Between Now and Success

When your clients sell their business, are you frustrated that you don't always add the resulting windfall to your AUM? There's a simple way to insert yourself in the sales process, add more value to your clients, and ensure you get your fair share of the proceeds to manage. One of the objectives of my podcast is to help advisors figure out ways to add more value to their client relationships that goes beyond money management. Today, we'll discuss how you can add tremendous value to your clients by helping them get top dollar for their company by selling to strategic investors. My guest is Rob Follows, Founding Chairman and CEO of STS Capital Partners. Rob is one of the world's leading mergers and acquisitions experts and his firm specializes in helping mid-market private businesses get maximum value for their companies by selling their business to a strategic--as opposed to financial--investor. If you have clients who own a successful private business, you'll want to listen to this podcast and read the show notes.

You could be the smartest, most technically competent financial advisor in the country but without solid leadership and a marketing plan, you’ll be like the lonely Maytag repairman. Few RIAs have been as successful at building their business through good old fashioned business leadership and sophisticated marketing than Wealth Enhancement Group (WEG). This multi-billion dollar RIA has an impressive management philosophy and marketing machine that is firing on all cylinders. CEO Jeff Dekko’s early career was spent working for consumer packaged goods companies such as General Mills. In 2003, he joined WEG and has guided the company through tremendous growth. He’s rather unusual because he did not “grow up” in the financial industry and instead, brought a sophisticated outsider's perspective to building and managing an RIA. Listen to Wealth Enhancement Group CEO Jeff Dekko as we discuss leadership, marketing, and the future of the RIA business.  

Providing great customer service is no longer good enough. Today’s consumers are grading you on the “client experience” you deliver and how your client experience makes them feel. Customer service is just one aspect of the client experience and if you do not intentionally create a client experience that “wows” your clients, your business will quickly fall behind the national RIAs who are leading the way in creating national brands with consistent experiences. I recently moderated a panel at the FPA of Massachusetts annual conference and while the topic was ostensibly about Robo Advisors, it was actually about how to use Silicon Valley thinking to deliver an extraordinary client experience. This podcast is a recording of the session with Eric Roberge, Alex Benke, and Lex Sokolin that was moderated by me. By listening to this podcast, you’ll gain a deep understanding of Robo Advisors, the different ways to use them, and how advisors are using technology to enhance the client experience.  

The Envestnet Advisor Summit was packed with an agenda of top speakers and a multitude of sessions to choose from. And they capped it off with a closing keynote from Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer. Meyer’s talk was so good and insightful that I’m now a Buckeye fan—except when they play Wisconsin and Nebraska! Here are six of my takeaways from the event plus a bonus interview with Vestorly co-founder Justing Wisz. Make sure you listen all the way to the end as I ask Justin what was the most important thing he learned when he worked for mega-RIA Ken Fisher. His answer may surprise you. 

If a prospect asked you, "Why should I choose you?," could you answer it in seven words or less? In this world of short attention spans, you better be able to. The rap on financial advisors is they all sound the same. In the past, you could get away with that because there was so much business to go around and consumers were less discerning. Today, it's a much more competitive world and this means you must find a way to become "uniquely remarkable" or else resign yourself to commodity level income. Ian Chamandy is the co-author of the incredible book, Why Should I Choose You? He joins the podcast today for a fascinating look at how to answer the "why should I choose you" question in, get this, seven words or less. In fact, Ian says this is the most important question in business because answering it will shape every area of your business, not just sales and marketing. I run into advisors all the time who struggle with trying to articulate what makes them different and how to answer the why should I choose you question. Fortunately, Chamandy and co-author Ken Aber have created a roadmap to help you figure it out. I strongly encourage you to order the book and learn more about Chamandy and Aber's process by visiting their website. And click here to learn more about how financial advisor coaching through Belay Advisor can help you become “uniquely remarkable” and attract ideal clients.

The top marketing people realize that when it comes to marketing the services of a financial advisor, you'll have better results if you purposely repel a significant segment of the population. Most of us want to be liked by as many people as possible so the thought of gearing our marketing to repel potential clients seems ridiculous. But one very successful advisor at the Barron's Top Independent Advisor Summit has built a top business by becoming the recognized expert for a select type of clientele. That's just one of the many takeaways from part II of our roundtable discussion with attendees from Barron's Top Independent Advisors Summit. Our goal was to pull out the key takeaways from America's top advisors and deliver Actionable Intelligence to you. See here for part I of the conversation and the detailed blog post I wrote covering six key takeaways from the first day of the conference. The roundtable participants were Jack Davis of Navigation Retirement Group, and Bill Keen and Matt Wilson of Keen Wealth Advisors.

America's top advisors gathered in Scottsdale, AZ on March 21 - 23 for the annual Barron’s Top Independent Advisors Summit. I held a roundtable discussion with three top advisors who attended the event and our goal was to pull out the key takeaways from America's top advisors and deliver Actionable Intelligence to you. The roundtable participants were Jack Davis of Navigation Retirement Group, and Bill Keen and Matt Wilson of Keen Wealth Advisors. This is part I of a two-part podcast. Make sure you visit www.belayadvisor.com to read the article that goes along with this episode. 

Financial advisors used to get paid for managing money to help clients safely reach their retirement goal. Going forward, financial advisors will get paid for creating a client experience that shepherds their clients through a lifetime of experiences and transitions that taken together, add up to a life well lived. In today's podcast, I touch on a major shift I see happening in the industry. The shift is from the destination (retirement) to the client experience (here and now). Three forces are coming together to give rise to this shift from the destination to the client experience. First, as the millennial generation becomes more pervasive in society, this idea of retirement gets obliterated. Most millennials will never stop working. Instead, they'll seamlessly blend their work and life to create a way to make money and have fun at the same time. Second, events such as The Color Run, Tough Mudder, Comic-Con (and the hundreds of other "Cons") are stoking our interest in a live client experience that allows us to "do" something as opposed to passively consume something. Research clearly shows that humans value experiences more than things. Experiences bring us more happiness than do possessions. So, become an experience maker! Third, big brands are moving away from interruptive advertising and creating an immersive client experience where the product is part of the production. If you watched the finale of American Idol, you couldn't tell where the commercial for Ford ended and the Idol show began--it was all integrated into one seamless production. These forces make it imperative that you reimagine your client experience and make it one our clients want to remember and experience over and over again.

I’ve always taken the attitude that you’re never too smart to learn or too good to improve. So even though I get paid handsomely as a professional speaker, there’s always room to become better. And at a recent Master Class with top professional speaker Michael Port, I picked up three excellent speaking tips when he critiqued my performance. Michael was a guest on my podcast (Read the show notes/listen to it here) and I was looking forward to meeting him in person at the Social Media Marketing World Conference where he was a featured speaker. We met and I got to practice my speech at during his workshop and here are three key tips he shared with me. These are speaking tips that can help you too.

Ric Edelman is one of those rare people who can make bold, provocative statements AND have the experience and track record to prove that he’s not just blowing smoke. If you ask industry people who has been the most successful financial advisor over the past 30 years, Ric Edelman would likely top the list. Starting from scratch in the 1980’s, Ric built a juggernaut with 30,000 clients, 125 financial advisors, 500 employees in 42 offices, and $15 billion in AUM. When I asked Ric what the next 10 years looks like, he said, “10X. Add a zero to everything.” What’s even more impressive than the raw numbers Ric has generated to date is how he did it--through organic growth. Ric leveraged his journalism background and became a massive media star spanning multiple bestselling books, a nationally syndicated radio show, and a popular television show. Through educating the public, Ric Edelman gained trust and the clients followed by the thousands. Be sure to visit BelayAdvisor.com and read the special article I wrote to accompany this episode. I cover some of the highlights from this episode along with my color commentary.