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Encore Episode: Client Onboarding - Creating A Solid Foundation · The Perfect RIA

0:03
Amber: Hi TPR Nation Amber here from your Follow up Fridays.
0:06
Today we're excited to share an encore episode of Worlds to
0:09
Conquer as Jamie talks through creating the foundation with the
0:12
client onboarding process once a prospect says yes, and if you're
0:16
looking for training on getting those prospects, be sure to
0:19
email us that lifestyle@theperfectria.com so
0:22
you don't miss out on our upcoming masterclass release.
0:46
Jamie: Welcome back TPR Nation this is Jamie Shilanski in an
0:48
episode of Worlds to Conquer where we are still unpacking the
0:52
onboarding process. But once we get hired by a client, so we get
0:56
a lot of questions with this whenever we meet with financial
0:58
advisors at industry conferences or if they jump on one of our
1:02
threadable quarterly power sessions. They have follow up
1:05
questions about like Okay, great. Now I've implemented
1:08
surge, but what do I do during that first year? I've gotten
1:11
hired by a client in order to deliver massive value to them
1:15
and reinforce that relationship. And I mentioned surge because
1:18
surge is really important understand exactly how it works
1:21
in our offices. So I'm going to be speaking about Shilanski and
1:24
Associates, we run an enterprise office. There are 14 of us, I
1:28
believe on staff, of which five of us are financial advisors. We
1:32
work with clients across the United States, around 46% of our
1:36
clientele, works in the lower 48 and of course our office our RIA
1:40
is based out of Anchorage, Alaska. We've been in business
1:44
since 1981, when our father Floyd Shilanski and mom Rosa
1:48
Shilanski, started the financial planning practice up here in
1:51
this very remote part of the world. And during that time
1:54
began with Floyd and Rosa seeing clients pretty much any time the
1:58
client was willing and able to meet with them. It didn't matter
2:01
if it was seven o'clock on a Tuesday night after hockey
2:03
practice or early Saturday. Morning at the remote cabin
2:07
where the client lived. They were just eager to get business
2:10
started. And of course in those early stages, anyone that says
2:12
yes to you feels like your ideal client. But over the years, we
2:15
began to refine our processes over and over and over again.
2:20
Because what we found because of our mom Rosa Shilanski
2:23
reiterating to our dad Floyd was that the clients that asked you
2:27
for exemptions asked you to come to their house late at night
2:30
asked you to come to their place of residence on the weekend
2:33
because they simply couldn't make time to meet with you
2:35
during the day. We're not ideal clients. Those were people that
2:38
were always going to be looking for and asking you for
2:41
exceptions. Those were people that wanted you to cater around
2:44
their lifestyle but had no consideration for your own. So
2:48
took several years and my father went to several coaching
2:52
programs and learned about strategic days buffer days and
2:55
how to make those work in our practice. Now as he began to
2:59
refine what worked best for him, he found that during longer
3:03
periods of time where he was incredibly focused, served him
3:06
better than having maybe one day on one day off and then a buffer
3:10
day. So as he began to sculpt and work with this, my brother
3:13
Micah Shilanski came into the practice his daughter [Aviana]
3:16
had some severe medical challenges and we were forced to
3:19
make a very dramatic change on how our practice worked with
3:23
clients. And that implemented what we now refer to in the
3:27
industry as surge with there's specific time block periods of
3:31
time in which you are deeply focused on interacting with
3:35
clients. And making sure that you're working with them one on
3:37
one, but outside of surge and at Shilanski and Associates we have
3:41
three surges a year. So we have our spring surge that happens
3:45
from mid March to mid April. We have our summer surges which are
3:49
kind of sprinkled in on different days, generally the
3:52
first week of the month. And then we also have our fall surge
3:56
and our fall surge happens about mid October to right before
3:59
Thanksgiving time. Now those are deliberate and specific choices
4:03
on the calendar in which we have chosen those dates and times to
4:07
meet with clients. If you're looking or thinking about
4:10
implementing surge or refining surge in your office because you
4:12
already started a rip off our date, use our calendar. It works
4:18
really really well specifically for a reason that we've talked a
4:22
lot about on this podcast. So again, don't try to reinvent the
4:26
wheel work with these dates. They have been refined over
4:30
decades of times to make sure that they're bringing the most
4:32
value to clients and the most effectiveness for you running
4:36
your RIA, your financial advisory practice. So now that
4:40
we know what our surge dates are begs the question, what do you
4:42
do with new clients? We've been talking about that all day one
4:46
about how do we deliver massive value when we onboard a new
4:49
client? A lot of times people think that prospecting is the
4:51
hardest task. You know, the funnest part of financial
4:53
planning is meeting with a prospect for the very first time
4:56
diving into the information blowing their mind with
4:58
tremendous value. But that second appointment... that
5:00
second appointment is when you better hit a home run. You can't
5:02
be on the game. Now that you've been hired. What are you going
5:05
to do for the rest of the year that will deliver massive value.
5:08
And I find that those second third appointments are pretty
5:11
easy, right? Because you're still doing a lot of work and
5:13
you're doing all of that fun stuff of consolidating all of
5:16
their information, getting everything together, like
5:18
developing the financial plan, but then you've got to be able
5:20
to put yourself in position for ongoing continuing value. So
5:23
what happens when we get hired by a client at the beginning of
5:25
surge, perhaps and then it could be two or three months before
5:29
they're available to meet with our office again, how do we set
5:31
those expectations with the client? And how do we make sure
5:33
that we're continuing to deliver massive value? So as you recall
5:36
for Shilanski and Associates, we focus a lot on federal
5:37
employees. So we run planning a federal retirement, which my
5:40
brother Micah is the face off and I'm the author behind the
5:41
articles and we spend a lot of time and energy marketing
5:44
financial advisory services to federal employees. So when a
5:46
federal employee contact Shilanski and Associates in
5:48
order to book their appointment with one of our federal employee
5:50
benefits experts remember we have five financial advisors in
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our office, but we all operate the exact same surge schedule.
5:55
We set out our surge a little over a year in advance this is
5:58
not open for decision making by an entire committee. Instead
6:01
it's established by our leadership team and those are
6:03
the dates that we all rolled with generally without
6:06
exception. So right from the beginning, federal employees are
6:08
going to know that it could take several weeks if not months to
6:11
get into our office. We have set a standard that says hey, you
6:13
know just because you call and you want to work with us and you
6:15
want to retire next month, we either have an opening or we do
6:18
not we generally do not make emergency appointments. Are
6:20
there are some exceptions? Of course there are exceptions but
6:23
if we're going to break our processes, it has to be a really
6:25
good reason why. Here's a great reason why you've got a long
6:28
term client and their brother or sister has a spouse that passes
6:32
away and my goodness, the whole world is crashing down and they
6:35
need to meet with a financial advisor right away. And those
6:37
would be emergency situations. But again, look at the history
6:40
of you're working with people you don't have that many
6:42
emergencies. You might have some man made emergencies, but you
6:46
don't have real emergencies happening so often that you
6:50
don't know how to accommodate or make time for so we try to be
6:53
really disciplined in our process and our prospects now
6:55
that when they want to come and meet with us, it's already been
6:57
several weeks or months before they're able to make an
6:59
appointment with one of our financial advisors. So we set
7:02
that expectation right from the get go. When we set up our surge
7:05
schedule, one of the things that a lot of rookies implementing
7:08
search make a mistake of is they forget to give themselves a
7:11
buffer days so a buffer day is one to two days at the end of
7:14
service in which you've allowed yourself additional time to me
7:18
to with appointments. And the reason that we have these buffer
7:20
days is because some times when we meet with financial planning
7:23
clients during surge, something might be going on dramatic in
7:26
their life that we need a second appointment with them during
7:28
that specific time period. Or if we're onboarding prospect. We
7:32
may at the beginning of search and meet with a prospect and
7:35
they decide to hire us we decide they're a good fit for our firm.
7:37
Remember because this is a mutual relationship. It has to
7:42
feel good both ways. Just because a person can fog a
7:45
mirror does not make them an ideal client. Listen to your
7:48
gut, listen to your instincts. I cannot drag this home enough.
7:51
I've never once graduated or fired a client or I didn't look
7:55
back and have red flags that they should have never been a
7:58
client from the get go. So they've agreed to hire us and
8:00
now they want that second appointment. We've got a little
8:03
bit of buffer time to have a second consultation during a
8:05
surge if we need to. And if we don't need to. We outline all of
8:10
the homework that we want to get done in between now and our next
8:13
meeting, as well as what we haven't anticipated the client
8:15
getting done between now and our next meeting. Just like our
8:18
podcast where we practice for the action items for you to do.
8:21
That's what our meetings with clients are like also, in fact
8:24
when I'm coming to the conclusion of a meeting with a
8:25
client, I will say great just before we leave one another I
8:28
want to make sure I go through our list. Here's what I'm going
8:31
to do between now and the next time that we meet. And then
8:34
here's the action items that I have for you to do. And just
8:36
because I'm really deadline driven I believe in Parkinson's
8:39
Law that the work will take up the time in which you allow for
8:42
it to do that. Let's make sure we've touched on really good
8:45
deadlines on this. When do you think Mr. Mrs. Client you can
8:48
have X done by - great would it be appropriate for me to have
8:52
one of our relationship managers reach out to you if we get close
8:56
to that deadline and it's not done. Now I really liked doing
8:59
this with clients. I like setting deadlines and targets
9:01
and getting certain things accomplished. And one of the
9:03
driving reasons is because we do what we say we're going to do.
9:06
And financial planning is a verb it is an ongoing experience. And
9:10
that means that we want to get certain things tackled and done
9:12
on time. Now when we bring on a new prospect and they hire us
9:15
for financial planning, we're not going to we're robbing them
9:18
with action items that they need to complete. Instead, I want
9:21
small digestible milestones that they can realistically achieve
9:26
in the time that we have allotted. Now, if you think I
9:29
talk fast, I probably even think faster and so oftentimes, like
9:33
deadlines are a lot shorter than what people have a tolerance or
9:37
god forbid other things in their lives going on to be able to
9:40
accomplish. So I want to make sure that whenever I give a
9:42
deadline, I know one hack that I will mentally do is that I will
9:46
ask the client listen, I think this should take about five days
9:49
but I understand that you have more things going on in your
9:51
life, Mr. Mrs. Client than what I have on my agenda here today.
9:54
Shall we allow two weeks for this? And then I'll get there
9:57
acquiesce to that yes or no? And then we'll go from there after
10:01
that two weeks if I have not heard from them. If the client
10:03
hasn't got that task done. I'm gonna have my relationship
10:05
managers or my operations team reach out to them. A difference
10:08
between when I have a relationship manager when I have
10:10
an ops team reach out depends on what I need or want the client
10:13
to do isn't involving the movement of money. Then I'm
10:17
going to have my ops team that is sole focus is the movement
10:20
and management of money. Anything else pretty much goes
10:24
in the RM category. If I need them to get me a copy of their
10:27
declaration pages for insurance they needed to get me their
10:30
employee benefit information, their asset allocation forms for
10:33
their companies and employer plan. If anything like that, I'm
10:36
going to pass that over to an RM. Now remember that the
10:39
relationship manager and operation personnel in our
10:41
office can not give financial planning advice, right that's a
10:45
deal breaker regardless of their license. If they're not a
10:48
financial advisor. They cannot give financial planning advice
10:51
at our firm. However, they don't have to give advice to help a
10:55
client figure out where to get a different forms from their
10:58
employer. They don't have to be licensed to follow up on pay
11:02
stubs and leading earning statements and make those
11:04
courtesy phone calls for clients or work with their centers of
11:07
influence. Right? Follow up on taxes, follow up on the estate
11:10
planning documents, make sure we have deeds of trust on file, all
11:13
of that information that goes into me building the financial
11:16
plan. And if you're anything like me, the second that you get
11:19
hired from a client and you start going through and putting
11:21
your arms wrapped around all this financial information.
11:23
You're so excited to get started on all the planning. And you're
11:26
thinking to yourself, oh my goodness, I need to get all of
11:28
this done. This is what I've got to build out. This is the scope
11:30
of what it looks like. But when your client leaves your office,
11:33
while these things are really important and vital for them to
11:35
get done. It's not the only thing going on in their lives,
11:39
right? They have other things that are a priority, too. So
11:42
making sure that you're giving them small, digestible tasks to
11:45
achieve. One of the ways that we set this expectation in our
11:48
office and I've got a great visual of it if you want to jump
11:52
over to shilanski.com. That's Shilanski.com and you will see
11:58
that I have a little animated roadmap of where we're going
12:02
when we build financial plans with clients. And the way that
12:05
we verbalize this with clients is we say Mr. Mrs. Client, when
12:08
we build your financial plan, it's going to be often like
12:12
building your financial house. So if you walk me through this,
12:16
what's the most important thing for you to make sure that you
12:19
have started your new home on when you start to build it? And
12:22
of course, Mr. Mrs. Client will say well, it's gotta have a good
12:24
foundation. And we will agree we'll say yes, good houses,
12:28
start with good foundations, just like in financial planning.
12:31
And so the most important part of your financial plan for us to
12:35
get done right away is going to be your estate planning. Because
12:39
without it, none of what we build together matters. Would we
12:43
agree with that? Yes, absolutely. Great. I also like
12:46
to tackle estate planning first, because it is the one you're
12:49
gonna want to pull it off the most can we both agree on that?
12:52
And they'll get a little chuckle because oftentimes two people in
12:55
a relationship and a household raising families having
12:58
diversity from their different backgrounds do not have
13:01
coinciding views on what should happen with their estate if one
13:05
of them predeceases the other or if they were both a parish. So I
13:08
would say you know what, this is a terrible topic for us to have
13:11
to discuss. Let's get it done first, so that we know it's
13:14
checkmark. And then here's where we're going to go every year
13:16
after that every couple of years. We're just going to kind
13:19
of do a cursory review, make sure it's still intact and is as
13:22
you want it to be. Does that sound like a good commitment?
13:24
Yes, absolutely. Great. Well, then during our next meeting,
13:27
we're going to be discussing your estate planning. There are
13:30
four areas of estate planning that are really vital to me,
13:33
three of them I know without a doubt you need the fourth one
13:37
you might not need but I want to explore together with you and
13:40
make sure that we have everything in our financial plan
13:42
built around your desires and wishes today as they are. Sounds
13:46
great to me. Fantastic. And we're going to coordinate that
13:49
with an attorney. If you don't currently work with one, I'll
13:51
make a recommendation. I'll go above making recommendation. Why
13:54
don't we have that first consultation here in our office
13:56
where we're all comfortable? And I can preface them with some
13:59
things that on the tax planning side of the scenario they need
14:02
to know about? And then we can just have an introduction
14:04
together. Oh, genius, great! Thank you so much. Wonderful.
14:07
Boom, I set my dissertation for that first estate planning
14:10
meeting. Now during that time period between there and estate
14:14
planning, I'm also going to hit their cash flow. Right, cash is
14:17
king regardless of where you're at in your career, or how close
14:21
you are to retirement or if you're in retirement. Cash is
14:24
king. So if you remember from the conversations that I've had
14:27
with you, I never use the word budget, or as Matthew Jarvis
14:30
likes to say boo-jey instead I use a spending plan. What are
14:35
our goals? What are our objectives? Money is
14:37
intentional, and I want you to be intentional about what you're
14:40
earning and what you're spending. And I want to give
14:43
your money some purpose. So if there are things that you love
14:46
to do, I want to incorporate them now today in your financial
14:50
plan. Mr. Mrs. Client, I have grown up in a financial planning
14:53
industry and it breaks my heart to know that some people scrimp
14:57
and save their entire working lives. And then two weeks after
15:00
they retire, and I don't want that for you. I don't want all
15:04
of your happiness to be postponed until you're into the
15:07
Go Go years of your retirement. So I would love to design a
15:10
financial plan that is really suitable for your lifestyle. And
15:14
Mr. Mrs. Client, you might not meet anything like me but if you
15:17
are I sometimes think of money like food, and I can be working
15:22
out and I can be feeling really really good hitting the gym all
15:26
the time not having any fried foods or sugar limits on my
15:29
carbs. And I'm feeling so healthy and so good that 30 days
15:34
into this I get invited to a party and somebody says, Oh,
15:38
come on, live a little have a little pizza, have a little
15:40
beer, and then a little pizza turns into a lot of pizza and a
15:44
lot of beer if you're Jamie Shilanski. So then the next day
15:47
do I want to get up and go to the gym? No! Because I am hung
15:50
over from pizza and beer and now I feel lousy about myself. And
15:53
so then it may take a little bit of time to reinitiate those
15:57
habits about being disciplined about money and I think money is
16:01
a lot like food in that way. That sometimes we scrimp and we
16:05
save and we're doing so good. That all sudden we want to
16:08
reward ourselves and we're like yes, absolutely. So it is
16:12
imperative to me that as we build out your financial plan,
16:15
we're being intentional and we're creating a spending plan
16:18
that is designed so beautifully, that you are so happy later in
16:23
life to look back on it because you knew you are intentional.
16:26
You are purposeful. You took care of the things that you
16:28
needed to but you also lived your life. And generally we'll
16:32
come up with a great spending plan. I'm a great fan of
16:35
buckets, not our investment buckets, but our cash flow
16:38
buckets. And we'll talk a little bit about that later in future
16:40
episodes. But those cash flow buckets are phenomenal. They're
16:44
so powerful. I've implemented one where a client has come back
16:48
to me and said this is the worst idea ever. This is like one of
16:51
those low IQ huge impact ideas that clients come back and say
16:55
wow, I wish I would have started all my life doing this. Thank
16:58
so much and they go tell their friends about it. In fact, I've
16:58
you
17:04
been hired because I've dealt with some medical professionals
17:05
that came in my office and said hey, listen, you've got so and
17:08
so set up like this and you set up like that how to. So really,
17:13
really powerful stuff. So as we discuss all about cash flow
17:16
that's going to happen in between kind of our first and
17:19
second meeting. And cash flow is gonna be one of those
17:20
conversations that we're always talking about right? This is
17:23
like going going to the doctor and they get the vitals, we're
17:26
always going to be talking about cash flow in every single
17:29
meeting. Because cash flow is king and we've got to know what
17:31
those ebbs and flows are for clients. Alright, then we're
17:34
going to talk about retirement income, what do we need to do
17:36
insurance right? And I explained to the client that now we're
17:39
going to frame the house we got to frame everything and the fun
17:42
part is doing the dressing and doing the design and the
17:45
pictures and making sure that we bring in furniture but first we
17:48
got to have a solid foundation. Then we got to frame the house.
17:52
Then we'll bring in the flooring and make sure we get everything
17:54
intact. So as we set the tone for that we're going to talk to
17:57
them about different things in the meetings that we need to
17:59
achieve over the next couple of years. And will those are goals
18:02
and tax planning on who the client is and what they need.
18:06
Maybe that's some small business planning as well. Small and
18:09
business can mean a mom and pop shop a hobby that becomes
18:12
something profitable and it also can mean real estate income and
18:15
how we're going to make sure that we're diversifying
18:17
different income sources for passive income later in their
18:20
life. So we'll do all of these in several different
18:23
appointments. And we're setting that tone about that financial
18:26
house and building it every single appointment that we made
18:28
for the first couple of years. I'm going to reinforce that
18:31
metaphor, right, Mr. Mrs. Client, as you know, we said we
18:34
would build your financial house here's what we've accomplished.
18:37
We set out a really great foundation. We got XY and Z done
18:40
and we did it on time. Oh man, that's great. Jamie. I've been
18:43
we've been thinking about doing that for years. It's been on our
18:45
mental to do list. We've just never gotten it done. I'm so
18:48
happy that's done and out of the way now. Great. Now we built out
18:51
your spending plans. Here's what we're doing to live
18:53
intentionally and creating these different cash flow buckets. Oh,
18:57
this is phenomenal. Yep, we're able to do this and now we're
18:59
not panicked about where money's gonna come from. If we have an
19:02
emergency if we want to go on vacation etc. And they we start
19:06
talking about the insurance, okay, great! You know insurence
19:08
is something that we'll do a post point. But once you're kind
19:11
of it's kind of a one and done right? Like you're building your
19:13
insurance policy. A lot of times as life insurance has helped,
19:16
sometimes it's health sometimes it's disability and other risk
19:19
management areas. But a lot of times on life insurance we're
19:21
just making sure we have it in place and then we're doing all
19:23
sorts of low routine maintenance on it. But that's still
19:26
conversation point just because we sold one insurance policy one
19:30
year, we're not going to wait to talk to it 15 years later
19:33
because we sold them a 20 year term. That's something that
19:36
we're going to constantly bring on our value adds around and
19:38
make sure they've got other things check marked. We do not
19:40
do property and casualty insurance inside of our office
19:43
and we don't really have a great relationship with somebody that
19:46
does property and casualty rather than that the leases are
19:48
on the client. And then we want to see those declaration pages
19:51
because we just want to mentally check the mark it and make sure
19:53
that we have it inside of that financial planning house. So as
19:56
you can see, we're doing a lot of work in between these
19:59
appointments. But not a lot of that work necessary is going to
20:02
mean that I'm talking to the client during each one of those
20:06
stages. In fact, I'm gonna rely heavily on my team to make
20:08
several points of contact. Now when we first implemented surge
20:12
in this super hyper disciplined way, first couple of years, you
20:15
know, as financial advisors got a little bit of tremors were
20:17
like oh my gosh, we have not talked to that client next
20:20
amount of days are probably going to lose clients, you know,
20:23
and it always leads back to What's the joke? Yep, you got
20:26
it. We're gonna lose our clients be broke and living in a van
20:28
down by the river. And so it really made me stop one day and
20:32
say, okay, hold on a second. I've got a lot of head trash
20:35
about me not communicating or talking as much to clients as I
20:39
had years before. I'm gonna pull up our infinity CRM, and I'm
20:43
gonna see on my widget dashboard. So when I log into my
20:45
CRM, it is exactly all the different polls points that I
20:48
want. So I tracked new clients, I tracked the lost clients and
20:51
lost in our office means either we graduated they've gone on to
20:54
do something else or they've passed away. Then we of course
20:57
have our AUM pulse points we have the number of clients, and
21:00
then I also track how many incoming phone calls that we
21:03
have. So we use Ring Cetral because we have multiple people
21:06
living in different states from work from home positions, and
21:09
then during surge we all travel back to Alaska, and we were all
21:12
in person, at least for the first couple of weeks for our
21:14
remote team here. So when I get that kind of head trash in my
21:17
brain and thinking that we haven't heard from clients and
21:19
that nobody's calling our office anymore, I simply log into my
21:22
system and I see in Infinity that Mr. Mrs. Client go into
21:25
their client record I see all in the notes. Our CRM is the brain
21:30
trust of our practice. All employees use the CRM and if we
21:34
have any interaction whatsoever with a client, it goes inside of
21:39
Infinity. If we send them an email, if we log a phone call,
21:42
if we have missed a pho
21:44
everything goes inside Infinity, including all of our value ads.
21:49
And this has been super powerful, because we'll have
21:52
clients call back after let's just say that we're in mid
21:54
October, we ran our beneficiary report or showing clients who's
21:58
going to receive all of the assets in dollar amounts and
22:01
percentages and maybe that client calls us in January and
22:04
says hey, we went over all my beneficiaries, I can't find that
22:06
form anymore, I wanted to review something, could it could I talk
22:09
to Jamie my relationship manager and say, Mr. Mrs. Client
22:13
absolutely. I'd be happy to schedule your time on Jamie's
22:15
calendar. But I also see that I have a copy of this report here.
22:18
Do you still need to talk to me or should I just upload this to
22:20
your box.com account? Oh, actually, you know what, just
22:23
upload it and then after I view it if I have additional
22:25
questions, I'll call you and we'll get time on the calendar.
22:27
Boom. Great. Thank you, Mr. Mrs. Client want to make sure you're
22:30
being taken care of. And so we'll have multiple points of
22:33
contact. But to be honest, they don't always need to contact me
22:38
directly. I'm involved when it becomes financial planning
22:42
advice, when client needs advice when the client needs
22:46
maintenance or account updates or logistical things to happen.
22:51
That's not going to happen with me. Anyway. That's going to
22:55
happen with somebody on my team, whether it's my ops team or my
22:58
relationship manager, am I capable of doing those things?
23:02
Absolutely! Will I get them accurate and done right the
23:05
first time and quick? Probably not because that's not what I do
23:08
all day long. I empower and trust a team that are experts in
23:13
what they do and are efficient in getting it done. So I've
23:17
removed me removed my ego, surrounded myself with people
23:22
that I'm not just happy to employ but people that I respect
23:25
and I trust to deliver the highest caliber of Client
23:28
Services and guess what they do they show up we don't have B
23:33
level team members we only have A level team members and when
23:35
you employ only A level people they want to be in round other A
23:40
level people they're competitive in the best ways. They're team
23:44
oriented because they want everyone to succeed. And if they
23:46
find somebody that has a co worker slacking off or not
23:49
getting stuff done, they're not going to go tattletale to me.
23:51
They're gonna bring it up directly to a co worker and say,
23:53
Hey, what's going on? I see that this wasn't completed. How can I
23:56
help you with employee scorecards where everyone can
23:58
see the ebb and flows and their task to make sure that nobody's
24:01
falling behind? And if somebody is falling behind, because that
24:04
can happen. Then we have the culture and team and environment
24:07
where somebody's got to jump in and say, Hey, I see the Help
24:10
tag, man, let's get this done together. What does it take to
24:12
get us both out of here by Friday afternoon? I do not
24:14
employ people that say, well, that's not my job that's theirs.
24:17
And that is a Rosa Shilanski playbook rule saying the words
24:20
that's not my job will get you fired, period because that's not
24:23
our mentality. That's not our culture. That's not our
24:25
environment. That attitude does not work for our company,
24:28
period. End of sentence. No longer employed. See you later.
24:30
Bye. Thank you for your time. And just because I only get
24:33
involved with clients during the financial planning advice
24:35
doesn't mean I'm not involved with my team, right? And so we
24:38
could be in between surges every year I tryto do a really
24:40
intentional, powerful Christmas gift that is sentimental. And
24:43
that's a lot of effort to get out for 500 different
24:45
households. So if I wrap up surge, which by the way, my team
24:48
is also in surge, and those Christmas gifts have to get out,
24:50
guess what? I'm gonna have my nieces and nephew and son in tow
24:53
and I'm gonna join them and our rec room and we're all going to
24:56
count it out together. I don't say well, I'm sorry. So and so
24:58
you just have to get it done and it's your sole responsibility.
25:01
Leaders show up for their team when your team needs them the
25:03
most. So as you can see, even though our surges are only
25:06
during three periods of the calendar year, our clients are
25:08
gonna get multiple contacts with our office. It just might not
25:12
always be with that financial advisor but could be with that
25:14
financial advisor and those many surges are a great time for not
25:17
only for those regular accountants in meeting with
25:19
clients, but also those one off things that come up and need to
25:22
get on the calendar and scheduled for. And the
25:24
importance buying those mini surges is also telling our team
25:26
that they have a placeholder. They have a place that if a
25:28
financial advisor needs to jump on the phone and get back to a
25:31
client about something, that they can absolutly can. Because
25:33
while most of our clients, in fact gosh we have 500 households
25:37
and I think we have two clients come to mind that just they
25:41
really don't want to talk to the team. They want to talk to their
25:43
financial advisor, that is just their personality, but we also
25:47
set a standard that while they might like to only talk to their
25:49
financial advisor, the rest of the team is involved. And if you
25:51
don't want the rest of the team involved, no problem, Mr. Mrs.
25:54
Client, I completely understand you're just not best suited for
25:57
our office. We all work harmoniously together. And if
26:00
that's a deal breaker for you, I want to honor and respect that
26:03
and I'd love to make a recommendation of another
26:05
financial advisor who just might be more appropriate for you than
26:08
I am. It is okay to set standards with clients and tell
26:12
them who they are going to be communicating with and who gets
26:14
them the answer to their questions that they have the
26:16
most and all roads don't have to lead back to you. In fact,
26:20
somebody in your office just might be a lot better suited to
26:23
answer most of the client questions and then you are as
26:25
long as they're not revolving around financial planning of
26:28
course. So action items for onboarding new clients and how
26:31
to set standards that first year. Again, remember that you
26:35
got to set good expectations what ever you start in the
26:37
beginning is going to be what lasts until the very end and
26:41
this happens in all ways right? If you drop everything and make
26:44
a Wednesday 7pm appointment and guess what that client is always
26:47
going to expect you to do. You're always going to have to
26:50
drop everything and accommodate their schedule. If you're
26:52
driving to their house on Saturday and Sundays. Guess
26:54
what? That client is always going to want you to do. This
26:57
works with all relationships ever, right? That this is with
27:02
friends, this is with neighbors, this is with colleagues, this is
27:04
with clients. What you start in the beginning is going to last
27:08
until the end. And remember boundaries are healthy. They
27:12
don't just keep people out. They keep you and your absolute best.
27:15
And if you're constantly making exceptions and you're constantly
27:18
breaking the process, you're not going to be at the best and also
27:21
your team is not going to rely on you. So whether you have one
27:24
people you cannot expect your team to follow all of the
27:27
processes and steps that you have laid out if you are so
27:31
casually willing to break them yourself. Why would a team
27:35
member want to do that? And this is rule number one in life do
27:38
what you say you are going to do. And so if you have a policy
27:42
and process in place, you have to set that expectation you have
27:45
to follow that policy and process. No I'm not speaking to
27:49
emergencies. emergencies are emergencies for a reason that
27:52
means they are infrequent. And they are not common. You might
27:55
think that there are emergencies but there really aren't that
27:58
many emergencies that we have to go through in life. That is why
28:01
they are so dramatic when they do happen. That's why they're so
28:04
significant. That's when clients do get the 7pm or Saturday for a
28:07
phone call is because they are not something that is regularly
28:11
happening in your life or theirs. You have to lay out what
28:15
your financial planning process is for that client. They've got
28:17
to know where they're headed towards, right. So like them
28:21
being adrift on the sea and you're coming in and you're
28:23
plotting a course and navigating them to the destination that
28:25
they want. They will be compassionate towards how long
28:28
it takes if they understand that they are achieving things
28:32
throughout time. I use the metaphor of a financial planning
28:34
house. I walked you through how we set expectations for solid
28:37
foundation framing and then doing all the dressings, use
28:40
that metaphor rip it off, talk to clients about it and make
28:44
sure that they understand that in this experience in this
28:48
engaging you to be their financial advisor that financial
28:50
planning is a verb, you're going to do a lot of things and a lot
28:53
of them are going to happen in the beginning of your
28:55
relationship. But then it is not just put it in neutral and coast
28:59
throughout. Instead, you're going to be continually
29:01
delivering massive value because you're going to be reinforcing
29:04
so if we take that example that I gave you about setting that
29:06
financial foundation and that's the estate planning in two or
29:10
three years when we do an estate planning review. I'm gonna say
29:12
Mr. Mrs. Client when we first started working together you
29:15
might recall that I called this building your financial house
29:17
and we both agreed that in order for any house to withstand the
29:21
weather unforeseen time it has to have a solid foundation, oh,
29:25
yeah, do we have to remember that? Great. We call that your
29:27
estate planning. We wanted to make sure we had all your
29:30
affairs in order and things are documented as they should be
29:33
today because life has changed over the last couple of years. I
29:36
want to take a few moments and I want to make sure we're
29:38
reviewing all of our beneficiary designations and the title of
29:41
how we have all the accounts. I've also done a cursory review
29:45
of all four if they have three out of four or four out of four
29:48
estate planning documents and I want to make sure that these are
29:51
still your best interest right now and this is as you want
29:55
everything to be set up. Mr and Mrs Client, You will remember
29:58
that when it comes to estate planning you can make unlimited
30:01
amount of changes to your estate plan, as long as you're alive to
30:05
do that, and we'll get a good chuckle out of that. And so it
30:08
will remind them that just because we started a flurry of
30:12
activity when they first started doesn't mean we're gonna get
30:15
[..] on the planning as the years go by, and we do review a
30:20
lot of last will and testament and trust several years down the
30:23
road, because a lot of times people are going to want to
30:27
update the role that other people play inside of their
30:30
estate plan based on that person's current life situation
30:34
current physical or mental status, as well as their
30:36
financial maturity as the years go on. And that is why we
30:40
deliver those value ads every single quarter. And we recycle
30:43
some of them every few years because those things can update
30:47
and change and they're just as important and I want that
30:50
financial planning client to know that what we started in the
30:53
beginning is going to be true until the end. And because I
30:56
said this was so important for us to check then build upon that
30:59
foundation. It is just as important for me every few years
31:03
to go back and make sure it is accurate and solid. And when I
31:08
bring on a new client I'm also going to get out of my own head
31:11
trash. And thinking that we're not talking or comunicating with
31:15
clients, I'm gonna verify first, right? I'm not going to be
31:18
banging down every door of every single one of my team members
31:22
offices to say when have we talk to this client, what happened
31:25
blah, blah,
31:25
blah. I'm gonna bring up Infinity. I'm gonna look into
31:29
our CRM, I'm going to see our points of contact. I'm going to
31:34
see how many phone calls were made inbound, outbound all the
31:38
emails, and I'm going to put that worry to rest because I
31:42
know just because I'm only talking to the client every
31:46
couple of months doesn't mean my team isn't talking to them more
31:51
frequently. Okay, TPR Nation this has been Jamie Shilanski.
31:56
This is an episode of Worlds to Conquer where we went through
32:00
how we surge with new clients, setting expectations with them
32:05
right from the get go building that financial house and then
32:09
also taking out the head trash of thinking that your team isn't
32:14
talking to your new clients. Trust in your processes, trust
32:18
in your system and by golly trust in your team!