications

Push notifications on your phone and computer provide major distractions. They are rarely urgent, but they are great attention grabbers and are very hard to ignore. But do I need to see the 25 “Yes” responses for my son’s football training tonight? Of course not.

Mute noisy WhatsApp groups for the day and even turn off notifications for some apps that you never need to see. You’ll work more effectively and free up more time for yourself.

 

Turn on Downtime

Many of us think of the Downtime setting on iPhones in relation to getting kids off their phones. But many of us need help in staying away from our own phones! Downtime is a setting within the Screen Time settings on iPhones that allows you to turn off some or all apps for specific time periods. This can be really useful if you need time to concentrate on a task, as you simply can’t access the apps that might distract you. It’s like a “full metal jacket” alternative to turning off your notifications. I now have a few set periods during the week where my phone turns into my old Nokia phone (calls and text only). These are the hours when I need quiet time to get work done.

 

Take a few minutes to explore some of these – you might find a way of getting a few valuable hours back each month.