Focus Your Attention on Your Intention

As an avid golfer, I've found that I have one thing in common with the top professional golfers in the world: I've hired a coach to help me get even better at something I'm already good at and qualified to do. No, not for my golf game. I, Scott Leak, CFP®, CEPA®, hired an independent advisor in 2014 because I knew I'd never devote as much time to my own planning and portfolio monitoring as someone being paid to do it. If I did, it would come at the sacrifice of my clients during the day or my family at night. A 1% fee is an absolute steal for that peace of mind and balance in my life.

The most engaged advisors I have worked with in our Equity Management Solutions® program have come to this realization as well. They have the ability to thoroughly analyze their businesses and create detailed growth plans, but they know it comes with a price. And, in the long run, it’s a much higher price than hiring expert coaches. The free cash flow and enterprise value these owners have built often makes their business the most valuable asset in their personal portfolio. As a result, they have made the conscious decision to hire their own coach who can hold them accountable to growing and protecting their business.

To quote my old golf coach, the key to better performance is to focus your attention on your intention.

Want to hit a good shot? Envision it, plan for it, then execute it with your focus on nothing else. It is a simple, but powerful concept both on the tee box and at your desk.

Many advisors will ask me for guidance on how to grow, when to hire next, how to add scale to their business; whatever the request is, my response is the same: To what end? What do you hope to achieve through growth, recruitment, scale, etc.? As a sole proprietor, it matters to know where you want your efforts to lead: Do you want to maintain a lifestyle practice or build it into a business? What is your intention for this business? Your vision needs to guide your decisions and, especially if you already have a mature business, that vision should pull your team along with you. And if you have partners, you must be aligned on that vision if you’re going to make forward progress. Pulling in too many directions leaves you moving nowhere.

You may be one of the top advisors on the planet, you may work with small business owners like yourself, but if you don't devote as much time to being intentional about your business’s future as you would a client’s financial future, you are shortchanging yourself. The solution is easy. Find yourself a coach who will treat you the way you treat your clients: devoting their attention on your vision and intention while holding you accountable to do the same.

I'll help you get started in two easy steps: 

One: Schedule one hour this month to being intentional, not in your business, but on your business. Block it in your calendar and treat it like an important appointment. For that hour, turn off your phone and computer, get out of your office, and go to a restaurant or cafe by yourself with nothing but a pen and paper (you may order a glass of wine or bourbon if that helps.) For one whole hour, write down your thoughts on where your business is today and where you ultimately want it to be. If you already have a vision statement for your firm, dust it off and check if it still resonates. If so, why? If only partially, what's different now?

If you have partners, I suggest you each do this exercise separately, then come together again the following week and schedule at least another hour to comparing notes. Where are you aligned? Where do your intentions differ? When the vision is clear, decisions become easier. Having alignment with your partners is vital. But don't worry, if you’ve got some gaps, the rest of the process can help bring you all into alignment and moving with the same intention.

Two: Hire a coach who will help you build a strategy to move your unique vision forward and hold you accountable to your progress. Whether you’re interested in developing a long-term evolution plan for the business, growing your team, planning for an exit through internal succession or external M&A, or looking to build a future that focuses on doing more of what you love an experienced guild will help you stay focused. An annual Equity Management Solutions® membership with FP Transitions provides you with a customized, written continuity plan to protect your business, an annual valuation to mark and measure your growth, in-depth benchmarking against two key peer groups, and personalized insights from your coach on how various value, benchmarking, and performance data points affect the long-term vision you have for your business. From there we work together with you and your team to monitor and master the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) most applicable to your goals and make intentional progress towards achieving them.

If you want to do Step 2 first, I'll allow it. But you’re still going to have to do Step 1 as part of our work together. My previous EMS ™ clients were used to having homework assignments from me after each of our consulting calls. But unlike my middle-school daughters, these homework assignments don't come with a groan, but a thank you because my clients know my job is keeping their attention on their intention and on the path to optimal performance.