Latest / Better Planner / #9 - How to Actually Use a CRM | Workflows That Fit Your Firm
Transcript
- Taylor Stewart: Welcome back, another episode of the Better Planner Podcast. Colin Page, how are you? Colin: Taylor, how are you? Taylor Stewart: I'm actually lovely today. I'm happy to say that. we have a really fun topic. CRMs. We're gonna talk about CRMs today. I feel like it's like the piece of technology that everybody has and nobody likes. And we wanna talk about like why that is, what's changing how to actually use it. Because I think you are one of the few advisors I've ever seen like productively use a CRM. And I want to dig into that a little bit. Colin: Hm, that's a that's a claim. Taylor Stewart: I I've watched you. It's been a labor of love for two years, you getting that Colin: Ha ha. Taylor Stewart: thing set up. but yeah, so I mean what what is the role of a CRM just zooming back? Like how should somebody be using it? Colin: Ooh, that's a that's a big question. I mean maybe maybe I'll s I'll start or I'll answer it by way of just kind of a background my history with CRMs. Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: I mean I don't know if we're gonna name names or not, but like the the one I started with was was a glorified Rolodex, it felt like. you know, you got your contact information, you create your households and you got a place to store notes and it's synced all my emails with a client household. So, you know, the idea was it would be the one kinda source of truth, place to go to get information, you know, about what you've done with a client or what you need to do. but as a new advisor, starting my own firm with a dozen clients or two dozen clients even. it just didn't feel that necessary. I didn't really use it. It was kind of a chore to keep it updated, because at at like two dozen clients, you can kinda keep all of that in your head. or, you know, the inefficiencies in inefficiencies don't really bite you that much when when that's the number of households you have. So it wasn't until I probably got to around thirty households and this is like that's like a number I've I've heard other advisors Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: say too. Like w once you get to thirty, it's like, okay, I I'm having trouble like keeping up with everything. Well Taylor Stewart: I felt it at like twenty. Twenty is when I had a breaking point, but I'm also just not as smart as you, so you go ahead. Colin: The the tracks. Yeah. Taylor Stewart: Just in case anybody's, you know, feeling a little overwhelmed before thirty. I felt it at twenty. There was a breaking point. Twelve was like Colin: Yeah. I Taylor Stewart: the first time I was like, Mm and then twenty was like, Yeah, I can't do this anymore. But you Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: but a and okay. That's not to you were working for the most part with a Colin: No, I I wouldn't say I didn't feel I felt it at twenty. I didn't actually do something about it until I got Taylor Stewart: That's good. Yeah. Well I wasn't gonna say d but the one slight difference is you've you've generally worked with a pretty defined type of client and so maybe that's part of why you were able to last a little bit longer versus I was working kind of across the board and was like twenty different processes in mind. Like, yeah, okay, this isn't gonna work but Okay, sorry, go back to what you were saying. Colin: Yeah, I mean and and as a as a solo advisor, like, I think I think yes, there there comes a point where you can no longer keep it all in your head, so you need a place that you can go and keep track of everything you have to do. I was I was like terrified I was gonna drop the ball. I was f gonna forget to do something I said I was gonna do. and and so That w that was when I started to look into building out the C R to actually have workflows or track my to do list. and have more of a prospecting process that was, you know, somewhat automated where there's email templates that that are so you know reproducible and and and easy Taylor Stewart: Mm-hmm. Colin: to to send out, you know, keep people along a a a pipeline. and in that process like I got maybe a little, you know, carried away g i i in the sense that Taylor Stewart: Mm-hmm. Colin: and maybe I'm still carried away with it, but but you know, th the the idea is like there's there's all these this these data points that are important Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: to track in the life and, you know, calendar year with your client that like I d I haven't found anywhere besides the C R to kinda track all of those things and so I've I've created custom fields and custom objects and and workflows and things to help make sure that, you know, at the end of the day I don't drop the ball that I can come into a meeting prepared for you know, what knowing what we talked about last time and what we're working on and what we have left to do this year. And and then you know make sure I've got a good s system of records for you know, not just like regulatory stuff. If if I get audited and I gotta prove, you know, why was this why were we invested this way for this client, how was that suitable? you know, the CRM's kind of the natural place to go for those kind of notes, or here's where we talked about the risks or that sort of thing, but also just like to keep myself organized so that I can you show up and and quickly get back up to speed with hey, what are we working on now? what have we done this year and what do we have left to do? yeah. Taylor Stewart: Yeah, I I I think I have a couple thoughts here. Like to me a CRM's job like role is to help you stay organized to do your job. And that's a di that's different for different types of advisors. I think this is kind of blending into like why people have been frustrated with CRMs in the first place, is like workflows and processes if that's just like sings to an advisor's soul. They love the idea of it. Colin: Mm. Taylor Stewart: But there's two problems. One, most don't have clear processes and procedures. So they don't even know what to build. And then it's a pain in the ass to build even if you do know, historically. Colin: Mm. Taylor Stewart: Because there's just so many stuff you think about all the things to like w what do you do and when and why? Like that's a lot of decisions to make and what happens next. And then like there's just a lure to get like super granular and then what's the due date for that? And then it just stops working. And so I think there's two parts to it. And the first one is very real that most advisors don't have a process and don't even know what the hell to build if they wanted to, but they feel like they should. And so they build something that's not actually a fit for them and then it doesn't work. And then even you do know, it's just a pain to build. And it's not super flexible. And it used to so I think that and that's kind of gonna get it to where like one of the other things we want to talk about why technology is making CRMs more valuable to me is like you no longer really have to do a lot of that clicking and everything. But I think that's Colin: Mm. Taylor Stewart: where a lot of that frustration stems from. And so I I think Okay, I'll just say like we both joined through XYPN, they give you access to wealth blocks. Like, here you go, here's your CRM. You're like, great, I should set this up. And like, there's no better place to waste time than setting up a CRM. Like especially it that's what I'm saying I'm saying initially, like, Colin: Especially when you don't have when you don't know what you're doing. Yeah. Taylor Stewart: keep a spreadsheet of who you've talked to. You can't build processes until you have them. Like, just don't and this this applies to like any business, technol like running Cordora as well, like You don't know what your stages are. So like don't build them in until you've discovered them. Do the manual work until you have a process. And I think it's like it's crazy to have a s access to like unless you just literally just use it as Rolodex early on. That's fine. But like, how can you build something you don't freaking know yet? And so I think the there's just something about the process and the idea of being organized that just advisors love and just waste an insane amount of time setting them up when they don't actually even have the process in the first place. So, That's why I said like I think a the role of a CRM should be a place to help you stay organized to do your job. So what is your job? I've talked about it before. I think like for as a planner for me it's help clients feel like they understand their financial life and know what to do next. That's it. What do I need to keep track of to make sure my clients feel that way? And I'm way less process workflow driven than you are, and so I'm my CRM setup's gonna be completely different than yours. You have a very defined process and a CRM that actually fits that now, and so like you have a different one. So I think you can have different processes. Like if in you know, a firm with fifty advisor employees and like it's gonna be different than a solo and a solo with fifty employees. Clients versus one between so it's okay to be very different. So like I think you need to have an individual definition of like what is your job and how it what do you need to feel organized to do that. And release the pressure of like everything has to go into the CRM. Like maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. You just need to be able to access the information. Like I take all my notes on my iPad still. and I can take screenshots and include them there, but that works for me. I'm not gonna spend the time typing it up. I know how to access them if I need to. I mean before I still have a paper filing, but like I would I had a paper file and I would just blank sheets of paper and it was always in a client file. Like it works. It's just so I don't think there's a right answer to it, but I think a lot of the frustration comes from people wanting to build something that they haven't even defined in the first place. And then just the underlying technology being just really annoying to implement. Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: and so I don't know if this is where we're gonna go next, but like what platforms allow that? I mean I think something else there's like a weird There's like industry-specific CRMs. We know a lot of the names, Redtail, Wealth Box, Quivers, one that you use, it's built on Salesforce. Slant's very popular right now. And these are like industry-specific ones, and there's a few things they do, but like it can be a spreadsheet. It can literally Colin: Hm. Taylor Stewart: be a spreadsheet. I think Notion is an insane piece of technology. And if you want to, can build out an insane CRM. So like, I don't know, just just what do you need to do to run your job? I just think. That should be the North Star for how to think about it. Colin: Yeah, absolutely. And I can personally relate to having spent hours trying to perfect a workflow that I didn't really have a clear idea or or process to begin with. and and you know, you you you can create something and and it looks great on paper and then you go to actually run that workflow and you find ten things that are super annoying about it. Or or just things that are out of order or or whatever. overly you know, too many boxes to check. you know, I don't need ten steps to to tell me how to do a Roth conversion. You know, that that that sort of thing. And so one of the best advice I got, you know, fairly early on, and I should follow it more often than I do, is like start with a whiteboard. If you can't Taylor Stewart: Mm. Colin: draw out your process on a whiteboard with or you know, with sticky notes or something, Taylor Stewart: Mm-hmm. Colin: then you have no business trying to build it into your CRM. until you can do that. Taylor Stewart: Completely. C completely. I I that that's like the perfect litmus test. If you don't even know what to describe, then how are you going to? there's this great chart, like I don't know if this will I guess I can try to share it. Let me see if I can get a a bigger screen view of this. but my my co founder at Cordora likes to send me and it's like an engineering thing. where are we at? Let's try to share this. Basically it's like thinking about the time you spent automating something versus how often you do it. And it's like Colin: Ooh. Taylor Stewart: Like how long you work on Colin: This hurts. Taylor Stewart: making s a routine task efficient before s you spend more time than you save. And it's like it's shocking how long it can take. I'm not gonna try to decipher this whole graphic, but like you can spend hours automating something that's gonna save you like thirty minutes over the life of your business. And we come back to this a lot. And so I think like this Colin: Mm-hmm. Taylor Stewart: would be a good one to just have like stuck on your like wall of like what Colin: I'm Taylor Stewart: are you doing? So anyways I think Yeah. Yeah. Colin: gonna I'm gonna frame that and put it next to my desk. yeah, I I definitely am guilty of trying to automate. The you know, it's like I feel like this should be able to be automated. I shouldn't have to do this every time. and it's something that takes five seconds and I spend five hours trying to figure out how to automate it. And how many times would I have had to to to do that task before I've taken up more time than it took to create the automation? Taylor Stewart: You or when I w when I first launched Adderog, my wife called me out on something because it was like I was sending my client agreements and then I wanted to s it through precise FP and then I had to go do something in Advice Pay to send a bill, to send the invoice, right? I was like, Colin: Mm, mm-hmm. Taylor Stewart: but it doesn't auto because I didn't want to use the advice pay to document docusign. So like I have to go in there and then create them manually every time. And she goes, Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: How long does that take you to do? I was like Two and a half minutes. She goes, How many clients are you trying to have? I was like, I don't know, fifty. He goes, Over how many years? Like three. He's like, Yeah. I was like, You're right. It's okay. But but that's Colin: Ha ha ha. Taylor Stewart: been super helpful to be like, that's just true. It's okay to just freaking do it. And this is all pre AI now. Like, you know. But Colin: Yeah. Yeah. Taylor Stewart: Anyways, I I I just I I always have to feel I feel like I always have to say that. Just like I watch advisors just love the idea and toil and toil and toil over these systems of processes that they don't actually have. What about life? What is life like if you do have systems of processes in a CRM that's actually set up? Tell us what it's like on that side of the bridge. Colin: well it's a never ending process for one. I mean my my Taylor Stewart: Mm-hmm. Colin: CSA paraplanner and I are still, you know, hammering out workflows or we're we'll go through Taylor Stewart: Mm-hmm. Colin: a meeting season, you know, surge meeting season and and we'll debrief afterwards and what worked well about that process and what didn't and what what might we tweak next time. So it's never you know, it's never fully done. but I think that actually brings up you know, another kind transition point in in any ad advisory business that you started like as a solo. and that's like when you add a support Taylor Stewart: Yeah, yeah. Colin: person. because then I think the CRM really becomes critical because how Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: are you gonna have two people who may not be, you know, in in in my case, we're not sitting in the same office. we're we're a thousand miles apart. And how do you have two people pulling in the same direction, knowing where, you know, who's responsible for what and when and if somebody's out, what do what will I what do I need to do to pick up th her tasks and and vice versa, you know, to know instantly Taylor Stewart: Mm-hmm. Colin: where we are and what to do next. And so as soon as you start adding more than one person, I feel like is where the work flows and and things become that much more valuable. And again, like Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: where it's so much more important to have a well-defined set of this is what we actually do for clients, this is what we, you know, here are the steps, here's who's responsible for what. yeah, that that Taylor Stewart: No, that that's a sobering reality. Like bringing somebody else on, you're like, Ooh, how do I teach them all the stuff that I do? Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: But I remember that pro of it. It's great. Like that's that's yeah, I mean, I think all of this is we've been talking about from a solo perspective. I think it's very different with a sport person, other advisors. It definitely changes. Colin: Yeah, and and and then if you have turnover ever in your team, like and you've gotta go out and and hire a new person to come come fill that role, like how are you going to get them up to speed quickly Taylor Stewart: Mm. Colin: on what needs to be done and for whom and and when when. And so the way that you do that is by having kind of well organized CRM and and workflows that are well thought out and documented for here's what we do for this, you know, to do this thing that we do. so that someone can come in who that's that's brand new to your firm. Sure they're gonna have background knowledge, hopefully, or maybe not, depending on the role, but but you know, how can they come in and immediately be helpful and and start to learn your systems and and contribute so that so that you're not spending all your time teaching how we do things. so thank haven't had to do that yet but but it's coming, you know. Yeah. Taylor Stewart: So what what good. It'll happen. Yeah. What what kind of things have you set up? Colin: let's see. Yeah, Taylor Stewart: You've done a lot. Colin: mean the biggest the biggest things have been around our kind of service building out our service calendar within within the C R and so There are certain things we have to do for clients or want to do for clients or say we're gonna do for clients at different points of the year. and so that that service calendar is is now inside of Quiver of Salesforce. and that, you know, so when January comes around, we start the start generating tax letters for clients and that's, you know, a workflow that that starts with the the my paraplanner who's gonna go in and start you know reviewing the the list of transactions of reportable transactions that we did for clients during the year to produce that tax letter. and so that automatically gets kicked off in in January and there's you know a defined set of steps for here's how we deliver our tax letter, our tax organizer. Taylor Stewart: Mm-hmm. Colin: you know, I send out a cash flow report in the first quarter also. You know, here's here's all the distributions from your accounts. that we're you know, I work with retirees and so we're we're, you know, Taylor Stewart: Mm-hmm. Colin: sending out a monthly check or ACH to their accounts for for living expenses. So, you know, here's here's the accounts we're pulling from and the amounts we're pulling from. Here's what I you know know you're getting from Social Security. here's what I estimate your taxes are gonna be and here's how much room I think we're g we have for Roth conversion this year. Taylor Stewart: Mm. Colin: I send that out in the first quarter and that's that's a workflow that's that's documented in in Salesforce and one that that we can kinda batch households, you Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: know, n we're not doing just one household at a time. We're doing a whole bunch of you know, sending out those those reports to every cl every client household. So kinda every deliverable throughout the year, whether it's looking at, you know, an estate plan review or insurance review or investment update like those are things that are get kicked off in the in the within Salesforce and and you know throughout the year when it's the right time. I mean there there are all sorts of other kind of daily or weekly tasks, whether it's you know having to do with the CSA checks the cash reports every day to make sure that we've got enough funds and if there ever aren't enough funds for a client distribution or something coming up in the next seven days, then then that gets kicked back to me to go Taylor Stewart: That's Colin: or you know, so so those those kinds of things to that that just make sure we've got all of our ducks in a row throughout throughout the year. Taylor Stewart: Yeah. That's great. how detailed would you say these are? Colin: How detailed are the workflows? Yeah. Taylor Stewart: the s the steps like well like could somebody just could I hop in and know exactly what to do? Or is there like what's what's the level of like assume knowledge and then like just how granular are the steps? Is it like run the cash flow report or whatever? Or is it log into this screen, do this, do that? Colin: so what I found, you know, i is is that I don't need all those steps every time. You know, j once you've done it twice, you know how to do it. for for a lot of things. And so what what generally pops up along with the task or the workflow is are those just a a basic outline of here's what needs to get done, you know, here are the boxes you need to check. and and one thing that I've really like is a personal pet peeve is like these massive workflows that have dozens of steps and and and cause and boxes to check. you know, you you do one step, you check this box, you get a new task that pops up. You do that step, you check this box, a new task pops up. Like just gimme all the steps in one and when I'm finished, I'll check it off. Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: and so that's kind of been the way we've we've created workflows to minimize, you know, still make sure that we do all the steps that are required, but not have like a bloat bloated list of tasks when I come in. and if I'm doing like you know, all my IRA contributions for a year. I don't need a task for each client that needs an IRA contribution. I need one task that points me to here's my spreadsheet that shows or my report that shows all the clients that get IRA contributions for the year. Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: I don't need thirty tasks popping up on, you know, November first saying do these or or whatever. So that's that's just been, you know, I know plenty of people who do have they Taylor Stewart: Mm-hmm. Colin: want a task for each household that needs to do this certain thing. Personally, I d I don't want to have to check that many boxes. Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: I'd rather have it have it kind of batched where I I'm doing all of them at once. and I think that's a that's a much more efficient way to do it or or less cluttered. Taylor Stewart: Well, think that's the personal preference side. I mean, first of all, you did the hard part of actually having a process and then whether you want thirty tasks or all in one, that's kind of up to you. I mean, I think Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: I think there's some people that just have that like joy of checking things off and it feels productive but Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: it's it can be overwhelming too. So I don't know, I don't think Colin: And y and you need those you need those people on your team, e even if you're not one of those people. Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: but Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Those are I call them the human computers. my dad's had an assistant for twenty seven years now, twenty six years, and she just loves that stuff. And it's a will change your life. Just Colin: Mm-hmm. Taylor Stewart: change your life having somebody who enjoys that. and Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: that that that's a I mean, that's actually kind of interesting to talk about briefly, like just the trin like how much things have changed. Like I talked about my dad's business of literally it was a filing cabinet where the client records were kept, performance reports were mailed, a insurance applications and account applications were paper. It's totally different now. Yeah, it's just we've just come such a long way. And now we got this AI thing where that human computer I think that's like AI is just highlighted what I was saying earlier. If you don't know what you want, it's not gonna do anything helpful. It'll make it feel like Colin: Yes. Taylor Stewart: you're doing something, but you'll just waste a ton of time. But if you do know what you want, it's absolutely magic. It's a it's a person. Colin: Yeah. Yeah. So recap, why do we even need why do we even need a C R Taylor Stewart: I think the d how you define CRM can be different. you need somewhere to help you run your business. Stay on track. Make sure what did I say? Like make sure you're doing what you need to do to deliver your product. I st I it's just the way I am. I ps Cordora's essentially my CRM. Documents are in there, tasks are in there. I don't I don't need a ton more. I'm not a high volume business right now anyways. So like I would probably change, but like The type of planning I do, like I just don't really need a CRM. I have all the information I need. Obviously very different if I was running a different style of firm. So like but I say that just to say, like there's no rules on what a CRM is. It can be a spreadsheet, it can be Notion, it could be HubSpot. People would lose their freaking minds if they knew what like HubSpot like all the non-advisor tech too. It's insane. or it could be one of the industry ones. But Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: I think you need a place to make sure you're doing what you need to do to deliver your product. So that's what I would say why. Colin: Yeah, I mean we could I could geek out on Notion. It that's that's changed. You know, I I use it in parallel basically. Like it's or it's my it's my firm's kind of standard operating procedure. So you'd ask Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: like where do we keep all the information about what what ta what how to do each task within the workflow. actually in in most of our tasks in in the CRM, like there's a link to here's the Notion page. And so for somebody that's Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: just gonna come in and has to learn how to do something for the first time, or something maybe it's something we only do every once a year and it's like, okay, how do I do that again? the details are in in Notion. Like that Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: that's our standard, you know, operating procedures Taylor Stewart: I I think there's two two Colin: Data dub. Taylor Stewart: limits to it. Or like historically, like why you needed an industry specific one was like custodial data. If it did link in it, like there was some fields built for it. You can handle that now and other in other platforms. But also just you pay for software so that you don't have to go build it yourself. I think that's another like Colin: Mm-hmm. Taylor Stewart: important thing. Like not everybody needs to go and do something like that. But I'm just saying you can't if you want to. so like yeah, Notion's wild. I don't want to keep hinting at Colin: It's it's Taylor Stewart: it. But like I mean, because like a CRM is mostly a database that you connect and you move data around. Colin: Mm-hmm. Taylor Stewart: It can do that. Colin: Yeah. Yeah, and you you mentioned the regulatory part. Like that's that there are some y you you need to have kind of for books and records requirements a place where you keep your notes. you know, sure, could that be somewhere else? Like does that have it could be paper. Yeah. Taylor Stewart: Yeah. It can be paper. It can be paper. I gave paper notes in my last exam. Just saying. And iPad notes. I'm serious I'm a hundred percent serious. There's nothing that says it has to be logged in an industry specific CRM. That is just a made up thing. You just have to you have Colin: Sure. Taylor Stewart: to know how to access them. That's what that's what I was saying earlier. You have to be able to access your notes. Colin: And access them, you know, within a reasonable amount of time 'cause you don't want to have you don't want to be scrambling looking for for data. but but yeah, I mean you you do you do still need a place you should have a centralized place where you are keeping your notes and information about clients, you know, to in case you're asked to to provide justification for an examiner or something like that. And you also need it for for continuity purposes. Like if if you're in a bigger firm, if somebody doesn't show up to work one day, how are you gonna make sure that what they had to do gets done? Taylor Stewart: Yeah, for sure. Colin: and so yeah, I think those are like yeah, that's that's those are the big reasons why. I mean Taylor Stewart: I think the continuity thing even for solos is important to have like s written down somewhere that people will know how to find. Like if you get hit by a bus, like, okay. How who can step in and make sure everybody else doesn't f fly off the edge, you know? So that that's Colin: Sure. Taylor Stewart: beneficial too. I think yeah Colin: Why do you w I was I'm gonna shift gears, why do advisors not really like CRMs or why do some advisors Taylor Stewart: Well, I've just said I've said it because they they don't actually have the processes defined and then the CRMs are a pain in the ass to use to actually build like all the processes. So it's like an insane amount of clicking. Colin: Yeah. Mm. Taylor Stewart: All the fields and like there's weird terminology and I do think there's something too that like a lot of CMs are built for like pipelines and sales processes that don't totally make sense, like or don't don't d aren't as native to how advisors work. And so But I I I've watched it forever. It's just the idea of it. It's like advisors are very process oriented. And I frankly I deal with this on the on the financial planning software side as well. Like they love the idea of detail and they want more, more, more, but they don't want to input it. And then they complain that it's too detailed. Colin: Mm-hmm. Taylor Stewart: And so it to me it's like it's you don't have defined processes and it sucks to build. And those who do have defined processes love their CRM and it's only getting a lot easier to build. Colin: Yeah. Yeah, let what's what's changing, you know, tech on the technology space. What's what is what is helping with those issues? Taylor Stewart: Well, so I mean I can speak to some of the stuff on the Cordora stuff. So it's like, okay, you've got a pipeline stage. let's say you've got like demo schedule, demo completed, trial started, trial ended, act you know, whatever. I can go and click all those or just say build this pipeline stage. Done. Move these people that just conversationally moving stuff around. That that that's that's that that is massively helpful. so like the setting up of the plumbing of the CRM. I don't click buttons anymore. I just tell it what to do. And that's like one of the h biggest pain points. And then same with like you want to do a workflow, like what do you want to happen and when? I don't have to click it anymore. I can just explain it. And Colin: Mm. Taylor Stewart: also like be like, I kind of suck at this. How should I be thinking how should this work? And then let's make it work for me. So, okay, somebody scheduled a demo, three days later reach out on that. I don't have to do any of the actual clicking. That's hugely helpful. Colin: Yeah. Yeah. Taylor Stewart: That's that's that's massively helpful. And then enriching all the contacts, I mean, yeah, move I I I like integrations is a funky something I did want to like touch on briefly. Like advisors love the idea of integrations as well. And I think well, anyways, like it's so much easier to move data between systems. that I care I almost don't really care if there's a native integration anymore. I don't need it. You can just be like, pull this from there and put it there. Colin: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Taylor Stewart: And so like the CRM's actually useful now because the painful parts are gone, but the plumbing is still there. And now I have somebody who can build on the plumbing and then pour water through it and try to keep that analogy going. Colin: Yeah, and and we all know that I mean the certain software or applications that that were not th that were anti integrations that would not want to connect to anything else and now it almost doesn't matter whether whether a a company is trying to ring frence your data Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: in there or not, you can if you can export it to a PDF, like you can you can sync it with another piece of software through AI. Taylor Stewart: Tot totally. Like I I I get like integrations are great. Most of the industry integrations on the advisor tech side suck. It's like here's a name and an email address. It's not actual like what I'm talking about Colin: Yeah, it's a very light, you know, light integration. Taylor Stewart: is like I click something here, it kicks off a workflow over there. That's like a deep integration. and we don't have a lot of that. But like from a pure like one of the biggest things I get is like because we haven't integrated Cordora with any of the CRMs yet, which is this whole other game, by the way. Like it's not like just we're choosing not to. But that's a separate conversation. I it has to make sense for both Colin: Ooh, say say more. Taylor Stewart: sides. And it my my my general thought there is like why do like adv okay, so advisor tech companies don't make billions of dollars the way that like a HubSpot or some of the you know, the other non advisor specific tech do. And so they just don't have the resource like, yeah, you just Colin: Yeah, they're very niche businesses. Taylor Stewart: don't have like a team of 50 people just building integrations all day. And so it has to really make sense for somebody, and including us, to spend the resources to build a native integration on that. But like the CRM, like people are like, How do I keep my tasks in sync? Just frickin' tell A to AI to update Cordora or Slant. Friggin' does it. Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: Like it's not as ideal, but like it pff it it's not a blocker to using that anymore, is what I would say. And so Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: I I think that's fascinating. just will that encourage more like there's such like a all another obsession advisor has like I want everything in one place. Like I don't know, like I get the idea of it, but then you're like any all in one tool is not gonna be ideal for everything. You're gonna have that Colin: Mm-hmm. Taylor Stewart: you know, Jack of all trades master of none. So but it's great. Like I use so much more software now because I don't have to do the painful parts. Colin: Mm. Mm. Taylor Stewart: It's amazing. Colin: Yeah. Yeah, I mean it it makes capturing data and and organizing it th the AI does Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: just a dream. I mean like Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: I it just think back to like what the first note taker you used that was actually, you know, helpful. and now they're ten times better. But but you know, like I go into a meeting, I the the note taker records it. I have skills or or prompts that I've built in already to to to the AI to format the note exactly like I want it, call out the kinds of things that I want called out for you know regulatory process. purposes like document the chain you know were there any d changes in the investment plan recommendation or or or allocation that I want to be pretty well highlighted. The the the note itself needs to be more you know factual like every every line needs to have an attribution and not infer something you know so th Taylor Stewart: Mm. Yeah. Colin: those are the kinds of things that that the has really made AI note taking so much more useful and less of like a toy Taylor Stewart: Yeah. It's not just transcription. Colin: it's not just a toy anymore. Like this is actually doing real like compliance work for me. Or Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Is it Colin: reminding me to kick off certain workflows based on what what we talked about in the meeting. Like that's huge. Taylor Stewart: No, th that that is that is huge. I mean, I think early on it was like, Hey, we transcribed your call and saved it as a note and like made advisors feel good, but like what you just described is amazing. Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: and to format it the way you want, call it out. I yeah, I mean I I think that's it's great. And also just to pop in and be like, What did we talk about? Like there is something nice to having the transcriptions for those. Colin: yeah, yeah. And and to be able to query that data in a natural language, you know, is is really, you know, which households do we do Roth conversions for? Like I could go into my CRM and I you know, that's actually an easy question with the way the way the Salesforce works. But, you know, there i you can just with natural language just ask a question or when you're getting ready for a meeting, I've got a meeting prep skill that will go and pull like the last three notes, pull the last, you know, emails from the last few months and any tasks that we've got open or completed and prep me for the meeting. and and the s the skill runs, it takes a couple minutes and like reading through that is exactly like what I need to know when I walk Taylor Stewart: That's awesome. Colin: into a new meeting. But then there's other stuff, you know, i the the the it's not just the notes, it's like there there's so many other fields and data points that are are genuinely helpful to capture. or or that that AI just makes like you said, I don't have to check as many boxes or manually type in a whole bunch of data points. Like the AI will pull those out of the document or pull it out of a a transcript or pull it out of a prompt. And yeah, it it it it's been a game changer. Taylor Stewart: That's awesome. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Like early September, basically like we're to the point now where anything you want done on a computer you no longer have to do. all you needed to know is let me see if I can pull it up real quick, was basically like yeah, we've reached the point where once you know what you want done, you no longer have to be the one that does it on on a computer. Two takeaways. One, it's amazing. Two, it's highlighted how clear unclear I am on what I want done. If you if you have clear processes for how to do things, now is your time to shine. Because it's true, man. If you like what you just described, like that's amazing because you've thought it through. Most people are just Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: like, I got a transcript, I got a meeting note. Now what? Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: So I mean that's that's that's amazing. I mean it's amazing what you can do with that. Well cool. So CRM's necessary evil, define it however you want. I don't think it has to be a certain platform or software, but very, very valuable if you have clear processes. It can do there's kind of that repository of data and then like actually like a a workhorse in a way. And so I'm gonna keep getting better. Colin: Yeah, yeah. It's not just like how how do I organize and capture a million data points, but then the the layer that that has been that AI is revolutionizing is like now I can actually take advantage of all those data points and Taylor Stewart: Yeah. Colin: I didn't have to be the one to sit and populate them all in the first place manually. Taylor Stewart: That's awesome. Well good stuff. Appreciate it as always. You're always impressive Colin: Good stuff. Yeah, likewise. Taylor Stewart: how organized you are. We all aspire to be you. Colin: Flatter me. It doesn't it doesn't feel that way. you don't see you don't see what's going on behind the scenes all the time. Taylor Stewart: You don't know. Did two years ago Colin and I met in person for the first time at XYPN Live and we shared a room and he was migrating from Wealth Box to a sl quiver. And he sat Colin: Yeah. Taylor Stewart: there at his little hotel desk staring at his spreadsheet mapping fields for hours and hours. How how how much easier would that be now? But you say you Colin: it'd be it yeah. That would be a task for Claude now, you know. Taylor Stewart: I Ye Yeah, but I mean think about that though. I mean that was a lot of work early on. But it's pay it's paid off now for sure. For sure. Colin: It was a lot of work, yeah, yeah. I think migration is is something that has has gotten it's it's never been easier probably to to switch. Taylor Stewart: completely. Compl I mean it's it's yes, yes. So cool man. Thank you again. See you next time. Bye. Colin: Thank you. See you next time. Bye bye.