Episode Transcription 

This is the Ultimate Advisor Podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful, and scalable practice. Each week we’ll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets and create the advising practice that you’ve dreamed up, you’ll be joined by your hosts Bryan Sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to hire improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practices marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let’s jump into another amazing episode of the Ultimate Advisor Podcast. 

Bryan Sweet  01:07

Welcome back to The Ultimate advisor Podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about you 10x. So most people would think, Boy, if I could to x my business, I would just be thrilled to death. But today we’re going to talk a little bit about how maybe 10x in yourself is actually easier than 2x. So one of the things that you probably have figured out so far listening to the podcast is I’m a big fan of coaching. And I would just say, over the last few years having been involved more and more in different types of coaching, especially being involved in the Genius Network, it is really, really opened my eyes to new ideas on automation, marketing concepts, and how impactful they can be in your business to put you in multiple places at once through the use of technology. And the problem with scaling a business is you either have to multiply yourself many times, which means you either got to hire an awful lot of advisors or hire an awful lot of staff, which works really, really well. It’s just more costly and takes a lot more time. Or you can use technology in a very great format to multiply what you do many, many fold. And it allows you to literally get 1000s and 1000s of messages out to the ideal clients or the avatars that we’ve been talking about. And do it in a very simplified method. Now it does take a little while to get it set up. But once it’s running, and once it’s set up and doing the things that you want it to do, it really just runs on its own, and allows you to do other things, while this is getting your message out to your ideal prospects. So today’s adviser is really at an advantage because of the fact that they don’t need to go door to door, you know, years ago, they had the cold calling. And that’s how you got business. You’d sit on the phone for hours at an end and try and get somebody that would talk to you and accept some product that you’re going to sell. But that’s virtually an impossible way of taxing yourselves. And through technology. You can do a lot of things just internally other than just getting your message out to your prospects, things like doing mastermind classes on on video, I just signed up for how to create a mastermind group with a couple of Tony Robbins and Dean Grazi OC, and it’s all on video. And so you can do it at your leisure. And there’s things like this throughout the industry to help you grow your practice and, and obviously we have lots of those things in ultimate advisor coaching. So I’m going to turn it over to Draye and then I’ll jump back in sometime later here. But go a little deeper on maybe that video idea.

Draye Redfern 04:22

Yeah, Brian, I love love love video, not only because video is ranking is one of the best ways to rank to be on page one of Google’s these days, at least the fastest, because Google owns YouTube. And if you have a really great video that could shed light on a particular topic or subject or pain or experience or whatever it is in your area. It’s very easy to then rank number one on page one on google for video. So that’s the first great little side benefit in and of itself. If we take that to the next step. Video is also a great way to see how individuals can almost get to know you get to interact with you and almost feel as though they know you before they ever actually meet you. So what do I mean by that? Well, first off, we recommend and use video for a variety of reasons. So with coaching clients or relationships, even if the other person doesn’t necessarily have a camera, we’re on camera, because it helps build that rapport that they have. For us, it helps to strengthen that bond, or that relationship, because when you you can see someone, you can see them talk with your hands, you can see you know how into it they are you can see if they’re like busy playing on their phone the whole time, if they’re not paying attention, it really goes a long way to help build that rapport. That’s just one of the ways. Other ways are the ways that you can use video to interact with clients or prospects. And one of the ways that suite financial does this is each advisor has their own separate URL, their own separate domain name for that specific advisor. I don’t know if I necessarily want to give those each of those URLs out on the podcast here. But essentially, what happens when you actually visit one of these URLs is that is nicely designed page with the advisors, information and contact information. But then there’s two very distinct buttons that allow that individual to segment, which type of persons visiting the page, whether it’s a prospect, or whether it’s an existing client. And if it’s a prospect, you obviously don’t know if you’re going to be a good fit. So you don’t want to have a 30 minute or hour long or 90 minute meeting. So you want to keep it short. So if you’re a good fit, if you’re a good fit, then you could obviously go to the next stage. So if someone selects a prospect, in order to basically protect the advisors time, there’s a 15 minute meeting where they can essentially evaluate this person over the phone or on a video meeting, to see if they would be a good fit. And then you know, obviously protect their time. If they’re an existing client, they can click that button. And it takes them to a separate page, where existing clients get a video walking them through like, hey, it’s, you know, it’s me, it’s me. And you know, looking forward to our annual review or upcoming meeting, we’re going to talk about Bum Bum Bum bum, all the points are going to cover in the meeting, this is what you need to do next. And so by having this sort of segmentation and personalization, and really alleviates a lot of the administrative burden that exists out there, because you don’t necessarily have to be following up all the time, you can shoot one link one time, they can choose the day and time that works best for them. There’s a video saying specifically what the agenda is going to be how they can move forward and the action steps that are required. And that eliminates a lot of that back and forth. Like does Thursday at 3pm. Work? No, Thursday three doesn’t work. How about Friday at 1pm now won’t be able to have that following Thursday, five Thursdays from now or whatever it is. And we’ll we’ll do it that that’s super annoying. And we’ve all been there probably 100 times. There’s ways to create more of that automation with the personalization, I actually call it humanization automation, because you’re still keeping that high level human touch, not b2b or b2c, AH to AH human to human, that high level human touch in an automated fashion that helps to create more of that, that deeper rapport and these sorts of things. So that’s just one of the ways that you can use video. But there’s all sorts of other things that you can use. So in some of the previous episodes, we’ve talked about how you can send emails out and share or disseminate content or resources. If you like being on camera that comes naturally to you, you could have a video that goes out every week. And you could have a you’re just teaching a different financial concept for one of your niches, walking them through the particular pain points or whatever it may be in that niche. So they can see you on camera, they can see how you dress, they can see how you talk, you can build that rapport with them, even though you actually haven’t met them. But it’s almost like a unilateral report for the time being because they feel in the comfort of their own home or workplace or environment that they can get to know you on their terms, not you shoving your content or sitting them down to a forceful meeting. That way, it really just makes it significantly easier to have those sort of interactions, build that rapport and video is just by gosh, one of the best ways that you can do that. And so that’s one example you can also text yourself by just creating more systems and processes for the way in which your calendar runs in and of itself. As an example. For me, I have two separate call legs. So someone wants to book a spot on my calendar. If I know them or they’re a referral, they get one particular length that allows them to go straight on to my calendar, pick the day and time that works best for them for an initial 30 minute meeting. Great awesome easy if I don’t know them if they found me through one way or another they get a separate link and that separate link essentially says Book your spa in order to solidify your spot please pay a $250 you know meeting fee or I don’t there’s a particular name for I don’t remember what you call it. Usually most of my stuff is like an a super awesome exploratory call with Dre are the best 30 minutes So you spent all day with Draye, we make it fun and entertaining. But for that particular other meeting is, basically they have to pay $250 to get a spot on my calendar, if they actually show up, then it basically means that they that money is refunded to them, no big deal. It’s easy, it just gets them to show up. And by simply doing that, we have never had a cancellation because then people have skin in the game. And we use video, we walk people through some of these things, step by step. But that’s a simple way of creating an automation that allows you to save time, protect your calendar, and allow you to focus on the things that really offer the biggest impact to your business without having to waste time on no shows. That’s just another example. And one other thing I’d like to throw in there and just regards to 10 axing is that being in genius networking, you know, Brian has been in strategic coach for a really long time also is that these days, as an advisor, you’re not paid to crank levers, produce widgets, or, you know, like lift something from place to place. That’s, that’s not your role. That’s not what you should be doing, you’re paid to think that’s what you’re doing, you’re paid to think you’re paid to talk you’re paid to know and provide guidance to alleviate some of those, those those burdens. And as an advisor, thinking better, more effectively and more efficiently, really does go a very, very long way, in order to, to really tee you up for success, there’s a we could probably dedicate a whole episode to it on different ways that you could do specifically this. But I think that as you go through this, as you create more of these systems and processes as you TEDx yourself, you’ve really also got to find the ways that you can invest in yourself to also think more effectively, more clearly more efficiently, and surround yourself with people who do the same, but on a better or higher level, because that will help you and force you to level up some of your thinking and those sorts of things. So lots to sort of cover and touch on there. We talked about video, we talked about how you can automate some of these things, why you’re paid to think and not necessarily crank levers anymore, Brittany, anything that you want to touch on there as far as how someone could actually take this and spearhead some of these things towards implementation?

Brittany Anderson  12:12

Yeah, Draye, I think you said it perfectly. With in the financial advisory world you’re dead on, we are paid to think we’re paid to offer advice, we’re paid to be educated in regards to people’s finances. So what that means is that you should not necessarily be spending your time figuring out how to best shoot a video, upload it, get the systems built behind it, get the email campaign all figured out, oh, my goodness, like that’s a lot. Right. So Draye just touched on quite a bit of things. In the last couple episodes, we’ve talked a lot, we’ve referenced different software’s you can use, different sequencing that you can set up. But here’s the bottom line, there’s only so many hours in the day. And where we see people struggle with this, you 10 times concept is when they tried to do it all. It’s just not possible. And it’s not the best use of your time. So there’s a couple of different ways that you can go about implementing some of these great concepts that Dre has been talking on in regards to your marketing. So one thing that you can do, if you’re a smaller team, if you don’t have a ton of manpower behind you, right now, there are different outsource websites that you can go to just throwing a couple out there, get leverage.com, it’s a paid subscription, where you can find people to implement some of these things for you. There’s Fiverr Fiverr is literally what it says it’s $5 per transaction. So there’s a ton of people out there that can help with it. Under ultimate advisor coaching under our platform, we have one particular way of working with us, we only open up a handful of slots each quarter because it is labor intensive. And again, you can only be in so many places at once. But we can actually do a lot of this hands on for you where we go in and where your implementers. So again, there’s there’s so many different ways that you can accomplish the bigger picture of getting these automations that up, you just have to decide where you’re at in your business. How much time can you dedicate to it? How much time do you want to dedicate to it? And then you can go from there. And I think back to there’s only one particular example I can think of with all the financial advisors that we’ve worked with, where we had a gentleman who said he was Yep, I’m ready to I’m ready to do this. I’m ready to implement. And he was short and implementation did not really want to dedicate any time to it didn’t have an implementer on his team. So that’s the only time that I’ve ever seen somebody struggle is if they don’t have a key implementer somebody kind of just spearhead the project to kind of keep things rolling per se that’s where some of the frustrations come I’m about so you as a financial advisor, you need to be allocating your time to what’s going to generate revenue, you need to be doing the things that keep your energy up, keep your excitement level up, keep you growing and scaling your business. And then you need to find the WHO to essentially implement all of these key things for you. So I think that’s something that I can’t stress enough. And again, we touch on this throughout our coaching throughout the couple modules that we have available. We do talk about how the implementer, and how getting them geared up to be able to take these concepts, and Ron is just so essential to the success of your business. And Brian, I before we have Dre kind of round us out here, I actually think that that you have so much insight around the WHO versus the how that really finding who can help you get to the next level instead of trying to do it all yourself. So I think that if you could just jump back in and talk a little bit on that, I think that would be really impactful just for the audience to hear.

Bryan Sweet  16:06

Yeah, love to do that, Britney, it’s probably the best concept that Dan Sullivan, its strategic coach has ever come up with. And it’s really pretty simple. But I would tell you, it’s it’s business altering to think about that, and, and build your practice with that mentality. And it’s simply an, it, it’s simply instead of you figuring out how to do whatever it is you’re trying to do. It’s finding who out there is already an expert, and how can you work with them to have their expertise brought into what you do. And it’s had some remarkable results on all sorts of projects that we’ve worked on. And the nice thing about it is it doesn’t take your time or the team’s time to figure out what it is. And then you know, right from the get go, that what is going to be delivered is going to be excellent, because that’s already their niche. And as we all know, anytime you do something the first time, you’re never going to be really, really good at it. And if that’s what you’re going to deliver to clients, you know, you might disappoint them. And so by working with somebody that’s already an expert in that, you’ll appear to be an expert, when in reality, all you did is connect with somebody that’s doing that for you. And so literally anything that you’re doing, if you’re doing it in house, ask the question, is there somebody outside of my firm that I can connect with, that can do that much, much better. And as Brittany alluded to, there’s the services like get leveraged and Fiverr and lots of other you know, services and, and who have you met that is really, really good at something you’re not really good at. And maybe you can create a relationship to build things out. Just that mindset and that thought process. It’s just amazing. If you just ask your yourself that question before I dive into this? Who is somebody else that I should talk to, before I figure out how am I going to implement this? So I would just tell you, that is remarkable what what what positives will come out of that. One other quick thing, and I’ll turn it over to Draye to to wrap up. But for those people that don’t have a lot of people or just want to make a big impact, one of the things that I would tell you would really, really help reinforce an initial meeting or with a prospect, if you’ve just sat down for the first time and you’ve gone through and you’ve talked about them and how you can be helpful to them. Give give some thought to doing a video. And you could do this right on your iPhone of yourself saying, hey, it was wonderful to meet with you. Here’s a review of the things that I think we were we discussed. And this is what I’m going to be doing for you in the near future. As you probably do already. Most of us send that in the format of a letter and the summary of what we do. Just think how different you’d look if you did the same thing but delivered it in a video reinforcing everything with your face your voice. Try it once I think you’ll be real surprised. Great.

19:50

Oh, I love that so much. In fact, Brian, you know a lot of what we advocate on and that’s basically doing as much video personalized video like that. as possible, and I think that compliance can be a challenge sometimes Yes. Especially if you’re trying to create one off videos for each specific person. And each video has got to be approved by compliance. And it can create some some challenges there. But exactly what Brian said could be done really quickly and easily, in this manner right here will probably leave you with this as a last little tactic for today. It could be you could basically shoot a video once. And it could be you and your office saying, hey, I really enjoyed our meeting, we covered a, b, and c, just like Brian said, and this is what you can expect from me next, perfect that video could then be, it could seem informal, because it’s on your iPhone, or whatever it is, it could seem personal. And when you send that video, or that email with that video attached to it, you can say, Hi, Susan, or Hi Bill, or whoever the name is, I really enjoyed chatting about boom, boom, boom, you know, you put that in the email with whatever those talking points may be. And you could send the video that way. That way, you don’t necessarily have to have the video approved every single time by compliance. And you have more of that customization and personalization. And frankly, no advisors sent video. So that in and of itself is a massive differentiation. It’ll help to really convert more of those prospects to clients establish a deeper relationship with those existing clients, and really just make you stand out in the marketplace. And that’s just one of probably 10,000 Other things we could cover in regards to 10 axing yourself. So in order to leave you with some great stuff today, I really encourage you to remember you are paid to think not to crank levers. So surround yourself with those people who can help you level up that’s involving you, finding the who not the how that’s doing more video that can help you more or less replicate yourself while creating amazing humanization automation facets to the business and really helping you level up the entire advising business as a whole. So that being said, thank you for listening in this week. We really are so glad and privileged and honored to have you with us and look forward to seeing you next week on another episode of The Ultimate advisor podcast.

Hey there, Brittany Anderson here. If you are loving what you’re hearing on our ultimate advisor podcast, don’t keep us a secret. Share us with other advisors that you think would benefit from the messages that you are hearing. The easiest way to do that is to simply send them to ultimate advisor podcast.com. And if you want to learn a few other ways that we could potentially serve you as an advisor, go check out ultimate advisor mastermind.com. As always, we are so happy to have you here with us as part of the ultimate advisor community and we look forward to a continued relationship.