Episode 213 – Symphony of Success Through Systematization with Mr. Brian Heckert

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 1:06

Welcome back to The Ultimate Advisor Podcast. We have got an extra special treat continuing on the path that we started in the last interview session. We are interviewing some new partners. So today I have with me Mr. Brian Heckert. How are you today?

Brian Heckert 1:27

I’m wonderful, wonderful, great weekend and looking forward to sharing a little bit with you this morning, Brittany.

Brittany Anderson 1:34

Awesome. Well, to give a little background before we dive into a great conversation here. Brian has done some amazing things in the advisory space. He is the former president of million dollar round table has multiple businesses, massive entrepreneurial spirit. And we are so fortunate to have him coming on board as partners and ultimate advisor coaching. So I’m going to actually let you give a little bit more background on yourself, Brian, let’s talk about maybe what got you started in this industry and how it’s evolved over the years for you

Brian Heckert 2:07

Well started in 1985, as a 21 year old, coming straight out of the meat production industry. So no background, but started in the insurance business that a lot of as a lot of advisors and my generation did. There wasn’t a lot of opportunities for people to come in with an education in my area. So gentleman hired me, he was my dad’s insurance planner and hired me at a very young raw age, and I became a sponge for everything that wanted to wanted to become and you know, goal setting was important at that time. activity was important at that time, filling your calendar. You know, back in the day, we used to have 15 appointments a week and drive, you know, 30 miles every direction to get there. But it quickly evolved from generalist to specialist in the retirement plan space. At the young age, I was cold calling banks for converting pension plans into profit sharing plans. And then we all want to TPA bought the TPA out, bought another TPA out and then expanded nationwide, through a series of marketing to some very select select niches in our industry, specialized in trucking companies around the country, and then move from 401k base to assets under management and wealth planning over the last 1015 years. So a lot of the same progressions that I know a lot of the members of of UAC and a members of our profession have have done over the years. So that’s a little bit of a quick check on my history in this profession.

Brittany Anderson 4:00

Well, I feel like I learned a little bit there. And I’ve known you for a while now. And for any of our listeners here, I’ll just give a little background. So as you know, the last episode that dropped was Mr. John Walsh, it is John, Bryan, next week’s special guest and then Mr. Bryan Sweet have all been in a study group with another gentleman who is absolutely brilliant and wonderful as well. Over 20 years now, right? It’s been a long time running.

Brian Heckert 4:26

Yeah, that’s coming up on 25 years.

Brittany Anderson 4:28

Yeah, that’s, that’s amazing. So, you know, one thing that I admire so much about each of you is you truly have a love for this industry. So Brian, if you could wrap that into a pretty bow, like what is it that you love most about this industry and the ability to get back?

Brian Heckert 4:46

Well, you know, with a centering and we still center a lot of our practice around qualified retirement plans. And the common thread that I’ve seen for the last 30 plus years has been that the average person just has no access to planning. Everybody wants high net worth clients, everybody wants, you know, the big clients the big accounts, but there’s a gap that we fill very well. And providing planning advice for everybody from the janitor to the CEO, if they have a 401 K plan with us, they are offered a retirement plan. And I’m told by a lot of people in our profession that that model can’t work, you know, how can you do that? And I come back at him with if you systematize your process, a $30,000 year employee has different planning needs than a $3 million year employee. And if you tailor it to what they need, which a $30,000 a year employee needs to know, how much should I put in and what is it going to get me in retirement, that can be done by a junior adviser, it can be done in a very quick, simple process. But it can be done in a manner that satisfies 100% of that employees worries, which then makes the CEO very happy that somebody is helping everybody. Everybody, the CEO can go to anybody. But we have really stressed and perfected for the last 30 years planning for the average. But I use the example in retail. So you have the Neiman Marcus clients, which everybody wants, and then you have the Walmart shopper. But there’s a middle ground that isn’t just looking for bargains, they’re looking for a better experience. And I’ll relate that to a target shopper, Target and Walmart similar inventory, similar types of products, but different pricing just a little bit nicer. So what we’ve done is adjust our process to match the need. And and found that through the 401k we can give them the advice that they need, keep them happy, give a value add that makes putting new 401k is on the books very easy. So that’s a little bit of how we attack our process and why I wrote the book 401 know how is geared to a kind of a manual, an Owner’s Manual for 401 k’s and we hand that out as a business card, we produced it, and in the process of updating it. But it’s really meant to help everybody in that plan, get a great retirement experience.

Brittant Anderson 7:30

You know, I think there’s so much value packed in what you just talked about Brian because I think about and let’s position this towards the advisor who is maybe earlier in the game right now. And I’ll say, you know, our audience who tunes into the ultimate advisor podcast, there’s a wide breadth, there’s people that are early in the game all the way up to multi million dollar producers. But going towards more of this, you know, early starter, maybe kind of just cuffing on that $1 million revenue production mark. They’re often given me advice to go after that ideal target client to niche down to make sure that they have that singular focus. But I think what you just laid out and explained here, you build a business model around delivering value like point blank, it’s delivering value, regardless of who you come across. So I think there’s so much in there, Brian, that that isn’t talked about enough in our industry, about how you can serve, it just depends on the model you want to build. And there’s one interesting little point here that you you made very brief mention of your like, well, a junior advisor could do that. I would bet that for some advisors, it’s a little terrifying relinquishing control. But what you and Mr. Brian suite have done is you’re both masters of delegation, in my opinion. So I would want to know, for somebody that’s thinking, Oh, my gosh, I need a junior advisor. I’m at that point in my business, I have some things to hand off. How do you delegate effectively, everybody can delegate or not effectively?

Brian Heckert 9:00

Yeah, and it’s a lot of that comes to your own comfort level. You know, I agree with you 100%. I, I’ve mentored people around the globe, and the one biggest problem they have when they bring in a junior advisor is that they only give them Junior advisor capable relationships. I’ll argue that our best relationships were handed off years ago to the junior advisor, but it’s a mentality set. It’s not like all of the just use a hospital. For example, if there’s a complex brain surgery that’s happening, you don’t put a first one first year resident on that brain surgery without the experience and backup of the professional surgeon that’s been doing it for 30 years. But the confidence for that first year resident to be able to take that on later on comes from that one opportunity to do it. And then the second opportunity and third opportunity. The clients still have access to everything that I brought to the table for the last 30 years. But I’ve noticed our our junior advisors transition to associate advisors, and even in Leo, Brandon and Michael’s example, who are all partners in the firm, they transitioned a lot quicker because we gave them the biggest relationships early. And let them find out what is the demands of that client? What are the demands of the client? What is the need, that they’re trying to solve. And then when they run up against an answer problem, or a solution problem, we bring it back, I circle back in with the client and the younger advisor, and we solve the problem. And then the day to day relationships, that the contact for market updates, all of those things come back to that younger advisors relationship. So they learn how to nurture and keep moving that relationship. I found that our clients appreciate that more, because they know by the look on my face and the gray in my hair, that I’m not going to be doing this forever. And they have another 30 years to look forward to, in working together with Brandon, Leo, Michael. And then now Kyler, and Tyler and all the other advisors in our firm. So delegation comes with self confidence first, and the more self confidence you have that your relationship is only as good as your ability to deliver service. And if I have 50, a plus relationships, and I’m thinking I can service every single one, it’s not going to happen plus the other 100 or 200. Other relationships you have in affirming. So the quicker an advisor can earn over that A plus relationship, the quicker they can become more of a developer of ideas, a developer of concept, and less a deliverer of individual solutions. That makes sense.

Brittany Anderson 12:01

It does. And, you know, I think and I’m relating just because you and Brian sweet you think a lot of like, and I can think of examples, in my own mind at Sweet financial as a practice where that same delegation path has happened. And it’s it’s actually increased the growth of the team exponentially fast paced their their capabilities, I guess you could say. So I think that’s such a valuable advice. And it’s interesting that you went that direction with the topic of delegation, because I liken it to I was at a conference recently and a gentleman was talking about, he’s in the real estate business. And he was talking about how when he had his first big project, like he really felt like he made it, he delegated, like the carrying of the toilet, right. So you have to take the toilet out, you have to carry it across, you have to go take it out to the dumpster, and then you go back into you grab the next thing. And he’s like, that was fine, because that got me a little bit of freedom. But where I really had the biggest impact was when I actually delegated to a person to basically say you find the team to carry the toilets out, you find the team to take the wall down. That’s when he had immense freedom. And that’s exactly what you’re talking about here is give your capabilities, the biggest capabilities to your team and then watch them grow and thrive. So I love that.

Brian Heckert 13:17

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Brittany Anderson 13:20

So kind of going to the flip side of this a little bit is, you know, we’ve heard what you love about the industry. And we’ve heard some immensely valuable advice. What’s something that you think needs to change in this industry?

Brian Heckert 13:33

If I could wave my magic wand, it’s one I have control over. And I’ve adapted. The other one, I think is uncontrollable, and that’s regulation. So I’m not going to go down the regulation route because I think there’s, you know, a whole different story on that in this profession. I think there is a big movement away from giving. I don’t want to say cookie cutter approach. I see everything having to be individualized that they they they’re still a big movement towards printing 200 Page quarterly reports, quarterly meetings, and they feel that their clients have to have that or else they’re not justifying their fees. I take the other approach. The fees are renumeration and a way that we get compensated for our advice. Much like a retainer on a law firm. I use the example with clients you know you’re going to pay for some things that you’re not going to use this year. It’s like airbags in a car. You’re paying for the airbags in the car. And if you’re successful with that car relationship, they never deploy, but the minute you need them, they’re there. And that’s what I look at with my firm. Our fees are built into the planning is built into the fees so 75% of our fee structure is tied to having a structure that will answer questions the minute they have a big problem, not for asset management, it’s not for picking a selection of a portfolio or making the right stock picks. It’s about answering problems and questions. Not every client will use that in the same volume. But it’s just like the car price. Everybody who buys a BMW gets the exact same ticker price, sticker price, same amount of of value is tied to that airbag. But only few lives are saved because the airbags deployed, only a few problems are solved in our planning process across the board, but we have the structure to answer them and solve problems immediately when they need it. So I look at too many people do extra work, generate extra paper, that try and justify what they do and how they do it without saying it’s not about the value of the folder, you put the material. And it’s not about the glossiness of the paper you printed on. In fact, we print nothing. Our presentations are 100% Digital 90% of them are virtual across the country across every advisor. And when the client leaves, they leave maybe maybe with an ink pen and a notepad. But everything else is digitized for them. Their experience their reversion to planning, we turn them on to the FSM wealth, core wealth process website. We save everything and files, we have a repeatable process, because we don’t waste their time and money on things that will probably just sit on a shelf, or maybe even be pitched. We focus on delivering answers and solutions, which cannot be put into a binder.

Brittany Anderson 16:53

You know, I love podcasts. But I love live audiences even more. And if I were to ask the question to our listeners right now, Who here thinks that Mr. Hackard has done maybe a little bit of mentorship in his time, nod their heads, raise their hands, and you can tell like Brian, you’ve got so much rich experience and value that you’re packing into this episode. And I think that, you know, that whole journey of fees, because what’s the what’s the biggest hang up and issue we have between our two ears is when it comes to fee conversations. And I’ve heard this with advisors before, it’s why people struggled to introduce the planning fee. It’s why they struggle to increase their fees, when in reality, there’s so much justification and value that’s happening at different points in the planning journey. That it seems from the outside looking at, it should be a no brainer decision. But people struggle with it. So I think what you just shaped there is such a great solution and a great mindset. Plus, it’s legitimate, and it’s real. And there’s value packed in that for the client receiving and on the other end. So I think that was brilliant. And I want to go back because you You made this like really quick drop about mentorship. And you’ve spent a lot of your years mentoring people and like you said on a global basis. Now that’s not something to just pass by. So I want to push on this for a moment is, you know, what is it? Or why is it at this point in your career? I guess it you should, I guess I could say that you want to mentor advisors, and what value are you bringing to the table to really make a change in this industry? Where Where’s that coming from?

Brian Heckert 18:29

So, you know, in my years of serving an MDRT, and then you having gone through the executive committee, culminating in the presidency. I’ve been touched along that process at many times when I needed it more than I knew I needed it and the mentorship, stepped in when the student was ready. My first real mentorship came from one of the industry greats, Mark Feldman, when I worked side by side with him on a committee and in the million dollar roundtable. And he gave me advice that I didn’t know I needed at the time. And here he is, his father was one of the greats the you know, Ben Feldman sold more insurance than the 90% of the insurance companies. And Marv grew up in that environment. And when I got to know Marv on a level, where he confided in me, he said, you know, my dad was a great person, but he was the ultimate salesperson. And there were times when he wasn’t necessarily present. And I think that was an understatement. So what he gave me was a one on one about making the family relationship the most important relationship and he use the comment. It’s not original with him, but you know, all the success in the world will never overcome a failure at home. And, you know, with with my impact Up until that point was all the great producers work 80 hours a week, 90 hours a week, they, you know, focused on things and they scheduled their family time. And what I found most important from that discussion with him was that it was a, it was a permission from somebody who’s ultimately successful on family first. And that was a, you know, it’s something I heard something I always wanted to do. But it gave me permission to do that. Well, that’s been a lot of my mentoring with people, when I see them staggering with things at home. And in my speeches, that I speak internationally, that’s a big problem. You know, there, there are countries that are encouraged to work, you know, seven days a week, eight hours a day, and they, you know, they, the only time they really are at home, is between five o’clock and eight o’clock, and then they go back to the office from eight to 10. And it’s, it’s a crazy environment, that the companies, the culture is work, work, work, work, work. And when you hit monetary success, you’re successful. Where I think, you know, now that I have children in the business now that we just celebrated our 40th anniversary, there’s things that you can build into your practice that make the home life more of a judge of success than the financial aspects of it, having received those nuggets of advice throughout the years, from key mentors that stepped in, I formalized that and actually have mentored over 30 people around the world, some in the United States, and that’s what excites me about UI UAC is that I can continue that vision of what I like to do, and that’s help others and then add the knowledge when the student is not necessarily ready to receive it. So you know, that the mentoring has been a part of it all the way from my very first mentor, who was my very first boss, all the way through to the, you know, the relationships I have now with with people around the world.

Brittany Anderson 22:12

And isn’t it amazing, like you think back to the people that have these lasting impressions on you, and how those little nuggets stay with you, and how it shapes your path and your journey. And you know, how far you’ve come? And I think, you know, really, I’m going to toot your horn a little bit for you right now. I mean, what you just talked, just talked about with making sure you have a focus on family, and you are putting that as a priority and not letting the business all consume you. Like, how many trips have you been on in the last year alone, Mr. Heckert?

Brian Heckert 22:45

Quite a few, quite a few. And it’s, we’ve been very fortunate. And, again, it’s building time building a little bit of business. So you know, that’s the other part of it. It doesn’t have to be exclusionary. But it allows for a lot better when you can experience the journey together.

Brittany Anderson 23:06

Yeah, there’s, there’s so much magic to that. And, you know, I think about again, if you’re an advisor, tuning in right now, and you feel like you are in the grind, or you are that person that’s going back to the office for me to 10, because I know we’ve got listeners, because people have wrote in about this is, is the struggle that it can be to feel like, you know, there’s always more work to be done. And the one thing that I always say to and I am guilty of this as well. So I’m not sitting here from pedestal preaching, I’m saying I’ve been in the midst of this is that there’s always going to be work to be done, no matter what you can find something to grow your business to enhance your profitability to better serve your clients. Like it is never ending. But if you don’t allow yourself that moment to breathe and recoup and regenerate, you’re going to quickly start seeing that decline. So I think that, that that advice that you’re bringing, Brian is so valuable, and it’s again, tried and tested, like you’ve lived this, it’s not just preaching from, you know, the stage or whatever you’ve actually lived in this,

Brian Heckert 24:08

I just think you know, it’s so important for people gets back to what you originally talked about is the ability to hand off and delegate your best relationships is where most people get hung up. And that comes from a lack of confidence in ourselves. And the people surround us the minute you give somebody the opportunity to shine. I’ll use an example from the great Tony Gordon in England, he said, Brian, he said, If you do it 100%, right, every single time, you’ll get 100% of the results. But if you give it to two people and they do it 70%, right. You now have 140% output. And it dawned on me, you know the math doesn’t work necessarily that way, but it’s the common. They don’t get to 70 before they were at 40 and they don’t get to 100 unless they get to seven So you have to hand over these things. But you can hand it to two people who can do it, initially not as good as you, but very soon better than you. And that’s the key is replicating who you are. And not just thinking that you are the solution to everything. Most of the times, we’re the obstacle to a lot of things.

Brittany Anderson 24:23

We can be the cog in the system, we’ll just leave it at that. So Brian, this is a little bit more of a personal question as we get close to wrapping here. But you know, when you are in the heat of things, because I know and you know, business can get stressful, and we need to unwind to be intentional. So what are some things that you do to intentionally unwind to de stress kind of decompress?

Brian Heckert 24:48

Well, I don’t play golf very well. So I don’t golf. I’m not a sports fan, I couldn’t tell you the scores of anything or who plays on any team. The way I unwind and my stress is I I’m a, I believe that my highest and best duty is manual work. And I’ve I do construction, I have side projects around our house, my wife runs a nice opportunity in a small community. So we’ve been my release comes from a lot of physical work. And, and then together, we work on those projects, she designs them, and then together, we build them. But I think the biggest thing that we do is we’ll take a break and go camping, that involves a lot, we’ll spend time with our kids and grandkids, that always helps. And, you know, having the flexibility to build that into a week, do remote meetings, we get the best of both worlds. So you know, family, our kids are very close. Not physically, they’re, you know, each four or five hours away, our grandkids are being raised by some awesome daughter in laws and son in laws. So what we have the ability to do to release from our stresses to go see them, do a little camping, build in some other things, but still do zoom meetings and things as I need to. But from wherever I want to, as we tell our clients, it doesn’t matter where I am, it just matters where you want to go. And if you’ll give me the flexibility not to shake your hand and hand you a cup of coffee, we’ll deliver solutions. If I’m in Korea, or Asia, or Nashville, Illinois, as long as we can communicate. That’s the only way we have to get together to have a solution. So that makes life a lot less stressful knowing that you don’t have to physically sit in a chair somewhere at any one time.

Brittany Anderson 27:49

I love that. And I think about there’s a gal Her name is Judy Haller. And she has a whole platform about overcoming fears and this whole Yes, and concept. And that’s what I keep thinking about as I’m listening to you talk, Brian is your life is built around. Yes. And like yes, I run a successful business. And I have time to do this. Yes, I travel a lot. And I fit in time to work and serve the people that I need to serve. So I think that’s such a beautiful combination when you bring that all together. And I have to bring this up because I am thinking back to one of the the given grow study group meetings and for our listeners, given grows, the name of the study group that Brian hacker and the other gentleman that you’re meeting here have all been part of for many, many years. But I feel like you were the one that said something about how in our industry, there’s no finish line, like you’re never done, you have a relationship that you’ve had for many, many years, you go through planning, then you have maybe new planning that’s needed towards the end of life, and then the end of life happens. And then it’s time to serve the beneficiaries. And there’s they’re planning, so there’s never an end. There’s never like, oh, I completed this project. So I think it was you that was talking about the construction and how you can actually tangibly see the completed project and why that’s fulfilling. Am I making that up? Or did you talk?

Brian Heckert 29:09

Oh, no, that’s absolutely true. And, you know, the way I said that, I was I built two of my offices physically two by four by two by four. And one of the local construction guys said Heckert, you know, you could hire somebody to do that and wouldn’t have to save your time. And that’s where I came up with that analogy. I said, I said the guy’s name was Buck, I said, Buck, you can look at that building after six months or eight months, stand back handed the owner the keys and say job well done. And then they pat you on the back and you go and you have completion 12 to 15 times a year in a small community. I said but and my job. I’ve worked with 250 different clients that we’ve done full planning for not a single one has died, which gives completion to the plan well done, I said, construction work gives me an ability to look back and say, job well done. I relate that to staffing as well, then that’s something we all forget, we get the Pat’s on the back, we get everything else in this business at hands out more acrylic than any other industry out there for a job well done, but our staff just gets another job to do another job to do. And we always have to think in terms of how does every single person on the team, get to stand back and get that same level of completion? How do they look back and say, job well done. When they the minute they finish one, they get another one. So again, that’s been our challenge. And our goal is to make sure that there’s time for completion, there’s always financial paychecks at the end of the week, but that shouldn’t be the the ultimate on job well done. They should also be able to stand back and look and say, Man, you know, perfect portrait, perfect building, how can they get that same level of completion? And that’s the you’re absolutely right, I did come up with that, I will take ownership of that. But it’s what I truly believe so.

Brittany Anderson 31:05

And that’s so wonderful. And I love the application to your team. And it’s something Brian that stuck with me because my husband and I like to do the same things. Like we remodeled our entire house and did all of it. You know, we had some some friends and family helped a little bit along the way. But being able to sit back and go, Wow, it’s done. And we did it. And we’ve done other projects like that. So I always think about what you said at that meeting. And it’s stuck with me. And I think that explains a little bit of my craziness on why I like to take projects to go sell things exactly. So as we wrap up here, one last question for you is, if you had to summarize one singular piece of advice for an advisor that’s really trying to get to the next level hit their definition of success, what would that one piece of advice be?

Brian Heckert 31:55

I will call it systematize your structure, don’t feel the need to complete an individual plan for every single employee plan client. When all they’re looking for as a solution. We tend to want to individualize to impress the clients. But in our profession, everything’s so complicated, it all sounds the same. So you could be the most brilliant practitioner and yet it gets lost in the noise that surrounds our profession. So my suggestion is systematized does not mean less, it means more. It gives you the ability to look at each piece of what we do, and make a process to have it happen automatically, so that we can focus when it’s needed, on that one time solution that will save that clients hundreds 1000s hundreds of 1000s or millions of dollars in their financial life. That’s what they hire us for Asset Management is just a product. It’s not the solution. The solutions are helping somebody move to another state to solve tax problems. It’s helping them sell their business at the right time at the right amount. Those are the things we should be getting paid for.

Brittany Anderson 33:10

Well, that is incredibly valuable advice. And Brian, I sincerely thank you for spending time with myself and with our audience here today. We are so excited to have you part of the program and just the immense value you’re gonna bring to all participants, all of our coaching members, mastermind members alike. It is a pleasure to have you.

Brian Heckert 33:30

I appreciate it. Brittany, thank you for spending time.

Brittany Anderson 33:32

Awesome. Well, that wraps up today’s episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast. We’ll catch you right back here next time.