How to tackle business-building plans when day-to-day work gets in the way. Beverly Flaxington and Mike Slemmer are principals of The Collaborative, a Medfield, Mass.-based business consultancy to financial-service firms and software companies.

One of the most imposing challenges facing advisors today is the difficulty of balancing day-to-day demands of business with the need to change in order operate more efficiently.

We're all on overload. Far from lightening the load, technology seems to have increased it: I can get to my kid's school play all right, but I spend the whole time pecking away at my Blackberry in an attempt to keep up with things at the office.

Compulsion

This speed-up factor is like a boomerang. We get back to our clients quickly and that sets the precedent: next time they expect an even faster response. In such circumstances most advisors don't have time to think, plan and prepare. They're lucky if they can just keep up with the demands of the day.

So what's an advisor to do in this fast paced and fast changing environment? How do you find the time to make the strategic changes you need to make to help your business operate more efficiently and grow? For many advisors the answer is, you don't -- there's no time; it doesn't get done; better luck next life.

But there is a key to changing the way you do things now while keeping up with the daily deluge -- and without marring the parts of your business that ain't broke and don't need fixing.

We all know the old psychological chestnut about needing to acknowledge the need for change before you can effect the change that's needed. If we keep the blinders on and don't see the impact our negative behavior (or lack of positive behavior) is having on us and others, we won't be compelled to change anything.

Digestion

So you need to get to the bottom of what's really wrong. Are you trying to enhance something that's already working (and maybe working quite well) or are you trying to mend something that's truly in need of repair? Further: is there really a problem, or are you simply feeling pressured by competitors or colleagues to do things differently?

First take the time -- yes, it takes a bit of time -- to identify the areas of your business that will benefit most from new approaches: the parts that'll get the biggest bang for your buck. From there, create a list of priorities to help you understand what matters most to your business.

Once you have the list, set down what has to happen to accomplish each priority. Say you need to do a better job handling client referrals. OK, now what exactly do you need to do? What steps do you need to take? Who needs to take each of these steps? When can it be done?

In other words, create a clear implementation plan that outlines, in detail, what needs to happen at every stage.

Next, transfer this implementation plan, step by step, to your daily work plan, including others who are charged with seeing individual steps through to conclusion.

Putting the project into bite-size chunks makes it more feasible -- and that much likelier to get done. Once you start to see some pieces of the bigger plan getting done, doing more becomes easier.

Simple, right? Well, no; of course it isn't. But it works. -FWR

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