Episode Transcription 

Speaker 1  00:09
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 has more than half 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.

Brittany Anderson  01:00
Welcome back to your Ultimate Advisor Podcast. Here with me as always, Draye Redfern and Mr. Bryan Sweet. We are pretty darn excited about the series that we’re jumping into now we’re going to dive deep into what it means to create a wow experience for your clients. So, the first topic that will kind of peel back these layers on is going to go deep into how you can determine your value system, and how this foundational activity truly lays the groundwork for how you choose to do the wild how you choose to create incredible experiences. So, I’ve mentioned this quote before, but I think it’s completely relevant to the topic today. And that is Mr. Roy Disney, if you don’t know who he is, he was the behind the scenes kind of operations brain of Disney as a corporation as a whole, he was Walt Disney’s brother. But his comment is, it’s not hard to make decisions. When you know what your values are. This is exponentially true in regard to so many aspects of your business. But especially when it comes to deciding the type of client experience that you want your clients to feel. So for example, the people who would maybe be in a small town who value family first who, you know, they like downtime on the lake or just hanging out with the grandkids, they’re going to desire a certain experience that’s very different from the high profile attorney who thrives in a big city environment, they maybe don’t like having a bunch of downtime, they need to stay busy. So, the wow experience for each of those two separate demographics is going to be very different. So, while you’re determining your value system, you need to also first spend some time on determining who you want to serve. And that’s where this foundational approach comes into play. And actually, when we first engage with advisors, whether they’re coming into our accelerator program, they’re coming into the mastermind, one of the first things we do is have them go very deep on who their avatar is. Now, the reason for that is not just the obvious that you got to know who you serve in order to make sure that your marketing is right that your team structure is right, that we know where your focus is for your business. But also, because it really creates and paves the path for how you’re going to serve them and create experiences for them. So, when we look at and we can use this example, from suite financial, we have five core values, that we essentially measure everything against those five, our teamwork, client focus, excellence, honesty and integrity kind of within one bubble, and then positive mindset. So, by defining those by getting so clear on what we believe, as a company, which is truly a spinoff of what we believe as individuals, but by defining those we know then what we expect our team to deliver, and to what degree, we know what it means to serve our clients and create an experience that is truly second to none. So Bryan, I know when we were going through some of these initial kind of core values exercises, and these have really stayed fairly true over the many years that you’ve been in business that we’ve all been together, they really stemmed from your own personal life experience. So, I would love for you to share that little story with our audience.

Bryan Sweet  04:28
I would love to Brittany, I think it’s really really pertinent. You know, my growing up, I got to spend a lot of time with my uncle. And my uncle was a farm implement dealer and I got to spend the summers with him and I got to go with him on calls or when people came into the office. And I would tell you, I probably gained a very big unfair advantage over the other advisors in my area because I think I probably learned from them master, on how you treat people, and what you need to do to deliver massive value for the people that are your clients. And one of the things that I remember, and I just really believe so strongly in this is that you really need to deliver on what you say. And make sure that what you tell a client is absolutely kind of the worst case. And if you give them a certain time, and you’re going to do a certain thing, make sure it’s at least that date. And if you’re like most of us, you go have an experience where you’re shopping or you do something, boy, that doesn’t happen very often anymore. And so, when you actually do what you say, if you’re looking for something that differentiates you, that just pops out immensely that people can count on you. And one of the things that happens then is you build this trust factor with not only clients but just anybody that you’re dealing with. And so, as Brittany alluded to, we have five core values. And Brittany, I think maybe before you in the podcast today, I think if you gave a little description that we have, on each of those five values, I think that gives the audience a little better feel of what does that actually mean. And so, I think that would be helpful to the audience. But as you also alluded to, we do look at our core values, literally every single quarter at our meetings. And as she alluded to, it’s very unwavering. You know, they haven’t changed for years. And they really match up with who we are, what we say how we serve. And they also reflect the future vision of the company. And one of the things that I would say is that if you make every decision based on your values, very rarely will that cause things to go badly. And I was just reading this morning, some of my morning rituals if you will. And I came across a couple of interesting things that I wanted to share. And one was your core values are the nonnegotiable principles that are most important to you. They serve as your guideposts or swim lanes. When you do things that align with your values, you feel energized. When you do things that violate your values, you feel drained, frustrated, and isolated. And if you think about that, if you look back at your prior decisions, I think that’s amazingly true. And so, the sooner you can have maybe a filter that you run all your decision making through that includes your values, that is going to be amazingly helpful to you. And just another quote and it’ll be interesting if you could guess who the author of this is, but it said values are like fingerprints. nobodies are the same, but you leave them all over everything. So that was Elvis Presley that had that quote, but it’s it’s so true. And I’m just so thankful that my uncle gave me the guidance. And he did it indirectly. He wasn’t purposely when I was a young kid saying, well, this is what you should do in business. And this is what you should be. But fortunately, I was a good observer and spent enough time that I saw when he did this. This is the reaction that he got. And he was the most loved human being that I think I’ve ever met, and people just gathered to him. But if you really boiled it down, he just absolutely loved his values. And it meant a lot to him to do what you said. And he got so much business just because if you wanted something, he would go completely out of his way, and even do things that was not profitable, just to deliver on his promise that he would do it for you. And I think if we just live by that, it’s amazing. The results, very short term, maybe not much positive, but long term. Amazing, amazing. He just had the most remarkable business but also the most remarkable career and all these people that he helped became friends after he retired. And I was very fortunate to get to meet a lot of them. And so I don’t know how you could have a better life. So Draye, love to hear some of your thoughts.

Draye Redfern  09:49
Thanks, Bryan. Yeah, there’s a there’s a bunch of things here that I would like to sort of weigh in on. I think the first one is making like the values of the organization. evidence. Now people have like mission statements and all of this sort of stuff like super-duper, like, great, cool for you. But like, that’s usually the stuff that people write once and then it goes on their website to a page that is no one ever visits, maybe goes on their wall in their office that no one ever sees or pays attention to, and essentially has like zero weight going forward. So, we’ve talked previously about like the book, vivid vision by Cameron Harold, and using that as a way to like set the vision for the company, but the vision has to be made up of values. And you know, what do you stand for? What is the direction? What do you believe in? How do you treat each other? How do you treat the company? How do you treat the clients all of these sorts of things. And I think if you don’t have that as a solid foundation, then it makes it really hard to grow, you know, things to be out of control very fast. So, one of the things that we do to not be that like, you know, mission or vision statements that sit on the walls, we literally share wins. every single Friday, we’re recording this on a Friday, we had our internal team meeting and read from media early this morning. Everybody shares their wins is the value of the organization is positivity. So basically what you know, we literally embody it and everything. So, it’s personal wins, client wins, if a client had something cool happen, then everybody in the company gets to talk about like, hey, so and so had this happen, or this occurred or whatever else, isn’t that cool. But also company wins, whether that’s like onboarding new clients, or getting rid of some clients. So, it could be a variety of things. But celebrating wins inside the company that could be revenue, markers, all of these sorts of things that celebrate the positivity dad’s, like, you know, we embody this so much is one thing we talk about is positivity. But like, it’s literally a value inside of my organization. So, the values have to match that in relation or, you know, in addition to that, if you hire people, and they don’t have the values that don’t match your existing company, culture, it is really difficult to course correct values, after you already have hired someone It is like it’s next to impossible. And especially if you get somebody who’s a Debbie Downer, like Stephen Covey has the statement, we see the world not as it is, but as we are, as we’ve been conditioned to see it. And if you are the person who has been conditioned to see the world in a very negative light, or people are always looking to try and screw you over, or you’re always looking for these sorts of things, that’s what you’re going to find. And the problem is that the values of like that like, well, it’s fine, that’s your belief system, I respect it is not a value system that we inside of my company feel we want to do more than we say, we’re going to do we want to genuinely help people on all fronts, we want to bring, you know, a positive attitude, those are all values that we wholeheartedly believe in. And so just, you know, sort of the ops side of things that Brittany can maybe weigh on here in a second is like hiring for those values from the start, because then it’s way less than you have to clean up as you go on. And we’ve talked about the tactical things that you could do around that, like, you know, personalized cover letter, send a video, so on and so forth. We’re going through the process of hiring some new people right now. And it’s something we look for. That’s why this is probably top of mind. But one of the other questions is you can ask them scenarios in the interview of how they would handle something. And you can get a really clear sense of, you know, if they’re put in a difficult scenario, even if it’s hypothetical, how do they handle it? How would they react, what is you know, what would occur, and it gives you some really good insights to see if they match with your values, because I think that’s a really important foundational aspect, not only for growing the company for growing the team, but just as a foundational aspect of the vision and everything sort of all tied together. So, Brittany, any thoughts as far as how to maybe tie that to the outside and wrap this one up?

Brittany Anderson  13:37
Yeah, you know, I think it’s so important. And sometimes people wonder, you know, as we coach through this, as we talk through this with our Mastermind members with our Accelerator members, they’re kind of sitting there going, Okay, so you’re telling me about client experience? And that, wow, how does that really relate to me hiring somebody. And the thing that I will say is, it has everything to do with it, you have to be focused on aligning yourself with other people who are going to carry out your mission and your vision, you have to have that shared set or shared value system in order for any of this to work. Because if you bring somebody in, and let’s just use this example, you know, for us at sweet, we’ve got positive mindset as one of our core values. If you bring somebody onto your team that is constantly the victim, that tends to see the glass half empty, you know, maybe they have the best resume on the planet, and they have the talents and the skills and all of that great stuff that could make them capable. What’s going to happen is they will either leave, or you’re going to have your good team members leave because they’re going to feel poisoned by that negativity. So, when I’m going into a hiring situation, I’m not looking at Yeah, that’s great. You have experienced you have skills, that’s wonderful. But you need to be a good cultural fit because we have a certain level of service to deliver to our clients and that will absolutely be destroyed. Buy a bad apple hands down period. I mean, there’s no way around that. So again, this is maybe just kind of a side bonus tip out of this podcast is always hire based on values. Based on value alignment, you can teach anybody just about anything. I mean, I would argue it and say even as an advisor, if you have somebody that’s interested in the advisor career path, I would personally rather hire somebody that does not have the experience yet and groom them through our core values, groom them through our service standards, and our processes and all of that good stuff, then hire somebody with some killer book of business and great sales skills, I will just tell you that every time over the core values is going to win. And that’s what makes your team feel good and part of something bigger than themselves. And that’s what in turn helps your clients get served in the utmost capacity. So, I’m glad you went down that direction, Draye because it’s so relevant. Hey, Brittany here, stopping and pausing for a moment to talk about something that we’ve had so many of you inquire about, and that is our ultimate advisor, mastermind. Now, I’m going to start by saying if you are not a growth minded individual, if you are not somebody who’s focused on taking your business to the next level, if you’re not focused on engaging your team, and helping them to help you in turn, level up the business, the service model, how you provide that wow experience to clients. If those things are not your focus, just fast forward right now, because the ultimate advisor mastermind would not then be for you. However, if you are looking to take your business to the next level, if you want to experience exponential growth and feel supported along the way, if you want to start working smarter and not harder, if you want to help your team members to work within the God given talents that they were provided, and use those skill sets in a way they haven’t yet to help support you in your business, to help them realize their biggest goals, their biggest dreams. If you want creative approaches to marketing, I know that can be an intimidating word. But we’re not talking here about the fancy Facebook stuff, or you know, the latest and greatest, but rather looking at how you can market what you do, how you can express how you’re different, and how you can truly differentiate yourself in a crowded market space. If those are problems you’re looking to solve, then you absolutely want to go check out ultimate advisor mastermind.com to learn more about how we can help you on your path and journey to growth. So, the other thing I wanted to do quickly before we wrap here is touch on those descriptions, I think Bryan brought up a really good point, touching on the descriptions of actually what sits behind the core values to give more context. So, for example, we have client focus as one of our very much core values, that’s our primary one. Anywhere it’s listed, it’s always the first one listed, because it is so important. The definition behind that is we treat clients like family, and we always do what’s in their best interest so they can focus on their future. Now, some argue that you shouldn’t use the word family, you should say team or, you know, colleague or, you know, still use the word, you know, we treat clients like they deserve. And there’s all these other words, but here’s the thing with your family, sometimes you also have to give redirection and tough love. And that’s what they’re coming to us for. They’re not coming to us because they want us to be Yes, people all the time, they want us to tell them what we believe is in their best interest. So truly, it’s how we serve, we’re always gentle in our delivery. But the thing is, is that sometimes they need that redirection that you would give your, your mother, your brother, your sibling, your cousin, your whatever that is because you have a comfort level with them. And we also want our clients to lean on us during difficult times, to celebrate wins with us during exciting times. We want to be part of their life, not just a transaction. So, you can see their client focused is so much more than just client service. Then you go into the honesty and the integrity. So, our description behind that is we strive to do the right thing always. We hold ourselves accountable for all that we do, and are proud to stamp our name on our work. Now again, what does that mean? What does that really mean? When we go to serve clients, it means that we are going to deliver and this is one of the next core values that we’re going to deliver excellence every time. You know, we’re going to make sure that we are always doing the right thing, even if it’s the tough thing. We’re going to make it right if we make a mistake and we’re going to honor it and we’re going to Make the experience even better coming out of it. Because we know how to make up for the times where things may fall through a crack, you know, we’re human, you can have every process in the world and things could still happen. But we know how we serve, we’re always going to make it right. And we’re always going to be truthful, honest and upfront about it, excellence, there’s no substitute for total preparation, and continuous improvement, we do more than provide a service, we create experiences. Again, you’re hiring, you’re bringing people into your team, you’re teaching them how you want to create a wow experience. It’s more than just being transactional in nature, it’s actually creating really cool experiences for people. So we’ll talk about a little bit about that in the next couple episodes here. But really, we give our team the autonomy to create those experiences, we encourage our team, hey, if you hear something cool about a client, maybe they’re going to take a really neat trip, go ahead and go find a book or order a book online, that gives them kind of the highlights of wherever they’re going. Or, you know, you find out that they have a passion or an interest or, you know, whatever that is, well, you know, send them something that’s along those lines. No, we give our team that autonomy to constantly Wow, we have our Director of concierge services. And I mean, she’s given out her personal cell phone number, and taking calls at eight o’clock at night. Just because she feels like she wants to write it, she’ll develop personal relationships with our clients, because she cares. And she wants to provide that exceptional experience. So that’s something that again, you can’t put like tangible bounds around. But it’s about giving your team freedom and autonomy, teamwork, we are a strength-based team, we respect each other leverage our unique abilities to help our clients reach their goals. And we have fun along the way. So again, what does that mean, if you’re looking at core values, what that means is that we want everybody doing the stuff that they’re really darn good at. And we want them to not do so much of the stuff that causes them frustration and pain and anguish, not because we live in a world of, you know, lala land and we just want everything to be shiny roses. But because when people are excelling and living in their area of expertise and where their exceptional magic happens. And that’s where clients actually see the kind of tangible experience that we’re trying to create. When people are allowed to shine and focus solely on their strengths versus just having strong weaknesses. That’s amazing. And that’s a cool culture to be a part of, then the last one, but absolutely not the least I would put this right up there with client focus is our positive mindset. And our belief that a positive mindset equals a positive outcome. This is why we strive to put out positive energy every single day. Again, it’s not being unrealistic in the fact that there’s going to be tough times and tough days and stressful situations. But it’s it’s the fact that we have the mindset that no matter what happens, that no matter what’s going on in the business, in our personal lives, with our clients, whatever the case is, we trust and truly believe that there is something better on the other side, that there’s something good, there’s a lesson to be learned. There’s something positive that’s going to come out of every situation, sometimes you got to look a little harder. But that’s truly what we believe. So again, to give context to what it means to create values. Don’t just sit down in a meeting, throw a bunch of cool words on the board and pick out what you think matters most. You really have to drill into, what kind of experience do you want to create for the people you serve? What kind of experience do you want to create for the team that you’ve hired and trusted to carry out your future vision? And how do you want that to look? What do you want to be known for? That’s how you make decisions around core values, not just doing a brainstorm a bunch of cool words, and then deciding which ones resonate the most. So, I think it’s so important to just honor and understand that establishing this value system is not just important, it’s essential. And if you truly want to deliver an experience that helps you stand out from your competitors, from other area advisors, whatever that looks like for you, you really need to do this step before we can go any further. So, in the next couple weeks, we will talk about some of the cool more tangible things that you can do. But I highly recommend that you listen to this particular episode a couple times. So, you can really get your hands around what it means to you to establish those core values and that value system. So, before I go into the top, few takeaways, Draye, Bryan, anything else that you want to add?

Bryan Sweet  24:44
Brittany, I think one thing I would add just based on your eloquent reading of our values. One thing that might be interesting for the audience to understand is we used to have four values and now we have five and we Why did we change? Well, the forum really never changed. But given all we’ve gone through with COVID, and what happened in 2020, we realized that we really were somebody that consistently was delivering a positive experience. Matter of fact, one of the things, you know, we’ve committed to, as we said, Before, we bring in a motivational speaker every year to the schools into our community, we actually have every week, we have the positivity corner, where we put in a positive statement. So, if nothing else happens, every single week, somebody is going to get exposed to some positive comment. And I think when we are positive, we can have that influence on others. And so I thought that was really a great one to add. So, don’t always feel that they can never change. You certainly can add some to that if you know it’s pertinent.

Brittany Anderson  26:02
Absolutely, Bryan, I’m glad you added that, because I think that is really important to to note. So top three takeaways from today, if you didn’t listen to anything else, here’s a few things that we think you should do. Number one, is get that value system determined. And even if you’ve gone through the exercise of establishing core values, I recommend that you just take a bird’s eye view and relook at them and make sure that they’re truly aligned with that future vision and who you want to serve. Number two is just deciding who it is that you actually want to serve. You know, it’s really hard to create this wow experience. If you’re serving every walk of life, it’s really hard to differentiate. We’re going to talk about that a little bit next week in this next episode. But it’s important to determine who you want to serve and where you add the most value. And then finally, the spin that Draye brought to the table is making sure that you’re hiring based on that value system. can’t recommend it enough. We could have a whole other podcast episode on that topic alone, because it is so incredibly important. So highly recommend determine how you can tweak that hiring system to have it be values based versus just skill set or technical based. So that wraps up this episode of your Ultimate Advisor Podcast. We will catch you right back here next week. 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!