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EPISODE 19:

Pick Your ONE Who

In this episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast, we jump into part three of our four part series that focuses on WHO versus HOW. We discuss the importance of focusing on the idea with the most exponential and finding the right person to help you get there. So, push PLAY and join us as we delve into discovering your one key initiative and picking the ONE who for YOU!

 

 

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

 

Brittany A.: Brittany Anderson here with your Ultimate Advisor podcast, as we are in the third part to our four-part series where we have been talking deeper on the who versus the how. Now, if you've missed the last couple weeks, I highly, highly recommend that you go back and you start with the first part of this series. The reason for that is because we really set the stage with mindset, how important mindset is, how important it is to surround yourself with big thinkers, with people who have your best interest at heart. Then from there we tie in and talk about releasing some of the things that no longer serve you.

 Part of the reason for that is actually the whole purpose of today's topic. If you do not release some of the things that are no longer serving you, that maybe are not the best use of your time, that are maybe monopolizing your time a little bit too much, even if it makes you money, so that's something important to wrap your head around, is that you have to choose where your attention is best served. Today we're going to talk about why it is so important to really dive into your one key initiative, or your one key who per se, kind of find your person, find that person that's going to help you get to the next level to really help you shift your business and break through that ceiling of complexity that you may be facing.

 Before you can do that, we need to address this big shiny elephant in the room, which is the famous shiny object syndrome that so many of us are guilty of. Myself, Draye, Bryan, we've all been there, we've all done it. We're having this honest moment with ourselves. Bryan, I would love for you to talk a little bit about how you may or may not have been guilty of the shiny object syndrome, and how you learned that that's just absolutely not the best way to go about business in kind of chasing all of the best ideas.

 

Bryan Sweet: I will tell you that I would probably be the picture in the dictionary under shiny object syndrome if there was such a thing. Unfortunately, I never saw an opportunity that I haven't liked, and so I'm very, very, very guilty of this. I will tell you it's one of the biggest issues and regrets that I have in that I have lacked focus at times and haven't completed or got the most important things done to the extent that they should have been done, and my results would actually have been better had I done that. Now, we actually take those really serious, and it's kind of funny because I think we all fall into this, but I think this is a lot bigger problem or concern than most people admit.

 In order for us to kind of overcome this, we've had lots of meetings in trying to figure out, well what could we do differently to make sure that I'm always working on the thing that's going to move the firm furthest ahead and accomplish our objectives. We've just simply created a filtering system that we have just started to use. It certainly has been adding some clarity, and it's allowing us to check things off our list that we thought, "Well hey, that'd be a good idea." When we actually think about it and put it through the filter, we go, "Well, how did it even make it on the list to begin with?" Then, it also ranks our priorities so that when we are moving from one project to another we're actually working on the one that's gonna move the needle the most.

 What I thought I would do is I'll just read some of the things on this checklist that we use as a filter. I think we could probably even put this on the website for anybody that would like to utilize it if they think it's a good idea after I go through it. It's just a series of questions you ask yourself, and I would suggest that every little thing that you're considering doing you apply this filter to every one of those, because I think you'll find that a lot of them you can probably get rid of and clear up some of the clutter that you're dealing with. There's simply questions. We rank these things 1-10, one being the worst, 10 being the best.

 The first question is you've got a project or an idea or an opportunity, how excited are you about that project or opportunity? Is it a two? Is it an eight? You want to rate it. The next question is, how much will it move the needle towards your vivid vision? So, is it going to move it a lot, it's really going to be helpful or nah, not so much? How much time is going to save? Another question would be, how much effort is involved? So, if it's a lot of effort that would be a bad thing, and maybe that's a one. If it's very little effort to get it implemented, then maybe that's a 10. Then, you want to ask the question, is this cost effective relative to the outcome? What happens is you get a score for everything that you'll do. Our simple scoring sheet is if it's a 20 or less, we just scrap it. It really doesn't have enough effect to move things forward. If it's over a 40 then we have another series of questions that we'll use for clarity and whether we want to execute on it.

 Just that five, six question format has really cleaned up what we're doing and why we're doing it without a lot of effort. I think what happens is most of us are just so accustomed to hearing something, thinking that's applicable, and you just go ahead and do it without applying any thought. This is just a way of stopping, thinking, quickly analyzing it before you move forward.

 

Brittany A.: Bryan, that brings up a really good point and I want to add to that with the filters, because I think anybody listening could attest to this and say, you go to a conference, you go to a Mastermind you're involved with, you're at a meeting with a study group, whatever the case is. You come back with this list of ideas, things that you're like, "Man, we need to implement these yesterday."

 Now, part of the problem with the entrepreneurial mind is that we do a really good job of talking ourselves into things that we're really excited about. So when Bryan talked about that first question on that filter, how excited are you? You're like, "Man, I'm a 10. This is the best idea I've ever had." It's really easy to skew the rest of that filter to kind of match that level of excitement. So, another step that we encourage and that we're really focusing on at Sweet Financial is taking that filter and passing it to somebody else and saying, "Okay, I did this, I filled this out. I need kind of another brain to look at this. I need another set of opinions to look at this filter," so that we can really ensure. Again, when we're looking at ... This whole series is on who versus how. So finding that who within your company that can kind of be your gut check.

 A really good book that is a Testament to what I just talked about is Rocket Fuel. Rocket Fuel, it really talks about the relationship between the visionary and the integrator, or the implementer, and that's what that relationship is. It's like this visionary, you're the business owner, you're the entrepreneur, you have all these ideas and you want to implement all of them right at the same time. Well, that integrator, that implementer, comes in and says, "Okay, but we need to look at the reality of this whole thing. So, let me help and let me do a once-over on that filter to really be your who and to help keep you accountable to that singular focus that you're going towards.

 The other thing that I got to thinking about that I think is really important. Bryan touched on how he's really focused on, "Gosh, if we would have implemented this who versus how concept years ago we would have actually made more exponential progress. So I look at Draye, you as an example, we have you on retainer because you do some of the stuff that nobody on our team is an expert at. I am not great at the tech behind the scenes, the automations, the tie togethers. All of that stuff that takes so much time we brought in you and your team because you guys know that and you're quick, and you do it with ease.

 I think one thing, we use this as an example of kind of an outsource opportunity of pulling somebody in from the outside that doesn't necessarily need to be on your team, and I think you as a business entity as a whole, you've really done a good job at outsourcing yourself and how you employ some of your team members. I would love for you to give examples to our audience on what that looks like and how you've mastered that.

 

Draye Redfern: It's funny that we bring this up and that I lean on this at least initially, because when I first started my agency as like a marketing agency I outsourced everything because I didn't know how to do a darn thing. I literally built a six-figure agency figuring it out as I went. I basically used outside outsourcers to help implement all of these things, because I knew early on that I couldn't be my own roadblock. Maybe that's personal development, maybe that's being around people who are smarter than I was, but knowing that I just needed to get out of my own darn way. One of the things that has always stuck out to me is that 100% is easier than 98%, because when you actually make a hundred percent commitment to something, no matter what that is, it's easier because you almost have like this point of no return.

 In fact, there was a study done on successful entrepreneurs versus wantrepreneurs, the individuals who haven't necessarily had success. One of the biggest catalysts for entrepreneurs who have had some form of success is that they created a point of no return. This has been like popularized by the story of when Cortez first sailed to the new world. He landed and there was all sorts of people with tribal tattoos, and he wasn't sure if they were aliens, and wasn't sure about their weapons, and all of these things, complete uncertainty. But his men were incredibly scared and they didn't know, they didn't know what to expect, they didn't know what was going to go on, they all wanted to go back to the boats and they wanted to leave. So what Cortez did was he burned the boats. There was no retreat, there was no going back, there was nothing that they could do except go forward.

 That is an example of a point of no return. The Sweet Financial filter system is an example of that point of no return, because once it's implemented, and you have the systems to go through that process, ideas that are not going to make the cut or that don't stack up will not get past that next step. If there is a point of no return that idea cannot go any further. I would say that when it comes to actually finding the outsourcing and finding the right people, it ultimately just comes down to saying, "Darn it, I'm just going to commit to it. I'm going to do it," and not be like, "Well, uh maybe next quarter." Then next quarter is, "Oh maybe next we'll just ..."

 A hundred percent is easier than 98%. When you have that sort of mindset it makes it easier to sort of outsource a lot of these things. Do you have to have everybody on staff? No. Brittany used a perfect example, is you can have people that you can lean on for certain projects. It could be a project by project basis, it could be some sort of 1099 outside contractor, it could be all sorts of people that may be of benefit to you and your business. I would say there's a lot of different options when it comes to actually outsourcing, and not only just outsourcing physical tasks. Sometimes it's also good to outsource ideation.

 So, As a perfect example, there's a book that has recently come out called the Trillion Dollar Coach, and it's essentially about one of the business coaches who have coached all of the executives at like Facebook and Google, and all of these things that have essentially contributed over a trillion dollars to the global economy. Along that vein, and sort of along the idea of a coach, is that one of the founders of [Gotimbre 00:13:53], I can't remember which one it was said, "I don't need a coach, ..." It was the CEO of Google, I believe. Said, "I don't need a coach. I'm awesome." There's a little bit of ego in this, obviously. But it was basically challenged by the fact, does a tennis player have a coach? Yes. The best golfers in the world, do they have coaches? Well, yes.

 When it comes to actually making some of those commitments, I follow a lot of those sort of things, as well. I have business coaches. I run a marketing agency, I still have a marketing coach, I am an entrepreneur, I have a mindset coach. I have all of these people on retainer for me on a monthly basis, as well, because I always want to be able to lean on other people to have those ideas and ideate, because it's my job at the helm of the business to be that point of direction, to step up and own that. I don't necessarily outsource all of the tasks in all of these things, which is great. I think you should do that, but there's also plenty of other things to outsource, as well. In addition, while we're on the topic of mindset to work on your mindset, to work on your business acumen, to work on whatever it is that you may consider, and create some of those points of no return that really gets you positive momentum much, much faster in your business.

 I rambled for a little while there, Brittany. I sort of talked a lot, so maybe there's a couple of things that we should unpack.

 

Brittany A.: That was not a ramble. That was all exceptional, and you're so good at sharing, you know, stories that kind of relate to history. I think you in a past life should have been a history teacher. I think that you brought up something that was really interesting. You used the word implementation and tied into that point of no return. One of the things that we have seen with some of the individuals that we coach, with some of the clients that we have under Ultimate Advisor coaching is that you absolutely have to be at that point of no return to be able to successfully implement some of the big game-changer things within your company, the things that are going to actually help you to move the needle. I mentioned last week in our podcast that we are going live with a Mastermind in November, and one of the big topics on the second day is actually going to be on implementation. So, giving some of the best tips that we have and that we have seen actually work, so real things not just made up, but things that we have seen in the industry across the board that are working to help you actually choose that one thing, to help you find your who if you need it, and be able to bring those big projects to life and help you get the momentum that you need.

 Before we kind of wrap all of this up and do that recap, is there anything else, Bryan, or Draye that you want to add, whether it's on the topic of choosing your one thing, on implementation, anything that we've talked about today?

 

Bryan Sweet: I'd like to just maybe expand a little bit on something I mentioned earlier that Draye made me think of. The filtering process is really more to do with what should you do, and helping you eliminate or reduce the number of opportunities from which to choose from. First of all, that's, really important, and the filter helps you dial that down relatively easy. Then, once you know what you want to do that's when this who versus how comes in. If you really think about who versus how ... I know until we really started implementing this concept, we would spend hours, and the team would spend hours, and would get so, so frustrated because they're going to get it figured out some way, shape. or form, but it was just a frustrating scenario. It probably took five times as long, and maybe not the results of as good of a project completion as it would have been but we got a 110% from the team.

 So, the who versus how, in simplicity it's who is the best person out there that can implement or accomplish that task or that to do, and then how can I get them to work with me, or team up with me, to get the results that I'm looking for? If you just simply think about that logically, why wouldn't you want somebody that's an expert and that's all they do maybe all day long, showing you how to implement that and then getting that put into your practice much, much sooner, much, much better, much more efficiently than dealing with the headaches and stressing out your team?

 Actually, for a while I think my team hesitated or got scared when I was going to go to a conference because I'd come back with more things that I was gonna give them. This way most of the things that we do now, my team's not an expert in but we know where to go, and that's one of the things that will be brought out in this Mastermind group is we'll have a whole list of resources on if you're looking for this or you're looking for that. These are things that we've learned by participating in Mastermind groups and getting associated with people in every conceivable kind of industry. We've developed all those relationships. Now it's relatively easy, but you had to think about it, you had to go out and do the research. The results are amazing once you change that thought process and say, "I don't have to do it all myself."

 

Brittany A.: Bryan, you brought up something that's really interesting. Something that you did for your team is that you gave them permission to acknowledge when they are not experts in a given topic. I think that's kind of a little bit of the core of this and, Draye, that's what you kind of alluded to, also, is that as a business owner you don't have to know how to do it all. In fact, when you try to do it all, or you try to force your team to do it all, that's when balls get dropped, that's when people burn out, that's when people get frustrated. Give yourself a little grace. Give your team that permission to be able to find the resources and find the experts that are going to help you move the needle and get to that next level. I think that's so important.

 Draye, before I wrap it up is there anything else you want to add along those lines of just really maximizing what you do best and outsourcing the rest?

 

Draye Redfern: I think that ... We'll talk a little bit more about it in our next episode about really finding the right support, focusing on your strengths, not your weaknesses, and then finding the right team members around you to lean on. I think we covered a lot today, Brittany and Bryan. I think this will be a good episode that many of our listeners may want to go back and check in and listen to again probably a few months from now, because there's a lot of really good nuggets here for them to digest maybe over and over again.

 

Brittany A.: I love it. As a quick recap remember the shiny objects, there's a lot of good ones, a lot of great ideas out there, but you only want to focus on the ones that are exponential. Really decide what is that one thing that is gonna move the needle the most and devote your attention to that and find your who that can help you get there even faster. That wraps up today's episode of the Ultimate Advisor podcast. Next week we are going to talk about finding you the support that you need to really master this who versus how and get you in front of the right people. We'll see you next week.

 

Draye Redfern: Hey there. Draye Redfern here and before you go, we just wanted to say thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Ultimate Advisor podcast. If you enjoyed this episode then please subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or Spotify, and be sure to rate us five stars on iTunes, because when you do you'll be entered into a monthly drawing for our Ultimate Advisor Coaching Program which is a $2,000 value. If you would like to access more of the show notes, additional resources, and our free premium content then please visit ultimateadvisorpodcast.com. We look forward to seeing you in the next episode of the Ultimate Advisor podcast. We'll see you there.

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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