The Customer Wins

Shelli Taylor is the CEO of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, an entertainment company providing the best cinematic experience in the world through good food, good beer, and good film in one place. She is an accomplished Fortune 100 executive and also serves as a board member and public speaker. Before Alamo, Shelli spent her 25-year global career with brands like Starbucks Coffee Company, The Walt Disney Company, and Planet Fitness. She is well known for leading high-performance teams through rapid growth and transformation to achieve outsized results. In this episode… Do you find yourself getting distracted in most theaters and being able to fully enjoy the movie? Are there theaters that still offer singular, refined theatrical experiences? Shelli Taylor believes that a theatre should focus on offering the best guest experiences when setting its rules and culture. As for Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, it has gone an extra step to become a dining cinema where food, beer, and film can be enjoyed in one location with dedicated customers. Now Shelli Taylor shares how they deliver the best film experiences to their customers. In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker sits down with Shelli Taylor, CEO of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, to discuss tips for the best customer experience in the film industry. Shelli talks about Alamo rules and culture and how they were developed, the value of hiring the right talent that aligns with your values, how to drive customer experience, and advice for entrepreneurs on how to win more customers.

Blake Wood is the CEO of Lumiant US, an advice and client engagement platform where advisors connect with clients around their lives, values, and finances. Before Lumiant, he spent over 15 years at Envestnet, a financial service company transforming the deliverability of financial advice through an ecosystem of technology. Blake has 20 years in the FinTech space working with advisors. He has a BGS in economics and an MBA in international management. In this episode… Do you feel like you are not giving the best advice to your clients as a financial advisor? Would you like to acquire more customers? Where can you get the support you deserve to thrive in this space? Nowadays, consumers wanting financial guidance are becoming more disengaged from financial services because of the poor deliverability of the advice. They are starting to prefer fintech apps over advisors. So what needs to be done? Blake Wood shares how he's enabling financial advisors to help their clients align their finances with their values. Listen to this episode of The Customer Wins as host Rich Walker welcomes Blake Wood, CEO of Lumiant US, to discuss how they are helping financial advisors connect with clients. Blake talks about how Lumiant helps people, tips for shifting a customer’s mindset around money, customer success stories, and the future of Lumiant.

Rick Williamson is the Director of Training at Redtail Technology, the leader in web-based client relationship management solutions for financial advisors. He develops training and education initiatives, working hands on to improve team management and even public speaking. Rick is an expert on all things CRM-related and has a background and experience in film production and public speaking. In this episode… As a financial advisor, do you desire to transform how you scale your business through technology and outsourced solutions? Where can you get a CRM that offers you the necessary tools to assist you in your efforts? For over a decade, Rick Williamson has been in all things CRM related. He has discovered that financial advisors struggle with managing their client base and scaling their business because they lack the necessary tools for their work. Rick recommends CRM that integrates widely and deeply with other popular tools in the financial services industry. In this episode of The Customer Wins, host Rich Walker welcomes Rick Williamson, Director Of Training at Redtail Technology, to discuss CRM that best serves financial advisors. Rick talks about Redtail and how it helps people, tips for creating and delivering great customer experience, how Redtail and Orion’s merger improves their clients' lives, and its customer success stories.

Chris Wallner is the Partner and Chief Marketing Officer of Chief Outsiders, the nation’s leading Executives-as-a-Service firm. Chief Outsiders helps organizations identify the fractional marketing and sales executives they need to accelerate growth. Chris works with technology and financial service companies to drive revenue growth by converting insights into actionable, sustainable strategies and solutions. He is an accomplished marketing, product management, development, and e-commerce executive with an impressive track record in the technology and financial industry. In this episode… Running all of the different departments in a company is challenging. A leader may be good at some but does not have the skills to lead them all. So where can they get the support they deserve to help them run efficiently? Chris Wallner recommends hiring fractional executives to help them unlock and accelerate their growth. Many business leaders don't have the time or money to hire full-time CMOs or CSOs, but they need help growing their companies. This allows for leaders to grow without blowing the budget, and this is is how it works. In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker sits down with Chris Wallner, Partner and Chief Marketing Officer of Chief Outsiders, to discuss the importance of being a customer-centric leader and hiring fractional executives. Chris talks about Chief Outsiders and how it helps people, the top three challenges that Chief Outsiders solves, and tips for becoming a customer-centric leader.

Adam Holt is the Founder and CEO of Asset-Map, the leading advice engagement platform for financial professionals that offers financial planning reports. As a certified financial planner and financial consultant, his areas of expertise include estate and retirement planning, benefit programs for businesses, and business succession planning. His podcast, Rethink — The Financial Advisor Podcast, challenges financial professionals to evolve in the industry. Adam considers himself both a student and a teacher, helping his clients understand the nuances of their finances. In this episode… Learning how to manage your money is a responsibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Unless you’re educated in the financial advising industry, reading and understanding financial reports can be overwhelming. So is there a way to better visualize your financial plan? After recognizing a lack of financial literacy among his clients, Adam Holt sought out a solution to help them understand their financial plans. Rather than constructing bulky reports, he changed his tactic by sketching visual representations of his clients’ financial profiles that included their unique financial instruments. His innovative approach helped his clients interpret their assets and gave them confidence in their financial decisions. In this episode of The Customer Wins, host Rich Walker welcomes Adam Holt, Founder and CEO of Asset-Map, to discuss his unique approach to financial advising and how he tripled his company’s revenue three years in a row. Adam talks about his transition into the FinTech industry, how building his company has humbled him, and AI’s impact on the customer experience.

Derek Notman is the Founder and CEO of Couplr, a fintech company that offers lead generation solutions for financial companies and their advisors. He is a FinTech founder, certified financial planner, and co-host of the Rethink. The Financial Advisor Podcast. Derek is also the Founder of Conneqtor and Intrepid Wealth Partners. He was recognized as Wealthies Rising Star of the Year in 2022 by WealthManagement.com. In this episode… People want help with their money and want to get the most out of it. So who's better to help them than a qualified financial advisor? But where can they get the support they deserve to connect and create a mutually beneficial relationship?  Many financial advisors fail in their first three years of practice. This is often because they don't know how to build relationships with their clients based on trust. For them to open up about their finances to get help, financial advisors have to be able to connect with them on different human and monetary dimensions — and that's where Couplr enters. Learn about Couplr as Derek Notman shares his journey in founding and running it. In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker sits down with Derek Notman, Founder and CEO of Couplr, to discuss how they help financial companies and advisors connect with their clients. Derek talks about the challenges financial advisors face, how Couplr helps people connect with financial advisors, why he became a financial advisor and achieve work-life balance, and how AI is impacting the customer experience.

Cody Foster is a Co-founder of Advisors Excel, a marketing organization that helps independent insurance agents and financial advisors become great business owners. Since its founding in 2005, Advisors Excel has grown from three founders to over 800 employees, making them one of the largest employers in Topeka, Kansas. Cody joined the financial services arena as the director of marketing for a corporately owned, national field marketing organization. He has been featured in Success, The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster, and Money Master the Game. In this episode… Are you a good financial advisor that wants to have your own practice? To be a good business person, what do you need to know to get started?  According to Cody Foster, many financial advisors struggle to run a business. They get too focused on their practice that they forget the operational side of their businesses. With this realization, Cody started Advisors Excel to help financial advisors build a great business around their financial advisory practices. In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker sits down with Cody Foster, Co-founder of Advisors Excel, to discuss how financial advisors can become great business owners. Cody talks about Advisors Excel and how they operate, how they built the company's culture, the customer success stories of the company, and the impacts of AI on the customer experience.

Rick Burgess is the Founder and CEO of Forms Logic, a cloud-based system for companies looking to integrate single data entry across multiple forms. He is a veteran of the trading floor and an established entrepreneur who has started several companies, including Connect Lending. Rick works closely with clients to understand their needs and apply the right technology to solve them. In addition to running the operations, he conducts outbound sales calls, interacts with staff, and manages six offices remotely. In this episode… Filling out multiple forms can be a tedious and monotonous process. Where can you get developed systems that automate and simplify the way you fill out forms? According to Rick Burgess, many people are good at managing money but poor at managing their paperwork. After recognizing the challenges inherent in managing paperwork that requires inputting the same data among multiple forms, he founded Forms Logic. People can now learn simpler and better ways to handle their paperwork.  In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker sits down with Rick Burgess, Founder and CEO of Forms Logic, to discuss how organizations can manage their paperwork better. Rick talks about Forms Logic and how it serves people, the business processes they specialize in, their customer success stories, and how they use AI.

Alan Giancaterino is the Co-founder of Finlocity, an online community that delivers high-quality presentations from the most innovative leaders in the industry and virtual solutions showcasing the latest financial technology. He is a seasoned sales and marketing professional with over 30 years in financial services. Alan began his career as an advisor and became the youngest recipient of the CLU, RHU, and ChFC professional designations. Before Finlocity, Alan established several FinTech firms in the retail brokerage and wealth management marketplace. In this episode… Would you like to be making well-informed financial decisions? Where can you learn about the latest and greatest solutions in the fintech world to make that a reality? According to Alan Giancaterino, many people struggle with making strategic financial choices. He co-founded Finlocity to level the playing field for everybody via online summits and in-person forums. They believe in getting out best practices and exposing emerging solutions, be they financial products or technology, to the marketplace on an equal footing.  In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker sits down with Alan Giancaterino, Co-founder of Finlocity, to discuss how they are helping people in the FinTech industry through conferences. Alan talks about Finlocity and how it helps people, the importance of creating high-quality experiences at conferences, their transition back to in-person events, and their secret to winning more customers.

David Knoch is the CEO of Docupace, the leading digital operations technology provider that simplifies how wealth management firms both process and digitize their data. Before joining Docupace, he served as President of 1st Global, a wealth management partner to CPA and tax planning firms. He was named to the ThinkAdvisor Luminaries Class of 2021 and was awarded CEO of the Year by WealthTech Americas in April 2022. In this episode… Do you have a financial plan? How can you go through the process faster, more securely, and with fewer errors?  Financial planning can be a tedious and stressful process. Many financial services professionals are frustrated by the time-consuming process of fully helping their customers transform their finances. Thanks to Docupace, which has eliminated transactional paperwork and its associated costs, financial services firms can efficiently serve their clients and increase their profits. In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker sits down with David Knoch, CEO of Docupace, to discuss how financial services firms can best serve their clients. David explains why Docupace’s process, working with clients in the early days, and how AI impacts the customer experience.