Speaker 1  00:08

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 to 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 and to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let's jump into another amazing episode of the Ultimate Advisor Podcast.

Brittany Anderson  01:07

Welcome back to your Ultimate Advisor Podcast. This is Brittany Anderson and here with me again this week is Draye Redfern and Bryan Sweet. We're continuing on the discussion that we've been having following our challenge that we just wrapped up. So we did a whole session on how to become a Pipeline Pro. And we have been spending the last couple of weeks pulling out some of the key nuggets of wisdom that seemed to really hit home with our advisor audience. One of those being the topic of staying in the front lines. What that means is that again, I touched on this last week and the week before is it is so important to fully embrace the idea and the notion that our business our industry, is completely relationship based. You know, back in the day, when so many of our successful amazing advisors were starting out, they were just picking up the phone and making a million calls. Cold Calling, it was a lot easier to get on somebody's calendar, now you've got every screening blocking service that a person can have on their cell phone, it's not easy to get in with a business owner, it's not easy to connect, you can send a million different emails make a million cold calls. But if there's not some sort of relationship-based connection, the odds of you making quick traction becomes significantly less. So to be clear what I'm not saying that cold traffic of some sort does not work. In some circumstances it does. But in order for you to get the true traction that you want to actually close the business that's sitting in your pipeline, you have to focus on staying in front of mind, be on the front lines, so that when some triggering event happens, and that prospects life, you are the person they're thinking of, and that they are picking up the phone and calling. So one of the ways that you can do this is to have some sort of nurture process. Now, to make it as simple to understand as possible. Something that works and that has shown great results is having an email, nurture sequence, everybody has email, everybody has email access on their phones, that's something that's very easy to cross that barrier, cross that line and get in front of them. So having something in place, I'll give you an example, we have a Sweet Financial. So we have a 52 weeks a full years long worth of content, where if somebody engages with us in some capacity, or we get some sort of introduction. So let's say they come to either an in person or virtual event, we have their email address, we get a referral from a client, we have that new person's email address. What we do then is put them into our long term nurture sequence where they get an email once a week, we're not bombarding them. There are, you know, different marketers out there that would say you have to send way more than that in order to stay front of mind. We like the once a week approach because it's not inundating those emails are not all about us and our services and the markets and the next best product or offering or whatever, it's all value add to the prospect. So it's positioned to speak to their fears. It's talking about, you know, here's what you should do when you're faced with kind of identifying what's next in retirement. Here's how you can focus on you know, fulfilling and living out your dreams, you've worked hard to get to this point. So here's the what's next. It's all meeting them where they're at. It's not sales, it's not pitchy, there are different times where we encourage them to engage in different capacities, whether it be booking a discovery call with one of our advisors, whether it be accessing our retirement readiness center, which is on our way website, there's all these soft asks throughout that nurture. But the whole point of it is plain and simply staying in front of mind. It's that, again, they know we have the resources, we have the things that they might need. So when the time comes, they hit that retirement mark, or they're getting ready for that retirement mark, heaven forbid they lose a spouse, they have a massive transition where they inherit money, or farmland or whatever it is, because of the death of a parent, we then become front of mind, because we've already been providing value and solving for some of their problems through a simple email sequence. So that's just one example of how you can stay in front of people. I know, Mr. Sweet, you have been an advocate for this whole drip, the whole idea of staying in front of the whole idea of nurturing. And I truly believe that's a massive attribute to your own success and the success of the advisors here now being trained the right way. So I'd love for you to share a little bit of your thoughts around this.

Bryan Sweet  06:01

No, absolutely love to, I think this is one of the things that if an advisor said, well, What mistake am I making, this could be one of them. And there's really three types of prospects that you'll run into. One is they say, hey, let's do business. And let's do it now. Then there's the people that you'll probably never do business with, either the night not a right fit, or, you know, whatever the case may be, and then the majority of clients fall in the not now. It's not never, it's just not now. And what you have to do is stay front of mind. So when they say the time is right, Who do they think of? Well, as hopefully, you matter of fact, we have a weekly, we call it our ADM meeting, which is our advisor development meeting. And one of our advisors had an example of that, where the lady had talked to this lady before, and her husband had just died. And they had never had an advisor. And she was dealing with a bunch of stuff and went, huh, I brought her call Amber, because I'm not knowing how to deal with any of these things. And so she had just been reaching out and touching base, and the only person that she could think of that could help her was Amber. So I think it's really, really important to stay in touch. And it could be just like, Brittany alluded to an email sequence where they get something every week, I will tell you, another thing that works very, very well is during your conversations with prospects. They talk about something that's meaningful, or they're trying to accomplish, or just anything that you know was of significance. If you run across an article of book, or just any material that references that or maybe answers or solves part of their problem, just do this, take out a piece of paper or an email and write, I saw this and thought of you hope you enjoy it, and send it. And if you do that several times one, they're going to show that you paid attention and you were listening to them. And you really do truly care about helping them. But once again, it's just a way of reaching out so that when their time is right, and they want to move forward, they're going to think about you. So this is something that we talk about, I make all of our advisors create an in progress list. So they know where the status of every client isn't the last time they touched base. And, you know, there's different things that you can do. One of the things we have talked about before on the podcast is a nine word email. It's about the simplest thing you could ever do, and might have the most effective, anything you could do via email. We talked a lot about it at the challenge and we asked the people to send one in between the days that we were doing the challenge and it was amazing. The results that people got in the communication by sending five or six, you know, we heard 30 to 60% of the people responded to that nine word email in literally less than 24 hours. And they hadn't heard from them prior to that. So just little things like that is really, really great. And you have to be proactive. If you think a client's going to remember to call you about things. They're busy. And so you have to be proactive. Every time you reach out, they just know you care. Don't be annoying, be helpful and add value every time you reach out, just don't simply, you know, call them up and say, hey, you're ready to do business yet deliver value while you're doing it. And that same message will get across that, you know, they'll come see you when you're ready. The other thing that is small, but it's huge, and we do this with all clients, but I would tell you, it would have a remarkable effect on prospects to is to call your clients and prospects on their birthday. The reason why is very few people reach out to wish people happy birthday, I can tell you lots of examples, especially with elderly clients, where I was the only human being that reached out that day to actually wish them well. And you can just hear it in their voice, how appreciative they are. And just think of how a prospect would feel when if they have another advisor, more than likely that other advisor isn't calling to say happy birthday, and you're reaching out to them to say happy birthday, it's going to have an effect and show that you're different. And doing business is all about showing your differences. Because we all charge the same, the investments are all the same. But those who teach seem to care more and actually do things that show that are usually the ones that get the business. So little things like that. It's never the big thing. But it's the little thing, as Brittany alluded to done consistently over time, is going to make a big, big, big difference. So I'm going to turn it over to Draye because he's got lots of insights from this challenge in this presentation, on nurturing and consistently and I'd love you to share some of those things with us today.

Brittany Anderson  12:13

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 is 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 and 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.

Draye Redfern  14:13

There's a stat that a lot of us marketers, it was a study that was done that a lot of us marketers tend to reference a lot. And that is that if someone inquires on your website to learn more about your services, offerings, etc. 50% of them will become a client in the next 18 months. Long time. But that's a good, healthy number. Now of those 15% of them will become clients within 90 days. Those are the piping red hot leads that are like they were ready yesterday. But that's just where most advisors and frankly just most business owners stop they're only nurturing or operating on the leads that come in that are piping red hot, that they can help right now and that's it but where the real opportunity realize is in the 85% of people that take somewhere between 90 days and 18 months, a lot of them are just completely overlooked. Or maybe you've got a CRM, that maybe you reach out to them, most likely not, though, because most businesses don't. And they're just like, there's opportunities that are literally just being wasted. And there's a couple ways you could do that the nurture sequences that Bryan and Brittany both referenced and mentioned, are one of them, that if you've got three niches, you could have three separate sequences, so that it feels as though you're talking directly to that prospect or the client, whatever it may be. And they've got a year of them. When that person gets to the end of that year, they get recycled back to the beginning of the email sequence for another year. And a lot of people are like, Why would you do that? And then they're going to get the same email again. And I don't know. No one really cares. Because Are you the same person that you were a year ago? Nope, I'm not even close to the person, same person I was a year ago. And you're going to read that email, even if you got it a year ago, even if you remember it barely, you're in a different position than you were a year previously. Maybe you've had more kids, maybe you've been divorced, maybe you've had a kid get married, maybe you are, have lost a significant other, there's a million different life events that could happen that would cause you to be in a different position. And that emails, you know, hit different chords with you as you read it. And so it's definitely worth having things like that. And you can automate more things. And you'd realize all of those emails could be automated, you could email half, automate Happy Birthday emails, you could automate Happy Birthday voicemails, there's all sorts of things that you could do if you wanted to automate it, the end of the day, it's just having a not a B2B or B2C business to business to customer, consumer. It's an H two h interaction human to human, whether you're working on, you know, big 401k plans, or whether it's just a mom and pop, you know, with the with the, you know, down the road with the with the assets, it doesn't matter who it is, how would you want to be treated. And so some things you can do that I've done historically, I haven't done it lately, because I haven't gone anywhere, because I've got a lot more kids now. But historically, what I've done is if I go somewhere, I buy things on that trip. So his story was like, you know, I bought Moroccan slippers in Morocco, I bought super Tuscan wine in Italy, I bought weird things when I was in China, like just crazy things. And I come back and I share those with people mail them to the clients who's like, Hey, this is you know, something I did, I thought you'd get a kick out of this or I thought of you these sorts of things. Like I said, having more kids having another one next month. And so that that part's been put on hold, but it's things like that, even if it's like a weird tchotchke people like to know that you're thinking about them a mutual friend and acquaintance of the three of ours goes to Japan a lot and does you know, lots of travel and these sorts of things. And he literally will have an expensive dinner receipt. And he'll flip it over and like Sharpie right was thinking of you I was having dinner, and then he mails it from that particular country. And it shows up with weird stamps and weird, you know, post markings on there and all sorts of other stuff. And it gets people intrigued now sharing a dinner receipt, there's no real tangible cost or value really in that. But as the gesture something new for and are different and that someone is thinking about them. It doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. But it's little things like that, that you can do to deepen the relationship. Now Bryan briefly mentioned the nine word email, so that probably the shortest email that you would ever write and the highest converting email you would ever write. And I share a story about that here in a second is something that literally just happened in the last 21 minutes with a nine word email. But the nine word email is essentially this. You write an email saying, for people who have you know, their past the 90 days, they're not super piping hot, but they're probably still interested because people take time people are busy people all over the place. And I've given a lot of examples about this in our challenge, but people have a lot of stuff going on. So if you just send an email that starts Are you still interested in wealth planning services, hiring a new financial advisor, insert your thing here, question mark. And that's it.  It gets an incredible response from people because they feel like you write you wrote that email just for them. If they don't reply, they're rude or not replying to an email like that. It's not overly salesy. It's more conversational, and it works like crazy. So literally, as we were just pressing like record on this episode, I got an email from one of my sales people, and she said the nine word email and action exclamation point. That's all it says. But what she said to a prospect who has been in her pipeline was are you still interested in building your business? The idea with the with what she says here, nine words. And it took less than 90 minutes for her to get a reply to that email him saying, Yes, I'm still interested, Ben busy, let's set up a time for next week. That's how simple it can be. So all of that transpired in less than 90 minutes. It's hyper relevant for where we are because people are busy. If you're I mean, you can't I maybe I can't show up. I can't show it easily here. But I've got something north of like 117,000 unread emails on my phone right now. Most of it that drives people nuts when they hate it when they hear that. That's just one inbox. I've got three, most people can see from the subject line or the first like, you know, snippet of a sentence and your email preview what that emails about. If the email preview just says, Are you still interested in blank, blank, blank, people know is not sales, it's not going to be a long diatribe of an email is a quick thing that they can get through open rates are very high response rates are incredible. So when it comes to staying on those front lines, automate where you can, but remember, 85% of those people take between 90 days and 18 months to convert, if you can automate it great. But if you can't, and you just want to send some of those nine word emails, they also work incredibly effectively when it comes to re engaging some of those prospects in your funnel. So maybe there's a few things there to unpack this time around Brittany, but I'll turn it over to you.

Brittany Anderson  21:48

You know, I have to say Draye. Number one, your email situation gives me massive anxiety even though I can relate to a lot of different levels. And number two, I would love to know the crazy thing sometime that you bought in China, because my wheels are spinning, and it's just gone weird.

Draye Redfern  22:06

Bugs.

Brittany Anderson  22:07

You know. But in all actuality, so I love looking for little hidden nuggets and some of the things that you guys say. And if anybody remembers back when DVDs were a thing, they're still a thing in my life, because I have kids and cartoons and all of that stuff. But before streaming was so popular, there was this little thing in movies called easter eggs. And it became a fun thing for a while where if you would click double pause at some point in the movie, or you click play at some point in the movie, it would actually spin into these hidden segments. And they were hilarious. I mean, I can think of a few different movies that did this. If you've ever seen the movie dodgeball with Ben Stiller go back and find the hidden easter eggs. They're absolutely hilarious. But the point in me sharing this is that I love looking for Easter eggs and any sort of conversation that we have. And I think one thing that that Draye said that I think is really powerful. And an important one to pull out is that the decisions that you make today, they are going to be representative of who you are a year from now. So think about this as it relates to your business as it relates to your growth. This stuff through the statistics of what Draye just shared, are absolutely not going to happen overnight. So if you're failing to take action today, if you're not reaching out, if you're not staying front of mind, what do you think that is going to do for your business a year from today? The same thing is true with what you're putting into your brain with what you're choosing to focus on with where your attention is going. If you are in a constant state of whirlwind today, and you're not taking the action or putting in the effort to change that. Where do you think you're going to be a year from now? Rory Vaden is the founder of Brand Builders, and he has an absolutely brilliant, actually, it's on his blog on his website off to the right and it's all about multiplying your time. But the whole premise of his message there is that you need to give yourself permission today to do the things that are going to save you time tomorrow. So when Draye talks about some of these automations, when Bryan talks about this drip sequence and staying in touch and doing all these things that really matter and are impactful, it's setting you up for success that I don't think you even realize is possible. So when you're reflecting back, we're sitting here a year from now, and we're talking about your wins, and you're celebrating your success and looking at the things that worked. It's because you were intentional today. So that's what I want you to take away from today's podcast is to understand that it's these action items. It's the due diligence It's the effort you put in, that's going to make a massive difference in the future. So, before I go into the three top takeaways, Draye, Bryan, anything at all that you would like to add?

Draye Redfern  25:13

Yeah, I think it's just a matter of also just mentioning this, especially when it comes to doing something like the sweet team has three separate niches, a year's worth of content, all of this, it doesn't need to be done today. But it's definitely something like eating an elephant one bite at a time when it comes to actually just getting it done and starting that process. So don't let it overwhelm you, don't let that be the reason why you don't do it. Do it, but do it one bite at a time, and it's going to be a really a lot easier, more digestible way of actually getting it put into place.

Brittany Anderson  25:43

So good. Eat that elephant one bite at a time. I need to have that plastered on my wall. Alright, so the top three takeaways from today. Number one, I think this is important, Bryan alluded to this is to create your list of people to stay in touch with. Now for some, this might be a no brainer for others. And for many successful advisors, actually, when you ask them, like, Where's your prospect list? How are you staying on top of this, you kind of get a deer in the headlights of Well, I mean, I kind of remember over here, I needed to contact this person. And over here, I need to contact that person. Have a centralized location. If you have a robust CRM, there are so many things that you can do when Draye talked about automation, not having to remember those trigger points, but rather setting reminders so that it pops up without thinking. There's great ways to maximize your CRM capabilities. If you don't have a robust system, that's okay. Go the old tried and true method of having a spreadsheet, a simple spreadsheet showing who the people are that you want to do business with in the future. And then put the last date of contact, make it a point that once a week, you take a peek at that you look at who you might need to reach out to, it's important to have certain triggering notes. So maybe interests of there's things that they've told you they're going to do a big life events coming up, maybe a note about their family member, those are all things that are really important to make and take note of so that you have reason and intentionality for the reach outs. A second takeaway for today is implementing the darn nine word email strategy. I mean, we prove this to ourselves time and time again, we're like, Hey, you know, we should maybe do that again, because it actually works. So that's something that if you consistently work into your business, Now, obviously, you want to make sure that you're not overusing it to where it becomes white noise. But making sure Hey, if you have prospects that you're like, I don't really know why they're not moving forward, or we just haven't been able to connect, as Draye just gave example to, you know, one simple note at least fostered a response. And what we talked about in the challenge we ran recently is that even if that response comes back as a no, I'm not interested, I chose somebody else, I made this decision. Awesome, great, they can then come off of your radar as the target client for this immediate need. So that's something where at least you're getting response. And it's an easy, simple thing that you could literally implement immediately, when you stop listening to this episode, go send a nine word email and just see what happens. And I'd love to hear the results. And actually, let's make it fun. If you get a good result from that, send it to support@ultimateadvisorcoaching.com and actually share that one because that would be really cool. And you we may or may not drop your example in an upcoming episode. So I think that would be a really fun one to show proof in the pudding. And then finally, third takeaway from today is to do something that stands out. I love what Draye shared about the gentleman who goes and travels and sends a note on the back of a receipt. Again, it's you know, not anything of value on that receipt, but it shows you're thinking of them. And you're thinking of them while you're traveling, doing something really cool. So you know, whether it's that or it's even just a meaningful article that you read that you're like, Oh my gosh, I think you know, Susan would really love this, take that extra step and actually get it dropped in the mail or send the email or whatever it is, but do those little things that stand out. It makes a difference. So that wraps up today's episode of your Ultimate Advisor Podcast. We will catch you back here next week. 

Brittany Anderson  29:14

Hey there, Brittany Anderson here. If you are loving what you're hearing on our Ultimate Advisor Podcast, don't keep us to 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.