Innovation’s Role in Your Business’s Success [3 Steps to Propel Your Business Forward]

Updated October 31 2023, at 12:22 PM

Like many professionals, you understand innovation’s role in business growth: creating ways to be heard above the noise, noticed among the similarities, and a sought-after trusted business.

Embracing the new year as a time to refocus your firm’s brand using thought-out and efficient processes sounds opportunistic, but there’s a problem. If you search “business growth,” approximately 537,000,000 results appear!

The time you need to wade through all these results and find the best suggestions could literally take you the entire year. Stop your search-and-review process. We’ve drilled down the content to three innovative tactics that can propel your business forward.

The past is wrought with uncertainty. If you revisit the state of the market, it’s evident that many families felt a financial crunch. This financial crunch graced us with the “great cancellation”—the pausing of memberships, saving money, insurance policies, and in some cases, halted long-term goals. The result affected people’s lifestyles, spending habits, retirement planning, and even brand perceptions.

It’s time to change this narrative by reshaping your brand and building your clients’ loyalty. Start with these three steps.

Step 1: Grow

Accelerate Your Digital Solutions

The business world continues to see accelerated innovations in and around digital solutions. Further, these tech services work best to enhance processes more efficiently when they support each other.

Can your clients see data in real-time, allowing them to visualize how the information relates to their financial plans? Looking internally, you need solutions that track KPIs, adjust business practices, and allow quicker response times. The right digital platform should:

• Augment working environments
• Enhance decision making
• Free up resources
• Provide sales and marketing
• Offer better customer service

Having these solutions at your fingertips can enhance your client’s confidence in your ability to manage their financial future. Additionally, use this data to look inward and uncover where your business can reduce costs, improve productivity, and create more with less.

Perhaps you partner with an IMO who offers digital platforms to provide you with client portfolio analytics and account management alongside innovative business tools.

Related: 5 Reasons to Use a Wealth Management Fintech Platform

Step 2: Serve

Create Immersive Customer Experiences

It’s hard to argue that technology continues to impact how customers interact with businesses. The offerings your company provides, coupled with your clients’ expectations, determine the success of each client’s experience.

A few wrong digital moves and the experience moves quickly in a negative direction.

The most robust end-user experiences streamline the link between your online discussion, in-house data, and relationships. To positively impact decisions regarding selection, purchases, and brand loyalty, your comprehensive strategy should be:

• Transparent
• Interactive and conversational
• Forward-thinking

Build your brand online as a thought leader and watch your client’s trust in your insights grow. If you engage with industry experts and provide innovative solutions that address your audience’s concerns, your brand can become synonymous with words like resource, authority, and intuitive.

Now you’ve created the type of business your client’s like to refer to their friends. Aligning with an IMO partner is a straightforward way to help address this business-growth goal.

For example, this partnership should provide comprehensive business innovation through national events, digital marketing insight, and access to experienced professionals. These tools are designed to support and guide you on best practices that help drive you forward.

Step 3: Disrupt

Shake Up the Financial Industry

Third, your list of actionable items should bring your focus internally. Create communities of belonging that develop a more engaging, dynamic, and personal office culture. There are plenty of discussions on social platforms that reward those companies embracing inclusion and innovation.

Once again, we searched “innovation and inclusion” online and received 761,000,000 results! Plus, we found a Forbes article backing up this notion by stating, “The driving force of a company – its employees—will be the determining factor of successful innovation.“

Let’s move your business in that direction both internally and externally.

Reimagine your workspace, adapting to those who enjoy the autonomy of remote work and those who prefer face-to-face interaction. Overwhelmed employees aren’t providing any positives to your bottom line but encouraging a work-life balance will be respected by your clients. Consider tangible and intangible engagements that:

• Build team member-employer loyalty
• Spark imagination and innovation
• Deepen the company culture experience

If you haven’t revisited your marketing efforts, now’s the time to dive in. You’ll want to look beyond primary brand assets to an all-inclusive platform that can deliver customized strategies designed for financial professionals.

If you don’t have an in-house marketing team or need more, consider an IMO that can bring your big ideas to life. For example, having a dedicated Advisor Marketing Services team to develop, implement, manage and analyze your efforts can free you to focus on additional goals.

Related: 8 Financial Advisor Business Growth Strategies

Grow, Serve, Disrupt

Grow Your Business:

In the financial sector…and in facilitating the growth of your business, visualizing is an essential key to your success.

When faced with growing your business, the trending mentality insists there are too many obstacles to attain your goal, so you hesitate. Stop the constraints to success by practicing mental visualization toward your goal.

Check out how our COO Arron Price flips the narrative and turns the internal “I can’t” into “I can do anything” in this short Connect with Culture video.

Serve Your Clients:

In the financial sector…and in facilitating how your business serves your clients, listening should be your starting point.

Your clients come to you for sound financial insight but offering a solution without truly hearing their pain points is fruitless. You’ll want to pause, listen, and collaborate if you want to grow your business and serve your clients.

When you do this, you’ll discover that the more ideas presented, the more optimal the solution you can offer, and the more trust your client will have in you.

Arron reminds us why the meeting etiquette of listening before speaking is crucial to serving clients in this short Connect with Culture video.

Disrupt the Industry:

In the financial sector…and in facilitating how your business can disrupt the industry, thinking outside the box can keep you moving forward.

Let’s face it; the financial world hasn’t been all that sexy. Make it a point to listen to what clients are saying, visualize your new message, and increase innovation making your brand stand out.

Perhaps build your list of action items to include new product offerings, expanded portfolios, multi-generational planning, and other initiatives that set you apart. Remember, businesses that innovate during economic uncertainty have greater opportunities to thrive.

In this short Connect with Culture video, Arron explains how defining your brand drives you in the direction you want to go.

Related: Financial Advisor Growth Strategy: Expand Your Service Offerings [Tips & Considerations]

Ready to Propel Your Financial Business Forward?

At Financial Independence Group, we’re a national IMO focused on empowering financial professionals just like you. We have a team of industry experts with experience building business and AUM through referrals, fintech, client nurturing, and brand management.

Our next step is hosting our annual Sales Symposium in Dallas, featuring two days of innovative and strategic initiatives for financial professionals like you.

If your next step is to grow, serve, and disrupt, let’s talk.

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