Your annual team meeting is a great chance to bring the team together outside the office, ideally for about half a day. It can also be held virtually, if that’s what’s best for your team. The most important part is getting it on the calendar and forming your plan.

The team’s lead financial professional (or professionals) should schedule this meeting, create the agenda, and ensure that every team member, including staff, can attend. If you have key strategic or remote team members or partners, you may include them in the meeting too. Each person has a different and valuable perspective on the business and has had varying interactions with clients. Hearing their perspectives during the meeting is crucial. Consider scheduling this meeting in the afternoon, or after market close, to have minimal impact on your client experience.

The meeting agenda should be distributed before the meeting and contain a mix of topics that capture your team’s top current initiatives, challenges, and vision.

• Reflection on last year’s successes and challenges
• Discussion around this year’s top priorities, which should be documented in writing, with timelines for completion and individual team member names associated with each goal
• Strategy around marketing, investment implementation, client communication, internal team processes
• Accountability systems and metrics documented for each team member

Best practice: This meeting should be something the team looks forward to, so consider including team-building activities, a celebratory dinner, or a fun event afterward. We strongly recommend that you have 1-3 goals for upcoming year documented before the meeting ends. Each goal should have at least one person assigned as the keeper of that goal. This creates accountability for execution and a sense of ownership. Also, schedule the year’s offsite meeting when this one concludes. That way everyone can plan accordingly.

Sample Agenda Topics to Consider

Topics should be selected based on your team’s state of the union, i.e., priorities, needs, passions, etc. For example, if succession planning is a priority for your team, then a significant amount of time should be dedicated to that topic.

Team Reflection:

• Ask each team member to come prepared to share their thoughts on key successes, challenges, and frustrations during the past year.
• The team should also be prepared to discuss what contributed to these successes (e.g., implementing new processes, increased efficiently, etc.).
• The team can explain challenges and frustrations and determine whether these issues have been resolved or more work needs to be done.

Team Culture and Harmony:

• Is the team dynamic culture-positive and does it foster open and honest communication?
• How does the team define success?
• How will the team celebrate successes (e.g., a team outing, offsite event, group dinner, etc.)?
• Encourage each team member to share a personal goal for the upcoming year, if they’re comfortable.

Team Communication:

• Do team meeting discussions happen regularly?
• Are they productive, or can their effectiveness be enhanced going forward?
• Is every team member focused on the same set of goals?
• Are there previously-set goals that haven’t yet been achieved?
• Does your team suffer from “we syndrome?”

Team Member Roles and Responsibilities (R&R):

• Review team R&R and consider whether changes or adjustments are necessary.
• Is each person currently functioning in their ideal role?
• Do team members understand how they’re held accountable to their specific R&R?
• Are R&R updated as team members gain new personal and professional experiences?

Proactive Services Delivered to Clients (Service Model/Service Matrix/Client Experience, etc.):

• Has the team reviewed the practice’s client segmentation recently and adjusted ratings appropriately?
• For each client segment, is it understood what services, solutions, and education those clients will receive, and at what time intervals?
• Are all team members committed to using a central tracking system and entering information?

Investment Implementation:

• Are all team members aligned on the investment implementation process?
• Does anyone need additional training on the investments?
• Does the team have a standardized, efficient investment review process that’s regularly used with clients?

Marketing/Branding:

• Is the team committed to using one value proposition? Can everyone easily articulate it?
• Does each team member use a shared prospecting presentation?
• What other marketing efforts will the team commit to in the upcoming year?

Business Growth Initiatives:

• What is each team member’s commitment to sourcing new clients and assets for the practice?
• What are the goals for gaining new assets from existing clients and new clients?
• What is the strategy for meeting clients’ adult children and grandchildren?

Implementation and Follow-up

• Has the team agreed on and recorded the top 1-3 initiatives for the upcoming year?
• What will be the greatest impediment to successfully implementing these idea(s)?
• What are the key business metrics for the team for the upcoming year?

Next Steps

1. Set the date for your annual offsite team meeting (and the fun, post-meeting event)
2. Plan your agenda
3. As the meeting nears, ask each team member to prepare their thoughts on key successes, challenges, and frustrations during the year