Attributes of the Best Financial Advisors [Research Study]
In this post I’m going to share highlights of a recent research study about attributes the best financial advisors have in common. I’ll also include some ideas about how you can implement small changes for the greatest impact in your business.
According to the study there are five core attributes of what really makes the difference between good advisors and great advisors. The first four are:
- Intrinsic Motivation
- Resiliency
- Connections
- Boldness
But what really stood out was this fifth attribute of Goal Setting––documenting, articulating, and accomplishing goals. This goal setting attribute had the biggest gap from the average advisor to the best advisor.
We have had good success with goal-setting here at Streamline Financial so I want to share a link to a guided practice that we do each year to help us get specific about what we need to focus on.
The article also mentioned three things that harness the power of goal setting:
- Big Picture Goals
- Identify four or five big-picture goals
- Nitty Gritty Goals
- These are smaller goals that align with the big-picture goals
- Take Action
- Once you identify the goals, take steps to work towards accomplishing them
After reviewing article on various attributes of the best financial advisors, what I thought was most valuable is a daily check-in with yourself. Each day ask yourself these key questions:
- What did I do today that I liked?
- This makes sense because the advisors that focus more on areas of their practice that they enjoy, did more of those activities. So, ask yourself: what do you enjoy? What are you good at? What moves the practice forward the most?
- What could I have done differently?
- This question reminds me of a video I did recently on $1000 per hour activities. Every day in your work, sometimes you’re doing $10 per hour activities and sometimes you’re spending time on $1000 per hour activities. Identifying and knowing what these different activities are is important. And another practice similar to this that can help simplify your business is the Do Not Do list.
