Latest / The Perfect RIA / What Do Prospecting and Six-Pack Abs Have in Common? [Episode 258]

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What Do Prospecting and Six-Pack Abs Have in Common? [Episode 258] · The Perfect RIA

0:11
Matt: Prospecting is like six pack abs. Everybody knows how to
0:15
do it, but nobody wants to do the work.
0:45
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1:15
All right, back to the show.
1:17
Micah: Welcome back to The Perfect RIA Podcast. I'm your co
1:20
host Micah Shilanski and with me as usual brother legendary
1:22
Matthew Jarvis. What's going on bud?
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Matt: Micah so glad to be doing podcast with you every week.
1:27
This is obviously something we both look forward to one it's a
1:30
lot of fun to spread the good word right to help advisors
1:34
learn how to transform their practices. But also as you I've
1:37
talked about a lot of times it gives us a chance to reflect
1:39
back on our own practices, which of course we're working in
1:41
everyday at least every day that we're in the office so always
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glad to be back here in the studio.
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Micah: Yeah, it's always fantastic to jump in here. You
1:47
know, and record these kinds of up at different times, which is
1:49
really great because when this airs, it's right around my
1:51
anniversary so I'm out spending time with my wife with this
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airs, which is wonderful thing to do. And it's really about
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being intentional, right? I know Jarvis you and I were talking
1:59
about this a little bit before the podcast as well about
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saying, You know what, how is our time kind of set up and are
2:04
we being intentional with our time you know, are we carving
2:07
out that family time it can be hard to do? Are we carving out
2:09
enough time to work on that can also be hard to do, right? How
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do you balance those things? But Jarvis see, the biggest robber
2:15
of this, especially when I'm talking to people is the aspect
2:18
of playing office is they start justifying their time as oh, I
2:22
need to take time off my family. Or I need to do this. No, no,
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you have to earn your time off with your family. And you do
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that by busting your butt doing the right reps in the right
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things, not playing off as it when it comes to prospecting. As
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soon as someone talks about prospecting immediately it's
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playing on my mind, because most of the time when I'm talking to
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advisors about how they prospect it is playing office and you
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really got to address that.
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Matt: Yeah, you do. And as you pointed out, like it comes back
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to being the intentional just you and I have now boy looked at
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well over 1000 practices 1000s of practices, and the practices
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that are successful and each person can define success a
2:57
little differently, but however you're defining success, the six
3:00
most successful practices are the most intentional. And then
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same goes for prospecting. The advisors that we're seeing with
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the most success in their prospecting, including you and I
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are the ones that are insanely intentional about doing the
3:14
really hard work, right. We're always looking for this silver
3:17
bullet, right. What's the ab exercise I can do for two
3:21
seconds today? I'm really just not at all and have washboard
3:23
abs. What's the marketing strategy I can throw money at
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and mysteriously I'll have the steady flow of clients and
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neither one exists.
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Micah: Alright I'm gonna push back on something. I was getting
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a little honoree in the young age here.
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Matt: Yeah, you're gonna show us your washboard abs is that
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what's going on here?
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Micah: Yeah, pretty much that's coming next time. That's a
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different show. We'll get to define success. However you want
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to define it. No, success is success or there's failure. And
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I think one of the things that jurors who have run into with
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this was oh, I have a successful practice bla bla bla bla bla and
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they're using that as an excuse and we've seen no you and I run
3:54
into the same person that says this right? They're using that
3:56
as an excuse as to why they're not actually successful. Oh, so
4:00
many people wouldn't be jealous of my practice because A B and
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C. Nah-ha, hard stopping. Anyone in your financial industry
4:05
changed places with you or your practice? Probably not. Right?
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So that is not successful. If you are not being hyper
4:12
intentional with your time and carving time off with your
4:14
family while successfully growing your practice. Status
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quo is not growing. That's not success. You must be moving that
4:21
needle in your practice plus 20% growth must be profitable with
4:25
your practice as well when the market has a 30% downturn and
4:28
you're tied to AUM you're going to run into a problem. You must
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be profitable with this. If you're not growing your practice
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how to lifestyle as well as being profitable. You are not
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successful in your practice yet, and you must be working. They're
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pushing that direction.
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Matt: We can even throw some numbers at that right? I mean,
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again, you need to be head down grinding it out until you've
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passed a million dollars of revenue per advisor. So none of
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this like hey, we have 2 million in revenue and 17 advisors. No,
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that's for the Kitsis podcast right, on this podcast it's
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usually of a million dollars revenue per advisor, you're
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operating at a minimum 50% profitability. You have Micah to
5:02
your point at Prospect pipeline that's generating 20% growth,
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right? And then you're taking a material amount of time off to
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spend with your family and to be out of the office, though again,
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that's earned after the first three are accomplished, right?
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So that's like people come to us to my practice is just like
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yours. I have a lifestyle practice, really. So you're
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you're grossing a couple of million. You're netting a
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million plus Well, no, I, I grossed 238,000. Okay, so you're
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making zero money and you're not working? If that's not the same
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thing?
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Micah: And by the way, I'm not crapping on you right, we were
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there. And we totally understand that and that's the reason you
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have to embrace the grind when you're in that stage. And that's
5:39
growth Gary concept versus a sub quarter million or glowing in
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this and I really do it. This is the podcast you need right here.
5:47
This episode we're about to do because it's all about
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prospecting. This is all about how do you increase those reps?
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What are those things that you do in order to grow and that's
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pretty much all you need to be focused on as you're just
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crushing your prospecting and not playing office in different
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areas. And once you start growing kind of past that now
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you can start picking your head up a little bit more and looking
6:06
at other areas of your practice to grow as well. But again,
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Jarvis back to the comment you made this is all about being
6:11
intentional, right? You got to be hyper intentional with these
6:14
things.
6:15
Matt: And part of that is of course tracking your results of
6:17
tracking your reps, and it's tracking your results. So let's
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give a quick example. Let's say that similar to me, one of your
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strategies for getting new clients is center of influence,
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right? Working with accountants and attorneys, other centers of
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influence, right, just saying that that's my strategy is of
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zero value. Right? So what is the value of saying, hey, every
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single week, I'm going to call 10 of these people and the
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strategies in my book and podcasts every single week, I'm
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going to call 10. And I'm going to write down their names.
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Because what happens Micah with all prospecting channels, and
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we'll talk about ones that you're using just second, we
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tell ourselves oh, yeah, I worked out every day. I call 10.
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This week, cool. Write down their names for me. Well, there
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was there was Bob, you call Bob? Well, I didn't call Bob. I
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thought about calling Bob. Okay, so we have zero. Where's the
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other 10? Like we're all notorious, especially with
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prospecting about lying to ourselves about the reps .
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Micah: Oh, a 100% lap X is talking to a salesperson the
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other day, and they were what their closing issue was I was
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like, man, it's absolutely fantastic, you know, when I
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started, you know, grabbing kind of more information, more
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information. Basically, they're counting their closer issue,
7:20
however, they want to count it on that particular day. Hey, it
7:22
was raining outside. Therefore, none of the calls I made today
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counted against my close ratio. Oh, the sun is shining and
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somebody said yes. Okay. This call does count today. Right? No
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no this isn't how it works, right? You need a trackable
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process. So you can see where we need improvement, and we all
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need improvement. I'm certainly guilty of this on my hand,
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right? I definitely need improvement on these things. But
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the only way I know where I need to improve is by having the data
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that backs us up. So whatever prospecting system you're gonna
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have, you have to have some basic check ins with that to say
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what's working, right, just because you start something and
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it doesn't produce results in two months. It doesn't mean to
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stop it either. Right? Number one, you only do proven systems,
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especially once you start doing north of seven figures if you
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were to start experimenting with different stuff, right sub that
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the only thing you need to be doing is proven systems by other
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advisors that are advisors you want to model in your practice.
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That's it. That's what you need to be focused on. And so you're
8:16
only doing proven systems and you break those proven systems
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down to check in points to say, Hey, what are the results I'm
8:21
expecting these different areas and when it starts to break down
8:24
you get to be able to bring somebody else in and say, Hey,
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what am I doing wrong here?
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Matt: Oh, for sure. For sure. So I think Micah are one of the
8:30
first places this measurement comes and it's important to
8:32
remember this measurement needs to be really could be on a sheet
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of printed paper, or it could be in a very simple Excel document.
8:39
This is not in some elaborate tracking mechanism that you're
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going to just play office. And so for anybody that has a
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somewhat established practice, let's call that 250k of revenue
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to a million to 2 million revenue. The very first place
8:50
you need to go and measure is where did your existing clients
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come from? Again, I know you're gonna tell me how they all came
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from. XYZ. Cool. Once again, I want names and I want the exact
9:00
source that they came from. So you say Hey, Bob and Sue. There
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was our most recent client. Cool. Where did Bob and Sue come
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from? They came from our website. Do they really like
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when they called How do they know your name? Like, we need to
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be really specific because what happens is advisors almost never
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know what this is. And it's different for every advisor. And
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if you come and we say you and all of my clients come through
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LinkedIn messages, okay, cool. Let's just get the names and we
9:24
look at the names and we realize they all come from your local
9:27
golf club. Well, let's quit screwing around on LinkedIn and
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let's spend all the time at the golf club or whatever the case
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may be.
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Micah: Yeah. 100% Right. So breaking that stuff down.
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Alright, the other thing is you need to have three prospecting
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channels that you are always working on right. Jarvis push
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back on me if you've seen different I have never seen a
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successful advisors office that doesn't have three channels
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they're pushing on. They might be expanding a little bit into a
9:50
fourth one kind of playing and whatnot, but they're generally
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always got three base ones going on. Pushback if you have seen
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Matt: And these exceptions prove the rule? Actually, no, they say
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different.
9:59
they 100% for the rule. There's there's a company without hyper
10:02
focus niches super, super hyper focused.
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Micah: Sure.
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Matt: Then when you break that down, there's there's really
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three strategies inside of that. Right?
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Micah: Exactly. Yes. So I'm not I'm not saying like a niche like
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three different niches. That's not what I'm saying at all.
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Matt: Because I'm even thinking of your federal employees niche
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right. So we say Oh, Micah has one channel we're gonna have a
10:18
second. Inside that channel is constant SEO content. It's
10:22
constant video content. It's constant event. Oh, wait, we
10:25
have three channels. Now by the way, as you point out that five
10:28
channels it's not like let's also go ahead and tchotchkes
10:31
outside the federal building. So it's, it's three it's always
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three.
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Micah: Yeah, so it really breaks down to those are the minimums
10:37
that you need to be doing right. Alright. Number one, don't worry
10:40
you're already doing this wrong because everybody is is
10:42
referrals, right? Everyone is doing referrals wrong. Every
10:45
coach out there says well, you should grow based on referrals.
10:47
You have 100 clients, you should get 10 referrals a year. And it
10:50
kind of doesn't happen. This is the reason the mocking voices
10:52
are there. So you really need to have an intentional strategy
10:57
about how are you going to grow your referrals. And this isn't
11:02
Hey, give me three of your friends names to sit down a call
11:05
probably not going to be effective. So an effective
11:08
referral strategy when I look at Jarvis is what's something that
11:11
my team can do that they are going to feel comfortable with
11:15
consistently doing right? How do we surprise and delight our
11:19
clients? How do we let them know that we're always looking for
11:22
clients like that, but we're always taking care of them. So
11:24
you need a really intentional strategy that's baked around
11:28
that right and just like with any client, that if we tell them
11:31
something three times they probably didn't hear it by the
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seventh time is when they've heard it for the first time. So
11:36
this is same thing inside of this strategy. We need a method
11:40
that a lever we can pull so we can keep those referrals coming
11:44
Matt: And whether we're talking about referrals or any of the
11:44
in consistently.
11:47
other prospecting channels we're going to talk on you're only
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gonna see movement if you're, and I apologize for the cliche,
11:52
we're not if you're delivering massive value, and an extreme
11:55
example of that is we've all been to McDonald's, right? But
11:58
no one has ever told their friends like hey, if you really
11:59
want a good discount meal, like you should head over to
12:02
McDonald's. Why? Because McDonald's always provides
12:04
exactly what they said they would provide a mediocre meal
12:07
for a mediocre price, right? Like I've never sent a referral
12:10
to my electricity company. And you know, the electricity is
12:12
pretty much on every day here. But I never think like I should
12:15
call some friends and I should tell them about my electricity
12:17
company. Why because they did exactly what I expected them to
12:20
do not more not less for your practice before you're going to
12:23
get referrals you have to deliver value that exceeds
12:26
whatever the prospect or client thought they were going to get.
12:28
That's where the surprise and delight This is the team falling
12:31
back up all of these things. You're never gonna get referrals
12:34
unless you're delivering value that far exceeds what you're
12:36
charging in the clients mind.
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Micah: Yeah. Right. So what's your strategy that's going to be
12:42
around that with your written prospect process, prospect
12:44
strategy that you're going to be going through to say, hey, and
12:47
does the team know about this? Right? Does the team know how to
12:50
thank clients and this isn't the team asking again for referrals.
12:53
But does the team do they know how to thank clients do they
12:55
know how the experience was going to be on the phone? And
12:57
uh, one of the things that's really nice with our team
12:59
members that just crush the client service is we
13:02
consistently get compliments on them on the great job that they
13:05
do. But also we also hear the comment or as I'm sure you do
13:08
Jarvis, as well, Micah, I had to call my XYZ agent the other day
13:11
and deal with A B and C and it really made me realize how
13:14
spoiled I am working with you guys. You take care of so many
13:17
things for us, and you make it easy, right? So our job with our
13:21
clients is to make their life easy. And that gets highlighted
13:24
pretty quick when they work with other people says Holy crap.
13:27
It's better to work with the Shilanski office when they take
13:29
care of all of these things.
13:30
Matt: So the rep that we're going to count here, the rep
13:32
could be counting surprise and delight where we're really going
13:34
above and beyond we can count compliments, which is not
13:37
necessarily a rep but it's it's reflected. We can count the
13:40
number of times that we're having the referral discussion
13:43
which again Micah, the point is not write down five names. It's
13:46
a discussion of hey, we have the capacity to take on seven new
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clients, blah, blah, blah, whatever your process is there.
13:52
And we've defined that on several pilots. So good. You've
13:54
got to be counting that rep. Every week. Right now, it's not
13:58
like once a month or once a quarter once a year. I'll go
14:00
back and sort of reflect on it sure the number was 27. If you
14:03
want the strategy to move every week in your team standard
14:05
media, you're saying alright, here's what our rep is for
14:09
getting referrals. How many of these did we do and how can we
14:11
Micah: I love it. All right, so the next one I'm gonna say is
14:11
improve?
14:21
good, that's gonna be one of them. It's probably BS between
14:32
all of us, then your other two ones that you kind of pick and
14:44
really depends on you. Now here's a mistake that I'm going
14:56
to see Jarvis, the right people say oh my gosh, Jarvis has done
15:08
a good job with COI, good job with networking. Now I'm going
15:19
to jump into these. One, 99% of people should avoid networking
15:24
Matt: Yeah, you've got to be committed that you're gonna do
15:26
it for at least two years. And you're gonna do it every single
15:29
week. And none of these are easy options. I think this is a trap
15:31
like the plague because we suck at it. We don't actually do it.
15:32
we fall into. I know I have fallen into it. Hey, what's the
15:35
easiest way to get prospects there is not there is no easy
15:37
way to get prospects that just doesn't exist so I'm going to
15:40
buy a prices cool that's not any easier right? There's no easy
15:43
option so like your SEO content, I love making random content I
15:44
And it's an excuse to play office, right? And so these are
15:46
don't really enjoy doing SEO content like that's a real word
15:49
isn't just random posts. Obviously Micah you know this
15:51
but a lot of our listeners don't. These are taking real
15:54
effort, a lot of collaboration a lot of work. Cool. If I'm gonna
15:55
the strategies don't do them just because someone else does
15:57
do this, I'm gonna do it every single week for the next two
15:59
years. Right? And if I'm not, don't start, don't waste your
16:02
time. Our good friend Benjamin Brandt who have coached
16:04
extensively, his podcast right was where he gets the bulk of
16:06
them. Both strategies work. So number one, you have to choose a
16:07
his points. He does it every single week. He's done it for
16:10
years and years years. He says the same thing. Don't start a
16:13
podcast unless you do it every single week for two years.
16:15
Otherwise, just don't waste your time.
16:17
Micah: Right. Alright, so let's talk about COI wise a little
16:18
strategy that works everyone we're going to talk about in a
16:19
bit. Right. And I noticed you mentioned a lot in the book and
16:21
I know inside of backstage pass as well. We talked a lot about
16:24
COI strategy that you need to have. But again, what this is is
16:27
Centers of Excellence is right. And how are you engaging with
16:30
centers of influence in your area and how were you not asking
16:30
second works. But then the second part of this, what are
16:33
them for their clients, but how are you positioning you know,
16:35
you respect to their expertise, and you help clients in these
16:39
areas as well.
16:41
Matt: I see a lot of bad advice on this. All of it pretty much
16:41
you willing to work like if Jarvis has a great COI strategy,
16:43
bad advice. Sorry. There was an article I saw just the other day
16:46
it was like Hey, call centers of influence. And let them know
16:49
that you're a professional financial advisor, you're
16:51
providing comprehensive advice, and then therefore they should
16:52
and I'll pick on myself right here, George, you have a good
16:54
send you clients. And obviously it was written by someone who
16:56
has never gotten one who's never gotten a referral from a center
16:59
of influence because that's a pure what's in it for you play.
17:02
It's got to be a what's in it for them. Props to Joe Polish
17:04
SEO strategy. I'm not going to do that. I don't enjoy taking
17:05
and Genius Network for that one and again, like as you point
17:07
out, we've done a lot of training on this, but it's you
17:10
know, if I, if my strategy is COIs, and every week I'm going
17:13
to call 10 with the intention of delivering value to them. And
17:15
Micah to your point if that's not your thing, if like, Hey,
17:16
COI out to lunch and chatting with them and go into this like,
17:18
listen, the idea of talking to 10 CPAs a week slipped my throat
17:21
now, cool, pick another strategy, just know that none of
17:23
these strategies are any easier than any other strategies.
17:26
Micah: You gotta get to pick what you're gonna do, right or
17:28
I am not excited about it. I'm not going to do it. I
17:28
create a forcing mechanism to it, but you still got to do
17:30
this. So COIs that's one networking, this is another this
17:33
is the one that I say 99% of people should avoid like the
17:35
plague because you think this is showing up to a rotary meeting
17:38
procrastinate like crazy, but I will build SEO content that
17:38
or going to a small business meeting or something of that
17:41
nature, etc. And that's a not yet.
17:44
Matt: In fact, I was talking to an advisor just the other day I
17:46
was doing a training as something that's come with a
17:48
podcast when I get to speak to lots of advisors, and he said he
17:49
produces clients. Okay, great. At the end of the day, we're
17:51
was gonna do networking and what I love to do is car show so I'm
17:54
gonna do is I'm gonna go to car shows every week and so we're
17:56
gonna have a lot of fun. Going to car shows every week. You
17:59
will get zero clients from just zero plans from that as pure
18:01
still working for the same thing, delivering value and
18:03
playing office, you want do it for fun, knock yourself out. If
18:05
you want to do it to get clients that requires an entire
18:08
Micah: It really does you got to have an entire strategy. How are
18:08
strategy.
18:11
getting clients and so there's different ways to do it. But I
18:11
you going to put all of these things together? How are you
18:13
going to be hyper intentional about it? Now Jarvis you and I
18:16
have gotten clients from networking, but it was the
18:19
unintentional side, right? And when clients come up to me and I
18:21
know you're better at this than I am, but when clients come up
18:23
have to choose something I know I'm going to do or at least
18:23
to me what I'm doing is you're doing prospects coming to me and
18:25
I'm doing something social, and they want to engage with me. I'd
18:28
be like, Hey, I'd love to have this conversation. You know,
18:30
right now I'm here for the shooting event. I'd want to
18:32
focus on this but I'll be happy to pass your information along
18:34
creating a forcing mechanism that forces me to do that thing.
18:35
to my team member and Victoria will give you a call and we'll
18:38
set a time that we can sit down and chat is that going to be
18:39
okay? And they are super responsive too, super respectful
18:43
but it works really well. And then I immediately dropped them
18:46
into our prospect process. I don't tell them to call our
18:46
But I'm not just going to do this just because Jarvis does
18:48
office right. I do collect their information and pass along to
18:51
Victoria so she can do the follow up on it. I feel like
18:53
we're taking that extra step. But it goes immediately into our
18:56
prospect process. We're not going to violate anything else.
18:57
it. There's other ways to do it as well.
18:59
The prospect was designed to deliver massive value to our
19:02
prospects along every step. And I don't want to get away from
19:05
Matt: I did have somebody as explaining last week at a
19:05
that.
19:29
conference, I was teaching the prospect process and they said
19:59
Micah: One that I've used for a long time I still use it works
20:00
hey, why don't you cut out steps three, four and five. This seems
20:01
really, really well is seminars and educational events. We do
20:04
seminars, educational events before we did them for federal
20:07
employees. We did them through the community schools, we taught
20:10
retirement seminars, investment seminars etc, and stems - a
20:13
blast from the past few those, those have morphed into more
20:16
niche focused where we are specializing helping federal
20:19
employees were put on all day classes for federal employees.
20:22
So these classes still work. I haven't talked to anyone a long
20:25
time has been successful dinner seminars, but it's because I
20:27
left the BD world I don't know. But we're not doing dinner
20:30
seminars, we're doing daytime classes, and we're going through
20:32
really inefficient. And on the surface, it is really
20:33
kind of everything. In the class, to your point, there's a
20:36
certain methodology of how we need to go to the class, so they
20:39
walk away with the most value possible. And also show that it
20:42
highlights our area of expertise. And this again, is a
20:45
lot of work. This isn't just one day or a couple of nights etc.
20:48
You're doing these classes. This takes months of time to fill the
20:51
class months of time of practice. How are you going to
20:54
develop this How are you going to implement this and where
20:56
advisors really make mistake is they say, Oh, I know all this
20:59
inefficient. But what I'm solving for is getting clients
20:59
stuff. I'll just get on stage and magically be able to perform
21:02
because I can talk to clients one on one. It is dramatically
21:05
different jumping on stage than being in a conference or one on
21:08
one with somebody.
21:09
Matt: Well for most advisors, I'm sure they're they're not
21:11
doing a good job one on one like if you want to record your
21:13
climate and send it over to us, we'll be glad to critique that
21:16
thing. One on One people use it pretty polite and they won't
21:18
tell you that you're doing a miserable job in a group
21:20
setting. They'll be the guy who's kicked back or somebody
21:22
else's on their laptop. But Micah I was in your office the
21:25
week that you were doing an event, right and the days before
21:27
and it's super efficient at. Micah, I want to mention at the
21:28
I was watching you and your team practice for hours, hours and
21:33
hours and hours and that was just that that one week. There's
21:36
also of course Micah the endless reps of getting people into the
21:39
event. Right? We've all fall into that trap. Hey, all you got
21:42
to do is put together this event and people will somehow
21:45
magically know and they'll show up there'll be a line around the
21:47
block and they'll be standing room only and no one shows up.
21:51
And no one shows up. This is again it's you got to pull the
21:54
lever uniform a lot of times
21:55
Micah: Yeah, so again, we're not bashing on any of these advisors
21:57
networking, as I get like 1/3 of my clients consistently from my
21:57
who have made a very realistic picture. These are a lot of work
22:00
and these can be very productive, right. I really
22:03
enjoyed doing our all day classes. We had a tremendous
22:05
amount of value to our community. Our goals help
22:07
another million federal employees with retirement right.
22:10
So we're working on that consistently. Which I really
22:12
love. And this is a great way that we bring on clients we have
22:15
transformed their lives. But it's a ton of work just like
22:18
networking, or COIs it is a ton of work and you must have a very
22:22
intentional strategy. How are you going to pull this off?
22:25
Matt: Micah one of the last channels that we would highlight
22:27
here would be content creation, which we've talked about a
22:29
little bit and this is by me somewhere I have never had any
22:29
networking, but it's a it's a hybrid intentional strategy.
22:31
success, at least from the advisory side. From an advisor
22:34
side, you know, we're The Perfect Ria. We do great work
22:36
there. But it's somewhere you've had a lot of success with, but
22:38
it's also a spot where a lot of advisors go wrong. Similar to
22:41
networking they think, oh, if I just post randomly on social
22:44
media, that's the same thing. And they'll say Oh, well so and
22:47
so they've gotten all their clients from social media. A
22:50
that may or may not be true, but the ones who do who we've seen
22:53
behind the curtain, they work like no one's business. So John
22:57
Lee Dumas is an example right? Yeah, he's not an advisor, but
22:58
I've never ever gotten a client from a chamber of commerce
23:00
he's done a daily podcast every single day for what like 10
23:04
years Yeah, like 10 years, every single day methodical process.
23:08
Every single one has a guest. So when you talk to him, he's like
23:11
sitting by the pool in Puerto Rico making 3 or 4 million bucks
23:13
a year. And you're like, Oh, this guy just kicks back and
23:16
makes random podcast posts. No way. No way this guy is a
23:19
machine. And after years and years of years it turned into a
23:22
money machine.
23:23
Micah: So with the content play kind of like the concept of,
23:25
Jarvis push back on me, concept of writing a book but when we
23:28
meeting. I've been to a lot never from a rotary club. I've
23:28
decided to write our book or you or yours it was the aspect of
23:30
okay wait to be really intentional. What are we going
23:32
to cover? And we're not covering 99.99999% of everything in
23:36
finance, right? We're being really particular on one thing
23:39
is what we're trying to cover and then start outlining the
23:42
chapters, going through which message you want to deliver how
23:44
you want to bring someone through this process. That's the
23:46
same thing with content creation as well. You're taking and
23:49
saying okay, I'm gonna not talk about most things. I'm gonna go
23:52
really in depth on just a few things. But then the caveat is
23:56
what are those few things you go in depth on? I'm in the camp of
23:57
been to a lot, never from hanging out of the car show,
24:00
supply and demand. I think that's what drives everything.
24:02
And so we kind of looked at the attraction say, okay, you know,
24:05
what's the demand out there? What keywords are people
24:08
searching that I want to go for the ones that have high demand
24:11
and low supply? No one is supplying those example a lot of
24:14
people search for retirement. Okay. There's a lot of demand
24:17
for it. But the supply is massive. And the people that are
24:20
posting on just pure retirement are going to outspend me every
24:23
single day of the week, right? So there's no way I'm going to
24:24
right? And I talked about getting everything wrong with
24:25
compete on that word. So I need to break that down a little bit
24:29
more and say, what are some longer keywords people are
24:32
searching for? And that's the ones that I need to start
24:35
writing. To your point. It's not I randomly wake up and get a
24:38
write whatever I want post any particular content that I want.
24:41
It's with us,a long strategy we planned out one of the questions
24:44
that we get from federal employees now for our first
24:46
federal fact check. Alright, how does this help with what
24:48
keywords how is this built in? How is this going to help spread
24:50
our messages has helped more people retire etc. So there's a
24:52
networking. If you're gonna do networking, like anything else,
24:53
long process that we go through to build all of these different
24:56
things. In stores, any one of these strategies starts by just
25:00
taking action, right? Okay, you know, you've got to start moving
25:04
down the path and you're gonna start figuring it out. But the
25:06
biggest thing is it's going to push on this again and again and
25:09
again, do a strategy that worke from an advisor that you respect
25:13
in a practice you want to have. That's the big thing I support
25:16
where I've wasted the most time and money Jervis in the past is
25:19
I got a really good sales pitch and somebody else and I bought
25:21
this system, I did this system, etc. And I found out I never
25:23
it's just hyper intentional strategy. We use like a dream
25:24
talked to another advisor that ever had that system work, and
25:26
it was just blowing my money. So that's the biggest thing I'm
25:29
going to preach to people find and advisor you respect their
25:32
practice, where do you want to be? What prospecting systems do
25:35
they have? Those are the ones that you need to implement.
25:37
Matt: One of the filter Micah comes to mind as you're looking
25:40
at prospects systems, and that would be if there's, like ratio
25:44
of money spent to results you're not going to win that game. And
25:47
what I mean by that is, let's say you use that retirement
25:50
keyword. So it's a great idea. I'm going to try to outspend
25:52
100 concept like Alright, there's 100 people inside my
25:53
fidelity and Charles Schwab and Vanguard and NerdWallet on the
25:58
word retirement nope, cannot be done. And I'm going to try to
26:01
outspend fidelity and Charles Schwab and Vanguard on direct
26:04
mail. Can't beat that. I'm going to try to outspend them on the
26:06
fanciest website. Can't beat that. Here's what we have to
26:08
remember that all these organizations I just named three
26:12
of hundreds. They spend more money in your geographical area
26:15
month that you'll make in your lifetime, but it's supposed to
26:18
go toe to toe with Merrill Lynch. Now you cannot beat them
26:19
community that if I can get them as clients would transform my
26:21
and they're gonna call them and say no I say this I'm gonna find
26:24
a hyper local niche either geographically, or in a very
26:29
narrow spa that relies on incredible expertise. I can win
26:32
that game that's an effort game, I can win the effort game. I
26:35
can't win the money game. Not in this right now.
26:36
Micah: Yeah that's not what we're solving for. Right? So
26:38
alright, this podcast is all about taking action as we did a
26:41
lot of ragging on things so lets get into things that actually
26:45
work right. Number one, you need a prospect. We will talk about
26:48
this inside of here but this goes right into it - a prospect
26:50
practice, and it's borderline stalking, it's borderline like,
26:51
tracking system. That is the first action that you got to
26:54
have because when anyone contacts your office, you need
26:56
to start tracking, Jarvis your point you made at the beginning
27:00
of the pod with people coming from how do they hear about you?
27:03
Where did they get lost in your prospect pipeline? Right? So you
27:06
need a break your steps down, you need to track where these
27:09
people are coming from, especially if you don't really
27:12
have good prospecting right now. Okay. Well, if you go back for
27:15
the last two years, where do you get all your clients from when
27:18
you actually know that what you think we do actually have
27:21
evidence to prove? We look at that as you start marketing?
27:21
hey, anywhere these 100 people are going to be I am also going
27:24
Matt: Yeah, so it's actually a number two ties to this prospect
27:27
tracker, which is the step before and I'm tracking, what
27:30
are the reps that I'm going to do so what are my three
27:31
channels? And then what are the reps I'm doing every single week
27:35
and each of those channels need to get. I've got to track those.
27:38
Really specifically not like hey, it felt like I did. 17
27:40
calls. I don't know who were they? Right. It felt like I was
27:44
- cool. As you do. What was their name? It's literally how
27:48
many referral discussions did I have? How many centers of
27:50
influence that I talked to? How many SEO optimized posts did I
27:52
to be there. But that's a long term strategy and it's got to be
27:53
make? Whatever your prospect channels are you going to be
27:56
tracking them? Or they just just don't kid yourself. They're not
27:59
Micah: Yeah and if we break this down a lot of our membership
27:59
happening.
28:01
programs really go through so there's that plug for that,
28:03
right? But we really want to spend some time breaking down
28:06
your systems to make sure that it actually works. And Jarvis,
28:09
the part, the last action item that I'm going to give in order
28:11
to really be successful in this you got to do define in advance
28:15
in writing what is your ideal client and what is your
28:18
acceptable point? We define those as our three P's personal
28:21
profitable productive, right you got to meet those three P's
28:24
one you're gonna stick with for years.
28:25
right personal I got to like them, they got to like me got to
28:27
be productive I can add value to their life. Right and they gotta
28:30
be profitable, I'm going to improve their life at some
28:32
value, multiple what I'm offering and they're going to be
28:35
able to pay me the fee that I need in order to keep running
28:37
the business. So they gotta meet those three P's. And you got to
28:40
have that in writing.
28:41
Matt: Not to get too hard privilegue here, but in ideal
28:44
world it's like edged into stone. And once a year you're
28:47
welcome to get the chisel out and edge that out again, or at a
28:50
minimum, it's printed. It's a laminate. This isn't like some
28:52
document or something that's top of your mind. It is my ideal
28:55
prospect is this and my hard minimum is this and my soft
28:58
number is this and it's a non negotiable. So my hard minimum
29:01
was $5,000 a year in revenue and somebody comes in with $4,999.99
29:06
of revenue. The answer is no. We have to have these hard lines in
29:10
the sand. If I'm gonna do 10 reps a week I'm doing 10 reps
29:12
every single week, not five, not 11. Not what I feel like. I'm
29:16
getting it done every week.
29:17
Micah: Yes, Jarvis. I just look at it differently. If somebody
29:19
comes in with you know my minimum was 5 is 4900 in revenue
29:21
just charge more and then boom, we've solved that problem now
29:27
that you're still getting 5. That's that's what you're
29:29
solving for. And you've got to be intentional about this. These
29:32
are all the steps that add up to delivering massive value right
29:35
so this isn't pinching pennies out of people. This is no no I
29:37
need a system where I can deliver massive value
29:40
consistently to all of my clients. And this is a very key
29:43
point of that!
29:44
Matt: I love it. Well Micah thank you so much and for all
29:46
our listeners. Until next time, happy planning!
29:48
Micah: Happy planning!
29:49
Matt: Hey, before you leave a quick word from our sponsors.
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