INTRO  00:08

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 to create the advising practice that you've dreamed of. You'll be joined by our hosts Bryan sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to 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 in to another amazing episode of the ultimate advisor podcast.

Brittany Anderson  01:07

Welcome back to your ultimate advisor podcast, Brittany Anderson here with Bryan sweet and Draye Redfern. And we're continuing on this journey of talking about things that can hold us back from success in our business. Now, today's topic is a loaded one, because one of the top ways that we can hinder our growth hinder our success is by not investing in ourselves. So I believe there's really three types of advisors and or business owners, you've got the people who invest in everything and anything to help grow to success. The ones just the yes types, Mr. Redfern cough, cough, Mr. Sweet, not naming any names, then you've got the people who say no to everything and see things as an expense versus an investment. That is a deadly one. And that is a deadly mentality to have for the growth and for the future of your company. And then you have person number three, who either invest in the business but not really into their personal life, or vice versa, or they invest a lot in their personal life. And they tend to hold the purse strings tighter in their business. So when you think about these types, and who you might most identify with, you know, I would say that most high achieving advisors high achieving business owners, entrepreneurs, however you identify yourself, most are going to be leaning more towards the yeses, right? You You rarely ever see an opportunity you don't love, you rarely ever find an idea that you don't fall in love with. That's normal, right? Like that's something that a lot of us are guilty of. And it can be a really good thing in some capacities. But when it becomes too much, that's where it starts to get dangerous, when it starts pulling your attention in so many different ways that you can't go deep to fully execute on at least one of the brilliant ideas that you're getting, then it's all for nothing. So when you think about, let's just use kind of a scarcity mindset thing, when we're talking about, you know, last last episode, we talked about fear, this is a big one here. So if you are somebody who never spends or invest in their future of their business, you know, you're not one that's ever going to pay for any type of guided coaching, you're not one that's ever going to pay to enhance your technology, increase your capabilities, you know, you kind of just stick with whatever will get you by how do you expect your clients and our prospects to have the mentality of investing even further with you, if you've got that, that own scarcity based thought going through your mind. So there's many, many studies out there that show that we tend to attract what we are. So think about that for a minute, if you want your client to be trusting and to you know, focus on value over fees, and to really deepen those relationships, but you're a transaction minded individual in your own life and your own business, well, you're going to likely attract the transaction minded individuals that are going to come and do business with you. So again, we attract what we are, if you're scarcity minded, you may get people that come to work with you that are scarcity minded. And I would guess that if you sit here and you kind of go through the visual Rolodex in your head of your clients, the best ones are often delegators they're fun to work with, you know, they may be fun to sit and you almost feel like you have a partnership with them because you can collaborate you can converse you can you know, connect on a business and a personal level. Whereas on the flip side of that, if you think about some people that are maybe not so ideal, they may be people that question everything that are very few focus that are transaction minded, that see you as a tool versus you You know, a true relationship and somebody that adds value to them. So when we think about this, as it relates to stifling the success we can achieve, this is why mindset, taking out all the woowoo stuff that comes with it, that that's the reason mindset becomes so darn important for your future. And to avoid getting stuck in the rut of not reaching the level of success that you want. So there's this term called a pita, right? So if you're a pain in the ass, you're probably going to attract those kinds of people too. So we just have to be mindful of, you know, what are our expectations of ourselves of our business? What level of success do we want to achieve? And then you end up attracting like minded individuals who are going to see value in what you provide. So again, going to kind of the flip side, you know, we talked a little bit there about people who are hesitant to invest in their future who see things as an expense versus an investment. What about going to the other end of it saying, you're somebody who says yes to everything? You know, and I teased the guys a little bit here about that. But I can be that person too. It's really easy to be in front of a great presenter or divulging into some sort of great resource and you're going, Oh, my gosh, yes, this is the answer. This is what I needed. But two weeks ago, something else was the answer and just what you needed. And honestly, they're both probably equally wonderful if you just let yourself focus and go deep with one of those resources, versus pulling everything and trying to kind of again, scratch the surface on at all. So there's that saying out there about being a jack of all trades. That's not necessarily in our line of business or in business in general, it's not necessarily complimentary to say that you're a jack of all trades, because what that means is, you're likely good at a lot of things, but maybe great at few are great at none. So think about that for yourself, how are you and your business acting like the jack of all trades? Are you you know, because you're fearful of delegation, or you're fearful of letting go of some things? Are you holding yourself back from a next level of success? If you are fearful and making a hiring decision and bringing somebody onto your team? Well, it's going to be pretty hard to get out of the whirlwind. If you can't delegate the paperwork, the processing, the follow up the appointment, scheduling all of those things, if you're not able to delegate those off and get those off your plate? Well, you're going to end up being that jack of all trades that we talked about. So that's something that's so important. And I think one thing that can help and I know Bryan, I'll have him jump in in a minute here and attest to this. But one way if you're a yes person, which I would assume most people listening to this podcast are because if you are of the mindset that everything's an expense, that you know, you don't believe in really investing, you probably wouldn't be listening to this podcast, because right now you're exchanging time for information. So I think that if you're listening to this, and you're that yes, person, one way that you can get so clear on what you should say yes to and what you should say no to, is by getting clear on your vision, by defining what is the future look like to you, you know, if you want to reach some certain production or revenue level, or you want to manage a certain number of assets in your business, but you want to do that while doing like Mr. Sweet does and taking 16 weeks off out of the year, well, then you better put perfectly capable, wonderful people around you to help execute on that vision. You know, if you're somebody on the flip side, and I know successful advisors who are like this, who are like I eat, sleep and drink my business, this is all I want in my life, you know, if I'm going to dinner, I'm going to dinner with a client, I don't do things just for fun, I do things that are going to help produce. If you have that mindset, and you don't want that time away, well, then you're going to build it different to. So again, you have to get clear on what you want, what your vision is for the future. What gets you excited, stop comparing yourself to other people and their definition of success, but rather define your own. So Bryan, I would love for you to jump in at this point and talk a little bit about how creating that future vision has really helped us say no to a lot more than we say yes to. Yeah, great topic.

Bryan Sweet  09:24

And I would say we've always kind of thought about what the future look like. And we'd written down things and been very conscious of it. But until recently, we've almost made this like mandatory science in our, our firm and it's really become the focal point of everything that we do and and because of that it's so much easier to make decisions determine what to do and what not to do. And as we've talked before, Everybody can create their own vision. And there's lots of great ways of doing it. Cameron. Harold has a great book called vivid vision, we use the EOS platform, which is traction, which helps you create your vision. And you kind of tie those two together. But it's something that I would recommend one everybody do, too, you should read it every single day. Because you need to know what's important, and what's not important, so that when these decisions do come up, it's easier for you to say, does it help me move in that direction? Or does it deter me and it's more like chasing the shiny objects and or there's a squirrel kind of a concept and get you off track. Because there's so many great ideas that we'll be exposed to, I think it's never ending. But it's the right decisions that help you move, whatever that vision that you have forward, that are going to be the ones that you want to spend time on. Matter of fact, you could even get it to the point, we haven't got at this, the structured yet, but maybe even get it to the point where you just pick the one thing, that's the number one focus to get you towards your vision, say, in the next 90 days, and literally spend 100% of your time moving forward on that. And if you get it done within 90 days, what was number two, and then spend 100% of your time doing that, I think that's probably the ultimate goal. But if you could get it to three or four things that help move things forward, even that is going to be very, very helpful. And it's been literally amazing, what we've accomplished by just being very, very conscious of what the vision is. So I couldn't say that enough. And coming from a person who loves shiny objects and wants to do everything and learn everything and be part of everything and get, you know further ahead, tomorrow and those kinds of things. I've learned the hard lessons, that that's not the way to do it. And you need to embrace that, by doing it that way, that's really not going to get you to the next level of success as fast as just narrowing that focus. And I think another thing that's really, really helpful, but it can also help you get off track is being a lifelong learner. As we've talked, you know, you want to be in lots of rooms where you're not the smartest person in the room. And you want to surround yourself with the right people who think big and step outside their box and want to grow air regardless of their stage of life. And, you know, even today, I'm in, in addition to all the coaching and other businesses, I participate in to mastermind classes, I'm in two separate study groups, I probably read 25 books a year, but it's all to be, you know, at the top of your game, but just that aspect gets you exposed to lots of shiny objects. And so you want to be a lifelong learner. Because by doing that, and being exposed to people, that's where the nuggets are going to come from, that you'd actually want to implement. But you probably need to say no to 90 95% of those, but you want to get exposed to the best ideas. And that's why we belong to these organizations. And the same reason Dre belongs to so many masterminds, because the opportunities that come from being in the right room are, you know, literally amazing, and the you know, the people that you meet, are going to be life changing and, and even this coaching class came about from another organization that we started, and just because of a need for what we're doing ultimate advisor happened out of it. So it's really amazing. But I would tell you, it's almost essential that you clearly clearly have a vision, you understand it, just as well as you understand your name. You read it daily, and then make all your decisions so that you're only doing those that help you move forward.

Brittany Anderson  14:45

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.

Bryan Sweet  16:44

So Draye, why don't you share some of the things in your business and some of the resources for growth and how you're measuring things along those lines.

Draye Redfern  16:55

I love to I love this stuff so much. You know, it's funny, many people have had a hard time with the pandemic and all that it's brought. But certain people have looked at these things like in opportunity because no matter whether the market goes up or down, whether there's a pandemic or not, whether there's insert your life event here, there's always opportunity. And from my experience, I've been significantly more able, I guess better positioned to capitalize on opportunity when I invest in myself. And usually, that's, you know, like Bryan said mastermind groups, the three of us met as the result of a mastermind group five something years ago, I guess, at this point. And I can attribute so many amazing things in my life, to being around people that have thought, at levels significantly greater than I have ever perceived possible. And that in and of itself is so powerful. But as the principal, the founder of my company, the issue that that has created, is that now I have all of these ideas, and I have all of this concepts and ideas and all of these things, how do I disseminate that down into something that's actionable. And the sweet team has done this, they have Brittany go with Bryan to everything. So they're always on the same page, one speaker could say something, Bryan would hear one thing Brittany would hear another and then they have, you know, the meeting of the minds and the ideas get better and better better. And that's a lot of what we've done. As you know, just hearing their experiences, what's has been nice about the pandemic has been the access or the individuals who run meetings or things like this, many of them I should say, that have taken it upon themselves to do more live streams or open it up to businesses and their teams and all of these sorts of things. So last year, we spent $60,000 on one particular mastermind group. And what's been so nice about that one particular was I can directly attribute a lot of growth and tactics and things we're at now to it. But we all got the whole team speaking the same language. Now, it's not an internal language, or just our own ideas of just the regular concepts and things that we ideate it's other people's language. So for these mastermind groups, you pay a lot of money to be a part of it. But we could live stream my entire team could watch and listen in. We've got TVs basically in every office, where even if they're working, it's playing these live streams of these two or three day events that are very, very high level thinkers in which everyone is hearing it. They're digesting the information on both a conscious and a subconscious level. And then so you layer all of these things together with a group that I'm a part of. It's several times a month they do these little things. meetings and big ones once a quarter, that it really makes a huge difference to everybody's ability to have significantly higher level conversations than what was even possible three 612 months ago. So that's one thing investing in ourselves. But I think also like taking that a step further to the team. We literally onboard and someone last week, last Monday was her first day. And she came in and like, you know, I do the walkthrough of everything, I've got a giant bookcase that we've completely filled up. Now we've got a whole nother one that was basically, you know, almost all but filled up and say, listen, anything here, this is the read for Media Library, take whatever you want, read it, bring it back, check out the checkout, quote unquote, something else. But like, I want information and content to be at their fingertips all the time, because they're leveling up. And as a result of that, the way in which our clients are taken care of, and the ideas and the speed in which we grow goes significantly faster. The thing we hear back, the pushback on this sometimes is, well, if you keep giving all of your people all of your best content or your best ideas, they may just leave you. And you're right. They might, but they haven't. Because they love the idea of the growth and they're a part of something and then they get people that are pouring into them to invest in them. For a lot of people they've never had, you know, employees, they've never had people that have invested in them. Yeah, they've made investments of, you know, I went to college, right, your student loan or this or this or that. But a lot of people don't have people that pour into them. And that in and of itself is a huge differentiator that I love investing in ourselves, we the three of us spend a lot of money doing that every single year. But taking that a step further, is I think where the real money is that as far as what it can do to your business. Like what Bryan did, he didn't need to pay the extra money to have Brittany come along with him costs quite a bit more didn't need to do it, it was in his best interest. And Brittany and him are speaking the same language, the same thing for our team, is it pouring into our people because we level up so much faster. But the whole crew, the whole team has dramatic shifts all the way up. So the books, the CDs, I spent 10s of 1000s of dollars on personal development and business, all of these things. I give it to everybody, whatever they want they can have access to because I think that's where the real level ups occur when we invest into ourselves, but also that ripple effect of pouring into our team at the same time. So Brittany, anything that you want to maybe add to that?

Brittany Anderson  22:37

Yeah, you know, I think one thing that would be interesting, it kind of goes back to, I mean, I think about even as, as a younger person creating vision boards, where you sit down with a bunch of magazines, and you cut pictures out there represent the things that you love, the things that you're passionate about, and what you want for your future. And I think as adults, we sometimes lose sight of that creativity, the internet's a wonderful thing, because you can find pictures of whatever the heck it is you want. You don't have to go by 25 magazines to find images representing you know, the things that are important to you. So I highly recommend if you're a visual person, by nature, create a vision board, you know, it doesn't just have to be words, it doesn't just have to be you know, a list, create something that's visually appealing, find a who that can help you. I mean, there's different outsource sites like Fiverr, or Upwork, or whatever that could help you with that creative aspect where you give a list and you say, hey, create this really visually beautiful board, so that I'm reminded every single day of what's important, and why I'm even choosing to invest in my future. So I think that's something that would be a fun exercise for our bi advisor audience to do, because I know a lot of people are visual learners, are visual absorbers. So I think that that would be that would be something that's fun. And it's energizing too. The other thing that I was going to mention here also is that you know, Dre was giving example to how Bryan and I are part of you know, some of the same groups were part of some different groups. But because of overtime, we completely understand where each other's heads are at. And Ken speak that same language together. You know, part of our mastermind, our ultimate advisor, mastermind, when we have advisors Come on, it's one price point for two people. So that's how much we believe in using and bringing your implementer integrator with you is that you want them to hear firsthand. There's so much that can get lost in translation when you're trying to communicate all of these great things that these brilliant minds have shared. So if you have the opportunity to bring your key person along, or even like Draye just said, you know, exposing your team, exposing your team to thoughts, people and resources that they may not even know exist. You know, those are things that are going to help you again shifting that thought process from being an expense into a true investment for your future. And you'll find pretty darn quickly because there's this again, fear based thought if we're going off of the last episode, fear based thought of kind of what Dre alluded to, well, yeah, you're gonna pour all this money into them. And then what if they leave? And it's like, Yep, that's right. But what if they stay, think about the additional value that they add, and how much stickier it makes them when you are willing to invest? I mean, we've pretty much told our team across the board, if there is something that that catches your interest that you think and believe will grow you as not just a professional but as a human being. Those are things that we want you to bring to our attention on the leadership team, because we want to help pay for that. We want you to grow, we want you to learn and we want you to be invested in lifelong growth, just like we believe as a leadership team. So those are just a couple points that I wanted to drive home before I go into wrap up. So Mr. Sweet Mr. Redfern, anything you got for me? Brittany,

Bryan Sweet  26:05

I think your last comment was stat on, you know, investing in your team. And Trey alluded to this also, most of the time, most employers probably have never done that and cared enough about them to help them grow and get better. And I think part of the reason why we don't see it happen, why Dre doesn't see it happen is they appreciate that. And they want to be part of a culture like that, where you're there to help them and the firm grow. And it's not just the firm, because if your team isn't growing, the firm isn't going to be growing. And so that just kind of stuck with me is something that I never really thought about, as much as as till you said that. And I just think it's so critical. And what happens if they don't, and then what happens if they stay, which they, you know, for the most part are going to. And then the other Chris quick thing made me think back a number of years ago work to a couple of times where I actually cut out pictures of things that I thought would be fun to have or, or a vacation or something like that. And it's kind of amazing. If you do that, every time, I just thought back I have done or I own everything that I've ever had a picture of that I really wanted. So that's kind of interesting that if you do those vision exercises, reality comes soon thereafter. Hmm.

Brittany Anderson  27:44

So good. And it's so true. And I think you know, if we all did exercises around that, where you look at things that you've really wanted to see happen in your life, it goes back, and I'm not going to go down this hole, because I just love it too much. And we'll talk for like four hours on it. But there's that reticular activating system in our brain, which is wired, like when you put something in front of it that you really want it is wired to find evidence and or proof and or move it into action so that you can get what's in front of you. So I think, Bryan, you brought up a great point there.

Bryan Sweet  28:15

And it's kind of funny, we all do this when we are kids. And why is it that we don't continue doing it when we get to be adults, because it's a lot more fun when you're adults. And you can actually probably afford to do the things, but you don't pay any attention. And consequently, it doesn't ever happen.

Brittany Anderson  28:35

There's so much truth to that. And it goes back to slowing down in order to speed up. You know, sometimes we just have to slow down and really re identify what we want. And I would argue that if you're not being intentional about doing that, at least one time a year, taking a couple of days to just really think about what do you want, you know, what do you want for your business? What do you want for your life? What do you want for your future, for your clients, for your family, for your friends, all of those things. I think that that's an important reset that we all need to do and be intentional with. And I understand easier said than done. But it's all about putting it in the calendar and just making sure you stick to it. So the top three takeaways from today, the first one being, we need to reshape our language. So if we're looking at investing in ourselves in our business as a way to overcome the roadblocks to success, change your language from what is the cost to what is the cost of inaction. So I think that's an important basically line in the sand to draw. You need to delineate between the two so you really understand if you don't take action, what's going to happen. What's the worst case what's the best case doing that good measure. The next is to get in the right room. I think choosing and you don't have to be part of five different programs or a few masterminds like like we do, you know, you could choose one, you could choose one or two that just really puts you in a room. With other brilliant minds, people who have done what you want to do, people who have achieved a level of success that you strive towards. So that's something that I highly urge we all highly encourage is getting yourself in a room that maybe you're a little bit uncomfortable. It's a little intimidating, but it'll force you to grow. And then finally, choosing how you can invest in your business in yourself and especially in your team and making that commitment. Don't wait, you know, make the commitment now decide what do you need? What are the gaps in your business? Or what areas do you want to enhance, and capitalize on even more opportunity, and then make the decision to invest in that capacity. So that wraps up today's episode of the ultimate advisor podcast, we will catch you right back here with our next episode. 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