Capitalise on Covid, advisers told

Adviser business-owners need to focus on controlling what they can control and go for their goals to get through Covid-19, the founder of Passionate Performance says.

Monday, April 20th 2020, 10:25PM

Speaker Keith Abraham addressed the Financial Advice New Zealand webinar series Bring in the Experts about how advisers could reset and review their businesses.

He said advisers needed to set aside long-term visions and dreams at the moment and think about what they had to do over the next 30 days. “Long-term at the moment is 30 days … that’s all you can control in this chaos, crisis and confusion that’s what we can control, you have got to control the controllables.

“The next thing is what do you need to personally conquer – in your business what do you need to improve, enhance, develop, create, take to the next level?

“If you haven’t got business rolling in, and I know for some of you who haven’t been in the business for long it’s tough, but if you haven’t got business rolling in, what are you doing to lay the foundation to capitalise on this opportunity, to capitalise on this crisis?”

They would need to reset, review and refocus, he said.

Abraham said there was an opportunity for advisers to spend time in their businesses, to improve it and fix what they did.

They should start by reviewing the mindset they needed, what habits they should develop and what they needed to focus on right now. “We have to starve distractions and feed focus.”

Business owners would then need to reset to have purpose in life and business. “Don’t let things happen to you.”

Planners and advisers were resilient, he said. “What you do is totally undervalued by people in government. What you do is make a difference in people’s lives. You have to think about what your purpose is for the next 30 days.”

A plan was needed to make progress, he said, and passion was needed for success.

“Make sure you are enthused, energised, empowered to move forward … the reason most people don’t set goals is because they are not connected to it, not compelled by it, committed to it. You have to have an emotional, mental and physical connection.”

People should think about how they wanted to feel and then work out the number one goal they needed to attain that emotion they were after. They would also need to develop five reasons why they wanted to achieve a goal. “If you can’t think of them it probably doesn’t mean enough to you.”

Abraham recommended setting four milestones to work across the 30 days to break it down.

“We need to have two thoughts, how we react and how we respond … the only thing you can control is how you think and what you do next, the action you take.”

Mindset would be important, he said. “Positive is too vague and broad … if you were your greatest coach how would you turn up each day if you had that person on your side?”

Every day should start with three priorities to achieve. “There’s heaps of stuff to do but what are three things you must do? What is it you need to do to come out the other side of this and not just be successful but be significant? We have to conquer what’s now to make a plan for what’s next … then you won’t just survive, you’ll become successful and more importantly you’ll become significant.”

Tags: Financial Advice New Zealand