The ambitions you have set for your business are built on much more than production and revenue goals. Success in the financial advisory industry is based on relationships. So, you must develop habits to help you maintain those personal connections within yourself and with your team and your clients.

April-Lynn Levitt, a coach with the Personal Coach in Toronto, explains the three personal habits that contribute to a stronger practice:

1. Take care of yourself — physically and emotionally
Building your business requires good health and, therefore, taking the time to do things that help you maintain your energy is critical.

Physical exercise is one important component of maintaining good health. You can participate in any of a variety of fitness classes or stick to something as simple as taking a daily walk.

Leisure activities can relieve stress and help maintain your emotional wellbeing. If you are a movie buff, schedule a weekly trip to your local cinema. Maybe you are an avid reader who never seems to have enough time to enjoy a good book. If so, join a local book club, which will compel you to fit reading into your schedule, but will not require an onerous amount of your personal time.

Levitt says some of the advisors she works with meditate as a way to control stress.

2. Show your appreciation
“The best advisor will have a habit of showing appreciation for people,” says Levitt. “That could be [towards] clients and staff and anyone else they’re working with.”

Whether you’re interacting with clients or other team members, you always should be developing those relationships so your office is a positive environment for everyone.

The gestures can be simple. Say “thank you” to your team regularly, for everyone’s hard work and accomplishments. You can also show your appreciation through small gestures like treating everyone to coffee on Friday to celebrate the end of a week.

Thanking your clients for their business could involve acknowledging important events in their lives such as marriage or a new home.

You can also listen for “triggers,” says Sylvia Garibaldi, a business coach at SG and Associates in Toronto. These are the personal details clients will reveal to you about things that are important to them.

For example, your clients may tell you they are finally going to take their dream European vacation. Consider sending them a guidebook that will prove useful during their trip.

3. Follow a client-communication plan
Some advisors, according to Levitt, say they feel “reactive” if they don’t have some sort of communication plan in place.

Failure to do so, she says, “keeps advisors up at night.”

Some experienced advisors who serve hundreds of client families worry that they are failing to maintain lines of communication with some members of that client base.

To prevent that problem, Levitt says, develop a plan that will determine who needs to be called or emailed, and how often. Consider placing another team member in charge of actually performing those tasks, so it doesn’t all fall on you.

This is the second installment in a two-part series on the seven habits of successful advisors.

For part one, see: Top habits of successful advisors