Strategic Coach Resources

Helping Financial Advisors Achieve Greater Freedom and Fulfillment.

Financial advisors frustrated by industry status quo have tremendous power to develop new innovative business model, says industry coach.

An opportunity for frustrated financial advisors.

Financial advisors who feel frustrated and stifled by the current conditions in their industry have more power than they realize, and a tremendous opportunity to enjoy greater personal and creative freedom, says Dan Sullivan, the founder of The Strategic Coach Program™.

“Many financial advisors are frustrated because their parent companies and regulators have clamped down on their creativity and self-expression,” Sullivan says. “In many cases, they’re not allowed to use a unique personal approach with their clients, or differentiate themselves in the marketplace through innovative packaging techniques.”

“As well, advisors are often frustrated because the fees and commissions they earn are falling, and their parent company is downloading more and more administration and overhead costs on to them. These factors are under-cutting their margins.”

“Unfortunately, many advisors feel they have no choice but to obey the dictates of the bureaucracy governing their industry and their company,” Sullivan adds. “They don’t think they have any power over the situation, and can’t see a way out of their predicament.”

Creative Destruction: a new business model and a system for action.

“That’s why we promote the concept of creative destruction: To provide financial advisors with a new business model that will help them break out of this negative situation, enjoy greater autonomy and creative freedom, and experience an enhanced sense of fulfilment in their work.”

Sullivan believes financial advisors are ideally suited to take full advantage of creative destruction, a concept first introduced by Joseph A. Schumpeter in his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. In it, the author describes capitalism as an economic structure that’s always changing through a process in which old business models are constantly destroyed, and new, better forms are created.

Sullivan builds on Schumpeter’s thesis by helping financial advisors realize they have the power to take full advantage of creative destruction, and to develop a new business model that’s better for them and their clients.

“Creative destruction is a very hot topic in corporate and academic circles, but for the most part, it has stayed at the level of an academic theory,” Sullivan says. “The unique approach we are taking is to translate creative destruction into a practical thinking, planning, and action system.”

Sullivan, whose company has been coaching top financial service advisors for more than 30 years, has created an innovative publication called The Creative Destruction Series™, comprised of quarterly teaching modules.

Two potential traps for financial advisors.

To take advantage of The Creative Destruction Series™ as a practical tool, Sullivan says financial advisors have to go through The Double Shift™, a process that frees them from two traps: The Specialization Trap™ and The Industry Trap™.

“When you fall into The Specialization Trap™, you have a narrow, pre-conceived idea of what you do for a living,” Sullivan says. “In the financial services industry, you might specialize in investments, insurance, retirement planning, estate planning, or something else. The problem is that if you see yourself as a specialist in one of these areas, you focus on helping your clients in a very limited way. As well, you usually try to sell one or two specific products and services, most of which have become commodities and yield declining revenues and margins.”

“When you fall into The Industry Trap™, you become ensnared in the culture of your industry. You’ve bought into a prescribed way of doing business. Your business model is the one used by most of the people in your industry — it’s the accepted, right way to do things. But this mode of thinking can limit your creativity, and curtail what you think you can do for a client.”

Steps for escaping the two traps.

To escape from The Industry Trap and The Specialization Trap, Sullivan says you need to take three important steps.

The first step is to realize that your clients don’t come to you because of the products offered by your company. They come to you, he says, because of your experience, wisdom, and expertise. They come to you because they want to have a relationship with someone they respect and trust.

“That’s why I tell financial advisors they own the relationship with their clients. Their clients don’t care what company the advisor works for. If the advisor is helping them, and providing value, their clients will seek a relationship with them no matter where they work.”

“The second step is to realize that the value your customers receive from their relationship with you can be packaged as a ’unique process’. This is the step-by-step method you use to help your clients assess their situation, establish clear goals, and develop a plan to achieve those goals. It’s the process you’ve used for many years, but may have never articulated, or viewed as valuable.”

“The third step is to realize that your customers will actually pay for this unique process. We have hundreds of financial advisors in The Strategic Coach Program™ who have discovered, to their delight, that their clients will gladly pay for their process if it’s properly packaged and presented.”

Creating a positive new model for divorce: Dan Taylor.

Sullivan says Dan Taylor, a long-time Strategic Coach client from Charlotte, North Carolina, is the perfect example of a financial advisor who has used the concept of creative destruction effectively to help his clients.

“Taylor had been working as a financial advisor for many years. He was caught up in The Industry Trap™ until he realized that one of his clients, who was going through a divorce, was having a terrible experience with the process. His divorce was taking a really long time, the lawyer’s bills were mounting, and the two parties were arguing and growing farther and farther apart.”

“Taylor knew there must be a better way to go through a divorce, and building on what he had learned in The Strategic Coach Program™ about creative destruction, he developed The Divorce Mediation Program™. This process helps people go through a divorce faster, for less money, and with much less acrimony.”

“At first, Taylor only offered this new service to his clients, but then he realized that other financial advisors might be interested in doing the process as well. Now he has trained dozens of associate mediators, and is earning a substantial sum from this new source of revenue.”

Taking care of special-needs families: Mary Anne Ehlert.

Mary Anne Ehlert, another participant in The Strategic Coach Program™, has developed a unique service called The Process For Protected Tomorrows™. “Mary Anne works with people who have someone in their family with special needs. Her program pulls together every different kind of resource from the community in a way that can’t be provided by the normal institutions and professionals. The Process For Protected Tomorrows™ gives families the first proactive process for handling every single issue that they’ll encounter in a lifetime.”

“Mary Anne’s process is completely unique,” Sullivan adds. “There is no one in the industry doing what she does. She is charging for her process, and is now teaching the program to other financial advisors across the country. The Process For Protected Tomorrows™ has helped Mary Anne achieve independence from the industry, has given her enormous personal satisfaction, and is enabling her to make an extraordinary contribution to a community where one family out of five has these issues.”

The emergence of Industry Transformers.

Sullivan says people like Dan Taylor and Mary Anne Ehlert are Industry Transformers™. “They’re people who have broken free of The Specialization Trap™, and The Industry Trap™, and have created unique processes that will completely transform their industry.”

“Dan Taylor and Mary Anne Ehlert have developed processes that cross over different industry boundaries. Their programs aren’t subject to regulatory scrutiny because they don’t involve giving financial advice. In fact, Dan Taylor has given up his license, and partnered up with other licensed advisors to do the financial work with his clients. They’re both also free to create other processes, and develop additional sources of unique revenue.”

Financial advisors: “life advisors” for the 21st Century.

Although entrepreneurs from every field can use the concept of creative destruction, Sullivan says The Creative Destruction Series™ is designed specifically for financial advisors. Sullivan believes financial advisors are in a unique position to become the single most important agents of change in the 21st Century.

“No other type of advisor asks the range of questions, or gets into a wider field of personal and financial subjects,” Sullivan says. “During their conversations with clients, financial advisors might talk about family concerns, health problems, or other lifestyle issues. They discuss the client’s values, life goals, and what gives their life meaning. That’s why I believe financial advisors are actually more like life advisors because they really touch every area of a person’s life, not just their finances.”

“Financial advisors are some of the most intelligent and creative individuals on the planet, but they have frequently lacked a means for integrating all of their experiences and knowledge. We foresee The Creative Destruction Series™ being positively received as a unique learning system that has never been available before to financial advisors.”

Sullivan sees The Creative Destruction Series™ becoming a unique information gathering process between his company and thousands of financial advisors who are intrigued and excited by having this kind of organizing principle at the center of their industry.