You don’t just wear several hats, it’s like you have to have several heads. Being a financial advisor is probably one of the most challenging businesses in the world – especially today. The financial world is getting more complicated than ever. Clients demand expertise and excellence. Resources are tighter than ever. The pressure on you to perform on so many levels grows every day.
But, experienced business advice you can count on is harder than ever to come by when you are an advisor. Just as the marketplace turned unimaginably complicated, your sources of information, interpretation and context all but dried up.
Some of you have that back up help. Many of you don’t. Unfortunately, often even the backup that is available doesn’t come from decades of real world experience. It comes from manuals. But, speaking from actual experience is what helps connect advisors to the help they need and make the changes that need to happen. It’s what you need.
The need for highly competent financial advisors has never been greater, yet support for this most venerable occupation has never been weaker. Yes, you can be a great advisor, but who advises advisors? Who advises you?
And, we’re not talking about technical advice here. Goodness knows that tap hasn’t been shut off. In fact, more information comes pouring out than ever. We’re drowning in technicalities yet suffering a drought of practicalities.
Precious few competent sources of solid, experience-based advice exist today. If you have one, hang on to it. But, if you are like so many today, you need someone or some place you can turn to for practical advice you can believe in.
This information vacuum is probably why The Insurance Journal has had such a tremendous response to my monthly “Corner Office Advice” column since 2006. More people than I can count tell me that they carefully tear the column page out of the magazine and save it for further reference. It has become a source of simple and easy to implement advice for advisors at all levels of production. It helps to re-energize advisors and reignite the passion necessary to excel in the business. It has been my great privilege to write these columns for you.