How diamond teams can help you overcome the biggest barrier to growing your practice

The No. 1 barrier to growth in your financial services practice is that it’s impossible to clone yourself. You can hire more people to support you, but you will get to the point where you have to say, “I’m sorry, I’m not working with any new clients.”

“The first thing you have to do is figure out how your company can multiply you without adding a lot of positions,” Angie Herbers, founder and CEO of FourPointe Consulting, said at her 2018 MDRT EDGE workshop. To do that, Herbers suggests throwing out your business plan and instead, developing an organizational strategy and creating diamond teams. Diamond teams, which Herbers created 10 years ago, turn the conventional practice on its head, she said.

What are diamond teams?

A diamond team is four people focused on one area of the business. A diagram of the team is shaped like a diamond, with one person at the top and another at the bottom, and two people in the middle at either side.

In a financial advisory team, there is an associate at the lower point of the diamond. Associates are brought in as technical people with a baseline knowledge of financial advice. The team teaches them how to work with clients and grooms them to grow into advisors. The associate has two jobs: attending all the meetings so they learn to communicate with the clients and delegating all the work to the client service department.

The side points of the diamond are two lead advisors. Each has moved up to their position from the associate role. They spend 80% of their time giving recommendations to clients and 20% of their time on marketing and sales. They both help train the associate below them. A senior advisor is at the top of the diamond and spends 80% of their time on marketing and sales, and 20% with clients.

How effective are diamond teams?

“One diamond team can produce a minimum of $2 million in revenue, and we have some diamond teams that produce $6 million in revenue,” Herbers said.

The team provides continuity for clients. If a team member is unavailable, the rest of the team fills in. Clients like this arrangement. When you attach a client to a team instead of a person, it makes the relationship feel bigger and more accountable to the client.

How do you get started with diamond teams?

You build your first diamond team gradually. First, hire an associate. “After the associate has shadowed you for 18 months, they move to the lead advisor position. You can transfer clients to them, but don’t ask them to add clients right away,” Herbers said.

Once the advisor moves to this position, you hire another associate, and that associate shadows the lead advisor. This process repeats and you hire a third associate. Your first diamond team is now in place, with you at the top position.

When one of the lead advisors is ready to break out and become a senior advisor, you create your second diamond team. You hire an associate for the new senior advisor and build the new team just like you did the first one.

And if a second lead advisor breaks out into their own team, you quickly have three diamond teams in operation, all contributing to your business.

If you build one diamond team, it will replicate itself. As your diamond teams multiply, the sales function disappears. Your large base of clients sends so many referrals that you don’t have to go out and find new clients. “It is a really cool place to be,” said Herbers. “It’s fun.”

Learn more in Herbers’ presentation, “Building an organizational culture” (MDRT members only) 

Looking for ideas about hiring and staffing?

• Read MDRT’s Hiring and staffing guide
• Watch “Creating a dynamic staff”