Granum and Building a Business

I was rereading the Field Priority documents this week and noticed an aligned desired outcome with Granum between the MPA and MDA, but the statements were from different perspectives:

• MPA: Conviction in Granum-level client building and core must be woven into all advisor and team member development. This is increasingly critical for G2s, G3s, and team members.
• MDA: Evolve, modernize, and rebrand Granum as the foundation for a new 21st-century advisor productivity model.

They’re both right. We talked about this at a high level in Driving FPP #9, but it’s worthy of a little deeper dive based upon the Associations’ priorities.

Granum and the Client Building System are the most impactful gift ever given to NM. They continue to be the critical foundation of every advisor’s growth. However, as the world and NM have evolved, there does need to be a more significant focus on foundational principles of building a business in general; these principles give Granum context as an advisor grows.

Consider the difference between being data-driven and being data-informed. In a static environment, data should drive our decisions. In a dynamic environment, data should inform our decisions.

New advisors need to be data-driven through Granum Client Building. When we all started with NM, we had little to no idea what we were doing, so we needed the Granum data to drive our actions. It is through this high level of activity that we are able to do the work required to learn, and to become competent, in the basics of the business we were learning to build. To move from competence, to having knowledge, to eventually gaining wisdom, we also needed to broaden our perspective of learning to understand the context of the business decisions we make for growth.

Consider what we do in great fact-finding. We want to help prospects agree to concepts generally that we can then apply to them specifically in the PX. We’ve talked before about the difference between making a decision versus a choice. If we spring the idea of them needing to save 20% of their income early in the PX with no context, then the prospect has to make a decision if that is right or wrong, and then a choice of whether or not it is right for them. We just set up multiple closes… If a prospect makes the decision that the general concept is smart in the fact-finder, when we apply it to them specifically in the PX and refer back to the decision they made earlier, then it’s just a choice on whether or not they are committed enough to properly align their budget.

The same logic applies to advisor growth. The fundamentals of building a successful business are universal. For example, how many of the following apply both to building a business with NM, and starting a coffee shop:

• I need to have a consistent flow of new clients coming into my business.
• I need to have an experience that engages them and builds a desire to tell others about my business.
• I need to leverage the talents of others in the operations of my business so I can focus on engaging the public.
• I need to continually drive the knowledge/skills of my craft so I can be more relevant to higher-margin prospects.
• I need to keep meticulous data on my business to inform my decisions for growth.
• Etc..

When an advisor understands the concepts of building a business in general, they have made the decision that these fundamentals are true. Now, when we help them apply these fundamentals to their business specifically, they have context for their choice of aligning their actions to their vision. When we’re holding them accountable to their activity, they know it’s about them, and not just about us.

I’ve helped a lot of advisor groups work through this process as they moved from a client building format to a study group/business building format. While the importance of the client building data doesn’t change, the context for business building opens their minds from being accountable to what they are told to do, to making decisions on why they need to do it to achieve their broader vision. They realize that the purpose of learning isn’t just to have the knowledge, the purpose is action!

I keep coming back to a great line in the book The Unsold Mindset that drives my thinking around this: “Only 20% of salespeople hit their numbers because the other 80% are trying to be like the 20%, while the 20% are trying to be themselves.” Ponder that quote for a few days, I’d love to hear what it means to you.

Finally, about a decade ago, Jim Dinardo recommended the book The Road Less Stupid to me, and credited it as a change agent for his thinking on how to grow their firm (with Pioneer as the leading 5* firm this year, I’d say it worked). I pass this recommendation on to you, along with my key takeaways below, and encourage you to read it as well.

Read my notes on The Road Less Stupid (FPP Library)

If these MPA/MDA priorities are important in your firm, let’s talk about how to really make them impactful for you!

Think Differently,

Steve