Read The Transcript Of The Episode:

Speaker 1:

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 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:

Hello, and welcome back to the Ultimate Advisor podcast. This is Brittany Anderson and I am here with the fabulous, wonderful Bryan Sweet and Mr. Draye Redfern. So, we are talking the next few weeks on a topic that is hot right now. You need to put your antennas up. You need to pay extra special attention. And before you even get into what the heck we're going to be talking about, I want to share some statistics with you.

 So, there was a survey, some results that were posted. This was shared by a fellow acquaintance of ours, Cameron Herold, but he shared a U.S. survey of employees across the nation. And it said that 38.1% of respondents are going to find another employer. So, amid the COVID-19, amid the COVID crisis, amid everything that's going on, 38.1% are going to find another employer. And 17.1% are going to go back to school. So, they're not even going to be looking for a job right now.

 Only 60.1% of respondents want to go back to work, that my friends is dangerous. And that's why you need to pay attention to what we're talking about over the next few weeks, because employee productivity and morale are going to suffer. If you don't step in as a leader and you don't take the proper actions to really enhance and build your culture, especially during times again, of adversity and confusion and anxiety and worry, and all of those things that tend to come up during times like this.

 Another one was 36.2% of respondents will say, "Well, yes, definitely report their company to authorities." Listen, they will report their company to authorities if they don't follow social distancing regulations. Okay, think about this. Do you want to expose yourself? No. So, now is the time more than ever that you want to show up as a leader and really maximize how you are showing up for your team.

 So, we're going to talk about a few different creative ways that you can do this. So, the first thing that we are going to lean into with the topic of leadership is on transparency, and here's the deal. The difference between good and great leaders is that great leaders understand the importance of transparency. And what I mean by that is they put everything on the table. We're talking, their transparent and their vision, and their vision often encompasses things for both their business and their personal life, so that you really understand, why the heck you as a leader are doing what you do, why you drive them to perform at their best, why you're trying to really elevate the capacity and the level that your team is showing up? So, they're transparent with that. They're transparent with their targets, like what are the goals that you have in your company?

 Goal is sometimes a word that not everybody loves, so we use targets. So, what are the things that you're aiming for? Being transparent, because if you keep that a secret on the back end, it's really hard for a company to build a culture that people can get behind. And again, culture like we've talked about in the past, this is more than just the warm fuzzy. This is more than just the kumbaya moments where you all hug it out, and it's all fine and dandy and great. This is really building something that people can get behind and feel passionate and powerful about.

 So, the other thing, and this is where some struggle, transparency also comes in your financials. So again, the differentiation between good and great leaders is that great leaders are willing to put it all on the table. They're not afraid to say, "Here's what our margins are. Here's what we're doing as far as our production, here's where our assets under management lie." None of that's a secret, it's all on the table because they want their people to understand that, hey, there's a difference between gross and net profitability. There's a difference between, how we're driving our business and how we're growing and how we're doing all those things.

 So, when we talk about leadership, transparency is really the thing that kicks off the good to great, that helps you kind of get to that next level of leadership ability within your company. And it also, when we talk about transparency, it's more than just putting everything on the table, but it's involving your people in decisions. And I'm going to have Bryan talk a little bit about this in a minute, but really what it means is it's putting so much on the table so that they can see what's the vision, where the heck do you want to go? What does the business look like? Why are you here in the first place? What are the financials? What's the real gut check of where we're at versus where we want to be. And then how can everybody get behind that big incentive, that big motion to move your company forward.

 So Bryan, I would love for you to talk a little bit about how you really tried to empower your team through transparency, because I think you've really been able to model that, especially in the last several years. I think it's been great [inaudible 00:05:56] great strides for our team at Sweet Financial.

Bryan Sweet:

Well, thanks Brittany. I find those statistics really quite amazing and alarming. So, thanks for sharing those. I think the way you want to look at transparency is this way, first of all, it's really a two way street. So, if you're transparent with your team, your employees and literally with anybody, they're more likely to be transparent back to you. And when something's going wrong, instead of letting it happen and not informing you, keeping you informed. So, keep that in mind is just kind of a side benefit to transparency. But I think the one thing that we all need to recognize is if you're going to grow and build that exceptional firm, your team is your number one asset. And they literally need to know everything about the why of your firm. And they also need to know the why and how does their role fit into that big picture?

 Because if you asked any of your employees, they really want to be a key component and help you accomplish that. Why? And as Brittany alluded to, if you let them be part of the decision as to how to get there, they're much more likely to take extra efforts to get you there in the most efficient and effective way. So, a couple of things I just wanted to reference, we use EOS or the traction book, and part of that, there's a thing called the Vision/Traction Organizer. And that really helps keep the team together on what the big picture looks like. And when we create that, we share that at all the team meetings and keep everybody up to date on what that vision is. And then from there we created, as we've mentioned before, the Vivid Vision, which is a book from Cameron Herold, which is much more detail and descriptive of what it looks like when you accomplish it.

 But what that does is, it really gives you a lot more buy in and it lets them know exactly what the specific objectives, timeframes to dues, that are needed for you to get to that next level. And so, if you're not sharing a vision, it's going to be a really virtually impossible for your team to help you get there because they don't know what it looks like. And you just need to be really, really clear and seek input on how they can help make that vision effective and more efficient on their side.

 One other thing that we're very conscious of, and I have been... I have not seen any negative repercussions but as Brittany alluded to, we're very transparent on literally anything. Anything in the office is open book, including all of our financials. We use QuickBooks and literally everybody in the office could look at exactly what any expense, our margins, profit margins, expenditures. We do limit so they maybe don't know what each other gets paid. That might be the only thing that we limit, but literally everything is an open book.

 So, when we have to make a decision, they understand the why, and if we need to spend money and it affects something else, they understand the business ramifications behind it. It's not like you're trying to pull one over them or hide something from them. And when you do that, it just creates this really great culture where everybody can trust one another. And if they can't trust one another, or you in the office, that's going to lead to turnover or people doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. And so, I think it's just really critical, and then why I thought this topic was going to be so, so meaningful.

 And then I think the other thing, when you're transparent, you want to seek the input of your team. And so, you really need to create a culture where anybody can come to you with any question and not feel like they're going to have any negative repercussions, because you want to hear what's going on. You want to hear what they think can be improvements and you don't want them scared that, oh, if I tell you that boy, something bad is going to happen. I think the more you know, then the quicker you can fix it or be aware of it, and then move forward and make that issue kind of disappear if you will. So Draye, I know you've got some great thoughts on clear targets for teams and love to have you chime in here.

Draye Redfern:

Thanks, Bryan. Yeah. I love this topic. And so for me, we do everything transparent as well. And so for us, I mean, you can't see it because you're obviously listening, it's a podcast, but our office, we've got more than 400 square feet of whiteboard. A lot, a lot of space, a lot of room to brainstorm and think and create and solve problems and get things out in the open. And so, I think that we're also largely a virtual company. And so, we also use the Zoom functionality and we do the share screen and we whiteboard together even via Zoom. So, there's a variety of functions and things that you can use if you wanted to roll this out into your team. And so, one of the reasons I like to do this is because I want collective growth. I mean, I believe in pushing myself, I believe in, we say it a lot, become comfortable being uncomfortable. But I also want to challenge my team and I want the collective input because one plus one can equal three or five or nine.

 There could be a collective growth where everybody basically goes at the same time and grows at the same time, and solve problems much, much faster. So, I want collective, I want everybody in, sharing on the whiteboard, drawing out things, figuring out what it would be. And so, from my standpoint, it's almost like a sense of just, I'm not acting as a leader saying, "Do this and then do this and then do that." I want collective growth. It's a collective leadership. Obviously I'm still at the helm, I'm still driving the ship, but I value when I weigh everybody's opinions. And I want everyone to feel valued for their opinions inside of the organization because their opinion matters. And I think everybody has a different frame... benefits they can bring to that.

 On top of that, we incentivize people taking on these things. So, from a leadership role, I want to challenge people. I want people to grow. One of the examples we've used recently is muscles don't grow without stress. And so, if you wanted to grow a bicep or a quad or whatever you wanted to grow, then you've got to put that muscle under stress in order to actually make it grow. And that's really the only reality. So, in order to do that, I don't want to use the word like throw my team off the deep end sometimes, but I do because I want to challenge them. I want to put them into uncomfortable situations, not anything bad [inaudible 00:13:14] wise, but I want them to take on a project that would be more than they're used to or different. That challenges the skill sets, that makes them uncomfortable and they have to figure out the solution on how they can take this idea or this concept or this action plan or whatever it is, and actually see it through to execution.

 I don't put all of that directly on them, but I want them to be in positions where they could take ownership of certain facets of their own journey. And that's how we lead inside of the company. So, I recognize this could be different, but I like to share our perspective because you may be able to take facets of that. So, for us leadership-wise, the white board is a very, very clear way that we do that. We sort of [inaudible 00:13:54] collectively make it all happen. But it also allows us... We literally, every Friday we have a whiteboard in the office that has our wins for the week. We count and track wins and that's not always revenue. Sometimes that's where stuff didn't go wrong. That's just the honest, I mean, that's just the honest thing. Like, you know what? This week we did not have any major things blow up. Cool. That's a win.

 Other weeks it could be revenue [inaudible 00:14:19], we literally write down wins every single week because it's important, because sometimes you're doing so many things. You're juggling so much that when you get to Friday, you're like, man, I forgot that I even did that on Monday. I forgot that we even had that, I felt like a lifetime ago. But when you do it and you track it every week, it makes you feel like you've got positive momentum. And as a leadership role, it's great to sort of bring everybody into that because you want collective movement forward, you want momentum. So, we track the successes. We track the issues, we write down like, what is the problem? Is something, a problem client? Is something going on? Do we need to address this issue in the coming week? What's going on?

 We talk about goals. Revenue goals are an easy metric to put out there because it's sort of just an easy number to throw out on the air. But there's also goals as far as, are we having this goal of designing this campaign or designing whatever it is, the goal of completing that? Revenue, as I mentioned, sort of an easy one, but also margin. You want to make sure that the business is profitable. You want to make sure that that's being tracked. And I literally have got a whiteboard in front of the office.

 So, we're measuring this just the other day. At what margin are we doing it on a certain different capacities? Because the reality is the business needs to profit. And perfect example, look at the last four to five months. How many businesses didn't make it? A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. And that's probably because their margins were running too close and they didn't have cash on hand. I want cash on hand. I want a bank account. I want a war chest because if COVID goes on longer, if things happen, you never know where the future is going to be, Bryan.

 And so, the idea of making a business that actually profits so that you can have cash on hand to keep your employees around, to invest in new marketing initiatives or growth or coaching or masterminds, so to plug, join our mastermind. But the idea is we want you to be able to fund these things. We want you to be able to be involved. We want you to keep your team around. We want you to keep your doors open and if you're not measuring some of those things, then it makes it really difficult to actually take some of those growth steps that we've talked about many times before.

 So, as Bryan [inaudible 00:16:28], we are transparent also. I share what's going on with the behind the scenes, excited conversations because I want the team to be motivated. I want them to know like, you know what, there's big things coming. Let's get this stuff done and rock and roll so we can take on even bigger things. And that's the forum and that's the positivity. That's the direction you want it to go. And is it all sunshine and rainbows like Mr. Draye? No.

 I mean, I try to be happiness, they're happy all the time, but that's not the reality. I mean, there's trials and tribulations every day. But the fact that we track wins and the track that we track issues and things that are going on and we discuss them as a team really goes a long way to help the business operate more collectively and have more success across the board. So that being said, I know that that's how we do it, Brittany, but I know you've got some ways that you do it as far as how to limit the disengagement, limit the turnover as far as how employees may be become more engaged. And so, I want to hear what your thoughts and some of that stuff.

Brittany Anderson:

Yeah. So, there's a couple of things that I want to touch on. One being something that Bryan said earlier when it comes to compensation, because this is a big one that gets brought up. When we start talking with advisors and people that are in our mastermind, in our coaching, whatever that may be, we're talking constantly about, what does that transparency mean and to what length? So, one thing that comes up a lot is for the compensation, for team comp, do you share that? Do you not? Some people put that on the table, they're very transparent. They're like, "Here's what it is. This is what we pay our people. And if you want to make that much, you got to add more value."

 So, there's those on that end of the spectrum. And then there's those that are on the other end of the spectrum where they're like, "I'm absolutely not sharing that because I don't want to mutiny against me. I don't want people to be mad. I don't want to upset the applecart." Some people are very private when it comes to their compensation, yada yada. So, typically what I recommend is an approach in the middle where you can actually give people the ranges that each position makes, right? Depending upon what you bring to the table, you can give them that range. So, that's something that we do at Sweet.

 So, each year when I'm sitting down with people, we do quarterly pulse checks, but at least once a year, we'll talk about their career path. I sit down with them and we go through, okay. So, here's where you're at. And this is where you're saying you want to go, this is what that looks like, right? So it's again, being very clear if they want to put in the work, we're going to back that up. And if they don't and they're an exceptional employee, they just want to show up every day and do an exceptional job at what they do. And they service the heck out of our clients and support the rest of the team. That's okay too. But then you know where you fall, right? You know what that compensation structure looks like. So, that's a really happy medium and we get that question a lot.

 The other thing, Draye, you were talking about wins, and I think that's so powerful because there's transparency behind the scenes in this. Because here's the deal, like Draye said, there are going to be some weeks that you're like, I survived and that is my win. And my head is still above water even though I've got it tilted back and my nose is up to the ceiling, and I'm breathing and I'm gasping for air, but I survived. So, what you want is you want your team to be able to come to the table and say very honestly, why they feel like they won. And through that, what you're hearing are the things that they're struggling with, right?

 So, you want them to be able to come and share that with you and be so honest and be transparent on their end. Because it's like Bryan said earlier, if you set that up and you're the example to that, and we're going to talk about example and what that means in a couple of weeks. But when you are the example to that, it makes your people feel like they can share on a much deeper level and that's when true issues and problems get solved. Because if people don't feel like they can communicate with you, that's a big stinking problem.

 Because those people, when we talked about earlier, I shared that statistic of just over 60% of people are happy about coming back to work. That means 40% aren't. So, that means what's going to happen is those about 40% of people that are not happy about coming back to work, they're going to look for every reason when they get back to the office, when they get back to their desks, whatever that looks like, they're going to come up with every reason possible as to why they maybe shouldn't be working for you because they're disgruntled. They're not happy. You're not fulfilling them for whatever reason.

 So, you've got to be on your game with this. You have to show up at the table, be transparent, talk about what's going on, don't brush it under the table. If times are tough, you can tell people times are tough. But the point is, is you as the leader have to still have confidence. And we're going to talk about that next week. So, you have to show up for that because it is an absolute essential point and component of leadership when it comes to making sure that you can be that person that shows up for your team, and that gets people engaged so that you're not part of the 40% of people who are going to have a team that's looking for something else, right?

 And we also don't want to be part of that statistic that I shared where there's a heck of a lot of people that are like, "Yeah, I would absolutely report my employer. They don't follow the rules and they don't put these practices in place and all these things that we're being faced with, that we've never been faced with before when it comes to how we do business." So you want to make sure you dot your I's, you cross your T's and you're so transparent, open and honest with your team so that they can grow. They can feel comfortable. They can gain confidence from you and know that you've got their back, that you're here to support them and they're part of something that's bigger than just them, that's the point of this. That's the point of transparency is giving people that confidence to show up.

 So, I want to wrap into the few key takeaways because I think there are a few really powerful ones. So Bryan, Draye, anything else that you want to drop before we round out?

Bryan Sweet:

I have one quick thing that I thought of that might be helpful as it relates to transparency and it has to do with expenses. And when you two were speaking it just made me think, there's been several instances over the years where at a team meeting we brought up, this expense was getting out of whack or this was too high. And it was kind of amazing, once the team knew about it, they actually took very proactive steps to deal with it, to lower expenses, to research other options, literally without having to ask them. But they were aware of it. They wanted to be helpful and that's one of the kind of side benefits of transparency is you got a good team. They want to make sure that they get their raises. And so if they can help cut some expenses, that just means, that's better for them down the road potentially. But just that one little thing is very, very helpful side benefit.

Brittany Anderson:

Yeah. And Bryan, I'll add to that too, because one thing that we did when we started seeing that happening, we're like, okay, people are absolutely willing to put it all on the table and help us. And that indirectly helps them and it helps the company that we did a share in it. So we said, "Okay, here's the deal. If you guys are finding cost savings, then we're going to do a 50/50 split on that savings with you. So, if you come to the table and you're like, I could save the company $1,000, well guess what, you're going to get 500 of that." So again, it's a way to incentivize and if we wouldn't have been transparent and we wouldn't put it on the table as to what the expenses are in the first place, we never would've got that. So, that's part of this.

 A lot of times we hear a big struggle point for advisors is in feeling like they have to know, be and do it all. You have to be every leg of the business and that's not true. When you try to keep it all buttoned up and you keep it secret and you're trying to control everything, you're just not getting as much brainpower. So, expand upon that, have more people that are willing to help you just by having a simple conversation and saying, "Here's where we're at. Here's where we want to be. Here's where we're stuck. Here's some of the struggles," and then let your team help solve it. There's beauty and there's magic in that. So, it's so powerful. So Bryan, I'm glad you brought that up.

 So, when we look at kind of rounding out the key takeaways from today's episode, the first thing that I encourage you to do is to share your stuff, right? If you got... you've put in the work, we've talked about vision, we've talked about setting goals and targets. I mean, if you're not already being transparent with that, and you're not putting that in front of your team, just do it.

 And when it comes to the financials, because like we said, maybe all you do is you start in baby steps. Because we understand, some people are very private with this, but maybe start with something like hear, I'm not going to show the income, but I'm going to show the expense side of things. And then once I get my hands around that, then I'm going to open up a little bit further. So, we're not saying, you don't have to. If you struggle with this, you don't have to just open the books, buy it up. And then there's magical things that are going to happen. We want you to do this in steps, but just decide what are the key things that I'm not sharing with my team? Where am I [inaudible 00:24:46] maybe experiencing roadblocks that I could use team input on, put those things on the table.

 And then the second takeaway which spins into that is to find a public way to share your goals. So, we've talked about whiteboards. I mean, it kind of goes back to school days, but really there's power in that. It's simple, right? There's sometimes when you have something where somebody has to click into and there's amazing softwares out there, we've bought them in the past. I mean, we know what's out there and what's available as far as creating these amazing charts and figures and things on the computer. Sometimes to get people just a quick pulse, you just need to put it in an easily accessible place where people can get a quick gut check on what's happening in the company.

 So, maybe you invest in a whiteboard, stick it up on a wall in your office, put it somewhere that's maybe not super client accessible, but that's team accessible. So, a break room is a great point. If you have a copier, a workspace in your office, that's a good place. If you have an operation first and you have a second in command, put it in their office, they're having meetings all the time with people. So, at some place that people are cycling, that they can consistently see it.

 And then finally, I think this is so powerful. And I know we've talked about this before, but we can't say it enough. It's just celebrating your wins and doing it in a way that allows for transparency and that people aren't afraid to come and say, "The only way that I can muster this week is that I survived." So, make it a space that's very comfortable where people can be vulnerable, where you can be vulnerable as the leader, because there is so much power in vulnerability. And we're going to talk about that next week. So, we are rounding out today's episode of the Ultimate Advisor podcast come right back here next week, because we are going to talk about how you can build confidence as a leader.

 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 ultimateadvisorpodcast.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.