The following is an excerpt from “The Sustainable Edge: 15 Minutes a Week to a Richer Entrepreneurial Life,” by Ron Carson and Scott Ford (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2015). Mr. Carson is founder and chief executive of Carson Wealth. Mr. Ford is founder and CEO of Cornerstone Wealth Management.
There is no magic ticket to growth. The quickest route is by identifying what you do best and continuing to find ways to do it better. Saying no to pursuits that distract you from your focus will allow you to accomplish more than you ever dreamed. Setting one clear annual goal — your company's “Main Thing” — makes it much easier to do that. It will help you explain your goals to your team and rally everyone around it. Your Main Thing should reflect where your value lies for your clients. It is your commitment, based on your company's mission statement, and how you are going to deliver on that mission. In your daily life, using the “Essential Six” and “Most Vital” will help you support your firm's Main Thing.
At many firms, the Main Thing for the year is to move the needle on a key performance indicator, such as revenue, profits, or the company's “Net Promoter Score.” At [co-author Scott Ford's] firm, for instance, the annual goal is to attract a specific amount of new assets under management. [His] team debates its Main Thing at an annual strategic planning event that usually lasts a day or two. All of his team members get to be the CEO for the day and say what they think the Main Thing for the year should be before they make any final decisions. The quickest route to growth is through identifying what you do best and continuing to find ways to do it better.
Small and midsize firms cannot dominate a giant category; they must occupy the right niche. Maybe you can't be number one in size, but you can be the best in trust, transparency, and accountability, which are the core values and drivers of Carson Wealth and Cornerstone Wealth.
Maybe you can't be number one in size, but you can be the best in trust, transparency, and accountability.
You are probably already familiar with the classic “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats” (SWOT) analysis. It can get you off to a great start in identifying your niche. However, your niche should not only reflect market realities. Your values must come into play too, if you want to identify your Main Thing.
The following exercises will help connect the two. They may seem abstract and challenging, but if you dig deep and persevere, the answers will come.
1. What category can you create for your business that encompasses and transcends your values?
2. What brings you meaning, and for what are you grateful?
3. Consider your personal values and elevate them to the forefront of your actions, just as [co-author Ron Carson] did with his dedication to the Dreamweaver Foundation. He built this organization as a direct result of the IQ Grower™ exercises. What opportunities can you seize by aligning your values with your actions?
MULTIPLY YOUR FIRM'S VALUE
Committing to your Main Thing is more than a technique to manage your team's time and resources. It will also greatly increase the value of your business. One of Ron's clients sold his firm to a Fortune 100 firm recently. In the six months leading up to the sale, the business owner settled on one Main Thing — to maximize the valuation of the firm. In order to accomplish that, he made it a goal to make sure the team saved as much money as it could and was as profitable as it could be. It is much easier to sell a business for a high valuation if buyers understand exactly what it does and where it excels.
Holding a contest where internal stakeholders could compete for prizes, the client got the company's 400-member team excited about slashing spending. Whoever submitted one of the top three ideas would win. As entries poured in, it was eye-opening for everyone to see how much extraneous spending existed — everywhere from the company's phone system to its health insurance plan. As a result of internal team-stakeholders' efforts to trim the budget, the company improved its base earnings by more than $1 million. Ron's client got a seven-times multiple on that savings, meaning the exercise resulted in increasing the value of the firm by $7 million.
Sometimes, focusing on your Main Thing requires you to slow down temporarily, so you can speed up your firm's growth later. For instance, at Carson Wealth, Ron and his team had set an annual goal for 2014 — to create a compliance model for the firm that could be scaled, monitored, and enforced. Ron wanted the firm to achieve an “A” rating or higher, as measured by an outside audit firm. That goal wouldn't “move the needle” financially in the immediate future, but it would ensure that the needle stayed in place. It also helped the firm maintain trust, transparency, and accountability — factors that are absolutely critical to its value proposition as a brand and to its clients as it continues to scale.
Your Main Thing should balance sizzle and substance. In our field, it's easy to deliver a lot of sizzle to clients during a bull market, but that alone doesn't result in a “Sustainable Edge.”
You must be sure you can deliver substance [too], in the form of excellent wealth management, even in a bear market. Of course, you have to deliver some sizzle. If you bring great value but no one knows about your firm, you'll go out of business.
Sizzle alone won't result in the Sustainable Edge; you must deliver substance.
REALITY CHECK
As a company owner, it's easy to “drink your own Kool-Aid” when you get excited about a new Main Thing. To avoid wasting a year going down the wrong path, ask your leadership team for a reality check. Better yet, ask them what your Main Thing should be. Ron typically poses this question to his team at their annual planning meeting, “If you were president for the day, what ideas would you like to see on the table?” No idea is considered irrelevant. That way everyone has equity in the group's success. Aim to be both a truth giver and a truth receiver when you conduct your discussion. Allow your team to be heard and make them feel safe to express their views and debate the ideas under consideration. That requires some vulnerability as a leader. If you tend to be a take-charge, action-oriented personality, you may need to make a few attempts before you get it right — so you don't mow everyone over. At the same time, it's important to keep discussions from getting stuck in nitpicking, or you'll suffer from inertia. We both ask our teams to critique freely but insist they come prepared with solutions to any problems they spot.
Once you arrive at your annual goal, you will need to put specific, actionable plans in place to support it.
“Super Thursday,” a program that Ron's firm initiated, has been a powerful magnet for clients and supported Carson Wealth's goal of enhancing trust, transparency, and accountability. On the last Thursday of every month, the firms in the Carson Institutional Alliance open their doors to the public, prospects, clients and the media to show what they are doing behind the scenes each day.
[One] client transferred $24 million in assets because of Carson Wealth's transparency. Ron was astounded that Super-Thursdays were becoming so instrumental to his firm's winning new business.
Cornerstone Wealth's Main Thing for 2014 was to attract a specific, measurable total of new assets under management. Scott planned to accomplish this both organically and through acquisitions. To support that goal, Carson Institutional Alliance ramped up the firm's marketing plan and introduced a new technology called the Client Experience Optimizer.
Cornerstone Wealth sets four quarterly goals to underpin its annual goal. During the third quarter of 2014, the firm's quarterly goal was focused on marketing. To achieve that goal, Scott's team made it a top priority to participate in Carson Wealth's Super Thursday. Since his conference room comfortably seats 15 guests, he continues to invite that many prospects and key clients to meet with his advisers. His aim is to connect with and retain clients who are an ideal fit for the firm.
You'll be surprised at how far a relatively small effort at transparency like this can go. Not long ago, Scott invited two clients who had previously rated his firm a five (on a scale of one to 10) in client satisfaction. After they attended Super Thursday, they rated the firm 10 out of 10. Even more recently, Scott invited a local insurance agency owner. After attending just one Super Thursday, he told Scott, “Not only do I want to work together to have a relationship to refer my clients to you, but I also want you to manage my money.” When you start getting results like this, you will know your plans are on the right track.
The best way to make sure you achieve your annual and quarterly goals is to establish clear accountability and rewards for achieving them. Ron's team sets its key goals at an annual retreat. The leadership team discusses and debates what is most critical to accomplish and does a SWOT analysis on the company's goals. Finally, the executive committee votes to set priorities. Once these are decided, the firm assigns a champion who is in charge of reporting to the leadership team, on a monthly and quarterly basis, on the company's progress in meeting its goals. Each month there is also a celebration, such as a bowling night, to mark the firm's progress.
To underline your commitment to a goal, tie your team's compensation to meeting that benchmark. Ron's firm pays semiannual bonuses. His firm utilizes a scorecard process to make sure his team members know where they stand and can catch up if they're falling behind.
CLIENT EXPERIENCE
In 2013, Ron's firm decided it was important to emphasize the client experience above all as its Main Thing. To meet its goal, the firm had recently staffed up, but service levels were declining according to an internal measure it uses to keep tabs on client satisfaction. With more team members, there was more room for error. Instead of tying a portion of its team's bonuses to hitting revenue targets, Carson Wealth linked them to achieving a 25% improvement in productivity. Not having properly integrated, repeatable policies and procedures was hurting his team's efficiency. By fixing that problem, Ron knew the firm would improve its customers' experience, resulting in higher customer-satisfaction scores. That would be a huge long-term win for the firm.
Ron has gotten Carson Wealth to a place where he can honestly say his team never loses focus on its Main Thing. It is incorporated into digital dashboards and discussed constantly at meetings, so it always remains top of mind. Every morning, his leadership team has a quick check-in meeting where everyone shares an update on what they are doing to support the Main Thing. They also discuss the one task or goal they need help accomplishing. He supports them by refraining from adding big jobs to their plate until the Main Thing is accomplished.
Ron's accountability to his team and their accountability to the firm's Main Thing is why his firm is growing so fast.
So can yours.
