THE ULTIMATE ADVISOR PODCAST

Weekly Insights to Help You Craft the Ultimate Advising Practice

EPISODE 62:

Insights with the Original Referral Coach Bill Cates -  Part 2

In this episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast, we jump right back into our three part interview special with the original referral coach, Bill Cates. Bill shares some of his amazing content and methodologies to help grow your referrals, turn more prospects into clients, and ultimately grow your business. In today’s episode, we discuss the importance of an introduction, as well as connecting, adding value, and creating an ongoing relationship with your prospects and clients. Bill shares some of his own strategies and processes on creating and messaging value after the introduction. We also talk about Bill’s new book, Radical Relevance, where you can learn more about finding the bullseye for your business and sharpening your marketing message to win more ideal clients. So, push PLAY and join us as we delve into cutting through the noise to attract the right clients, keep them engaged, and upscale your business!

For more ideas and methodologies on getting introduced, email Bill at bill@referralcoach.com

 

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Bill Cates

Original Referral Coach

Read The Transcript Of The Episode:

 

Announcer:

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 practice's 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 your Ultimate Advisor Podcast. I am Brittany Anderson and I have got back with me, the famous Bill Cates. This is part two of a three part series where we are going deep with all of the brilliant knowledge that Bill has brought to the table over the years and all the stuff that he's working on right now and going into the future, because it is all so good.

 So last week, we talked quite a bit about referrals and how it's actually so much more than just the referral. So if you did not catch last week, you absolutely need to go back and listen because it leads us perfectly into what we're going to talk about today.

 So Bill, I would love for you to share, because we did start with the whole concept of referrals. I would love for you to share a little bit about your journey from the "original" Referral Coach to where you're at today.

 

Bill Cates:

Sure. And I hope people find this helpful. It's not just me musing about my growth in the business, I'll try to make it relevant to everyone listening. And we touched on this a little bit last time, so here's what happened. I was a generic sales speaker, if you will, and I loved prospecting though, I loved finding new people and figuring out what to say to them and getting clever and creative to grab their attention. So that's something I've always enjoyed, but I wasn't focused on referrals at the time, until I started listening to a gentleman in the insurance industry many, many years ago. Scott Kramnick wrote a book called Expecting Referrals, I was listening to it on tape. Some people remember tape. And I'm thinking, "I really like that. And so few people are doing this, but I'd say it this way and I'd teach it this way. And this is ..."

 So that's when I decided to write my book, my first book that came out in 1996, Unlimited Referrals. And I did a lot of research on it and I'm very proud of the book. It still stands up today, although you probably can't get it unless you go to eBay, I think it's $3.94 on eBay or something. But nonetheless, people started hiring me in financial services to teach folks how to ask for referrals without begging, without pushing, without some of the very old school methodologies, "Let me tell you how I get paid. I get paid in two ways," that no one wants to do anymore.

 And so what happened as I was doing that, I learned that a lot of folks were not referable. They were not doing what it took to become referable. They were a little too transactional. They didn't really have a good client service promise that they'd put in place where they'd stay in touch with people over time. It was more product oriented in and we know the history of this business has always been very product oriented. Now that's changing obviously, for the better, and so just by the way to become more referable, just to understand it's not the product that makes you referable. I mean, it can help a lot, right? You get the right annuity or you get the right kind of insurance and people go, "Wow, this is really cool." So that's part of it, but it's mostly the process that you go through to learn about the product.

 So we realized that we had to start working on helping people get more engaged client relationships. Last time we mentioned the fact that satisfied clients stay with us, but they don't necessarily give referrals. We've got to create these engaged clients. So we focus a lot on that. We outlined the three parts of the client journey. There's the prospect experience, in the courtship of determining if it's a fit, and then there's the onboarding experience, which I know Brian Sweet is so good with, onboarding people into your metaphorical family, and then the ongoing relationship that you build with them over time. And so that's a big part of what we teach now, it's this creating a sense of engagement and of the value and the person. Client appreciation events fit into that and all that.

 Then of course Do Not Call regulations come along, where we can't call people as easily. People thought it was going to be the end of the business. I never forget, Brittany I don't know if you were around during that time, but people really thought it was the end of the business when the Do Not Call regulations came through. I said, "No, no, no, we'll figure this out. We'll figure this out." And so what it did of course, it made the referral or the introduction more important than ever. And so with all the ways it's so hard to reach people, we've got to make it introductions. And so please, if you didn't hear this last time, remember it this time that when you're talking with prospects, when you're talking with clients, when you're talking with centers of influence, please use the word introduction. Make sure that you and your client work together to get connected to the new prospect.

 First of all, your client wants to protect the relationship, so they want the introduction to be comfortable and safe for everybody. And you want to make sure you get connected in a good way. So it's both people's interests to make sure you get a good connection. So that's what kind of brought me up to now, where I am in my new book. Do you want to ask me about my new book?

 

Brittany Anderson:

I am dying to ask you about your new book. Before I ask that question though, I just want to comment that I think it's important for people to listen and really, I would honestly, I'd go back and I'd rewind and relisten to what Bill just said, because what he talked about is really the evolution of our industry. I mean, underneath all of that, it was the evolution of our industry and how things have changed and they're going to continue to change and there's going to be more changes. I mean, we're in a year right now, we're in 2020, and we're in a year of really big change. I mean, you're going to get people that are deciding to use the tools and the resources that people like Bill are here to talk about. The things that help you become, here's the plug, radically relevant.

 So I think it's so important to really see those underlying themes here that we're talking about because the ones who are going to swim versus sink are the ones who absolutely put these practices in place. So all of that being said, we're going to be talking about Radical Relevance today. You also promised, Bill, that we'd go a little bit deeper on introductions. So I know you just started talking about them right there because you just couldn't help it. So do we need to talk anything else on introductions before we go into the book?
 

Bill Cates:

Yeah, let's deliver on our promise from last time and I'm going to connect it exactly with the book. So the book, Radical Relevance, just real quick, it's about finding a way to get through to folks, to get their attention. So the subtitle really says it all, Sharpen your Marketing Message, Cut Through the Noise, Win More Ideal Clients.

 So the problem it solves, mostly, is just all the noise in the marketplace and just to get on their radar. The other problem it solves is the inertia. The fact that it's hard to get people to move, especially in financial services. They're either stuck with their head in the sand, or they're not happy with their advisor, but they don't know how to fire them, and there's all kinds of reasons why people don't take action. So those are the two problems the book solves. And the fastest way to get onto someone's radar, to cut through all the noise and all the clutter, is to get introduced by someone they already trust.

 So this idea of referrals and introductions is not going away. In fact, it's more important now than ever before. You're right, the business is changing, the industry changes, but there's some principles that don't change. And one of the principles is that of borrowed trust and how we borrow the trust in one relationship to earn our own trust in a new relationship.

 So let's talk about this all important introduction, then we'll move on with the other stuff. So how do you get introduced? Why do you get introduced? Why is because otherwise they're going to ignore you, right? So you got to get connected. Now the best type of introduction, especially in financial services, is an in-person introduction, if you can make it happen. It could be breaking bread together, it could be on the golf course, it could be at a client appreciation event, client education event. I'm all for all those things and the only caveat is we don't want the logistics of making that happen to get in the way of the enthusiasm and that person's willingness to introduce us, right? So if playing golf together is something they normally do, breaking bread is something they normally do, the idea of going to an educational event or a client appreciation event, something cool that you guys are putting on, is something that fits within the relationship then by all means, work on it. But just be aware that those logistics can kind of get in the way.

 So what's the next best if you're not going to make that happen? Well, it's probably going to be an email introduction. So many people are using email introductions these days, I got three types of email introductions and I'm going to make a promise, and I'm probably going to get some emails on this and I'm okay with that, I have a report that I've written that really defines ... But I don't have a website to give out so I'm going to give my email address out and you just say, "Bill, send me this report on introductions," and I'll send it to you, all right? Brittany told me I had to ask [inaudible 00:10:24] so my email is bill@referralcoach.com.

 So these three main ways to get introduced. All right, the first one you've probably been introduced with before, it's essentially your referral source, probably your client, sends an email to their friend or family member or colleague and you're CC'd on it and they say, "George, I've been doing some work with Brittany and she's done some great work for us and I've CC'd her on it and I'm sure she'll follow up. You should take her call, it'll be worth your time." Not bad, right? So Brittany, you've been CC'd on that, you see it go through, now you have someone you can follow up with an email. And my recommendation from that email is to go for a brief 10 to 15 minute phone call. We don't want to ask for too much, we need an easy yes from this person who's just now getting to know us. And so not bad.

 Now the next one is my favorite one. And then I'll give you kind of a fallback position. So the next one, I call this an email handshake and this is essentially, in the subject line, George meet Brittany, Meet Brittany Anderson. "George, Brittany's been doing some financial work with me, opened my eyes to stuff da, da, da, da, da ... Brittany, George is a great guy, we grew up together, except for when you get him on the golf course, he kind of is a pain in the butt, but otherwise he's a great guy. George take Brittany's call, it'll be time well invested, et cetera." So now it's the handshake given in an electronic form.

 And I know the question people are thinking, "Could I create a template and give it to my client to show them what to do?" Yes. I think that's a great idea. So you give them kind of a model of what you'd like and say, "Can you emulate this? Your words are going to be different, but can you create something like this?" And they go, "Oh yeah, I can do this. That's not a problem." And then they'll do it. So now rather than being CC'd, you're on equal status, right? George meet Brittany, Brittany meet George. And so that's the best way, that usually produces pretty darn good results.

 All right, the fallback position. This is if you have a client that just can't be bothered, for whatever reason, "Oh, just call them ..." Or they said they're going to do this, but they don't get around to it and you need to fall back to this other one. This is where you're going to send the email, but here's the big but, you've got an agreement from your referral source to follow up when they see the message comes through. So I say, "George I'm ..." Or I'll say, "Brittany, I'm going to send an email to ..." No, what is it? Brittany, George, I get them all confused. "George, I'm going to send an email and you just promise to follow up when you see it come through. Okay?" "Okay, I can do that. Fine."

 So now I send an email to the prospect and I put the referral source's name in the subject line because they don't know who I am, right? They'll open an email from their friend or family member, but they might not open my email because they don't know who I am, unless I use their friend's name and then now they will. That's that little piece of borrowed trust work in there. And then they open it and you give a, "George recommended we talk and he said some great things about you and in a nutshell, this is what I do. And based on George's recommendation, I'm hoping we could schedule a quick phone call just to get the conversation started."

 So now we've reached out. Now we have the promise from the referral source, from George, that he's going to follow through and add a little something to it. But even if he doesn't, we are still at least now have made contact with our prospect. And hopefully just the name dropping of their friend recommending that we talk is sometimes enough. There's enough trust there to borrow to make that work.

 And so those are the three core main ways to get introduced with email. And if you send me an email and say, "Bill, send me that introductions report," or, "Send me that report on how to get introduced with email," and I'll send it out to you, no charge. Happy to be of service.

 

Brittany Anderson:

Awesome. I love that. And I love the concept of borrowed trust. I just think that's such an interesting concept and if you can get that in your head. So anytime you're trying to formulate those introductions and make that happen, borrowing trust, I think that's a really powerful statement.

 So we got to segue back to the whole Radical Relevance topic because Bill, I learned that you discovered the concepts that you share in this book, it was almost 33 years ago. It was when you started your second book publishing company. So I want you to tell us a little bit about that.

 

Bill Cates:

Yeah, I started my second book publishing company when I was three ... Don't we wish.

 

Brittany Anderson:

[crosstalk 00:15:11].

Bill Cates:

Yeah, so let's see. Quick story, I had self published a couple of books so I knew a little bit about book production. I worked for the airlines and I produced a book on airline careers and that's another story for another time, but it got me into that world. And so then this woman, I thought, was hiring me to help her with this strawberry cookbook that she had produced. And she had about 200 pick your own strawberry farms around the country and she sold maybe a thousand, but she wanted to upgrade the production quality of the book and yada yada. So I consulted with her, I sent the invoice, it never got paid and I got a little minorly resentful there and I go, "You know, I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it better."

 So I found a cook, I found a woman who wrote a cooking column for the Annapolis Capital Gazette it was called, and I now live in Annapolis, Maryland. And so she wrote a strawberry cookbook and I found 1600 strawberry farmers around the country and we sold 10,000 our first year. And so how's that relevant? Well, people come in with bushels, baskets of strawberries, "What am I going to do with all these? Well, I can can some of them, but I only got so much sugar to spread on the rest of them, so ... Oh, cookbook, great, beautiful, [inaudible 00:00:16:36], we'll cook a bunch."

 So then I learned that the strawberry season was only about three weeks long in most parts of the country, except for maybe California and Florida. So I wanted something with a longer selling cycle and so I picked apples. And I found about 1800 pick your own apple farms around the country and the first year we sold 20,000 of those and another 10, 15,000 of the strawberry book. And then I learned that apple growers use bees to pollinate the flowers to create the fruit, so they have apiaries. So we did a honey cookbook and we rounded it out with a vegetable cookbook. And so here I have people coming to check out with apples and strawberries and vegetables and honey, and here are these four books and we sold 80,000 one year and 90,000 another year. And this is where I really learned the principles of having, essentially, the right product in the right place for the right person and the right ... All the right fit everything.

 And I went on to publish other types of books. I wanted to do books for manufacturers of cookware, blenders, and grills, and smokers, but I was struggling with that. And my company name at the time was WRC Publishing, William Richard Cates. Now the farmers didn't care what the company name was, they'd buy the books, but these other folks, these manufacturers, it wasn't resonating with them. So I woke up one morning and I said, "I got to change my company name," and I changed it to the American Cooking Guild.

 Now, if you're going to hire someone to produce a book for you to put in your grill, who would you hire, WRC Publishing or the American Cooking Guild? And things took off and we did books for American Greeting Cards and Smokers. Our biggest sale was for Bumble Bee tuna. We did a seafood cookbook that uses a premium in grocery stores around the country and they ordered 400,000 copies of that seafood cookbook. And I like to make the joke, that sale changed my life because I was the sales rep and I got a big commission and I was the company owner and I got all the rest. So that's what brought me into this world after I sold that business, then I got into this world.

 

Brittany Anderson:

That is incredible. Now that I'm hungry because I'm thinking about strawberries and apples and all the recipes and everything else in between. That's an incredible story and I think what's interesting about that is that you have this uncanny knack to see opportunity. And I think that's important and I think it ties back to us as advisors too, you're listening as an advisor and really being able to see the forest through the trees. I mean, Bill, you saw something there and you're like, "Okay, well I'm not done yet. There's more to it." And I think that's what you've really exemplified in everything that you've done and I think that's why people keep coming back to you for more because they know that you're always looking for more, you're always looking for ways to improve.

 So I think that when we talk about your journey, and we've shared a little bit about that, it almost seems like, are you moving away from teaching businesses how to generate more referrals and introductions or are you maybe just adding on to that content? I'd like a little clarity on that one.

 

Bill Cates:

Yeah, definitely adding on. And a little bit back to the original story we told about, getting to introductions and then my new book, Radical Relevance, what happened is I was actually interviewing some top producers of the company for a speech that I was going to be giving. And I said to them, I said, "So when you get referred, when you get introduced, how do you reach out to these new prospects? What do you say to these new referral prospects?" And I was aghast at some of the weakest value propositions I'd ever heard. Some of it was old school stuff like, "I'd love to take you for a cup of coffee and tell you about the work I do." Like anybody's got time for that these days. And what I learned is that, again, this concept of borrowed trust in these relationships was so strong that it overcame a weak value proposition, but that'll only carry us so far, right?

 Borrowed trust will get our foot in the door, and occasionally will win us the business, "If George did it with you, that's good enough for me." But usually somewhere along the line, we have to start to talk about our value in a way that's going to garner their interest, it's going to resonate with them so they want to hear more and over time, move them along in our process. And so that's where I decided to write the book, Radical Relevance, because we have to have a way to talk about our value that, again, cuts through the noise and gets their attention and you've got to make sure you have a message.

 So this book is a lot about messaging. How you message your value, how you narrow your focus and expand your results at the same time by having a more narrow message that's going to resonate with someone because it's going to be relevant to them and not resonate with the people that you don't care about attracting. I mean, that's the goal, you want to attract the ones you want and repel the ones you don't want. And that's good messaging, right? Good messaging will do that.

 When you first get started in this business, well, you'll take anybody, right? If they fog a mirror, they're breathing, you'll talk to them. But eventually you want to get to that point where there's certain folks you really want to focus on. And some of the work I do with clients in the coaching and help them figure this out, [inaudible 00:21:56] had a call just yesterday with a gentleman who ... We were kind of going round and round about how he needed to message his value and who he really wanted to talk to. And then he was telling me a little something, a little story, and I could just feel the energy in his voice. And I could feel him light up about this and I said, "These are the people you really want to serve. That guy you just told me about, he's a Right-Fit client for you, right?" He goes, "Yeah. Boy, if I just had more like him."

 I said, "Well, that's it. That's what we need to do. We need to make sure you have the message, the words, and the look, on the website perhaps, that will resonate with that kind of person. And don't worry about the rest because you're successful. You don't need just anybody anymore, you just need more like him or a woman could be like him as well." And that's what we started working on. And that's what I mean by Radical Relevance, going to the Right-Fit client, the person you're meant to serve, they were meant to be served by you, there's more joy.

 I was talking to a sub-practice that I'm consulting where there's four advisors and a few support staff. And we ended up talking about joy in this business. Now, how often do you hear that word in financial services? Joy. You don't hear it a lot, do you? If it's not in the American Puritan ethic or whatever that drives us so hard, but isn't that what we really want in our life and what if we could build a practice where we attracted that ... And you know what? A client that gives me joy might be a pain in the butt for you and vice versa. And so vive la différence, right? That there's different people, different strokes for different folks. And so that's what Radical Relevance is, really the core is attracting the right people and not worrying about the rest.

 

Brittany Anderson:

That's so good and so relevant, speaking about the term relevance, so relevant. We actually just did a training today in our Accelerator program with Ultimate Advisor Coaching and we talked about the build out of the avatar and how that's so important. Like you have to know who you ideally want to serve. It doesn't mean you're going to hit that home run every single time, but again, it's like having an arrow without a target. You're just aiming into space, you're going to hit something eventually, it just may not be the thing that you want.

 

Bill Cates:

The ground.

 

Brittany Anderson:

Right. The ground, your mom, a tree, I don't know. So it's really important to just make sure that you're aiming for something that gives you that energy and there should be joy in our business. I mean, if you think about what we do as financial advisors, the best of the best out there, they're changing people's lives, they're helping them accomplish things that they maybe didn't even see possible. So really peeling back those layers and deciding who you want to serve. I mean, I could go on for days about that, I think it's just absolutely ... It's not important, it's essential for your business growth.

 

Bill Cates:

Well, think of it this way, clear intentions produce clear results, vague intentions produce vague results. And so that's the power of becoming more and more, over time, precise. Going from the target, could be business owners in an industry, it could be employees in a company, that's good, that's a good thing to do. That's the target, but eventually you find the bullseye and I'd like to talk about that. It's a hint, they asked me about that. But you find the bullseye in that and that's where you're going to find the most success in this business and probably the most joy and probably create a little more free time for yourself as well in the process, because you're working with the right people who appreciate you for what you do. So clear intentions, clear results, vague intentions, vague results.

 And you talked about avatar, some people call it a persona, I call it a Right-Fit client. The more clear you are, the more likely you're going to get there. And not just you, by the way, everyone who works with you or for you needs to be on the same page, or you want them to be on the same page. So everyone's messaging in the same way, whether they're at a social event or a business networking event, they're talking about the value in the same way so that, again, you're attracting the right people and letting someone else work with the people that aren't right for you.

 

Brittany Anderson:

So Bill, I have this question that I just thought of-

 

Bill Cates:

Yeah, what's that?

 

Brittany Anderson:

... Can you talk a little bit about a bullseye?

 

Bill Cates:

Yeah, I want to give you two examples of some great Radical Relevance here. I'll give you two advisors. One's Todd McDonald, he knows I talk about him, Albany, New York. So I'm going to tell you about how he found his bullseye. So one thing Todd did, which I thought was great, is he interviewed a lot of other advisors first, or as he was getting into the business, to say, "If you could start over, what would you do differently?" And they'd say, "Well, I'd try not to be all things to all people. I'd probably have a target market of some sort." And he says, "Okay, I can do that." And so now Todd had some previous experience with a business in construction and whatnot, so that kind of resonated with them a little bit. So then he starts working with some construction folks and he can kind of talk their language, knew their world a little bit.

 So that was cool, but he realized that he didn't want to just deal with the small folks, the small contractors. Their incomes were unpredictable, they didn't have quite the sophistication he wanted to have in terms of the work he wanted to do with them, et cetera. So he started leaning towards larger construction companies, what he labels heavy construction. And so that's a pretty darn good niche, but he got a little further on that. And if you ask Todd what his bullseye is, he'll tell you that it's closely held family-owned heavy construction companies. Closely held family-owned heavy construction companies. His clients build roads, bridges, runways, and commercial buildings. He has a national reputation. He does work all over the country. Most of these people are coming to him now because of the reputation he's built in that industry.

 Let me tell you about Adam. I can't pronounce Adam's last name, so I'm just going to not try. It's like Slovenian or something and I always screw it up. But Adam in Indianapolis, he wants, like Todd, like other advisors, wants to work with wealthy individuals, okay. A lot of wealth in business owners, okay. He identified what he called white coat professionals. To him, white coat professionals were doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and optometrists. So he started to focus on those white coat professionals and very quickly he realized, "Well, this is like four different niches. This is four different businesses, it's four different approaches. I can't do these four at one time."

 Well, it just so happens his wife's an optometrist. So he picks optometrists and what happened is he brings so much value to optometrists because he's learned other aspects about their business and how they're building their business and then sees his wife day to day with her business. So not only is he a financial advisor, but he's become a business advisor to these optometrists. Now, that could be a bullseye enough. There's 37,000 optometrists in this country, not bad. Well, this is his bullseye and this is all he serves and this is all he tries to attract, optometrists who want to sell their business within five years to a private equity firm. That's his bullseye, that's it. If you're not an optometrist that wants to sell their business in five years to a private equity firm, find somebody else because Adam's not your guy. And again, national reputation, people come to him. He writes for some publications, he speaks at some conferences, and he draws people to him.

 This is the difference between prospecting and marketing, right? I love referrals, but referrals are kind of a form of prospecting. And prospecting will never go away, I'm not saying that we can ever just totally get away from prospect, it'll all be an element of that. Even when you attract people to you, you still have to do some things. But isn't it a wonderful thing to be able to have a business model and to message your value in such a way that you're attracting people to you and people are going to come to you with a predisposition to want to do business with you? You may have a little more work to do to convince them it should be you and determine if should it be you, to courtship there, right?

 But that's what I'm trying to do with Radical Relevance, is help people create that attraction. And when you're bringing and attracting the right people to your business. And it's actually pretty easy to do, it's not rocket science, it's just the willingness to do it.

 

Brittany Anderson:

Bill, there was some good stuff and I think the bullseye concept is so valuable and it can be scary for some people.

 

Bill Cates:

It is.

 

Brittany Anderson:

It can be really scary going through that exercise and being like, "Wait, this is the only people I serve?" And it's like, "Yes, but you're going to serve all of them."

 

Bill Cates:

Well, so the two fears that come up usually, one is, "What about all the clients I already have? I've known these people for ..." Well, you don't stop serving them, it's fine. And I'll tell you the way some advisors scale their business is they bring in a junior advisor to maybe serve some of those folks. Over time some of those can get relegated to another advisor perhaps, but nobody says you have to stop serving those.

 The other thing is, "Well, if I just focus on optometrists, if I just focus on physicians, if I just focus on employees or executives in this large company in my hometown, then I'm going to miss all this other opportunity." Well, yeah, you might. But you're going to be so successful over here, you won't even notice and you won't even care. And so the three big niches, if you will, or big targets, I should say, are employees in large companies, I see a lot of advisors extremely successful in that, it could be business owners in a specific industry or a few related industries, or it could be universities, administrators and faculty in the university. 

 So those are kind of the big three and there's probably some others I'm not thinking of, but you find the target and then you work to target. And you don't have to have the bullseye right away. You'd be lucky if you knew the bullseye right away. And maybe some people do, but over time, you start to see who you resonate with and who you like doing the work for and who has the financial capacity to take advantage of the work that you do, right? And so then that helps draw you in on the rings of the target to eventually work the bullseye.

 

Brittany Anderson:

It's interesting, Bill, we just talked, again, in our Accelerator program about how the avatar, persona, like you said, the Right-Fit client, whatever you want to call that person, it will evolve as time goes. Because as time goes on, you're going to get even more crystal clear on who you can add the most value to and really what that person looks like. And your skill sets are going to change and evolve, right? We're not dinosaurs, we're not in one stagnant being, we're constantly changing and growing and evolving and your service offering is going to do the same. So going back and doing kind of a check on yourself through this exercise every couple years I think is really important, not to just be like, "Nope, this is who I serve." It's like, "Does this still make sense?" Maybe you'll say yes, maybe you'll keep serving the doctors in the Upper East Side who have a spouse and no kids or whatever it is, but it can change and it can evolve and I think that's important.

 

Bill Cates:

Wait a second though, [inaudible 00:33:19] mean we're not dinosaurs?

 

Brittany Anderson:

You know, last time I checked, we're not.

 

Bill Cates:

Well, why does my wife keep calling me a caveman? I mean ...

 

Brittany Anderson:

We're going to save that topic for another episode.

 

Bill Cates:

All right. All right. I'll take it up with her.

 

Brittany Anderson:

Oh, that's so good. Bring her on.

 

Bill Cates:

You know, we actually thought about doing a podcast. It would be the Contrarian Podcasts because whatever I said, she would immediately have an argument on the other end.

 

Brittany Anderson:

I bet that you would have millions of followers.

 

Bill Cates:

It would be hysterical actually.

 

Brittany Anderson:

I'd be so good. Oh, Bill, you know what? I think that this is a really good pause point because we're going to do part two of Radical Relevance in next week's episode. So before I wrap and give a couple of takeaways and a little hidden Easter egg that I uncovered while you were speaking, is there anything else that you wanted to comment on, add, anything at all?

 

Bill Cates:

Oh gosh. Yeah, I think that in the spirit of Radical Relevance [inaudible 00:34:21], it starts with just an unrelenting obsession with bringing the best possible value you can to your clients. In the book, Radical Relevance, we have the 17 rules of Radical Relevance and rule number one, which we already covered, which is the straightest line to relevance with someone who doesn't know you, is an introduction from someone they do know. But rule number two is give your clients a seat at the table. And so how you stay relevant in this business is how you communicate with your clients, and how you stay on the pulse of what's important to them and what resonates with them, and how they talk about your business. And making sure that when you're working on your value proposition and your website and your LinkedIn profile and collateral material and all this stuff, that you're not doing it in a vacuum. That you are giving a few key clients a seat at the table so they will help you with figuring this out. And that's how you make sure you stay relevant.

 

Brittany Anderson:

So, so good. So to round out today's episode, I want to give a few key takeaways. Number one, if you have not yet sent an email to Bill and listening to this, bill@referralcoach.com, you need to, because he is willing to share his ideas, his methodology on ways to get introduced. And even if you have a methodology that's working well, I think it warrants reaching out because there's always way to do things even better. So I think that absolutely take advantage of that. That is a huge takeaway.

 The second I think is finding your bullseye. I've heard that concept a whole bunch. We worked through that all the time at Sweet, we do these exercises in our Mastermind with Ultimate Advisor, but it's such a great refresher and I think getting so crystal clear on who you best serve and who your bullseye is, will help you make great strides in your business and potentially even break through a current ceiling of complexity.

 The third thing, and I think this was kind of the hidden Easter egg that I alluded to, is people look at others and there's this comparison factor that happens, where you see somebody and you're like, "Wow, Bill is so successful. He became an overnight success. That guy all of a sudden just blew up and he was all over the place." But I think you sharing your story, it just puts merit to this. So you talked about how you were working with a client who didn't pay you, so you saw opportunity and you wrote this cookbook. And then you're like, "Well, wait, I see other opportunity here. And then we did another one and then we did another and then we did another." And all of a sudden you have this biggest turning point in your life where you're like, "Wow, it finally hit."

 So I think it goes back, if you're listening to this as an advisor and you haven't quite hit that bigger potential that you see within yourself, don't quit. Don't give up. Don't just throw in the towel and become complacent and just be okay with status quo, keep aiming for the stars because you'll hit one at some point.

 So I think that was a theme that we maybe didn't think was going to come about with all of this, but that really hit home with me, that wow, you just kept trying and pushing forward. And I think about your whole stretch from the referral concept into the Radical Relevance and everything that you're doing now and continuing to put so much value in the world, it was such a big inspiration for me listening and I know for our audience too, that the overnight success thing is a myth. It takes years of work and diligence and a commitment to doing things different and really trying and putting in the effort and the work. So I just have to commend you for that, Bill, because you gave me a moment of inspiration there that ... I always expect to be inspired by you, but that was deeper, that hit me on a deeper level. I love it.

 

Bill Cates:

You are too kind.

 

Brittany Anderson:

Oh, so good. Well, I'm excited for next week. I hope you're all excited too. This rounds out today's episode of the Ultimate Advisor Podcast. Make sure that you are back here next week to catch around three of our series with the wonderful, Mr. Bill Cates.

 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.

ABOUT THE

PODCAST

The Ultimate Advisor Podcast was specifically created to help financial advisors unlock their ultimate potential by providing invaluable information and resources to improve your income, and the management, marketing and operations of your financial advising practice

The Ultimate Advisor podcast is a business podcast for financial advisors who are looking to grow their advising practices with greater ease and effectiveness. Ultimate Advisor was developed to help financial advisors master their marketing, sell their services with greater authority, generate repeat clients, and additional revenue in their business.

 

Each week, your hosts Draye Redfern, Bryan Sweet, and Brittany Anderson will share some of the closest guarded secrets from successful financial advising practices across the U.S.  

YOUR HOSTS:

DRAYE REDFERN

Draye is the founder of Redfern Media, a direct response marketing agency that helps professionals to improve their marketing, attract new clients, generate more referrals and consistently "WOW" their clients. 

BRYAN SWEET

Founder of Sweet Financial, CEO, Wealth Advisor, RJFS,  Creator of The Dream Architect™

Co-founder of Dare to Dream Enterprises

Creator of Elite Wealth Advisor Symposium

Author of 3 books – Dare to Dream: Design the Retirement You Can’t Wait to Wake Up To, Imagine. Act. Inspire. A Daily Journal and Give & Grow: Proven Strategies for Starting an Running and Effective Study Group

BRITTANY ANDERSON

Director of Operations at Sweet Financial, Office Manager, RJFS,  Co-founder of Dare to Dream Enterprises Author of two books – Imagine. Act. Inspire. A Daily Journal & Dare to Dream: Design the Retirement You Can’t Wait to Wake Up To

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