Take a Break!

Sure, you can take a vacation. Just get your staff and yourself in shape before you take off.

By Lucretia DiSanto Jones

Whether your practice is on the East Coast or the left coast, the Midwest or the Deep South, getting from November to March can seem like an eternity.

Maybe you’re ready for a vacation.

If you are like many advisors, though, you may find it very difficult to leave your practice behind. Don’t despair. There are ways to get outta Dodge for a week without having anxiety attacks about what’s happening at the office while you’re away.

Advisor Today asked three members for some tips and strategies for taking that well-deserved break without feeling pangs of guilt or regret.

Apologize profusely
Lynne S. Crowe, CLU, ChFC, of Certified Financial Services, LLC in Paramus, N.J., and a member of Greater Essex AIFA, does a fair amount of traveling to some pretty “out there” spots where she can’t be reached by email or phone. (Isn’t that a good thing?) When she left for Antarctica and Patagonia this January and didn’t plan to return until mid-February, she had to have a plan in place to deal with her absence. Here’s what she says she did:

“I work in an agency for an insurance company that handles many of my policies. I give clients the customer service number. I also try to find someone in the agency who can answer questions for clients,” Crowe says. “For cases that I’m working on, I tell clients who in the office can help them with questions, and I apologize profusely in my away-for-a-while voice mail. My clients seem to accept this. I tell them to leave detailed voice-mail messages so I can help them when I return.”

You deserve it
Mark D. Johnson, CLU, RHU, ChFC, of Johnson Insurance Consultants in Duluth, Minn., is a member of Lake Superior AIFA and a past NAIFA president. Highly successful, he’s got the process of taking a break under control. His philosophy is to stay connected, yet be able to “unplug.” He shared this list of things to keep in mind when planning a break:

• Give your employees more responsibility while you’re there so they know what they are doing when you are gone.
• Set high expectations for your staff; they will rise to meet them.
• If you don’t have a staff, build one.
• Work with younger agents and pay them for their efforts.
• Call the office and check in a couple times a week.
• Realize that you’re not as indispensable as you may think.
• Remember that between email, fax machines and cell phones, you can do a lot from far away.
• Tell your clients you’re going on vacation. They know you deserve it.

Grow your staff
Suburban Maryland AIFA member Randy L. Scritchfield, CFP, LUTCF, of Montgomery Financial Group in Damascus, suggests that you never call the office when you are away. Rather, have the staff call you only if necessary and only through a voice-mail system. “One should never wear a cell phone on his hip for the benefit of the staff. It will become their crutch, and you will become the impediment to not only their growth, but also your business truly turning into an operation that is bigger and better than just you,” Scritchfield says.

Although he thinks differently from Johnson about contacting the office while away, Scritchfield’s philosophy is similar to Johnson’s. “One of the best opportunities for staff growth is to go away and let them handle things themselves,” he says.

To develop a “Superb Support Staff,” as he calls it, which has allowed him to get away on occasion, Scritchfield follows this “growth chart” that he developed and uses when speaking at local associations. Perhaps it will help you retreat for a bit without worry.