Latest / The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners / 206: Ideas to Implement -- Transforming Your CRM into an Effective Operational Hub with Guest Kate Guillen

Transcript

206: Ideas to Implement -- Transforming Your CRM into an Effective Operational Hub with Guest Kate Guillen · The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey gang, welcome back.
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're here.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Every week I try to create a follow-up episode that is short, sweet and all about the actionable steps from this week's Longer podcast.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with implementation and if you're anything like me, you have a brain dump somewhere of all of the ideas that you gather from podcasts, from articles, from conferences, all of these places of things that you want to do in your business to actually move the needle.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: So my goal is every week to distill the longer episode down into just a couple of bullet points that you can literally act on immediately to make a huge impact in your business.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Like I, want you to actually take the thing and do it right.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: What good is all of this learning without any doing?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: And I'm your host of the Efficient Advisor, libby Grywe, welcome.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I built a 100% referral only planning practice that I grew to seven figures as a solo advisor, all while working just three days a week and taking off 14 weeks a year.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And I did that through these little bullet points.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: What are the small daily steps that I can do to really truly move my business forward?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: And I'm here just to walk alongside you and to show you how to do the exact same and to help you take immediate action on the most important strategies for scaling, organizing and creating less stress and overwhelm in your business.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: We are about to transform your practice, so move over exhaustion and get out of the way.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Advisor ADHD.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: It is time to take that one right next step to build a business and a life that you love.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: And, as you may or may not know, we are currently in open registration for the systems to Scale group coaching program.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: This is my baby, this is my program that I am so excited about.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: This will be our fifth or sixth round.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember exactly how many we've done now.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: And you guys, the results are just incredible.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: And I just want my friend Todd to share with you some of the learnings and the growth that he has had in his very mature.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: The learnings and the growth that he has had in his very mature, very amazing practice that he built, and how he was still able to experience transformation through the Systems to Scale Group Coaching Program.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: My name is Todd Lester and I just finished the Efficient Advisors System to Scale Coaching Program.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I'm a hybrid advisor with our own RIA in brokerage business through Osaic and we're located in Champaign, illinois.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: After hearing Libby speak on several podcasts, I contacted her for some individual coaching and then joined the group coaching program.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Libby is the best I know at creating processes, templates, systems and efficiencies in a financial advisory business.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: There have been so many things, and often little things, that have added together to help me make a big improvement in better client experience, leader for my team and better at running my business.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I would strongly encourage advisors to listen to Libby's podcast and, if they want to take it to the next level, join the systems of scale coaching program.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, Todd is literally the best, and I'm just so excited about the results that even someone who has been doing this a really long time sees just through going through the process and refining all of the systems that you have in place and adding those little extras that really elevate your overall client experience.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: And you know, we're only in what the second week of talking about the systems to scale group coaching program.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: It's only the second week that registration has been open and you might already be sick of it, but I'm gonna keep talking about it because it's awesome and I'm excited and I want you to join us.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: And I know that some weeks your business might feel like you are just literally moving at the speed of light.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: You can't give your head above water and that because of all of that, it just feels hard to keep up, especially if you don't have the right systems in place.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, but I hear all the time from people and I've said it myself If I could just get through this week, I just have to make it through this workshop, I just have to get through, and I want to tell you that you can run a business that's not based on.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, I just have to get through this.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: I just have to make it past this.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: I just have to get my head above water on this project.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: You might find that without solid processes, completing that to-do list during the workday meaning like during the hours that you've set aside to do it can feel really, really impossible.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: So imagine I want you to imagine a business where those pesky little tasks that you know if you do them they're going to create efficiency in your business right, Like building out an onboarding process or creating those SOPs or building out workflows, you know, those things that have been on your to-do list for I don't know, maybe three, four months, maybe a year, can finally actually be done.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: So right now, when you enroll in the assistance to scale, group coaching and mastermind, you can actually start building and, more importantly, start implementing the same proven systems that I have used in my business and I have helped hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of advisors implement in theirs, so that you can set up a superstructure of organization to create workflows that you and your team need to be able to delegate better and faster, to be able to move your business forward during the work hours that you want and to not be playing catch up on nights and weekends, right?
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I want you to be able to take the guesswork out around what systems do I need and what processes do I need to put in place and just get it done already.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Right, Use the templates, checklists, samples and worksheets that we give you inside of the program.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Just think of how relieved you will feel to have all of this in place sooner rather than later.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: So if you are ready to get organized, eliminate overwhelm and finally just get all those processes built out to support that exceptional client experience that you're wanting to deliver, join us for the systems of scale, small group coaching program and mastermind.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: We start on August 22nd, every Thursday, from noon to one Eastern standard time, All of the calls are recorded.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: From noon to one Eastern standard time All of the calls are recorded.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: So, hey, even if you have a life and stuff gets in the way, I've got you.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: For more information, please check out the link in the show notes, or you can head out to the efficientadvisorcom and check out the coaching tab, Okay, so now that we got all of that stuff out of the way, let's talk about the actionable items from Kate.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: So Kate Guillen runs Simplicity Ops.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: I mentioned in the episode that she is the peanut butter to my jelly.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: We have just a really great working relationship, what I envision right.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: So while I'm great at a lot of things, I am not an expert at everything.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So my objective with the Efficient Advisor was to build a community and a hub of resources that have been vetted and are really genuinely industry specific.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: So when I'm interviewing a copywriter, I'm not interviewing a copywriter, I'm interviewing a copywriter that specifically writes copy for financial advisors.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I want people who are industry specific, that have been in the trenches, that know what they are doing and the unique and special challenges that we, as financial advisor owners are up against.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Right supervisor owners are up against right Compliance, surveillance, DOL regulation, note-taking, all of this stuff.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Kate is just that and the systems to scale group coaching.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: We really tee up everything and put it on a silver platter so that you can go to someone like Kate and or DIY right and be able to say here is the client experience, here is the SOPs, here are the backdrop, here's the literally everything I want to have happen, All of the tasks that I want to delegate, all of the things that need to be dotted and crossed.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Here's everything, and then someone like Kate or simplicity ops or you or someone on your team can go into your CRM and build out all of the workflows.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: So I like to think of my program or working with me as sort of the prerequisite, but it's not.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: You can go work with Kate directly, but you will have and she mentions in the episode you will have like crazy, amazing results If you show up with the I want this, this, this, this and this to happen and her team can actually just implement that and make it automated for you.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: But my big takeaways from the long episode that we did with Kate on Tuesday is that your CRM is not a glorified Rolodex, that you need to set up your CRM to actually operate as a centralized operating system hub, and Kate said we do that through kind of five steps.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: We get your data super hyper-organized.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: We actually build out the hub, meaning the contact, the tasks, the pipeline, the calendaring, all of the things that she mentioned.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: We build and establish your client service model and, if you do the group coaching program, we spend a lot of time really segmenting your book and determining how much time it takes for you to deliver the value and the impact that you want to to each segment, and then something like this you go into your CRM and you use your CRM and these workflows to actually help you execute that high, high, high level of customer service.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: And high level of customer service Just so we don't get this twisted does not equal more time.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: It does not mean you have to contact your clients more.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: It does not mean you have to meet with them every other day and tell them all of the things.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: It just means a higher client experience, which can be done in a lot of different ways, kind of out of scope of today.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: But the fourth thing Kate said that we need to be able to use our CRM for is workflows.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Workflows being these things that you can trigger that cascade, a bunch of tasks so that you can track where you are at in the process and your team literally has a checklist of step-by-step to follow so that nothing falls through the cracks and that your CRM should also do a lot for you.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: But it needs to be able to talk and communicate with other advisory platforms to fill in the gaps.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: So the CRM is not the end-all be-all platforms to fill in the gaps.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: So the CRM is not the end-all be-all.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: And if you remember the episode that we did gosh probably a month ago now with Lauren Hong, where we talked about the difference between CRMs and project management tools like ClickUp, Asana, Monday, et cetera, so Kate's really getting into the weeds here on all of the client-oriented stuff that needs to happen operationally and then you'd use your task management program to manage, like the bigger, higher level tasks.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: So you can go back to that episode with Laura and I will link that in the show notes below.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: The other thing that I took away from this episode is this idea of learning your CRM just takes a lot of time.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Like you can't just roll up, you know, implement a CRM and be like, oh, now we use Wealthbox and we are experts at that.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: So one of the takeaways or one of the actionable steps for you guys would be to really whether it's you or someone on your team needs to become the you know CRM liaison, if you will, and what that looks like for me, or what I would highly suggest, is that you actually carve out time in your calendar, whether it's weekly or biweekly or once a month or whatever that looks like to become an expert at your CRM.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: All of the time I talk to advisors who are like, oh, I wish I could have it do this and I wish I could have it do that.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: And when we talk about it and I say, did you know that I can do that?
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: They're like, no, I had, I had no idea.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: And I see advisors all the time like jumping tech to you know, switching from Wealthbox to Redtail or Redtail to Salesforce, or Salesforce to you know Hubly or whatever, and the solutions don't necessarily exist inside of a different CRM.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: One of the biggest fails, I think, for advisors is not really maximizing the technology that you already have.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: So by only having like a streamlined, like these are the bare bones tech pieces that I need it allows you to operate so much more efficiently, not to mention you don't end up paying for a bunch of software that you don't need.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: So even for myself personally, I was just reviewing some of the tech that I have in my own business and was like I definitely missed the boat that I could consolidate a couple pieces of software and it would save me around $300 a month.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Hello, that's like a lot of money.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: That's a really amazing vacation or girls trip, or money for my kids' college fund or something else that I'm really genuinely wasting money on, just because I didn't even know that I was overlapping my tech stack.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: So, and not because I didn't know that right In the beginning, the tech that I the bigger tech piece that I have in place didn't do the podcast hosting.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: So I hired a separate company to host the podcast right, and now the main tech piece that I have does its own podcast hosting.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know that, apparently, it's been out for like 18 months.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: So now that I actually took the time to sit down and say, hey, what's what's new here?
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: What's going on here?
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: What are they offering?
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Now it's like aha, this will save me a boatload of money and it has all of the integration.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: So I've been paying for the podcast hosting and AI tool and all of these like extras and, lo and behold, I have that already inside of a program that I'm already paying for.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: So between that and there was another thing that I found I'm literally going to save like $3,600 a year, which I don't know about you, but hey, I can do a lot with 3,600 bucks.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of money, Okay, so that's just me going off on a tangent here, but trying to give an example from my own business, where you know sometimes like I love doing these episodes because it's an amazing reminder to me to practice what I preach, to go in and do the thing.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: So when we do the group coaching program every single time I do it I do it alongside of you guys.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: So when we're talking about tracking our time and refining our model week or refining our onboarding experience, I am doing the same thing alongside you guys to refine the experience that you have inside of the group coaching program.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: So as much as I would love to say like, oh, we've reached the destination and the program is perfect and I'm just going to memorialize it and not make any updates to it, no, I'm still in that reiteration where I'm like oh, I know I can make it a little bit better.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, I know we can make that onboarding experience even better.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, I know we can make the community aspect a little bit more user-friendly.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So we are continuing to reiterate alongside of you guys and I know that's a lot of work and it's a great exercise to go through as a CEO so, in your own business, to kind of go through that every couple of years to really make sure that you're continuously updating your systems and processes so that they can be as refined and as exceptional as humanly possible.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: We really do want to get to a place where you're memorializing processes but yet you're coming back and revisiting them.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I kind of have a rolling calendar that I suggest for revisiting your processes where you're only updating one or two every year, so you're not going bananas and redoing the whole thing and reinventing the wheel every single year, but you want to come back and say how can I make this incrementally better?
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: What can I add, what can I delete, what can I automate now that I couldn't before, and what else is available for me to to streamline?
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: What other great ideas do I have that I could implement and really enhance the experience?
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: So those are my thoughts for this week's episode with Kate Guillen.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoyed it.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: I also want to mention at the very end of the episode on Tuesday, I talked about Finmate AI as a super amazing note-taking bot.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Kate mentioned it in the episode and I actually have a recording coming up with their founder that'll be coming out sometime, I think in August, and Kate mentioned it and I'm like, ugh, it's so out sometime, I think in August, and Kate mentioned it and I'm like, ah, it's so good, I really don't want to gatekeep it.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: So I have information for you.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: You'll hear all the deets about security and how amazing it is and what it does, but you can go out to their website and do a demo and you can get started on it now.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: And because I've been partnering with them, they gave me a 10% discount to pass on to you guys, which is amazing.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Um, so I will link all of the details in the show notes and if you go out to the website, on the resources tab, there is a um, a link that you can click for Finmate AI Awesome.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you, guys so much.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I hope you have an amazing rest of the week and if you have any questions about the group coaching program, please feel free to reach out to me.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I hang out in the efficient advisor community over on Facebook.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: It's a free Facebook group that we have for the 2000 plus advisors and ops people that are inside of the group.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're there.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: It's an amazing community, full of great questions, great sharing, great resource.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: You know crowdsourcing.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: It's just an awesome place, and you can also DM me and reach out to me directly on LinkedIn.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Those are the two places that I hang out online.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much and I hope you guys have an amazing rest of your week and don't forget to implement and move the dang thing forward.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you.