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EPISODE 66:

A Client First Service Series - Create Service While Creating Vision While Being Intentional About It With Automation

In this episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast, we round out our three part series with Bryan and Draye, discussing the ways you can elevate your client service, improve your interactions, get positive reactions, and ultimately take you to the next level with your prospects and clients. In today’s episode, we talk about how you can create the vision for your level of customer service, and how you can be intentional about executing it in an automated fashion. We discuss the importance of exerting positivity and listening to your clients, to take your level of service to the next level and create a clear path of what your client wants. We go over some of the ways you can automate and systemize your client experience to consistently meet and exceed your client’s wants and needs. Draye and Bryan share some of their own processes they implement to automate their human interactions, and upscale their level of service.  So, push PLAY and join us as we delve into intentionally creating and executing the vision for your level of customer service to target and attract more of your ideal client, generate more referrals, and ultimately elevate your business!

 

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Speaker 1:

... 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 Advisor Podcast.
 

Draye Redfern:

Draye Redfern here, and welcome back to another episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast. I am joined today with the incredible Mr. Bryan Sweet, where this week we are diving into a really fun topic on how you can really execute and really lay the foundation of a lot of stuff we've talked about over the last two weeks. And that is, how you can create the vision for your elevated, your excellent, your incredible level of customer service, and how you can be really intentional about executing that. How to actually go through and create memorable experiences, but doing so in a largely automated fashion, so that you don't have to worry about forgetting about it or setting the reminders, finding ways to create an elevated level of client service and experience with you, but set it and forget it. So, we'll cover that in this episode.

 So diving into it, recapping some of the stuff we talked about last week, is really laying the foundation for having a solid customer experience. Talked about three of the ways that you can have an incredible customer experience or client experience. But what's more important than anything, is creating a vision for what you want your client service to be like inside of your firm. Because that's what helps to get you talked about. That's what helps to get you shared about. That could generate referrals, that has a ripple effect that can continue on for years or decades to come.

 And I think one of the easiest ways to share the idea or the foundation of that and where that could actually originate for the best example here with Sweet Financial, is Bryan sharing how Roy was such a big influence on your life.
 

Bryan Sweet:

Yeah. Roy was an uncle, and if any of you have listened to some of the previous podcasts, Roy is a very influential guy in my life and I spent a lot of summers with him at his implement shop. But, the thing that Roy taught me, first of all being a business owner, how he got his business was just on how he treated customers, and literally any person that he ran into. Roy had this bigger than life personality, very gregarious nature, and literally lit up the room in any situation where he was with people. And, people were just drawn to him, and I think that's really helped him create an amazing business.

 But, having spent a lot of time there in the summers, through osmosis and seeing what he did and how it affected people and the results that he got, really helped me create what we call the Sweet Financial Experience today. And it's amazing what a friendly smile and a cheery attitude will do for a business relationship. And, people are drawn to people that are positive, and especially today with all this stuff with COVID-19 and all these unrests and riots, and boy, there's a lot of negative things. And if all of a sudden, somebody in your life pops up and they're positive, and happy, and her areas and gregarious, and make you laugh. And boy, that's noticeable, and you're attracted to that.

 And so keep that in mind when you reach out to people or you're with people, is go that little extra effort. And it had a remarkable effect for him, and I thank him to this day. Unfortunately, he passed away a few years ago. But, it's had such a major impact on my life in how I treat our clients and just treat our team and treat people in general. But, that little lesson I would tell you is extremely, extremely helpful.

 Draye, can you share a little bit about maybe the act of listening, and how that may also help with making client service a better experience?
 

Draye Redfern:

Yeah, absolutely. So I think that when it comes to creating the vision for what you want, your actual client service level to be, you can't do that without listening. And at the end of the day, one of the fastest ways to elevate your existing level of client service and client experience, is to ask your existing clientele what they've liked working with you, what they haven't liked, and what could be improved, and actually just listen to what they say. Because there's a big difference between hearing and being heard. And, if you actually listen to what someone says, and you actually then take action on that and then you follow through with that. And maybe they share something in that conversation, then that helps you to not only level-up your level of service, but have a better vision or path of what your existing client base actually wants.

 Now, it may be uncomfortable, your ego may get bruised. And that's okay, because we care about you in the long run, and not where you're at right now. We want to help you grow, we want the business to grow. And one of the best ways to do this is to ask the client base. And that's one of the best ways to actually go about doing that. And that will help to create what this vision would be like for you. But one of the things that I would challenge each one of you as you're listening to this is, what is the best level of service or an experience that you've ever had with a business or business interaction? And I challenge you to think about that. Like for me, I can tell you exactly what it is in a second.

 Three or four years ago, my wife, we were taking our daughter at the time, she was eight or nine. We were staying for a week at the Ritz Carlton in Barcelona. We show up there, we're tired, jet lag, all the things. And, the room wasn't ready yet. So, we're tired, a little frustrated, a little on edge, no big deal, we'll wait a little bit. One of the individuals in the Ritz Carlton sees this and asked our daughter like, "Hey, how has the trip? What did you like about the trip? Was that your first time traveling abroad? What are you into?" And I always just thought it was friendly little banter back and forth in order to keep our daughter entertained, because we were all jet-lagged and had maybe slept two hours. That wasn't it. It was really this individual noticed that we were sort of on edge, and maybe they got flagged or something that I'm a Platinum Marriott member and I travel a lot, spend a lot of money with Marriott. I don't know, maybe they did that behind the scenes, it wouldn't surprise me.

 But this woman goes up to our daughter and ask these questions. And literally, that night, it wasn't like a couple days later that night, after coming back from dinner, we have a gift basket in our room with the things that our daughter actually told the woman that she liked. There's no way that they had these things in the gift or storage room in the back room. They had, I would put money on it, they had to go out and buy them. But that left such a memorable experience for me because I could care less about me. I'm pretty easygoing in the grand scheme of things. I'm always happy, it's not that big of a deal. But when you do something nice for the people that I love and that I care most about in this world, that's the stuff that means the most to me.

 And that's the level of thing, I'm sure you're probably very similar in your client base, especially if you work with a lot of men. They would probably have that same thing. Their wives or their significant others and their children are probably the things that matter most of them in this world. And so doing things to go out of the way for those individuals, is a really, really great exercise. And so, I tell you that I paint that story for you, not only that. They never forgot my name and my wife's name and my daughter's name for the next 10 days that we were at Barcelona there, and that's a wonderful experience.

 And I share that with you because I'm sure you have an amazing experience that you've had. And so for me, when I think about client service and client levels of experience and creating that vision, that's the level of vision that I want to try and live up to with my own client base. And so it's having something that ends up being a target that you can actually strive for. Whether you hit it or not, it's important to try and make something you can actually elevate the level of client service, but the idea is to have a target out there that keeps you wanting to get better and better and better and better.

 So that's how you can create a vision, and that's some of the things that you can really focus on as far as actually making this happen. It's actually just listen and ask your client base, and use that to craft the vision and what you want to actually create. And that ties us into being intentional. So this is where it really ties into, how can you be intentional about the vision that you're actually creating? Is it quick? No. I mean the Sweet Financial Experience or the Sweet Experience took decades, sometimes years, if not decades, to create what it is now. But actually, Bryan, why don't you take a second and just explain a little bit about what was involved with the Dream Architect process and how that related to some of the current Sweet Experience.
 

Bryan Sweet:

Absolutely. But before I forget, I'm going to comment on a couple of things as it relates to the vision. Because one of the things we've talked about before is creating your own vision. And there's a process called The Vivid Vision by Cameron Herold. And, whatever you would use to create it, I think the key thing that you want to do is when you're creating your vision, is actually to have a client experience or a client service section, and actually spell out in writing, what does it look like, what experience does the client have? How do you want the clients to feel? And put as much detail in there as you possibly can. And, the more you spell it out and the more you review it, the more likely the opportunity to deliver great service is going to be there.

 And, one of our things that I've mentioned in a previous podcast is, one of our things for hiring people is they're being compassionate people and having a service heart, if you will. And we feel we can teach people most anything else. And so, just to show you the length that we'll go to when we do interviewing, as it relates to how far will people go to do something nice for somebody else? This is a little secret, you might even want to try this. But, in all our interviews, we take a pen and will at some point drop the pen on the floor while we're sitting next to the person that we're having an interview. And if that person will not pick up the pen, they will not have another interview because it doesn't show their ability to do something else for others, and it's a really amazing little test, but it's a great way of doing that.

 So now getting back to your Dream Architect, the Draye, sorry to go on a tangent there, but I'm getting old and I might forget otherwise. So, as you mentioned, it's literally taken years to create the experience that goes around the Dream Architect. And, it's actually a constant work in motion, and we're doing lots of things to actually make improvements as we speak, and worked on some stuff today. But, what we wanted to do originally was, how do you put a name and words to the process or the effect that we want to deliver on how our clients felt when they accomplished their dreams, because you laid out a really great plan that they implemented and made it come true? And so, it's an ongoing process where you just keep putting the pieces together. Obviously, we've got a unique name, which is great from a marketing standpoint and very much differentiates us from anybody else just by saying, "We're Dream Architects and you can go through the Dream Architect process."

 But, a big part of the Dream Architect experience is the service levels, with the dream boards and the communication that the clients have. And, as Draye alluded to earlier, it's really about going deep and having meaningful conversations with the clients that you're trying to serve, impress, and get more of. And, you really want to build it for that ideal client, and the concept of attract and repel is very, very meaningful. And the more you can do to find out the clients that are your ideal clients, that love that experience that you get, what do they want? Do more of that, because it'll keep attracting more of that like kind. It's like that love affair marketing that I mentioned last week on the podcast, is putting things together with people with similar interests that want the similar results, where you also enjoy going through that same experience.

 And so, it's a labor of love, if you will. But it's not something that you just do overnight, and it's not something that you can just haphazardly do. You have to be very, very intentional with it. You literally have to work on it all the time. And you have to have a picture of what it looks like when it's done correctly. And then, obviously once you get that done, that will change just because things evolve or you'll learn new things that you want to keep tweaking it to make it even better.

 So, that's one of the things that we've tried to do, and then take it off on you, Draye, because you help us with all of this is, then how do you automate any of those things and systematize it so that you can deliver those client experiences consistently every single time, and meet and exceed the over-promise, over-deliver that we talk about all the time?
 

Draye Redfern:

Yeah, I think there's two ways to do that. There's systemizing certain things, and there's automating other things. And, I have never worked with another business that is as systemized as Sweet Financial. There's processes for processes for processes. There's SOPs, Standard Operating Procedures, so that if someone had half a brain, they could come in off the street and they would at least have a half decent understanding of what needs to get accomplished. Maybe not all the facets or minutia, but they'd have a really good understanding. And that's part of the process, is the systemizing aspects of your gifting/gift-ology, like we talked about last time, and really figure out what it is, what your vision is and how you can execute upon that. Because little things can make a big difference when it comes to your clients and how they talk about you and these sorts of things.

 And number one, like we talked about previously, you need to have the information. And once you have the information, you can set up little even automated reminders to say, "On this day, 180 days into our relationship, let's send X gift, Gift Number 1." And that could be Gift Number 1 off of your checklist, it could be flowers. Send Gift Number 2, and that could be chocolates. Whatever it would be per your checklist. And that's an easy way to systemize the actual action of actually having to facilitate some of these things if it involves a human.

 But, the other side of this is automating what you can around that client experience to increase the level of client experience. We call it Humanization Automations, the trademark process that we have inside of Redfern Media, a lot like with the Dream Architect process that Sweet Financial has for Sweet Financial. And it's really just finding ways to automate more human-to-human interactions, to make it feel as though someone actually took a whole lot of time to pick up the phone and call, or to send you a handwritten note, or to drop you an email, to make it feel as though like, "Man, I really matter to these people." And that's actually a quick example. There's a variety of ways that you could do this, to where on your client's birthday, that morning, you could have a Happy Birthday email that goes out to them, that has maybe a picture of the whole staff, or has something like that, that is just like, it's fun and light and at least recognizes that you know their birthday.

 But what could also happen is on that same day, you could have a handwritten note that shows up in their mailbox, that was actually triggered automatically with an automation two and a half, three weeks previously, to have that separate company that can print those, and hand-write those, and then put a stamp on those and put them in the mail so that they arrive on the right day on their birthday. And then at the same time, also maybe that afternoon, and maybe this is overkill for you, but have a Happy Birthday phone call that goes out, and where it's a voicemail that gets dropped into their message machine on their phone and says, "Hey, it's Draye, I just wanted to touch base and say, hey, Happy Birthday, hope you having an amazing day, and hope you really enjoy the day. I just want to let you know that we're thinking about you and hope all is well."

 Wow. So in one day, if you wanted to do something like that, they get a Happy Birthday email, they get a handwritten note from you, and a voicemail from you, but you've never had to pick up the phone, you never had to write an email, and you never had to actually hand-write a note.

 That's the power of being of the Humanization Automation and some of the ways that you could actually do that and implement that. I can't get into specifics, as far as the ways in which you actually go through that and how you can actually craft that and build it out for your own business. That's something we share a lot with our Mastermind members, because every business is different, they have unique needs, and they have different scenarios and strategies, so it's difficult to tell you exactly what you should do without knowing a little bit more about your background. But, it's definitely something we talk a lot about in the Mastermind, of how do you create more of these Humanization Automation moments that can create that radical personalization, that can actually execute on that level of vision and really make it much more intentional for your client base.

 So, all of that being said. Bryan, any other aspects that you want to share or weigh in on before we wrap this episode up?
 

Bryan Sweet:

No, I think this has been a really fun three-week series on providing great service, great client experiences. And, I also just wanted to thank you for kind of like boys' night out for the last three weeks. We've been trying to muddle through this without Brittany. But, for those of you that have missed her, she'll be back next time on the next broadcast. And so, but it's been a lot of fun and thank you for all your wisdom the last three weeks.
 

Draye Redfern:

Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Boys' night out, I like it, it's good stuff. Oh, I love it. So, in order to do my best Brittany Anderson, before she comes back next week, here is some of the recap of the highlights from this week, is that regardless of what you're doing inside of your practice, you got to have a vision. And you got to be intentional about that vision and really ask your client base what they like, what they would like to see, and ask where you may want to improve. We shared some stories about my Ritz Carlton experience and level of quality and service there. Bryan shared his experience and the example of Roy and what that meant to him, as far as what experiences like that could mean to an example of your client base.

 And really what it takes is to create systems that can support the direction of what you wanted to go in your business. And that doesn't necessarily have to be a process for a process for a process. But, it's definitely something and being more intentional about how you actually go about creating some of these things for your clients. And if you can, when you can, automate it. You could use the Humanization Automation approach, or just find other things that allows you to automate more facets of the client level of service to really take things to the next level, and really over-promise and over-deliver.

 All of that being said, thanks for tuning in, thanks for listening. And we look forward to seeing you for another episode next week, with the incredible Brittany Anderson, who will be back with us. We look forward to seeing you then. Take care and have a great week.
 

Brittany Anderson:

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 just simply send them to UltimateAdvisorPodcast.com.

 And, if you want to learn a few other ways that we could potentially serve you as an advisor, go check out UltimateAdvisorMastermind.com.

 As always, we are so happy to have you here with us as part of the Ultimate Advisor community, and we look forward to a continued relationship.

ABOUT THE

PODCAST

The Ultimate Advisor Podcast was specifically created to help financial advisors unlock their ultimate potential by providing invaluable information and resources to improve your income, and the management, marketing and operations of your financial advising practice

The Ultimate Advisor podcast is a business podcast for financial advisors who are looking to grow their advising practices with greater ease and effectiveness. Ultimate Advisor was developed to help financial advisors master their marketing, sell their services with greater authority, generate repeat clients, and additional revenue in their business.

 

Each week, your hosts Draye Redfern, Bryan Sweet, and Brittany Anderson will share some of the closest guarded secrets from successful financial advising practices across the U.S.  

YOUR HOSTS:

DRAYE REDFERN

Draye is the founder of Redfern Media, a direct response marketing agency that helps professionals to improve their marketing, attract new clients, generate more referrals and consistently "WOW" their clients. 

BRYAN SWEET

Founder of Sweet Financial, CEO, Wealth Advisor, RJFS,  Creator of The Dream Architect™

Co-founder of Dare to Dream Enterprises

Creator of Elite Wealth Advisor Symposium

Author of 3 books – Dare to Dream: Design the Retirement You Can’t Wait to Wake Up To, Imagine. Act. Inspire. A Daily Journal and Give & Grow: Proven Strategies for Starting an Running and Effective Study Group

BRITTANY ANDERSON

Director of Operations at Sweet Financial, Office Manager, RJFS,  Co-founder of Dare to Dream Enterprises Author of two books – Imagine. Act. Inspire. A Daily Journal & Dare to Dream: Design the Retirement You Can’t Wait to Wake Up To

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