5 Reasons to Always Strive for Excellence
If you want to become an elite advisor, you need to strive for excellence in everything you do. And this requires an outstanding work ethic. Great advisors ply their trade until they become proficient. They understand that striving for excellence is an ongoing process; that there’s always room for self-improvement and it is excellence that will separate you from non-achievers.
Here are some reasons to develop the habit of excellence.
1. Having excellent soft skills will help you when markets dive
By developing superb soft skills, you will be prepared to face poor market conditions head on.
During market downturns, your clients will inevitably become concerned about the security of their investments. Your job is to reassure them that sticking to the plan is the right thing to do. By practicing in advance how you will address clients during a bear market you will develop the confidence to persuade them to stay the distance.
Practice your vision stories and analogies until you’re word perfect. Then you will be perfectly placed to convince them that bad times are temporary blips on the road to eventual financial success.
2. Becoming the most charismatic advisor will help you win new clients
Prospects only want to do business with people they like and trust, and warm to people who are charming.
If you don’t feel you possess innate charisma, you’re not alone. Even elite advisors have to work on their soft skills to come across as likeable and trustworthy.
Practice adapting your tone of voice, maintain good eye contact, use animated expressions, and always show interest and enthusiasm. If you work on perfecting these techniques, you’re well on your way to possessing that ‘certain something’ that elite advisors appear to possess effortlessly.
3. Having a plan will help set you apart
By setting out a clear roadmap to follow, you’re giving yourself an advantage over average advisors.
Your business plan must include clear goals that you can hit along the way. This will help you stay focused and become more disciplined. Once you’ve decided what your plan is, don’t ever stray from it – it will help keep you on track and overcome obstacles and negativity along the way.
4. Being the most disciplined advisor will keep your appointment book full
If there’s one thing the very best advisors are good at, it’s time-management, and in particular – making prospecting a structured time. They understand that prospecting is the key to their success.
So, do as they do and set aside specific time every day when to prospect. See all other tasks as less important and don’t procrastinate. Book the time in and you will – even if simply by the law of numbers – ensure your appointment book remains healthy.
5. Striving for excellence will help get you out of a rut
When you’re stuck in a rut you may feel that things will never change. But it’s actually easy to change once you make a sincere commitment to developing excellence in all that you do.
When your enthusiasm levels drop, concentrate your energy on completing the task in hand to the very best of your ability. Once you have achieved this goal, no matter how small, pause and take the time to congratulate yourself, because you’ve just completed the next step on your route to success.
If you want to achieve success and feel fulfilled in your career then put the utmost effort into each and every thing you do. Be the most sincere and honest advisor you can be. Develop repeatable processes and do these tasks with aplomb. Striving for excellence will help you stay on track – it will enable you to feel and exude confidence. As Steve Jobs put it, in this life ‘we don’t get a chance to do that many things, so every one should be really excellent.’
It will take time to become excellent at what you do, but if you take pride in your job and always give your best, it will go a long way towards securing your future success.
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