THE ULTIMATE ADVISOR PODCAST

Weekly Insights to Help You Craft the Ultimate Advising Practice

EPISODE 96:

Creating a Wow Experience for Your Clients - Surprise & Delight

In this episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast, we round out our special three week treat, focusing on what it means to create a wow experience for your clients. In our final episode of this series, we talk about ways to surprise and delight your customers/clients. We discuss the perfect times of the year to give gifts to your customers/clients that will help you stand out from the rest. Lastly, we went over the importance of finding the perfect person to be in charge of surprising and delighting your customers/clients. So push PLAY and let us walk you through how to differentiate yourself from the rest of the competition!

 

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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 here with you today. I am Brittany Anderson. And I've got with me, Bryan Sweet and Draye Redfern. And we're rounding out a three-part series where we're even talking about how you can create a wow experience for your clients. So we started off with some really good stuff on establishing core values, we rounded into the importance of knowing your clients and what that means on a much deeper level. And so now we're going to get to some of the fun stuff. You know, everybody loves a good surprise. Even the people that say they don't love surprises, it's usually because they really don't like the not so good surprises. It's the stuff like, Hey, your special order that you were promised is not going to be here on time. Or Oh, you're in a construction progress project. Well, your contractor is going to be delayed for the third week in a row. Or Yeah, you've been on zoom call in the other room now that were a lot of us have worked from home or experienced that in some capacity in the last year. And you come out to your kids having demolished your living room and or colored on the wall. And I am speaking from personal experience on that one. It happened not once, not twice, but three times. I firmly believe in Mr. Clean Magic Eraser for all the parents out there buy it now it will help you and your sanity. But those are the kinds of things that are absolutely not good surprises. But the fun ones, the ones that make us feel special, those are worth their weight in gold. So that's what we mean by surprise and delight. So one book, we've mentioned this before, we've adopted a lot of the principles at Sweet Financial, but it's called Giftology by John Rulon, and he shares one example that I think everybody can either relate to, or it will at least resonate with you. So to give a little bit of backstory on this, think about Christmas. And let's actually just think about this last Christmas, especially in our world, in our industry, we'll just say we are very blessed with gifts from clients, from colleagues from wholesalers from the whole, like, and any day of the week, in the month of December, you can literally walk into our break room at Sweet Financial and immediately get diabetes. And what I mean by that is there are constantly sweets and goodies and treats. And they're homemade, or they're sent from like the best chocolate factory on the planet, or you know, whatever the case is, but there's so much stuff back there that it becomes really hard to remember where each of them came from. So yeah, we make notes of it. And we make sure that you know, we always honor and say thank you because we sincerely appreciate those gifts. But the point is, is that you become inundated that I can't walk back there and be like, Oh, well, this was from john, and this was from Bill and this was from this company. And this was from this person, you just don't remember. And you don't know because you're inundated or even think about your kids. If you have young kids at home at Christmas time. They're getting gifts from you from their grandparents, from aunts and uncles from maybe some friends or maybe some cousins, do you think they remember where every single one of those gifts came from? No, they go into a pile they go into a drawer and it's forgotten about who actually got them, you know, a week later or even a day later. So the same proves true for how and what you gift your clients at Christmas time. So again, we're referencing this book Giftology or the process of Giftology from John Rulon, his method, or his recommendation is actually not to gift right around Christmas, because you no longer stand out. Because you're no longer surprising and delighting because at Christmas time. I'm not saying that anybody here is a greedy person, but you kind of expect gifts or you know that they're coming. Not that you're expecting and saying everybody needs to present me with goodies and, and gifts and all of that, but it's just something that we do by tradition. So it's not really a surprise if somebody sends you a Christmas gift, because it's that time of year and tis the season.  So we have a rotation at Sweet a couple years in a row we did gifts in January. So after the first of the year where we did a while where it's, you know, kind of the season has passed and the business of everything is past. So then it's able to stand out and be a true surprise and a true delight. This past year we gifted in early December, because again, we don't want people to all of a sudden be like, Oh, well Sweet's really good at gifting after the first of the year. So you've got to switch it up. And you have to have some flexibility there. And you have to figure out what works for you. But the whole point of this is that the only time of year that you're gifting is Christmas, or the only time that you're doing those little, you know, warm, fuzzy surprises and delights is around the holly jolly time of the year, you're getting caught in the blur of what everybody else is doing. So I use Christmas time just because everybody can relate to that in some capacity. But really, there's so many opportunities throughout the year for you to stand out for you to be a little bit different. And for you to truly bring joy to your clients lives. And to truly make them feel special and like you're paying attention, and not just doing something because it's the season and because you feel like you have to. So Bryan, I would love for you to jump in here and share a little bit about how we focus on providing the surprises and the delights to our clients throughout the entire year.

 

Bryan Sweet  06:28

Love to Brittany, I'll give several examples of things that we've done. If you haven't caught the episode prior to this in that I referenced an input sheet that we keep 30 or 35 items on clients. So we know specifically what gifts are appropriate. So as I mentioned before, you don't want to send chocolates to a client when you know they're, you know, allergic to them, for example. So look back at that, and actually our input sheet was listed there. But let me just give you a couple of ideas. And, and one of the things that I think is really, really important is that everybody loves to put their logos on things and send it out, you know, so Sweet Financial, so they remember, you probably want to really look at the other things and do it a little bit differently and put the client's names on. And so literally everything that we do, except for customized boxes, and labeling that we have to make our gifts pop or stand out, are all with clients names. And so it's amazing the impact, but people love to see their own names. And they know that's mine. And what happens is people see it, and then they go, well, where did you get that? Whatever it happens to be, Oh, I got that from my financial advisor, because they're more likely to show it or leave it out or display it, if its got their name on it, versus your logo that they have on their dining room table, for example. So just to give you a couple of, you know, crazy ideas, but just to show you that these things work, we do have a story in our office, Connie, who's our Director of First Impressions is amazing. And she makes like the world's best chocolate chip cookies. I mean, people will just kind of pop in occasionally because they get need a cookie fix, and they know Connie's got them out. Most of the time, we've had a little unique, you know, issue with COVID lately, but you know, special orders can be requested, for example. But just to give you an idea, we had this amazing meeting with one of our great clients. And we were doing some tax planning forum. And we got through and talking about all the things that we were able to do and they said, Hey, those look all great. And we implement that. And then literally I don't remember exact number but it was hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax savings that we were able to show them that they would generate over the next X number of years by making these tweaks and so we got out of the office and they're getting their jackets and ready to leave and Connie comes up to him with this little gift basket and in the gift basket is Connie's cookies. Well, they were so much more impressed with the cookie basket than the hundreds of times they could have bought a cookie factory with the tax savings that we got them. But that made such an impact that we would think of them to donate some cookies that just as always stuck with me.  Another one is one of our really high net worth clients. We love to know what people like, and this client happens to be quite the guy that loves to snack. And so he likes peanuts and licorice for the most part, and then we'll put some string cheese and we put this whole display of food and, and put it out when he comes into the office. And, you know, by the end of the meeting, he's pretty much got everything eaten, but he's got a big smile on his face. And he's one of these guys that fortunate he's had an amazing career and, and doesn't want for anything. And, you know, that doesn't ever take anybody out of his portfolio. And it's just gotten to be a great client, great person just thoroughly enjoy it. But that little thing, he could buy himself anything, I mean, literally anything. And that little value add that he doesn't get any place else means a lot to him, because we took the time and energy to custom make a little stack plate for him. You know, this year, we sent out throw blankets that were customized to clients and I literally have gotten, I can't even tell you how many emails from clients that said, Can you send more of those blankets, because we're fighting over who gets to use it, and I just said, well, you should struggle more, but that the noise go over well, but anyway, the, you know, just those little things. And you know, people say, I don't know if you looked in my living room, but it matches my decor and you know, the sort of line with our styles and just amazing things. And it's things that they use, things that they lay out, and then people talk about it. And Gee, I didn't get a throw a blanket from my advisor. And so little things, get positive comments said about you that have nothing to do with investments. And all these little things we do are not by accident. But rather we're focused, not only knowing about who our clients are, but also knowing what delights them.  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's 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 in 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 can do it but very easy thing if you just train your team members to keep their ears open. And that either have somebody in charge of you know, taking that news and sending out gifts or just giving them the authority unless it's, you know, thousands of dollars or literally one hundred dollars if you follow the rules to send out a gift. And you know another little quick idea if you've got some children that are graduating or from high school and you hear Gee, they're going to xyz college. We'll just order some sweatshirts from that college for the person that's going to the school and mom and dad. Just a simple thing like that. Go to Amazon and literally in five minutes you have it done. And it's just amazing the goodwill, it brings you and people just love them to share those good conversations and what you've done with others. And so it's just been an amazing way of helping the referrals that we get from the company. And Draye I'd love you to share, you've got some amazing stories on surprise and delight too. And you always throw a unique spin on it. So, please share.

 

Draye Redfern  15:21

Yeah, I love this stuff. Yeah, part of it is just the fun creativity of thinking through, What about this? And what about and 90% of the ideas that we come up with we never actually used because like, okay, that's way nuts. But is it? Like, what if we did it? So those are the general conversations that we have all the time in the office in regards to this, and I 1,000% agree with Bryan and Brittany is that timing is everything, and not timing it around the same thing that everyone else is doing at the same time. So yeah, we're prepping for some from February, things that are going to go out because Christmas and New Year's was same sort of timing. You know, last year, we did a New Year's thing. This year, we're changing and apps, like just Bryan's exactly right, change up the timeframe of when you do it. And we got to have a master Doc, very similar to what Bryan was so generous to give to all of you last week in that episode, show notes at ultimateadvisorcoaching.com/podcast, not so subtle plug. And that way you can download that. But the preference sheet is a wonderful way to keep track of these things. But also, I would say more than anything to build on we talked about last week is listen, because they may like chocolate or vanilla. They may like red wine over white wine. They may like skydiving or bungee jumping, I don't know that everybody has their preferences. But if you ask the right questions, and you actually listen, you may find out very weird or interesting things about them that maybe they didn't even really give much attention to. So maybe it's not even a preference. Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's I mean, there's all sorts of weird examples that we could probably talk about, but like just keeping your ears open to like, actually, like, what is it and maybe you can acquire something to give them maybe it's like you happen to come across it at the right place at the right time. And because you asked that question, you're thinking about them, you can get it to give to them, you just have so many additional options, when you actually listen to what they're saying. Also agree with what Bryan was saying. One of our clients mentioned that she loves that, you know, one of the girls on our team take notes in different colored pens every single time they noticed it. And so out of the blue one of the girls on my team is she bought a pack of these awesome multicolored pens, and shipped them out of the blue but didn't ask for I just took care of it what did it because that's the level of like, they thought it was cool, like we're going to do the same sort of thing. So yes, the master doc is so incredibly important to know those things, but like, be open and aware of what your surroundings are and what people are saying, and what they're really saying. Because they may be saying one thing, but they may all be meaning something completely different, which we all sort of talked about last time as well. So timing, the preferences, all of those things, giving your team the autonomy to do it up until whatever your threshold may be. And I think those are the big things. I think that Brittany, Bryan, you covered so many different things. And the only other thing that I may add to it is if, for example, you know you are, you've got different advisors on your team, or maybe you're the sole advisor if you go on a trip, and you're the one who had a cool experience or you went somewhere and he experienced something, then from your trip by some of those things that you can give to your clients. So several years ago, I went to Morocco, I bought a bunch of Moroccan slippers, the guy thought I was nuts for buy my 20 pairs of these things. And I gave them away a few years ago I went to Italy one you know we're in Tuscany, bought a bunch of super Tuscan wine. And I gave that away. So a part of that you put a note with that you share the experience of You know what, like, Hey, I had this experience. I got this when I was there because I was thinking about you. And you give it that way. So it also humanizes you that like you are sharing a portion of yourself your vacation making you less of a robotic advisor more of an actual cool human being and extending that experience with them. So there's that'll be the only other thing that I would add into it is yes, their preferences, but also sometimes you can spice it up and share some of the things that that you experience as well with them. So, Brittany, I'll turn it over to you to share some of those biggest takeaways.

 

Brittany Anderson  19:41

Yeah, you know, before I get into the top few takeaways, there's a couple of things I want to comment on. Number one, you might be listening to this as the advisor going Okay, so now I have to not only make sure that I'm reviewing my client’s finances and getting their plans in place and just juggling the massive chaos that I have in my life right now, as I'm building my business and all that, that requires my energy. And now I have to become a gifting specialist super. So the thing that I want to comment on, because I'm sure that's going through some of your minds is that it is not up to you to do all of it. Yes, you need to have your antennas up. And yes, you need to pay attention and make the notations of things that you hear, but you absolutely need to delegate this to somebody on your team, put somebody in charge of this aspect of your business for two reasons. Number one, you simply just shouldn't be doing it yourself, right, that's just a point blank. But number two, if you don't have somebody designated to it, it's probably never going to get done. If everybody on your team is just like, Yes, great idea, let's all make sure that we're paying attention, and we're all gifting and whatever. If you don't have one person that's actually dedicated to make it a consistent experience, then there's a good chance that wheels could fall off, there could be duplications, there could be nothing that happens, all of that. So when we say that we give our team autonomy, there's still a methodology behind it, there's still a certain process that people follow. You know, if you have the right kind of CRM system, you should be able to notate in there when you gifted what it was. And you can do what we like to call random acts of kindness that are maybe not so incredibly random, because they're scheduled in your system. So instead of you having to think about and try to remember, like, okay, I gifted, and I did a while for this person in January, I really want to go back to this maybe in September, I just need to remember that. Oofta! The biggest lie that we tell ourselves is I will remember that. So be sure to maximize the technologies and the capabilities that you have right at your fingertips, to make it something that you can set it and forget it that you don't even have to think about going into the future. So that's just one thing that I wanted to add to not only alleviate the stress of oh my goodness, it's one more thing to do. But to also say that there are ways to systematize this, to make it so that you don't have to have at some big chore for you or for your team. So before I get into the biggest takeaways from today, Draye, Bryan, anything else that either of you would like to add?

 

Draye Redfern  22:17

I would say Rome wasn't built in a day. And Brittany's exactly right, these things take time to develop, use the cheat sheet we gave you last week, just keep an open mind listen. And I think there's definitely a few things that you could, you could take your practice to the next level with.

 

Bryan Sweet  22:33

I would just add that and this isn't necessarily a surprise and delight, but it's it actually helps you implement surprise and delight is to embrace the concept of who versus how. And if you have not read that book, that will be a game changer.

 

Brittany Anderson  22:52

Amen. So true. That is by Dr. Benjamin Hardy, and Dan Sullivan. Highly recommend you check that out. So the top three takeaways from today is number one, read the book Giftology. If nothing else, just understand the concept and the why behind it, that's going to help you take action. And plus, it's going to give you some cool ideas, too. So that's one that definitely recommend. The second top takeaway, and I think this is so important is to stop throwing your logo on everything. You know, I think Bryan brought up such a great point there that people like to see their name on things, they are not very well inclined to put something out into their personal space, if it has your company logo on it. You know, and I liken this to like, think about this, a lot of you here, you travel, right, you go somewhere, you go to a conference for work you travel with, with your family, or for personal reasons. You're in an airport, and they always have that darn little kiosk and every little gift shop that has key chains with your name on it, or coffee mugs with names on it. And it is human nature, even as grown adults to look and say, Hmm, I wonder if they have my name and if it's spelled right. It's just one of those things that we like to see our name in print. And without going into the psychology of all of this, there's actually psychology studies that show the reasons why people like to see their names in print. So it's not just something we're making up here. People love that stuff. So I think that's an important one to embrace that if you're going into a gifting season, or you're going to do something that's a surprise and delight. Don't send them a coffee mug with your logo on it, please just stop doing that. Now it's not to say that can't be part of if you have an event and you're doing a gift basket with giveaways. But definitely make sure the personalized stuff outweighs the stuff that you just throw together with your logo because it's what you've always done. The third takeaway is again, I can't reiterate this enough, but to put someone in charge of the gifting. I know I just pressed on that a minute ago, but it's so incredibly important to delegate this aspect of your business in some capacity. So make sure that you have somebody spearheading this initiative, this effort so that you can surprise and delight your clients without causing, you know, maybe some bad surprises or negative stress on yourself and your team.  So that wraps up today's episode of the Ultimate Advisor Podcast. We will be right back here with you next week.

 

Brittany Anderson 25:17

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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