Read The Transcript Of The Episode:

Speaker 1:

This is The Ultimate Advisor Podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful, and scalable practice. Each week we'll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals, your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets, and create the advising practice that you've dreamed of. You'll be joined by your hosts Bryan Sweet, who has more than half a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to hire, improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redford, 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:

Welcome back to The Ultimate Advisor Podcast. This is Brittany Anderson here with you today alongside Draye Redfern and Bryan Sweet, and we are going to talk about how we are still facing some really interesting times. We are in a peculiar time period, let's just say, so we thought, why not share some fresh business-building ideas that can help you continue to escalate your business, to really grow and to focus on the positive during times of challenge.

 So today we're going to talk about the foundation of really what matters in your business, and that's taking care of your clients. This is absolutely foundational when it comes to continuing to grow your business. It's all about serving the people that have gotten you to where you are right now, so we can't forget. Sometimes it's easy to get focused on the new shiny object, the next best thing, what's next for the business, who else can you help, who else can you serve? We don't want you to lose sight of the people that have gotten you to where you are.

 So one example that I thought would be kind of a fun one to kick off today is to share that there is so much opportunity within your team. You, as the advisor, listening to this, this is not all on you. You can absolutely empower your team members to take care of your clients in a really unique way, which then turns every single person in your business into a referral driver. That's not a bad problem to have. That's a really, really good thing for your business.

 Something that we do at Sweet Financial is we actually empower our team members to go the extra mile with clients to do extra things. It's actually funny and so timely because just recently, Bryan was actually forwarded an email from a client who was complimenting a team member who went to this person's house and hand-delivered home-baked cookies to them for a birthday because she was worried that the original gift wouldn't get there in enough time, so she just took it upon herself. She went and took care of it. She did this amazing thing of baking her delicious cookies that she makes fresh for our office every day and she went the extra mile, and she didn't have to ask permission for that. She didn't have to get our good graces to do it. She just knows that this is the culture. This is what you do at Sweet Financial and this is how you produce raving fans.

 And the client actually said to Brian, "his is what differentiates you. This is what makes you stand out." They're excited about it. They're excited about working and they couldn't thank us enough for some goofy cookies. So really what this boils down to is how can you treat the people who again, who have helped you get to the point that you're at? How can you do extras for them? How can you treat them like they matter, make people feel like they matter? Because that is what matters for your business.

 This is just one example out of so many that we see our team members execute on at Sweet Financial, and they know that they don't have to ask permission because the greater culture drive is what is front of mind for everybody. So, Bryan, I thought you would be a great one to come in on this because you have absolutely just been a catalyst for the client comes first, for serving the client and doing so with the best of our ability. I know you have some great tidbits to add today, so I'd love to pass it over to you.
 

Bryan:

Well, thank you, Brittany. It's great to have you back. We missed you for a couple of episodes, but Draye and I just kind of barely scraped by, but always better to have you part of the podcast.
 

Brittany:

Well, it was a little nerve wracking letting you two go free by yourselves, so I'm glad you're back.
 

Bryan:

We got recorded. We barely made it
 

Brittany:

So good.
 

Bryan:

But anyway, welcome back. No, you touch on a great thing. And I think if you just boil down what we do in this business, it really is just taking care of clients, and if you really just did nothing else, but take care of your existing clients, you'll probably be extremely successful because they're going to talk to others and other things will happen that would generate more business. I always think back when we talk about taking care of clients about my uncle Roy, which I've mentioned before. I used to spend summers with him and he owned a machinery shop and sold farm equipment, and one of the things that I always remember, and it's just so vivid in my mind, is that he always went out of his way to help customers. I just remember that the results that he got, he had an amazingly successful business, and I think the big reason was he was always thinking of what can I do to make the client experience better? What can I do to make the client's life better?

 And I could probably spend the whole podcast time just telling you different things that I saw, but the thing that I got out of it as a young person was how his actions lead to positive things. And so I try to use that as the basis for what we do at Sweet Financial, and I would tell you it really works. And so the one really non-negotiable in our office really does pertain to our service standards. As Brittany had mentioned, we do have carte blanche on if the staff person needs to spend some money on a client to make them happy or to go that extra mile or drive out to their house or whatever it is, that we just really have a kind of a blank check policy on that because it's those little things that lead to big results.

 Man, I will tell you that just the culmination of doing that over and over and over the years, those clients will not only give you referrals, but obviously as situations pop up, they get inheritances, they retire from work, they have whatever happens, I will guarantee you you're going to be front of mind and you're going to be the person that gets those dollars when they come out.

 A couple of other things that I'll allude to that on a stand out with this is if you really think back on when we get new clients and we always like to ask, what can we do better or what didn't you get at the other advisor that we want to make sure that we don't forget to take care of for you, virtually every single time they say that they never heard from their existing advisor. They've got on board and all of a sudden they disappeared. It's not that difficult to stay in touch. Simple phone calls, regular reviews, and especially if you can do these little extra special touches, really has an amazing effect.

 And I think one thing that you could teach all of your team, whether it's one, two people or 20 people, and I found this works exceptionally well, is when you're dealing with a client or your staff is dealing with the client, if they're asking for something to be done, have the staff ask, "I can have that done by Tuesday. Is that an okay timeframe for you?" And if they say, "No, I really needed it done by Monday," one, you know that, two, then you change the timeframe, but once you get agreement from the client, then all you really need to do is meet that deadline. And if you actually got it done a day early, what's going to happen? Well, you're going to look really, really good in their eyes. But if you deliver it on Tuesday and they expected it Tuesday, you met all their expectations and it was their expectations, not yours.

 And then the other thing is, is really just make sure you know all there is to know about the clients because it's a easier to take care of them if you know what they're interested in and that's a lot easier to give them little treats and goodies and things to remember them.

 I'm really curious, though, one of the things we get a lot of benefit out of is going to a lot of these different masterminds and I get all sorts of different ideas from different industries as to how to while your clients. And so one of the things I'd like to do is just kind of hear all the unique things that Draye does to take care of his clients.

Draye:

Thanks, Bryan, I love this stuff. It's just fun kind of just putting the creative hat on from time to time. An example that we did for our Ultimate Advisor mastermind members just a few months ago is we had our mastermind meeting in April and it was supposed to be in person, and obviously with COVID and all of the other things that have come up, we had to do it virtually. And so we went above and beyond to make a wonderful experience. Put all sorts of things in there. We bought the last 20 webcams that were available on Amazon that were worth a darn so that people could actually be on camera. We put a bunch of odds and ends things there, but we also put toilet paper because that was a fun little joke because the world was all short of toilet paper during this period of time. So it's a fun little way to at least make them laugh and recognize that you know what? Stuff happens, but we're not going to take ourselves too seriously, but we value you, we want to make it a good experience.

 So we did a lot of other customization, a lot of fun things that maybe we can cover later at a different time, but always have time-related moments or something that can have more of an impact for that moment. I can tell you, you fast forward to six months, they're going to remember some of the other odds and ends things. We did some personalized cups for them, et cetera, but a lot of them have made separate comments like that. Toilet paper was hilarious. And so it's things like that. That was like, what, $1.50? But that's the things that people talk a lot about.

 Another example's when all of this was going on in the March-April timeframe for Redfern Media, all have our clients are all over the US and some globally, and we filmed the video that was the COVID video. Not about all of the bad things that are going on, not about all of the negative stuff. We took COVID and we made it an acronym so that each letter had some sort of significance on how they can capitalize on this opportunity that was presenting itself. The O was opportunity and some of the opportunities that were presenting themselves back in March, April, and still to a certain amount today, as an example, was ad costs. Facebook costs to advertise dropped by 40% in 60 days, so if you wanted to advertise, your dollars could go a lot, lot further. If you wanted to hire somebody, well, the job pool just got a lot larger with a lot more qualified talent that you may be able to scoop up potentially even at a discount. If you wanted to hire somebody and you could afford it, the opportunity could be massive to do so. The D in COVID was differentiation, just finding additional ways that you could differentiate.

 So making all of these fun marketing tactics and strategies hyper relevant to the moment. We basically did in that particular instance was, we're on camera right now, but you can't see, this is obviously a podcast. I got about a hundred square feet of whiteboard behind my head. I had the whole team in the office. We basically white boarded potential acronyms for COVID. And the way that we do that, and you can do the same thing in your practice, is you just go to Google and you type in positive words that start with blank. G D C O V I D. You go down the line and there's wonderful lists of words that you can use to make acronyms and make it really simple and really easy. That's what we did. The whole thing took maybe 20 minutes. And it was a great way to have COVID as an acronym, talking about all of the opportunities and just the odds and ends around there to make it more personable, more relevant to the moment hyper relevant to the time.

 And so we've got other fun things. We got another mastermind that by the time you're hearing this, we will be in the middle of the mastermind. And we've got some fun things hyper-relevant to the moment if we were at, fast-forward from COVID a few weeks ago, that I don't want to tell that [inaudible 00:13:09] is going to want to keep the surprise there. But when you do these things to keep setting it apart, keep upping the game. And I love it because it's a creative challenge because we did some cool things last time around and we're trying to up our game to the next degree because again, our mastermind meeting is going to be virtual this time. And so it's a matter of how do we keep upping it?

 And so it's just a matter of thinking outside the box, but it doesn't have to be more difficult than what I just told you. You can make a COVID video yourself. Another one of our mastermind members did a remedy video. How do we remedy the situation with your financial portfolio? And the R was something and the E was something and they made a little video on this and, and it was a 15-minute video walking them through how they're going to be in good hands, yada, yada, yada, so on and so forth. And that's a great way to make it hyper relevant to the moment and really just differentiate yourself.

 Because as Bryan said a minute ago, one of the major gripes that so many people have is they never hear from their advisor, so this is a great way, really quick differentiation. You have to have your own acronym. It takes 15 minutes and it goes a long way. Even if it's just a video to differentiate yourself from the rest of the advisors out there and really can help you build more of that business, have more of those referrals or more individuals talking about you. The video could get passed around. There's all sorts of things and benefits that could come as a result of that. Brittany, anything else there that you want to jump in on?
 

Brittany:

Yeah, I just have to say, I love Google.
 

Draye:

It's the best.
 

Brittany:

Any question can be answered in this world. If you're wondering anything across the board, just Google it.
 

Draye:

There's something to be said about working smarter, not harder.
 

Brittany:

Amen. Use the resources we have. Y'all have a phone in your pocket. There's something that I was about, actually, as both of you were talking and that's, we have a new mastermind member who was just sharing with me, I was on a call with him the other day and he was sharing with me how for his 60th birthday, he actually gave a challenge to his family members to have them do 60 random acts of kindness. He gave them a budget, so he funded it, and it was such an amazing experience for his family. It was something that everybody came together and they shared what happened, and then he did some cool stuff behind the scenes for them as well for doing and following through with what they all committed to.

 So this got me thinking, number one, what an amazing thing to do in your community, so let's do that. That's amazing. That's so fun, and what an intentional way to live, especially during times where people are down in the dumps and there's challenges and there's things that we could have never anticipated, I think ever in our lifespan, that are happening this year. But the other thing that you can do with your team, this is a great way to take care of your clients and get your team, talk about a culture build, is to give them a challenge to say, okay, for the next month or for the next 90 days, we are going to have a challenge to see who can do the most random acts of kindness. And I think that is really powerful because you're going to the existing clients that you have and you're being intentional about taking care of them and you get all hands on deck. Like I said, this is not just you. Just because you might be the primary person in the office that actually meets with the clients, it doesn't have to all fall on you. So I would encourage you, maybe accept this as a challenge is to deal with some sort of random act of kindness challenge within your business and see how much traction that gets you.

 Now, there are some people out there that would say and would argue that if you just take, like Bryan said, if you take really darn good care of your clients, that's going to get you all the business that you can muster. Now, personally, I like to mix that up and add a little bit of marketing in, too, because I think you're doing a disservice to people by not communicating the value that you can add to your ideal client, but I think there's so much power in that.

 And the other thing, if 2020 has not taught us anything else, it's just be mindful of taking care of people, of letting people know that you love them, that you care about them. So if you're thinking about a client, if they pop in your head for whatever random reason, call them, email them, tell them that you're thinking about them. There doesn't have to be any other motive behind it other than, "Hey, I was thinking about you. You popped in my head. How are you?" So many times we let those fleeting thoughts just leave our minds and it's passing and we're onto the next thing. But again, when you're focused on taking care of your existing clients and you're thinking about what you can do for them, just be intentional, reach out, talk to them. People want that interaction, especially right now. So before I go into the wrap up, Bryan, Draye, is there anything else that you want to add before I give some key takeaways?
 

Bryan:

Well, one thing you might want to do, and you made me think of this, Brittany, is in your office, just have a little bit of a challenge or get-together and determine what are all the different ways, and you can jot these down and maybe slowly check them off, of ways that I can touch my clients. You might be surprised if you just do it as a group exercise how much fun it could be. Plus, it's training your staff to think that way. And one of the key things is the more they know what you expect and how you expect it and then you reinforce that by having little duties and little exercises where you're actually going out and implementing those little personal touches, that will really continue to have your team do that in the future without you probably even having to ask.
 

Brittany:

That's so, so good. Let's round out this episode. I'm going to give you a few key takeaways that you can implement immediately. Number one, sit down with your team and empower them to take care of your clients. Give them some of the ideas that we've talked about today. Give them some sort of momentum to move forward on and let them know that they don't have to get permission to do those wonderful things. That is the first thing that I encourage you to do if you're not already.

 The second, and I think everybody kind of touched on this today, but do what you say. If you commit to a timeframe, if you commit to a certain delivery for a client, follow through on that, and by all means, meet it, and if you can, exceed it because that's how you stand out and that's how you become again, referable because you're truly taking care of people and they know that you stand by your word.

 And then finally, I think the biggest one here, too, is to get creative. Don't be afraid to think outside the box to do something different. I mean, I can't tell you how many advisors, especially during the COVID period, whether it was through our summit, after the summit, through the accelerator program that we run, all of these different actions, we've talked to so many financial advisors in 2020 and there are some out there that during times of challenge, during uncertainty and during adversity, they get nervous and they don't act. They freeze, and that's not the way to handle your business. That's not the way to get traction. So if nothing else, just jump on the phone and start calling people and asking how the heck they are. Just make sure that you're not going that polar opposite. Get creative, stand out, and really make an effort and be intentional about how you are reaching your clients and how you're caring for them and how you're showing them that you're still here. You're not going anywhere and everything's going to be okay.

 That rounds out this episode of The Ultimate Adviser Podcast. We will catch you right back here next week where we're going to talk about how you can lead with value.

 Hey. Brittany here. Before you go, we wanted to share with you that we are running another Ultimate Advisor summit coming to you September 21-25 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.