The Practice Doctor is IN

Al Depman, CLU, ChFC, CMFC, BH

Communication with Assistants: The Clarification Continuum

Recently I’ve been involved with a number of advisors who are either in the process of hiring an assistant or wanting advice on how to turn a staff person into more of an advocate. The staff person will, for example, answer a request from a client for an address change and simply process it efficiently. The advocate assistant will take the same call and probe, asking what prompted the move, what’s the new house and neighborhood like, and who bought the old house. These opportunities are then forwarded to the advisor for possible action.

The process of hiring and developing these advocates is the focus of what I call the “Clarification Continuum.” This continuum has six best-practice steps:

• Clarity of expectations
• Having the tools, training, and education necessary to carry out the expectations
• Supervision expectations
• Performance review expectations
• Compensation expectations
• Bonuses and incentives expectations

Seems the word “expectations” is important!  Let’s look at each step in detail.

1.  Clarity of expectations

A key element in the hiring and selection of an assistant is the job duties list. This list provides the initial benchmark for setting concrete expectations. The assistant’s job duties fall into two categories: marketing and administrative. Is the assistant to be primarily marketing-oriented, administrative, or a hybrid? Joel, in Kansas, advertised for a “marketing associate” and selected Beth based on her marketing degree from a local college. Unfortunately, Beth found herself doing more paperwork and administrative work than actually helping Joel market his practice. The relationship didn’t last long.

What happened? Joel wanted a marketing assistant but needed administrative support. This confusion led to two people spending time (and Joel’s money) in a frustrating assistant experience. To help Joel, I developed two 20-point checklists; one for marketing and one for administrative duties (email me at al@mitchanthony.com to receive a copy). With these checklists, we narrowed the field of job duties he was expecting the assistant to do to 12: eight administrative and four marketing. In sharing these with candidates during the interview process, he then was able to choose a hybrid assistant. Both Joel and Marti, his final choice, had clarity of expectations.

2.   Having the tools, training, and education necessary to carry out the expectations

Marti knows what’s expected of her. How do we give her the tools, training, education, and resources to accomplish the tasks? One of Marti’s job duties is to prepare the annual review materials for Joel and set the review appointment. To properly execute this expectation, Marti needs to know:

• What a review agenda looks like for each client segment (A, B, C)
• Where to obtain the necessary information
• How to find clients eligible for a review
• What to say in setting up the review appointment
• Preferred scheduling times
• Post-review transcription of Joel’s notes and updates
• Post-review routing of service and new business to proper channels

Joel will have to ensure he provides Marti with the proper training for this job duty as well as the remaining 11.

3.  Supervision expectations

Next up, Joel needs to supervise Marti regarding expectations. There are three styles of supervision: (1) micro-managing, (2) abdicating, and (3) monitoring. Using the same annual review example, Joel could micro-manage Marti’s progress by looking over her shoulder, correcting every mistake, and giving her the sense he could do the job better himself. He could abdicate the duty, waiting until Marti’s review to provide feedback and expecting everything done to his satisfaction in the interim. If it’s not, Marti will get a laundry list of things to “correct” and “do better.” The best practice is for him to monitor her development. This entails checking in on a regular basis to see if there are any issues she’s encountering or if she needs additional resources in order to meet this expectation.

There should also be a formal meeting weekly between Marti and Joel. This is an agenda-driven meeting that takes a look at the periodic progress towards all expectations with adjustments made as necessary.

4. Performance review expectations

The best practice here is to have a formal, off-site performance review once every six months. The purpose of the review is to revisit all the expectations as they have evolved and look at Marti’s overall success in achieving them.

The expectations should be laid out in a SMART (specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic, time-bound) format using some type of scoring system. Joel uses a 5-point scale:

1.  Poor

2.  Below Average

3.  Good

4.  Above Average

5.  Excellent

Marti and Joel come to a consensus on each expectation. An aggregate of “Good” is Joel’s way of saying “You’re doing fine work––you’re earning your base salary.” This leads to point five.

5. Compensation expectations

Marti’s base pay should be established with clear ties to the expectations. A continued aggregate performance review of “Good” would mean base pay continuing as is with cost-of-living increases factored in. Performance below ”Good” would mean no increases, while performance above “Good” could trigger a merit raise on a pre-determined scale.

6. Bonuses and incentive expectations

Two types of bonuses are available for Marti to aspire to: (1) practice performance, and (2) personal growth. 

The practice performance bonus is a measurement from year to year, or period-to-period, such as assets under management growth, revenue growth, GDC increase, or number of new clients. Joel has targeted $5 Million in new assets for Marti’s six-month anniversary, May 1st of this year through April 30th of next year. Joel’s rationale is that it will take Marti 6 months to get up to speed and achieve a significant impact on his ability to use his time more effectively. This refocusing of his time should enable them, as a team, to gather the $5M. Achieving this goal will earn Marti a 3% bonus calculated on her base pay. Exceeding the $5M allows for additional percentages, capped at 6%. 

Marti’s personal growth bonus is dependent on her individual efforts. In her case, within a year from her 6-month anniversary, she is expected to secure her Series 6 and 63 licenses. If she succeeds, Marti will be eligible to receive a 4% bonus in addition to Joel picking up all the expenses in preparing and studying for the licensing. This allows for a bonus to be attained even if the market tanks as it did last year.

This Clarification Continuum will go a long way towards hiring and developing advocate assistants. In addition to Joel and Marti, I have a number of producer teams that have benefitted from this process. Let me know if I can help!

The doctor is OUT.

Al Depman, CLU, ChFC, CMFC, BH, a.k.a. “The Practice Doctor”, is MitchAnthony.com’s Business Practice Consultant. He is the creator of “The Practice Management Assessment” tool and materials and has authored numerous articles in professional publications on practice management, and author of the forthcoming book, How to Build Your Financial Advisory Business, to be published by McGraw Hill in 2009. Al combined his Liberal Arts studies with 10 years of management experience with McDonald’s Corporation to enter the financial services world 25 years ago. Since then, Al has evolved from an MDRT-level sales rep into a full-time consultant specializing in helping others engineer their business practices to the next level. Contact him at al@mitchanthony.com.

© 2008 Al Depman