7 ideas to push past career plateaus

When you qualify for MDRT, it earns recognition from your peers. Yet you may soon realize that qualifying is only the beginning. At MDRT, you meet financial advisors working at levels you may not have known were possible. They’re achievable for you as well, if you understand how to move beyond career plateaus.

Plateauing can be a scary word. You feel like you’re doing all that you know how to do, yet you stall out. Or worse, you backslide. A bathtub is a very good analogy when considering how your business operates. Water flows in from the faucets and leaves via the drain. In your business, new clients come in from the top and depart when clients die, relocate or choose to work with another firm. If water escapes through the drain, the faucet must always be adding new water to the tub or the water level goes down.

This means you must always grow your business by prospecting to replace the outflow. Some people consider prospecting an unpleasant activity the rookies do in their first couple of years in business. With the right processes and teams in place, this is not the case.

Steps to move forward

1. Build a team. You can only do so much. You have 24 hours each day, the same as everyone else. Based on your experience, you have knowledge to impart. Can you bring extra people onboard, teach them to prospect, present and close? Multiply your efforts.
2. Selling up and selling down. You have clients who like you, follow your advice and are loyal. It might be difficult to ask them to recruit and refer their friends. It may be easier to ask them to introduce you to their parents, siblings, in-laws and the next generation. You become the family advisor.
3. Seek greater share of wallet. Perhaps you have built your business through insurance. That is only one slice of the financial life of each client though. Clients likely invest and use credit. Does your firm offer these services? Lead with the logic that you and the client have a great relationship in the insurance aspect of their life. Wouldn’t it be great to have the same good relationship in other aspects too? You know your client invests. Shouldn’t they do it with you?
4. Seek out the money clients indirectly influence. It is easy to assume, “I have all their investments.” Do you have, though, their parents and their children as clients? How else can they help? Are they active with a nonprofit or charity? How about their college alumni association? Many of these groups have money set aside for the long term. Does your client serve on a finance committee or have family in the area? Can they make introductions?
5. Cloning referrals. You know your best clients. You have likely told them, “I wish I had more clients just like you.” It makes sense that they have friends in similar economic circumstances they can refer to you.
6. Develop a niche market. Over the years, you may have gained a few clients in the medical field. For example, they are family physicians with their own offices, and you have learned what makes their situation unique. You know how to solve problems common to their profession. You have earned relevant professional certifications. Perhaps it’s not a profession, but you have gained a foothold in a local company. Promote yourself as an expert in this niche, the go-to person for that profession.
7. Join your client in their outside activities. Your client is passionate about polo. Maybe they run the local Ferrari sports car club. You get involved alongside them. You roll up your sleeves, volunteer and meet their friends. You have made their hobby or special interest your niche market.

When you are on top, you cannot assume you will stay there forever without expending effort. You need a strategy to take your business to the next level, solidify your position and raise your visibility.

Bryce Sanders is president of Perceptive Business Solutions Inc. His book, “Captivating the Wealthy Investor,” is available on Amazon.

For more ideas to take you to the next level

• Read “Are you asking yourself the right questions to succeed?”
• Watch “Specialize and scale to reach Top of the Table”