Latest / The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners / 167: How to Hire, Train, and Retain Quality Talent to Your Team with Guest Alanah Phillips

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167: How to Hire, Train, and Retain Quality Talent to Your Team with Guest Alanah Phillips · The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We talk about it all the time In order to scale, you need to have quality teammates that can take over parts of your business and parts of your processes.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: It sometimes feels like, looking around, that everybody else has found these amazing unicorn of employees and teammates and for some reason, we, and we alone, are just not finding these people for our business.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: How did they get so lucky right, especially teams bringing on new advisors and expanding the number of client-facing talent to take over parts of the book, to serve a different niche, to pair a plan to whatever, and we know we need them to grow.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: But how do we find them?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: How do we get them up to speed and, most importantly, how do we keep them as part of our business forever, never, never.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I've got my friend today, expert Alana Phillips, with me to talk about all things hiring, training and retaining killer employees, especially advisors.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: So how do we modernize our business and I promise, to modernize your business?
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: We don't need to allow crop tops in the office and install nap pods in order to attract high quality talent and keep them, which totally made me chuckle.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk today about kind of those three parts on how do we attract hire, you know, and then how do we onboard and train, and then how do we get these employees to stay with us long-term?
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So I think this is an important part of the conversation that we need to be having, and, even if you're not actively looking for new teammates right now, this still might be a helpful episode for you to think about, because Alana gets into a lot of things that are actually kind of client-facing as well.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: So, all right, I hope you enjoy this.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: And look, I keep telling myself I'm gonna make a new intro, but we've had such an increase in listeners literally month over month.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: We are now one of the top performing podcast for financial advisors, which is so cool, but I feel like I have to keep sharing my story.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: So if you're listening to this, I know you're here because you know it's possible to have an abundance of energy left over at the end of the day for your family and still have your dream business.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: You know the business that you are running instead of it running you.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: If you're new to the Efficient Advisor, I'm so, so glad you're here.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I'm Libby Griewee and I started from scratch, built and sold by age 37, 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 so that I could lean into being a mom, a wife, a friend, a sister, a daughter and, frankly, a travel obsessed human who loved taking vacations.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: And I'm here just to walk alongside you and to show you how to do exactly the same thing and to really to help you take immediate action on the most important strategies for scaling, organizing and creating less stress and overwhelm in your business.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: We are about to transform your practice, so move over exhaustion and get out of the way.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Advisor ADD.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: It's a thing, because it is time to take that one right next step to build a business and a life that you love.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: So let's dive into this conversation with Alana Phillips.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Alana, welcome back to the show.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: For those of you who may remember, we had Alana back on on episode number 85.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Is the grass really greener on the other side?
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: And really we kind of dive.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: We dove into all of the things like how does an advisor know if they're with the right firm?
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Should I be with a broker dealer?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Should I be with the IBD?
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Should I be independent, like all the things.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: So I'm so excited to have you back, because a lot has changed in your world, and so tell us a little bit about what you've been up to yeah, this is super cool.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: And I feel like when you look back at like, oh yeah, that episode 85, like doing that podcast with you, a lot of things have changed and it's good to reflect on how far we've come.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: So I broke up with my broker dealer since that podcast happened, which was a necessary, exciting choice for me and really taking my own advice that I give to advisors when you see all those signs and it's time to do something different.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: So now I am still helping advisors break up with their broker dealers and have more options available to them.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I now function, I would say, like as objectively as one can, because we all have opinions, but working to bring them to multiple firms and work through that process of a breakup.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: And in that, the other part of what pushed the breakup was this desire to really help not only next-gen advisors, because they tend to find me and need direction around next steps in their careers and navigating this weird industry environment that we have of like what is independence, and that my firm is telling me that I can be a business owner and have all these things, but then the firm is a captive insurance company right, so help them.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: But also, I had so many teams as I was out speaking about this next-gen idea who want to bring on their next generation of advisor talent, and then I watched them all do these silly things in the process of hiring and training new advisors.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: That made them lose great talent, and the idea behind Advisor Launch Lab, which came out of this, was to help those teams not lose great next-generation talent.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: So I am spending time now helping teams to do that.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: So I was speaking at the FPA, next-gen and so it kind of that was, let's see, back in August I think, and I came back from that conference and I was so encouraged by this next generation of advisors.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes the rhetoric out there on like LinkedIn or kind of amongst us old farts, is like, oh, these new advisors are this or that and you know they don't see the value in yada, yada and I think they know everything right.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, like every generation has felt that way about the next generation, and I just came back from that conference and I was so inspired by how much this next generation of advisors genuinely care about being a great advisor and I saw so many young advisors investing in themselves in a way that I wish I would have as early in my career, like I was super blown on, like wow, they are so much further ahead than I was because they're already making those investments and thinking about their own education and really pouring into how can I be a better advisor?
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: And you're exactly right.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, I talk at you know, in our coaching I'm constantly talking to teams that are trying to expand and they're totally missing the bow on how to attract the right talent, how to train the talent and then how to grow it, and and I think we sometimes assume that it's like, oh well, there's just not good talent coming up, when they're really, in fact is we're just dropping the ball on how to actually do it in a way that's up to date and a brilliant and effective.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: So let's dive into just this idea of attracting talent.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: So, as an advisor who's wanting to like grow their team and add new advisors and really start to scale, what do you kind of see as the way we should be assessing talent and starting to attract it?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: yeah, I want to talk about three pieces there and I have a presentation I do on this where I try to break down those stereotypes that you're talking about, because I think, like step number one is eliminating those stereotypes from your mind of what this next generation is going to be like.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: And I'll do like a well play family feud if I do it as a presentation and everybody shouts out right, like you know, millennials, next generation, about like they're lazy, they're entitled, they're you know all these things and they'll give me these examples, libby, it's really funny stuff where they're like they wanted to take a mental health day, you know, and I'm like I think there's a lot of these things like one every generation in the history of forever has thought this about the previous generation that like they were lazy or entitled or whatever right.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: And then the second part of it is like I think we're just jealous.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Like I think we're jealous that this next generation, like you're describing like they're doing cool stuff, they're putting boundaries around their time, they're thoughtful and intentional about how they're building their practices, they're not going to say yes to stuff that they can't do and they're prioritizing them being their best selves so that they can better serve clients.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: And it's like really hilarious to me when I start to have these conversations and ask those questions like why is that so upsetting to you, right?
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Why is it so upsetting that they're not in the office from 7 am to 5 pm if they're getting their work done, right?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: We're assuming this is not a bad Higher, this isn't somebody who's goofing off, and it always comes down to well, I had to do it that way, right.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: And it's like why would you want Someone to have to have struggled the way that you did?
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Why would you want Somebody to burn themselves out or run themselves into the ground when you know that hasn't actually gotten you Any extra days of life, it hasn't gotten you any extra money or any extra love or any extra health.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: You know, like why would you want those things?
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: And we step back and think about that.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I think most teams are Aware that it is it's them pushing what happened to me.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: I feel like other people have to experience this thing too.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: So right, like I earned my stripes, you need to earn your stripes.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: The same, the same way, like the hard way.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which, like we'll get into this.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: But like there's plenty of ways that it's harder for them today, right, like we can't pick up the phone and just cold call somebody in the phone book anymore and sell them information, so like I promise you it's harder for them in other ways.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: It's not gonna be the same ways that you had to walk uphill in the snow both ways, right.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: I like it.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: So the first was eliminating stereotype.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Then we were talking about kind of losing our jealousy over, like, how they're gonna do it differently.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: What's the third piece?
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like sorry, that's like piece one of, just like your mindset.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Like we've got to fix the mindset and then I think about, so I described this as like these are magical unicorns, right, that you want to attract to your practice.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: It's like you have to have bait for them if you want to attract them, and the three pieces of that are modernization, flexibility and transparency.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Love that, okay.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: And so for the advisors listening, so let's dive in, because I know, like the first thing, it's like almost every advisor when we talk about expanding their team, they're like I just don't understand.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Unlimited vacation, do I have to do unlimited vacation?
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Do I have to let them work from home, like so okay.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about modernization.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, you don't have to have nap pods, although I would recommend, though no, but with you know, we're never, in our industry, I think, going to be as modern as some other industries.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Right there, it's just not gonna happen.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: But I do think about modernization in terms of your digital presence.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Right, if I can't find you on the internet, you do not exist.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: And so if your digital presence isn't there and I'm googling, if you're a good place to work at and there's no Information about it, why would I come work for you?
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Right, you think about if you're gonna go to San Diego for a vacation and you want to stay somewhere, you're gonna immediately hop on Google and search for hotels with good reviews, and if those hotels don't have good reviews, you're not gonna stay there.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Or if there's no website for that hotel, you're not gonna stay there.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: So that modernization piece is very much about your digital presence, but also Technology that you might be using right.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Is all of your stuff still in file cabinets?
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Do you have the ability for a client to book online with you?
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Could you meet with clients virtually?
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Do you understand that, although we may still have a physical office presence and we want you to be there certain days, that our world has changed and we can work from other locations and don't have to physically be in the office?
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Can clients access information online or via app?
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Are you using Digital documentation or fintech to make things easier?
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Like that's what I think of when I think of modernization.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: It's not so much about Netpods and crop tops.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: It's it's more about are you in this century in terms of how you work with your team and your clients?
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: well, and is that?
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Is that like looking at it kind of through the lens of like, a lot of advisors are bringing in a next-gen advisor as a succession plan?
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: right like as someone who potentially Buy them out, take over the practice someday.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: If we're wanting to Attract that level of talent, we're gonna need to be positioning ourselves to make it to like to be the business that they want to buy out, but to be the business that they want to not just a place to learn and grow, but to ultimately feel like they can Do what they want to do with it someday when it's theirs, or even even within the business while they're working.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: And they see again all the other industries.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: These are all digital native candidates that we're talking about.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: They've grown up up with super computers in their pockets and access to information and Things being a little bit easier in terms of the tech experience, and so it's like, if you're not there now, you could make this their project, coming into your practice.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Right, this could be something.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: You need to do some work in terms of this modernization, and this is part of their assignment.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: That's okay too, but if we're unwilling to change it, this is where we're losing candidates to other industries.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Honestly, they're just going places where their talents and the ease of doing things because of technology is increased.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I do think that this is a Important piece in terms of that succession for sure.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, so let's talk flexibility.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: This is where I immediately think unlimited vacation.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah and like maybe that's a thing right.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: I do think about flexibility involving the time that someone is working or where they are working right.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: This idea of a seven to five or nine to five or whatever you did because of technology we can work more efficiently, we don't need to physically be in the same place anymore like that idea is Causing teams to lose great candidates, and I'm a big proponent of still having some in-person Interaction as a team.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: I think it can be helpful in terms of building culture and relationships and trust and all that messy Stuff that isn't efficient and helps you to drive things forward.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: But ultimately, if you're not offering some level of flexibility, someone else is, and so they're going to those teams that are offering Hybrid structures that trust their people, because ultimately, that's what it comes down to is trust that you believe somebody's going to do the things that they've said they're going to do.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: So I think that's really important.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: The other thing around flexibility, libby, is in the career path itself.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: There are a lot of teams that ask me should I bring on Salaried advisors or commissioned, you know, fee-based advisors?
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: What's the right structure?
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: And there's no right structure, just like with your clients, like Having only stocks or only bonds in a portfolio like neither is right.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: It's all contingent on that particular client and their risk tolerance and their risk capacity and their goals.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: And when we build flexible career paths and we don't force advisors into one model or another and we can build something that works with them and grows with them, this is when teams are retaining folks.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: So I think Flexibility there is really important.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: And then the last piece for flexibility is that we don't have to do things the way that we've always done them.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: So even though you didn't find clients on LinkedIn or you didn't have to have a personal website when you were coming into the business or you didn't have to do meetings on Zoom, if we don't give those tools to our next generation of folks or really they've got one little arrow in their quiver here and not all the things that they need in order to meet with and gain clients in a modern world, and so flexibility in terms of how they build their business is important too.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah so a little latitude goes a long way.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, I love that and you know, it's funny because when we used to host live workshops and advisors from all over the country would come in and my team and I would train them for a couple of days on our systems.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: One of the things they would meet in small groups with everyone on my team and one of the questions that they always ask my team members are why do you like working for like what?
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Like you've been with her forever.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Like what do you like about it?
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: You know, thinking through the lens of like how do I retain employees and have longevity.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: And the number one thing that the girls would always say is flexibility.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: We have, like certain, like the phone has to be covered from this time to this time.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: But you know you want to scooch out and go to the Mother's Day tea at preschool Great.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: You know you want to work four days a week Super, and just giving them that flexibility.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: And that went so far, even just from my own personal experience, and that's not even including, like all the other, you know ways that you're talking about flexibility and latitude.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it is a key differentiator.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: It's why it's in these top three of, like, the teams that I see who are keeping great people offer flexibility in any and typically all of these areas.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we're still in this attraction phase.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Right, we're still talking about attraction.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: What else do we need to know about hiring this next gen?
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so last piece of the modern, flexible, transparent Transparency is such a like I don't know why a taboo thing in our industry.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Right, because we like, want to have, like Fight Club.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: We don't talk about Fight Club.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Right, like everything's this behind secret, closed doors.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: It's a need to know basis it's all you know, secret, hidden information.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: So I have an advisor who I hired to a team like six years ago and had worked with this team on a couple of all these pieces.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Right, this is this is part of where some of this was born was a team that just like, let me do what I wanted to do and follow the direction.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: We tested some of this stuff out.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: But they were the pilot team and we had talked about transparency a lot, because the senior advisors on the team were like, well, how do we keep this advisor?
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Like, what restrictions do we put in place to keep them on our team?
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Right, and I was just like no, like who of us ever feels like we want to stay somewhere when we are chained to it?
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Right, when there's something that's scary, that's keeping us there like a non solicited, a non computer, whatever, right.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: So we pivoted from this idea of trying to keep somebody.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Right, like, keep our little claws I'm doing a gesture of you know, putting a clause in somebody to more of what, if we just treat them really well and we give them the flexibility they need and we're transparent with them about the things that are happening?
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Right, and they kept this advisor for a long time following this idea, sharing with him how splits work, how they make money, the amount of money that they make off of him.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Right, like he's not upset to know that they're making money off of him because he receives tremendous value for this.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Making sure that he understand.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: There were other advisors on the team who had different career paths and everybody understood that everybody's career path was based on their goals, their risk tolerance, their risk capacity, and it wasn't equal, but it was equitable, it was fair and it was known.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: And the moment that teams stop doing this, where they start having secret conversations behind closed doors, where they don't explain to somebody how they're paid or what the decisions are that are happening in the team and again you know there's stuff that we don't need to tell them immediately right, we're working out how it's going to happen, but if you don't communicate why you're making decisions about your team, that psychological trust is lost and you're not going to keep people right that transparency.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: People are not stupid.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: They will figure out what's going on and if you were keeping it from them, it's going to be worse than if you just told them the truth about it.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: That is so true.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you talk about finding these magical unicorns and really they're plentiful.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, there are plentiful.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: There's a huge number of them out there, so we've attracted them.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about kind of that next step of onboard, unless there's anything else you want to share in the attraction stage.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: I guess the only thing I would say, libby, is that, like, as I watch advisors go to hire folks, like they put out a cute little job description and then they like wait for the resumes to come in, you know, and they haven't, you know, let's say they have the unicorn bait here that they put out.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: They're modern, flexible and transparent, like immediately when they start getting resumes, all of a sudden they're like experts in body language and neuro linguistics and they're like judging where somebody parks in the parking lot, like somehow that has something to do with their ability to do financial planning.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: And so my only other tip I would give for the folks that are in attraction and like assessment phase is stop ascribing meaning to stuff that has nothing to do with someone's ability to do the job their hair color, their shoes, how they hold their pencil, like there's just so much silly stuff that advisors tell me where it's.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Like oh, they wore a polo to the interview and it's like okay, like we can have them put on a different shirt.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Like this is really.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: This is changeable stuff, right, like versus.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Like they should have drunk to the interview, like that's a problem.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: We like probably don't want to move forward there, but like if they were flats.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I promise you it's going to be okay.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: They can still learn how to do financial planning.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, I like it so, yeah.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: So we need to kind of just really distill down what actually matters and what can be coachable.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Like, what are the coachable attributes?
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Like, what are the things that you can adjust and have a conversation around versus, like, deal breakers, yes, right, okay, okay.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: So we find our unicorn, we put out the bait, they come on.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: What do you see as far as and I know this is where a lot of advisors struggle is they put so much effort into the recruitment side of it.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: And then we bring on this amazing talent and then it's kind of like, okay, so let's get them on boarded.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: They need access to some tech and we'll get them an office and an email address and there's a total like lack of strategy around onboarding.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: So talk to me a little bit about what you see.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: How do you help advisors prioritize?
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: What should we be doing with these advisors as we bring them on?
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is your right on in terms of we do a good job, like selling them into the team, into the opportunity.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: And then I mean, hopefully, if you've hired somebody, great, that who not how concept comes into play of like, if we've got the right person, we mostly figure it out.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: But there are plenty of folks who join this industry start with a team and then the team strategy is like okay, hope you figure it out Right.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Like this person has to take initiative and take charge and there's so many really wonderful next gen advisor candidates or staff who are just not high take charge.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Right, they are looking for some direction, they're looking for some structure and you want those folks on your team because also those are the ones who stay in employee roles or administrative or operational roles, versus somebody who's very high take charge the chances that they outgrow you.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: If you didn't provide them that structure and they had to figure it all out themselves, they're going to be like oh, I can go do this for myself elsewhere then, which, like that's fine if you want to train people to do that.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Like those are folks I love to work with too, but I think the biggest thing is having a plan other than they have to figure it out or I hope that they figure it out.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: So tech obviously is a piece of it.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Right, like you're going to teach them the tech that you need them to use.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I think this is where I hope the folks that work with you probably have really great processes in place and they have documentation of those.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: That's going to make a really big difference for somebody coming in to be able to step in and learn those and use those.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: I think shadow time is important that they get to observe in those first 30, 60, 90 days how things are done and perhaps with a task of determining if there are any gaps in those things from their perspective, really leveraging that opportunity to get some observations from somebody who's coming in with fresh eyes and be open to that feedback.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Getting them assimilated into the team in terms of the relationships with the other folks that you work with and making sure that they understand why you do what you do.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: I think that's another problem and maybe leads back to modernization or transparency.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: If you cannot articulate why you do what you do, then I don't know how your team is going to know that and buy into that, and I think that that's a really important piece of onboarding too.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: It's just like why are we doing those things?
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Why do we serve these clients?
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Why do we serve them this way?
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: And that, simon Sinek, start with why, right, we'll help a new person to buy into what you do.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: So a huge fail that I had is when we brought on a front office admin.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I remember, obviously in the interview process you explain what you do and how you do it and all the things, and she had probably been working for us for I don't know a couple months and one day she came to me and she goes hey, do you think I could sit in there and sit in on a client meeting so I can figure out what it is that we do here?
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: And I remember being like, oh, we explained it to you, but that doesn't make a lot of sense if you don't speak this language.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: It's like learning a foreign language.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: And now that you understand it, it was so funny because she sat in on a few meetings and I was like I totally missed the boat.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: She doesn't understand how her job relates to my job, which relates to our director of operations job, which relates to our backend person's job, and so changing the way that we onboarded to shadowing everybody and really understanding an org chart, even if you have a super, teeny, tiny business but how does your job relate to the overall vision of the practice and the way that we go to market and how do we serve our clients is so important.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I learned that the way, hard way, but I almost died three months and I'm like what do you mean?
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: You don't know what we do here.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah that's that we all have expert blindness because we know what it is.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: But no, I saw that when I came in the intern program that I managed a few years into being in the industry.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: There were two advisors and I remember distinctly because I still didn't totally understand what we did either, and I learned it from asking advisors like can I come, sit in on your client meetings and just observe and sit and watch you work?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: And there were two interns who were becoming advisors.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: They passed all their exams and were going to start going out and meeting with clients on their own.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: And I was talking to them like two days before they started and one of them backed out Like he had purchased his ENO, he had all of his stuff ready to go and he backed out at the last minute and as I was exiting or interviewing him because I was again knew, I was like what's going on?
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Why is somebody backing out?
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: I'm like a couple of weeks into being here and he said, as we were talking through it, he hadn't ever seen a client meeting and he was going to be an advisor.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: He had never seen a client meeting.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: And it's such a miss.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: It's such a simple thing to do that shadowing and make that connection for folks, and even more so, I think, with staff who's going to support the process, and then definitely with your next gen advisors, that they get to see many types of client meetings before they're doing that totally on their own.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's a great point and I think too, like if you're attracting really good talent and they're coming into the business and everything sounds great, right, it's modern, it's flexible, it's transparent, they have a great online presence, like they're all bought into everything that they learned in the interview, and then they show up and it's kind of a mess and there's no direction on what they're supposed to be doing.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: They're so little into the process that it's easy for them to be like, eh, never mind, right, like they're not overly committed.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: They haven't spent six months, they're not deeply invested in relationships there yet they really aren't invested even in the vision of the clients or anything.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: So not having a plan, not having a schedule, being intentional about onboarding properly, so getting your processes in place before and actually creating a system or a way of bringing people into your business that covers all the bases they're not just walking in the door and going.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: This place is kind of like taking a sip from a fire hose, like I don't know what's going on.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Nobody knows what's happening here.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Everything's kind of a mess and everyone's running around like their hair is on fire and they waited until the wheels fell off before they even hired me.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Versus.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Like you know, the wheels were just starting to wiggle.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: It's not an enjoyable environment to walk into, much less to be committed to.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: No.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: And then hilariously and I know there's some teams that are going to hear this and then feel personally attacked.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: But, like every team that I talked to, that's like, well, they did this and it was them, it wasn't us right.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: When that's happened to you multiple times, I would almost guarantee you it is you, it is your processes, it's your team, it's the way you're onboarding people, it's not the five candidates that you hired and left you Like.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: So there's one common denominator here.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so we've attracted talent, we've come up with a really good strategy to onboard them and kind of get them integrated into the business.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Now talk to me about you and this is really where you spend a lot of your time now is how do advisors, or senior advisors, or whatever you want to call them, how do they intentionally grow an advisor to be a good advisor Like, okay, we've got them onboarded, they know how to use the tech, they can follow some processes, but how do we actually train that advisor to be good at giving advice when there's so much to learn, there's so much included in that it feels like it's going to take years and years and years to get that level of expertise and experience under their belts.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good question.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: And I have some sort of elements of a good training plan.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: These are the things that I work with new advisors on and help the senior folks to mostly adjust their mindset to.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: I think is the biggest thing.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Right, because there is definitely a common trend of I did things this way, me senior successful advisor.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: I did things a certain way and I expect, based on my experience, that someone should do them the same way and that's like really cute and I appreciate it because they're successful and so it totally makes sense, like that logic makes sense.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: But the world has changed since most advisors were starting in the business right, I think about somebody who started 20, 30 years ago.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Really, google didn't exist, right?
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine our world without Google now?
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: That was a totally different environment.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: To learn, to train, to build your business 2008, it took 3.68 cold call attempts to reach a prospect.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: 2015, it took 8 and I have yet to find the updated statistics on this, because nobody cold calls anybody anymore, probably, but I would guess it's double that right.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Do people even answer numbers that they don't know?
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I could tell you financial advisors do but that's the only demographic.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: So if we're talking about from 4 to 8 to probably 15 plus, when likely you built your business doing some level of cold calling, some level of referrals from your natural market, like, we just can't have advisors build businesses that way today and yet most firms they don't allow some of the other ways that advisors could find clients, social media being one of those biggest places where you kind of warm up your cold calls you get 10 of those 15 attempts, you know, and some cold calls in between.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: So I would say that's just like one piece that I think I work with teams on a lot is giving modern advice about how we come into this business and build a practice.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: So then there's like I'll just list off Libby the sort of elements, right, establishing a brand of some sort, helping new advisors figure out who are they, what is it they want people to say about them when they leave the room, what are the things that they stand for, and being able to leverage those in whatever you're putting out into the world, right, if that's social, if that's seminars, if that's your referral process, whatever that looks like.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Nitching which, like Kitsis, talks about this all the time.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Riches and niches, I do believe, while a new advisor is going to be more open to working with all types of clients because we're trying to build a practice quickly, if we can hone in on a particular ideal client earlier on, it does help to focus their energy, as opposed to this shotgun approach of working with anyone and everyone.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Nitching does make a big difference Emotional intelligence and working on self-awareness, working on how you interact with different types of clients and perhaps their relationship with money you probably saw that at the next gen FPA meeting of just like the importance of this psychology of money for this next generation and so being able to incorporate that into their process of bringing on clients and differentiate themselves that way is important.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Authentic selling.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: There is this idea and I keep thinking we've gotten past this, but it keeps coming up.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: I did a presentation a couple weeks ago and I got on right before it started and advisors were just chit chatting and one of the advisors was talking about a new advisor he brought into his office and how he came in with a black collared shirt and he was just like no, we do not wear black collared shirts, it's light blue collared shirts or nothing.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: This was somehow the secret to success.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: That's his ultadiad.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah because he had worn light blue shirts and he was successful, and so obviously one goes one equals two here and we missed that.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: It wasn't about the color of the shirt necessarily.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: It was about he felt confident in a light blue shirt or he felt professional or empowered, and it was a purposeful decision that he made about his branding, going into his client meetings Like that's the authentic selling stuff we need to make the connections with.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: It was never about the purple socks or the light blue shirt or the hairstyle or the car that you drove.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: It was about the way that it made you feel.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: It was about the intention behind choosing it.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: It was about it fitting in with your brand and being authentic to you, and we're missing that in telling new folks that they have to do things the way that it worked for me.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: When they can do it, their authentic version of that thing, their authentic version of their light blue shirt, and that's going to be more successful.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: And the last three pieces elements of good training teach them how to find clients.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: There's a thousand ways to find clients.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: It's not just the one way that you do it Having processes that they document what they're doing.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: This is where they should listen to your podcast and then managing their time.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: That's one of the other things I see new advisors struggle with a lot.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Nobody teaches them how to manage the limited number of hours that they have in a week.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, I love all of that.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: So okay, so you now do a lot of like fractional growth management for teams, like helping grow their advisors.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: So what does that look like?
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: So somebody who's like oh, I can offload or I can hire out this idea of growing advisors, like what does that even look like?
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it depends on the team, right?
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: So there's some really fabulous teams and I would guess would be your listeners are probably further along than some others, because they care about their processes.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: They've got a purpose, they've got some modernization, some flexibility, some transparency, and so sometimes it's just me as a consultant, and I'll give you an example.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: There's a really phenomenal team I work with in Southern California.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: They have two or three next-gen advisors that they've been working with.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Again, they're modern, they've got nobody works in the office.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: They all work all over the place across the country.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: They have really intentional, beautiful team meetings.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: They do a team retreat a couple of times a year to keep their culture strong, strong purpose that they want to give back to their communities.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: So, again, flexibility, modernization, transparency, and this team hired me to help make sure that their next-gen folks were in the right role and they aren't at risk of leaving Right, and so that was the majority of our focus for that particular project is me, as a third-party person can come in and usually these folks will say stuff to me that they might not say directly to you, right?
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: And then you get that really beautiful feedback and we can figure out we had to make some adjustments Right.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: One of these people was extremely happy in role, didn't need any other development opportunities.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Comp structure worked, career path worked, and they were kind of pushing her to move faster, and that's not what she needed Right, but they're very comfortable with her staying where she's at.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: So now that we know that that's solid.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: The other one needs a little bit of movement.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: She wanted to see a little more reward and take on a little more risk, but in a very slow way, and so we worked to develop a plan of how that could happen, how her comp could increase, with her being able to do some marketing activities on her own helped her establish what those would be.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Here's who she's going to target.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Here's how she's going to go out and find them and then carving out five or 10% of her week with their support to do that.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Other candidate needed to move way faster much higher ground, much higher quick start, much more interested in higher risk, higher reward sorts of opportunity, and they were keeping him in a salaried role and he was, you know, panicking, pushing out, wanting to do more stuff, and so we were able to adjust.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Here's how we're going to wean him off of salary and building out.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: That custom structure of here is his schedule and the activities he needs to do in order to get that reward and have his risk increase, as that happened.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: So I think those sorts of things are where teams are finding having somebody come in and look at that from the outside and being open to making some of those adjustments is really helping them keep the great people that they had for longer.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that's really helpful.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: I love everything that you're doing.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: I think that's so amazing and I love that you made the leap and that you broke up with your broker dealer.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: So, now that you are full on into the entrepreneurship world, tell me.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: I always like to ask my guests at the end you know, what are one or two things that you're doing in your business now that help you operate more efficiently or more effectively?
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: And that could be a tool.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: That could be just a way that you organize yourself, or your calendar, or your mindset, or literally anything that you think makes your work life easier.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: I shared a couple of things last time that we were chatting about like one note and my obsession with one note, so I'll go back and listen to episode 85 about that.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: It's so funny, so I think I don't.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: You shared this with me, libby, and I'm like using it all the time now, which is the Pomodoro method.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, okay, yeah, and it is one of those things I have found because I'm like overworking myself.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: You know, as a new business owner, like I'm the worst boss I've ever had, for sure, but sometimes you get into that.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Like you know, I've been doing stuff all day or I've been on calls and I've exhausted myself and I think advisors do this too with the emotional energy you give to your clients and something about the Pomodoro method, which, like, is setting a timer for 25 or 30 minutes and just like devoting yourself uninterrupted to a particular task.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: That helps me when I'm like I don't want to work on this long term creative project that's never going to end, but if I can get out of a little rut of, you know, being distracted or making excuses, like the email is valuable work right, like to set that timer and go.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: No, I'm going to work on this recruiting consulting report for 25 minutes.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: That's all I'm going to do, but if you do that enough, it helps you to get through.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: So so I love the Pomodoro method.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: The other tool which I know is controversial is chat GPT.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, are you?
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: saying it, you feel free, yeah, yeah, yeah, you feel free to talk about that here, because I know it's controversial, but for people who embrace it, it can be super helpful.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: It's so helpful.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: And I think about like idea generation is obviously one of those things.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Like you need to have kind of like clear free time and sometimes we don't and we need to get ideas out there and to put in there.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: Like I helped my dad with his like LinkedIn and resume this past weekend, which was just like really amusing because he has worked for himself for 39 years, and so I like opened up chat GPT right like I know enough about the construction industry that I could probably give him some direction.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: But I was like, hey, you know, like start me a resume for a roofing contractor who's owned his own business for X number of years with these things.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: And then, like it spits out you can ask it just to make you a document.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: And now you're not starting from a blank slate, you've got something to work from.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: And then I also asked it like what are the things that recruiters are looking for in the construction industry?
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Right, like give me some tips on what you would include in a resume for X, you know, profile my dad.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: And then it spits out 100 things that you can then use to tailor something to work for a specific audience.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: And when we're talking about like ideal clients, marketing ideas.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: It just.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: It makes things so easy for you and save so much time.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: So if you are not using it and it's scary, I would recommend dabbling in it and checking it out.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's interesting because I think a lot of people, when we think about chat, gpt, we think about it through the lens of, like, marketing, like, oh, it can create social media posts, I can write blogs, I can do all this other.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can do so many things.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so far beyond that it can be a great code yeah it's crazy.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: It's crazy Like I feel like I hardly even like scratch the surface and I feel like I use it all the time.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Same, no same, same, same.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Like there's so much more stuff and all the different plugins that it can do, you know, like you ask it to plan your vacation and then you can plug it in where it like goes to the website and then like books, the stuff, like it's absolutely wild.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: You've already exceeded my knowledge base.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: So yeah, you said plug.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: You lost me at plug in.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: I didn't say I know how to do it, I just know that it can do it.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: I'm technically a millennial, but I'm an elder millennial, so that's my excuse.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: I appreciate all of this information.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: I know somebody listening, you know, is in that phase where they're like, okay, I know I need to expand, but how do I really attract the right people?
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: How do I train them?
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: And then, really, how do I?
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: How do I grow them?
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: How do I retain them?
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: How do I build a business that people want to be a part of for, you know, a generation to come?
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for your time and your energy, and I'm super excited about your business and best of luck to you.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: Thank, you Thanks for having me on here and appreciate the time.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Isn't she great?
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: I love Alana.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Anyways, I hope you found this conversation helpful.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: If you are planning to in any way, shape or form, try to increase capacity, you know and I've always said this, and if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you've probably heard me say this ad nauseam but you need to scale yourself first before you dive in and add additional teammates.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Then you need to scale the teammates that you currently have before you continue to hire.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: So make sure that you are streamlining, documenting, creating systems and processes in your business so that you can operate as efficiently as possible All the time.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: When we're talking about expanding teams, you know your natural inclination is to just jump to hire somebody else, but I would challenge you first to let take a look at how you're spending your time and is there something you've heard me say this before too Is there something we can automate?
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Is there something we can delegate and that's the hiring piece, right?
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Is there something that we're doing that we can just straight up delete, or is there, you know, something that we can make streamline and make more efficient?
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: So automate, delegate, delete and streamline are kind of my four things that we want to look at when we're thinking about how do we increase capacity, how do we reduce complexity, how do we make things more efficient inside of our business?
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: And then, taking into consideration when we do hire, how do we make sure because high turnover is a very expensive thing, not only monetarily, but from time, from energy, just from a burnout standpoint, from a capacity span, it's just turnover is hard.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: So making sure that we're laying the foundation to make sure that these new hires are successful inside of our business is crazy, crazy important.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: So, anyways, if you'd like to talk more about this, please check out the efficient advisor community over on Facebook.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Alana is there, she is in it and happy to talk with you about anything that we discussed today, and, of course, I will add, if nothing else, a little color to the conversation, and I also hang out on LinkedIn, so feel free to connect with me there and follow for additional content.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much and hope you guys have an amazing rest of your week.