Archive for December, 2011

Last night my husband and I were talking about the principles we want our kids to focus on. They are now all young adults from ages 19 – 24 and all venturing into a new phase in their life. This was not an easy discussion as we constantly allowed our emotions to impact our thoughts but after about 2 hours our discussion became quite fruitful. We realized we want all our children living a Healthy independent life, being fiscally responsible while always growing and improving. I won’t bore you with the details, but what I love about having these principles is that it makes it easier for us to make decisions. If one of our children needs our help we can now consider how they are living these principles which will reinforce our decision.

Your business is no different, as a female financial advisor it’s so easy to get caught up in the emotions of your business, your minds can easily block out the realities in lieu of what you want to see or do. While you may not select principles to grow your business, having a vision driven by your Mission can provide that same structure and guidelines when making a business decision.

In my business, Your Pink Office, my mission is to inspire female financial advisors to better leverage their strengths to accomplish more. To help them recognize their unique differences and have the courage to trust their instincts and follow their heart. With this in mind every decision I make, every investment I make into my business must fit within my mission. I can even look backwards and ask myself in 2011 how did I accomplish my mission? What are the measurable achievements that inspired women?

Whether you are trying to raise responsible productive children or building a highly profitable business having a clearly defined vision and mission is a critical component to staying focused, objective and more successful in both your business and personal life.

Ready to start 2012 with a new vision but you don’t know where to start? Breakthrough Coaching designed to jump-start your business with a personalized, high-intensity, one-hour session that gets you out of your rut and back onto the road to success.

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I have grown to LOVE internal conflict because I know what is on the other side – BIG GROWTH.

This past week I coached two female advisors who were experiencing that same internal frustration.  While in many cases the angst seemed to come from outside sources, I recognize that the real source is within you.

My client Ann is always so energized, her business is on a strong upward trajectory and she is excited about her future.  She has been asked to speak to a number of women’s group acting as a role model and example of success. She volunteers to train other advisors in her branch and truly has a desire to see everyone succeed.  While I appreciate this team attitude I have been trying to get her to focus more on her business and less on everyone else’s success, I may have gotten my wish.

Recently there have been a number of incidences within her work environment that has hurt her feelings, made her angry, caused her tremendous stress.  She has lost some of her mojo and feels like avoiding her business which is so unlike her. These negative feelings are so contrary to her nature they are creating even greater internal conflict.  She is angry because she sees others changing and not appreciating her loyalty and contribution.

While she sees the source of the issues coming from others I see the source as coming from within her, she is about to make a HUGE shift in her business that will be way more productive, yet she keeps hanging on to her old scripts and model as the way things should be done.  I let her vent and when she was finished I told her the problem isn’t them it is YOU.

When you work closely with others we all develop a dance,  we step together and sway together, we all know the steps you step this way and I know your going to step that way, it becomes very comfortable and we all seem comfortable with the progress.  BUT when someone decides they want to change the dance steps it can quickly frustrate those around you.

You know it‘s time to change, your ready to make a positive shift in your business, recognizing a new approach or replacing old habits and behaviors to new ones that will take you and your business to a higher place.  This is when you are changing the dance steps.  YOU are no longer acting or behaving the way you always have (you are growing!) but to others it’s as if you changed the dance step on them.  They really want you to come back to the old step because as you change everything feels out of synch.  It may get so uncomfortable for them (depending on how much they want to stay in their comfort zone) that your relationship may change all together.

The conflicts and challenges you are experiencing now are just GROWING PAINS.

Yep you heard me! You are changing and that is a great thing, it may mean your relationships with friends and colleagues change but perhaps, given time and your ability to change and grow you will become an inspiration to them.  Instead of feeling hurt realize they are in fear of losing who you were, instead of feeling anger understand that their behavior is driven by fear, fear of change.  As you experience these new feelings release yourself of any expectations and relish in the fact that YOU are on your way to success you never dreamed possible.

But know that the old dance routine is gone, over. But remember you are a part of others comfort zone so when you change everyone else is no longer in synch with you.  This makes them angry which can alter the relationship.

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I have a friend, a female financial advisor who makes success seem so easy.  She is always smiling, she works through issues with a smile on her face and her production keeps going up.  As a young new advisor I would watch her trying to emulate all the systems and processes that she incorporated into her business.  But what I have learned through my years coaching female financial advisors is that it’s not the systems that make the business it’s the ATTITUDE.

It’s not the tools and resources that makes this woman so successful it’s something so simple you often don’t even recognize it.  Her ATTITUDE drives everything she does and every decision she makes. She is an example of the Law of Attraction.  This past week in a coaching call with one of my female advisor clients we spent a whole hour focused on her attitude.  When I say attitude I’m not talking about walking in with a happy face (as that happy face can often be covering up major internal conflict) I’m talking about a whole new way of approaching everything in your life.

Years ago in the early stages of my business when the bulk of my contact list was Smith Barney clients and managers, I sent out an email titled “Do I Stay or Do I Go” .  At the time there was a lot of firm hopping going on.  The intent of my email was to help the advisors really look at their situation and not be swayed by the big check. I talked about how often you are just swapping one problem for another and the stress that comes when you switch firms is incredibly challenging (as most of you can attest to).  In my own independent objective manner I was hoping to quell the amount of advisors moving. That’s not how Smith Barney saw this email. Next thing you know there are managers deleting their names from my distribution list.  An advisor and friend finally shared with me what happened and why, I was shocked. My intent was so good how could they take it as if I was a “traitor”.

I held on to this experience along with a few other not so positive occurrences. It became a led weight making me sad and at times angry and while I loved my work there seemed to be a dark cloud over my head until I met my coaches Cheryl and Teresia.  I learned that the experience was only an experience, that as long as I perceived that experience as a negative it would continue to hold me back from achieving the success I wanted. A negative thought is like putting a ball and chain around your ankle as you try climbing the mountain.  My coaches helped me to see (what my husband had been telling me for a year) that it was time to move away from my comfort zone (still working the Smith Barney contacts) and begin broadening my source of new business.  While I continued to “punish” or “chastise” myself for this incident they taught me that these experiences are only detour signs on the path to success.  That they are not bad or wrong experiences but present themselves in order to help us take the direction that we are better suited for.

Today, any negative experience I realize is a gift from God, I know it is an opportunity to learn something about myself or my business that I would never have voluntarily addressed on my own.  As we learn to reframe these experiences we turn what could have been a ball in chain into an instant propulsion moving you forward faster with less effort.

As you talk with your friends, colleagues, associates even clients and you encounter those people who always feel carefree and positive about their business with a business that backs them up, notice their attitude, recognize how they handle what seems like negative situations and begin incorporating your own process for converting what hurts or angers you into a blessing that will drive you forward.

As Zig Ziglar always said You Attitude Determines your Altitude!

And I thought it was only women who felt boxed in. Today I visited with a Male Financial Advisor, after reading his brochure I still had no idea who he was.  His message was so generic he was almost invisible and then I learned that was his intention.

During my conversation with this young man I could see he was doing some good things but definitely not getting the results he needed for his business.  After further probing I learned so much more, he is an avid sports enthusiasts, running, biking, rowing, hiking, when he talked about this his whole being lit up, he showed me pictures, books it was obvious this was something he was truly passionate about.

I asked him why he wasn’t sharing this in his marketing and brochure?  And then I learned something new.  He told me that because he wasn’t the mainstream guy who liked to golf and smoke cigars he felt almost embarrassed about his life and passions. I don’t know how this came about but as a woman I totally understand.  I told him that hiding this part of him was making him invisible when in fact it was this part of him that truly made him different and different in a powerful way.

We started to talk further about his sports and passions and then we started talking about the process and discipline he incorporates to succeed in sports, we then transferred those same concepts to his business and he immediately got the connection.  It was a transformational 30 minutes.  All this time he was hiding the exact thing that would allow him to succeed.  I told him what he experienced was no different than what women experienced in this industry.

It’s time for women and the non-mainstream men to come out of hiding. Advisors are constantly looking for ways to differentiate themselves from the competition, odds are you don’t have to look far, just look within.