Speaker 1 0:08

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 of. You’ll be joined by our hosts Bryan Sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to 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 in to another amazing episode of The Ultimate Advisor podcast.

Brittany Anderson 1:07

Welcome back to your Ultimate Advisor Podcast. This is once again Brittany Anderson here with Bryan Sweet and Draye Redfern. And we are continuing on this little journey that we’ve got going on where we are sharing with you simple marketing tips that you can implement right now immediately into your practice. That’s not overly complicated, that’s easy to execute. And that really is simple to get your hands around. So today, we’re going to carry on by talking about a word called congruency. Basically, to sum that up, it’s to do what you say, when you say you’re going to do it and doing it with excellence. So for example, if you have a great process, you do have that as part of your marketing, you sure as heck better deliver on it. If you have touted your service standards, if you talk about how, you know your service is truly exceptional. I mean, that’s one thing that a lot of people say, but not a lot of people actually deliver on it. And I’m sure you can think of multiple different scenarios where you engage with businesses. And you know, what you may be expected was a little bit different than what was delivered. Don’t fall into that crowd. Don’t make that a habit for your business. If you’re say you’re if you say you’re different, we talk about differentiation a lot. If you say you’re different, you need to actually be different. Don’t just wordsmith it, make sure that whatever it is you’re putting out into the world that you actually live in congruence. And what the heck does this have to do with marketing? Well, it has everything to do with it. Because if you are putting out into the world, if you are talking about all of the great things that you do, and the experience that somebody has, when they come on board with you is not reflective of what you’re promising. That is a big, big problem. You know, there’s this thing that in the first 90 days of a relationship, you basically make or break it. And I think that is absolutely relevant and true to what we’re talking about. Because if you’re talking about how seamless your processes and how easy it is to work with you, and how great your team is, but Sally on the team doesn’t ever call anybody back, and you’re still trying to figure out, you know what exactly your process is, you still do it, you talk about it, but you don’t really know exactly what it’s supposed to be. Those are big problems. And that’s where marketing becomes a little bit. I don’t know how else to say this. But icky, right? It’s not something that’s not a feel good. That’s more of like the sleazy sales, that’s more of the, hey, I just want to throw a line out there and just hope I hook somebody and then we’ll figure it out as we go. You know, you need to make sure you live in complete congruence. See, and actually, you know, Draye is the one who brought this word. I’ve known the word for a long time, obviously, but is really the one who brought it to light. And part of this was and I’ll share just kind of a personal experience here is I was at Bryan’s Elite Wealth Advisor Symposium, so let’s the EWA symposium a couple years back and was about to give a presentation, the next day had been there for the full conference. And I had a tragedy happen where I found out that my father had passed away. I’m not to go into the depths of it but didn’t have the best relationship with him and kind of came as a shock how I found out and all of that stuff. So I was sitting there I remember sitting in my hotel room debating on whether or not I could even go on and give my big ol presentation because I was actually sharing in that presentation a big part of my personal story. I sat down I talked with Bryan because obviously he was the host of the conference. We talked it through, he’s like Brittany, you 100% have my blessing if you need to bow out, you know, this is something that I 110% understand and will support you completely 1,000% That night we had a wonderful reception and started talking to Draye and he brought up He’s like what feels most congruent to you. And I sat there and I sat on that. And I was like, I have to give the presentation. And he’s like, okay, that’s fine. That is that 100% what you think. And I was like, you just use that word. And for whatever reason, it punched me in the gut. And I felt like, I wouldn’t be letting down the audience, if I didn’t go up there and share my story. If I didn’t get in front of those people. And yeah, I had some good team stuff to share. But I felt this calling that I committed to showing up for people. And there’s essentially nothing I could do to change the circumstance of what had happened. But what I could do is I could use my own story and my own pain, to hopefully impact even one person in that audience. So think about this for a minute, think about how this relates to you and your business. Are you showing up in the same way that you are committed to on the outside? You know, how are you making the decisions, and identifying your values and identifying the core values of your business, so that when push comes to shove, no matter what happens, you’re living in complete congruence see, to who you are as a human being. And for me, one of my big values is impact. You know, if I can impact even one person through some of the struggles and the pain and you know, maybe some of the mistakes and the, you know, the not so great stuff that happens in life that we all have, if I can share that, and I can make an impact on somebody else. And I can be a positive light to say, hey, regardless of what happens, that life is pretty darn good. And you can still show up as an individual. That’s what matters to me. So this is why congruency is so darn important, not just for you as a human, but for your business as well. Because when you start living in complete congruence to what you’ve committed to, to what you live for, all of a sudden, your business becomes more than just a way a means to an end, a way to make some income, you know, a way to serve some clients, but it becomes a movement, it becomes something that you’re proud to market, it becomes something that you’re like, you know what I know. And I believe with every ounce of my being, that we’re amazing that what we do changes lives, and that what we do is more than just the numbers because the numbers are a commodity, let’s just put it where it is. It’s true. So that’s where Draye, I would love to bring you into this because I know like I said, you’re that person that said that word in a context. I’ve never forgotten it. It’s resonated with me for years now. And I would just love to hear your perspective on what congruency actually means to you and your business, but also for marketing and why just as a whole, for the being for the marketing for the entity, why it’s so darn important.

Draye Redfern 7:45

I, I’m just really proud of you for the fact of just you know what you went through that night a few years ago, and then being able to just step into that and literally help people and you got a standing ovation. And then there’s, you know, wet eyes, you know, all throughout the room. And I think that there’s a lot that was learned from that I think it’s good that we can continue that and even to share that message. And the purpose of that on an even broader level. And congruency I think is a really important thing for anybody’s life and anybody’s business. And for a variety of reasons. I think first off, we can talk surface level, you know, marketing wise, which I want to get much deeper here in a second. But if you’re being incongruent, people feel that it’s just a feeling. It’s like, you know what, I can’t quite put my finger on it. And maybe it’s not like the achy vibes sort of thing. But you just feel like something was off with that person. And I know that we’ve all had those feelings before. Like, you know what, I know mind working with him, maybe but it just didn’t feel right about it. Or like, you know, I got the weird vibes that it’s a no go. And we can feel when people are saying things that are not congruent with who they are. And so for me, that’s a big thing. And so for me, and the way that I run my life and my business, like I’m a congruent husband, you know, I’m a congruent Father, I’m a congruent boss, and employer. And I think, you know, having that congruence, see throughout of like, I’m going to say, you know, I’m gonna say what I’m gonna say, I’m going to do what I’m going to say, and then I’m going to follow through with it. And it’s going to stay true to, you know, a very high level of ethics and values and morals, that many, I wouldn’t say all people, many people wouldn’t have the same level of expectations. And so my expectations for myself are very high. And I try to live a life that is very congruent with that my morals, my vision, and my sort of future. And I love to surround myself with people who fit that and that’s why we’re doing this because I couldn’t imagine, you know, two other amazing people that could, you know, that are of the same mindset across all of that. But, you know, one thing to you know, because everybody loves tactical advice, like you know, it’d be congruent, like very, very great Draye Thank you so much. But if I were to share anything tactical and we’ve mentioned it once or twice before is that you over promise and over deliver. And that to me is absolutely congruent with who I am, you know, our contracts, whatever we have with our clients will say one thing, but we will always try to go above and beyond to do do whatever we can to help the people around us, that is congruent to me. So over promise and over deliver is something that we wholeheartedly body. And that is something that people pick up on. And they appreciate, and they recognize, and it doesn’t take much, you know, a whole lot of that to realize, you know what I’m this is the way that I really want to live my life. And this is what attracts clients and the business grows all sorts of other things. But there’s just a lot of really great things around that. And the other part of that one thing that we value, at least in my family very highly is learning and knowledge and staying congruent with that as one of our primary objectives in life. That’s education, that’s learning whether traditional or non traditional, doesn’t really matter. And sharing that. And so I think we’ve shared on a few podcasts ago that one of our goals in the next year is to build, fund and pay for an entire school. Obviously, it’s an expensive endeavor, but it’s something that is congruent with what we believe in who we are. And obviously, you know, you figure that you figure the other parts of that out. And so just really having that concurrency throughout your personal life and your business life goes such a long way. But the more important thing is most people listening to this are the leaders in organizations or they’re the second and commands, you know, in some sort of leadership capacity when you’re operating from a sense of congruency. And you’re, it’s authentic, not a fake level concurrency layer, we’re talking genuine authentic congruence with who you are what you believe it’s an attractive quality. And it makes it very easy for people to want to follow you. And it makes it easier for you to act as a leader. So when all of those things operate in unison, it’s easy to get indoctrination from your team into the direction and the way in which you want to take the company. It’s easy to attract clients because they’re like, man, you know, it was someone if they were incongruent to be like that that person feels icky. But if you’re congruent, and you wholeheartedly embody that, it’s easy for those clients or prospects to say, Man, I can’t put my finger on it, but that person just has a special sauce, like I want to be around them more, I feel in good hands, I feel like I’m okay, I’m taking care of, I feel like I just been wrapped or enveloped by a giant hug. And that’s the level in which you want. Like, that’s the perfect scenario. And I think that just, you know, doing whatever we can as business owners, as spouses or significant others to live with that congruence in everything that we do, and whatever, whatever it is that you embody, I think is something that we that at least know we embody in our family and our business. But Bryan, I know that there’s a couple of things there that you absolutely embody with the sweet financial team. And definitely, definitely a fan of that as well.

Bryan Sweet 12:51

I have just so thoroughly enjoyed listening to you, too. And as I was thinking about your comments, I’m going, you know, that is one thing is congruency that is really a non negotiable it at Sweet financial or for me personally, and, you know, kind of get on the, you know, the cheering squad here. But, you know, one, Brittany I was there obviously that night. And as Draye said, Just absolutely so proud of how you handle that and what you did, and, and Draye You know, just the other part of that is you were there for her also, and, and you know what makes this podcast and being part of this ultimate advisor coaching such a joy. As Draye said, it’s just these people that are congruent, and you know, what you get you know who you’re working with, and it makes you feel good, and it’s just a pleasurable thing to enjoy. So just thank you for being the people you are and allowing me to be a small part of this really great opportunity. Anyway, that song is over, and I’ll change it, but I just think there is some special sauce and I love that term. So I’m constantly looking for some special sauce. And I think one of the things that is fortunate in the people we have it sweet financial is they are they are also very congruent in everything that they do. And so when you got the right sauce on the right sandwich, it makes for a little tasty treat. And that’s always an important thing. And a couple of things that I want to do allude to a little bit is being congruent is really, you know, being a fiduciary and just doing the right things for the clients for the right reasons. And I can think of many, many times when in the past, I turned down a lot of business because it wasn’t right. They didn’t they shouldn’t have done what they wanted to do and they should have done something else. And I told him that and looking back over 40 years of doing this what I got out of that in the future was so much greater. A lot of times we got all the business but we got it the right time for the right reason where we got referrals to much bigger clients and, and so I can’t stress enough, just always do what you know is in your hearts the right thing to do, and that’ll pay dividends forever. And I think one of the other key points is, you really want to make sure you’re encouraging your team to be congruent and, and our mantra is helping clients live their retirement dreams. And so one of the things we do as a team is, we encourage our team members to dream big, and we have a dream board and we actually help them try to accomplish things that are important to them. And that’s such a good feeling when you can have somebody accomplish something that means something we just had, one of our people in our wealth Services Department build a brand new house and, and to see the joy on their face with they have a new little addition to the family. And it was just such a such a joy and people, you know, accomplishing vacations that they’ve never gotten, and, you know, all sorts of little things is such a great thing. And you know, one of the things that I like to do, also is to reward people that have been, you know, dedicated. And so one of the things that, you know, we’ve done with my right hand, left hand, person that takes care of my schedule, and everything, that’s Brian, so if anything ever looks good, it’s because the callee has taken care of it for me, but we wanted to reward her for just doing an outstanding job. And I just said you can go on a trip wherever you want in the world whenever you want. And fortunately, she’s picked Paris, I think, you know, congruence? See, we could talk about that literally for hours. And, and maybe Britney, if there’s any last comments, because we’ve been chatting a little bit Draye and I about some of your thoughts, anything to add that you might want to to add to close out the comments here? 

Brittany Anderson 17:03

Yeah, so you know, I think just along the lines of again being congruent. So when you look at this from a business perspective, and rounding it out back to, you know, marketing efforts, so suite financial, as we’ve talked about, in our processes, the dream architects, well, why the heck do we name it that because we want to help people achieve their dreams. So literally, like I’m gonna give you like this just verbal tour of the office, you walk in our front door, and on that wall is images of dreams that have been important to the clients that we have, that we’ve actually helped them accomplish. So you have somewhere there’s a specific car that they have been just I and you know, not just your basic Chevy down the road, but something cool, something different, something that they’ve had their heart set on as kids even, there’s vacation spots, there’s, you know, images captured of people creating foundations, spending more time with family and extended family, you know, those images are actually on the wall in our office. And as you keep going through, you’re gonna get to our team dream board that Brian was alluding to. So we actually have our team put a couple different images of their biggest dreams. And then the cool thing is, is that when they’re when they accomplish them, when they do the things that they have set out and committed and said, Gosh, I want to I want to, you know, fulfill this, we actually have them take that image down, we have them take a picture with it with whatever image it was. So we’ll just use one of our team members who built a house, we had him take a picture in front of his house, holding that little dream image, and then have him do a write up about what that felt like to accomplish it. And the reason is not to just you know, brag about all the great things that our team does. But it’s to show congruency to our clients that we’re like, hey, we say that dreams matter. Like we say that your dreams matter. And that’s why we’ve created the dream architect. But it’s because we live it here. So it’s not a bunch of wordsmithing. It’s not a bunch of just hey, you know, it’s great to help you live your dreams because we really get to just invest your assets. That’s not what it’s about. So we’re literally practicing what we preach. And Brian is super modest, and he would never brag about the things that that he’s accomplished or set out for. But there’s certain things in his life, there’s a certain vehicle he wanted, and he had his heart set on us on this picture on his desk since I started with sweet financial, you know, over a decade ago. And then finally he bit the bullet and he got that. And again, he’s not one to brag, he’s never going to talk about it on here either. But I’m going to brag for him because to me, that’s not boasting that’s truly living congruent what you’re telling all of us to do. So you know he set a plan and he made the decision to go after that. Another big one which again, this is a congruent see thing is Bryan created a foundation in his mom’s name and while his mom was still is still alive, and here and able to, you know, understand and know that that was created for her. So he’s able to actually help fund college education for kids of single moms. That’s a huge thing because he was raised by a single mom. So that was a dream of his that was something that he had in his heart had on his mind that he wanted to do, he went after it, and he did it. And he did it at a time that his mom could still be there, be present and actually feel the reward of being able to help other people. So those are some examples. And I’m gonna press on because I know he’s not going to, but it’s just showing congruence, see, and then what you can do with that, what you can do is you can share those stories, you can share those examples, you can have your team share that. And what it’s doing is it’s kind of indirect marketing, it’s showing the world those people for us, for example, you know, the people that want to pursue their dreams, and then want super fulfilled lives, and they’re like, man, retirements not going to be a time where I just, you know, sit on the couch and watch reruns of Oprah all day, or whatever it is that people like to do. That’s not the people we’re going to attract, we’re going to attract the people that truly want to live fulfilled, that want experiences, and it doesn’t mean that they’re there to, you know, flash their money around and spend their their life away, but they want experiences, you know, maybe that experience is time with their family, maybe it’s a foundation creation, maybe it’s you know, they want to buy some muscle car from when they were kids, you know, whatever it is, we want to show them that we live that, that we believe it, and that we’re actually congruent to what we preach. So that’s the purpose incongruency that rounds it out. So I’m gonna give you guys a couple quick takeaways. Number one is I want you to sit and identify any potential gaps or incongruence sees that you may have in your business in your life. Draye brought up good point, you know, family ties into that too. So I would encourage you that it’s okay at this point, if you have some things that you’re maybe out of congruence see that maybe it’s, you know, you’re doing things that aren’t totally aligned with who you are, it doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t mean that there’s no hope. It just means you need to do an assessment, you need to just do kind of a gut check and say, Okay, what are the things that are happening in my business, or the things that we’re maybe talking about, that we possibly aren’t delivering on in the way that I want? You know, what’s the client experience look like, is what we’re preaching, you know, I love and that’s where it kind of rounds into the second point here, but the whole concept of over promise and over deliver, you know, Draye, has shared that with us for years. And it’s truly something he lives by. And over promising doesn’t mean committing yourself, you know, totally outside of what you’re capable of. But what it means is setting that bar and that expectation is so high, that you know, you can deliver on it, but you’re going to actually take it up a notch because you know what you’re made of. So I think it’s important to look at number one, where’s your potential incongruency is and number two, where can you start following that whole mantra of over promising and over delivering, and just taking it one baby step at a time, you know, don’t try to close congruence sees across the whole web of your life all in one day. Let’s take this baby baby steps. Let’s do it in tiny pieces. And let’s help you you know, you want to close those gaps. You want to make sure you’re living incongruency. And you want to make sure that you’re attracting the people who are truly going to benefit from all that you have to offer, because we know that you have a lot of great stuff to put out there. So that rounds out today’s episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast. We will catch you back here next week as we round out our series on the simple marketing tips that you can implement in your business. 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 ultimateadvisormastermind.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.