I was at a conference once, and the speaker there—Don Barden (author of the Perfect Plan)—talked about the key factor that separates the top 1% of advisors from the rest.
He said that the average advisor, a member of the 99%, compared his or her performance to that of his or her peers. The top advisors looked around, saw how they were doing relative to other advisors, and used that to measure their success and their ability.
The top 1%, the speaker said, did not look around them for a reference point. They looked inward and measured themselves against their own potential. That was the ultimate separator, the factor that either drove elite performance or lead to complacency. The challenge of recognizing your true potential, however, is a part introspection and part industry awareness, but realizing that potential is something else entirely. Concluding that you can get to the top of the mountain is one thing, but figuring out how to get there is another.
So what do the best in the world do?
In many cases, they seek out experts who can help them find the path, either by drawing it out or by clearly identifying where their biggest opportunity for growth lies.
This principle can apply whether you are selling annuities, life insurance, supplemental health products or… fried chicken.
Chick-fil-a, all potential politics aside, has built a powerful brand in the fast food world, and the process that they used to reach that point is relevant for all businesses, including advisors. While comparing serving fried chicken to advising clients might seem like a stretch, the best practice is one that we can learn a lot from.
Before Chick-fil-a was the megabrand it is today, the company worried it would become "another fast food company." Samuel Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-a believed that his business had the potential to rise above his competitors. The product quality was high. The restaurants were clean and bright. But he wasn't seeing the response from customers that suggested they too believed that Chick-fil-a was on a level above the rest.
Cathy looked to a brand that he admired, and he asked their team to evaluate his business. That brand was Ritz Carlton (and you can read the entirety of this story in the book It's My Pleasure).
Again, we are looking at two seemingly different businesses—a global luxury hotel and a fast food chain—but Cathy was adamant that his brand could inspire the same level of customer satisfaction and loyalty as a Ritz Carlton; he just wasn't sure what he was missing. The Ritz Carlton team did their research, and one of the suggestions they came back with seems counter-intuitive at first.
