0:00

The number one question I got from advisors

0:03

for years , and still

0:05

get today , is Libby , how

0:07

did you get it all done in 25

0:10

hours a week ? I'm over here drowning

0:12

and I'm putting in double that . Oh

0:15

, I feel that on so

0:17

many levels because that

0:19

was me early on . And

0:22

, ironically , the number one question

0:24

I got from corporate folks is

0:27

Libby , if you could just share one thing with advisors

0:29

from an efficiency standpoint , especially

0:32

advisors in those early years of their careers

0:34

what would you share ? And

0:36

luckily , the answer for both of those

0:39

questions is the same thing I

0:41

get to kill two birds with one stone today

0:43

, yippee . But what that means

0:45

is that this is foundational to

0:47

working efficiently . In today's

0:49

episode , I'm going to drill down 16

0:52

plus years of compressing

0:54

a billion hours a week into

0:56

just 25 and massaging

0:58

that 25 hours a week over many

1:00

, many years , and what I learned about

1:03

designing the perfect schedule . This

1:05

perfect schedule , or what I call a model

1:08

week , is a schedule that you've

1:10

designed with intention

1:12

that suits your personality

1:15

, for your business goals , with

1:17

your energy levels and your

1:19

work-life balance objectives in mind

1:21

. Look , I know you're here

1:23

because you know it's possible to

1:25

have energy left over for your family and

1:28

still have your dream business . You

1:30

know the business that you're running instead

1:32

of it running you . I get what

1:34

it's like to balance all the things delivering

1:37

high quality advice and trying

1:39

to get a healthy meal on the table for your family

1:41

between soccer practice and homework and

1:43

PS . No one else is judging you if

1:46

you do chicken nuggets frequently enough to

1:48

justify the big bag from Costco and

1:51

if you're new to the Efficient Advisor . I'm

1:53

Libby Grywe . I built a 100%

1:55

referral-only planning practice and

1:58

grew it to seven figures as a solo advisor

2:00

, all while working just three

2:02

days a week and taking off 14

2:04

weeks a year to lean into being

2:06

a mom , wife , friend

2:08

, sister , daughter and , frankly , a

2:10

travel-obsessed human . I'm

2:13

here to walk alongside you and

2:15

show you how to do exactly the same and

2:17

to help you take immediate action

2:19

on the most important strategies

2:21

for scaling , organizing and

2:23

creating less stress and overwhelm in

2:25

your business . We are about to

2:27

transform your practice . So move

2:29

over exhaustion , move over

2:31

overwhelm and move over Advisor

2:34

ADD . It is time to take that

2:36

one right next step to build

2:38

a business and a life that you love

2:40

. So let's dive in . So

2:54

several years ago , we were hosting

2:56

two-day live events where advisors from

2:58

all over the country would come in and

3:01

my team and I would show them all

3:03

of I shouldn't say all but a lot

3:05

of the efficiencies that

3:07

we used in our practice that

3:09

allowed me to work just the 25

3:12

hours a week as a solo advisor , and

3:14

one of the biggest challenges was

3:16

figuring out from all of the things

3:19

that my team created and built

3:21

and did on a daily basis

3:23

to work extremely efficiently

3:25

. It was next to impossible to

3:28

squish that all down into two days . I mean I

3:30

wish I really had a month

3:32

with all of these advisors to really

3:34

show them all of the things that we did . And

3:37

when we were building the workshop

3:39

and really looking at , okay , well , what are the easiest

3:41

to implement , most impactful

3:44

things that we know and do , one

3:46

of the things that always popped and was

3:48

really kind of first and foremost for me like

3:51

, frankly , when we were then doing some coaching

3:53

programs , it was okay , well , what if I had a month

3:55

with people ? What would we show them ? And

3:57

then , what if I had a week with people ? What would I show them

3:59

then ? Okay , what if we only had two days ? Okay

4:02

, what if I only had one hour ? Then

4:06

Okay , what if we only had two days . Okay , what if I only had one hour ? And if I only had one

4:08

hour with advisors ? This would be the thing that I

4:10

would choose to share , because once

4:12

I learned how to build

4:14

a model week that really worked for me

4:16

, and then how to reiterate it and massage

4:19

it , that was a

4:21

game changer . And when

4:23

I say model week , what I mean by

4:25

that is a schedule

4:28

that you've designed like I said in the intro

4:30

, you know with intention , taking

4:32

into account all of the things that

4:35

are unique to you and your practice

4:37

. And so it

4:39

could also it could look a lot of different ways

4:41

. It could look like a model day . It

4:43

could look like a model month where maybe you have you know , maybe you look a lot of different ways . It could look like a model day . It could look like a model month

4:46

where maybe you have you know , maybe

4:48

you're a road warrior on weeks one

4:50

and three and you're out visiting clients

4:52

, and maybe on weeks two and four

4:54

you're in the office . So it's going

4:56

to look a little different for

4:59

everybody . But I'm going to

5:01

share how I built my model

5:03

week , how we adapted

5:05

it over the years , how I

5:07

kind of figured out what was working and what

5:09

was not working . And

5:11

so really no matter where you are

5:13

in your business career , you could

5:15

be in your first year , you could be in your third

5:17

year , you could be in your 16th year . You

5:20

will have I had no joke at least 100

5:23

iterations of my model week

5:25

over the years . It

5:27

is to me one of the most crucial

5:29

elements of efficiency , and

5:32

I say that because when I started my career

5:34

I was straight

5:36

grinding . You know I

5:38

was working that 40 , 50

5:40

, 60 , sometimes 80 hours a

5:42

week . And you

5:45

know , when I looked up the definition of grinding

5:47

a few years ago I can't remember exactly what it is , but

5:49

it was something to the effect of rubbing

5:52

something so hard that pieces are

5:54

literally falling off of it . So

5:56

grinding was not really my

5:59

jam right , but I was in that building

6:01

stage of my business , so it didn't matter

6:03

if it was . But I was

6:05

in that building stage of my business , so it didn't

6:07

matter if it was nights , weekends , whatever

6:12

someone wanted to meet , I was there . I was your girl and that might sound familiar

6:14

to you and so it was when I found out I was pregnant that I knew

6:16

like , okay , there's got to be a better way here

6:18

. There is no way I can

6:20

do this and have a baby . And

6:23

I just remember thinking

6:25

, gosh , I don't want to give

6:28

up the income that I was making either . I was pretty

6:30

happy with that . So

6:32

I spent some time and it really boiled

6:34

down to doing a couple of different

6:36

things . So the first thing

6:38

I did was really decide

6:41

, and make this actual decision , that when

6:43

I was at the office , I was going

6:45

to be 100% at the office , and

6:48

when I was at home , I was going to be 100% at the office , and when

6:50

I was at home , I was going to be 100% at home . I

6:52

remember just being kind of stuck in that cycle where , when

6:54

I was working , I was mixing in home tasks

6:57

and then when I was home , I was thinking about things that were going

6:59

on at the office and I was really

7:01

just always both places

7:03

, which meant I was never fully present . So

7:06

the first thing I did and that I committed to

7:08

was not having any

7:11

type of work access to

7:13

email or access to work . Email

7:15

on my phone and my

7:17

computer stayed at the office . That was

7:19

the commitment that I made to myself

7:22

and to my family , because zero

7:24

access means I , straight up

7:26

, can't , and one

7:28

of the things I always tell people is , before you scale

7:30

your business , you literally have to scale yourself

7:33

first . So we'll talk about finding

7:35

, like , where you're wasting time , and for

7:37

me , it took a lot of willpower

7:39

to break this habit

7:42

right of working from home and

7:44

doing home stuff at work , and this

7:46

is where I called upon my team to

7:48

help me with that and to help me stick

7:50

to it . And speaking of teams

7:52

, having a team in place

7:54

is critical . You need someone

7:57

while you're at home , you know doing your mom

7:59

thing or doing your dad thing . You

8:01

need someone who is competent

8:03

and qualified to I don't know you know handle business when you're not there

8:05

, and qualified to I don't know you know handle business

8:08

when you're not there . And when

8:10

I sold my business , I was probably

8:12

, like I said , on my hundredth iteration

8:14

of my model week . So

8:22

what I'm going to do is share with you what my schedule looked like looked like when I was , you

8:24

know , at the very , very end stages of my business and then I'll share what it looked

8:26

like before and kind of how

8:28

I worked and tweaked

8:30

and twisted it and rearranged

8:33

it to get to

8:35

really what worked best

8:37

for me and for my team . Okay

8:39

. So when I would walk in the office

8:42

on Monday morning , the first

8:44

thing that I would do is no , not check

8:46

my email . I'll talk about that later but

8:49

I would sit down in our conference room . So

8:52

because I was only working three days a week , it was

8:54

really important for me to be uber

8:57

prepared . So we worked

8:59

two weeks in advance of all

9:01

of our meetings . So I would sit down on a Monday

9:03

morning and I would have a pile of

9:06

files , originally

9:09

paper and then ultimately digital , but

9:11

I would have this stack of files and everything

9:14

would be prepped and ready for those meetings

9:16

that were two weeks away

9:18

. So the two weeks out thing

9:20

was really helpful because , as

9:22

I was going through those files and

9:25

looking at all of the notes that

9:27

our team had made of every interaction that

9:29

I had had or that our team had had

9:31

with that client between the last meeting

9:34

and this meeting , as

9:36

I was working through the

9:38

agenda and massaging that , I

9:41

had plenty of time to run

9:44

illustrations , ask my

9:46

team to do research , to create

9:49

anything that need to be created , to

9:51

look at recommendations . I had two

9:53

weeks then to get that stuff perfected

9:56

and done by the actual

9:58

date of their appointment , because there

10:00

was nothing worse to me than

10:02

walking into a meeting feeling

10:04

unprepared . Right , being prepared

10:07

was the most efficient way

10:09

to maximize that face-to-face

10:11

meeting time and that's also like those

10:14

were the most successful meetings . So

10:16

you know , we've all

10:18

had that meeting where you

10:21

were chatting with your clients and

10:23

about halfway through you

10:25

had that moment where you're like , oh

10:28

my goodness , I had told them

10:30

the last time that they were here that

10:32

today we'd talk about long-term

10:34

care , or today we'd talk about blah

10:36

, blah , blah , and you're like , uh-oh , I

10:38

need to pivot and I don't

10:41

have anything prepared . I don't have recommendations

10:43

, I don't have any analysis

10:45

drawn up to show them how this will fit into their overall

10:47

picture . Have any analysis drawn up to show

10:49

them how this will fit into their overall picture ? And

10:54

that either required a bunch of follow-up or I kind of looked like maybe like a little bit of an idiot

10:56

in the meeting , or they had to come back , which was really inefficient for

10:58

them and really inefficient for

11:00

me . So by having

11:02

these two weeks out , it just gave us more

11:04

time to get things done , to

11:07

get them polished and to get them prepared

11:09

. And that way too , in case I had a sick

11:11

kid and I had to go take a day off

11:13

or pick them up from school . I wasn't scrambling

11:17

to get things done . We had plenty

11:19

of time and plenty of buffer

11:21

built in . Plus , showing up

11:23

with a really polished agenda with

11:26

, you know , trades , asset

11:28

allocation recommendations , you

11:31

know , all of the things that we wanted to do

11:33

ready to go and on

11:35

the agenda . It made us look

11:38

like we had put time

11:40

and effort into their plan , which we

11:42

had . We would have paperwork

11:44

, any applications , any forms

11:47

ready to go , and

11:49

that just allowed us to get so

11:51

much more done in a

11:53

meeting . We didn't have to waste any time

11:56

printing anything off or filling anything

11:58

out . It was all ready to go . And

12:01

really I never wanted to give advice to

12:03

clients kind of like on the spot , the

12:06

way that , or at least my mode of

12:08

operation , was . I wanted all of

12:10

our advice to be really well thought through

12:12

, right and I didn't want clients , you know , making

12:14

recommendations on the spot . You know

12:16

I want them to know that I put the work and

12:19

effort and really thought about it before I let

12:21

it pop out of my mouth . So this working

12:23

two weeks in advance so let's say it was a

12:25

client coming in for a full

12:27

financial plan update . Having

12:30

this full two-week window

12:32

really gave me a ton of time

12:34

to write the written recommendations to

12:36

modify the templates

12:38

that my team had already created for that

12:41

client . And one of the keys for me to

12:43

be able to do this like super duper efficiently

12:45

is that our

12:48

readiness , or the

12:50

way that I would have my team prepare the files

12:52

. Literally every single thing was

12:54

at my fingertips . I never had to go searching

12:56

for anything and waste any of my

12:58

time , you know , looking for

13:01

a rate of return or look at you know we just

13:03

had a really extensive list of everything that

13:05

I needed prepared and I may

13:07

or may not use it and that's okay

13:09

. I just didn't want to spend any of my time

13:11

going and searching for all the

13:13

things . And kind of a side note

13:16

but this is important when we're talking about the agenda

13:18

phase is that our team

13:20

did a really great job documenting all

13:22

the details . So nine

13:24

times out of 10 , no more like 99

13:26

out of 100 times when a client

13:28

called into the office , I never talked to them

13:30

, so I never got

13:33

the details about , you know , their

13:35

mom not feeling well or if they called

13:37

to take 5,000 out for a down

13:39

payment on a car . I usually didn't know

13:41

or hear about that until this two

13:43

weeks out from our meeting and I

13:45

would then be able to go into our from

13:52

our meeting and I would then be able to go into our CRM and pluck out these details and add

13:54

them to the agenda . So when the clients came into the office I could say , oh my gosh , I

13:56

want to look out the window . Is your new car here ? Did you drive

13:58

the new car ? Or hey , you know what I heard your

14:00

mom's not doing so great , how's she doing now ? And

14:02

all of those things just really added

14:04

to the client experience . But this is the time of

14:06

the week that I would then do those . And

14:09

the good news is is because I was only working

14:11

six business days in advance for me it

14:17

was close enough to the appointment where I actually didn't forget any of these . You

14:19

know , kind of warm , fuzzy details , more of the qualitative stuff versus the quantitative

14:21

stuff . Okay , sorry . So how does

14:23

that play into the model

14:25

week ? So I am going to

14:27

attach in the show notes for you my

14:30

model week and I'm going to try to find

14:32

a couple sample model weeks from different advisors

14:35

that I've coached over the years , cause , as

14:37

you'll learn here in the next , however many minutes

14:39

, what worked for me might not work

14:41

for you and what worked for Dave

14:43

might not work for Natalie . So I'm

14:45

going to help you build that , but I'm also going to give

14:47

you a blank template so that you can

14:50

go in there and take a peek . So

14:52

the way that it worked for me is when I would come

14:54

in , so all this agenda stuff I

14:56

would from 9am to 10am

14:58

on Monday morning . I would get all

15:01

of the preparation for all of my

15:03

appointments two weeks out done

15:05

by 10am and then delegate that . Then

15:08

, from 10 to noon that day was my block

15:10

of time where I would do all of my

15:12

planning . That's the writing , the recommendations

15:14

, that's the stuff that popped up for

15:16

meetings next week . That's the stuff

15:19

that I ascertained

15:21

from the agenda prep time that needed

15:23

to be done for the two weeks out . And

15:25

what I'd like to acknowledge at this point is I

15:27

had still it was noon and I had still

15:29

never opened my email

15:31

, and this was really intentional because I

15:34

learned about myself that if I

15:36

checked my email first thing in the morning

15:38

, I would get distracted

15:40

by all of the things that needed to be done

15:42

or delegated , or

15:44

I'd get obsessed with putting out some sort of a fire

15:47

and I had to turn off

15:49

all of my notifications on my email

15:51

too , so that all those dings

15:53

and notifications would just , you know

15:55

, I would get sucked in immediately . I'm

15:57

very easily distracted , so

16:00

by not even having

16:02

access to my email

16:04

until noon was a

16:06

really , really good method . That worked for me

16:09

. And if you head out to the Efficient Advisor

16:11

website , there is a video library out

16:13

there and there's a video that

16:15

I did with productivity specialist Amber

16:17

De La Garza on how

16:19

to better and more effectively

16:21

manage your inbox , and

16:23

it was . I mean , the tactics that

16:25

she shared were life-changing

16:28

for me , and I mean that seriously , because

16:30

I had over 2,000 emails sitting in my inbox

16:32

and I was able to whittle that down

16:34

to like 100 . I was just

16:37

one of those people . My bad , okay

16:39

. So then , after this

16:41

noon window , I had a little block

16:43

of time to eat lunch and

16:46

then I went straight into back-to-back

16:48

client meetings , and a couple

16:50

of reasons that I did back-to-back meetings

16:52

were I used to leave this like half

16:55

hour window between client appointments

16:57

, and the goal

16:59

originally was that I would get all

17:01

of my follow-up done . I'd wrap up my

17:03

meeting notes and what I

17:05

found in practice was that my client

17:08

meetings would go over and then I'd be left with this like little window of time and I'd be . In practice was that my client

17:10

meetings would go over and then I'd be left with this like little window of time

17:12

and I'd be like you know what ? It's all I only

17:14

have like 10 or 15 minutes . By the time I go to the

17:16

bathroom and get some coffee , I'm not gonna be able to

17:18

do anything anyway . So I found that I was wasting

17:21

these blocks of time between

17:23

the meetings and I was actually talking

17:26

to my staff and distracting them too . So

17:29

for me , knowing that I had so I had two

17:31

conference rooms , and knowing that I

17:33

had clients sitting and waiting for

17:35

me in the next conference room

17:37

, gave me that motivation

17:39

to literally get it all done

17:41

in 60 minutes . And how

17:43

I got it all done in 60 minutes , that's like a totally different

17:45

podcast , and we'll

17:48

do that another day . The

17:56

only time we did longer meetings was if it was a planned delivery , and to eliminate that

17:58

time between meetings I came up again . This is kind of like okay , I see a problem

18:00

, how do I , how do I fix it ? I came up with

18:02

a meeting notes template that allowed me to complete

18:05

all of my notes in the meeting

18:07

, also documenting

18:09

all the things , and it

18:11

also had a template in there that

18:13

I could check boxes and write some things in for my

18:15

team so that they could grab those

18:17

meeting notes when I went to the next conference room and

18:20

they knew exactly what they needed to do

18:22

, who needed to do it . The

18:24

client follow-up email was

18:27

pretty much already done and they could go ahead and get

18:29

that drafted and sent to me and

18:31

I was already then moving on in my next

18:33

meeting . Okay , and then I had a little

18:35

window of time built in , I think

18:37

about a half hour . That was dedicated

18:40

time for my team and I to

18:42

get together and I could answer

18:44

all the questions that had accumulated

18:46

for them throughout the day . And

18:49

this was the product of just

18:51

being interrupted by your team , and I don't mean that in

18:53

a mean way , but all day long phone

18:55

calls were coming in , emails were coming in , people

18:58

needed me to answer questions and

19:00

again I got really easily distracted . So

19:02

I found that if I had this block of time

19:04

dedicated to them , later in the day they

19:06

could come sit down in my office and ask me

19:09

27 questions and they still had time

19:11

to go

19:13

get all of those things executed for clients

19:15

before the end of the day . And

19:17

then I went into my

19:20

additional client meetings and evening

19:22

meetings . So when I

19:24

had my son in 2008

19:27

, I shaved my schedule back to

19:29

three nights a week meeting with clients and

19:31

then eventually compressed that

19:33

into two evenings a week and

19:35

then eventually compressed that into one

19:38

evening a week where I had a 5 , a 6 , and a

19:40

7 pm and then eventually eliminated

19:42

the 7 pm and that left a 5

19:44

pm and a 6 pm that

19:47

were for originally were for

19:49

clients that had a very difficult time getting together during

19:51

the day , but then it eventually became

19:53

these 5 and 6 pm time

19:56

slots were only for prospective

19:58

new clients , so that way we could

20:00

be accommodating in the beginning

20:02

in order for them to get to know us . And

20:05

there is a ton of language that I can share

20:07

about how we talked

20:09

about that and how we explained that to

20:11

our clients , but

20:55

again for another time . So what I

20:57

found for myself and what was kind of a main

20:59

driver in the way that I designed my schedule , was

21:02

that I

21:04

just found that if I was doing the same thing

21:06

back to back to back , I could

21:08

crush it . So if I was doing

21:11

planning and I had , you know

21:13

, maybe three or four plans that I was working on

21:15

and maybe some of them had because we had a really

21:17

specific niche market , they

21:19

had a lot of similar attributes . So I found that I got

21:21

like in the mode and what I would

21:23

write out for one client , I was like , ooh , that would actually

21:26

work for so-and-so and so-and-so , and same

21:28

thing with client meetings , like when I got and

21:30

you know what I'm talking about when you feel on , when

21:33

I would get on , and I do that in a client

21:35

meeting , I could then do it boom boom , boom

21:37

, boom , boom , and be able to continue to repeat

21:39

that . And I have self-diagnosed ADD . So

21:42

like I couldn't do the same thing all

21:44

day long , I had to switch it up a little

21:46

bit and that's just , you know , kind

21:48

of a function of trying different

21:50

things . So I found I cannot

21:53

do meetings in the morning . I am , I was

21:55

not a smart human until at least

21:57

10 am when I was incredibly

21:59

caffeinated . So for me

22:01

and I think that was just a function of having small children

22:03

, but for me I should not talk to a client before 10 am . But for me I should

22:06

not talk to a client before 10

22:08

am . Okay , so I want to keep this

22:10

moving . So then I would come in Tuesday and

22:12

I had two hours blocked in the

22:15

morning , so

22:21

I shouldn't be talking to clients about financial

22:23

, complicated strategies before 10 am , but I would have a two-hour coaching

22:25

window just because it was something I was super passionate

22:27

about . You know , did it really contribute

22:29

overall to my revenue ? I mean a little

22:31

bit , but it was just something

22:34

that got me fired up . And

22:36

I found there was a period of time where I

22:38

became kind of , you know , disenchanted with the business

22:40

and just needed something a little different

22:42

. And for me coaching other advisors

22:45

became like this little

22:47

boost on Tuesday morning . That was

22:49

just like I'd get so fired up

22:51

and so excited and it made me you

22:53

know , it just really made me want to show up to work that day . So

22:56

I'd get my brain all warmed up , I'd

22:58

get my energy level up and then Tuesdays

23:00

were pretty much client meetings for

23:03

the rest of the day . So

23:05

I would do a 10 o'clock appointment , 11 o'clock

23:07

appointment , then I'd have a break , and then I had

23:09

a one , a two and a three . I

23:12

would check my email over that lunch break and

23:14

then at 3 pm was

23:16

my follow up call

23:18

back . You know touch

23:21

base time , so at this point

23:23

in the week I hadn't called anybody back that

23:25

was a client . But again , I had extremely

23:27

competent , licensed staff that

23:29

could take care of all of those Monday things

23:31

and so over time this was a very

23:33

small number of things . There

23:36

were not very many things that truly

23:38

required exclusively my attention

23:40

, but if they did , we were just really clear with

23:42

our clients saying , hey , libby's , in back-to-back meetings

23:44

and the first opportunity that she'll have

23:46

to call you back is Tuesday at 3 PM

23:49

or Tuesday , uh , between three

23:51

and five . So we had a very

23:53

designated window and we were very clear with our

23:55

clients on what to expect

23:57

Now if it was an emergency . And

23:59

what I love about financial planning is that there

24:01

are very rarely any life

24:03

threatening , if any life

24:06

threatening emergencies . You know I loved

24:08

not being a heart surgeon because nobody's

24:10

life was dependent on me calling

24:12

them back . If it was something

24:15

kind of critical on a Monday , again , we

24:17

had that window where Lori could ask me the question

24:19

and I could give her the answer and she could call the

24:21

client back and just say , hey , libby's not available until

24:23

3 pm tomorrow . Or , worst

24:26

case scenario , I could call him in the car on the way home

24:28

, or maybe that window is from four to

24:30

five , I think that's the case . But so I had

24:32

this callback time , I had this follow-up time

24:34

and I had another window there to

24:37

answer all of the questions from my

24:39

team . Okay , and then . So Wednesdays

24:41

were my day off . I was at home , that

24:44

was my day to hang out in my yoga pants

24:46

shower

24:50

. Maybe not kind of dependent on how I was feeling that day , I could date my husband that

24:52

day . Those were the days that I got all

24:54

of my mom duties done and when

24:56

my kids were little , of course I was watching them . And

24:59

then I'd be ready to come back in Thursday morning

25:01

and be ready to roll . And again , when I came in , I

25:03

did not meet with clients right away . I

25:06

was not smart enough to do that until 10 am

25:08

. But what I did find is

25:10

, you know , there's always these things

25:12

that pop up . So when you're reading market

25:14

updates , or you know you're going to workshops

25:17

and you're learning all of these things , or you come across something

25:19

you're like gosh . You know , I really want to learn more

25:21

about that , or maybe it was getting

25:23

a new designation . I found

25:25

it really hard to like squeeze

25:27

in educational time . So what

25:29

I found is , thursday mornings , if

25:32

I set aside again this

25:34

hour to just educate myself

25:36

and make that time available , so if we

25:38

had a new product coming out or I was

25:40

um , you know , a wholesaler sent

25:43

me something and was like hey , you should take a look at this . You

25:45

know , I wanted to have dedicated time to actually

25:48

sit and do that . So Thursday mornings , again

25:50

before any email was opened or anything

25:52

could blow up my day . I had this dedicated educational

25:55

time and the way that I organized

25:57

this is I had this is a very fancy , sophisticated

26:00

option for you I had a manila

26:02

envelope and

26:04

all week I would throw

26:07

notes in there . So

26:09

again , it was very , very fancy . But

26:11

I might write on a Post-it note

26:13

Google this or look up

26:16

that or talk to so-and-so about

26:18

X , and then Thursday

26:20

morning I would sit down , I'd grab this educational

26:23

envelope and I'd start picking through

26:25

it and kind of prioritize or

26:27

organize , and if it was talking with somebody , I'd schedule

26:29

a call for them for a Thursday morning

26:31

during that dedicated window , but I'd start

26:33

just going through . And that's how then I started

26:35

knocking out those tasks and

26:39

sometimes I actually use I almost forgot this

26:41

Thursday morning educational time for

26:43

my business coaching . So

26:46

that way I had again dedicated

26:48

time to be working on myself

26:50

and then I

26:52

would roll into three appointments back to back

26:54

. So there's that back to back thing again . So

26:56

I would do a 10 , 11 and a

26:58

noon and then by noon

27:01

on Thursday I was officially done

27:03

with all of my client meetings for

27:05

the week . So then my team

27:07

and I would get together and we would over lunch we'd

27:10

have our weekly team meeting

27:13

. So it's kind of weird that we had our meetings

27:15

on Thursdays . But I had

27:17

a director of operations who

27:19

was full-time and then I had two part-time

27:23

front office and

27:25

back office . My back office was maybe 30 hours

27:27

a week and my front office was about 25

27:29

. So Thursday was just

27:31

a really good day where we had everyone

27:33

in the office and it just made sense for us . Plus

27:36

, it was really great to be able to debrief

27:38

from all of my client meetings that

27:41

had happened that week and for us to prepare

27:44

for the following week . So I actually

27:46

really liked having our team

27:48

meetings on Thursday . Then

27:52

the rest of the day was open for me

27:54

, and this is where that's

27:56

that time where I could you

27:58

know I was really I found , at least for me

28:00

, my best

28:02

deep work , like really

28:05

digging into financial plans . I

28:07

had the most energy in the afternoon , so

28:10

that might not be the same for you . You might find

28:12

that your deep work is best

28:14

in the morning . So I would do

28:16

my rapid fire power hours is

28:18

what I would call them earlier in the day where

28:20

it was just like , ok , I have like 5,000 little

28:22

things that will take 35 seconds , know 35 seconds to

28:24

do and I'm just going to go boom , boom , boom , boom , boom , boom , boom and get

28:27

those all done and then and I'll

28:29

have a different podcast on this or at

28:31

least an article or a blog post about

28:33

all the different ways that I was able to

28:35

get to deep work and be able to control

28:37

my ADD so but

28:40

anyway , it was nice just to finish up the week and

28:42

have this kind of open

28:45

time to just really work , and

28:47

I did a lot of work with other advisors , so this was

28:49

a great window to be able to plan

28:51

, to connect with them and

28:53

go through the cases that we were , that we were

28:55

working on , you know , and it was also

28:58

that opportunity for any additional follow-up

29:00

or callbacks or anything else that I needed to do , for

29:02

any additional follow-up or callbacks or anything else that I needed

29:04

to do and I don't think this happened very often

29:07

, but in theory , if

29:10

I had all my stuff done for the week or

29:12

if I was just straight up burned out , which was

29:14

more likely the case I could

29:16

just go home . But

29:59

that did , I'll be honest , that rarely happened . I usually worked that full Thursday and then that

30:01

brings me to Friday , where I was off again . So that

30:03

was my model week . But

30:06

I want to share with you some tips and tricks

30:08

on how to build

30:10

your model week , and I've helped lots of advisors

30:12

over the years build and

30:14

rearrange and redefine . So

30:16

let's talk about that for a second . So

30:19

one thing I think everybody needs is

30:21

to build in a little

30:24

white space . It

30:26

might be once a week , it might

30:28

be every other week , it might be on

30:30

a Friday morning when

30:32

you're at home and your kids are at school . But

30:35

this is time to work on your

30:38

business and not in it

30:40

. Just time for you

30:42

to dream a little and maybe like think

30:44

about I don't know like what's

30:46

that next hire I'm going to make and what are they going to

30:48

be able to do for me and how can I scale

30:50

and how can I expand and

30:53

how can I scale myself ? Or where am I getting

30:55

stuck ? What do I need to

30:57

create some templates for Really

30:59

that creative work . So maybe it's even

31:01

thinking up different marketing

31:04

ideas or , you know

31:06

, just giving yourself permission

31:08

to not be in

31:10

the business and be on it . And

31:13

I say this because it was

31:15

something that I missed in my business

31:17

for a long period of time , when

31:19

my boys were really young and

31:22

life was just bananas

31:24

. I didn't have a lot of margin

31:26

built in . I felt like it was go , go , go

31:28

right , and I realized

31:31

that that was a piece that was

31:33

missing for me . So I had

31:36

to put it in the calendar so

31:38

that it was prioritized . I

31:41

also think it's really important to

31:43

build in a buffer day

31:45

. So maybe every I don't

31:47

know like four to six weeks , my

31:49

team would build in a Thursday where I

31:51

had zero client appointments

31:54

, so that way I

31:56

had time to catch up right and catch my breath

31:58

. So if I did have a sick kid

32:00

right or gosh

32:03

, something just took way longer , a project

32:05

took way longer than I expected

32:08

it to , or , you know , just little tasks

32:10

popped up that I wasn't expecting , you

32:13

know . Or you know , sometimes I just wouldn't

32:15

. When I had my windows , I

32:17

wasn't in the right mood to crank on something

32:20

and it took me longer than I thought it would , or it just wasn't

32:22

in the mood . So this was that

32:24

day for me , and just even

32:26

knowing that it was in the calendar and

32:28

coming often gave me reprieve

32:31

, because if anybody can do

32:33

a model week and actually stick to

32:35

it , like to a T perfection

32:37

, you are my

32:39

hero . Like

32:45

to a T perfection , you are my hero . Okay , so often

32:47

when I go through my model week with people , they'll say something to the effect of like

32:49

, oh , this is a lot of structure and

32:53

I just want to share . I felt that too . I

32:55

am not naturally

32:57

a person that is structured

33:00

. You know , I'm kind of like that true

33:02

entrepreneur . When I started my business , it

33:04

was that mindset of oh

33:06

my gosh , I can do whatever I want . I can sleep

33:09

till noon and I can work

33:11

till midnight and I can work weekends

33:13

or I cannot . I had this . That's

33:16

who I am . Naturally , I'm

33:19

pretty free spirited and go with the flow . So , like , as

33:21

I was building my business , the

33:23

idea of team meetings

33:25

or model weeks

33:28

in fact

33:30

the idea used to straight up irritate

33:32

me . But I think now

33:35

, or you know , as my business progressed

33:37

probably because I came , I became

33:40

so wise and mature over the years

33:42

, right , but

33:44

I came to realize that the more structure

33:47

I had , the more freedom

33:49

I actually had . I don't know if that makes

33:52

sense , so let me explain . Okay , so

33:54

you know , if I had these really structured

33:56

three days a week at my office , that

33:59

structure then gave me

34:02

those Wednesdays and Fridays off

34:04

, which was a ton of freedom

34:06

, and I didn't have to work on weekends

34:09

. So this eventual

34:11

, like you know , realization that

34:13

I needed to adapt and adopt

34:15

some structure in my business

34:17

changed everything

34:19

and honestly , it was really naive

34:22

of me to like start a business and

34:24

think like , oh , I don't need

34:26

any of that , I'm never going to do that . It's

34:28

like the same thing as , like you know , before

34:30

you have kids you're like , oh , when I have

34:32

kids , I will never . And then you're

34:35

like , oh

34:37

, I get it now

34:39

. So this is kind of the same thing

34:41

and just the freedom

34:43

of knowing that I got

34:45

all of my work done and that next

34:48

week is ready to go and that

34:50

that two weeks out is pretty much ready to

34:52

go . Just gave me that freedom

34:54

for , you know , brain

34:56

space for being able to relax

34:58

and actually enjoy the weekend

35:00

. Okay , so some tips

35:03

and tricks as you're building your model

35:05

week or as you're reiterating your model week

35:07

is . First , I just want to say

35:09

this you are not going to get it right

35:11

the first time . No

35:13

way , jose . It's just something

35:15

. You have to go into it , knowing that your

35:18

model week is going to evolve as

35:20

you and your team and your business

35:22

evolve too , and you just flat

35:24

out have to try stuff and find out what works or

35:27

what doesn't work . So an example I was coaching

35:29

an advisor who you know we were building

35:31

her model week , and she said I think what I'm going to do

35:33

is Thursdays . I'm going to hold

35:35

no joke , nine

35:37

, nine , 10 , 11 appointments . This

35:39

is going to be my one night

35:41

of the week and I think Thursdays are the best

35:44

day to do it . And then

35:46

she could sprinkle in other appointments during the week , but mainly

35:48

have her Monday , tuesday and Wednesday

35:51

to really crank on all

35:53

the project pieces . And

35:55

what she found was is she

35:57

would hold these like 4 million appointments

36:00

on Thursday and when she left

36:02

the office Thursday evening she

36:05

was so overwhelmed

36:07

, you know . She realized that

36:09

. You know she had all these meetings and

36:12

almost every meeting had some sort of action

36:14

that was required of her afterwards , whether it was

36:16

meeting notes or just

36:19

general follow-up or trades

36:21

or things that had to be done , and her big

36:23

goal was to not work on Fridays . So

36:26

she would have this huge Thursday and

36:28

then realized all Friday and all

36:30

weekend she was haunted by

36:33

the amount of work that needed to

36:35

be done that she felt like it was just

36:37

left , you know , kind of unbuttoned

36:40

all weekend long . So

36:42

what we ended up doing was she

36:44

was committed to having this like one big , huge

36:47

crazy day . So we moved that to earlier

36:49

in the week and then that way she

36:51

had time for follow-up and

36:54

she could actually get it all done and really

36:56

enjoy the weekend and feel

36:58

when she came into the office the

37:01

next week for those big crazy days that

37:03

she was actually refreshed and kind of

37:05

ready to go . And she found for

37:07

her and this might work for you too , but

37:09

she would roll through these Mondays

37:11

and Tuesdays and have just like a bajillion appointments

37:14

and she just got to

37:16

a place where her habit was , okay , I'm going

37:18

to put the file here , I'm going to put , and she had like a bin and

37:20

she would just stick the files in when she was done with the meetings

37:22

and then she knew she had all

37:24

day Wednesday to go through everything , to

37:27

do the follow-up , to delegate

37:29

whatever she needed to delegate to her team

37:31

to finish her meeting notes . Now , of course

37:33

, the only caveat to that is any trades that needed

37:35

to be placed . You

37:44

know , you all know the rules for that , so , but anyway , that's what really worked for

37:47

her . So it's really just a matter of giving something a try and then actually taking

37:49

the time to reflect on it and say like , okay , why

37:51

am I not getting my meetings done in 60

37:53

minutes ? Or , you know , and frankly

37:55

, some people just can't , some people have two hour

37:57

meetings and on occasion

37:59

we would do those for planned deliveries and they just

38:01

about literally killed me

38:04

. But it's really taking the time to say what's

38:06

not working , what is working , and

38:08

if it's not working , is it the model

38:11

week itself , the way it's designed

38:13

and built , or is it me ? Because

38:15

I would find often I was not

38:17

following my model week , or

38:19

maybe my team wasn't following the model

38:22

week and I would feel that extra pressure because

38:24

an appointment got snuck in here or

38:26

I had a gap in

38:28

appointments and it was rearranged , or

38:30

something would just get thrown off

38:33

and I'd be like , wow , why don't I have ? Why am

38:35

I feeling this way ? Why am I feeling like I

38:37

didn't have enough time to get these things done ? So

38:40

like if I found myself at the end of the week feeling

38:42

overwhelmed or anxious . It was

38:44

just a matter of taking the time to ask myself

38:46

why . Why am I feeling this

38:48

way ? What's you know what's

38:50

what's causing this ? And

38:52

reflecting back and saying , okay , what did

38:55

I not get done ? And

39:04

and saying , okay , what did I not get done ? And where was that supposed to happen ? And was it

39:06

me or was the model week inherently broken ? Or was it , um , you know , an energy level thing ? Was

39:08

I trying to do the wrong task at the wrong time , or should I be batching my tasks ? Where do

39:11

you do better ? Do you do better if you do the same thing

39:13

back to back to back , or does that make you crazy

39:15

? So

39:18

, kind of taking that time to look at it and I will tell you anytime on a Thursday

39:21

, where I was like I'm feeling

39:23

crazy , stressed and overwhelmed . I would

39:25

take a look back at my model week and

39:28

really go okay , what , what happened here ? And

39:30

almost every single time , every

39:32

time , I'll be honest , every time it

39:35

was because I didn't follow

39:37

my model week . My model

39:39

week was no good to me if I didn't actually

39:42

execute it and

39:44

it usually fell on me

39:46

trying to squeeze something

39:48

in that shouldn't have been there

39:51

. And it's really funny because I find this all the time

39:53

with advisors we're so good at math

39:55

, right , but what we do is we add

39:57

things all of the time without

40:00

subtracting , right . So we think we

40:02

can add in all of these tasks and to-dos

40:04

and new ideas and all the

40:06

shiny objects , right . And then we don't

40:08

actually go into the calendar and say , okay , but like , where

40:11

is that time going to come from ? Okay

40:13

, I'm going to commit to this coaching program . Great

40:15

, that's going to take you , you know , two hours a week

40:17

or whatever . Where is that two

40:19

hours going to come from ? We have

40:22

to get better at doing our own math

40:24

. So , you know , looking at

40:26

all the things , right , where

40:30

were we being inefficient ? So look back and go

40:32

, where was I inefficient , was it ? I'm not

40:34

getting my meeting notes done or it's taking too

40:36

long to do that , and

40:38

what's a better solution ? Or was it ? You know , we're having to double down

40:40

on appointment numbers because we weren't

40:43

well prepared for those meetings and we

40:45

had to schedule a second

40:47

meeting to do applications or

40:49

follow-ups Like what's

40:52

triggering the overwhelm and what could we

40:54

have done more efficiently . And then

40:56

, to make it more efficient , what would we need to put in place

40:58

? What simple or easy

41:01

to follow process could we put in place to

41:03

make those things go faster

41:05

? Okay , so , just to give

41:07

you some more examples , there was a guy I was

41:09

coaching and we were working

41:12

on his model week , and he was the

41:14

complete opposite of me . He was a morning person . He

41:17

was a morning person , he was a morning person

41:19

, he was up early , bright

41:22

and chipper up and at him

41:24

kind of a guy . So he would hold all

41:26

of his client meetings starting at 7.30

41:29

or 8 am and then he'd be totally

41:32

done with client meetings by 12.30 or 1

41:34

o'clock . So then he

41:36

had three hours left in his day

41:38

to do whatever else . You know , whatever else

41:40

it is that he wanted to do His planning

41:43

, his file , prep , you know all

41:45

the things right . And one of

41:47

the final things I want you to consider too is

41:49

, just at the end of the week , you know

41:51

, looking back saying what , what

41:53

took me too long ? Like what took too

41:56

long , what took longer than expected ? And

41:58

that was really one of the key questions that I

42:00

would ask myself . And

42:02

when something took longer than I

42:04

felt like it should have , or I felt like , ugh

42:06

, why am I still doing this ? Or gosh

42:08

, why am I working on this ? And it's taking forever , that

42:10

was a sign to me

42:12

that this was an area of opportunity

42:14

to create a

42:17

process or template . And

42:19

I know I keep saying stuff like this , but like I can't

42:21

drive home enough how

42:24

having those in place

42:26

makes you so much

42:28

more efficient . And

42:30

for your team too . Right , I would ask my team

42:32

all the time , like , be aware of this , what's taking

42:35

longer than it should have ? And then , how

42:37

is you know ? As a team , can we brainstorm

42:40

ways to to , just straight

42:42

up , improve our processes ? Because when you're more

42:44

efficient , it allows you also

42:47

to be more effective . You have

42:49

more time to do

42:51

the . You know the extras

42:53

. You've got more time to

42:55

love on your clients . You

42:57

have more time to send

43:00

those . Just like hey , what's up , females

43:02

, you have more time to do really

43:04

good prospect follow

43:06

up and nurturing , you're not rushed

43:09

, and when you're not rushed you

43:11

can . You can deliver a better

43:13

client experience hands down . And

43:16

so , and two , all week long I had kind of like a

43:18

to-do system or not a to-do , but like a task

43:20

system that I had created for myself and

43:23

all week long I would document stuff that

43:25

I'm like you know what ? I think this is something that

43:27

, as our team expands , or

43:29

I just need to make the time to educate

43:31

my team . Oh , that's the other thing with the

43:35

education time . Sometimes that was just time set

43:37

aside on Thursday mornings to educate

43:40

the team on something . So maybe it's a

43:42

product or a service or how something works , or

43:44

a sales concept

43:46

or something that we were using . So , anyway , okay , back

43:49

to what I was saying . So all week

43:51

long I would say like , okay , I did this

43:53

thing . Gosh , I think that's something I could teach , so-and-so

43:56

, and I would just keep this running list

43:58

. And so it was kind of funny . My business

44:00

coach said to me one time she was Libby , you

44:02

know , if you're making I don't know $350,000

44:06

running six appointments

44:09

a week , isn't

44:11

it logical that if you could get your

44:13

appointment number up to 12 , that

44:15

you could be driving

44:17

$700,000 of revenue . And

44:20

I remember thinking like , oh

44:23

, you know , brain

44:26

explosion here , mind blown Like

44:28

duh , why didn't I think of that ? She's right . So

44:30

that was the huge motivation for

44:32

me to make

44:34

sure that my schedule was designed

44:37

to be meeting with people , because that's

44:39

where the revenue , frankly , that's where the revenue comes

44:41

from . So her encouragement

44:43

to like double my appointments in

44:46

order to double my revenue , you know

44:49

, really pushed me to figure out what

44:51

is it that I can give away . And

44:54

, by the way , she was totally right . Yeah , in

44:56

a two-year

44:58

window we doubled our revenue by doubling

45:00

the number of appointments . So anyway , I

45:03

know that's kind of getting off the mat all week . It's related

45:05

because you know you're wanting to make space for more

45:07

appointments or more actual client

45:09

things . Okay . So I

45:11

know , I know I'm getting a little on tangents

45:13

here . I know we need to wrap up because you've got

45:15

important things to do , but I want to

45:18

leave you just with a reminder that it

45:20

took me a very long time to

45:23

get my calendar to where it was

45:25

. It was not an overnight thing

45:27

, it was definitely like a

45:29

progression , but I had to really

45:32

push myself to do it pretty rapidly so

45:35

that I could get

45:37

down to that ideal week for

45:39

me and for my family and for

45:41

what my business goals were and what

45:43

my life goals were . So yours is

45:45

going to look a little different and you know , having

45:48

an end goal in mind is great , but

45:50

know that it's just going to take some time . And

45:53

the other thing I'll leave you with here is you know

45:55

that old adage that whatever you're doing is going to know that old adage

45:57

that whatever you're doing is

45:59

going to take the amount of time that you give it . So

46:02

I'll do a podcast or something here

46:04

on some different strategies . But one of

46:06

the main things is for me , having this

46:08

limited time in my calendar to get

46:10

things done forced me

46:12

to get things

46:15

done . And

46:18

you know , and you'll just kind of figure that

46:20

stuff out and and you'll , you'll , you

46:22

might build this thing 37 times and then go

46:24

duh , I've completely forgot time

46:26

in here for prospecting , or I

46:28

forgot time . Yeah , I'm still doing my own social media

46:31

. You just have to keep doing

46:33

it and keep reiterating it . But

46:35

I promise you , once you find a model

46:37

week that works for you , you

46:40

will crush it . Okay

46:43

, so I'll encourage you to download

46:45

the blank model week template that

46:47

I've got for you and , like I said

46:49

, I'll throw in there , um , my

46:51

model week and a couple other

46:54

iterations of model weeks from other advisors

46:56

that I've coached over the years . And

46:58

you know , I just encourage you to start

47:01

tracking your time and how you're spending it

47:03

and really figure out where

47:05

you're . You know , frankly , where you're wasting

47:07

time or where you could be more efficient . Okay

47:10

, so , in the spirit of efficiency , I'm

47:12

going to let you go now finally . Okay

47:16

, so you might know that that was a replay If you

47:18

didn't see it in the title . That was a replay of an episode

47:20

that I did way back at the beginning

47:23

of the Efficient Advisor , and it's one that

47:25

I reference all the time . Model

47:27

weeks are critically

47:30

, critically important , and

47:32

so we've got a couple other episodes on model

47:35

weeks . I just did one with Michael Kitsis where

47:37

he walked through , kind of how he manages

47:39

his time and some model week strategies that

47:41

he utilizes . I'll link that for you in

47:44

the show notes as well . And don't forget , last

47:46

week's episode was all about

47:48

client Intel process and there was a

47:50

free download of a client

47:52

Intel process sample for you so you can take

47:54

it and implement that in your business right

47:56

away . Thank you guys so much for your

47:59

time and attention . I absolutely love

48:01

having you here each and every week . I

48:03

will see you out in the Efficient Advisor community over

48:06

on Facebook and you know I love to

48:08

hang out on LinkedIn and

48:10

hopefully I will see you live in Tempe

48:12

, arizona , this September . There

48:15

are details out on the website . If you go out to the efficientadvisorcom

48:18

, there's a banner up at the top where you

48:20

can learn more about the retirement

48:22

tax services conference that I will

48:24

be speaking at . So if you are

48:26

looking to increase your tax acumen , this is

48:29

the least expensive conference

48:31

for you to attend to do exactly just

48:33

that , and I will be hanging out there with you

48:35

guys , with all of my listeners . I cannot wait

48:38

to spend time with you in person and

48:40

deliver a fun keynote

48:42

. I will also drop the details for that

48:44

in the show notes . Thank you guys so much

48:46

and have an amazing rest of your week .