Going the Extra Mile

There is a lesson here for the financial planning industry. By teaming up and going into partnerships with other professionals, such as accountants, legal advisors and even psychologists, FAs can provide a wider range of services to their clients, to lock them into a relationship, as it were.

Looking around and learning constantly, not resting on one's laurels, is another prerequisite for success. Like Calloway's own ability to read the paper and to draw lessons from unexpected sources. In the morning, he read a piece about Tiger Woods, the world's premier golfer, and his obsessive quest for improving every aspect of his game.

"What happens in business is that today's innovation quickly becomes the norm," says Calloway. He cites Enterprise Rent-A-Car, a company that introduced client pick-up. While this feature distinguishes it from its competitors, if successful it will be emulated by others.

Designing from ScratchCalloway has unexpected advice on improvement. Most people, he says, look to improve areas where they lag behind their competitors. This is obvious, but a better way, he suggests, may be to look at areas where you are already a leader.

"Some of my most successful clients ask themselves: 'How can we do better something that we are already doing well?' This is often a good way to keep the competition off balance."

Everyone can innovate, says Calloway, despite the fact that people sometimes claim that they do not know how. The most effective way is to look at a process or activity and to try to forget how it is currently done. "Try to wipe your mind clean," he advises. "Forget everything you know and then try to create it from scratch."

Sometimes this exercise will merely confirm the conventional way of doing things. Occasionally, however, you might discover unexpected new approaches.

The unexpected is Calloway's stock in trade. Although he admits that his clients in the financial services industry — and in plenty of other industries as well — are currently quite nervous about an economic downturn, he encourages them to see the current environment as an opportunity, not just a danger.

The best time to think of improving your business is when the market is down, he says. Rising markets are a time for making money, but it is when markets are falling when you should think of building up customer relationships and finding ways of differentiating yourself from your competitors. It is also when clients tend to change their advisors.

"I was recently speaking to a group of construction companies," says Calloway. "I asked them when it is the best time to build market share. They looked at each other and agreed — in a recession."

Calloway himself practices what he preaches. Based in Nashville, he drove to Atlanta, where the Financial Services Institute is based, to meet with the client and to discuss in person how to make his keynote speech better. "I know my competitors. They all provide an excellent product. To stay in the game, I must distinguish myself by taking better care of my clients."

But there is a catch. If his approach works, this kind of "extra mile" treatment may become the industry norm. Then, he'll have to think of something else, shrugs Calloway.

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Alexei Bayer runs KAFAN FX Information Services, an economic consulting firm in New York; reach him at [email protected]. His monthly "Global Economy" column in Research has received an excellence award from the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants for the past four years, 2004-2007.