You will be able to write a three-year plan that links prospecting, advice quality, servicing and referrals.
Before you write anything, put your earlier work in front of you: your licence summary, your fact-find, your servicing calendar, your 30-day prospecting plan and the two numbers you worked out in lesson 8.3. Most of this project is built from them, and a plan written without them is guesswork.
Most representatives have a sales target for the current year and only a vague hope for the years after it. Few have a plan that connects four things: finding clients, the quality of their advice, looking after the clients they have, and where future clients will come from. These four are usually managed separately, or not managed at all, and they pull against each other. More prospecting squeezes out reviews. Missed reviews lead to fewer referrals, and fewer referrals mean you have to prospect harder.
A practice plan puts all four into one document. It covers three years, sets measurable yearly targets, names the file quality checks you will hold yourself to, and includes comments from a supervisor or mentor who has read it. The plan is for your own use. It doesn't need to be long or polished, and two to four pages is enough. It does need to be specific enough that a year from now you can check whether you did what it says.
Licence summary (lesson 1.4): what you may advise on and what needs approval. Fact-find (module 3), on your firm's form or the course template: the core of your advice process. Servicing calendar (lesson 7.4): the reviews you have committed to and the weekly time they take. 30-day prospecting plan (lesson 6.4): the channels you use and the rules that apply to them. Capacity limit and target referral share, from lesson 8.3, "Plan a practice that grows from service".
If any of these is missing, finish it before you start the plan.
Each year gets the same three targets. Client numbers means the new clients you aim for in that year plus the total size of your book at year end. Check that total against your capacity limit. Reviews completed means the share of clients due a review who actually get one. It shows whether your servicing is keeping pace with growth, and you measure it with the tracking column of your servicing calendar. Referral share is the percentage of new clients who come from referrals. If your service is working, it should rise each year.
Write the working beside every target. A target with no working behind it is a wish, and next year you won't be able to tell why you hit it or missed it.
Daniel, a representative, wrote a three-page plan. In year one he aims for 30 clients in total, so his book is 30 at year end. In year two he aims for 24 new clients, giving a book of 54 (30 + 24 = 54), with 25 percent of new clients coming from referrals (an example figure) and 90 percent of due reviews completed. In year three he aims for 20 new clients, a book of 74 (54 + 20 = 74), 40 percent from referrals and 90 percent of due reviews completed. His capacity limit is about 110, so a book of 74 leaves him room.
The balanced scorecard from module 5 measures your files against measures set by your firm and MAS. Your plan should also include self-tracked file quality measures, kept separately from that assessment, so you find problems before a reviewer does. Choose two or three that can be counted.
Good candidates are the share of files written on the day of the meeting, the number of files you self-audit each quarter using the checklist from lesson 5.2, and the share of those audited files that record the alternatives considered and the client's own explanation of what they bought. Pick the ones that match the faults your self-audit in lesson 5.4 turned up.
Daniel chose three: every file written on the meeting day, three files self-audited each quarter against his twelve-item checklist, and alternatives and the client's own explanation recorded in every audited file.
Give your draft to a supervisor, a senior colleague or a mentor you trust. Ask them three questions: are the targets realistic for someone at your stage, what do they expect to go wrong, and what is missing. Write their comments into the plan with the date, and note what you changed as a result. If you disagree with a comment, record the disagreement and your reason. The purpose of the review is that someone more experienced has tested the plan, and that the test can be seen in the document.
Daniel's supervisor read his plan and made two comments. She said a year-two referral target of 25 percent was ambitious for someone with only a year of reviews behind him, and suggested 20 percent with a stretch of 25 percent. She also asked where claims support appeared in the plan, because helping a client through a claim is one of the moments that drives referrals. Daniel lowered his year-two referral target and added a line committing to a claims guide for every insurer he works with by the end of year one. He dated both changes.
A finished plan lists the inputs it draws on, sets three years of targets for client numbers, reviews completed and referral share with the working shown, names two or three file quality measures you track yourself, and includes dated mentor comments with your responses. In the activity below you write it, and then you have a plan you can check against in a year.
Write your three-year practice plan with client, review and referral targets, the file quality measures you will track, and notes from a review with a mentor.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).