THE ULTIMATE ADVISOR PODCAST

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EPISODE 73:

How To Make Your Business Stand Out - Be Unique

In this episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast, we jump into part three of our four part series, discussing the ways that you can take a holistic approach and make your business stand out to your ideal prospects and clients. In today’s episode, we go over doing things outside of the status quo to stand out, make a big impression, and show your prospects and clients who you are, and that you care. We talk about the importance of finding opportunities, like sharing your story, to build connections with your clients. We discuss some of the ways you can take singulair actions to create unique identifiers for you and your brand and deliver value in your business. So, push PLAY and join us as we delve into finding your niche, getting connected to your clients, and standing out in a competitive market!
 

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Speaker 1:

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

Brittany Anderson:

Welcome back to your Ultimate Advisor Podcast. This is Brittany Anderson, and again I have with me, Bryan Sweet and Draye Redfern, and we're continuing on the journey of talking about how you can help your business stand out. Now today's topic is about being unique and I want to make a really clear point here that you are your brand. So when you think about your company like Sweet Financial, for example. People don't fall in love with Sweet Financial as a company. They fall in love with the people in it, and that's what draws clients. So I want you to think about that. And this is a preframe for this episode, because I don't want you to be afraid of letting your personality shine through. When people feel like they can really get connected to who you are, and it feels natural, it feels fluid, it feels completely congruent to what's coming out of your mouth and how you're acting and all of that good stuff, that's where you start to stand out.

 Because anybody can have a financial advisory practice. Anybody could go out and do the necessary training and all that good stuff to become a financial advisor. But there's one unique advantage that you have that nobody else does. And that is that you are you. And that is what I really want to stress in today that we're going to talk about how you are truly your brand. We actually have an unwritten rule at Sweet Financial that if another advisory firm or another advisor in the area is doing something in particular, whether it be a format of a seminar, communications that go out, and even down to some of the holiday things that happen, if they're doing something in particular and we're seeing a common thread, we are not going to do that. And part of the reason for that is that we don't believe in doing things that are status quo. We believe in doing things that are making big impact, that are really going to ... I don't know how else to say this, but really catch attention.

 Not because we want that attention and not because we're like, hey, all eyes on us. But because we want to stand out in a way that shows that we really, really, really put a ton of effort and care into what we do for our clients and what we do for our prospective clients. So I'll preface this before we go any further by saying that we don't believe in reinventing the wheel, because there are certain things you need to implement in your business for ease and efficiency and automation and all of that great stuff. But we are trying to say is that you do not want to get lost in the white noise or become status quo because you lack that unique edge. So, Bryan, I think that you have some good insights of things that we have done at Sweet Financial within our niches and how we've really focused on standing out, how we focused on letting personality shine through even for the advisors in the office. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about that.
 

Bryan Sweet:

Yeah, I'd love to Brittany. Couple of things come to mind there. And one is we have three niches and I'll talk about two in particular, but we work really well with women in transition and that aspect of our business is called Women Forward. And then we work really well with business owners and that's called Smarter Business. And one of the things we always try to do is deliver value. As Joe Polly says, "Life gives to the giver and takes from the taker." So we're always trying to deliver value. And so one idea that we've had an amazing amount of success with is creating, for lack of a better term, client advisory councils, or just advisory councils, because it doesn't have to be just clients. And one of the things that we do is we'll get together a group of women, for example, that replicate the average people that will be in the Women Forward group.

 And we'll get them together for a lunch or an afternoon or a cocktail hour, and we'll just simply start asking questions about what problems and concerns do you deal with and what areas could we be most helpful with. And then literally just start opening up some open ended questions and really writing down the responses. And then using that information, then we can help be the solutions to the problems that they have. And this works exceptionally well in the business owner community also, I will tell you one of the things we started as did this, and it worked so well, we probably should be doing these every week. But it's amazing how many people, and several of them were not clients, said after these advisory meetings. That was the best meeting I've been to in a long time because I think they felt like they were finally heard, somebody cared about issues that they had. And somebody cared about trying to come up with what are some solutions that helped me get over the hump.

 And if you've not ever tried that, get together a group of six or eight people and do multiple groups and just keep it open ended and call people up and say, hey, I'm just trying to pull it together a group of people to learn more about your problems and concerns to see if there's anything our firm can do to help you overcome those. And you'll be surprised how many people will actually want to be part of that. And I would definitely include some of your best prospects in that, because that will make you stand out and make you unique as the topic of conversation is today.

 The other thing Brittany briefly alluded to is if you have a unique story and each of us has a unique story and whether you're telling it or not is the only difference, is you really need to share where you came from, how you got in the business, why you're doing what you're doing and the impact it has on people. And I never really believed this until we started working on that particular concept. And I will tell you, it is amazing, the connection you get with people when you tell them your story, whatever it is. But the thing that I found is that it does make you human, people can relate to you because they may have had that exact same experience. And all of a sudden, you become one of them. And if you've had successes, they are more attracted to you because they know you can help them.

 And if you have advisors, have them tell their own unique story. Ultimately, the theme of what you do and the firm you work with and how you go about it like ours is the dream architect. We all follow the dream architect process, but everybody has a different story of why they're there and what their story is, how they got there. And don't be a shy, don't be scared, whatever your past is. It's okay. Matter of fact, it will give you so much better connection with everybody that you work with, that if you've never tried it, it's absolutely amazing. And you can almost instantly see the connection that you gain with people after they hear a little bit about you and who you are. So Draye, why don't you share a couple of thoughts on how you think being unique because you probably have more than anybody. So I'd love to hear some thoughts.
 

Draye Redfern:

I love this stuff. I mean, I love all of this stuff to be honest, but I like this too. I really like all of it. But when it comes to being unique, there's a quote by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith that says, "If you do not create and control your environment, your environment will create and control you." And so if you're in a big metropolitan area, rural area, it doesn't matter what it is. If you don't take clear, concise action to be unique, it's easy just to get controlled by the environment. You're just another advisor. You're just one in a million. You're just like one in however many people, take a 3 wood and you can hit 15 advisers in a couple 100 yards in some areas. So what are you going to do to actually create your own environment? And when it says, like be unique, it's two simple words, but it's a very big topic. Like how do I become unique?

 And the answer is the same as how do you eat an elephant? And the answer to that is one bite at a time. So what can you do to be unique? Well, if you've listened to the podcast for any length of time, I'm a huge fan and proponent of what I call singular actions, doing something once, setting it and then either iterating off of it or just forgetting it because it can grow or it can run its own thing, or it could be, we call it in the marketing world, evergreen. So some singular actions are, you could come up with a name and a process. And for our accelerator members, we take all of them through a process of basically creating a process and finding names for the process, because that could easily be a unique identifier for you and your practice. Because simply just being XYZ Financial is cool. But why are you different?

 Now you could have authenticity, maybe it's emotion, maybe it's empathy, maybe it's impact. It could be a variety of different things. But at the end of the day, people also want to follow a process. They want to know where they are now and what the finish line is and where they are in that process. It's like playing Candy Land, or some of these other board games, you want to know where you are and what it's going to take to get to that finish line. That really helps people. But the problem is, is that many advisors use this, but not enough of them do and that in and of itself could be a unique identifier for you. So there's a proprietary, trademarked, unique dream architect process. In that process, the Sweet Financial team takes you through where you are now in order to help you achieve your goals throughout the planning process.

 Trademarked, can't knock it off. But that's what we really encourage, like find different things like that, that you can use, that you can identify with your brand that fits who you are, that's congruent with your brand or your messaging. And maybe you only want to service anesthesiologists in the Northeast or the Southwest. Totally cool. What is that unique identifier, that unique slogan, messaging and Sweet's mentioned a lot of it over the last few episodes, especially that you have, and what's the process that you take them through. That I would say right there, is the perfect place for most people to start because that's a singular action. What is the slogan or the identifier that people can start with? And then what is the process that you take someone through to help them go from where they are now to where they want to be? Maybe that's going from their first dollar to their first hundred thousand. Maybe that's taking from their first million and making sure they have enough income throughout retirement.

 The goals, the values, the ambitions are going to be different and yours are going to be different as well. But those are two singular actions that I would take, but I would also iterate off of that and say, just taking action once is amazing. Do something that can have reoccurring benefits, like a dividend. You invest in that stock once and that dividend can keep paying you over a period of time. That's a really solid singular action. But what I would encourage and I would push back on each of you is to say with your marketing or your sales or whatever else, you've got to actually like slowly iterate it on time and be okay if the first time doesn't work very well.

 Two examples of that really quick. My team and I were on a call with a mastermind member this week. So part of our mastermind members, we give additional calls or check-ins, if they need direct access to Bryan or Brittany and myself. This particular advisor wants to basically set up some infrastructure things, email marketing, and such online. Has a bad taste in his mouth because he doesn't like social media, doesn't like all of these sorts of things, and the last time he really did any marketing, he spent $16,000 on a postcard mailing campaign that he did once. There was no iterating on it, there was no testing on it. It was just let's blast it out to as many thousands of households as we can get for the $16,000. And he didn't even get a single call back. Nothing.

 So when I say singular actions, that doesn't just mean do something once and then hope, like fingers crossed, hail Mary, that something's going to work. No, like if you're creating your slogan, or you're creating your process. Amazing. You do it once. It's super solid, it's dialed in, but it would probably behoove you to ask and check in with your client base like the Sweet team does with their advisory councils. See, does this match with what the services that we're providing with you? You made a singular action, but do not hesitate, do not fear of checking in with the client base when it comes to internal processes or names. But also, if your external marketing, when it comes to being unique in your marketing or your sales, don't just do something once, because I can't tell you the amount of conversations that I've had, where someone says that I've done online advertising and I've done postcard mailing, and I've done direct mail and I've done dinner seminars and I've done everything. I've done everything, I've done it all, nothing works.

 And then you ask, well, how many times did you do it? Once. You can't expect results off of that. So part of it is being unique. Part of it is try new things, but you can't be afraid to iterate and improve on some of the things as you go. So that's some of my insights, I guess, for the unique section is don't be afraid to put some of that work in, do something, create something that's authentic and unique to you that stands for the brand. But also don't hesitate to ask the client base, like the Sweet team does, check in and iterate as things go. So Brittany.
 

Brittany Anderson:

You got my wheels spinning a little bit Draye because I think back to, or think about our mastermind sessions and one of the things that we talk about a lot is our belief in the idea that every advisor has the right to create their own definition of success. And every time we talk about that, I think about this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that says, "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else, is the greatest accomplishment." So when you think about all these ideas and how you can really essentially keep your eyes on your own paper. I mean, that's really what this is. Draye is talking about how people try things one time, then they throw it out the window. If you think about some of the things that Bryan was talking about, for us, we could very well go and do seminars, just like, Joe Blow down the street.

 That's fine. And that works great for some people, but for us, we just see it working better when we can really connect and we can flip the script and make it all about them, all about the audience members versus us standing up and talking about how great our process is. And I will tell you, when you look at really deepening relationships, if that's a value of yours and I highly recommend you try to do something that we've talked about, that Bryan gave example to, the stories thing. There's your time to be able to share a little bit about you. I mean, it's amazing when you really think about ... I think about our close rate and when we get in front of a prospect that we really want to do business with, it is few and far in between that we don't do business with those people. And I truly believe that it's because we find those connection points, that we find those opportunities to really connect on a deeper level versus, okay, let's talk about your finances and how we can invest your money.

 It's different, it's unique. We allow our advisors, yes, there's a formula that they follow, but we allow them to have their personality shine through. I think about Amber in our office. I mean, she talks about canning and her Doomsday prep and all this crazy stuff that she does, that is a really big connector for people. So it's letting them share what makes them different and what makes them unique and actually making that part of who they are and what the experience is in your office. Those things are so powerful. And if you really think about this, when you are, and I'm relating back to, we've talked about Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach. But he has a whole concept where he talks about the gap versus the gain. And it's more so applied in his context to entrepreneurs. But I think it's really valid for anybody. Honestly, a lot of humans, this is a human nature thing, I think.

 But when you're in the gap, you're measuring how far you have to go. But when you're in the gain, you're looking at how far you've come. And I think that's really, really powerful when you look at going after what makes you unique and really honing in on that. Because again, nobody else is you, nobody else can be like you. And if you're sitting there comparing yourself to somebody else's level of success and you're getting down on yourself, hey, as long as you're doing things that give you energy. You think about what we talked about in the last episode about living your mission, about being a mission with a business versus a business with a mission. If you're really living that out then who the heck cares? Are you accomplishing what you want? If the answer is yes, then who cares what the guy down the street is doing? Who cares what their level of production or what their assets are?

 If you're going after what you want, and you're making a difference in the world to the people you want to make a difference to, then nothing else matters as long as you're accomplishing what you want. So I think it's really important for advisors to hear that and that while yes, you can have big goals and you can have mentors and you can admire the success of others. Don't get caught in what Dan Sullivan calls that gap. Don't look at it saying, oh my gosh, I have so much further to go. And what's that proverbial benchmark of when I'll actually think I'm successful? If you get into that trap, it can be really, really hard to get out. So just focus on being unique, focus on doing the things that are different, that feel right to you.

 We've talked about how you have to kind of go with your gut sometimes. You have to just go with what feels right in your being. And I think that's where the power and the magic lies. I think that's where you're going to make a difference in your business, you're going to make a difference for your clients, and a difference for your team and that's fun. That's fulfilling. I mean, that's one heck of a life. So Bryan, Draye, is there anything else that you want to say before we wrap and give a few takeaways from today's episode?
 

Bryan Sweet:

All I can say is, well said, Brittany.
 

Brittany Anderson:

Thank you.
 

Draye Redfern:

Couldn't have said it better.
 

Brittany Anderson:

Well, if that's the case, then let's round out with a few takeaways. So I think the first one is really to decide how is it that you're unique? Are you allowing yourself to be forced into some box of what you think you should be? Are you really living out what you were put on this Earth for? There's a saying, and I'm going to totally mess this up. I know I will. But it's like the two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why. And I think if you can figure out that why, man get out of your way, because you are going to just take off and it's going to be amazing. So I think that's one thing is what makes you unique and what makes you just inherently you?

 The other thing too, is I really encourage you to drill into what your story is. Like Bryan mentioned, we all have a unique story. We all have a life, we have things we've lived through, good, bad, indifferent. But really deciding what's shaped you and what's gotten you here and what makes you relatable and not being afraid to share that. I think that's so important.

 And then finally, putting the spin on it that Draye talked about is there's so much opportunity to be able to market your business and to do it in a unique way. Don't just do it once and quit. It's like, Bryan, we've joked about this before it works so well, we stopped doing it. Maybe it's something that worked well and you're like, okay, well onto the next thing now. Rather than reinventing the wheel, just do that same thing over and over. And tweak it along the way to make it even better. And if you've tried something and it hasn't worked, and maybe you need to look at putting your unique flair on it. Maybe you need to do something a little bit more to stand out versus getting lost in that white noise, like we've talked about.

 So those are the few takeaways in today's episode, we're going to round out this episode of the Ultimate Advisor Podcast, and we're going to catch you right here next week, where we round out the conversation on how you can make your business stand out.

 Hey, Brittany here. Before you go, we wanted to share with you that we are running another Ultimate Advisor Summit coming to you September 21st through the 25th for a mere $97. That's right. Five days of killer speakers, killer content that's going to help you to continue optimizing your practice during a really interesting year. So go ahead, hop on over to ultimateadvisorsummit.com and grab your seat today.

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.