THE ULTIMATE ADVISOR PODCAST

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EPISODE 98:

Best & Simplest Top Business Tips - Paying Attention To The Small Stuff

In this episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast, we get into part two of our four-week journey, focusing on simple & practical business tips. In today’s episode, we talk about the importance of setting the standard for your office & how appearance is everything in the eyes of the prospects/clients. We discuss the significance of having a clear and clean space, especially when new prospects/clients come to visit. We also go over key CRM processes & workflows that will help you emphasize even the small things. So, push PLAY and join us as we delve into how you can create wins across the board by paying attention to the small things!

 

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Speaker 1  00:09

This is the Ultimate Advisor Podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful and scalable practice. Each week we'll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets and create the advising practice that you've dreamed up, you'll be joined by your hosts Bryan Sweet, who has more than half a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to hire improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practices marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let's jump into another amazing episode of the Ultimate Advisor Podcast.

 

Brittany Anderson  01:00

Welcome back to your Ultimate Advisor Podcast. This is Brittany Anderson. And again, I've got Bryan Sweet right alongside me as we continue on the journey of talking about some of the best and simplest top tips for your business. So we are excited to talk about paying attention to the small stuff today. You know, there is nothing worse than walking into an office or a space that appears to be unkept or uninviting. Now, this is crazy. And I know Bryan is going to attest to this. But it literally your attention cannot help but spot. If you walk into an office and there is paint chipped off the walls, the trim is scratched up or dingy, the space is in total disarray, where you've got stacks of files or paperwork everywhere, or a big hodgepodge of file cabinets just kind of put every which way. I mean, I can literally envision different businesses that I've encountered in my life, where that's been the experience. So again, Bryan is a huge advocate of this. So I'm going to have him jump in and talk on this here in a minute. But it's important for you, if you're listening to this as the primary or even if you're listening to this as the second in command, it is so important for you to set the standard for your office, that appearance is everything in the eyes of the client or the prospective client. We cannot press on this enough. In fact, we've delegated a couple of different people in the office to be the eagle eyes. Now, I will tell you full disclosure, there's nobody who is as big of an eagle eye as Mr. Sweet himself. Bryan, would you argue against that?

 

Bryan Sweet  02:42

No arguments there. I think it's maybe slightly a disease or something that I'm afflicted with. But it comes naturally, I don't try to look for things, but they do pop up unexpectedly. So let's just call that a good thing.

 

Brittany Anderson  03:00

You know, I think we've said you and I've talked about this before that it's a blessing and a curse. Because your eyes just can't help you. It's like you can be focused on something, you can be in a conversation and then all of a sudden something catches your eye and you're like, Wait a second. There's a chip over there. That's out of place.

 

Bryan Sweet  03:16

So true.

 

Brittany Anderson  03:17

Yeah. So you know, Bryan, I think something that you and I have talked a lot about. And I think this goes back to, you know, we've both have had the great privilege of whether it be through the wealth planning business, or through coaching other businesses, of being able to walk in and give practical tips to other business owners. And really, not just in the advisory world, but across the gambit. I mean, all different industries. And I think you have kind of an uncanny ability to walk into a space and give immediate high impact insights on what can help that business give an even bigger impact, help them run things even more efficiently. So I'd love for you to jump in and talk a little bit about some of those things that you tend to notice that you know, comes with time comes with being in the in the business and the ring of things for a while.

 

Bryan Sweet  04:07

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Brittany, I think this is maybe one of those overlooked things. Or maybe it's just one of my little oddities. But as you mentioned, you know, just with the businesses that we work with and our coaching, we've had the fortune to have them ask, you know, if you could improve things, what would they be and, and let me just maybe start before I give you some of the examples. But if you think about this a little bit, and somebody walks in and you've got mirrors on the walls or boxes standing out or you've got a messy desk or the light bulbs, you know aren't all working. What do you think the client is thinking in the back of his mind? Gee, they handle their office this way. I wonder if they'll handle my account this way? And the answer is they absolutely are thinking of that. And it's tough enough to get a new client and you don't need anything else added to it that might cause you not to get a new relationship built.  And so these things are things that fortunately, I do have this oddity where they do jump out at me. And might probably drive my team absolutely bonkers with things. But I think they've gotten used to it. And I think it's a good thing now. But it is something though, that you, I think, either you want to do yourself, if you're the owner of the business, I think you want to have pride and you know, what you do and how it looks and how you share it with clients. And if that's not a skill set of yours, as Brittany mentioned, we have a couple of others in the office that kind of walk in occasionally. And they come in from the parking lot. And they walk into the building. And they look literally everywhere. And do they see anything out of place? They walk in, they see the office. How do the chairs look? Is it a messy desk? We have too many magazines, which we typically only have one. Then you know, what's the desk look like? They have too much papers or their boxes standing out? While the lights not working, can you hear the music? Literally every little detail? You want it to be like a some kind of a musical event and you want to have it choreographed, where every little thing works well. So then they would walk down the hall. So if they go to the conference room, what's that look like? What's the conference room look like? Are the table set up appropriately? Are the flowers and the plants where you want them? And it may sound like I'm just obsessive on this but I think part of the success that we've had is we don't have any of those things hinder us in our execution. So it's all about the actual wealth management process and the dream architect, people don't have to worry that, gee, do they have messy paperwork and not do things and get things done and leave things details to, you know, expire and stuff like that just doesn't happen. And I understand it's really easy to let those things go. But if this podcast is about best and simplest business tips, that's a really easy one to handle. It's just simply having you or somebody on your team, be responsible for a walkthrough. And just look at everything, is it how you would want it if the client came in? And you know, we have some reps that maybe like to keep their desks a little messier than, than others. And so sometimes you got to be polite and say, gee, looks like you got a lot of paper, or maybe there's a drawer or something that some of that could find its way into. But it is a very positive building scenario that I think ultimately does get you get you business. And it isn't very difficult. But as Brittany alluded to, before, you want to have some checklists on having unique experiences. Well, I would have that on the checklist to once a month once every couple weeks, whatever, just have somebody run through the office very, very quickly. And you know, if something needs some paint, just, you know, go get it painted. Paint is very inexpensive. If the carpets wore out, get some new carpet. People will actually notice those kinds of things. Hey, did you get some new... We just got all new furniture, we created a new conference room, we got some team members, some new desks, and I was gone while it happened, which is probably a good thing. And I came back and I went, Wow, that really stands out and make our office even more impressive. And so it's just kind of keeping up it's like your house, you know, if you keep up on the little things, then nothing becomes a big thing. And it always shows real nice. And you can always be, you know, impressed with what you stand for. And, you know, when your friends come over, you can always feel good that what they see is something of quality. So I don't know, Brittany, if there's anything else you'd like to interject on that, but it's, I mean, when we walk into businesses, literally, I can pick out within five minutes 20 probably 20 items that are small, but would have a dramatic effect on just the and you know, messy things and this. So, anything else you'd like me to add to that?

 

Brittany Anderson  09:59

You know all I kept thinking about as you're talking and giving some of these examples is, you know, a clear and clean space represents a clear and clean mind. And I think that's something that, you know, you can just Google that just Google that concept. There's so many studies around how when your space is organized, when it's clean, when it's pristine, when you don't have a concern of Oh, yeah, I should probably touch that up, or Oh, yeah, that light switch is kind of smudged with, you know, from dirty fingers, whatever, I should probably get to that it's those things actually bog down your brain. So this whole concept of paying attention to the small stuff is actually much bigger than what we're even talking about here. Because it shows that when you don't have those things, weighing on you, or you don't have those things, even as a thought in your brain, you're able to put your attention to the stuff that matters. Like I don't know, your clients, their plans, their finances, all of those great things. So I think that, you know, that's something to pull out of here and actually push on a little bit, is that you want to have that clear space. So you can have a clear mind. And I had to kind of chuckle at the, you know, what Bryan was saying about, You know, sometimes you have to give those polite little nudges of, hey, do you have a drawer free? Nothing like the passive aggressive stuff. But in all actuality, I mean, I think that's important, and everybody operates different. You know, we have some people in the office who have what we call organized chaos, where they might have a pile or two piles of stuff, but they know and can tell you literally exactly what's in it. Yeah, that's fine. If that's, you know, their head down, they're working on some things. But again, we have as part of our process, if we're giving a tour, whether it be to a new client, or a client that's out of state, you know, we have clients in 30 some states, if they've never been in physically on our office before we tell them, your spaces need to be pristine, you need to have everything cleaned up, have stuff tucked away. I mean, I think we've all got that proverbial drawer like you have in your kitchen. where it's kind of the miscellaneous stuff that if I need a quick go to it just kind of slips right in there. But in all joking aside, it's so important, and I can't press on these things enough. So Bryan, I think you absolutely nailed it with, you know, it's the little things, the light bulbs, I mean, it's crazy how many times you walk into a space, and there's light bulbs burnt out, it's like, man, get the ladder. I'll do it while I'm here. So those are things that are really important to pay attention to.  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 ultimateadvisormastermind.com to learn more about how we can help you on your path and journey to growth. You know the other thing that I wanted to push on and circle back to from last week you know Brad and I both mentioned this welcome sign. And again, you're gonna be like okay, we get it, we get it the whole concept of the welcome sign, that's all fine and good. But I want to tell this little story here that we actually have had more than one time in our office. We have had it where we have this cute little welcome sign that's got this beautiful building which again, if you if you haven't gone to our sweet financial website, you need to sweet financial calm. You can see pictures you'll see pictures throughout it of our office of our spaces, but Seriously, we have a beautiful building. So we use that as a background for this particular welcome sign this little one page piece of paper we have had multiple times people ask to keep it, which sounds kind of crazy, and they'll be timid when they ask it. But there is something to be said about seeing your name in print, and having it nicely displayed. So it's those little things that matter. You know, if you want to expand this a little bit more when we think about our team, and we think about paying attention to small stuff, having service standards, it's actually shocking to me how many advisors we've worked with, whether it's through our Accelerator Program, through our Mastermind, where we get to kind of go deeper with everybody and have more of those intensives. When we start asking the questions around service standards, what's the expectation? It usually either goes one of two ways, either number one, everything's a priority, right? So you're like, well, we don't have our service standard is that everything is immediate? And you're going How do you even have a team still, you're killing them? You can't have that expectation? Because there's no time for them to breathe, or even come back with an educated answer for the client. Or you have the polar opposite extreme where you get that blink deer in the headlights look. And everybody's like, what do you mean by service tender, and not because they're not running a good operation, because they just haven't sat down to do the work and create a process around it. So when we talk about the small stuff, this also goes into, you know, how many times do you want the phone to ring before somebody picks up on your team? Now, this is especially important because everybody pretty much you know, everybody, every age demographic, everyone on the planet has a cell phone now. Well, what happens with cell phones, when they're calling into your business line, the cell phone is gonna ring once or twice before it actually rings at your office. Now, most people understand that not everybody though. So you darn well better have people picking up the phone quickly. So they don't feel like they're sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting for somebody to hopefully be on the other end. Again, it's like Bryan said, you don't want a client to walk in and be like, wow, if they can't take care of their space, how are they supposed to take care of my whole entire financial life savings, if they can't, you know, keep up on a space that they're in every day, the same thing goes, you don't want people to have the impression that, you know, you're not available to them. And they have to sit and let it ring and ring and ring and ring before they catch somebody on the other end. You know, to go even further with that, we have different standards put in place if a prospect calls in, or if a client calls in and they have a request. Now, again, we fully understand and embrace the fact that if we told our team, everybody's a priority, and you have to get back to them within an hour, it's just not realistic. And we have a lot of clients, we have a lot of people we serve. And we choose to do it that way. Right, we choose to have the model that we have. So we have different tiers where we might say for some instances, you can call back within two hours. Others it's 24hrs. And the very longest it's 48hrs. But what we also do is set the expectation upfront with the client. So if we know that, hey, yeah, they call them they requested something, if we know that we can't get to that for 24 hours, we ask them, Hey, is it okay? If I give you a buzz tomorrow with this information by three o'clock? Whatever that time is. A lot of times, what's going to happen is they're going to be like, Oh, yeah, that's no problem. Actually, if you call me by Friday, that's perfect. Okay, great. Now we just bought ourselves some more time, that's even better. So setting that expectation, and we can't talk about this enough. People fall into and create their own whirlwind so often, and we are preaching from the choir here, because we have done this to ourselves and still get caught in this sometimes, you know, if you set the expectation with the client saying, Hey, I think I can get to this or I know I can get to this within the next, you know, 48 hours, if I call you back on Wednesday by one o'clock, is that going to be sufficient for you? I can't tell you how many times our team has heard the words, oh, gosh, you don't even need to call me by than. I just need it by next week. Great. Now what we can do is take advantage of this beautiful system where we put in a little activity or a little task or to do and we know exactly when we can work on it. And it helps our team by themselves some time. And then the even better part on top of that is if we can actually exceed that deadline where we needed ahead of time. So they told us maybe Wednesday of next week is great, and we're calling them by Friday of the same week. That's a win. That's actually a double win because the clients getting it even faster than what they told you even faster than what they expected. So we'll push on this in a couple weeks where we're going to go deeper in the whole concept of, you know, under promise over deliver, but it's relevant right now. It's relevant to paying attention to the small details. The details are not only what matters to the client, but it's also what creates a flow for your team. And I can't say this enough and I know Bryan will attest to this. And Bryan, feel free to interject on this comment at any point. Processes, processes, processes, processes, the small stuff is the stuff that gets missed unless you have it in a checklist, unless you have it documented somewhere. So we have spent strenuous hours almost getting to the point where we are over processed, where we're kind of taking a step back and saying, Where do we back down on some of these things. But we got that way, because we understand and embrace without a process, man, things fall through the cracks. Not good things happen and then that's when you get the negative surprises that are not good, that are not wins for the team that aren't wins for the client. So Bryan, is there anything else that you would want to unpack there, along any of the things that I just touched on?

 

Bryan Sweet  20:55

No, I totally agree with the processes thing. And, and also just client expectation. You'd be amazed, if you ask the client, when do you need this by it's normally much later than you would have normally set for yourself. It's amazing. And then if you take that as the worst case scenario, and deliver a day earlier, you're going to look like a hero 100% of the time. And then getting back to the processes. checklists are great. Anytime you can build a workflow inside your CRM, that's incredible, where you know, point A then goes to point B, they might all be different people, I would tell you, the more you can use workflows that are automated, that's much better than actually checklists. But either of those is, is great. And Matter of fact, we just had a conversation with a gentleman whose name is John LoDuca. And he has a company called Playbook Builder. And if you don't have a process that kind of shows how you do things in the office that you can use for training people or getting people to learn systems, you might want to look at that. It's amazing software, it's called Playbook Builder, once again, and amazingly inexpensive for what you get. And that's just a really helpful thing. If you're looking to create a system and not know how to start it yourself, this is kind of pre built, you just fill in the blanks.

 

Brittany Anderson  22:28

You know, I think Bryan, you bring up a really good point, I'm glad you added some clarity to the checklist thing. You know, when we talk, we use the word process system checklist, what we're meaning is a workflow. And I know that that looks different for every team, depending upon the systems that you have. But that's been one thing that's glaringly staring us in the eyes is in order to create more efficiencies, and to be able to make sure you don't miss the small things, you have to have a CRM that is intuitive, and one that can produce quality workflows. So if you get nothing else, I mean, I'm going to go through a few top takeaways. And we can push on this a little bit next week, too, when we talk about running your firm like an actual business. But workflows, if there's nothing else that you invest in, invest in a software that's going to get you quality workflows, it is going to alleviate stress on your team, it's gonna alleviate stress and just brain capacity for you. Because a lot of times what we hear, especially for the advisors that come into our programs, so we get somebody that comes into the Accelerator, we get somebody that comes into our Mastermind, a lot of times what's happening is they're still in the depth of the daily. And what we mean by that is they're still doing some of the admin work, they're still in the follow up mode with clients. Now, Bryan, I think what he's done that's so unique is he's really created a system in the office, where and we've talked about this before, but he can step away for 16 weeks out of the year. And the business isn't just you know, doing okay, it's growing still. And you know, we kind of that we talked about the furniture thing. So we had spruced up some furniture in the office, and we did it without him here, because we knew it would go so well. And, you know, I say that jokingly, but really, I mean, that's the freedom that's been created is we can do these things, whether he's here or he's not, it doesn't matter, we're able to just continue on, because we all know what the vision is. And we all have bought into that. And we're all excited about it. So again, if you look at paying attention to the small stuff, creating the workflows and creating the freedom of mind did not have to think about this stuff. I mean, how freeing would that be if you as an advisor listening in, you don't have to think about, you know, did my team follow up? You don't have to think about Oh, do I need to call this client back. It's all built into the workflow and it's all tracked in your CRM. That is so darn important and so invaluable, you can't put a price tag on that to be honest. So, the top three takeaways from today, I won't go deep into the workflow rabbit hole because we'll talk about running things like a business next week. But the first Thing is, is just simply pay attention to the condition of your office, I have walked into highly successful businesses, and I have to scratch my head sometimes at the condition that the space is in. So don't be that Don't be that that first impression, don't leave that as a lasting impression with your clients with your prospects and with your team. You know like Bryan said, take pride in your space, take pride in the you know, the image that you're putting out there. Looking at it, I think this is kind of point two, or we can call it 1.2. Looking at it from the clients perspective, you know, as Bryan shared, designate somebody, so you don't have to necessarily be the one I mean, if you're an eagle eye, like Mr. Sweet is, sometimes you're going to catch things that nobody else in their right mind would have ever seen. Just because that's you know how your brain is wired. And that's fine. But have somebody that looks at the bigger stuff. So walk in from the clients perspective, come in that front door, look at what they're looking at, and experience it from their point of view. You know, it's amazing at the things that you see when you kind of step out of your proverbial box and actually look at things from the clients perspective. And then finally, it's to set clear expectations with your team and with your client. So like, like we've talked about, you know, when you commit to a follow up time, you may find that your client actually doesn't even need it by them. So you can buy yourself more time, stop killing your team, and deliver an amazing experience to the client all at the same time. And that's like a triple win. That's a triple whammy. So I can't stress that component enough is just making sure that you're paying attention to the small things, and creating wins across the board. So that wraps up today's episode of your Ultimate Advisor Podcast. We're going to catch you right back here next week as we continue on this journey of some of the best business tips for your amazing year. 

 

Brittany Anderson  26:52

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!

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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Ultimate Advisor is NOT a financial advising firm and does not provide financial services.