Between Now and Success

In a Nutshell: In 2020, the most successful advisors have moved past worrying about "competing" with technology. Instead, they're finding ways to automate the 30 - 40% of the mundane tasks that are necessary for relationships but don't enhance them, so that they can focus on the human conversations that create real lasting value -- and more business. Guest: Matt Reiner, CFP® CFA®, the cofounder and CEO of Benjamin, "the world's first A.I. assistant created for advisors by advisors." My Key Takeaway: Used properly, AI can do things human advisors don't need to be doing so that we can focus on things AI can't do, like: Build better relationships with our clients. Coach our clients on financial matters so that they make better decisions and feel more in control of their futures. Help clients clarify what their money is for and live their best life possible today, not just in retirement. Also Learn: 1. Why you need to start thinking about technology -- and AI in particular -- as your partner, not your enemy. 2. How an AI platform can help keep your margins and expenses under control during a burst of high growth. 3. What nuts and bolts integration and training looks like when you decide to add an AI component to your tech stack.

A single word or a short phrase could permanently change your life. When you were young, a teacher may have said something to you that forever altered how you viewed yourself—good or bad. Maybe a parent said something that still sticks with you today. Or perhaps a former boss made a comment that drives you nuts to this day—I'm in that boat! In a similar way, this "My 3 Words" exercise I learned from Chris Brogan is designed to empower you with 3 words that drive your actions and keep you on track to make this your best year ever. This is the sixth year now where I've begun the year by identifying 3 words that will set the course, give me direction, and totally excite me as I move through the year. I write these words at the top of my Daily Outcomes sheet and look at them daily throughout the year. The premise is simple. Pick 3 words that motivate you, remind you, and guide you on your road to making 2020 your best year ever. I encourage all my clients to do this and I encourage you to do this same exercise as it will help you stay focused on the most important outcomes for the year.

In a Nutshell: The largest financial advisory firms have developed consistent marketing programs that deliver a predictable stream of ideal clients...and there's just a handful of different ways to do it. Guest: Brad Johnson. Brad is the Vice President of Advisor Development for Advisors Excel. He's also the host of a great podcast for financial advisors called The Elite Advisor Blueprint. My Key Takeaway: To get your marketing machine humming: - Understand that marketing is NOT optional. Referral marketing is not enough. Choose from a list of five broad marketing buckets (with an infinite number of tactical ways to execute), and implement aggressively and consistently. - Marketing is math. Don't let your emotions distract you from the key numbers that will determine how and when a particular marketing initiative will pay off. - Make practicing a practice. Once you identify the most effective marketing strategy for your ideal client pool, practice and pursue mastery of it. Also Learn: 1. Why strong marketing that keeps your business growing double digits each year is one of the most effective ways of retaining top talent. 2. How one well-produced piece of content (like a book) can be repurposed, sliced and diced, and become an evergreen source of more content (like blog posts, short videos, and social media posts). 3. What sets apart a valuable proprietary process from a generic commodity that prospects can get from any advisor.

In a Nutshell: Shifting from being a financial advisor to being a financial coach could be the next evolution of how financial guidance is delivered and enable independent human advisors to remain profitable and relevant. Guest: Todd Tresidder. Todd is a former hedge fund manager who transitioned into a successful financial coaching career. Recently, he has adapted his coaching into a series of premium online courses on wealth building at Financial Mentor. My Key Takeaway: In order to keep adding to your value proposition: - Spend more time empowering clients and less on enabling them. - Help your clients find the path to the next step, help them always be taking that next step, and help them avoid the missteps that are in their path. - Consider getting formal training in how to coach people, from organizations like Coaches Training Institute. Also Learn: 1. How the act of gaining financial freedom doubles as a path to personal growth. 2. How a financial coach's services differ from a traditional financial advisor's. 3. What separates most people from setting their wealth goals and actually achieving them.

In a Nutshell: Clear career paths and offering a path to partnership and equity ownership are key ways to attract and retain next generation advisors and advisory firm leaders. Guests: Lisa Salvi is Vice President of Advisor Services at Charles Schwab, where she oversees business consulting and education offerings, including their one-on-one consulting engagements, the annual RIA Benchmarking Study, and other programs that support the development of advisor talent. Yonhee Gordon is a principal and Chief Operating Officer of JMG Financial Group just outside of Chicago, which has more than $3.0 billion in assets under management.

In a Nutshell: Whether you're writing website copy, sending email newsletters, social media posts, physical mailers, or a combination, you have to master the psychology of engagement to turn your prospects into clients and keep your business growing. Guest: Adam Bensman. Adam is one of the top direct response copywriters and consultants in the country, and he has a particular expertise in helping financial advisors improve their marketing. My Key Takeaway: If you want win more business from your copywriting, you need to craft a compelling offer that: Differentiates your firm. Reaches your ideal client right where they are. Addresses the questions that are going in their mind. Provides a high level of perceived value. Also Learn 1. Why you should delete your glossy headshot from the top of your emails, open with an ellipsis (...), and always end with a PS. 2. How to address your prospect's pain by appealing to the "search trigger" that brought them to you in the first place. 3. What 4 quadrants Adam says your marketing needs to hit in order to set yourself apart and demonstrate your value to your audience.

The growth of United Capital is a fascinating case study in how being early on a trend, M&A, technology, financial life planning, and a charismatic leader all came together to create one of the industry's biggest and most innovative RIA firms. Today, we'll take a deep dive on this story through one of firm's longest tenured employees, Matt Brinker. Starting at $0 in 2005, Joe Duran founded United Capital, and one of his early hires was Matt Brinker. Matt joined the firm when it had about $300 million in AUM and rode it all the way to $24 billion in AUM. He left after 13 years when the company was sold to Goldman Sachs in mid-2019. Most recently, Matt was the chief business development officer and head of acquisitions for the firm.

If you're not learning faster than the world is changing, then you are going to fall behind very quickly. And businesses that fall too far behind usually don't get a second chance to catch up. A big challenge for financial advisors is, how do you stay on top of everything that's required to run a successful advisory business? As Josh Brown put it at the recent Wealth/Stack Conference, "A good advisor is both coach and quarterback, on-demand psychologist and personal friend, historian and futurist." That's an awful lot of ground for us to cover in our personal and professional learning. Plus, we have to track technological advances that are impacting our industry, while also adapting to best practices that help our businesses stay ahead of the competition. If you haven't made a commitment to learning one of your top responsibilities as a CEO advisor, today's episode will help you get with the program. My guest today is financial planner, author, podcast host, and speaker Taylor Schulte. Taylor is the founder of Define Financial, a financial planning firm headquartered in San Diego, CA. He's also the co-founder of Advisor Growth Community, a place for financial advisors to connect with and learn from each other, and the host of two excellent podcasts, Stay Wealthy and Experiments in Advisor Marketing. Taylor and I talked about why all financial advisors need to be lifelong learners, our sources for learning, and we share a few marketing ideas too.

When was the last time you talked to a Netflix employee about your account? How about an Amazon employee? I'm guessing for most of you the answer is: never. Netflix automatically charges my credit card every month and uses its algorithms to push content it thinks I'll enjoy to my home screen. A shipping problem or return request with Amazon is usually resolved with a couple swipes or clicks. It's efficient customer service, but it's all faceless, online, impersonal. Now, when was the last time you stayed at a Ritz-Carlton or Four Season? How did that experience make you feel? Pretty darn good I bet! The key to your success as an advisor is to marry the tech efficiency of an Amazon with the deluxe service of a Ritz-Carlton and underpin it with high technical competence. It's really a three-legged stool—tech efficiency + deluxe service + technical competence. I sometimes worry that our industry has become so obsessed with the tech efficiency leg of the stool that we are losing sight of what clients are really paying us for—helping them make better financial decisions so they can live their best life possible. I couldn't attend this year Wealth/Stack Conference, so I invited two of my favorite past guests who did attend to recap some of the key themes that emerged from the conference. My guests today are Dennis Morton and Matt Wilson. Dennis is the co-founder of Morton Brown Family Wealth along with his partner, Kathryn Brown. Matt is the Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director of Keen Wealth Advisors along with his partner, Bill Keen. Here are four major themes from the conference and our thoughts about each.

Email Marketing is one of the most effective, least expensive, and underutilized marketing strategies available to you right now. I'm on the record as saying a person's inbox in the most valuable piece of marketing real estate you can own. When a person gives you permission to show up in their inbox on a regular basis, you can develop a personalized relationship that leads to new business and long-term loyalty. Now, you might be thinking, "Steve, have you lost your rocker here? Email is so 1990s. Why are you talking about email marketing? Email is dead. We've got Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn, texting, Instagram, webinars and much more, so why are you talking about a dinosaur like email?" Because it works! Just like I was early to the podcasting space five years ago when I started Between Now and Success, the next big marketing and education platform is a resurrection of an old one—email. I started using "electronic mail" back in the 1980s when I worked for corporate giants Caterpillar and Hewlett-Packard. In those pre-commercial internet days, it was a closed loop and I could send mail only to other employees. I thought it was really cool back then and today, it's even cooler now that your "email" is as unique and ubiquitous as your thumbprint. To explore email marketing, I invited one of the country's leading authorities on email marketing, Dan Oshinsky, to my podcast. Dan is the founder of Inbox Collective, an email consultancy that helps brands grow audiences, build relationships, and get results via email. Previously, Dan was the Director of Newsletters at The New Yorker, where he helped launch new newsletters, optimize their suite of products, and drive paid subscriber growth through email. Dan was also the Director of Newsletters at BuzzFeed, where he built a team that grew newsletters into one of the biggest referrers of traffic to the site and drove 250 million clicks to BuzzFeed. Dan also wrote more than 200 posts for BuzzFeed, including one that hit 1 million views.