Between Now and Success

Today’s podcast with Steve Sanduski is all about understanding the concept of exponential technology and how you can incorporate it in your business to accelerate your growth, your profitability, and keep you relevant for years to come. In this episode, you’ll discover: Why your mindset is a more important asset than time. How a deep understanding of the "6 D’s of Exponentials" will prepare you for explosive business success. Why the marginal cost of sales and marketing is heading toward zero and what that means to you. How a simple exercise called “Add a Zero” can completely change your thinking. Why you can’t just redesign your process, you have to reimagine the entire client experience. Why radical pricing transparency is critical to your future success. Get ready for a wild ride as Steve takes you on a tour of the future of financial planning. It's very bright for those who are ready to embrace exponential technology and Steve lays out a roadmap on how to do it. 

Consumers are getting spoiled with services like Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, and the iPhone and they expect the same level of ease and access when working with an advisor. If you don’t deliver it, you’ll lose clients to advisors who will. In today’s podcast, I discuss the conversations I had in New York last week with Betterment founder and CEO Jon Stein, Personal Capital co-founder and CEO Bill Harris, and the on-stage duo of Ric Edelman, chairman and CEO of Edelman Financial Services and Bill Bachrach, founder and CEO of Bachrach & Associates. You’ll learn… How Betterment’s RetireGuide is the latest example of a Robo firm quickly moving up the complexity scale and digitizing what used to be solely done by financial advisors. The one thing both Jon Stein of Betterment and Bill Harris of Personal Capital told me financial advisors should be scared of. What Jon Stein thinks of the traditional 1% AUM fee and his take on Vanguard’s new hybrid advice offering. The metrics behind Personal Capital’s conversion of clients from account aggregation to directly managed assets. Why Ric Edelman firmly believes half of all financial advisors will be gone within the next 10 years and what you can do to NOT be one of them. What Ric Edelman believes the advisor/client relationship will look and feel like in the future. My main reason for visiting New York last week was to attend Singularity University’s Exponential Finance Conference. Today’s podcast is the first of two podcasts that will address some of the things I heard at this event. While some of the things discussed at the event were “way out there,” my role is to connect the dots and translate what I’m hearing and seeing into practical ways for you to grow your business and make it more profitable.

If you want to accelerate your growth rate and create a consistent stream of new clients, you have to move beyond referral marketing and become a marketing machine. David Canter, EVP, Practice Management and Consulting at Fidelity leads an ace team that has been consulting with RIAs and researching how they can elevate their performance for years.  In today's podcast, David and I discuss what the RIA Marketing Leaders are doing to grow their business 40% faster than non-marketing leaders. You'll learn... The percentage of revenue the Marketing Leaders invest in marketing and business development. The 6 key disciplines Marketing Leaders devote the most resources to. How to leverage the "Rule of 15" to double your business. Why your "About Us" page should be more like an "About You" page. How to generate more referrals by being a "giver," not just a "taker." The importance of using events to get your message out.

Elliot Weissbluth started $30 Billion RIA firm HighTower by asking, "If we had a blank piece of paper and a blank slate and I started with my mom as the client, what would she expect from a thoughtful financial advisor?" Working backward from that premise, he built the firm into a powerhouse. In this episode, we discuss: How he raised $65 million in institutional money before even having his first client. Why he fires himself each year. The one metric all RIAs should track. The two things their advisor do (and don't do) to grow organically at double the industry rate. The three keys to building a thriving RIA in the years ahead. Who will be disrupted by robo technology. As a founder and excellent business leader, Elliot is well worth listening to.   

Faced with the task of upgrading the portfolio accounting system at CLS Investment, his family's growing investment advisory firm, Eric Clarke couldn't find a suitable off-the-shelf product. So, like every great entrepreneur, he decided to build it himself. That was 1999. Today, Orion Advisor Services is a fast-growing $25 million technology company that serves as the operational hub for many of the country's leading Registered Investment Advisory firms. Eric shares how he built the firm, how they keep innovating, and the big mistake he made that kept the company mired in slow growth for its first 5 years. 

Carl Richards is best known as the Behavior Gap guy and for his weekly Sketch Guy column in the New York Times. He’s now out with a new book, The One-Page Financial Plan. We had a lively conversation about the book, his writing process, financial planning conversations, and how financial advisors can use books in general to build their business.

After interviewing more than 50 of the world’s greatest investment managers, Nobel Prize winners, self-made billionaires, and leading academics for his book, Money: Master the Game, Tony Robbins came to some startling conclusions. In this episode, he reveals a treasure trove of actionable insights and behind the scenes stories that will benefit you for years to come. Near the end of the conversation, Tony tells a touching story that occurred in his early twenties and changed the course of his life forever. He said it, “may be the most important lesson a person can have in finance.” You’ll have to listen to him tell the story because written words can’t do it justice.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO WAKE UP ONE MORNING, TURN ON YOUR COMPUTER, AND DISCOVER that you have two new clients with a million in assets waiting to do business with you? It’s happening now with Robo Advisor technology and Simon Roy of Jemstep shares how. Having great technology is one thing, but leveraging it can be a whole different ballgame. Simon and I discuss how to build a business, leverage it with technology, wrap it in a human relationship, and deliver great results for clients. As a successful entrepreneur and business executive based in the heart of Silicon Valley, Simon is someone well-worth listening to.

Marty Bicknell left a great job as a senior vice president at A.G. Edwards & Sons in 2006 and started over. Today, he presides over an empire of 32 companies managing more than $30 billion in AUM. He accomplished this feat through a combination of acquisitions, organic growth, and good timing. In this episode, Marty adds texture to one of the most exciting growth stories in the financial services industry.

Despite a dreadful childhood growing up in the Republic of Rhodesia, super entrepreneur Joe Duran has built not just one but two multi-billion dollar investment advisory firms. And along the way he had time to write three books including one that became a New York Times bestseller. Here’s an example of the type of advice you’ll hear from Joe, “The more important you are to the business, the less valuable the business is.” In this insightful conversation, Joe shares the principles he used to build his businesses, how he spots trends that he rides to millions in riches, and the story behind the Albert Einstein quote that has driven everything he has done in his life.