Eric Schmidt, the 100th richest person in the world with a resume that includes work at Google and Apple, once said, "Revenue solves everything."
When you have money consistently coming in the door, few problems are too big to tackle. You can hire new staff. You can bring in experts. You can outsource the work you aren't good at or don't particularly want to do.
As long as the business is moving forward, you will likely have the resources and the morale to handle new challenges. When new revenue (from completely new clients) stops coming in — despite how much momentum and power consistent revenue gives a business — a strange thing happens. Advisors, or business owners in general, turn their attention to almost everything but finding new business.
When they perhaps need growth the most, they instead fiddle with the backend of their businesses. They check and recheck their drip systems. They adjust their LinkedIn profiles. They check in with existing clients. They obsessively fine tune the plans and packages they offer. But they don't make new sales calls. They become a party host so obsessed with getting everything just right for the big event that they forget to invite anyone.
Pulling back from your commitment to pursue growth through client acquisition is a monumental mistake that will ripple throughout your business. As revenue declines, the problems in the business will start to feel much larger and even direr. The resources you have to solve them are now painfully finite, and the stress of having to lurch from one fire to the next will eventually show in your temperament with your staff and with your clients.
When times are good, sell. When times are hard, sell even more. That can mean committing time and money to marketing when others don't.
In fact, you should set up your sales pipeline in such a way that you almost have no choice but to sell. For example, in our business, we have two dedicated sales people. They are good at what they do, but we never hand them leads. If we hand them leads, we have just put obstacles between them and what they do best. If too many of those obstacles pile up, they will find little excuses here and there to avoid calling the leads or to call them as aggressively as they should.
They aren't bad salespeople. This is just a natural human tendency.
