Taking Your Own Advice: Top 10
Sometimes following one’s own advice is the hardest thing. But the same principles you espouse in your own work, the very habits you encourage your clients to adopt, will actually help you reach all kinds of goals—including the ones you have for your practice.
So here are the top 10 pieces of financial advice that will help you build your brand and grow your business:
- Invest for the long term. Lasting success doesn’t happen overnight. Near-term decisions are best made within the context of a long-term vision for your practice.
- Stay the course. If your strategy was designed for the long term, you have to see it through in order to cash in.
- Schedule regular contributions. Consistent input leads to higher yields. Build practice development into your day and your budget, and you’ll reap the benefits.
- Don’t rely on quick returns. Immediate ROI happens now and then, but no one’s lucky all the time.
- Don’t expect high-value results for low-cost services. There’s always a cheaper option, but what’s it worth?
- Trust proven principles, not hot stocks. Tricks and fads will come and go, but the core precepts of branding and marketing change little over time. That’s what will carry you through.
- Custom is better than cookie-cutter. It’s easier to ensure a product will meet your needs when it’s actually been designed around them.
- Life is change, so review regularly. Make sure your strategies are keeping up with real-life circumstances, and that your brand reflects the true value of your current capabilities. Both risk and opportunity can arise quickly.
- Expect complexity. Time, growth and success all generate complexity. It’s important to access the expertise and the capabilities to manage it.
- Complacency can be costly. Being proactive is cheaper than playing catch-up. And the earlier you start investing in the practice you envision, the more you’ll get out of it in the end.
