The Most Overlooked Skill in Advisory Work: Rhythm

Most advisors don’t get fired because the work is bad.
They get fired because they stop being relevant.

When a client quietly moves on, it’s almost never about deliverables—it’s about connection. Somewhere along the way, the advisor stopped showing up with the same curiosity, energy, and perspective that made them valuable in the first place.

And the client felt it.

Perceived indifference is the silent deal killer.

You can be smart, strategic, and even “successful”—but if your client senses that you’ve stopped caring, the relationship starts to decay.

The fix?
It’s not a fancy new framework or a shiny deliverable.
It’s rhythm.

Rhythm creates relevance.

The best advisors build intentional cadence into their relationships:

• Quarterly strategy check-ins to tweak direction based on real-world results

• Annual look-backs to review what was spent, what worked, and what needs to evolve

• Mini-diagnostics to re-align when priorities shift

This isn’t busywork—it’s how you prove that you’re paying attention.

Each of these touchpoints says: “We’re still thinking about your business. We’re not on autopilot.”
And that presence is what separates a vendor from a trusted partner.

For the sake of innovation, it’s time to reintroduce inefficiency. .

Stopping to question, rethink, and realign is not efficient.
It’s intentional friction.

But that’s the point.

When everything in your client’s business is optimized for efficiency, your job is to bring back the messier, creative side of strategy—the side that experiments, wonders, and occasionally breaks things to build something better.

Innovation needs slack.
It needs space.
And that’s what rhythm gives you.

For more on The “Innoffiency Principle” coined by Blair Enns, check out this article.

So, if you want to stay irreplaceable, ask better questions—regularly.

• What’s changed since we launched this plan?

• What’s working but starting to lose impact?

• What big bet are we avoiding because it’s risky—or “inefficient”?

These are the questions that reignite trust, creativity, and collaboration.
They remind your clients that you’re not just executing a strategy—you’re stewarding their growth.

Your cadence is your credibility.

When you build rhythm into your client relationships, you prove consistency, curiosity, and care—all the things that make an advisor indispensable.

It’s not about doing more work.
It’s about doing the right work at the right time, with the right level of intentionality.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what clients stay for:
Advisors who keep showing up with relevance, rhythm, and real curiosity.

Try this:

Pull up your client calendar.
Do you have a quarterly pulse check scheduled with each one?
If not, start there. Ask, “What’s changed since our last strategy review?”

It’s the simplest move you can make—and one of the most powerful.