Latest / The Perfect RIA / Recruitment and Creating a Strong Value Proposition with Guest Claire Myers Vitale [Episode 257]

Transcript

Recruitment and Creating a Strong Value Proposition with Guest Claire Myers Vitale [Episode 257] · The Perfect RIA

• 0:30
  Matt: Today's podcast is brought to you by TPR LIVE. That's
• 0:33
  right, The Rerfect RIA! Micah and myself will be joining you
• 0:36
  live and in person in Phoenix, Arizona on September 25, where
• 0:40
  we will be helping you with all things related to fees, how much
• 0:44
  to charge your clients how to adjust your fees, how to explain
• 0:47
  fees to your prospects, and of course the extreme
• 0:49
  accountability around how to make that actually happen. So go
• 0:53
  to theperfectria.com/live to get signed up and get all those
• 0:58
  important details. All right back to the show.
• 1:01
  Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of The Perfect
• 1:03
  RIA podcast. I'm your co host Matthew Jarvis and with me
• 1:06
  today's special guests always special guests. We don't allow
• 1:09
  any unspecial guests, special guest Claire Myers Vitale from
• 1:12
  Claire Myers Consulting. Claire is, can I say recruiter
• 1:16
  extraordinaire, like would that be the appropriate the
• 1:19
  appropriate title? Claire helps advisors build teams so and
• 1:23
  Claire you and I will talk about this. It's less about like this
• 1:25
  pipe dream of I want someone that has 50 million they're
• 1:28
  bringing it over with them and more of realizing, hey, my team
• 1:31
  is at max capacity. And I need to add another team member other
• 1:35
  than a Craigslist ad like where do I go? So Claire with that
• 1:37
  introduction, which I hope is good. Welcome to the show.
• 1:40
  Claire: Thank you. Awesome, nice to be here.
• 1:42
  Matt: Well, so Claire, tell us a little bit about your work in
• 1:44
  the industry. And of course before we hit record you and I
• 1:47
  were talking about actual compensation data you have not
• 1:50
  like the fishing stories that make up every industry study.
• 1:53
  Claire: Exactly. Yeah. Last year, we were talking to all
• 1:56
  these clients and we played about 100 plus people in the
• 1:59
  industry every year. And we're like, you know what, we have all
• 2:03
  this data and I keep hearing from clients. I think I should
• 2:07
  pay a $50,000 base for a CFP, who has been doing this for
• 2:11
  seven years. And I'm just giving advice, right because of my
• 2:16
  experience, but I didn't... So let me pull some data together
• 2:19
  because I'm extremely data driven person. So I pulled a lot
• 2:23
  of the what you all see traditionally from all of your,
• 2:26
  you know, the Schwab's and the if you're with a big
• 2:29
  organization, they have all their comp data. And I wanted to
• 2:32
  compare it with what was actually on the market and what
• 2:34
  we were actually placing people for and turned out there was
• 2:39
  some alignment but some, some misalignments and it's all
• 2:43
  reported differently because a base salary is different than an
• 2:46
  overall comp. And, you know, if you're offering this person X,
• 2:52
  and they're expecting X times two, that's a different thing.
• 2:55
  So in the shownotes we'll add the comps because I think that
• 2:59
  it's a fun one. One of the common roles that I love placing
• 3:03
  I love it is the executive assistant like a really, really
• 3:05
  strong compensation. Some people want to pay an executive
• 3:11
  assistant 45,000 and some people want to go up to 150 and it just
• 3:17
  depends I mean those are just you it depends what you're
• 3:19
  actually wanting the person obviously, which which goes into
• 3:22
  a hole so far, I could do about titles and then that's all of
• 3:25
  it.
• 3:25
  Matt: There's only like 10 episodes we could pull out
• 3:27
  obviously a big fan of executive assistants like that's just an
• 3:30
  incredible thing. But let's talk about this as well as
• 3:32
  compensation thread and the compensation structure because I
• 3:35
  think you're right against advisors, and we get some
• 3:37
  numbers in our head and most of us grew up so to speak on a pure
• 3:39
  e way you kill what you eat. We're entrepreneurs, all of our
• 3:42
  comp is variable costs. So sometimes we assume that that's
• 3:44
  what everybody else wants, like, everybody wants to be on pure
• 3:47
  performance payment. That's that's in fact not the case, Claire.
• 3:49
  Claire: That is in fact not the case. And you know what? To be
• 3:54
  fair, I had to learn this as an entrepreneur as well as I built
• 3:57
  my team. You know, I knew that people wanted based I always had
• 4:02
  the most. I was like everybody needs at least some sort of
• 4:04
  major bonus structure in order to be happy. That's not the
• 4:06
  case. Not the case. I have people on my team and I done a
• 4:09
  lot of work around this, that they make a base and if we got
• 4:12
  some team bonuses throughout the year amazing, but really they
• 4:15
  make a big salary. And then some people make you know, they have
• 4:19
  their base salaries and then there have their incentive
• 4:20
  compensation because they're more in the market hunting if
• 4:23
  you will, just like within your within your field.
• 4:25
  Claire: And you probably wouldn't be able to do it as
• 4:25
  Matt: Like revenue producing. Yeah, I've always been a big fan
• 4:27
  of coaches and outside recruiters or outside experts.
• 4:29
  And really a lot of ways Claire your role is as a coach, I'll be
• 4:31
  an independent recruiter title because otherwise, like the only
• 4:33
  lens I can bring to every situation is the lens that I
• 4:35
  have. So again, I'm just pure entrepreneur. I'm a high quicker
• 4:37
  like we start talking like victim assistance. I can't
• 4:39
  fathom how someone wants that. Like I'm an amazing executive
• 4:41
  sister named Rena, and she's spectacular. She loves
• 4:42
  organizing my travel and getting receipts and rescheduling things
• 4:45
  and she's been scheduled this podcast itself and we have this
• 4:47
  podcasts producer Amber who's phenomenal, she's gonna edit
• 4:47
  well as they can.
• 4:49
  this podcast. This is all stuff like I would end the podcast
• 4:50
  Matt: Oh no! That literally would not happen. They would not
• 4:51
  today. If I had to do those things. This will be the last
• 4:53
  episode and this episode wouldn't even air, but with our
• 4:55
  people it's a whole different experience and they want
• 4:56
  something completely different.
• 5:02
  be, like if Amber wasn't around there wouldn't be a podcast. But
• 5:04
  so you mentioned like when you come in there and you're working
• 5:06
  with an advisor who wants to build their team like how do you
• 5:08
  even even help them get started when I talk to advisors 'Hey
• 5:10
  Matthew, what I need as a junior' like, is that really
• 5:12
  what you need? Do you need a lead advisor? Do you need an
• 5:14
  executive assistant? Do you need an office manager? Do you need
• 5:16
  an ops person? Like... Claire, where do you even start with
• 5:18
  people on that?
• 5:18
  Claire: It's that first introductory call. Yeah. And
• 5:21
  it's really digging into what do you want. I can't tell you how
• 5:23
  many people reach out to me and said, I want to build my team
• 5:24
  with advisors. And really, they they want an advisor to come
• 5:25
  over and bring a book. And so we get into the conversation and I
• 5:29
  say why? And really at the end of the day they want them to pay
• 5:36
  for themselves. So then we dig into it. I mean, that's the
• 5:39
  dream, right? But that's not always the case and there.
• 5:45
  There's recruiters that specialize in that and they do
• 5:48
  an amazing job bringing people over with books, but if we
• 5:51
  really dig and peel back the onion, if somebody's looking for
• 5:54
  a junior, a lot of the times it's because they have too many
• 5:56
  clients that they can't serve as their clients. So it comes back
• 5:58
  down to what value are you providing to your clients? And
• 6:01
  are you able to fulfill that value. If you can't fulfill that
• 6:03
  value you need to work on what investment do you want to make
• 6:07
  in your organization? And is it with an advisor that can not
• 6:11
  only service the clients that you have but also bring some new
• 6:14
  ones in, which gets goes into compensation structure and all
• 6:17
  that. When I'm talking to clients that are along those
• 6:19
  lines that are like I want an advisor to come in and almost
• 6:22
  they don't say it out loud, but that's I know that that's what
• 6:25
  they're thinking they want the person to be able to pay for
• 6:26
  themselves. Oh, sure. Sure. May be great. But I think people
• 6:29
  need to realize if you're offering a total compensation of
• 6:32
  let's say, 200k Sure, overall, right. You're offering 100 base
• 6:36
  and another 100 incentives for bringing in business. That's not
• 6:38
  all. It's not like you have to have a check for $200,000 ready
• 6:41
  to hire that person. You just need to be able to come up with
• 6:43
  the first 90 days of payroll, and that's probably what you
• 6:47
  need, but the person should be able to prove their worth by
• 6:49
  that.
• 6:49
  Matt: So Claire, it strikes me. This is somewhat similar like
• 6:51
  when a client comes in and they say I need to buy X investment
• 6:54
  or I need to sell X investment. And as advisors, we step back
• 6:56
  and say hang on a second. Like what let's look at the financial
• 6:58
  plan. What are we trying to accomplish? I mean, you were
• 7:00
  basically doing that except for instead of an investment like a
• 7:03
  stock or a bond, you're saying hey, what are you trying to
• 7:05
  accomplish in your practice and, and what's the who that's gonna
• 7:08
  fulfill that?
• 7:09
  Claire: Yeah, exactly. I have a client right now. That it's
• 7:11
  actually two partners, one of them's very operational focus,
• 7:14
  one of them's the advisor and they are partners in the
• 7:16
  business and one of them absolutely thinks they need a
• 7:19
  few more lead advisors. And the other ones operations team is
• 7:23
  saying if you you're bringing in so much business right now we
• 7:25
  need to hire a couple more investment people invest ops
• 7:28
  managers before we go and hire more salespeople. That opens up
• 7:32
  some internal conversations also with the team on can you shift
• 7:36
  people around? That's the other conversation that sometimes
• 7:39
  comes up to is do you really need a new person? Yeah. Or is
• 7:42
  your team just not performing correctly?
• 7:44
  I'm glad you mentioned that because I also thought I was
• 7:45
  gonna ask a lot of times I get the opportunity to coach lots of
• 7:48
  advisors. A lot of times they're trying to paint over a bad
• 7:51
  system by making another hire, and we see what you have like,
• 7:55
  effect. I know that advisor last week is 1600 clients and he says
• 7:58
  hey, what I need to do is hire some more people. The first
• 8:01
  thing to do is like a client profitability analysis, you
• 8:03
  probably have a lot of clients that just need to be graduated
• 8:06
  period or have their fees raised or something hired a Junior is
• 8:09
  not going to fix that probably no higher is going to fix that
• 8:11
  problem. You have a systems issue. So as you look at
• 8:14
  practices, Claire, I mean, it's kind of a delicate balance.
• 8:16
  Because I think an advisor calls you Claire have decided to hire
• 8:19
  someone I need this person and you're almost like, hang on
• 8:21
  let's pump the brakes. Like what in fact you tried to accomplish
• 8:24
  Just love it. I really do live in an abundant space. It's like
• 8:24
  here?
• 8:27
  to me when I talk somebody out working with us. That's okay.
• 8:30
  What we have it's okay. You know this to me, they'll respect that
• 8:34
  more than if I hire somebody for them. They pay a fee and then
• 8:38
  they realize that's actually more of a pain for me too.
• 8:40
  Because if they realize in a couple months that they don't
• 8:42
  actually need the person, they let the person go and we have a
• 8:44
  guarantee.
• 8:45
  Matt: Yeah, oh sure.
• 8:46
  Claire: Then I'm kind of stuck in this weird... Do you need a
• 8:48
  replacement? And that has happened in the past where we
• 8:51
  end up replacing and it's not the same role. We are replacing
• 8:53
  a completely different role because the person ended up
• 8:56
  saying I don't actually need that. Yeah, the person to hire
• 8:58
  they were great, but they didn't actually end up needing that.
• 9:01
  I've learned. I've learned to do really in depth fact finders
• 9:04
  basically.
• 9:06
  Matt: Yeah, we were similar over best lessons the hard way right
• 9:08
  like that. The easy lessons do we never remember those ones.
• 9:11
  Claire's you've done your work and your compensation study.
• 9:14
  Have you noticed trends about kind of like some rules of thumb
• 9:17
  for for hiring, right? Whether you like when have you seen that
• 9:21
  advisor needs to hire their first relationship manager or a
• 9:24
  junior or an executive assistant? Like are there any
• 9:26
  trends that have merged? So someone can say if my practice
• 9:29
  is at x, I'm probably need to consider why at that point.
• 9:33
  Claire: Great question. My initial gut reaction was people
• 9:37
  need to hire an executive assistant a lot sooner than they
• 9:40
  do. Yes. Because then they get stuck as an entrepreneur, they
• 9:43
  get stuck in the wrong habits and then it actually is harder
• 9:46
  for the executive assistant if they're good to come in and like
• 9:49
  claw some of that stuff back. As it relates to like a producer,
• 9:54
  somebody who can meet with their clients. So you know, titles are
• 9:57
  all over the board but a junior advisor. The second you feel
• 10:00
  like your calendar is at capacity or even before that is
• 10:06
  when you should start thinking about hiring. Probably before
• 10:09
  that, right and just to give you some timelines on that, if right
• 10:13
  now you're listening to this, and you I know that this will be
• 10:16
  released a little bit later, but I want to hire two quarters from
• 10:19
  now. Okay, well just know that it takes between 45 days and 60
• 10:24
  days to actually find the person once you decide, then it's
• 10:28
  likely that they're going to give two weeks notice so you're
• 10:30
  looking at two and a half three months or more or before you
• 10:34
  actually get the person you're or more before you actually get
• 10:37
  the person. So if you're already feeling like a little tug in
• 10:40
  your calendar, like oh my gosh, I'm normally what happens is:
• 10:43
  I'm so busy. I don't have time to hire somebody. I mean that's
• 10:47
  that's normally what we're hearing. So if you're feeling
• 10:50
  that you probably shouldn't have hired a while ago.
• 10:53
  Matt: Claire. It's interesting to me that distinction of if
• 10:55
  you're looking to hire another advisor, it's based on when your
• 10:58
  calendar is nearly full. All too often I talk to advisors who say
• 11:01
  like, Hey, I have all these clients I don't want to work
• 11:03
  with or hey, I want to make all this more money. Like they're
• 11:06
  almost hoping that this this advisor hire will be some kind
• 11:09
  of magic bullet. Again, that's not really the case in real
• 11:11
  life. Like if you have more clients and you're going to
• 11:13
  serve, assuming they're all profitable clients. That's the
• 11:16
  hire not going to magically get another 50 million or suddenly
• 11:20
  my prospecting that I haven't ever wanted to do like that's
• 11:22
  suddenly going to work.
• 11:23
  Claire: Right and then you would hire somebody to meet that
• 11:25
  deficit, for lack of a better term, in your own practice or in
• 11:28
  your own... You know, if you're not doing a great job of
• 11:31
  prospecting the clients that you already have, and maybe you're
• 11:34
  not working with some of your BC clients will hire somebody to go
• 11:37
  work with your B and C clients, but hire somebody who knows how
• 11:40
  to prospect. Yeah, hire somebody who's going to get all those
• 11:43
  ancillary sales and all of those referrals to from a recruiting
• 11:47
  perspective, it's attractive that you're giving them clients.
• 11:49
  Sure, right. So they're not coming into something where
• 11:51
  they're completely have to build something on their own, and
• 11:55
  incentivize them to also bring in their own clients. So
• 11:59
  incentivize them on referrals from the book, but then also
• 12:02
  incentivize them on bringing in. So you're worried about revenue
• 12:06
  and bringing more income into the business, but also wanting
• 12:10
  to service your clients. Make sure you're finding the person
• 12:13
  that can fill those gaps.
• 12:14
  Matt: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, it speaks again, to
• 12:16
  the person like yourself who can kind of see that objectively
• 12:18
  like right, I'm looking at your practice and I know you're
• 12:20
  saying this, but kind of what you need to do is that. Claire
• 12:23
  would love to talk a little bit more. You said that having a
• 12:24
  client that you could give to this call Junior advisor for
• 12:27
  lack of a term another lead advisor is an attractive thing
• 12:30
  in recruiting. What else makes it an attractive offer. I think
• 12:34
  sometimes again, sitting in my seat, I think well I'll just
• 12:36
  I'll just post this ad and you get to work with Matt Jarvis.
• 12:38
  And that itself is drawn. It turns out like that's not the
• 12:41
  same draw that I think it is people like that.
• 12:45
  Claire: Now, if somebody's selling you it makes it a little
• 12:47
  bit more of a draw for sure. Sure. Yeah. But I mean, my
• 12:50
  favorite the other day and the person that I talked to is
• 12:53
  listening to this I'm not on this, but it was just really
• 12:56
  funny. I'm like, What is this person get if they come work
• 12:58
  with you that's different from going to another firm? They
• 13:01
  weren't offering any sort of like incredible compensation.
• 13:04
  Their value prop was like, which I help people on you know, I'm
• 13:08
  like trying to dig trying to find a value prop. And he's
• 13:10
  like, Well, they get my mentorship. Like that's great.
• 13:13
  Okay, and and what, right? So my biggest ask for people when
• 13:17
  you're looking to hire, whether you're working with a firm or
• 13:19
  you're going out on your own and trying to hire that way, you've
• 13:23
  got to make sure that you have that you have a really strong
• 13:28
  value proposition. So Matthew Jarvis is is an incredible
• 13:32
  mentor and coach and all the things right and and it does the
• 13:36
  compensation look decent. And is there some flexibility in that
• 13:41
  work schedule? Do they get some control because that's as much
• 13:44
  as some people in this industry do not want to hear it? That is
• 13:47
  a huge driver right now for people moving. There are a lot
• 13:50
  of teams that want people to be in the office five days a week,
• 13:54
  and that's fine for some firms. And we're hearing a lot of,
• 13:59
  well, I have to come in five days a week I'd even I'd even
• 14:01
  make a move if I had to go only four days, like just one day a
• 14:05
  week of flex this adds to your value prop so you yourself could
• 14:09
  be an incredible value add. I have a client who works in a
• 14:12
  very specific niche market like that's a huge part of their
• 14:15
  value proposition. So it's really having your your value
• 14:19
  proposition your ideal client really honed in compensation is
• 14:24
  a driver to attracting the right person, not everything, surely,
• 14:28
  of course, but it is a it is a big driver. And then of course,
• 14:32
  you know, equity compensation and things like that path,
• 14:34
  especially with those lead advisors. A path to some sort of
• 14:38
  ownership is actually really attractive. I would say that for
• 14:42
  also the COO type person. Oh, sure, sure. Path to some sort of
• 14:46
  ownership or stake in the business as important.
• 14:49
  Matt: It sounds like close you describe it as it's not too
• 14:51
  dissimilar to try and to attract clients. No, right. So there has
• 14:56
  to be a value proposition. I mean, I guess this is where
• 14:58
  we're tainted by our own lens like those of us have in the
• 15:00
  industry a lot of time we remember and I guess maybe in
• 15:03
  some places is still true like anybody who could fog America
• 15:05
  get a job as a financial advisor. There was no salaries
• 15:07
  100% we've killed and so sometimes we still have this
• 15:09
  mindset of like, I am doing the world this immense favor by
• 15:13
  opening a job and it's like that's, that's not the world
• 15:16
  like anybody that you want as an employee has 100 different
• 15:19
  places they could go and if your value proposition is you have
• 15:22
  electricity, right? It's like... A friend of mine used to say
• 15:26
  anything that everyone else can say is not a value proposition.
• 15:29
  And electricity was his example. Like imagine like we have
• 15:32
  cutting edge electricity in our office like that's weird. Who
• 15:36
  does prehensive Finance play cool, who doesn't? What's the
• 15:38
  value proposition?
• 15:39
  Claire: Yeah, and I think I think that can bring into what
• 15:42
  you do in the community and things like that, right as part
• 15:45
  of your value proposition. Who are you? As like I know, Matthew
• 15:49
  Jarvis and your brother you do a lot of work, helping other
• 15:54
  advisors get their businesses going and the multiplier effect
• 16:00
  there on what you can do and how many more clients can be served
• 16:04
  because of the work you do. To me that's a value prop. Right so
• 16:07
  me that I think though, as a recruiter, I can go to a
• 16:10
  candidate and say we're working with this firm, that is leaps
• 16:14
  and bounds above other firms that are selfless. They do.
• 16:17
  Like, you know, we can sell it, and that's what it is. It's
• 16:21
  like, you know, recruiting, I remember growing up as a
• 16:24
  recruiter, recruiting that 100% Commission advisor and we
• 16:29
  structured our day exactly like an advisor. Exactly. Like we had
• 16:33
  the same, actually more meetings to be honest, because our
• 16:35
  interviews were shorter than a discovery call. But we
• 16:38
  prospected we hunted, we met with COI, we did all of those
• 16:42
  things, and we needed to sell and there's nothing different
• 16:47
  now to be honest.
• 16:47
  Matt: There's an interesting point I want to draw for our
• 16:50
  listeners, Claire, and I'd love your thoughts. As a listener you
• 16:52
  think well, I don't I'm not Matthew Jarvis, I'm not Claire.
• 16:55
  I don't have this network, right. I don't have these cool
• 16:57
  things. Like I don't know what the value is. But that's where
• 17:00
  you can differentiate with the benefits, right? You mentioned
• 17:02
  this example of flex schedules right or the ability to work
• 17:04
  from home one day a week. Right? So this doesn't necessarily the
• 17:07
  extreme of like Elon Musk saying, hey, come to the office
• 17:09
  or pretend to work somewhere else. There's benefits you offer
• 17:12
  people that meet a lot, especially in small businesses.
• 17:14
  I mean, a lot that aren't just writing big checks. Right. So
• 17:17
  I'd be curious to hear a little bit more from you, Claire, on
• 17:19
  how do some of those benefits packages look, aside from the
• 17:22
  basics of yes, you've got to pay a good salary and you've got to
• 17:24
  have solid benefits like what are things especially smaller
• 17:27
  firms can do to attract talent like that?
• 17:29
  Claire: So good. Yeah. So one of them that I saw recently that I
• 17:33
  just was actually a major selling point when we recruited
• 17:36
  their their new hire was a sabbatical after the it was
• 17:39
  after three years, they were able to take a I think it was a
• 17:43
  three month sabbatical. Wow, that's interesting. It helped
• 17:47
  attract somebody who wants to stay somewhere. Yeah. And you
• 17:50
  can play with that, right? You could say, a six month
• 17:53
  sabbatical at 10 years or whatever. But something that's
• 17:56
  attractive to somebody who is loyal and wants to stay
• 17:59
  somewhere. The other benefit I've seen, community service
• 18:03
  days tend to do really well you know, hey, we do trips. We take
• 18:08
  four community service days a year, you know, today's or
• 18:11
  thing. So some people take their community service day on earth
• 18:15
  day or things that are a little bit less tangible and more
• 18:20
  having to do with flexability is a big one.
• 18:22
  Matt: Yeah. And I think the brilliance of that is it's not
• 18:24
  actually costing you anything as a firm, right? So on the one
• 18:27
  hand, you can look and say, Oh, we're losing four days of
• 18:29
  productivity. No, no, you're not actually because they weren't
• 18:32
  working out for days. Anyway, like people were in the chair.
• 18:35
  Right? Is that disrespect to employees? It's just like all
• 18:37
  the data shows us that people aren't ever actually working 40
• 18:40
  hours a week, they're there possibly, but also like just
• 18:43
  selflessly, that work in the community is going to improve.
• 18:45
  That's like marketing for your firm. So to give people
• 18:48
  community service days or community service afternoons,
• 18:50
  that is a no lose proposition. And especially Claire, you're
• 18:53
  very passionate about foster care, right? Especially if you
• 18:56
  can touch on something that someone's really passionate
• 18:58
  about. So if I find out at the interview process Hey, Claire's
• 19:01
  really passionate about foster care cool is there some
• 19:03
  accommodations I can make for that at the end of the really
• 19:06
  isn't costing me anything and it's gonna mean the world to
• 19:09
  that employee, the absolute worlds. And it's gonna make the
• 19:11
  world a better place, by the way. I mean, we're still in
• 19:14
  business here, but it's literally going to make the
• 19:16
  world a better place.
• 19:17
  Claire: Absolutely. One that just popped to mind that when
• 19:20
  you said that specifically around foster care, almost every
• 19:23
  community in the United States, at least a surrounding community
• 19:27
  has what they call a closet. So they're called foster care
• 19:29
  closets. It's specifically designed you would donate you
• 19:33
  can donate clothes formula, things for foster children but
• 19:38
  also youth so like you know, we donate house goods, you know,
• 19:41
  car coffee maker and things like that and our adult clothes for
• 19:45
  the kids are in the foster care system up to 25. But one thing
• 19:49
  as a firm you could do if somebody's passionate about
• 19:51
  foster care is partner with the foster care closet. And once a
• 19:55
  quarter do a little donation drive. Everybody always wants to
• 20:00
  have nice you know, nice clothes, nice toys nice all the
• 20:03
  things because it's for foster youth but selfishly it's for
• 20:07
  foster parents as well. But I got a call for a four year old
• 20:10
  the last child I had was an infant. I don't have the right
• 20:13
  car seat. I don't have the right bedding. I don't I don't have
• 20:15
  the right things. So I've got to go to this closet and they have
• 20:18
  everything I need for that placement that a lot of the
• 20:21
  times are all of us are emergency places. So yeah, I
• 20:25
  think just doing things that stand out that you and the
• 20:29
  selection process can talk about. Or if you're working with
• 20:32
  a firm they can they can say like, Hey, this is a really cool
• 20:34
  thing. This Habitat for Humanity. I follow a lot of
• 20:38
  firms obviously, one just had a puppy so it was they had a local
• 20:43
  rescue come in with a bunch of puppies. They paid them on a
• 20:46
  donation to the rescue. And then they played with puppies for two
• 20:50
  hours and it's just a fun little things that you can do that are
• 20:54
  great for the community. The other thing I'd say actually
• 20:56
  when the person starts, there's things that you can also do in a
• 21:00
  selection process that can set you apart that are a benefit.
• 21:03
  One is you know, a lot of firms have candidates take an
• 21:08
  assessment. And that assessment takes, sometimes depending on
• 21:11
  the assessment, but sometimes between half an hour and an hour
• 21:15
  and I'm seeing more and more employers recently, say hey, if
• 21:20
  you take this I'm gonna give you $50 gift card via Amazon. Or, if
• 21:24
  I'm gonna have you cut interview on site for half a day, I'm
• 21:27
  gonna pay you, however much an hour to make it worth your time.
• 21:31
  So it helps the employer to get really diligent about who
• 21:34
  they're actually bringing in. But it also puts a level of
• 21:38
  respect to the employee as well. Yeah, and I haven't seen that
• 21:42
  until recently. And I think it's again working with those firms
• 21:45
  that are doing those things or helped set them apart from.
• 21:48
  Matt: Yeah, it really is. It really makes me think of Joe
• 21:50
  Polish from Genius Network his book What's in it for them, he
• 21:52
  just like anything you can do to make somebody's life a little
• 21:55
  bit easier. Now, I guess I would throw in a small word of
• 21:56
  caution. Like if you put out a Craigslist ad for employee and
• 22:00
  you'll tell people you'll pay $50 to show up like that. That's
• 22:03
  not going to work.
• 22:04
  Claire: Definitely don't do that.
• 22:05
  Matt: Which I noticed you were thinking of Claire...
• 22:06
  Claire: I mean it could work to get you volume. You'll get
• 22:10
  volume, but you're gonna have to do more work. You're already
• 22:13
  gonna get a lot of volume with your posting. Without that. You
• 22:16
  don't need to add fuel to the fire.
• 22:18
  Matt: But if you have a filtering mechanism, which is a
• 22:20
  recruiter hire person that they've screened that down
• 22:21
  they're going to have three or four really good candidates like
• 22:24
  these aren't random people trying to get unemloyment
• 22:25
  benefits. You have to show them the respect to saying hey, I
• 22:27
  value you enough to pay for your time that goes so far. I guess
• 22:31
  it depends on who you're trying to hire. You're trying to hire
• 22:33
  the person who says oh, yeah, work at Jarvis financial is
• 22:35
  probably my least bad option. I'll go with that. Are you
• 22:37
  trying to hire the person who's like holy smokes like I wish I
• 22:39
  would have found the job 10 years ago, and I want the latter
• 22:41
  group like I want Claire to tell me, like, this person is dying
• 22:43
  to take this job. Now this person's like, well, they're
• 22:45
  looking at four offers if you could like raise it by five
• 22:46
  grand to take that with like, that's not what I'm solving for.
• 22:49
  Claire: The other thing along that same lines. I prefer
• 22:51
  talking to candidates that don't have to make a move. I think
• 22:53
  that it puts them in a position of strength, right? If I reach
• 22:55
  out to somebody because they have the credentials that I
• 22:56
  need, and they're open to conversation. I know I poke them
• 22:59
  a little bit but they'll have to make a move. So it's my job or
• 23:02
  your job ifs you're doing on your own to really get them in
• 23:04
  the door to impress them with your team. When people are on
• 23:07
  the market. It's fine. Obviously there's a lot of people on the
• 23:08
  job market right now. They're incredible, but sometimes they
• 23:10
  are fielding multiple offers and it just feels a little bit
• 23:12
  Matt: I'd love your thoughts on one last thing and we need to
• 23:12
  different as well.
• 23:14
  wrap. As advisors we typically have a really low follow through
• 23:17
  scores like our attention spans are like childish at best and
• 23:20
  what tends to happen I see this all the time advisors I really
• 23:22
  gotten ohh, I have to take care of this myself. I listen to the
• 23:24
  podcast with Clair and sounds pretty easy, I'm supposed to add
• 23:26
  and then to get a bunch of applicants and to get burned out
• 23:28
  after looking at two or three resumes and they just hire that
• 23:29
  person because they're, they're just burnt out. I'm curious if
• 23:32
  I'm dealing with ceases or this is something you've seen, I
• 23:33
  guess I'm just really speaking to the importance of knowing
• 23:35
  your weakness and bringing in people that can complement that.
• 23:37
  Claire: Yes. Are they gonna look at a resume? They see that 3000
• 23:40
  people applied and they're like, nope, get to my job, you know.
• 23:43
  And the reality is, there's technologies that can help with
• 23:45
  that, right? Of course, most recruiters can filter that
• 23:48
  40,000 down to 15. really easily. But yes, the attention
• 23:51
  span, it's also are you screening for the right things
• 23:53
  more commonly I see somebody who will do all of that. They'll
• 23:56
  actually go through the resumes and they'll pull up people who
• 23:59
  have the credentials, you have just a checkbox items. They have
• 24:02
  a CFP, they have five years of experience. That's, you know,
• 24:05
  they hit those boxes, so they just interview those people. And
• 24:08
  they're not screening for personality. They're not
• 24:10
  screening for cultural fit. They're like, does this person
• 24:13
  have that credential? You're hired. That is probably the most
• 24:16
  common mistake I see. So if you're doing this on your own,
• 24:19
  my biggest caution is make sure you understand what kind of
• 24:22
  culture you want. You know, we have a client who jokes around
• 24:24
  so much, but the person also needs to be a little thick
• 24:27
  skinned because they're like, rough and tumble. And if you
• 24:30
  have somebody that came in and that was a little bit too
• 24:32
  sensitive, the person wouldn't do well. So we need to we need
• 24:35
  to make sure that we understand that and screen for it.
• 24:38
  Matt: Yeah, that makes so much sense. Let's transition into
• 24:40
  some action items. Of course our listeners know that this podcast
• 24:42
  is not about knowing it's about doing and I'll go first. Action
• 24:45
  on number one, I would say and this is just speaking to my own
• 24:47
  experience as an advisor if you need to add team members, use a
• 24:50
  recruiter use someone. Yes, I know it's expensive and you look
• 24:52
  at goodness that's so much money until you think about the value
• 24:55
  of your time, like how many clients is that equivalent up?
• 24:58
  And like how many times do I want to screw this thing up? And
• 25:00
  what will be the cost of that? I promise you you have to take my
• 25:02
  word for this you. Claire you and I can compare numbers on the
• 25:03
  day. It's worth every penny of that. So action number one: if
• 25:06
  you're going to add someone to your team, don't screw around
• 25:08
  trying to do it yourself. Hire someone that could be Claire
• 25:10
  could be somebody else. We've had other recruiters on the show
• 25:11
  as well. Don't do this thing yourself.
• 25:13
  Claire: And on average, it takes about between 100 to 150 hours
• 25:16
  depending on the role. It's crazy. And then I actually was
• 25:19
  doing the math on all the roles that we've placed and it's like
• 25:21
  oh no, it definetly worth it.
• 25:23
  Matt: Suddenly that seems really reasonable.
• 25:24
  Claire: And that's it with all the that's with all the AI
• 25:27
  technologies and our LinkedIn recruiter seats and all that
• 25:30
  stuff that all recruits. Other action items, I would say work
• 25:33
  on your value prop. How do you take the value prop that you use
• 25:37
  with your clients and flip it over into attracting the right
• 25:40
  talent? And along with that would be your LinkedIn presence.
• 25:43
  So as much as you can host some of your community involvement,
• 25:46
  client testimonials, things like that on your LinkedIn just so if
• 25:50
  talent goes and looks for you, you know, I know some people
• 25:53
  don't value their website as necessarily something that's
• 25:56
  that that important. Clients are looking at that but talent is
• 25:59
  definitely looking at it. And I would say specifically LinkedIn
• 26:03
  presence. Okay, good to know everything. I just have to say
• 26:06
  please, everybody, look up their foster carers closet that please
• 26:09
  donate to their foster care closet. It's it's a really
• 26:12
  incredible resource in many communities and just so
• 26:15
  important for the youth but also the foster parents. And then it
• 26:18
  just a little tidbit if you are going to do this on your own .
• 26:22
  If you are going to try to do it on your own. Which please, by
• 26:25
  all means, but I agree that it's good to have some help. But if
• 26:28
  you're going to do it on your own, utilize Chat GPT for your
• 26:32
  job descriptions, don't write a four page job description. Give
• 26:35
  Chat GPT or some thing a brief description of what you're
• 26:38
  looking for, say create a job description and it will do that
• 26:41
  for you. Don't take too much just to save a little time. If
• 26:45
  you're gonna post on LinkedIn sponsor it. Oh, sure. And don't
• 26:48
  leave it up for more than a week. That doesn't look good, so
• 26:51
  just those couple little things. And then of course, if you need
• 26:54
  to find us, our website will be in the show notes and there's
• 26:58
  some there's some tips and tricks on there, as well.
• 27:00
  Matt: So we'll have in the show notes, of course, a link to your
• 27:11
  company Claire Mayers Consulting. We'll also have a
• 27:21
  link to the compensation study and and a couple other great
• 27:32
  resources. So, Claire, thank you so much for these insights. I
• 27:44
  really appreciate you sharing them for all of our listeners.
• 27:55
  Until next time, happy planning!