Unexpected, high-energy intrusions cause panic, fear and anxiety. They command attention and can bottleneck an entire company. The chaos is expensive and kills profit margins—because fire drills derail everyone’s day.
The undue stress caused by fire drills clouds the mind, leading to suboptimal results. If your company makes a habit of operating in such chaos, it can compound into much larger issues, ranging from chronic illnesses to high client and employee turnover. All in all, stress can literally kill you, your team and your company.
Identify Common Causes
Take a moment to evaluate when and where fire drills happened. How can they be prevented? What went wrong in the process? Where did the breakdown occur? How can you plan around it from happening again?
An example of a fire drill could include something simple, such as printing investment analysis reports. They can be a lot of pages. As a remedy, use an iPad. Or implement a protocol that reports need to printed and prepped three days before the clientmeeting. Then two days prior to that meeting, schedule an internal meeting to organize and review the printouts.
Try something larger, such as a receiving a recordkeeper proposal. To facilitate it, set a deadline. If the proposal isn’t input or submitted by the deadline, then it is not permitted. Hold firm. Keep your deadline. Most of the time, your wholesaler partners will submit on time; but just in case, now you don’t have to go through a fire drill to change your presentation to include a last-minute submission. Try it one time. Watch what happens next time you request a proposal. Hint: you’ll get it in time.
Read more commentary by Rebecca Hourihan here.
Steps for Handling Fire Drills
- Lead Calmly. Two things that will escalate a drill to a full-blown emergency are disorganization and poor leadership. Whether you take on the role of the leader or put another team member in charge, be sure that everyone involved understands their role and what is expected of them in a calm, cool and collected manner.
- Clarify Assignment Details. Before executing on the project, be sure to clarify the details and confirm with your client. The last thing you want to do is charge forward without all the pertinent details. Take a step back, assess the situation, confirm project details, create the game plan, and then execute.
- Renegotiate the Timeline. When possible, check to see if the project timeline can be extended so you and your team can approach it in a planned and organized manner.
- Recovery. Depending on the scale of the project, give your team (and yourself) time to recover. After a Code Red, you may want to take a day or call for a celebratory team lunch.
- Recap. In order to learn from the situation, you need to recap. Use this time to reflect on ways your team exceled, areas that need attention, and brainstorm ways to avoid the situation in the future.
By removing (or significantly reducing) fire drills, you can breathe easier. You can focus on your clients in an organized fashion. You can calmly manage your business. Stress and anxiety will decrease in the office—and productivity might even go up! Your team will be able to get through their daily tasks and might even have room for more! This will increase your net profitability, revenue per hour, and overall results. Not to mention the peace of mind that comes with running a smooth, successful retirement plan advisory company.
Thanks for reading and Happy Marketing!
Rebecca Hourihan, AIF, PPC, is the founder and CMO of 401(k) Marketing, which she founded to assist qualified experts operate a professional business with professional marketing materials and ongoing awareness campaigns.
