Doing something just because everyone else does it isn’t the smartest way of doing business. The financial industry’s standard of meeting with clients once every quarter isn’t necessarily the best business model. Nor is it advisable to schedule a meeting only once a year or to wait for when a client has changing needs.

The smart business model establishes a proactive annual meeting cycle.

When you settle upon the ideal number of clients in your community, you’ll find that most of your clients are easy to care for once you have processes for your team to follow. However, there are always a handful of clients going through some special situation that requires more analysis necessitating a special meeting with your team.  You know, those rare occasions where an ideal client’s company has made them an “early buy-out” offer, or they have an opportunity to purchase a business, or one of their most complicated goal dates is imminent. 

These situations can be time-consuming for your team.  In order to create the time necessary to deal with the pressing needs of these few clients, it would be smart to develop a methodical meeting cycle.  It should be one that almost automatically cares for your other clients who have nothing pressing going on in their lives.

An annual meeting cycle needs to accomplish two important things:

• Get everything that needs to be done for your clients (your deliverables) completed on time.
• Create a standardized process for all ideal clients, so you can delegate most of the meeting preparation to your growing team (progress reports, updates, etc).

Our firm invested a year researching the question of how many meetings provide the optimum service to ideal clients.  And do you know what we came up with?  A 3-meeting annual cycle is the best.

What are the benefits of fewer meetings?

• It gives clients more time to focus on things that matter most to them.
• It’s less taxing on your team.  They have more freedom to deal with clients going through more intense special planning situations. 
• It creates more time for you.  You’ll be able to spend at least two-thirds of your time interacting even more effectively with your ideal clients and, of course, acquiring new ones.

That’s why I created The Three Meeting Process™ within the The Trusted Advisor Toolkit™.  We teach and fully support financial advisors with all the meeting plans, client agendas, preparation materials, document checklists, progress reports, and client “homework assignments” you need to successfully implement an annual meeting cycle that gives your clients the best possible service.  If you don’t already have a membership to our system, you can register now at no charge!