Asks if you should be modifying the services you're offering to on-profile prospects and clients in your current marketplace or revamping the way you're doing it. This should include retaining and expanding existing business by systematically insulating clients from competitors.

Examples: Financial milestones among generations are obvious opportunities to expand your services to meet emerging needs, as can revised tax codes and new laws. The older Baby Boomers get, the more they zero in on retirement planning; but for equally obvious reasons, long-term care insurance is getting their attention; estate protection and estate settlement and distribution planning are bound to be next. College education funding and other forms of wealth creation are catching the eye of married Gen-Xers (or should be), while long-term care, wealth transfer, legacy endowments and other end-of-life issues loom large among the Mature markets.

Estate settlement planning is a new and largely untapped opportunity for producers to strategically network with accountants, banks and attorneys — and with these other professionals rapidly expanding into financial services, heads-up producers are turning them into marketing assets, rather than letting them become competitors.

Example: If you haven't integrated technology into your business, your clients may be wondering why not (prospects may never get that far). The advantages of e-marketing applications — client management software, personal websites, e-mail versus print, and e-newsletters — are too obvious to ignore.

Cells 5 & 6: Modification of Services to
Expanded or New Markets

Asks if you should be offering new services to any expanded geographic area you wish to work in or to new markets you may decide to develop. Similarly...

Cell 7: Service Innovation

Asks if you should be developing all new services for existing on-profile clients.

Cells 8 & 9: Geographic Innovation
& Total Innovation

Ask if you need to be offering new services to an expanded geographic marketing area or to entirely new target markets.

These last five Market Opportunity scenarios are extremely high risk, considering the probable need for additional resources, education and training. Still, none of these scenarios exist in a vacuum. Most advisers can and should use a fuller understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses, and need a much better grip on their competition.