Mark McKenna Little

This is the ten year anniversary of the day back in August of
1999 I snapped. Seriously, I quite literally broke down and
decided to rip up the business model I had built and put in place
something smarter, offering more to my clients and worthy of
(much) higher compensation. I'm getting ahead of myself.

You and I are probably a lot alike.  After college
I became a financial advisor to help people accomplish
their goals and to do well enough to accomplish my own ambitious
goals.

Somewhere along the way I built a pretty dumb business
that had far too many small clients (whom I still love)
and I offered my clients very "thin" services for all
the money they paid me. I spent 12 years building up an
unsustainable business that required 75+ hours per week from me.
I was frustrated, exhausted and ready to leave the financial
services industry.

So what happened 10 years ago today?  At that time I had 1,242 clients; far more than I could meet with every year.  Well (don't laugh), do you remember all the hype, panic & hoopla (which turned out to be nada) about what would happen when the clock rolled over at midnight on new year's ever into the new century?  It was feared that computers would cease, nuclear missiles would launch, hospital equipment would take on a mind of its own and investment companies' computers would delete all your holdings from your accounts. Stop laughing, I'm serious! Well, because of this panic most of my 1,242 clients wanted to schedule meetings with me to sit down during the last six months to discuss our firm's contingency plan for all the Y2K chaos being predicted. Do the math; that's over 50 meetings per week.  That was it... I snapped! I would either change my business model or quit the business.

Even I wondered what I would do next... if you have been "around the block" in this industry you may identify with my story.  If you're newer to the
business I'm your future coming back to the present to warn you.

The thing that you might not know about me is that
until the moment I "snapped" ten years ago, I was a "one-man-
band" financial advisor who couldn't (or wouldn't) delegate any
of my client services to my administrative support person. In the end, back in 1999 I "stepped up," I changed my business model & created processes around it.

I am still a bit of a micro-manager, but over the past ten years
I have put together all the systems & processes required to run a
highly organized comprehensive financial services practice with
nearly all of the client services delegated to my (mostly
outsourced) team, which frees up my time tremendously.

I realized back in 1999 what is true today; the simple truth is this - the financial advisor who offers the most comprehensive services is more irreplaceable to their clients and commands the highest compensation.

I thought becoming an authentic comprehensive financial advisor
would the best career path I had conceived of EVER. But doing all
that work to ramp up my services was depressing.  Until that moment I "snapped" it wore me out to think about it.

In fact, I am lucky.  I'm fortunate that I conjured up the energy
to develop all the systems, processes and methods to run a fully
comprehensive financial services practice.  I was also grateful
that I found the right people to work with... but most amazing to
me was that my methods were so replicatable,  You see, once I
built and exceptionally well-run financial advisory practice
worth owning my other financial advisor buddies were after me to
share all my systems.  My processes worked fantastically for them
(even though they had different business models and client
acquisition methods than me). So, as many of you know, I have
spent the past six years turning my checklist-driven process into
a into a finely honed machine that helps me, and the financial
advisors I work with,  do one thing - offer more comprehensive
financial services with less effort from me.  After implementing
my systems, at my peak, I booked appointments only 3 days per
week and increased by annual revenue four fold.

We all decided that rather than waste time on putting on seminars
or teaching classes, doing radio shows or advertising, we
determined that the best marketing on earth is to flawlessly
deliver on an extensive service offering through a remarkably
skilled team. In other words, a firm that is easy for clients to
refer into is the best "marketing" ever.  It's the real deal.

So why am I telling you this?

Well... this is something of an "open secret"... I
have been working on some online resources for you to be able to
systematically install the exact same systems that I am using.

In fact, I have been working on this for almost
two years. I even started a waiting list, and some
folks have been on that list for a VERY long time.

Well, the wait is ALMOST over. I'm just finishing up a project
called "Module 8" for my friend Bill Bachrach.  Now that is
nearly complete I'm shifting focus back to these online resources
and it looks like we are only a few short weeks away from
releasing this new system that will install and delegate fully
comprehensive financial services . As my daughter would say
"Available to you and your team 24/7".

But before I unleash this thing, I want to do one
final check to make sure that this system really
has everything that YOU need. So I have this one
question for you...

What are the two most important things that you
feel you would need from me to help you install and train
your team to deliver fully comprehensive financial services?

I really want to know... please take my survey (less than 5 minutes... I promise) 

http://tinyurl.com/toolkitAug8  or email me at mark@TrustedAdvisorToolkit.com.

With so many financial advisors, I can't guarantee a personal
response... but I can guarantee that I will
personally read your email. So go ahead and let me
know - what are the two most important things you
need from me to for you to offer your clients best-in-class comprehensive
financial services?

That's all for now...

Wishing you every success,
Mark

P. S. I am dead serious about this - and I really DO
value your feedback. Your response will help ensure my online
system is perfect... what are the top three most important things you
need to get you from where you are now with your client service
offering in order to move to fully comprehensive financial
services? Please take my survey (5 min or less) http://tinyurl.com/toolkitAug8.