Let’s Prioritize
Many advisors run into problems when they try to get by with a single master task list. They try to prioritize, which is nice. Prioritization is a wonderful concept but in our business everything is high priority, so what do you do? Everything is important.
Step #7: Prioritize your must-do list, project list or call backs. When it comes to prioritizing, consider this question for anything that has the potential to take up your time. What is the one thing I can do on this list (regardless of what the list is) that will give me the greatest results now?
Let’s say your must-do list contains five items—prepping for a meeting, returning three client calls, doing some research, calling back a prospect who was referred to you, or phoning back another client to discuss a proposal. Out of the five, what is the one item on the list that will give you the greatest results now? My vote would be to call the client you gave a proposal to because maybe they’ll say yes and you’ll be in a position to book some new business.
After that task is out of the way, you go back to your list, which now contains four items, see what is now on the list that will give you the biggest result? Chances are, if you call the person who was referred to you, you might set up a meeting. Who knows? They could turn out to be a great client.
Instead of placing everything on high priority, by asking your self this simple question, you are able to focus on one item at a time. This way, at the end of the day when the tasks on your to-do list have all been accomplished, you congratulate yourself on a job well done, then go back to your project list the next morning. That’s when you add things in along with any other items that may have cropped up throughout that day or evening, allowing you to gain greater control.
The next element of a strong or ideal daily game plan contains intangibles you want to discuss. We have talked about book ending our day, flexible structure, must-do and to- do list, project list, outcome list, all those things, which are very crucial, but now I want to talk about something else that is absolutely crucial.
Without enough energy or what I call gas in the tank to pull it off, I don’t care how well organized you are. If you don’t feel like doing anything, you are not going to have a very productive day.
Bottom line is that people cheat themselves out of success, not only in our industry, but also in life in general because they lack energy, because they don’t take care of themselves. One of the fundamental beliefs that I have, especially in our industry, is that we are all like professional athletes. If you think about it, we need energy to produce a result just like athletes do. I don’t care how skilled you are in a certain sport, if you are not conditioned to finish out the game, then chances are you are not going to be a champion.
The same rules apply in our industry. If we don’t have the energy to finish our day strong, then we are not going to produce at a champion level.
More in our next issue!________________________________________________________________________
