Episode 242 – The Year-End Advise: Propel your business forward

Episode Transcription

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 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 into another amazing episode of The Ultimate advisor podcast.

Hello, and welcome back to your ultimate advisor podcast. Brittany Anderson here with Mr. Draye, Redfern and Mr. Brian sweet. And we’re going to spend the next few weeks talking about how you can end your year strong. So we’re going to really hone in on three of the biggest topics that have really helped us keep our focus at Sweet financial, that’s helped Draye keep his focus at Redfern media. And that in turn helps us stay focused with ultimate advisor coaching as well. So the first one that we’re going to hone in on is just on the topic of staying focused, easier said than done, I completely understand that. So one of the things that that we really want to push the button on is that the shiny object syndrome or the squirrel syndrome syndrome, whatever way you want to call it can derail even the most disciplined advisors. So one recommendation that we have for maintaining a consistent focus, especially rolling into the end of the year, the wrap up of a big year, is to really hone in on your top three. So what three things if you were to accomplish them, is going to give your business the biggest catalyst for growth, what is going to give you the biggest success, what is going to move the needle the most. So that’s what we want you to focus on. And that’s going to actually help you keep your focus. So Brian is actually going to talk a little bit about how he has experienced what we like to call or what Dan Sullivan of strategic coach calls open file syndrome. How that can maybe Kate take you off focus or off track. And then we’re gonna circle back and talk a little bit how you can hone in on that 90 or 90 day window and your top three things. So Bryan, I’d love to hear from you. Since you have experienced all of the above that I just mentioned.

Yeah, I’m just laughing to myself, I think if you looked at that term in the dictionary, open file syndrome, my picture might be there cuz I probably as guilty as anybody on that. And for those of you that don’t know that it’s just being kind of obsessed with every little detail on is this been done? Has that been done? And probably driving your team absolutely nuts with follow up and asking questions, when in reality, they’ve got it handled 99.9% of the time. So we’ve done a lot of different things to help me get over that. And fortunately, I think I’m better. I’ll maybe defer that to Brittany later. But I think I’m much better at that. But one of the things that helps that is to have a system on how you focus on those top three things during any 90 day period of time. And we use a process called Eos, which we’ve talked about many times the book traction, amazing process. And we’ll talk more about it in this podcast. And also, you know, some of the future ones we talk about this, this topic. But one of the things that has also helped me, in addition to the traction, or EOS platform is that I created my own planner. And in my planner, I write down everything that I have found over the years that I need to track, follow up on calls to make emails to make. And if you haven’t ever looked at that, you might want to give that a whirl. Like everything that you find is important and that you want to look at every single day. So I’ve taken bits and pieces from lots of different platforms. So from one methodology I write down my Daily big three. So these are the three things that if nothing else happens that day, if I get those three items done, I’ve had a very successful day. Then I write down other tasks. And then next to that I write those are staff items. So these are those little open file, things that I write down. And if after a period of time I find out that I hadn’t heard something on it, it allows me to reference back and double check on it, which normally, they’re already checked off by the time I have to get to it. But that’s been very helpful. And I have a little tab for emails and calls. And each morning, I’m very late morning routine, as we’ve talked about, where I write down my items of gratitude. And at the top of the page is just a quote that I can start each day with. And so I found that very, very helpful. So if you are listening to this, and you’re having some difficulties in keeping tabs on what you need to do any particular day, just give some thoughts to where have I found something I like, and maybe piecemeal four or five of them together. And we work with a local printer that puts these together in a spiral bound notebook. And they’re 90 days at a time. And it’s absolutely been amazing how that’s kept me on track and minimized the follow up that I need to do this, because it’s all in a format that I’d be very comfortable with. So getting back to that open file syndrome. Brittany, is there anything else you’d like me to elaborate on or, or at this point, maybe you can pick on me a little bit since that is a scenario that I might be really bad at. But getting better?

Oh, you are improving greatly every single day, it’s all good. So you know, the thing I would say, and then I want to add to is that a lot of times, especially rolling into the end of the year, your brain starts thinking about two things. Number one, it’s thinking about all the things that you didn’t get done in this past year. And number two, it’s thinking about all the opportunities you have going into the next year. So it causes this internal unrest, because there’s just so many things on your mind. So like Brian said, Sometimes all it takes is just getting it down on paper, those things that you have open questions or concerns, or, you know, maybe you just have a simple question on it, and you just can’t get it out of your head. You know, sometimes just the simple act of writing it down gives you the satisfaction, you need to know like, hey, this really isn’t that big of a priority after all, or now that I got it down. Now I actually remember that we did talk about it. And we decided not to do it or whatever the case is. But I want to just press on kind of looking forward to so that takes care of some of the the the back end, right the things that you’re thinking about that that didn’t maybe happen or that you just don’t have closure to. But what happens often is that high achievers get a little bit too excited about the new year. So it’s totally fine. I’m not picking on you, if you’re one of those people, because I can relate, you start thinking about all the wonderful things that are going to happen in the next 12 months. And it’s exciting, and it’s new, and it’s shiny, and it’s beautiful. And nothing’s interrupted it yet. But what can happen is it can actually cause you to skip over the current time period. So the time of year when people stress themselves out the most about not getting enough done. They actually shoot themselves in the foot because they’re so busy thinking about what they’re going to do in the coming year. So it’s like this crazy catch 22. And what happens then it can actually leave you feeling defeated when the end of the year rolls around. Because then you’re sitting there going, Oh, no, I just spent all my time thinking about what I’m going to do in the next year. Because that’s what everybody tells us to do. Right? You come year end. And you’re like, Okay, well, now it’s time to start planning for the new year, which is kind of crazy and a little bit counterproductive. I think, you know, to what to what actually could cause you to have even more success and even more focus. So I’m not going to give that secret away just yet, because we’re going to talk about that in the next couple of weeks about how you can do that a little bit different. But that’s just one point I want to push on is that this is why it’s important. This is why when we talk about keeping focus, it’s not just because that’s what everybody says it’s because there’s there’s true merit to it. So we want you to get set up for a great and successful next 12 months. But let’s knock out the next 90 days first, right like let’s keep that focus and really living in 90 day increments. If you’re doing it right, you shouldn’t have to spend a ton of time on that year long planning and that’s part of the system that we’ve been building at suite financial that we are helping others build through ultimate advisor coaching and really allowing people to have a little bit of a freeing feeling come to the upcoming to into the end of the year. So you know if you have plans with your family and you have the holidays to celebrate and you have you know all the good stuff that comes with that. You can actually folk Use your time and attention, and know that you’re still making great strides in your business because all you’re doing is closing out another 90 days, and you’re focusing on your top three things that are going to be the biggest catalyst for your business. So Draye, I know you have some really interesting tips on how you maintain focus. That’s maybe you shifting gears a little bit. So I’d love to hear from you on what you do and what you do with your team. Yeah,
I love this topic. So much. I was literally I mean, I was on mute when you were talking about like, high achievers focus too much on the New Year, like I was laughing. So because that’s me.

Absolutely. So there’s a couple of things that I do, you know, like, I’m in my, I’m in my 30s, I’ve got two kids running a company. But I also like set tried to set big goals every year. And so doing an Ironman within the next six months. And so like these are not things like that and of itself takes 20 to 25 hours a week to train for on top of running a company and having an actual family life or prefer to be present. So there’s a couple of things that I do, you know, I’ve used Brian’s style like that, or I’ve made my own planner, I’ve done all sorts of different things, when I’m currently using is Michael Hyatt full focus planner. And that helps me it’s not perfect, but I don’t think that a perfect planner unless you’re doing what Brian is doing. But you know, that works really for you. But for me, I set three big things every week, the three big non negotiables for the week, and those three non negotiables. Maybe they’re chipped away at each day, and maybe it’s all a single day, they sort of block those things off. But that’s one of them. For me, it’s personal. So like, I’m going to either workout or get six workouts in a week, whatever the scenario is. But I also each day of the week, I chunk it down to the three big things, the non negotiables of that day that if nothing else got done. Besides those three things, the day was a win. And I found that that leaves me feeling more accomplished at the end of the day. Because it’s so easy to get caught up in the minutiae of like the to do list that is literally never ending my to do list. It’s disgusting, how long it is. But you know, with the three big things, it makes it easier to see like, you know, I got something done today, I feel good about it. And I can go home and you know, keep my head held high, knowing that I move the needle, or whatever the scenario is. So that’s just a couple of things. But I also track everything we were talking a little bit about this before the podcast started. That’s been one of the biggest things for me over the last I’d say three to four months is tracking everything about my day. So that’s bodyweight happiness, how I’m feeling whether I journaled or not how many ounces of water I took, what my sleep, how many hours of sleep, what my sleep score was all of these sorts of things. And there’s all sorts of apps and scales and things you could probably use to measure or track some of those things, we don’t need to get into it now. But that’s been a real big thing to see where the patterns show, on a personal level that you may be fulfilling the most productive, I’m actually getting just shy of seven hours of sleep. And I’m onboarding, 110 ounces of water a day. And I start my day out with meditation. So those are that naturally, that’s one of the things that I feel when I feel most productive, and I feel the best about my day. That’s a pattern that’s shown itself over the last few months, I would have never known that had, I not been tracking some of these things. So that’s another thing I think of just staying focused and realizing what you know what your optimal focus will be. But there’s a couple other things there on the daily side of things. If something sits on my to do list for more than two days, I’m not focused on it, I probably don’t care about it that much. And so I delegate it, not saying I shouldn’t focus on not saying it’s not important, but there’s obviously things that we all focus on the things that we’d like to do more than the things that we don’t like to do. Sometimes you got to follow Brian Tracy’s advice is just Eat That Frog. And other times that to do lists, you’re just going to keep getting longer and longer, and you got to delegate. And so that’s that’s some of the stuff around staying focus, who could maybe talk a little bit about nootropics and supplements, Bernie, if that’s something maybe we save that for another day. But that’s a whole other maybe rabbit hole or a can of worms that that we could probably open. Why don’t you give

Draye Just because I think it’s so interesting. Just give maybe your top like one or two insights, when you look at nootropics and some of the things that you do, I think our audience would be really interested in it. So

I have a book in the front of the office, it was co written by one of one of our contributors, one of our CO course creators, Jay Abraham, massive book. I mean, the thing is probably two and a half, three inches wide, the title of the book is called paid to think. And at the end of the day, that’s what essentially you’re paid to do and what I’m paid to do. We’re not cranking levers, we’re not turning knobs, we’re not plowing fields, nothing against any of those, but we’re paid to think and so how can you think at the most optimal levels throughout the day even when maybe you didn’t get that just shy of seven hours of sleep and you didn’t meditate it did not want 110 ounces of water that day? What do you do? Well nootropics are basically just you know, supplements you can have or take that help to increase your brain or cognitive function. So one of the ones that we use a lot is called Alpha Brain. There’s also for a product or company called for SIG Matic that make a bunch of mushroom coffees and elixirs, not like hallucinogenic mushrooms, it’s very, like I said it could go down a rabbit hole, but mushrooms that are helped, like Lion’s Mane, etc, that helped to actually produce the chemicals in your brain that allow you to think clearer. So we also do smart TVs from the Republic of T, great little things you can take throughout the day, the just sort of helped to give you a bit more clarity, maybe reduce some of the brain fog, and just keep you sharp, because like I said, at the end of the day, you’re paid, paid to think,
you know, I think that’s so interesting. Draye. And, you know, you’re actually the one that introduced a lot of these different things into my life. And one thing I would say, and I have no affiliation with this, so I’m just saying we’re because we’re just talking about it right before the podcast, if you just tried one thing that for SIG Matic mushroom coffee. Yep, totally amazing when it comes to upping your focus. So I think that’s something that’s really interesting. And Brian, I think you had a certain something around your neck earlier, that that might be a cool thing to share with our audience, too.
Yeah, it’s something new that we learned from one of the participants at Genius Network. And it’s called hap h a p, b is in boy e hat B. And what it is it’s deals with, I believe it’s magnets, but you put it around your neck, and there are six settings. One is focus, alert, relax, calm sleep, are some of the settings. And it actually helps your body do one of those six items. And they’re actually coming out with other other options down the road. So App B is another interesting option, you’ll look a little odd when you have it around your neck, because it’s not the prettiest necklace. But it’s very, very interesting and lots of different ways. But I think one of the key things about focus is it it’s like essential for you to hit these big, audacious goals that you have. And the other thing that I was thinking about when everybody was mentioning this is, is that when you focus, you want to focus on the things that you’re really good at, and not things that I’m trying to figure out. How do I do it. So the book who versus how, which we’ve talked about, just came on the market within the last couple of weeks. And in that book, it talks about having the right who that can help you with your house. And I will tell you, we’ve just been living by that. And that in and of itself, is you just hire the best and whatever it is you want, and get the heck out of their way. And it’s amazing, you just don’t have any follow up because they’re already exceptional at it. And all you have to do is integrate it into your practice. And I can’t tell you enough. If I were you, that’d be the next book I would read is who versus how by Dan Sullivan. And, and Dr. Benjamin Hardy.

Awesome. You know, Brian, I completely agree with that. And, you know, I think that’s something too. I think Draye brought up a really great point. When you look at delegation, a lot of times when we get stuck, or we procrastinate, it’s because it’s probably not in our wheelhouse. So you go into analysis paralysis a little bit, because you’re trying to figure out, oh, how am I going to get this done, or, you know, maybe just to be completely blunt, you’re sitting there going, I absolutely don’t want to do that, I hate the thought of doing that. So I’m probably not gonna do it, I’m just gonna see how long I can drag it out. So you know, it’s one of those things is honoring that it’s okay, that we’re not great at everything. And I think that’s something that can be really difficult, again, for the high achieving brain to embrace, it’s like, and I fight this to where you feel like, well, I’m capable. So I should be able to take it all on. And I’m more worthy when I put more on my plate. But in reality, you know, as I was listening to Draye, and he talked about his ridiculously disgusting to do list, I can relate to that on so many levels. And I know Brian can to you, you sit there and you write down all the things that you need to do. But the problem with that is that that might feel good to get that thought down to paper. But when you don’t check a lot of them off, that’s actually super discouraging. And it’s not because you’re lazy. It’s not because you’re incompetent. It’s just because it’s too much your brain just can’t focus when it has too many things in front of it. So you know, one thing that I think is really powerful that I think could actually help you keep your focus going into the end of the year, setting you up for a killer next 90 days, next 365 days, next five years even, is to create your not to do list like what are the things that you should not be doing and get that stuff delegated? So do the things that Brian and Draye were just talking about? And that’s a lot of the premise of the who not how book by Dr. Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan is you know, it’s finding the people that are experts in the given area. So that you number one don’t have to think about it. Number two, you get it done, you get it done a lot faster. And number three, you’re getting it done by people that absolutely own that as their expertise. So I think that’s really important and really powerful. And I think actually leads into the next couple of weeks of podcast here is start writing down the things that maybe you shouldn’t be doing. So that you can focus on your top three, your big three for the day so that you walk away from your desk, feeling like Man, that was a great day, I accomplished a lot. And I feel really optimistic coming back the next day. I’m not overwhelmed and not bogged because I know what it is I need to focus on. So Draye, Brian, anything else that either of you would add before I close things out?

Yeah, I think that one of the things, especially on nootropics, just to because everybody loves to talk about that. Just one thing that I would maybe add is is there’s a term in the field in biohacking called stacking. And so stacking is where you actually take more than one nootropics. So it doesn’t have to be like the one just one thing like end LBL obviously, for everything that Brian Brittany and myself has, have mentioned, insert disclaimer here. You know, seek medical advice, yada yada, yada, you know, you’re your own judge of these things. But, but definitely one thing that I recommend is like we’ll do like a nootropic t, in addition to maybe like alpha brain or something like that. So no affiliations, any of those. But it’s definitely one thing I figured is worth mentioning is obviously the disclaimer as well. But I think that regardless of what you’re doing, it’s definitely worth definitely worth exploring or learning a little bit more about because at the end of the day, you’re paid to think if you can think well and delegate more effectively, think clearer, eliminate the brain fog, it’s just it really sets you up for a much more productive day and more productive week as we as we finish the year off.

So, so good. Well, I think that rounds us out. So we’re gonna go ahead and wrap up this week’s episode of The Ultimate advisor podcast. We will catch you right back here next week, as we talk a little bit about tying up some loose ends. 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 ultimate advisor podcast.com. And if you want to learn a few other ways that we could potentially serve you as an advisor, go check out ultimate advisor mastermind.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

Brittany Anderson 01:07

Welcome back to your ultimate advisor podcast. Brittany Anderson here today with the one and only Bryan sweet. And the reason that our dear friend Draye Redfern isn’t here is he actually recently at the time of recording welcomed a beautiful baby boy into their wonderful, cute, adorable little family. So we are so excited for for Dre and for his wife, Andrea and for their girls. And just all that comes with that. So we’re gonna dive into an interesting series that we get asked about a lot. The theme for the next few episodes is how to grow your business, regardless of your demographics. So we get asked all the time within suite financial how we have managed to build the company up to manage nearly a billion dollars in assets under management at the time of this recording, in a town of 10,000. People. Yes, you heard that correctly, we are in a town, our offices in a town of 10,000. So I would love to be able to tell you that it’s some fancy marketing strategy, those things definitely help. But that’s not necessarily the big salt. It’s not some secret referral language that you know, we are just learning how to say something the specific way those things help to. But that’s not necessarily what builds a firm in this area of the country or where we’re at, to the level that we’ve gotten to. In reality. It’s all about relationships, and just taking really really darn good care of people. It’s interesting, because as we coach advisors from all across the country, people get hung up on, you know, what’s sexy, what’s exciting at this time, what’s going to be that next ticket to massive growth. And while some may tell you there’s a secret formula, or there’s, you know, some something that’s going to be new, hot and amazing, that’s going to help you get to every goal you’ve ever imagined. The reality is, is you just have to care about people, and you got to take care of them. And you have to be consistent and do what you say when you say you’re going to do it. Those are the things that help you stand out. And those are the things that differentiate. So Bryan, I think this is just such an interesting conversation. And you and I talk about this all the time. So I’d love for you to kind of jump in and and let’s talk a little bit more about how, you know you’ve really built the business around the whole concept of under promise over deliver.

Bryan Sweet 03:38

Oh, absolutely. Brittany love to one of the things I want to do first, though, is to take off in your little comment about Dre and the new addition to his family. Congratulations. We’re also happy for you. But back to business. So yeah, that’s it’s really, I think one of the things that you always want to be mindful of is trying to equal or exceed your clients expectations. And how do you do that? Well, the first thing you need to know is what are your clients expectations. And what I have found works amazingly well is when you have a project or you’re doing something for a client, and you need to get back to them, instead of assuming the date is three days from today. I always ask the question, if I got this back to you by this date, would that be okay with you? And if the client says no, then you know, you have to back that up and you need to get done a little bit sooner. But what I found is by asking that their timeframes are typically longer than our timeframes and it actually buys you more time. And then if you are really good at it, and you at least meet the date that they said, but maybe delivered a day or too early, just think about that you’re going to look really, really good in their eyes. And that’ll also apply going forward that, well, if you did this in a timely manner or even exceeded my expectations, that’s probably how you do everything. So I think that’s really the, you know, one of the key things and one of the other things we like to spend time on is not so much talking about returns, but what’s the client experience, and we’re constantly working on how do we make that experience even better? I think those of you that compare your returns to the s&p, you might want to rethink that. Because what really happens is, if you’re happened to be hot, then you happen to have the hot money. And as soon as somebody else shows some results, there’s not really any loyalty because all they’re doing is chasing returns. But if you give them a unique experience that they’ve never gotten before, and deliver things, in an experience that’s unique, and they’ve not had before, those clients tend to stay around forever, because they don’t see that very often. And it’s just like service at a restaurant, it stands out when it’s exceptional. And I think today, everybody’s gotten to the point where if it’s poor, that’s kind of normal. So anything to do with the client experience, spend some time on, and try to make it better each and every day, you might even want to think about having some mystery shoppers come by your office and ask questions and and then have a debrief as to, you know, what did they think of the building when it looked, you know, what it looked like? And how was My greeting? And did they ask these questions, things like that. But we spend an exorbitant amount of time and then literally zero talking about performance, because their experience is all based on our dream architect process, which really has everything to do with what do they want to accomplish in life, what are their dreams, what are their goals, and that’s really, really important to them, and rate or return, they have to get a rate of return to get those goals. But if you build it into part of the experience, you’ll have much better luck. And as Brittany alluded to, we’ve had some very good success in a very small town. And I think part of that I would actually say it can be treated as even a positive being in a small town. Because if you do things right, and you do get back to people, you are going to stand out, much greater than if you’re in a town of a million people. But also, if you don’t do things, or you have a bad reputation, it’ll also get around very fast. So you just have to be very, very aware of what you’re doing and meet and exceed expectations all the time. And one of the other things when we’re talking about differentiation, is you need to do what others won’t do in order to stand out. And I think that is really critical. I think others watch what people do, and that are successful, and then they try to repeat what that is. And I would look at that differently and go who’s the most successful advisors in your area? And what are they doing, and let’s do something completely different. So I stand out. So look at that a little bit differently, I think you’ll have some amazing luck by being aware of what your competition does. And then making yourself different from that. And one of the other things I think is really critical is this is a long term game, as Brittany alluded to, it’s not some fancy marketing, some referral language. It is really about relationships and taking care of people. But relationships don’t necessarily happen overnight. Sometimes people aren’t ready to do business with you. And it takes time to develop. And one of the things that you need to do is consistently help people first, deliver value, and the results will follow. And if you just continually give good information, follow up with people, you would be amazed at people that call one year, five years, 10 years down the road when they’re retiring and their 401k is now maturity, if you will, since they’re not working. And so you want to not get so excited about I have to close every piece of business today. But look at it as a long term venture, you’re in this for your career, and what can I do to help every person I’d love to work with in the future understand and appreciate what we do as a firm, and continue to deliver that till they actually need your services. And if you do that consistently, I would say 99% of the time that will ultimately come back to you.

Brittany Anderson 10:16

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 that 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 and 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 ultimate advisor mastermind.com to learn more about how we can help you on your path and journey to growth.

Bryan Sweet 12:15

So Brittany, I’d love you to share a little bit more on you know, anything that maybe I didn’t allude to that you think’s important from that standpoint.

Brittany Anderson 12:25

So there’s two things that I want to press on here. Number one, Bryan, you talked so much about being helpful and building the relationship and how people have to understand that it’s a long game. So when we’re looking at our prospect list, per se, when we’re looking at essentially kind of the next person that we may be able to add value to, we’re having conversations around how can we actually help them? Or who can we help next? And I think something that that’s done is it’s really a reframing, because in order to truly help somebody, you need to understand what their problem is. And you have to understand where they’re lacking in value and where you can fill that gap. So I think that’s a whole reframing, when you’re looking at it instead of well, who am I going to do business with next, business is transactional, helpful or being helpful in that nature is relational. So I think that’s a reframing for our industry as a whole is to make sure that when you’re looking at these, you’re not just seeing dollar signs. Yes, that’s what drives our business. And that’s what helps us be able to put more value back into the world. But that’s not the frame when you’re looking at actually building that long term relationship. The other thing that has really stood out, you know, especially lately, Bryan, and you can jump in on this at any time, too. But when we give our tour of the office, there’s two things that continually jump out that people kind of linger on. And I think this is interesting. And I think it ties back to overall relationship building. So we have a client dream wall in our office representative of dreams we’ve helped people achieve, but then we also have a team dream board. And what’s interesting is that when we give anybody a tour, whether it’s a center of influence, it’s a prospective client, it’s somebody visiting for whatever reason, they tend to linger even more on the team dream board than they do on the client dream board. And I think the reason for that is because they see that we’ve built internally here, relationships with each other, which in turn is representative of how we’re going to treat them. So I think that’s a really interesting one. And then the second thing is our patio space. So we have and we’re very fortunate with where we’re located. Again, we talk about, you know, a small town actually being an added value for us versus a hindrance. But we have this beautiful patio area. We have couches that we can do reviews out there with a screen hung over a beautiful stone fireplace. We’ve got a grill area and a nice little bar and just a really cool Trouble atmosphere for entertaining. And again, for building relationships, you know, it’s a different thing than being in an office between four walls. And you know, you’re conducting business in that setting. This particular setting is much more conversational, it’s much more natural, it’s much more of a easy going feel where you feel like you’re having coffee or tea or whatever with a friend versus taking advice from an advisor. So those are two things that I see all the time. And, Bryan, I don’t know if you want to just interject on, you know, what’s the client experience out there on that patio you just had, when you spend the summer out there on the patio with clients, I think it’s such a cool thing.

Bryan Sweet 15:37

Yeah, that is so true. Brittany, I appreciate your bringing that up. Because I just had two meetings out there yesterday morning. And it was a nice, cool morning, no humidity. And the clients were all smiles we had coffee and, and sat around the rittany alluded to nice comfy cushions, we’ve got a big screen TV, above the fireplace. And the interesting thing is they relax more. And they actually express and tell you things in that environment that I normally don’t hear. And it was really amazing, just watching their faces, and the excitement when they got to sit out on the patio yesterday. And, and I told that the team after the meetings, I said, we just need to keep doing this more and more. Sometimes we don’t do enough of them. But the experience is always always great. And also, to your point, Brittany, about the dream wall, I really think it is amazingly impactful. The team dream wall, because we live and breathe, helping people live their dreams. And it all starts with our team. And if we don’t help our team, solve their dreams, then how are we going to help our clients. And then when the team gets their dreams solved, they actually become sales people for our whole process telling others of what they’ve accomplished, and how the dream architect has had a benefit for their lives, and how it could be helpful to them. So I think those two little things turn out to be such huge things for future relationships and, and building better relationships.

Brittany Anderson 17:27

I think there’s so much to be said about that. And, and you’re right, I mean, just just being out there. And that feeling of relaxation is so awesome to see with our clients. Because you know, especially during, you know, we’ve had an interesting last 1518 months in the pandemic, and people may be a little more stressed than normal. And it’s just such a neat environment to be able to host and, again, deepen those relationships. So again, it’s being in this town of 10,000. People just go into this shock and awe when we start talking about that. But really, when your focus is set on a common vision amongst your team, when you are all moving towards the same goal of really helping people and helping people realize all that’s possible for their future, you don’t really see limitations. So in the next episode, we’re actually going to talk more about that and really aligning people towards your vision. We talked about vision a lot on this podcast, but it’s because it works. It’s meaningful, and it matters. So I’m going to give really three key takeaways from this particular episode. And I think, if nothing else, if you do not listen to another single episode, in this podcast, these three things are going to be massive value adds to your business, and things that can help you create even more success. So number one, I think Bryan absolutely nailed it on the head. It’s setting timeframes and expectations with your clients ahead of time. You know, it’s amazing at how many businesses or interactions when you start doing that for your clients, you realize just how many businesses out there don’t do that. So it helps you to differentiate, it helps you to deliver in a way that allows you to wow them. So if you know that you’re very, very likely going to get something done for your client or prospect by say, you know, Wednesday in the week, if you tell them, hey, if it works for you, and if this matches your timeline is Friday, okay, they’re like, okay, yeah, sure. Great, that sounds wonderful. Friday is perfect, and you’re able to deliver on Wednesday. They’re like, Oh, my gosh, you guys just killed it. Now, again, that’s very strategic, and it’s intentional, but it’s because you want to make sure that their expectations are always met or exceeded. And we just don’t know, in this crazy world, there are things that can pop up that can throw you off your game that can cause a delay and you’d rather give yourself that cushion, then having to go back and deliver disappointing news. So setting those timeframes and expectations and letting your clients be the ones to tell you when they want it. You’re going to realize quickly that it may give you Even more flexibility in your delivery schedule. The second key takeaway from today is taking a bird’s eye view. And I think Bryan gave a great example of having kind of that secret shopper come in. But have somebody come in and actually experience your office experience your team. Look at from, again, that bird’s eye view perspective of what the field is, what’s the delivery? And what is the true experience. So do that for yourself, get that bird’s eye view, and then make the decision to tweak one or two things, one or two things that will create an enhanced experience for your client and our prospect, those little tiny minutia moves are what make a massive difference. So you know what sweet, we are known for our client experience. And we say that from every ounce of humbleness as possible, but we are known for that. And our clients have said, you know, you just don’t even know it until you experience it. Well, if we looked at that, and said, Well, we’ve mastered it, we’re the king queens of experience, we don’t need to do anything else, we would quickly fall behind. So even where we’re at with that whole experience delivery, we’re constantly looking for ways to enhance and improve it and create an even better experience for our clients and our prospects. And then finally, I think a great way to deepen a relationship is to create a relationship, ship based atmosphere, there’s nothing more else worse, and Bryan will attest to this over and over again, there’s nothing worse than walking into an advisory office and seeing piles of paper or folders or chaos or a mess. What do you think the perception is going to be? They’re going to look at that and go, Oh, my goodness, if they can’t keep their space, like open, clean and inviting? How are they going to manage my money? So you know, it’s amazing, because there are very successful advisors out there who, where we’ve done on site visits on site coaching or training, and we walk in and there’s, you know, trim falling off the wall or piles of paper everywhere, or file cabinets that are bent and wonky, and they can’t close and you’re scratching your head going, Oh my goodness. Like if I’m having this first impression, what must the client feel? So having that mindfulness of if you really want to deepen relationships, and build your business and create something that is so different from your competitors, looking at it from the perspective of how can I create a while welcoming, warm, enriched environment that’s going to allow me to actually get to know these people to deepen the relationship and make them feel welcome. So Bryan, before I close this out, is there anything else that you want to add, say, put on the on the table for anything experience related?

Bryan Sweet 22:41

I’m gonna be great, Brittany, I think you’re genius just showed through so I’m gonna turn it back to you.

Brittany Anderson 22:47

Perfect. Well, that wraps up today’s episode of your ultimate advisor podcast. We will continue on in the next session with training your people towards your vision. 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 ultimate advisor podcast.com. And if you want to learn a few other ways that we could potentially serve you as an advisor, go check out ultimate advisor mastermind.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.