Latest / The Perfect RIA / The Power of Rolling Up Your Sleeves: Why Doing the Work Yourself Matters
Transcript
- 0:31Jamie: Doing something for yourself before your clients do
- 0:35that action or you recommend the client to take that action
- 0:39ensures that you have high quality while continuously
- 0:43improve products and services. It shows a commitment to
- 0:47excellence and respect for the clients experience which can
- 0:51significantly enhance reputation and increase client satisfaction
- 0:56and lead directly to referrals because now you speak from a
- 1:00place of authority instead of assumption.
- 1:04Welcome back TPR Nation this is Jamie Shilanski in a episode of
- 1:07Worlds to Conquer and lessons were learned this surge lessons
- 1:13were learned and it was so phenomenal to experience so at
- 1:17our RIA up in Anchorage, Alaska, Shilanski and Associates my mom
- 1:20and dad Floyd and Rosa Shilanski started the practice back in
- 1:221981. And as we were coming up in the business, my brother and
- 1:26I and my baby brother Micah Shilanski they would make sure
- 1:29that we had a plethora of experiences, and we had to start
- 1:34from the ground up. What does the ground up mean? It means we
- 1:36were the janitors we were the first one on site wiping things
- 1:39down to restocking cabinets. We graduated on to filing and then
- 1:43went on to cold calling and then went on to earn insurance. I
- 1:45mean, we really worked from the bottom up. Now, we work from the
- 1:49bottom up because my parents didn't believe one in nepotism,
- 1:53and two, they also you know, sometimes especially when they
- 1:57were first starting their practice, they might not have
- 1:59had staff to do all that they didn't have pay roll to hire all
- 2:03these people to hire a janitorial service. If you have
- 2:06a commercial office space today, it costs $1000 a month for
- 2:08somebody to come in vacuum, wipe down the desks and then take out
- 2:13your garbage. It's a lot of money. And when you're starting
- 2:16your practice, you don't have that kind of money. But
- 2:18sometimes you got kids and those kids came in and they became the
- 2:22laborers. Now, the important part of understanding this is
- 2:25just because my brother and I were hired to start as janitors
- 2:28when we were literally dusting off vents and wiping down, I
- 2:31hate doing windows to this day? I hate doing windows because
- 2:34it's not cleaning windows. It's the recleaning and recleaning
- 2:37and recleaning of windows that I hate until my father was
- 2:40satisfied that no streaks were coming through. But he would
- 2:43reinforce to us so on Saturdays, we would get up as a family and
- 2:48either if we weren't cleaning the house, we were cleaning the
- 2:50office and my dad would pack us all up and he would go down in
- 2:52his office and work and my brother and I would do all the
- 2:54janitor stuff in the building. And so at this time in the 1980s
- 2:57they you know, had a shop about 20 people and lots of different
- 3:02financial advisors. We were downtown Anchorage was probably
- 3:04about a 2300 square foot space. And own that space down there
- 3:08and so we would have to do the janitorial services. And the
- 3:12importance about doing this was that my dad never let us do a
- 3:15shoddy job because how we do something is how we do
- 3:17everything. And so if we did something lazy, everything that
- 3:21we did was assumed to be lazy. And that became this reinforced
- 3:25lesson to us. And the reason it mattered so much to us is
- 3:30because by the time we got to the place where we were able to
- 3:33or we were allowed to answer the phone so by about 10 years old,
- 3:36we were answering the phone, at Shilanski and Associates and my
- 3:39father would always come by and insist: Smile, smile, smile. Now
- 3:44he wasn't saying the way that you know this whole woke culture
- 3:47talks about what is smiling. It didn't matter what gender was.
- 3:50You had to smile when you answer the phone, and my dad told me
- 3:53you can see a fake smile in person you cannot hear a fake
- 3:57smile. You cannot hear a fake smile. And so the infliction of
- 4:01your voice changes the reception on the phone changes for the
- 4:05person that you're talking to when you're enthusiastic and
- 4:07you're happy to do your work so everyone has a smile when they
- 4:10answer the phone at Shilanski and Associates. And this is
- 4:12something that I'm still trumpeting to the younger
- 4:15generation as they come up at the office. And what it gave us
- 4:19was his insight and perspective from the bottom up. So from the
- 4:21moment we walk into our building to this day, I am looking at
- 4:25surveying the parking lot. I just had a meeting with our team
- 4:28unfortunately the very end of Surge I had to kind of have a
- 4:31come to Jamie meeting with our team because we got done with a
- 4:33six week surge. You know, we saw 400 different households who
- 4:37impacted a lot of lives and we worked really, really hard. But
- 4:40as we came out those last couple of days, that's when everyone
- 4:43started to get a little bit more lackadaisical. And so, you know,
- 4:46I came to and I said, guys, here's the problem, and we're so
- 4:50hyper aware of that client experience that happens from the
- 4:53moment I pulled in that parking lot. When I pulled on that
- 4:56parking lot, I was surveying how many open parking spots we had
- 5:01in front of our building. And one of the reasons is is that
- 5:05our employees are allowed to park in our office parking lot
- 5:08when we are not in Surge so they don't have to pay for downtown
- 5:11parking. We are in surge, they have to go do a parking pass at
- 5:16one of the parking garages and leave all the spaces open for
- 5:19clients. But as I pulled in, we had a couple of people that were
- 5:22hybrid employees there so they didn't park anywhere else, they
- 5:25parked in the parking lot and I'm counting the parking spaces.
- 5:27Now why? Why does that matter? I want to know how many virtual
- 5:30appointments we have and how many in house I'm not even
- 5:32parking my own car until I know that information. And so I call
- 5:36my CEO I'm checking the parking lot. I'm going through the
- 5:39calendar and saying okay, if these be assuming everyone
- 5:41drives separately and they don't work together to deliver and go
- 5:44into the calendar, alright, I come in the office and I've got
- 5:47two people who were not dressed the way that I thought they
- 5:51should be dressed when they were still in Surge. So I said
- 5:55immediate everyone in a room and we got everybody in the room and
- 5:59we had a little come to Jamie meeting about everything we do
- 6:02counts. And so I said guys, from the moment I pulled up in this
- 6:05parking lot, I'm looking for parking spaces. I'm making sure
- 6:08we don't have trash and debris from the homeless that just have
- 6:11taken over downtown Anchorage like most metropolitan cities
- 6:14outside of our doorway. I don't want handprints I don't want
- 6:17smudge marks. So I'm gonna bring their dog in I don't want
- 6:19licking marks on the door. I don't want any of these things.
- 6:22I want a fresh citrus smell when you come in the office. I want
- 6:26all of the drinks restocked after every single client
- 6:29appointment and the drinks pulled forward. So people are
- 6:32raising their hand deep into the refrigerator. Why? Why do I care
- 6:36about all of these really tiny details? And he's like, Guys,
- 6:40what's the average age of our client? Well, the average age of
- 6:42our client at Shilanski and Associates is about 50 years
- 6:45old. So relatively young person, somebody that may have difficult
- 6:49time navigating the ice, right? I know after I turned age 40 I
- 6:53don't bounce off the pavement like I used to in my 20s. So
- 6:57when I pull up in the parking lot if my very first experience
- 6:59is that I cannot find a parking space in a downtown location.
- 7:03Then when I open up that door, who am I going to take my rage
- 7:07out on the very first person I see working for that
- 7:10organisation and so our relationship manager that's
- 7:13sitting in that lead spot in the very front of the doorway.
- 7:16They're going to get somebody that's already frustrated
- 7:18already coming in already complaining about downtown
- 7:21parking. And so if I can alleviate that by making sure
- 7:25from the moment our client arrives outside of our building,
- 7:28we have a heightened experience for them. They can't I can't
- 7:31control everything. I cannot control the homeless population
- 7:34being downtown. What I can do is make sure the homeless
- 7:36population isn't camped out in front of our door. So we have
- 7:39that happen a lot of times so we'll make a cup of coffee,
- 7:42we'll put a snack together we'll wake somebody up and say hey,
- 7:45let me give you something to warm you up. Let me feed you but
- 7:47then I need you to shove off I need you to move on because
- 7:50we're going to have clients come in now out of the hundreds of
- 7:53times we have done this with homeless people we've had one or
- 7:56two negative experiences for the most part people are like Thank
- 7:59you, of course I'll clean up my stuff all move away, you know,
- 8:02and they and they move on pretty respectfully because they're
- 8:05human beings. And then we talked about dresscode and dresscode is
- 8:08one of those very specific your in particular business and how
- 8:12you want to run your practice. So I know that suit and ties and
- 8:15dresses don't work in Silicon Valley. A lot of the tech places
- 8:19Okay, that's cool, but I don't I don't live in Silicon Valley and
- 8:22I'm not in one of the tech places. And so I talk to
- 8:25especially this younger generation that hasn't been
- 8:27taught how to dress appropriately in the workplace
- 8:29that we're going to elevate our standards and they say Guys
- 8:32listen, I'm a jeans and hoodie kind of girl. I'm a beer by a
- 8:35bonfire for a good time kind of girl. But the reality is
- 8:39nobody's cutting the million dollar checks when I'm in a
- 8:41hoodie and jeans at a bonfire. When I come into my office, the
- 8:45work I do is not casual. Therefore I do not dress casual.
- 8:49We're going to dress professional and I expect every
- 8:51single one of you to be dressed to a level where I could pull
- 8:54you into a client meeting and you look as such. For the
- 8:57younger gentleman in our office sit up in your chair, sit up in
- 9:02your chair, you are a man, not a mouse, shoulders back, hold
- 9:05yourself a little bit higher. Ooh, to do these things. These
- 9:08are important these confidence building factors matter. They
- 9:12translate to the client experience and everything we do
- 9:17is taken into account. And so if we implement a new phone system,
- 9:21how long can a person stay on hold before they're annoyed?
- 9:24Guess what? Somebody did a social science on it years ago,
- 9:27and I'm pretty sure it's about 20 seconds. 20 seconds and we've
- 9:30all been on those like infinite holds. And then the attendant
- 9:34will come back on and say Hey, Jamie I'm still on the line with
- 9:36you, I'm working with a colleague I want to you know,
- 9:39you're not forgotten. I'm gonna put you back on hold. I
- 9:41apologize for this delay, but I'm still here with you. And I'm
- 9:44like, Oh, great. Well, thank you, you know, but if I don't
- 9:46hear for somebody 45 seconds, I'm looking at my phone counting
- 9:49how much time has lapsed and thinking, Gosh, what a lousy
- 9:52experience you know, they probably forgot about me they're
- 9:55probably chatting to other people. Or how about this one?
- 9:58If your office now uses some type of bot or messenger system
- 10:03in which you are dealing with an attendant and the airlines are
- 10:06really moving towards this one Delta hasn't figured out Alaska
- 10:09does not have this one figured out yet. But you get transferred
- 10:12over so first up your bots when you type in your message because
- 10:15they want you to go to the message queue. So you type in
- 10:18your message you get a bot did this help? Yes No. Yes. No.
- 10:21Okay, great. didn't help. I'm going to transfer you over to a
- 10:23live person. You get this live person on the thing, they want
- 10:30you to reinstate all of the information that you went
- 10:32if I'm, if I know I'm with a bot, I'll open up a notes chat
- 10:35and I don't have to go type everything again. I just copy
- 10:35through stating with the original one. I do a lot of copy
- 10:38and pasting. So
- 10:38paste, copy, paste move forward. So as we're going through this
- 10:42experience, you know the timeliness matters. So if
- 10:45somebody is getting back to me in the next you know, five or 10
- 10:49seconds, I know that they're actively engaged with me. But if
- 10:52I'm waiting 15-20 or 30 seconds for the person to message me
- 10:56back, I'm thinking great. You've got 12 other things open on your
- 10:59desk that you're working on this call queue with this message
- 11:03queue and now I'm getting forgotten. So now I'm having a
- 11:06really poor experience. So we're so hyper aware of not just how
- 11:10other people are doing things, but also about how we're doing
- 11:13things. So if we change a phone protocol, the first thing that
- 11:17we have to do as an office is we go test it. Now I want to hit
- 11:20the fast forward button. I talked to you a lot about how
- 11:24our team members all these little details matter. But this
- 11:27is the significance of financial advisors and those coming up in
- 11:31the space need to adhere to this as well. So I'll share with you
- 11:34that at Shilanski and Associates our RIA up in Anchorage Alaska,
- 11:38we have you know a handful of different financial advisors and
- 11:42we have different pots we have a relationship manager and our
- 11:45operations personnel. Our relationship managers cannot
- 11:48give advice but they have the most frequent contact with
- 11:52clients. Our operations personnel is responsible for the
- 11:55movement of money. So they move money on behalf of the financial
- 11:59advisors instructions, so here's the importance of having to do
- 12:02everything from the ground up. And that is so that you can
- 12:06speak with experience. And so in our financial advisors, you know
- 12:09per view, we talk a lot about when you open account, when you
- 12:13transfer account, how many of them have opened up an account
- 12:16with your custodian? How many of them have sat through the client
- 12:20experience, not just open up the 401k that they're participating
- 12:24in? And really, it was just the payroll person assisting them,
- 12:27but how many of them have transferred their old 401 K's
- 12:30into a new plan new IRA with your custodian? How many of them
- 12:34have met with a financial advisor, gone through the
- 12:37options made their appointment with an operations personnel and
- 12:41gone through the client experience as if they were a
- 12:44client as if they were a client? And this is why it is so
- 12:47important. Recently, I had an opportunity where we have a new
- 12:50operations person starting with us and I have my chief
- 12:54operations officer, and she's phenomenal. She's got 30 plus
- 12:57years of being in the industry in the operations capacity and
- 13:01now she's running our practices the integrator under the
- 13:04Entrepreneurial Operating System. And so she was training
- 13:07this operations personnel, and I had an opportunity to be
- 13:10training a young protege that was coming up in the financial
- 13:14advisory space, and we had the opportunity to transfer the
- 13:17protegees 401k. And so I said great, this is a beautiful
- 13:20opportunity. Why don't we go into a conference room and we're
- 13:24going to set this all I want everything set up and I told
- 13:27them not on the fly ahead of time. I said I want to book an
- 13:31appointment. I want to make sure you guys get the statement. I
- 13:34want to have the new paperwork filled out. I want to go through
- 13:38all of these different steps. And it was so enlightening for
- 13:41me to do so. Because as I sat there, the operations person
- 13:45sitting across from me was learning how to open up a new
- 13:48account and how to get the old employer on the phone, how to
- 13:51get the statement, how to get the transfer and do all of those
- 13:55steps. But the operations person because they've been in the
- 13:58industry for my chief operations officer because she's been in
- 14:02the industry 30 plus years. It's been a long time since she sat
- 14:06in a conference room and went through those logistics steps
- 14:09about how we communicate this to clients. And so it was really
- 14:13enlightening for her as well to hear the dialogue and for that
- 14:16protege for me to have to explain things and say okay,
- 14:19great, because here's what the Chief Operations Officer failed
- 14:23to realize that the person she was training the operations
- 14:26personnel knew how to open an account, right client new
- 14:30account, here's the checkmarks here's what we're supposed to
- 14:33do, etc. But they had no idea what a 401k IRA was. They had no
- 14:37idea that the new 401k was gonna have two different components, a
- 14:40Roth as well as the traditional.
- 14:42They didn't realized that if we had done the transfers, what
- 14:52would trigger a taxable event if they had structured it that way
- 14:56because she was brand new, so she didn't get here the dialogue
- 15:00she hadn't sat in a conference room for a really long time to
- 15:03hear how the protege in the role of the client was going to ask
- 15:06the questions. And so it gave him the opportunity now to
- 15:11experience that as a client because guess what, when we stop
- 15:14thinking of ourselves as financial advisors, and we think
- 15:17of ourselves as clients, we have very similar questions to those
- 15:21of clients. In fact, I was dealing with another one of our
- 15:24financial advisors most recently, and I said, Hey,
- 15:28listen, I want to go through some business tax returns with
- 15:31you and I want to have some different conversations about
- 15:34Schedule C, and 1099 income. And so we started going through it
- 15:37and then the questions and I say, I want to applay it to you
- 15:39and your wife as if your clients I'm gonna use my client voice
- 15:43because that's how I know best to deliver this information. And
- 15:47if you're open to it, by the end of this call, you're going to
- 15:50extract things that are applicable to you and your
- 15:53wife's situation. And you should be asking me relative questions,
- 15:56because I'm going to make tought provoking enough for you to do
- 15:59so. And he was like, great. So my goal was to teach him what
- 16:03about 1099 income, about schedule C's about how we talk
- 16:06to clients about certain things, especially when it comes to
- 16:09write offs? I can't say the word write off without thinking of
- 16:12the Schitt's Creek sketch. It's write off. What's the write off?
- 16:16It's a write off, who's writing it off. That's amazing skit. So
- 16:21then we went into it and I started my dialogue started
- 16:23talking about 1099 start talking about LLCs. A lot of new
- 16:27financial advisors, especially if you're only we're used to
- 16:29working with individuals don't understand that an LLC is not a
- 16:32tax election. It's a legal entity structure, you still have
- 16:35to go make a tax election. And so we talked about that. As
- 16:39we're going through this just thought provoking enough. He was
- 16:41like, hey, what about this what about that and it was tied to
- 16:45his personal situation. I said phenomenal and and we went
- 16:48through and I said, you know, I've got this spreadsheet that I
- 16:50use for Schedule C's, and why don't you fill it out? It's got
- 16:53two tabs. The first tab looks exactly like what a Schedule C
- 16:56looks like. The second tab is to download transactions. One of
- 17:00the things I make sure my business owners do is that all
- 17:02business purchases go on a separate business credit card so
- 17:06that we can dump all those transactions out and categorize
- 17:09them every single month. I don't do this personally for them.
- 17:12They must do it themselves or hire an accountant, but they can
- 17:15download all the transactions from you know, discover American
- 17:18Express, Bank of America, whoever it is that they're
- 17:20using, and then they can go through and tag those items on
- 17:24which category on the schedule C it might fall under. And so as I
- 17:28went through this, this is the first time he was doing it for
- 17:31himself because he was always a W two income or maybe had very
- 17:34small or you know, 10 a night and so he says to me, he says
- 17:37gosh, you know, keeping pictures of all these receipts, uploading
- 17:40them going through the transactions just feels like a
- 17:42lot of work. I'm not sure it's really worth it for a couple you
- 17:45know, what might end up being a couple $100, a couple $1,000
- 17:49whatever. And he said, You know what? I'm so glad that you said
- 17:52that, because I just had this conversation with my son. Do you
- 17:56mind if I talk to you a little bit about what was it? And he
- 17:58said, yeah what was it? I said I was working with [Lane] and he
- 18:01was his taxes, and had the same question was like, gosh, you
- 18:06know, I've got this 1099 income that I earned from the side
- 18:09hustles that I did, but I didn't do a really great job of keeping
- 18:13receipts or it's going to be kind of a burden to go back and
- 18:15get my receipts. You know, I'm going to have to make
- 18:17constructive receipts out of this credit card stuff. I don't
- 18:20think it's really worth it. Can I just put my income in and see
- 18:23what my tax liability is going to be? And I said absolutely.
- 18:26That's a great way to first come at it. Let's go ahead and do
- 18:28this because taxes at the end of the day are all about tax
- 18:32tolerance levels. So go ahead, you know, and he got done. And
- 18:37when he ended up finishing, dumping and all his income, you
- 18:40know, taking everything possible into account but not doing a
- 18:42schedule C. He goes oh my goodness, you know, the tax
- 18:46liability was $3,600 which he was not anticipating that's not
- 18:49what he had tucked asside for his tax liability. And I said,
- 18:53okay, and he goes, Oh, shoot, should I just go back and look
- 18:57for everything. And I said, well, that's going to be worth
- 19:00an hour of your time to do it. And he said, yeah, it probably
- 19:05is. And I said great. Okay, let's start so I brought him up,
- 19:08give him a copy of my spreadsheet. Let him start using
- 19:10it. He started downloading transactions. He started going
- 19:12back and finding his receipts, he started uploading them into a
- 19:15Google Drive folder marked with the tax year on it, then we got
- 19:19done with the exercise and he saved him $2,000 I mean he did a
- 19:23really good job because he a lot of startup costs going in for
- 19:26the 1099 income and so I said okay, so in the two an hour you
- 19:30spent you say $2,000 making your work $2,000. Is this a good rate
- 19:35for you? He's like, Oh my gosh, yes. And I said great. Well, the
- 19:38next time you're doing taxes for somebody and you get super
- 19:41frustrated, or they say hey, I don't know if it's really worth
- 19:43it. I don't have it now and he goes oh, I'm gonna tell him
- 19:46about my own experience. And you know, even if they can mark off
- 19:49some of that, and I said exactly. Now you're coming at it
- 19:54from a place of knowledge. Now you have gone through that
- 19:57experience, you know what is like you know what to say to
- 20:03clients. And this was really instrumental for me. When in
- 20:062020 right before the housing boom went crazy. My spouse and I
- 20:11sold our house that we lived in for almost 20 years and bought a
- 20:14new construction home in a neighborhood that we had a long
- 20:18pipe dream to live in. And so we got it out of steel and it was
- 20:22new construction. It was at the place where I can still make
- 20:24decisions. And I could say you know I want this floring, I want
- 20:28this trim, I want this paint, I want this you know, countertops,
- 20:30etc. Now prior to this prior to 2020 I had talked at building a
- 20:36house with clients. I hadn't talked with clients and here's
- 20:40what this means. I would say Hey, Mr. Mrs. Client, we need to
- 20:43budget about 12% overage for your new construction because
- 20:47contractors habitually come over their estimated amount. Now at
- 20:50that time, I was using industry averages, I was using that
- 20:54particular contractor I would go and I would get the bid to
- 20:57actuals and I would say give me your last three years and put in
- 21:01what it actually came out at. And of course the contractor is
- 21:04going to tell you well that's because you know this customer
- 21:07wanted all these custom upgrades they need all these elections.
- 21:10Of course, they were humans making human decisions, just
- 21:13like my client is going to make a human decision as well. And I
- 21:16would take the average and I'd say hey for the contractor that
- 21:18you've selected, it looks like they run 12 and a half 13 15%
- 21:22over you know, let's just go ahead and estimate that already
- 21:25into this I'm sure won't happen to you but just in case it does,
- 21:28etc. And I would just use that from a place of, you know,
- 21:32understanding how money works, understanding how choices work.
- 21:35Now fast forward 2020 when I'm in the throes of building things
- 21:38myself, am I coming at it with a completly different perspective
- 21:41of understanding the burden and the frustration that goes in
- 21:44contract building? Yup, sure I am. And I've got a lot
- 21:50more appreciation for it, right? And so now I can talk to clients
- 21:54and say, Hey, listen, one of the very first things that you need
- 21:57to do is while you're simultaneously building your
- 22:00house, you need to also hire an architect or landscape architect
- 22:04to give you an idea of how you're going to use the land.
- 22:07Now before you make any hardscape decisions. You need to
- 22:10also come with a lighting plan. And so we want a lot of outdoor
- 22:14electricity things especially if you live in a place that gets
- 22:17dark at night like anywhere in the world except for Alaska
- 22:21during the summer. Then you might want to have outdoor
- 22:24living features you might want to have outdoor lighting
- 22:27features. And so you know stick is cheap when you pre plan to
- 22:31play that delay that stick down to run the electricity. Same
- 22:34thing with natural gas while the natural gas is not super cheap.
- 22:38Where are you going to run it to how are we going to do these
- 22:41different measurements how are we gonna do these different
- 22:45things? And so if we're pouring you know concrete let's wait
- 22:48three years till after the dirt work is done what the dirt work
- 22:52settle before we do concrete. So there's a lot of experience that
- 22:56I now have that I would not have had before. So understanding
- 22:59that coming into it and doing something for yourself and we
- 23:02can't have every single one of our clients experiences, right?
- 23:06Sometimes we're just gonna have to use a place of reference. But
- 23:10that's also where networking comes in. And that's the
- 23:13importance of talking to people that have done things multiple
- 23:16times, so we can glean off of them the advice and so even when
- 23:20we were talking to one of our financial advisors, who in 2022
- 23:23started building his first place we said hey, listen, I want you
- 23:27to budget 20% over right now. And he was like not gonna happen
- 23:31to me, I'm a super penny pincher and all this stuff and it's not
- 23:34going to happen. Bolshevik totally happened to him. 100%
- 23:38ate a big old slice a crow pie came back and said you guys were
- 23:41right. This totally happened. I'm way over budget because we
- 23:45didn't realize that when they give you all the faucet
- 23:48features, it's gonna come right out of the box store. And so
- 23:51you're gonna build a million dollar home with a $20 faucet.
- 23:55You know, instead of the nice mow on one or whatever, you
- 23:58know, brand that you want to elevate your property. And so
- 24:01you know these things you don't know until you go through
- 24:05experiencing them or you're smart enough to go have
- 24:08conversations with people who have had experience do them and
- 24:11listen to their advice and not think so arrogantly "Oh this
- 24:15won't happen to me." Now, I've shared with you why it's so
- 24:18important to do things from the ground up. Our father and mother
- 24:22instilled these values in Micah and I from us very, very little
- 24:25and it gave us a very acute perspective of looking at
- 24:28things. But that perspective cannot live and die with us. We
- 24:32are empowered to train our team members, to go through this same
- 24:35process. So as you move into the summer months and you go slower
- 24:39in your advisory practice, one of the things that I'm going to
- 24:43do a call to action I'm going to challenge you to do is to pick
- 24:46one process in your office and go through it like a client
- 24:50does. Go through it exactly as a client does step by step. Do not
- 24:53forget neglect anything, go through it as if you were the
- 24:57client yourself. You're going to have so many opportunities to
- 25:00understand the user experience what worked, what didn't work,
- 25:04like if you send out a link, what does the verbiage in the
- 25:07link say? Maybe that's important if the client is clicking on
- 25:11your Calendly link. Does it say something that actually means
- 25:14something to them, right? Time to visit with my financial
- 25:17advisor, important changes happening in my financial life
- 25:21that I want my advisor to be aware of, or does it say
- 25:24appointment? Appointment doesn't necessarily mean anything
- 25:27doesn't add any value. So what are you using there for the user
- 25:31experience? And also gives you credibility and trust. We like
- 25:34to talk to people that understand the perspective they
- 25:37know what we're going through and add to our credibility when
- 25:41we come to these conversations. And we have a little experience
- 25:45and if it's not our own experience, can we not share
- 25:48with them hey, I've had clients go through this. Here's some of
- 25:51the things that they you know, wanted to make sure other people
- 25:55were aware of. Can they feel part of a community part of oh
- 25:58my gosh, I you know, somebody went through that I don't want
- 26:02to make that mistake. Thank you so much. I'm going to make sure
- 26:05that was top of mine. And then, it also gives us a place to
- 26:09empathetic problem solve, especially if you have clients
- 26:12that are looking to move homes, change homes, build a home, etc.
- 26:16One of the things my father always tells our clients when
- 26:19they're about to retire is right when the kids are about to move
- 26:23out of the house, you are going to own the biggest house you've
- 26:26ever owned in your entire life. That's quote unquote, the dream
- 26:30house why? Because all sudden now that the kids are getting
- 26:33out of the house, you have money and time to put back into your
- 26:37living space, and you're gonna have the biggest home that you
- 26:41no longer need. And then he tells the retirees he said in
- 26:44your lifetime, you're going to have five homes, and so you have
- 26:47your starter home. Then you have a big home then you have your
- 26:51quote unquote dream home and you're still going to move to
- 26:54more times after the dream home and most clients are like "Oh,
- 26:58no, Floyd. Not me, that is not going to happen. I am paying
- 27:01this house off. This is where I will die". People do not die in
- 27:05their homes anymore. It seldom happens. You're going to have
- 27:08more moves because the house is going to be too much for one
- 27:12party and nobody that can take care of. And normally in a
- 27:15household, one party becomes disabled they become unhealthy
- 27:19or unfortunately they pass before the other. You're going
- 27:22to have multiple homes and if you don't great to be the one
- 27:25that proves me wrong but I want to make sure we're making
- 27:29prudent financial decisions. Knowing this! Knowing this
- 27:32information and then you can refine the experience. When we
- 27:35go through it as the client from the user end. You're going to
- 27:39find all of the ways that you can make this so much better for
- 27:42the client that you can deliver so much value and use that
- 27:46filter when you're going through it. Does this add value? Does
- 27:49this step enhance the client experience? And if it doesn't,
- 27:53if it takes it, you know, it's either adding or taking away
- 27:56there's very very seldom times it's neutral. It either adds to
- 28:00the client experience or it takes it away. For example, we
- 28:03offer a lot of sparkling waters in our office. Why? Because it's
- 28:07on trend. We don't have the same K cups all of the time. We
- 28:10offer, if we went to the springtime I want things that
- 28:13are citrus I want things that are alive. I want things that
- 28:17are light. When we go into the fall, I might have some apples
- 28:20some cider, we might have some different things of this nature.
- 28:24Everything enhances or takes away from the experience. It is
- 28:27seldom ever neutral. All right, and then it's becoming the last
- 28:31point about doing all of this for yourself and doing an as the
- 28:35client would experience it is now the opportunity to train and
- 28:38enhance others as well. We must have the responsibility as
- 28:41business owners to train the people around us to see things
- 28:45that don't come naturally to them. They don't think it
- 28:48matters, but once we start showing it to them, and we start
- 28:51reinforcing the value of why it's so important. They will
- 28:55start to see it in every facet of their life. And we will
- 28:58continue to cultivate a better generation of workers that
- 29:01really really care about the client and their experience.
- 29:06TPR Nation, this is Jamie Shilanski in an episode of
- 29:09Worlds to Conquer. Go find people who share your values and
- 29:11change the world!