Episode 211 – Igniting that Driving Force: From Intention to Action

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.

Brittany Anderson 1:07

Welcome back to your Ultimate Advisor Podcast. This is Brittany Anderson. And here with me today I have Mr. Draye Redfern and Mr. Bryan Sweet. One of the things to kind of look at reframing your thought process going into today’s episode plus the next few weeks is to really think about how you can eliminate some of your previous limiting beliefs, how you can reshape how you think about selling as a whole. So there are people out there who are going to say, hey, just pick up the phone and start calling cold calls. That’s still the way to go. Sales one on one, here’s the step by step. And the bottom line is, is that stuff just doesn’t work like it used to our industry as a whole has shifted immensely into the relationship sector. So instead of focusing on selling, you should focus on building relationships. Now, if you’ve been following us for a while, maybe you’re listening here and you are in our challenge, or you’ve listened to our summit, or you’ve been in our mastermind, there’s a phrase that I love to say that’s a little provocative from Mr. Darren Hardy, the founder of Success Magazine. And that is that in order to really excel in your business, you need to get in your prospects bed to get in their head. Now what that means is not as creepy as it sounds, but more. So it’s understanding what’s keeping people up at night, in order to take action and to actually solve problems. You’ve got to understand the fears that people are facing and where they are experienced, experiencing frustrations when it comes to their finances when it comes to planning for their future when it comes to navigating transitions like retirement, like widowhood, like a divorce, like a sudden inheritance from a parent, you know, the biggest disconnect that we experience or that we see so many advisors experience is that they start to fall in love with their own service or offering versus actually falling in love with what the prospect or what the client wants. So that’s leaving so much opportunity on the table. And that’s what we’re trying to help you avoid. So even the most seasoned well rounded, successful adviser, every single person listening to this can stand to benefit. So one of the first things that I’ll lead off with when it looks at when we look at taking action, that is to realize that we talk way too much. So one of the key areas of focus for you as an advisor when it when you look at closing even more business, the whole premise of the challenge that we just wrapped up was it’s being a pipeline pro, you know, becoming even better at moving people from a prospect to an actual client to a lifelong relationship. And part of the ways are one of the ways to do that is to let the prospect do 80% of the talking and you do 20% to stop trying to push and shove, what it is that you do you and how great your services, but rather really hearing the person on the other end, meeting them where they’re at, and understanding what their needs are. So Bryan, I would love for you to jump in at this point. Because I think that you can give some great perspective on how we’ve really shifted our focus to this and gone deeper on this at Sweet Financial.

Bryan Sweet 4:32

I think one of the things we all get guilty of is we’re maybe not conscious enough of what we do. And a lot of times we just let things happen instead of making them happen. And I think anytime you can control the circumstances, in any factor that deals with your client relationships, you’re going to have more success. And so I think a couple of things that I got from the challenge and it was just Maybe magnify the importance is to really focus on learning your story and sharing it with your clients. Because it really humanizes you, and makes them understand why you’re in the business and why you’re doing what you’re doing. And I think we all probably assume that clients don’t care prospects don’t care. But the sooner that people can realize that one year human, to you’re doing this for a good reason, three, they might have had the same experience in growing up and your story might be very similar to theirs. And that might help attract them to you. But the sooner you can learn to add that as part of your discovery process, when you’re first talking to new people, I think you’ll have remarkable success, if you’re not doing that. We haven’t done it as long as I would have liked. But the results since we’ve been doing that, and we’ve built this into an actually office tour of the building, the results have been amazing. Matter of fact, the extent of one dramatic experience when we had this was we had a lady in for the first time and we’re doing the story tour. And because of all the questions that she was asking, it actually took 45 minutes before she got into the conference room to have her appointment. But the thing I can tell you is, after she got in there, I really didn’t have any work to do, because she was absolutely sold, just based on knowing about the firm and how we do it. And you’ve heard us talk about tagging before, and that’s part of the tour. So if you’re not using your story, please start using it. And there’s lots of companies out there that can help you create it. And it doesn’t have to be fancy, just what’s your background and what caused you to get into the business and just start telling it, and you can refine it and make it better. And but it’s remarkable. You know, another thing is, I think it’s impactful to try and control the conversation. And one of the things we heard and we talked a lot about during this challenge was don’t focus on fees, focus on value. And I think one of the things that I alluded to earlier is that we’re very, not very conscious of what we’re supposed to do. And so we just kind of let the conversation go, whatever direction it goes. And if you’re really on top of it and ask the right questions, you can really get the client to take action, much, much sooner. And I think when fees come into consideration, the reason that they ever pop up is really because you haven’t shown enough value for the fees. And maybe somebody’s got a misperception on what that even means. And so what we talked about in the challenge was the question that you should probably ask when presented with what your fees is, can I ask what made you ask that question? And once you find out what the true reason is, then you can actually answer it. But what we’ve found is that the industry is really into a situation where they’re trying to focus on price, because they’re not delivering value. And if you’re a person that does deliver value, these really don’t matter at that point. So that’s really an interesting thing. And what I’ve found is, the more you can control that conversation, the more you can get the client on the path to discovering what their pain, what their problem is, and then showing them that your unique process is the vehicle to help them accomplish it, the better your results will be.

Brittany Anderson 9:10

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 Well, 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 yourselves 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 11:10

Draye Why don’t you touch base a little bit on how you step out of the box on to having them people take action?

Draye Redfern 11:16

Yeah, thanks, Bryan, there’s a couple things here that both the sweet team does and that I do in order to make this happen or make it a reality. And I think the first one is the stepping outside of the box, the box is the ideas, I got a lot of ideas, but don’t have the trademark or the patent on all good ideas. So the first thing is putting myself out of the box where ideas can actually arise. And that may be going to events being a part of masterminds, or coaching programs and all of these things. I was in Nashville last week for three days, because I live this, I believe this so much. So it’s like the proximity to ideas, and new things to take action on. Now basically, my goal when it comes to ideas, before I get into the action part is that I want to be the first to try something. And then usually it’s an amalgamation of one thing like a and g and Z that ends up being a there’s all different all sorts of different things that I could take and make one plus one equal five. And most of the time it doesn’t work out. But the times that it does, it really works out is the proximity to ideas. Now in order to actually make those ideas like happen and actually take action on them, the easiest way to make that happen is to bring your second and command along on this journey that you take so that they’re on the same page speaking the same language, because they’re the ones who are actually going to take action on the stuff to make it happen. versus you know, you’re coming back. And then you have all of these ideas, you’re like, we can do this. And we can do that. And we can do this, we can do that. And they’re like, Stop, just stop. It’s like drinking from a firehose, like, please no more, you’re never allowed to leave ever again, you don’t want that. So the idea of taking someone and Brian and Brittany do this together. And it’s been one of their secret weapons as far as the growth that they’ve had over the last five years. Because Brian can see, you know, hear an idea come out at one way, Brittany could hear the same idea and come at it a completely different way. And they have this hybrid way of actually taking an idea of fitting their specific needs, and then actually getting that darn thing implemented. And we do the same thing is because I love ideas, I even blot out or jot out thinking time, not as often as I should, but I do it in order to have these ideas to ideate create, but I am not the one actually making all that happen. You got to have someone dedicated on the team that can do that. To actually take it from point A to B to C to Z. Now there’s a couple of tools that we’ve talked about before previously, like the Colby index, I am like a 10 out of 10 on the Colby fast, or like Quickstart they call it so I’m like boop boop boop boop move on to the next thing, you know, calls and meetings and ideas and like all of it. And that really stresses certain people on my team out Yeah, gotta have the people that are actually the follow through the implementer to make those things happen. So that’s one of the things around taking action is if you have the person optimize for it utilize that because they’re the ones are going to help you have things go a lot faster. If you don’t have the person hire them. So like literally this week, we had a have a brand new mastermind member who is doing probably the highest grossing mastermind or Matt or financial advisor sorry, per employee, doing about 700 grand a year just himself in production, no support staff no admin know nothing. guy takes action, but he is burning it the handle of both ends He’s exhausted and like well margins are great, because it’s only me. Yes, but it’s small minded thinking, we have a lot of conversation with advisors who are in that same sort of boat or way of thinking. And that is, you know, I just don’t need to hire anyone else, I just want to, you know, just keep moving down the line, and we’ll, you know, it’s gonna be great. But what they’re not realizing is by having some of those people in place to actually help you take action, the Britney’s of the world, historically, she’s in a different role now, but the Britney’s of the world to actually make these things happen, and get them in place. So a 40 $50,000 a year salary could yield 356 X over the course of a year by allowing you to buy back time, save time, focus on the things that you’re the best at, and offload all of the other things that you’re not. It’s a matter like, that’s how the sweet team that’s how me and my team and Redfern media move so much faster and grow so much faster is because Bernie’s talked about it before. We’re both okay with compress margins, to hire people to compress those margins to get them up to the speed that they need to be at. So that when the next growth comes in, they can handle all of that and more, they’re like, give me more, give me more, I want more I can handle it. And so it’s a matter of this can you know, expand and contract on the margins to bring those people in, to radically get to those goals significantly faster when it comes to taking action. So yes, take action, do it. But it doesn’t have to be you every single time just somebody on your team that is trained in your way, your methodology, your way of thinking, that can dramatically shortcut a lot of these things. So that being said, Brittany, I’m sure there’s a couple things that you could weigh in on that. Because you are you are the culture queen. So anything that you want to add to that.

Brittany Anderson 16:54

I always chuckle when you guys are like, you know, find a Brittany do it the Brittany way. I’m like, I need to coin this somehow. How do I trademark my name? No, all jokes aside, you know, there’s a couple things that that you guys both touched on that I think are really powerful to drive home. And the first thing is, you know, Brian, I remember you talking about how when you joined Strategic Coach years and years ago how there was a general theme about how Dan Sullivan, the founder, talked about, like the overly scheduled entrepreneur, the overly scheduled business owner, and how that’s actually detrimental to them realizing their full potential. And it’s a massive stifle on creativity. And I think that a lot of times, and again, if you’re listening to this, I trust that you’re a successful advisor, because you would not be open to learning and open to listening to different perspectives if you weren’t that person. So I think it’s really important that if you are that person that Draye just talked about, where you’re the advisor that’s pushing towards that seven figure production mark, and you’re like, raising your hand pumping your fist, because you’re doing this alone. That’s awesome to that point. But the way that we look at that is we’re going oh, my gosh, if they were able to get this far, and to that point, with literally zero help across the board, imagine what they’re capable of, if they start putting the right butts in the right seats, if they start delegating the stuff that’s not major energy drivers for them, and their focus and their intention going forward. So for us, we’re excited, like, we are genuinely excited to bring on this mastermind member and to have them join our amazing crew, because they are going to level up in ways that I don’t even think they realize are possible. So that brings me to another point here is that the whole idea of the second in command and the communication that Draye talked about, and how you’re in there, and you’re in that whirlwind and you’re like, oh my gosh, this is the best idea I’ve ever heard. And they’re like, Okay, well, Mister best idea, the last month was your best idea, too. So let’s reel it in for a minute. Because next month is going to be your next best idea. And quite frankly, I’m not doing any of it because you’re gonna change your mind in a month. So all of these things happen. And your intentions are great, and they’re amazing. And they’re pure, and they’re exciting. You know, especially if you are entrepreneurial minded, and those new ideas and those shiny objects, they keep you going. I understand that your intention is good, but part of the only reason I understand that is because I’m also entrepreneurial in nature, but because I was along for the ride and the journey from a very early stage, being exposed to the why behind why Brian made the decisions that he did. So we joke now that it’s his fault that I’m not this fault, that I’m chasing all the entrepreneurial things too. But in reality, you need somebody in your corner to be able to decimate and communicate the things that are going to move the needle versus just what’s exciting. So when you look at taking action, you know a lot of what we talk about can be a little overwhelming because you’re like, oh my gosh, I have a list of, you know, six pages of stuff that I could implement yesterday. But I don’t even have time to breathe because I need to make sure I’m serving clients, I’m not losing assets, I’m, you know, doing all the things I need to do to drive my business. So what I recommend is get your person in line, right, find that second in command, have somebody great on your team, that you can have act as a filter, because again, your intentions are pure, but how they come out and come across, can sometimes be a lot to handle. So if you’re like that super hyper, you know, high level Quickstart, like Draye, he can come into his office, and it can feel like a tornado just whipped through, you want to be able to have somebody that can say, okay, all the Draye sounds really exciting, and that’s good stuff. But here’s the two things we’re actually going to do. And here’s why they’re the most impactful. So I think those couple of things when you’re listening to this as the primary advisor, as somebody who I’m sure has a ton of activity on their plate, who is you know, loaded with opportunity, don’t get overwhelmed, just take it in bite sized pieces. So the other thing I’m going to bring up before I let the guys interject with any final comments before the wrap up. Now, if you’ve not been on the journey with us and had additional trainings, you’re probably going so what we’re going to like run around and chase each other, like what does that mean? So we’re going to actually go deep into that next week, I’m not going to give away the farm. But there’s actually a whole methodology that’s going to help you create even more opportunity in your business and actually help your team gain additional confidence. So I wanted to push on that one for a minute since Bryan dropped that little nugget to make sure that you understand what that is and what it is not. So Bryan, I think there might be a couple things that you want to interject here. Before I go into the wrap up.

Bryan Sweet 21:48

I just wanted to take off in a couple of things that each of you said, because I think the magnitude of the impact that they can have is is exceptional of the first one is really one of the keys to our success has been the relationship of you and I together but doing things together. And so that implementer idea is so powerful, and Brittany is so much better at getting the team engaged with the idea than I ever have been. So that’s also part of it. But then Draye alluded to what he called thinking time, and I got that idea from Keith Cunningham. And that’s maybe we’re Draye also got it. But I think one of the really critical things is we just get busy. But we never stopped to think about what’s the most important thing. So the first thing every morning, I have thinking time. And it could be on any topic. But it’s just I’m sitting in my office, nobody’s here. There’s no sound, there’s no interruptions, and I’m just thinking about what is it that needs to be done to move our V hags forward. And you’d be amazed at what ideas pop into your brain when you have it quiet, and just a little creative time. So if you don’t do that, just build that in. And if you’re, you know, sharpest in the morning, do it in the morning. If you’re sharpest at night, different people have different timeframes that work best, but please add that to your calendar.

Brittany Anderson 23:26

Love that. And you know, Bryan dropped another acronym that I wanted to just make sure we drive home here. And that’s B hag. So big, hairy, audacious goal. You know, it’s funny because we have this language that we kind of speak internally and amongst each other. And I think it’s just so important to understand, like when he Bryan talks about a B hag, a big, hairy, audacious goal, it is really darn hard to accomplish that if you don’t even have time to breathe or think. So I think what he brought up there with the thinking time is so powerful, it’s so impactful. And it’s necessary. And I can tell you personally, I feel it when I haven’t allocated that time, I feel it. And it only takes about a week. And I’m going I don’t feel like I’ve had any time to actually think about the future, to work on the vision to get excited about what’s to come. So I think that piece of advice is so incredibly valuable. So to wrap up today’s episode, we’re gonna go to top three takeaways. First thing that you can do immediately for your business is to reshape your initial meeting or discovery process by asking great questions and shushing. So letting the prospect do 80% of the talking, you only doing 20%. And part of the or one of the ways that you can accomplish that is just by asking really great questions by asking them to elaborate to talk a little bit more on a topic. You know, if you see that spark of enthusiasm and something that they’re talking about or even emotion on their face or They’re being pressed on that a little bit, because clearly it’s meaningful and impactful to them. The second takeaway is to decide where it is that you add the most value, that actually means something to your clients. Again, don’t fall in love with your own process, fall in love with what your clients love, and use that to promote it outside. It’s not, that’s not anything that’s salesy, that’s actually serving people at a whole new capacity and a whole new level. And the final thing is to involve your second in command to actually get stuff done. And if you’re not at a point where you feel like you can hire a, an operations manager, or a Chief Operating Officer, that doesn’t necessarily matter. Just make sure you have your person, you could be listening to this and having an assistant, maybe that assistant needs to help be your driving force. And then as you start adding more and more people to your team, that’s when you can actually hire that second in command to help run your business, to help with execution to help with implementation, and to get more things done than ever before. So that wraps up today’s episode of your Ultimate Advisor Podcast. We’ll catch you right back here next week. 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 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.