Here are four pieces of advice I gave to one of my clients on how to manage his mind, his time, client boundaries and appointment travel.
Empty your mind: Review your "empty your mind" list and identify everything that you could delegate, and estimate the time that a part-time assistant or a temporary assistant can do for you. This will answer the question of whether to hire a part-time or temporary assistant. This process will help you to make the best use of the assistant's time, whatever your decision. Before you take action on the assistant, consider the following on time blocking and traveling.
Scheduling time: For the next two weeks, schedule:
- Free time on Saturday and Sunday
- Client phoning time on Monday
- Client paperwork time on Tuesday,
- Client appointment time on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning
- Planning time on Friday afternoon
Boundaries and deadlines with clients: When clients make a request, be sure to ask when they would like to have the request completed. With a deadline you can schedule the action into your client paperwork time. The alternative is we turn the client request into an urgent request and we add it to the already growing list of what we believe to urgent.
Traveling: If you are doing 20 in-home client appointments per month and if you consider 20 minutes to get organized and into your vehicle, 20 minutes to travel to the appointment and 20 minutes to return to your office, on a good day that is one hour per client times 20 clients. This is 20 hours per month and means that you are spending a week's worth of time travelling when you could be spending it with your family.
To change your client's perceptions on this, I suggest that you write a letter that goes something like: "Dear Valued Client, Thank you for the opportunity to be your financial advisor. To continue to provide you with the best service possible, I am requesting that my valued clients meet with me at my office during regular business hours as I have the equipment and resources at the office to give you the best service that is possible. Thank you for understanding and I appreciate the opportunity to be of service."
