Most advisors want more time in the day to spend with existing clients and prospecting for new. The fact is, many need more reliable support staff to grow their business to the next level.
Whether you are an employed advisor feeling like extra human capital could help you bring your revenues to the next level or an independent advisor trying to increase your client base—it’s important to distinguish wants from needs.
Wants vs. Needs
As a good rule of thumb, the necessity of employing more support staff constitutes a need, if:
- You are unable to provide a high level of service to existing clients.
- You can serve existing clients, but there is no time to network and garner new clients.
- You can serve existing clients, there is time to garner new, but there isn’t enough support staff in place to provide them with a proper level of customer service.
Define the Business Requirements
Whether you are trying to “sell” the need for back up to management, “justify” the need to your partners or simply “calculate” the need in your budget, define the business requirements.
- Define the Need. Where will the new hire have the greatest impact? With this staff support in place, what areas of growth will you be able to tackle?
- Define the Required Skill Sets. What aptitudes, training, education and personal dispositions are required? Is full-time or part-time support needed?
- Define the Costs. Know the budget impacts. Survey the industry for competitive salaries and benefit packages.
- Define the Logistics. How will an added employee fit into the practice’s current bandwidth? Will additional resources need to be expended for extra office space, computers or telephones?
- Define a Strategy. Estimate how long it will take you to hire and train the new employee? Where do you plan to find or recruit prospective candidates?
Regardless of your final analysis, assessing the necessity of a new hire is a good investment of your time. Knowing who you are looking for, their job description and how he or she will contribute to business growth will help you make the decision whether or not to call for back up.
