Unless your client base and revenues are expanding, your firm and its capability of providing you and your family a good livelihood is at risk. This is a time to be intelligent and manage very alertly. It is also time for you to take charge, don't wait until it is too late to turn things around.



There is a first barrier that will get in the way of doing what you know you need to do that must be utterly overcome. It is the reason I am writing this article.

You are subject to a natrual law that goes like this: the condition of "remaining stable and unchanging" is non-existent in life -- and the life of a business is no exception. That means any firm that is seeking to hunker down, slow down, pull back, wait it out, is very definitely not expanding, and by this law, is contracting and decreasing its survival. In a recessionary economy, that is a very dangerous road to follow. It is not easy to envision in today's traumatic markets and shell-shocked investors, but the fact is that high demand for expansion is the only way that you can guarantee your survival and a secure future for you and your family.

The overarching winning strategy

Based on a maxim that I recommend at times like these to my coaching clients, I recommend this. "In the face of the unusual, do the usual." That does not necessarily mean to keep doing the same thing you are doing. It does mean work out how you can accomplish all standard actions that you know you need to get done. The trick and where your brilliance comes in is getting them done despite the obstacles. Despite fewer resources, the same actions must get done. Make sense?

The biggest barrier to achieving success

Watch out for this one. Too often people in general believe the "reason" they are having a particular problem is due to something tiat is happening elsewhere (outside of their control). This is especially true when there seem to be such good "reasons" that things are out of their control. Based on a recent survey done on financial advisors, many of them CFP(c) professionals at a Practice Management and Technology Conference of NAPFA, there is a fair amount of this present in the financial industry. It is okay to see that you may see yourself at sea in the financial perfect storm, but it does no good to focus on why the "wind" is blowing.

But the very act of "placing blame elsewhere" reduces your ability to devise effective solutions. It actually reduces your ability to think straight.

When you take a look at it, "Elsewhere" is not a place that you can easily control. But you can have complete control over what happens internally within your business. You can control how efficient your staff are. You do have control over how well surveyed your marketing messages are. And you must control the level of care shown to your clients, especially when they are getting beat up in their own vicinity.

There are countless aspects of your business that you have control over. Those are the items that should occupy your time and focus. Complete focus. To the degree that you assign the source of a problem to "elsewhere", you will be incapable of handling your own scene.

The best and most comprehensive strategy consists of accomplishing only those things you know are needed for your practice to survive well in any economic situation. Decide you know what these things are, and then do not back off and say "I can't do that now, because . . ." Find a way. Your firm's survival depends on it. Here is just one, and perhaps the most obvious example: You know you need to have clients who are happy with you. Isn't that key to your success? that has not changed. You must, must do whatever you need to do to make your clients happy with you. No excuses. Get the idea? It can be done even in and in spite of a recession. That is your proven first step toward coming out on top.