You’re buried with client work and practice management. You’re working long hours, your discretionary time is limited, and you need to get some help. Who should you hire next? How do you sequence the right role at the right time? I’ll share what I did because it worked. But I’d recommend you take a much different course.
Great article Reese, very insightful. I needed to hear this message this week as I have been allowing myself to get too distracted by operational work rather than marketing and new client efforts!
To pile on a bit, there is a vicious cycle for solo professional service providers that inhibits their ability to achieve steady growth. It usually looks something like this:
1. Hustle to find new prospects
2. Close new business
3. Onboard new clients
3a. Continue servicing existing book
4. Get hungry for new clients
5. Repeat
This cycle is very well illustrated by the graphic you drew. The problem with this approach is that marketing and sales require commitment and consistency to drive steady results. So, when advisors get too busy servicing existing clients to dedicate time to marketing and sales, growth slows down to a trickle of unsolicited referrals.
As suggested in your post, a great solution to this problem is to separate sales and marketing from service operations.
A team made up of a marketer, an appointment setter (SDR), and an advisor will have the ability to grow revenue much faster than adding another advisor who is tasked with doing all three functions on their own.
In addition, this team structure will give the advisor (the subject matter expert) a little extra time to produce compelling content that can be used by your marketing partner to differentiate, drive demand, and put more appointments on the calendar.
Great article Reese, very insightful. I needed to hear this message this week as I have been allowing myself to get too distracted by operational work rather than marketing and new client efforts!
Awesome post.
To pile on a bit, there is a vicious cycle for solo professional service providers that inhibits their ability to achieve steady growth. It usually looks something like this:
1. Hustle to find new prospects
2. Close new business
3. Onboard new clients
3a. Continue servicing existing book
4. Get hungry for new clients
5. Repeat
This cycle is very well illustrated by the graphic you drew. The problem with this approach is that marketing and sales require commitment and consistency to drive steady results. So, when advisors get too busy servicing existing clients to dedicate time to marketing and sales, growth slows down to a trickle of unsolicited referrals.
As suggested in your post, a great solution to this problem is to separate sales and marketing from service operations.
A team made up of a marketer, an appointment setter (SDR), and an advisor will have the ability to grow revenue much faster than adding another advisor who is tasked with doing all three functions on their own.
In addition, this team structure will give the advisor (the subject matter expert) a little extra time to produce compelling content that can be used by your marketing partner to differentiate, drive demand, and put more appointments on the calendar.