Latest / The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners / 205: Transforming Your CRM into an Effective Operational Hub with Guest Kate Guillen

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205: Transforming Your CRM into an Effective Operational Hub with Guest Kate Guillen · The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Automate, delegate, delete and streamline.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: You hear me say that line all of the time when I'm talking about making your business more efficient, and today we are focusing on the automate part.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: So I Googled the definition of automation and this is what I got Automation is the application of technology, programs, robotics and processes to achieve outcomes with minimal human input.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, but I am definitely here for achieving maximum outcomes with minimal human input.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And I know automation just the sound of it can kind of feel impersonal, but if you do it correctly, it really actually amplifies your ability to create a very personal client experience.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Right, you can use automation to free up your team's time and energy so they can redeploy that time and energy into your client experience.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: So using automation to assist you in your business means delivering more consistently a higher level of client experience right, if used correctly.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And that's what we're getting into today.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: So my guest today, kate Guillen of Simplicity Ops, is the guru when it comes to making your CRM your biggest tech asset.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Kate is one of the many guest experts that speaks into our group coaching program.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: So you've maybe heard me talk about this, but we've added quite a few things to our systems to scale group coaching program and for this next round and for the round we just did, and I've been rounding up industry experts to share their knowledge on their favorite efficiency topics.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So it's one of the new add-ins and Kate and I just go hand in hand right.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: The advisors I work with build out their processes, get all the details ironed out, the templates built, the email language created, the recommendations templates drafted, right All of the things.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Then they can go to somebody like Simplicity Ops and just go here, build this for me, or they can help you build out the automations.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: You know they can do it, you can DIY it, whatever.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: But so what Kate does is just and I say this when I'm talking to her she is literally the peanut butter to my jelly.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: So in today's episode we're going to dive into the do's and don'ts of workflows and automations and really kind of what Kate describes as how to turn your CRM from a glorified Rolodex into a central operating systems hub, if you will, and make sure you stick around for the end of the episode Kate mentions a note-taking app or tool bot, whatever you want to call it, and I've got a discount code for you for that.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: So make sure you stick around for that.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: My name is Todd Pisarczyk and I'm the CEO of Momentous Wealth Management, an advisory firm based in Washington state.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: We had never worked with any sort of business coach or consultant in the past, so I was not entirely sure what to expect when we started working with Libby.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Just under one year in, I can now say with certainty this experience has far exceeded any expectations we had.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I've commented to Libby many times about the fact that I have been in this business for almost 25 years and everything she has taught us makes me wonder what in the world I was even doing and how I was even able to run a firm before going through this process.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Over the last year, libby has helped us implement her series of systems and processes, which we had none of before, that have allowed us to transform our firm and the way that we do business.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: We have now reached a point where I feel like we are truly running our business rather than our business running us, and we can be proactive in the way that we operate rather than spending each day putting out fires.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Most importantly, I also feel better than ever about the experience that our clients and staff are receiving every day.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I feel like the process Libby took us through is customized to us and centered entirely around who we are as people, our strengths and weaknesses and our own personal goals.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I don't feel like Libby was trying to put us into a box, like some of the other consulting programs we had looked into before.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Libby is genuine.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: She's super fun to work with and I can tell you from the start she truly cares for her clients.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: If you're on the fence about this, I encourage you.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: You just make the jump.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: I promise you won't regret it.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: It is so kind to hear those types of words and, you know, some weeks your business might feel like it's literally moving at the speed of light, that you're wrapped up in the tornado and because of that it's really hard for you to keep up, especially if you don't have the right systems in place.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: You might find that without solid processes, completing your to-do list, like actually during the workday, feels impossible, and if this sounds familiar to you, that's okay.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: You're not alone.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I was you and I've got just the thing to help.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Imagine if those pesky tasks like create a recommendations template or build an onboarding process or make an SOP for that, those tasks that have been on your to-do list for, say like, oh, I don't know, maybe three, four or five months could be two years If they could finally be marked done.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Right now, when you enroll in the systems to scale group coaching and mastermind, you can start building and implementing the same proven systems that I used in my business and I've talked to thousands of advisors so that you can set up a superstructure of organization to create the workflows you and your team need, that you can move your business forward during the work hours that you set and that you want and not play catch up on nights and weekends, so that you can take the guesswork out of what systems do you need and just get it done already using the templates, checklists, samples and worksheets from the Efficient Advisor.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Think of how relieved you will feel to have all of this in place sooner rather than later.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Are you ready to get organized and eliminate overwhelm and finally get those processes built out to support that amazing client experience you've always dreamt about?
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Start August 22nd with us in the next round of the systems to scale group coaching program and mastermind.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Won't it feel amazing to run your business instead of it running you?
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Check out the efficientadvisorcom, the coaching page of the website, or click the link in the show notes to get more details.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Registration is currently open right this very minute, and filling fast.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I cannot wait to do this with you and for you to experience the transformation of a lifetime in your business over the next 10 months.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: All right, let's do it, and if you're new to the Efficient Advisor, welcome.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I'm Libby Grywe.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I'm going to make this intro crazy fast because I know you just want to dive into the content that Kate has for us.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: So I know you're here right, because you know it is possible to have that dream business that you are running instead of it running you.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I am Vigravi, I am your host of the Efficient Advisor, 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 just working three days a week and taking off 14 weeks a year.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: And I'll tell you, it is all about building out systems and processes and efficiencies in your business, and I'm here just to walk alongside you and to show you how to do the exact same thing to help you take immediate action on the most important strategies for scaling, organizing and creating less stress and overwhelm in your business.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: It is time to take time out of your practice to do the thing so that you can build both a business and a life that you love.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Let's get into this conversation with Kate and all things, automation.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: All right, I am here with Kate Guillen from Simplicity Apps and I am fired up for this conversation because automation is such a big deal for every advisor's practice and I think it's one of those things that sometimes we let tech or automation kind of get in the way or kind of intimidates us a little bit or maybe feels like impersonal or maybe not like this human concept that we want inside of our business.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: But once you really adopt, embrace and see the benefits of tech inside of your practice, it actually gives you so much freedom to redeploy all of that time and energy into the human side of your business and really elevating your client experience.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: So, kate, I am so glad you're here and I have absolutely loved getting to know you.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Same.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: I'm, uh, there's that your message totally resonates and I'm excited to share with your community how to optimize their tools to deliver an amazing client service experience.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's fun because I was kind of uh, joking earlier.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I was talking to somebody about what you do and I was like she's like the peanut butter to my jelly, like what we do goes together so incredibly well.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: So I'll let you decide if you want to be the PB or the J, but it's true, because what we do inside of like our group program is get advisors buttoned up right when they've got every task, every step kind of outlined, organized, they've got the templates created, buttoned up right where they've got every task, every step kind of outlined, organized.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: They've got the templates created, they've written the copy for their emails, like all of the things, and then what you do is really help advisors bring all of that to life and to really use their CRMs and build out workflows and make all the work that we do just actually happen consistently in a repeatable way.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: So why don't you share with us a little bit about your background and how you became like the girl when it comes to ops inside of financial services businesses?
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: You got it Well thank you, you're very kind.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: So I've been working in the investment management industry since 2013.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: I started at a BD, ended up moving on to an RIA, where I was introduced to a CRM that we were using as like, essentially a glorified Rolodex.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: And you know we were going through a really big transition.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: We were leaving our TAMP, consolidating assets between custodians, growing a team, bringing portfolio management in-house and, like we just you know, every morning was a fire drill.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: We had entirely too many balls in the air and no like centralized operational system for managing all of it.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: And, selfishly, I'm like, oh my gosh, I got to get these people, you know, off my back and kind of brain dump processes into some sort of system to help everybody operate independently.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: And in the brief little research that I did, I figured out that your CRM is a heck of a lot more than a Rolodex If someone takes the time to build it out and really adopt it as like the centralized operational hub of our business.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: So I spent the next several years learning the ins and outs of how to utilize the CRM for contacts tasks, your sales pipeline, your calendar, an amazing high like high touch, personalized client service experience and workflows to deliver those services at scale and ultimately, it was time very well spent.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: It really helped us, you know, elevate our client service experience, help everybody operate independently.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: You know, business was humming, we were growing, it was all good stuff and I thought, man, this could be a really cool business idea.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: What if I was able to help other advisors, you know, optimize their tools to deliver an amazing client service experience, you know, while growing and scaling their business?
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: And that's where the idea of Simplicity Ops came to be.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: We, you know, help advisors do exactly that.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is so cool and I think all the time you know, back to when I was running my business, if I would have found like a you back then, oh my goodness, like and it's something I see.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Really common amongst advisors is we have all these different tools inside of our tech stack and I don't know if you experienced this, but I'm imagining that you do.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: But I see advisors like jumping tool to tool and really, because they don't understand all of the capabilities of the existing tools that they even have, they like might hear it like a Facebook group or on a podcast, like, oh, this CRM does this and this one does this.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: And they're thinking like, oh, I need that, without even really realizing what they actually have currently in their arsenal and how to maximize it.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Right, like I know, for me it was always like a just in time, like okay, what's the bare minimum I need to know to do this thing that I need to do.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't until we started like carving time out on our calendar as a team to actually take time to learn the tools that we had and all like once we were a sales force, we were our broker dealer with Salesforce, but once we like sat down and started watching like the videos that they provided and the how to's, and started dinking around with some of the stuff.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: It was like, holy crap, where has this been Like?
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: This is unbelievable, yeah, I mean it's really, and that was like teeny tiny compared to what all the things can do now.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: No, it's so true and I just don't feel like you nailed it.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Advisors don't know how capable the CRM is and what.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I have found the reason, so we backtrack.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: The reason why we do what we do is because we believe that financial advisors number one priority is delivering an amazing client service experience.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: If you can't acquire and maintain clients, you have no business, and the only way you can do that at scale is with systems and processes, and the best tool to optimize as your operational hub is your client relationship management software and by adopting that tool as the centralized place for managing all of your operations, it allows you, like you're saying, to cut down on all of the unnecessary places that you're currently going to manage your business, which helps you become more efficient, be able to delegate better, be able to elevate your client service experience and, ultimately, spend more time with your clients.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I have to imagine less balls dropping, less having to go to multiple places to do all of the things, like less crap to check.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're spread across less systems, which helps you.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: Like when I was running an RIA and managing compliance.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: We had spreadsheets and notes and emails and DMS and texts and it was like holy smokes, how is anybody supposed to get this job done without a centralized place to be able to see, like, the wellness, the health of our business?
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: How, how does anybody do that?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like it's impossible.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: So, okay.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: So if I'm an advisor and I'm listening and I'm like I hear you, I am, I am your target market.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I have a little bit of a mess going on here behind the scenes, like I know.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I've been in the business long enough, I am, I know my DNA as an advisor.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I know what I want to be doing for my clients.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I have kind of a rough outline in my head right.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Where do I even start with embracing my CRM and kind of getting my arms around the business and starting to really utilize it as an operational hub?
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's a great question, and so let me give you a high level overview and then we can, like, dig into each phase a little bit deeper.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: But I look at it in five parts and I'm very firm in this, because you can't do it in reverse order.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: It doesn't work if we start with workflows first.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: It doesn't work if we go with all the fun, bright, shiny objects that are available to us.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: The system is not as effective if we don't follow this sequential order.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: And so it starts with organizing the contents of your database.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Your CRM, in its simplest form, is a database, and if the data is disorganized and it's not trustworthy, no one's ever going to adopt your system or be able to use it effectively.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: Okay, so that's phase one.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Phase two is building out your hub, and we can get into that.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: What does that really mean?
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: A little bit deeper, once you have, like the, you know, the basics of your CRM dialed, we can get into exploring like your service model and what does that experience look like and feel like, and how to take the work that you've done, outlining your service experience and use your CRM to deliver it proactively, which leads us into workflows, which is how we deliver those services at scale.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: And once you optimize that tool, the CRM, to do all of those things you rolled it out, you've given it some time, everybody on your team is using it effectively.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: You're going to find friction points and so, like, phase five is how do we fill the gaps with some of the available advisor technology to elevate, you know, the CRM's user's experience?
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: Because, like, the CRM can't be all the things.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: There are some very necessary tools that need to be integrated to like and make the, you know, really optimize it really like, take the CRM to the next level calendaring tools, note-taking tools, data gathering tools.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: So, exploring all of those as, like, the final phase for this build out out the hub.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: we establish our client service model and get that input and utilize the CRM to do that for us.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: We build out the workflows and then we come in and fill out the gaps.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: So I want to really kind of dial into the operational hub part.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit more about kind of that phase too.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Like what, when you say build out the hub, what does that look like?
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: Sure, so that means that you now use your CRM to manage contacts, tasks, your sales pipeline, your calendar, your client accounts, because by centralizing all of this in a single place, not only does it help from like, a business management perspective be able to see, like, what's going on in our business, what is my team working on, who's underutilized, you know who's kind of, you know strapped, what's going on in my client relationships, right, being able to see that in one place makes all of that data so much more usable to report on various metrics by centralizing it in a single place.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: So it is imperative that not only do we keep like contact records but they're well organized for reporting purposes.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: We keep all of our tasks meaning like no more legal pads, post-it notes, texting, dming, all activities, tasks, action items live in your CRM linked to a contact record, okay, so that we can see a historical timeline of everything that has transpired in our client relationships.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: That same logic applies to your calendar, linking your calendar with your CRM.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: So we have a centralized place to be able to see phone calls, appointments, review meetings, whatever that might look like.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Use the CRM as your communication tool.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: So if I'm asking you to do something, rather than me emailing you and saying hey, libby, by the way, the client called I need you to do X, y and Z.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: All of that lives in the CRM and that's how you build out that historical timeline under your client's contact records and, taking it to the next level, you template the heck out of it because so much of what we do is repeatable.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: It standardizes communication and creates a ton of efficiency around.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: You know managing the various client service requests and you just kind of apply that same logic too.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: So we said contacts tasks, your sales pipeline, oh, sales pipeline.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Again, from like a business management perspective, it is imperative that we are chasing leads.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: You know bringing in new business, and the best place to maintain that information is in your CRM to show new revenue opportunities.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Where are they at in the sales pipeline?
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Who brought in the business right?
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: So we can report on all of those metrics and track these new revenue opportunities moving up to the one yard line becoming clients.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: So and it's, it's funny.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: So I work with an advisor and she used this term and I was like, oh, I'm totally adopting that, but this idea of because I've been trying to describe a way like to watch your business to make sure everybody's moving through their processes and she described it as like a Domino's pizza tracker right Like okay yeah, I ordered it, it's being made, it's in the oven, it's out for delivery and kind of the same concept.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: So a CRM, when well utilized and well built out right, you should be able to track where everything is at.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And all of these different forms.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so as an advisor who's really kind of stepping into that CEO role or bringing on like a director of operations, somebody can actually sit there and in one fell swoop be able to see, kind of where we're at on all the things.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: Exactly as you've got a high level overview of like prospects in the pipeline, new revenue opportunities, and you can dial into the individual workflows and see okay, so we've had the introductory call, we're in the discovery phase.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: We've sent out, you know, the request for all of their documents.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: We're waiting to get them back.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: We have a process in place to follow up every seven days until we get the paperwork that we or you know the documents that we need to prepare a plan or whatever that looks like like that.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: The.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: That is exactly the point that you have a single place to be able to see the overall, like I'd say, the operational health of your business, everything from client accounts to to new revenue opportunities and existing client service requests.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Everything lives in a single place.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, so with all of that, like the you know, you said contacts, tasks, pipeline, calendar is there a certain place advisors should start?
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: So once we know, like, how contacts should be organized okay, getting contacts cleaned up, dialed in and I've got resources I don't know if I gave them to you, but they're available on our website Happy to give them to your community of like how to organize your database.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Then, getting into how to use the information on the contact card to deliver an amazing personalized client service experience capturing hobbies, interests, dogs names, kids names, family tree, professional network Okay.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: So I would start there, because the most important thing is to relate to these clients on a personal level.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Okay, point one, point two tasks.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: That's the next most important thing Ensuring that balls aren't dropped and you're not reinventing the wheel every single time you know you go to serve a client.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: We need to have a task management system in place in the CRM with with templates and clear role delineation on who should be doing what.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: I'm going to get in the weeds here, kind those to automation to automatically launch the corresponding workflow that tells you how to execute that request.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's like where we're going here.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: I love the weeds.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Stay in the weeds, okay, kind of building on each one of these things.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: So I tackle it like contacts, tasks, calendar, sales, pipeline, accounts.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: I tackle them in just that order and the key to success is mutual adoption by all users.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: And the key to getting adoption is simple systems that are understanded by everybody on the team, that the leadership team practices what we're preaching and that they, you know, are examples of how to use these systems and they've bought in just like everybody else and rolling this stuff out incrementally.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: All right, if people feel like they're getting absolutely steamrolled and like firehosed with new information and, like you know, new processes and procedures, it's really hard for people to adopt.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: So the way we go about it is like we introduce a couple of these key topics, let people play with it, see what works, see what doesn't work, come back together, do like a little pulse check, see how the team is feeling about these various concepts, and then we move on to the next set of you know, then we move on to the next set of you know, training and implementing of the system.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: So if I can make any recommendation to anybody, it's keep it simple, do it slowly and give your team space like try it out, feel it and make shifts and shift things around.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Excuse me shifting around if things aren't working.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, simple, slow and space.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: So for a team let's say we've got two advisors, a couple of support people we're starting from our CRM as a Rolodex to we want to be.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: We want like the simplicity app stamp of approval on our business.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Realistically, what kind of time frame?
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: And I know this is like a really, you know, crazy question, because it's always super it's a good one all the things, but like what's a realistic timeframe for me to expect to go from hot mess to the best?
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: So when I started doing this and I was working with a Rolodex and I had no idea what I was doing and I was piecing together all of the available information on, you know, red tail and wealth boxes, um, training sites, which are super helpful, but you literally have to like jigsaw it all together to like practically implement it for your business.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: Take me three and a half years.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Okay, three and a half years.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Lots of late nights, lots of tears, lots of doing and undoing and making terrible mistakes just to undo them.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Okay, don't do that.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: If you're going to do this alone, you need to give yourself a year to an 18 month runway.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: This is like the, like the, the, the framework, the operating system for running your practice.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Okay, so you need to give yourself some grace, because there's a lot of learning that needs to happen, there's a lot of trial and error that needs to happen and you've got to go slow for your team to get adoption.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: If you hire an expert who's done this a zillion times, we can do it a whole lot faster and you can expect to do it in like six months.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Six months, okay, so somewhere between six months to 18 months.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: So we talk about obviously hiring as a way to buy back your time.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: So we talk about obviously hiring as a way to buy back your time.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: So potentially buying back maybe a year by hiring someone to help us build these out and do the things.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: And while you were talking, I want to back up.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: So there will be advisors listening to this that are like so what's the?
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I hear you use the word workflow.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Talk to me, right?
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: So, like yeah, so like we were joking beforehand, I'm like, okay, we've got to break this down Anything tech related.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I need people to speak to me like I'm in kindergarten, right?
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: So talk to me about what is a workflow.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: So when I say, I say on the podcast all the time, automate, delegate, delete and streamline.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: So when we're talking about automation, what does that mean inside of a CRM?
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: Well, there's a couple of ways.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: Let me back up and explain what a workflow is first, and then I can explain how automations can trigger workflows that just create a crazy level of efficiency in your business.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: So a workflow is a standard operating procedure.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: In its simplest form, it is an SOP, all right, and some advisors I talk to they're like oh yeah, I have those, it's a Word document.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Great, that's literally the workflow.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: It is a series of steps and tasks that articulate how to execute a service request.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: It is a checklist saying this is how we onboard a client.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: It's just basically a checklist.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: A checklist.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: The way we figure out what workflows and advisory needs is by.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: I love this.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: I heard this a couple weeks ago.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: Anything that is done more than three times, that has more than three steps, that is a workflow.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Like anything that you're doing that is repeatable should be work flowed, and how you work flow is first by like whiteboarding the process.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: Like you literally need to brain dump, like, oh, a Benny change.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: What goes into a Benny change?
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Like write that.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Process out what are the steps?
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: What are the tasks?
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: What does that checklist look like?
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Whiteboard that first, before you take it to the CRM to build it out, because writing workflows in the CRM is not the most user-friendly system process, so there's going to be some, like you know, rough drafting that should be done out of the system first.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: So get clear on what that process looks like and then take it to your CRM and the way we use like workflows and tasks in combination with one another is the automating feature.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: Ok, so an advisor has a review meeting and, as a result of that conversation, we need to like open up a 529.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: We need to change a Benny and we need to like send them 10 grand.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Ok, we use activity templates for moving money, changing a Benny and opening a new account, which like tell the advisor.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Hey, in order for the administrative team to execute this request effectively, I need to know this information from you and all the advisor has to do is open up the template, fill out the information.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: It gets tasked to the administrative person and we've set up a triggering event in the CRM that automatically launches the corresponding workflow that tells the administrative person how to execute the request.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: So the template is just like hey, libby, I need you to change the Benny.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: How you actually change the Benny is the workflow that says you got to prepare the paperwork, you need to send it out via DocuSign.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: You need to make sure you get it back.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, you didn't get it back.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Let's have an email template in there that you know clearly communicates to the client the expectation and then getting paperwork back.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: Or you know like streamlines the communication with the client.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: You get the paperwork back.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: What needs to happen?
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Well, it needs to make it to the custodian, it needs to be saved to the client file.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: We need to close the loop with the client and let them know that we've done what we said we were going to do, like in an effort to not reinvent the wheel the next time you got to do a benny change.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: We need to document that entire process soup to nuts and what I'm picturing like kind of visually.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Like right, is this like cascading of tasks that then your admin is checking off?
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: So when you're looking at the domino's pizza tracker, you can see, okay, here's where we're at with the benny.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: We're still waiting on paperwork for them, or, oh, you know, he or she hasn't even sent this out yet, right?
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Like so we can see where we're at and they're checking off, like to do items along the way, right?
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Is that a good way to visually describe it?
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: That's exactly it.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: It gives you the overview of where we're at in the process, and what I think is one of the most important things about implementing workflows is not only like the standardization of communication with email templates.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: But I believe that excellent client service is proactive client service, and nothing in the world bugs me more than like being beat to the punch where the client's like hey, Libby, I talked to Kate last week.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: You said you were going to send me 10 grand.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: Where are we at?
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: Oh well, if we would have had a workflow in place, I would have been communicating with them along the line to say we had to free up some cash.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: It should settle by the end of the week.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: You can expect it in your Bank of America account by Tuesday, right Like we want that level of communication to give the clients a confidence that they need to like trust us and our team over and over and over again, and workflows are the best way to do that.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: So the language that that we always use, like in our, in our group or in coaching, is like how are our clients feeling throughout this process?
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: And we never want them to feel like they're driving anything or that they have to, like check in on stuff or drive Cause that, just regardless of how awesome you are and how sweet you are and how kind you are and how much they love you and how amazing your advice is, like like that's not that concierge level experience that we're attempting to provide.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: So workflows really help aid and I think too, because, right, an advisor will come into our program, right, and be like okay, here's the client experience I wanna give and I wanna do this and this and this and this and this and this and this, and they're all excited.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: But we can't then execute all of that.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: We have to have a team supporting us to be able to do that at that high level.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: But this is what allows us to make sure that our team is consistently delivering a really exceptional experience, because they're not skipping over steps and they're not just going to jump over something because they ran out of time or whatever and check off all of the things, Because sometimes we do stuff and it works so well that we stop doing it right.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: So this kind of, I think, prevents anyone on the team from I don't want to say like getting lazy, but just in the spirit of efficiency, skipping a certain piece or skipping a certain step, or worse, trying to customize it for each client right, Like, oh well, they won't need that.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Or oh, they do need that right.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: And that's where you lose that ability to really scale.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an accountability system.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, ooh, I like that.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk to.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: So we, so we have workflows, we have tasks, we have, you know, all of our SOPs kind of built out, where we have these cascading things and everything's being executed at a high level and reminders, and nothing's falling through the cracks and advisors are sleeping at night, their overwhelm is down, they're not putting out fires during soccer games on Saturdays, right, everything is great.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: How do we also really use so we spend a lot of time building out, really really kick butt client service models?
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Right, we're going to talk to the clients.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: We're going to do this, we're going to email them, we're going to.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Here's all the touch points that we're going to have throughout the year.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: How do we actually use our CRM to manage that?
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's the step before workflows.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: So what the work that you guys are doing is, you know who are these people that you serve, what are the services you provide and what do we want this to feel like?
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: Okay, and so we start there before we get into workflows, just to understand what is the service experience.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: Are we?
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: You know what are we doing?
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Are we doing client events?
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Are we doing birthdays?
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Are we doing?
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: You know how often are we emailing and checking in?
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: And okay, okay, so you build out all of that first so that we can take it to the CRM to deliver those services proactively.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: Which means we use keywords and custom fields, kind of depending on what CRM you use, to group contacts together to say this is how often we're meeting with people, so that let's say it's already almost July.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: Okay, you say, hey, kate, we need to schedule our July review meetings.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: Can you tell me everybody that's in that July keyword?
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: Now I can pull that for you.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: I can give you the list.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: We're like okay, perfect, yep, here's the email template with our online calendar link.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: Let's get everybody booked.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: Once they book online, you know it flows through to our.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Our CRM calendar links to the contact record.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: It fires off the review meeting workflow which articulates how we prep day of follow-up for that review meeting.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: We use email templates.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: We use, um me say, email templates, activities, workflows and the firm's calendar in the CRM to make that process as streamlined as possible.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, oh, you're just speaking my love language right now, giving me the tingles all over.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I love it, I'm glad someone else can geek out on this stuff.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Every time I hear the word template else can geek out on this stuff I do.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Every time I hear the word template, my heart just pitter patters just a little.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: It makes me super happy.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: So okay, so we're doing all of these things.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: We're really getting our arms around our CRMs, I guess, really okay.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: We'll just be really blunt.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: What CRMs do you suggest advisors use?
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: So advisors that are out there that have control over their own tech stack, what which ones do you think?
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: And I know they all have different benefits and different features and they're constantly adding stuff.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: But what do you suggest for advisors who are like can you just give me like three to look at?
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: I'll give you two.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: Redtail and Wealthbox.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, redtail and Wealthbox are the two industry leading CRMs made for financial advisors.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: They both do a great job.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: I get asked all the time like which one is your favorite.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: I don't have a favorite.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: I think they both do fine.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: They, you know, have a great client satisfaction rate, great adoption rate.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: They're the two industry leaders.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: So if you have freedom to choose, I would highly suggest you take a look at both of them, do a trial, see which one you like better.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: I think they both do a fine job.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: They both have their own little quirkiness things, but I think if you take the time to understand the system and tailor it to your practice, both of them will absolutely take you to the next level.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: And so kind of.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: There is no perfect CRM right.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: We're never going to be able to purchase a software that does exactly what I advise or, in my mind, envision it doing for me.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: However, how much customization can you do?
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: So if I were to start using Redtail or Wealthbox like, how much can I customize it?
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Is it or is it pretty standardized?
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Do you?
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, we customize it and we tailor it to our clients practices.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: And I think that comes from like years of knowledge and like deep understanding of the system.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: So it's kind of a it's kind of a hard question to answer.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: You can customize it.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: Um well, fox is a little more customizable than Redtail in terms of like being able to customize like specific fields, but like able to customize like specific fields but like Redtail works just great.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: And if you know, if you need to create some I hate the word workaround, but like there are workarounds and there are some tricks and things that you can do to make the system work for your specific practice.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: I don't.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: I've had no problem customizing them and making them work really well, for managing Everybody's practice is a little bit different and I think both of the tools do a fantastic job, delivering amazing client service experience.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: And so actually so, as you're talking I was thinking about back to when we were using Salesforce and when my broker dealer first adopted it, they went all out customizing it right.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: They made so many frigging adjustments to it and to the point where it was so customized that it didn't work and they ended up like peeling back all of that customization and almost getting back to like the skeleton of what Salesforce was and what it was supposed to do for us.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: And I think sometimes we have this tendency to like want the software to do exactly what we want it to do, but maybe there's something to be said for no, this is what the software does and maybe we adapt to that, as opposed to trying to over-engineer or over-architect everything where then it's too complicated and it actually is more of a process than it is a benefit.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Well, now you're speaking my love language.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: I named my business Simplicity Ops because complexity ops doesn't work.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: Like complex systems.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: They don't work, they don't get adoption, it all falls apart.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: So keep it simple.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: And Redtail and Wealthbox are relatively simple systems and you know the phase five that I was explaining is the implementation of some advisor tech to make it even better.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: So keep your CRM simple.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: And where you find need to integrate a calendar tool because you know Redtail and Wealthbox are not calendaring tools where you need to integrate a calendar tool, because you know Redtail and Wealthbox are not calendaring tools when you need to integrate a note-taking bot, do that.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: Where you need to integrate you know precise FP or some like data gathering form, because filling out paperwork and sending out paperwork is a pain in the ass, do that, but keep it simple.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yes, amen A to the men.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yes, amen A to the men.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: So how do advisors stay up to date?
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: So I think one of the things that I see, or I'll have an advisor start working on the like oh, I just made the jump to Redtail because I was using this and it wasn't it and I think sometimes we have a difficult time because they're constantly updating.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: It feels like to me.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: So how does an advisor actually stay in tune with, like hey, these are the new features that we're rolling out, instead of just assuming like, oh well, mine doesn't do that, so I'm definitely going to look at jumping to a new piece of tech.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really good question.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: I um a couple of pieces.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: Things that I follow pretty closely are I get the red tail and the box newsletters, which are super informative, of like releases.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: I participate in a lot of their webinars on topics that are timely or maybe a pain point for myself and our clients.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: I read the Kitsis tech map and he gives he has so much helpful information and I've actually started a free community of RIA owners and operators and it's blossomed kind of you know, unintentionally into this space where other advisors are talking about technology that they love or hate or just looking for feedback, and so I pay attention to those conversations too and see what are people liking and not liking.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, I love that.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: So I was going to ask you to talk about your, your community.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: So I'm super glad you brought that up and we'll definitely link it in the show notes for people listening.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: But tell us more, like tell us what's the structure.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I know I know yours truly will be talking in your group here really soon, but what?
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: What can advisors expect from your group?
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: So I deeply believe in giving away all of the information for free and charging for implementation.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: So I wanted to create a community where I remember what it was like when I was trying to do this alone and trying to like navigate all of the information that's available, and it was extremely overwhelming and I made a lot of really terrible mistakes.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: So I wanted to create a place for RIA owners and operators to get together and learn from each other's mistakes, share insights, give away as much information as I can to help people do this in less than three and a half years like it took me, you know and so there's like a community aspect where you can go ask questions and communicate with other people in the community.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: There's a resource section where we've got all of our free templates and downloads and videos, and then there's we do.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: There's a calendar component where we have, like you're going to be speaking on an educational webinars and highlighting other experts in the industry that can help solve the problems that are affecting our community members, and then each month, we do a free value call where these people get together and we all just shoot the breeze what's going well, what's not going well, sometimes we talk about crm, sometimes we talk about the meaning of life.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: It's just kind of, you know, it's just a, a place where we can all get together to share what's top of mind and what's on our hearts and help one another be better awesome.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: So what you do is obviously like so I.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: I mean on the daily, and I'm one of them, right, like it's.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: It's sometimes blows my mind that I run an online business because me and tech are like so.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I grew up on Lake Erie, um West side of Cleveland, and I used to swim in the lake near a power plant, and I am 100% confident that the water was nice and warm there and while I was swimming in the warm water I was absorbing some sort of radiation that is now like makes all tech around me very, very buggy.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: So for those of us that are like super tech, dum-dum, what is it that you do for advisors?
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Like so I obviously.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, this all sounds amazing.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: And then I get like, I sit down and I stare at it and I'm like, okay, but like how?
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: So talk to us about how simplicity ops actually works with advisors.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: And I'm sorry to put you on the spot like that, but what do you do?
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: exactly.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Tell us what you do here, Kate.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, my favorite question.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: No, that is a hilarious story about Lake Erie.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: I didn't know that about you, but that's that is absolutely hilarious.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: So, at simplicityps, we believe deeply that an advisor's number one priority is delivering an amazing client service experience, and so, like I said, the way to do that at scale is with systems and processes, and we have found that the CRM is the best tool to use to make that happen, and so we partner with RIAs and hybrids to help optimize their CRM tool as the operational hub of their business.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: We practice exactly what we preach Like.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: We take you through those five phases.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: We figure out how your database is organized, we scrub and clean up all of your contacts for you.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: We teach your team how to adopt the system for contacts tasks, your sales pipeline, all right.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: We take your service experience and then we build it out in your CRM so that we can deliver those services proactively, and then we write custom workflows to deliver your services at scale.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: And so if an advisor shows up at your door to say, like, please make all of these things that I have dreamed up happen, what's helpful for them to already have kind of sketched out and mapped out so that you can do your best work fastest?
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah Well, if everybody went to you first and came to me second, that would be the dream, but it doesn't always happen.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: Um, some people have absolutely no systems or processes at all and they're looking to us for guidance and so we'll give templates and help customize them and tailor them.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: You know, through like collaborative conversations, um.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: But I mean, if you know, if you've segmented your book, if you know what your service experience looks like, if you have a well-versed client service person who knows like custodial responsibilities for all the client servicing type stuff any changes, opening new accounts, moving monies that'll help with efficiency in terms of like writing workflows.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: But it's kind of a mixed bag.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: We don't a lot of people don't have haven't put the thought or time into any of that.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: It all kind of lives upstairs, you know, and so we're.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: We do a really good job at like pulling that information out and documenting it and using the system to deliver it.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: But man, people came dialed are that six months would be a hell of a lot faster.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Boom, I love it.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, so it's amazing.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: I'm super excited about everything you're doing and, like I said, like back in the day, like it's so funny now doing what I do and all the conversations I'm having.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, and I feel like I'm like that old lady who's like I used to have to walk uphill both ways in the snow or whatever Cause.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: I'm like if I would have had you, it would have been like unbelievable.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: I would have been able to scale so much quicker.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I would have been able to just like set goals up and knock them down like frigging dominoes where there was just so much more clunkiness like quote unquote back in the day.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: So I am so grateful that whatever inside of you caused you to jump from being an operations person inside of an RIA and starting Simplicity Apps.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: So I know there'll be tons of advisors listening who want to get their hands on your resources.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I'll make sure we link all of that in the show notes so people can grab those for free.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: 99, my favorite, and before we go.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: So, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you know, I always like to ask my guests what are one or two things that you have implemented in your business, whether it's a tool, whether it's like a model week, whether it's a mindset hack?
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: What are some things that you have found that have helped you just operate at your highest level, that you have found that have helped you just operate at your highest level.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: I 100% practice what I preach.
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: I don't do anything that I wouldn't tell my clients to do.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: We have a dialed in CRM.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: Everybody uses it for contacts tasks, our sales pipeline, our calendar.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: We have a service model in place that we all adhere to.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: We have workflows to deliver our services.
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: We use an online calendar tool that creates automations and launches workflows.
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: We use a note-taking bot to take our meeting notes and put in action items.
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: We absolutely practice what we preach.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it, so hashtag workflows.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: Love it Hashtag workflows, hashtag CRMs.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I felt myself so hashtag workflows.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: Hashtag workflows, hashtag CRMs.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw the broken record.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Well, you know what?
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Absolutely it's more simple than I think people give it credit to.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Right, like I think, when one of the biggest barriers, I think, for people wanting to jump into their own RIA is like this idea of like oh there's, I need so much tech and I don't know where to start, and really we kind of over, we kind of do it like there's overkill, um, are there any?
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: other tools.
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: Simple system scale.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so the triple S simple system scale yes, when you are working in Redtail Wealthbox, what other softwares integrate with them?
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: Oh man, there's so many.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: But again, everything that I recommend comes from a client servicing perspective.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm not a financial planner, I'm not a portfolio manager, so there's all of those pieces that integrate.
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: But you know, I love Finmate for note taking, I love PreciseFP for data gathering form filling.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: I love G reminders for an online calendar tool.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: I like Bento for delivering timely advice.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I like to keep it simple and I like to think about what is going to be of most value to the client.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: First and foremost.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love, I think, probably.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Then so, if you're using one of those CRMs, really look at first at what tools actually integrate again, keep it all in one place and make your life a lot easier.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Well, awesome, well, thank you.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: I appreciate your expertise per the use and I'm so grateful for your contributions to our systems to scale group coaching program.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: I know the group that just went through your workflow training was like yes, this is what we were looking for how do you take?
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: all this work and actually make it happen systematically, so I'm super grateful for everything that you do for us, and I'm so.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: This is what we were looking for?
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: How do we take all this work and actually make it happen systematically?
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: So I'm super grateful for everything that you do for us and I'm so, so grateful to collaborate with you.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: I love these conversations.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Doesn't she make it sound so organized and so easy?
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: And, like I said, yes, she is a peanut butter to my jelly.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: She can take all of the processes that we detail out and just make them cascade into tasks and automations.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: It is a glorious thing.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: You also heard Kate mentioned Finmate AI.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: You guys, I am so excited about this tool.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Note-taking is one of the biggest pain points for so many advisors.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, how many times have you said I'm so behind on my meeting notes?
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: I practically lived in this until I figured out a system that worked for me, which I share inside of the group coaching program.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: But, holy smokes, like I feel like one of those dinosaurs who's like.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: I had to walk uphill both ways, you know, in the snow, barefoot, yada, yada, because now there are so many cool tools that can really help facilitate this process.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: And there is finally.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: I have been waiting for a note-taking tool that I could really get behind, and I'm doing a whole show on it soon with the founder, but it's too good to be true and I don't want to gatekeep this on you.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: So I'm not going to wait until we release that episode, because it will be probably not until sometime in August.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: So the best part about it is that it's a totally safe tool, right From a security and um, you know, data privacy concern.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: This.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: This is it.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: This is the one.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm excited to be partnering with them and to be giving my feedback on the tool to help make it better and better and better, and even broker dealers are starting to adopt it, like it's that safe.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: So it is going to change the game when it comes to note-taking and post-meeting follow-up.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: So I've got a link in the show notes for you and guess what?
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: And it's out on the resources tab of the website too.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: You just click through the link that I'm giving you and you automatically get a 10% discount that I'm able to pass on to you guys by being a partner contributor for them.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: So, yay, I love saving me some money and, of course, I want to mention this one more time.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: But, once again, I'd love, love, love, love, love to have you in our next round of group coaching.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: It kicks off August 22nd.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Registration is now open.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: This is the time you get organized and whip your business into shape once and for all.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I'd love to talk more about you, more about that, with you out in the Efficient Advisor community or feel free to DM me on LinkedIn.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much and hope you guys have an amazing rest of your week.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you.