Despite not being a fan of New Year's resolutions, the start of the year is as good a time as any to kick off a set of collective resolutions once the holiday season ends. While we typically focus on self-improvement, financial, and wellness goals as resolutions, January is also a fantastic time for advisors to revisit their growth and transition goals for their practices as well.
The problem isn't that advisors are doing a poor job planning for growth and transition for their practices, it's that they're not planning at all. Most people track their financial activity somehow, be it via a program in the cloud, on their personal computer, or an old-fashioned paper checkbook ledger. How many of those financial advisors, though, set transition goals and track their progress against those goals? I’d wager not that many–setting goals and then keeping after them is hard work, and it’s not something that’s easily done, nor are there any online solutions to support them.
Find Bob‘s new Goals feature, available exclusively to our enterprise customers, seeks to take the difficulty out of both setting goals and regularly tracking your progress towards those goals. With a few clicks, you can set up a transition goal, and then use Find Bob to help you achieve that goal.
How to Create a Goal
Creating a goal on Find Bob is quite simple: just click the Goals tab at the top of the screen, and you’ll see the Goals overview page, as seen in the image below.
Find Bob provides a number of predefined goals, covering objectives such as establishing business continuity, how to apply for financing, checklist for buying or selling, and how to prepare for a valuation.
Click on the goal type you’d like to create and a step-by-step guide will appear, asking you questions relevant to the selected goal. Each goal asks a differing series of questions, but they’re very simple to answer–just fill in the requested fields, and click Update, as seen below:
Next, the guide lets you set a target date for reaching that goal and sets up tracking for your goal. The tough part about setting transition goals (other than tracking your progress and achieving them, of course) is knowing where to get started. Find Bob’s Goals feature takes care of that for you. If in your profile you've indicated that you don't have a business continuity partner or perhaps have a partner but haven't established financing, for example, the Goals feature will suggest that this is a goal in which you should pursue. Likewise, if you've indicated that you're interested in selling a practice, Goals will suggest that you take the Preparing To Sell goal and will provide a series of steps for you to prepare. If you want to obtain a practice valuation, Goals will estimate the value based on a rule of thumb after evaluating your practice and provide you the necessary information on how to prepare for a professional valuation and even provide recommendations.
Our Goals feature has no restrictions on the amount of goals you can be working on in parallel. Find Bob will send you notifications to your email inbox and within the site to ensure that you're keeping pace with completing your goals, as seen below:
How Find Bob helps you achieve your goals
Find Bob's Goals not only helps you set up goals and track their progress — the feature is designed to help you achieve them. Each goal’s online guide offers specific advice to help you work towards that goal, including walking you though key milestones along the way.
If your goal is to learn about how to fund an acquisition, for example, the Apply For Financing guide offers advice on improving your credit score, understanding your loan options, shopping for lenders and so forth. Each step incorporates relevant content from the Find Bob blog.
How You Can Achieve Your Goals
While Find Bob's Goals feature helps you set and track goals, here are some tips that can help you actually achieve the goals you set:
* Set Keystone Habits - The first mistake people make is trying to achieve too many goals all at once. The second mistake is expecting immediate progress. It’s pretty unrealistic to think you’ll understand what—overnight!
A better approach is to identify and build keystone habits, an idea outlined in Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit. Duhigg explains that Keystone habits, “create a chain reaction; changing and rearranging your other habits as you integrate the habit into your life.” They have three characteristics: They “give you numerous small senses of victory,” “serve as the soil from which other habits grow,” and “give you energy and confidence to do more.”
If you want to be healthier, for example, one good keystone habit might be waking up earlier. It’s a pretty easy change, so you’ll start each day with a small victory. Also, with more time for yourself each morning, you’re more likely to reach your other goals—like cooking a healthy breakfast or getting to the gym. Finally, this change is energizing, because it will empower you to make better choices in other areas of work and play.
Each Find Bob Goal's online guide will include suggestions on things you can adapt to your practice today that are lightweight and easy to implement.
* Understand Your True Motivation - Napoleon Hill, author of Think And Grow Rich, writes that, “the starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.” Behind every goal lies a deeper reason that is motivating your desire for change or achievement. Whether your goal is buying or selling a practice, or finding a successor, knowing the deeper reason is vital to reaching your desired result.
Unfortunately, these greater reasons for achieving goals often get lost amid the daily noise of emails, events, and immediate deliverables. Without them, it’s easy to become discouraged. Even if you’re steadily maintaining your new habits, what will happen you face challenges or a plateau?
Consider taking the Find Bob goals on crafting your vision to help you identify what's truly important for you.
* Measure and Be Accountable - The success of any viable corporation is measured through daily accountability, quantifiable progress, and recognition of smaller—as well as larger—milestones. Likewise, your transition goals should be broken down into measurable pieces, during which time you hold yourself accountable and celebrate achievements.
The Find Bob Goals each have their own progress bar that will indicate how many more tasks are required to completing the goals. You'll receive notifications indicating areas that are outstanding requiring your attention and tips for helping you make quicker progress. At the end of each month, use the aggregate information on Find Bob to study your progression and highlight any areas needing attention. Then, make the journey more meaningful by celebrating growth, small or large. Spotlight mid-year achievements with a treat. Send thank you gifts or take friends who’ve been there for you out to dinner. Balancing the discipline and professionalism of a business mindset with gratitude and self-love creates a motivating environment for growth.
What’s to come
We're constantly adding new ways for you to achieve your transition outcomes via Goals. In the future we'll be adding even more videos and interviews from industry experts who's valuable insights will help you inch closer to realizing your dreams.
So enjoy the holidays and indulge in the festivities with your loved ones. It'll be time to put those resolutions into action before you know it.
To get started with goals, if you're a Find Bob enterprise user go to your organization's landing page, simply login and get started.
