I talked with a prospective client the other day, who asked me an unusual—and excellent—question: "Have you ever had any failed client relationships?" My answer was: "Yes, we have had some clients who haven't worked out. Not many, but it happens."
What's more, in our experience, virtually all of them "failed" for one of two reasons. The first is mostly my style: I'm not a therapist, and I don't want to be one. I have very little interest in holding a firm owner's hand and making them feel better about themselves. Consequently, I tend to tell them directly what I think about where their firm is and what they need to do to take it where they want to go. Some people can't deal with that. Fair enough.
The second reason our relationships occasionally don't work out is a much more important—and educational—point: some owner advisors just can't let go of the past. That is, they just can't get their brains around the fact that most of the things they did to get to their current level of success are not going to help them grow their firm to the next level.
In fact, we've come to realize that the keys to successfully growing an advisory business are different at every growth stage: and the most successful firm owners realize that they will continually have to change the way they run their firms.
One stumbling block for many firm owners, and a classic example of the evolution of an advisory business (and one we often confront), is "processes and procedures." Yes, it's an important step in growing a business to document processes and procedures so that everyone in the firm is playing from the same playbook. And yes, P&P's are touted in self-management books such as the "E-Myth" as the Holy Grail of running a small business.
