Grow Purposefully, Operate Efficiently & Leave Your Legacy with Andrea Schlapia’s Fundamental 4™ Blueprint
Episode: 040
In this episode of the Maximum Advisor podcast, host Chip Munn is joined by Andrea Schlapia. Andrea began her career in banking, then rose through the ranks of global investment firms like Dreyfus, Prudential, and Deutsche Bank. In 2008, she launched Ironstone, which specializes in practice management for independent financial advisory firms.
Chip and Andrea discuss Ironstone’s Fundamental 4™ blueprint, a system that guides financial advisory professionals and their teams to grow purposefully, operate efficiently, and leave the next generation with a wealth of knowledge to continue the business legacy.
Andrea and Chip discuss how The Fundamental 4™ offers a scaffolding on which to grow a practice by looking in a clinical way to pinpoint areas of greatest need for improvement: Strategic Planning, Business Development, Operational Effectiveness, and the Human Element. The Fundamental 4™ helps identify core issues and weaknesses that can be managed, monitored, and measured for a practice’s growth.
Team communication is a focus of the conversation and the best practice among successful advisor firms’ “development days,” where a team literally closes the door to clients and concentrates exclusively on moving the firm’s objectives forward. Chip and Andrea go over the necessity of intentionally building a practice culture with the right people. This topic is a component of Chip’s BASIS Method, a roadmap he developed for advisors to develop their practice into their ideal vision.
Listen in as Chip and Andrea talk about ways to gain control, boost morale and grow your practice. And don’t miss these free resources direct from Andrea (as mentioned in the podcast) Overview of the Fundamental 4TM and The Fundamental 4TM Milestone Focus Tasklist
For more practice-building ideas, be sure to visit ironstonehq.com for an “Assess Your Practice” score from Andrea Schlapia.
The goal of this show is to develop a community of advisors who are focused on being better advisors, better business owners, and better people. People are wired to be in community, we hope you join ours at http://bit.ly/maxadvisorgroup
And to take advantage of the most important marketing, selling and positioning tool for your practice grab our scorecard: http://maximumadvisor.com/scorecard/
Related Resources
Ironstone Introduction and Overview of the How/What/Why
Ironstone Fundamental 4™ Graphic
This is the blueprint/scaffolding around your practice.
Ironstone Goal Tracker
Can be filled with the Milestone Objective details and/or individual milestones. This is your 90-day block roadmap for 2021.
Tasklist 30-Challenge
- Draft what the current condition of your role is aka Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly, As-Needed – list EVERYTHING you do
- Come together as a team of 2 or more to review, collaborate – go through each Task List individually, determine what to DELETE (forever), Move (from your list to another role, or the "parking lot" to review later, ADD to enhance the role
- Review Parking Lot after reviewing all positions and now determine what to do with those tasks – potential new hire, redistribute back into current team members role or DELETE if possible
- Task List Template
- CSA Task List
Andrea Lopez-Schlapia, RCC™, HCS, sHRBP
CEO of IronstoneHQ
Andrea Lopez-Schlapia is the Founder/CEO of Ironstone, a practice management consultancy that specializes in helping financial advisors achieve optimal growth.
A former financial advisor, Andrea brings 20+ years of industry experience and training to her work. Her expertise as an external change agent allows Andrea to provide a critical eye toward measurement, analysis, improvement and best-practice solutions for advisors and their teams.
Ironstone’s proven approach is powered by four key performance areas, known as the Fundamental 4™: Strategic Planning, Business Development, Operational Effectiveness and the Human Element. These core metrics are required to design, develop and sustain a successful business. Evaluating all four areas helps Andrea create a comprehensive, step-by-step blueprint to execute client objectives. Click here to read more.
In addition to consulting with financial advisors, Ironstone clients include sales industry professionals, C-Suite executives, sales managers, key account managers, wholesalers, advisors, sales teams and support staff.
In this episode of the Maximum Advisor podcast, host Chip Munn is joined by Andrea Schlapia. Andrea began her career in banking, then rose through the ranks of global investment firms like Dreyfus, Prudential, and Deutsche Bank. In 2008, she launched Ironstone, which specializes in practice management for independent financial advisory firms.
Chip and Andrea discuss Ironstone’s Fundamental 4™ blueprint, a system that guides financial advisory professionals and their teams to grow purposefully, operate efficiently, and leave the next generation with a wealth of knowledge to continue the business legacy.
Andrea and Chip discuss how The Fundamental 4™ offers a scaffolding on which to grow a practice by looking in a clinical way to pinpoint areas of greatest need for improvement: Strategic Planning, Business Development, Operational Effectiveness, and the Human Element. The Fundamental 4™ helps identify core issues and weaknesses that can be managed, monitored, and measured for a practice’s growth.
Team communication is a focus of the conversation and the best practice among successful advisor firms’ “development days,” where a team literally closes the door to clients and concentrates exclusively on moving the firm’s objectives forward. Chip and Andrea go over the necessity of intentionally building a practice culture with the right people. This topic is a component of Chip’s BASIS Method, a roadmap he developed for advisors to develop their practice into their ideal vision.
Listen in as Chip and Andrea talk about ways to gain control, boost morale and grow your practice. And don’t miss these free resources direct from Andrea (as mentioned in the podcast) Overview of the Fundamental 4TM and The Fundamental 4TM Milestone Focus Tasklist
For more practice-building ideas, be sure to visit ironstonehq.com for an “Assess Your Practice” score from Andrea Schlapia.
The goal of this show is to develop a community of advisors who are focused on being better advisors, better business owners, and better people. People are wired to be in community, we hope you join ours at http://bit.ly/maxadvisorgroup
And to take advantage of the most important marketing, selling and positioning tool for your practice grab our scorecard: http://maximumadvisor.com/scorecard/
Related Resources
Ironstone Introduction and Overview of the How/What/Why
Ironstone Fundamental 4™ Graphic
This is the blueprint/scaffolding around your practice.
Ironstone Goal Tracker
Can be filled with the Milestone Objective details and/or individual milestones. This is your 90-day block roadmap for 2021.
Tasklist 30-Challenge
- Draft what the current condition of your role is aka Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly, As-Needed – list EVERYTHING you do
- Come together as a team of 2 or more to review, collaborate – go through each Task List individually, determine what to DELETE (forever), Move (from your list to another role, or the "parking lot" to review later, ADD to enhance the role
- Review Parking Lot after reviewing all positions and now determine what to do with those tasks – potential new hire, redistribute back into current team members role or DELETE if possible
- Task List Template
- CSA Task List
Andrea Lopez-Schlapia, RCC™, HCS, sHRBP
CEO of IronstoneHQ
Andrea Lopez-Schlapia is the Founder/CEO of Ironstone, a practice management consultancy that specializes in helping financial advisors achieve optimal growth.
A former financial advisor, Andrea brings 20+ years of industry experience and training to her work. Her expertise as an external change agent allows Andrea to provide a critical eye toward measurement, analysis, improvement and best-practice solutions for advisors and their teams.
Ironstone’s proven approach is powered by four key performance areas, known as the Fundamental 4™: Strategic Planning, Business Development, Operational Effectiveness and the Human Element. These core metrics are required to design, develop and sustain a successful business. Evaluating all four areas helps Andrea create a comprehensive, step-by-step blueprint to execute client objectives. Click here to read more.
In addition to consulting with financial advisors, Ironstone clients include sales industry professionals, C-Suite executives, sales managers, key account managers, wholesalers, advisors, sales teams and support staff.