Creating a Client Service Calendar that Serves Your Lifestyle Goals
Your client service calendar is the backbone of your financial planning practice. Unfortunately, many advisors often start to feel overwhelmed by client service tasks. Before they know it, their business is running them - not the other way around. Luckily, there’s an easy way to navigate this dilemma. Structuring a client service calendar that prioritizes your peace and works around your lifestyle goals can put you back in the driver’s seat of your business.
What Do You Want Your Work Life Balance to Look Like?
The first step to figure out your ideal client service calendar is to determine what kind of work life balance you want. We are all striving for harmony between our work and personal lives. However, I find that most professionals struggle to consider all factors (in and outside of work) when building their businesses and client service calendars.
It can help to start by outlining professional commitments you know you have - such as continuing education, client work, business management and growth. In the financial planning profession, advisors focus on providing exceptional client service, and keeping up with their expertise through designations and ongoing education. Most advisors are practitioners and business owners, so this adds an additional layer of skills and time commitments to juggle.
From there, think about what type of personal goals you have that aren’t work related. These could be wellness focused, family oriented, or they could prioritize hobbies or fun. Don’t hold back! Outline everything that appeals to you, or that you want your personal life to hold.
Remember: by having a great personal life, you’ll be fueled to keep building a business that you love, and you’ll have the energy to maintain it.
How Can Your Business Help You Achieve Those Goals?
We all work to make money and work toward our personal goals. Yes, we like helping others, but businesses should be built to make an impact on your clients' lives and be profitable. I find that it’s helpful to start viewing business profitability as both a financial and personal concept. After all, you can make all the money in the world through your business, but if you’re running yourself ragged, you’ll never truly feel “profitable” or successful as a business owner!
This is where evaluating your business and your continuing education can help you to achieve a thriving business that creates margin for your personal life, as well. Let’s look at a few examples.
Education. In our industry, education can help you hone your skill set and work more efficiently - or even command a higher rate for your services. This has certainly proved true for many of my clients, and for me in my own business. Continuing education may mean choosing a niche financial planning skill set and becoming an expert. However, it can also mean learning a new skill in your business to help you scale. For example, sales training can help you to determine which clients are ideal, command a higher rate, and help you close prospective clients more quickly. Choose education that will help you achieve the results you desire.
Work Environment. Virtual work has allowed me the flexibility to move to three different states since starting my business in 2016. It’s been an amazing experience to continue to grow my company while being able to pursue relocation for a variety of personal and professional reasons. Build a work environment that supports the type of life you desire.
Be Selective. If you know exactly who you want to work with, and exactly the type of work they need, you can create efficient processes in your practice that deliver an elevated client experience. In other words, don’t be afraid to be selective. Don’t shy away from niche marketing. Honing your ideal client can help you to achieve the revenue and the lifestyle you desire.
Reverse Engineer to Create a Client Service Calendar
Once you’ve set your personal and professional goals, and evaluated how you can find more efficiency in your business, you’re ready to reverse engineer your client service calendar. Think of your calendar as serving two purposes:
Providing an elevated client experience.
Freeing you from a jam-packed schedule as your business grows.
That’s right - client service doesn’t have to mean being slammed and busy all the time. Start by blocking time to achieve your personal goals. For example, if spending time with family is a priority next year, plan to have a “slow season” over the summer, and consider adjusting your schedule so that you work 4-day weeks, or only take meetings 1-2 days a week.
You might also look at scheduling “surge” seasons in your business where you lean into extra marketing efforts, or schedule all of your client meetings each quarter. Worried that you’re not scheduling enough time with clients? Find a way to build in automated touch points to your service calendar to support your lifestyle goals.
Let’s look at the above example where you want to spend more time with family. If you’re dedicated to spending more family time and have scheduled two “surge” months for meeting with clients twice a year, you might be feeling like that’s “not enough” to adequately serve your clients. Depending on who you work with, that may be true. To address this issue, you can build 2-3 more touch points into your service calendar that don’t require client meetings. These might be:
Quarterly client newsletters with a checklist for what clients need to provide you for upcoming work (think: tax documents, bank statements, etc.)
Monthly videos where you address common client questions.
Having an assistant reach out to check in with clients periodically and schedule off-cycle meetings as needed.
Stuck On Your Old Client Service Calendar?
Too often, business owners build their client service calendars without taking personal goals into account. Once their business grows past the startup phase, they find themselves overworked, underpaid, and unfulfilled. Yet, departing from your original service calendar can feel like admitting defeat.
Remember: you are allowed to pivot in your business. There’s nothing that says a new, streamlined client service calendar that supports your lifestyle will somehow be bad for current clients. It’s natural to fear change, but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. If you’re considering revamping your client service calendar to better match your lifestyle goals, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’d love to help you achieve the business and the life of your dreams.
