Latest / The Perfect RIA / How to Grow Your Practice

Transcript

How to Grow Your Practice · The Perfect RIA

1:08
Jamie Shilanski: Everyone out there thinks that scaling and
1:10
growth are synonymous. They don't mean the same thing.
1:13
Scaling isn't so much about growth as it is about removing
1:16
the obstacles that the founder has set that are limiting your
1:20
business. Welcome back TPR nation. This is Jamie Shilanski,
1:23
in an episode of Worlds to Conquer. And today we are going
1:26
to be having a conversation about where you are at in your
1:29
financial advisory career. So when we sat down, Matthew
1:33
Jarvis, Micah Shilanski and myself, and we took all of that
1:36
knowledge that we had from running two successful
1:39
practices, Shilanski and Associates, which is started by
1:42
my mom and dad, Floyd and Rosa back in 1981 and then Jarvis
1:45
financial services, which was started by Nathaniel Jarvis, and
1:49
then taken over by Matthew Jarvis, and grew to unparalleled
1:52
amounts. So as we looked at all of that institutional knowledge,
1:55
and we tapped into the resources of talking to the founders about
1:59
how things got started, what needed to pivot, what needed to
2:02
change, what stage is an advisor at? There's really three
2:06
different stages that you are at in your career, and these aren't
2:09
age related stages. These are just when did you start? Where
2:13
are you at? And so the very first one is the growth stage.
2:16
When you are at the growth stage, you normally have less
2:19
than $30 million under management. You've got a handful
2:22
of clients. And to get to that 30 million of AUM, you probably
2:26
have more clients than it should equate to. I think, when I talk
2:29
to most financial advisors, most of the part. I mean, there are
2:33
some different, you know, whale hunters out there, but for the
2:36
most part, when I talk to the average, you know, Bob financial
2:40
advisor, they are working with households that have about a
2:43
million dollars that under management. And so for them to
2:46
have that $30 million of asset under management, they have
2:49
around 30 to maybe 50 clients. That's a lot of clients to have
2:53
for such a low A u m. Now we talk about that low AUM, but
2:56
don't ever forget what time growth stage and what we need to
2:59
do here that that is still somebody's life savings. They
3:03
are still entrusting you with all of the money that they have.
3:06
We don't refer to clients as clients at Shilanski and
3:09
Associates, we call them heartbeats. How many heartbeats
3:12
are we impacting? How many heartbeats are we changing? Why?
3:16
Because a lot of times in financial services, we strip
3:19
away the human elements and we think about the data, Aum, fee,
3:22
fee only households. How many do we have? And we get everything
3:26
down to these statistical numbers that we forget we're
3:29
helping real people with their entire life savings. In fact, we
3:32
just had this last year. One of our lead advisors in our office
3:36
got this incredibly large client, and it was the biggest
3:39
client he ever had. And by the way, you get to set that
3:42
definition. Have you ever stood in line in a sales capacity and
3:45
you listening to a customer in front of you or behind you, or
3:49
off to the side or whatever, and the clerk at that store says,
3:52
Yeah, I got this happened to me last night at the UPS store. The
3:56
guy said, Well, I can mail this view. It's going to be really,
3:59
really, really expensive. And what did really, really, really
4:03
expensive mean to the man that at the UPS store versus the man
4:06
that was shipping off whatever was inside of his package. And
4:10
we set the parameters on that, don't ever get send somebody
4:13
else's checkbook, because if I had something vital that I had
4:16
to get and I was UPS out to somebody, and it was $250 that
4:20
might be expensive if I compared it to a post mail that 60 cents,
4:23
but it's not expensive compared to how vital is this, that I get
4:27
it to that place in a certain amount of time. So don't get
4:30
into somebody's checkbook. Let them define what expensive and
4:34
also what is a client for you. And just because somebody else
4:37
says, Hey, big clients for me have more than ten million of
4:40
assets under management, maybe a big client for you is somebody
4:44
that has 1 million asset under management. Don't judge yourself
4:47
compared to where other people are. Focus on where you are and
4:51
what matters. So as I was working with this lead advisor,
4:54
and you got for him a big client, and as he's going
4:57
through it, and then the next appointment he had right
5:00
afterward was a prospect that had probably 10% of the asset
5:03
under management that the first one had. So client a, client B
5:07
and client a had all of this, you know, wealth that they had
5:10
accumulated. Client B had 10% of that wealth saved up. But guess
5:14
what the difference was between them, nothing. It was still
5:17
their life savings. It was still all of the money that they had
5:20
in order to retire, that they were coming in to hire one of
5:24
our financial advisors to help them learn about money and learn
5:27
about and to do what, what is the number one fear that
5:30
everyone has when they go to retire? I don't want to outlive
5:34
my retirement savings. That's the that is what they are
5:37
solving for. I don't want to die. I don't want to have to
5:40
move back in with my kids. I don't want to have to, you know,
5:43
go on welfare. That is what we are solving. That is the problem
5:47
we are solving for them. We're helping them take away that
5:50
uncertainty and the risk that comes with retirement. They know
5:54
that they're making good, financial prudent decisions. And
5:57
so if you are in that stage where you have, I'm just, you
6:00
know, kind of wagging it, I'm going to say for conversation
6:03
here today, less than 30 million asset under management. You're
6:07
working with 30 or 50 households. The only thing, the
6:10
only thing that you should be focused on is growing your
6:13
practice. A lot of times you go to these conferences and they're
6:17
like, Oh, you gotta worry about compliance. You gotta worry
6:20
about systems and processes and marketing and you know, and
6:23
retention, how you're gonna bring on another advisor, and
6:26
what's your succession plan? All of these things constantly being
6:30
thrown at us, telling us what we should be focused on, instead of
6:34
just looking and saying, all right, you know what? In the
6:37
next five years, I want to be there, and in order to get
6:40
there, here's what I have to do today. And we see this by
6:43
looking at our calendars and judging how we are allocating
6:47
our time throughout the day. So if you bring up your calendar,
6:50
and you are in that growth stage, and you are answering
6:53
emails, you are attending conferences, you are going to
6:56
web CES, you know, you're looking at all these different
6:59
credentialing to get behind your name. Now, do I think you need
7:03
credentials behind your name? Yeah, I do. I think it gives you
7:06
a power of authority, a line of authority and a place to speak
7:10
from. Do I think you need 20 different credentials after your
7:13
name. No, I don't now, if you like me, just love learning
7:16
cool. Go get it. But if you think that those credentials are
7:20
going to lead to more clients, necessarily, you are just
7:23
playing office. And playing office is when we are doing all
7:26
of the things that justify our busyness without actually
7:29
justifying our meaning, our purpose. What should we put be
7:33
putting energy towards? So if you your calendar and you're
7:36
doing anything but focused on growth at that when you're in
7:39
that 30 million, our last asset under management, you need to
7:43
restructure your properties. The very first thing that you should
7:46
be doing is looking at your marketing. You need to do
7:49
everything you can to potentially bring on new
7:52
clients. So you need to dissect, how did you get those households
7:55
in the first place? What is working for you not what should
7:59
I try? Should I send out a newsletter? Should I bring a
8:02
Chamber of Commerce? Should I do all of these things? Where did
8:05
you get your clientele from? Now, once you understand where
8:09
you got your clientele from, and you began to develop trends. And
8:12
whenever I'm helping somebody do do marketing, I start off in
8:16
what they feel is kind of an obnoxious way. And, you know,
8:19
I've got a lot of eye rolling on this, but starting off in this
8:23
way, I think, really helps narrow your focus. And I just
8:26
did this exercise with somebody that was starting a YouTube
8:29
channel, you know, and they said, Okay, you know, I gotta, I
8:32
gotta kind of figure out what I want my channel to be about,
8:36
blah, blah, blah. And I was like, no, no. First you need to
8:39
figure out her audience, who you're speaking to, because if
8:42
you're speaking to everyone, you're speaking to no one. If
8:46
your message is for everyone, it's for no one, you need to
8:49
hear that and hear it. Well, that's why coaches specialize in
8:52
very particular niches. If you don't know if you should have a
8:56
niche or not, go back and listen and get the show notes here. Go
8:59
listen to niche slapped an episode that I recorded that is
9:03
highly popular, and most financial advisors that are
9:05
like, hey, that really, really helped when I can join that
9:09
niche slapped with, how do I go, instead of my marketing on for
9:12
the rest of the year. So if you're not sure where to locate
9:16
that, please email us at lifestyle@theperfectria.com. We
9:19
are all about empowering financial advisors to become
9:22
their better selves, and so we will make sure that we connect
9:25
you with those resources as needed. All right, now, if
9:28
you're one of our members, you're going to get into a lot
9:31
more content that's really going to accelerate where you're at.
9:35
If you're just using the medium version. What does that mean?
9:38
That's great podcast episodes. You're going to listen to all
9:42
this content. You're going to think for 30 minutes after the
9:45
episode concludes about all the things you're going to go do
9:48
that's you don't go do. Because what did we talk about last
9:52
month? What did you implement from last month? Episode that
9:55
you are carrying forward with today? There's a reason people
9:58
buy memberships, because you're putting your money around Office
10:02
and you're holding yourself accountable. We must have that
10:05
exchange of money to hold ourselves accountable to getting
10:08
things done. So first you got to audience, and so I do this
10:12
really simple exercise, and says, Okay, you know, in the
10:15
galaxy that we are in, which planet do you want to target?
10:18
Now, this seems like a ridiculous question. One day. It
10:21
might not be, but, you know, they're like, Okay, I'm on the
10:25
planet Earth. And I say, okay, earth, great. We got seven
10:28
different continents, or which ones are you going to hit? And
10:31
they're like, What do you talk about? I'm only doing North
10:34
America. Okay, great. So North America, so you're going to do
10:38
all of those 48 states? And they're like, Well, no, no, I'm
10:41
actually just focused on my practice here in Utah. So now
10:44
we're inside of Utah. You and I don't know girls or counties or
10:48
what they have into whatever they have in Utah. You know, are
10:51
you focused on all of them? Well, no, no, I'm just focused
10:55
on this particular region. Okay, great. So here's the zip codes
10:58
in that region, all right, and tell me about your clients you
11:01
have today, not some dream sheet of claims you wish you had. Who
11:05
is actually hiring you? Who's hiring you, who has decided that
11:09
you are confident and capable enough to put their money down
11:12
on the line and hire you to be their financial advisor. Focus
11:15
on that, because that is concept. Those are people that
11:18
are actually willing to pay for your services. Okay, great. And
11:22
now we kind of, we keep coming to layer down, layer down. All
11:25
right, great. Do you work with singing people, widow people,
11:29
married people, not people. Okay, great. Is this a sex
11:32
relationship? Is a heterosexual relationship? They do all of
11:35
these filters. And I don't care what your social stance is. I
11:39
don't care what your political stance is, because at the end of
11:42
the day,
11:44
your clientele can improve who you work with, and you're going
11:47
to know who wants to hire you. So folks on that niche,
11:51
specifically, I know I work with married couples and heterosexual
11:56
relationship that are normally in the ages of 45 and 55 All
12:00
right? So 55 these are individuals, yeah. Where do they
12:06
work? And then all sudden, you're going to start developing
12:10
your niche that you had in place just haven't been focused on,
12:15
because all you want is more and more, but you don't know what
12:20
type of clients are supposed to be hunting. Imagine you had 1000
12:24
ping pong balls at the top of a bleacher, and then the bottom of
12:28
the bleacher, your assistant sets up a champagne glass, and
12:31
they put that champagne glass, and you take that bucket of 1000
12:35
ping pong balls from the top of the bleachers, and you dump it
12:38
down the bleachers, and it's bouncing, bouncing, bouncing,
12:41
bouncing, and what you're doing is hoping one of them, by
12:46
chance, doesn't just hit the rim and bounce, but actually goes
12:50
inside of the glass. That's how you're treating marketing,
12:54
instead of having one ping pong ball and a held in a good arm
13:00
and just looking at how you get that inside of the target, and
13:04
so you need to really narrow down and focus and do that
13:06
exercise. Sounds trivial, sounds stupid, but it gets your brain
13:10
in the thought pattern of being concise. And I struggle with
13:15
that a lot because I had to train myself to be a detailed
13:18
person. And somebody that met me between my 30s and 40s. Thinks
13:21
that I am hyper, hyper detailed and totally In fact, I just got
13:25
described as man. I've never met somebody more buttoned up. I got
13:28
my together, but it wasn't instinctual thing. I'm a
13:32
dreamer. I love to dream. I mean, I get so motion sickness.
13:36
My feet are planted in the ground, but my head is
13:38
constantly in the clouds. I love to dream. I love to visualize. I
13:41
love to conceptualize. I love to think of new ideas. I love to
13:44
spitball with people. Bring some all of these things. And when we
13:47
drive down into the details, I get bored with it, and I don't
13:52
like doing all the detail work. But here's the problem, if I
13:56
don't do the detailed work, I can't build that stairway up to
14:00
the clouds. I can, all I can do is sit on the ground and dream
14:03
of what it must be like to be up there. So I must do this in
14:07
order to get that and we, sometimes we make a lot of
14:11
wishes, and we forget that those wishes must have a plan to go
14:16
behind them. I work with a lot of businesses, and sometimes
14:19
business owners set these lofty, lofty, ambitious goals, and
14:25
they're really ambiguous ones. They're really ones that are
14:28
like, I want to be the premier sporting goods store. I want
14:32
people to only turn to us for this type of health care, you
14:36
know? And you set these goals where your audience is everyone,
14:39
so it's no one. Instead of looking about, how can I enjoy
14:43
reputation that is so profound, business is attracted to me. So
14:49
go through that exercise. Get the brain in the habit of
14:52
getting concise, figure out what you have to do to get where
14:56
you're at. Now you might be of the mindset that says, hey, I'm
14:59
terrible at marketing and I'm just really bad at it. Should I
15:02
outsource it? Now, if there's something that you're absolutely
15:06
awful at, I am 100% advocate of outsourcing it so that you can
15:10
do things at your highest and best use. But this is my
15:13
experience every gosh darn time you hire a marketing agency and
15:18
you pay them 15 to $50,000 a year, they're still going to
15:24
come to you and ask the questions I just did a view.
15:28
Who's your target audience. Tell me about your Avatar. Avatar is
15:31
your ideal client, and you're going to give them your dream
15:35
sheet, instead of analytically, going back and saying, All
15:39
right, here's and dump it out. Guys, we love spreadsheets. Do
15:42
it in a spreadsheet and dump all of your clients out. Wm, and
15:46
when you have the data defining who you're working with, oh my
15:50
goodness, and then you can't BS yourself anymore. This isn't
15:53
somebody you're eating rubber chicken with at a conference and
15:56
telling them, oh yeah, this is who I work with. Only dentists,
15:58
but you have two dentists, and most of your people are
16:00
mechanics. You need to sit down and dump that data out and say,
16:04
okay, you know, create all of your socioeconomic backgrounds.
16:08
How many accounts does the average couple have? Are they
16:11
working? Where do they work at? What line of business are they
16:14
in? What is their age demographic? What's their
16:16
household income? Do they have kids? Or do they not have kids?
16:19
What kind of recreational activities do they like to
16:21
participate in? That is one of the most profound referral
16:25
sources I've ever found, is doing things that you enjoy
16:28
doing with your clients. So if you are an active, avid shooter,
16:33
and you love doing shooting things cool, hire a coach,
16:36
invite 10 clients to come to you that might want to learn about
16:39
shooting and go through that program. But if you love
16:42
shooting, but you hate kayaking on the water, you're terrified
16:45
of being on the water, don't plan a boating event. And yes,
16:50
those are social, fun, recreational activities. But
16:53
this can be applicable to everything. If you hate public
16:56
speaking and you're bad at public speaking, don't go buy a
17:00
seminar program and do seminars, because the stuff we're bad at,
17:04
guess how we do it really poorly, and it conveys it looks
17:08
like it, but the stuff that we are happy and excited and
17:11
energized doing, guess what happens? It also can show our
17:15
audience that we're excited and happy and I love to I like to
17:18
cook. I don't know if I love to cook. Maybe I love to cook some
17:21
days, but I really enjoy it, and I love the learning the science
17:24
part about it, you know. So I'll take a lot of classes and a lot
17:27
of memberships and online things, and, you know, do the
17:30
YouTube University and learn about things like I just learned
17:34
that if you have flour and you take a cup and you measure it,
17:36
that it has like a 58 grams. But if you take a fork to that same
17:39
cup of flour and you fluff it, it has 58 and that is what that
17:43
is the sign in the 58 grams on the scale. And that's why it's
17:47
so important to use the gram scale instead of a measuring
17:49
cup, because the measuring cup doesn't allow for the density to
17:52
hit the flour once you start fluffing it with pork. Now
17:55
that's a scientific thing. I have no idea how it dropped 100
17:58
grams of weight. That's That blows my mind that that is
18:01
possible, but that's science, and I get excited about learning
18:04
that kind of stuff, because I don't always understand it, and
18:07
it's brand new information to me. And so if I'm with a group
18:09
of people and I want to learn something, I'm going to hire a
18:12
coach. Maybe they teach me about baking or cooking. I really
18:15
don't like baking, even though I just use that reference. I like
18:17
the science part of it, but this is going to teach me about how
18:20
to make, you know, a brand new dish. And then I want to invite
18:23
five or six people. And guess what? At that event, I can talk.
18:26
I'm not going to make some giant speech. I'm going to say, Hey,
18:28
listen, this was really fun. Thank you so much. And then you
18:31
know what? I know what my guest is going to do. If they're a
18:33
good guest, they're going to go tell other people, oh my gosh, I
18:36
just took this cooking class at blah, blah, blah. Oh, how did
18:38
you hear about that? Well, actually, my financial advisor
18:41
invited me to go attend it. And you know what? That person is
18:44
automatic to because we all do it. We all filter information,
18:48
thinking, how does this apply to me? What does this information
18:51
mean to me? That person is going to go, huh? My financial advisor
18:56
doesn't take me to do things like that. And then they're
18:58
going to say, Well, who do you work with? And it's going to beg
19:01
more questions, and then all of the sin you put your clientele
19:06
in a position of giving you a referral that has nothing to do
19:09
with market performance, or how much you pay or how much you
19:12
charge, all it has to do with this is a good person, and this
19:16
is how they they interact with their clientele. I want to be a
19:19
part of that. I want to be a part of that club. I want to
19:22
feel special and taken care of too. So you'll find this a lot
19:25
of times, especially in your growth stage, center of
19:27
influences, don't know how to refer to you. They don't know
19:31
how to refer to you. And so if you're dealing with accountants
19:34
or attorneys, they feel really uncomfortable referring people.
19:37
They only might refer if the client asks them, like, Hey, do
19:41
you know financial advisor I should work with? Or they might
19:43
be somebody that's in a box professional is going to be
19:46
like, Hey, I've got this really top client, their kid, you know,
19:49
doesn't understand cash flow. Would you sit down and be able
19:52
to work with them? And so you're either going to get no
19:55
referrals, or the type of referrals you don't want to get
19:58
in the first place, because you did nothing to empower that
20:02
center of influence to know how to talk about you. You made it
20:07
awkward and uncomfortable. Instead, invite them to attend
20:10
the cooking class, invite them to do this and maybe talk shop
20:14
in a way that's very generic. Hey, I was just working with a
20:17
client, bob and sue their attorney told them to x, y and
20:19
z, but what they didn't understand was they neglected to
20:22
put any type of Ira language inside of the trust, and they
20:25
would have unintentionally disinherited blah, blah, blah.
20:28
And so you give them a random case study, and now you're
20:31
empowered. Now you're planting a seed, you're planting a seed,
20:34
you're nurturing it, you're watering it, and you're telling
20:37
them their brain, because the brain is always filtering. Going
20:41
to look out for clients that are in similar situations. And so
20:43
the next time they have a client sitting there in front of, Hey,
20:46
I see that you have a bunch of IRA accounts. Who's your
20:49
financial advisor? Oh, we don't have anyone. Well, you know
20:51
what? I work a lot with so and so it might be really great for
20:54
you to take a meeting with them. As a courtesy. They give all of
20:57
my clients one hour of their time. This might be something we
21:01
want to incorporate. We need to teach centers of influence and
21:04
people in our network how to mention us in a way that's not
21:07
awkward. And the best way to do that in the growth stage is
21:11
empowering them to understand what you do, what you do. And
21:16
this is how important this is, because I got this wrong, and I
21:19
started getting a ton of referrals that were totally
21:22
inappropriate for me. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to
21:25
get, you know, I'm going to get in trouble. This is not what I
21:27
do, back up, but the attorney did not have a really good frame
21:31
of reference. So the attorney, you know, I had this business
21:33
venture, and it was outside of the world of securities, and we
21:36
started a practice, and we funded it, and we did all of
21:39
these different things as a different organization, and the
21:42
attorney that I worked with did a lot of our business drafting,
21:44
and said, Hey, we're going to come together. Here's these
21:46
investors that we're going to bring in, blah, blah, blah. And
21:49
so the second I said investors, I gave them the
21:52
misunderstanding, because I was saying, Here's what I'm cutting
21:55
out of my checkbook. This is my investment into the company.
21:58
Here's what it looks like, and this is the equity we're going
22:01
to put in, etc. But the second I use the word investor, this is
22:05
what the attorney got the impression. The attorney got the
22:08
impression that I was going to go out to clients that were
22:11
wealthy and fund other businesses and solicit them
22:14
making a contribution in companies that is 0% what we do
22:19
0% we're not licensed. We're not approved for that. That is not
22:23
what ra up in Anchorage, Alaska does. And so I'll send I got all
22:26
of these referrals from these people that were like, Hey, I'm
22:29
working with this client. You know, they're making between one
22:31
and three which is this stock zone, 1 million to 3 million in
22:33
revenue is the stock zone. And you don't know if you're going
22:36
to get really complacent and happy with that complacency, or
22:39
if you're going to ramp it up and pour some fuel on it and get
22:43
to five to 10 million. Now, a lot of you,
22:47
I would love to be making one to $3 million in revenue. Great
22:50
focus on the growth, focus on the growth side of your
22:54
practice, and you will get there. You will get there if
22:57
you're disciplined and strategic about implementing the advice
23:01
that we're giving you here. But again, if you're just listening
23:05
to the freemium version, and you don't have the hard core
23:09
discipline to implement all of these tactics and give yourself
23:12
a timeline, say you're listening this episode, if by 1231 I have
23:16
not done X, I am hiring The Perfect RIA. I'm signing up for
23:20
one of their memberships. I'm getting my together, and I'm
23:24
going to stop wishing for success and learning as part of
23:27
our membership, all these little lessons, like the one I just
23:31
shared with you, making sure that the people that we are
23:35
networking with know what it is that we do is really, really
23:39
critical. So, you know, I had gotten, gosh, I think it was by
23:42
the fifth referral I got from this attorney. I had to call him
23:46
up and be like, Hey, Chris, love working with you. I must have
23:50
somehow, along the way, give you the impressions. Actually don't
23:54
do that. And this is, these are the people that you could go
23:58
talk to that. He's like, Oh my gosh. I had no idea. I figured
24:02
because these businesses were investments that you would
24:05
handle all types of investments like that. And I was like, You
24:09
know what? I'm happy to work with a business owner. I don't
24:13
go solicit funds for investment, for capital improvements, for
24:17
equity ownership. That's just not what I do. And he's like, Oh
24:21
my gosh, I've been sending you all the wrong kind of people. I
24:25
said, That's okay. I would rather screen it out this way. I
24:28
just didn't want to disappoint you or make you think when
24:32
you're sending somebody to me, I'm just so gosh darn picky. I
24:36
don't want to work with them. I actually cannot work with them
24:40
in that capacity. That capacity. And then we reset the tone of
24:43
it. Now, since I reset the tone of it, guess how many referrals
24:47
I've gotten, 00, because I did not tell him from the beginning
24:51
who it was I worked with, and I waited until that fifth one
24:55
where I'm like, why is he sending me all of these people
24:58
and to refine the process, and then all I did in that situation
25:02
was tell him who I don't work instead of showing him an
25:06
example of who I do work with. So you need to learn those
25:09
lessons and embrace them right away. That is what drinking from
25:13
the fountain of knowledge feels like. They don't have to be your
25:17
experiences for you to feel that thirst is being quenched. So
25:21
once you've narrowed down exactly who you should be
25:24
working with, now you need to focus on the topics that you
25:28
feel you can develop an expertise on. One time, I was
25:31
interviewing for this Business Professionals of America thing,
25:35
and I got this question. I had an interview, do mock interviews
25:39
with people that were graduating from high school, and we got too
25:43
into it, and I said, and they said, is the interview
25:47
conclusion? And I said, Yes. And she said, can I ask you a
25:50
question? I said, absolutely love to be your resource. And
25:54
she said, is it better for me to develop a lot of general
25:58
knowledge in a lot of different fields or become an expert in
26:01
one and that's a great question. And so I said, You know what?
26:05
It's better for you to become an expert in one field, become the
26:09
go to source for this particular subject, because when you're
26:13
becoming an expert, you will get a lot of happenstance knowledge
26:17
naturally. It will come very, very natural. So if I'm focused,
26:21
let's just, let's just say, for example, I'm focused on, I'm
26:25
going to use federal employees. Let's say that my area of
26:28
expertise is the TSP, and I am focused on every single fund and
26:32
how to manage the TSP. What are the rules under the TSP
26:36
Modernization Act, and where do I need to focus? And you can
26:39
change this out for foreign case, whatever you want. So I am
26:43
focused only on this. But guess what? I will subsequently learn
26:47
how, subsequently learn about beneficiaries, annuitization,
26:51
mandatory retirements, when people are eligible service
26:54
transfers. I'm going to start learning all about that tsp and
26:58
as an offshoot, it's going to teach me about a lot of other
27:02
subjects along the way. So if there's an area that you are
27:06
super interested in and people people solve for the wrong
27:09
things. In my opinion, they solve for what is the greatest
27:13
market demand, and it's just such a broad net everyone. What
27:17
is everyone going to solve for that No, find something you
27:20
enjoy learning about and become the absolute expert in that
27:24
industry, and become the go to source for that knowledge, and
27:28
once you feel you've gained a level of expertise, cool, now
27:31
you can move on to a different subject and begin to learn that.
27:35
But that will really, really help you. Sometimes, a lot of
27:39
people, I don't, we don't do this at our practice, because
27:43
one of our rules is solving for joy, and this does not help us
27:47
solve for joy. We don't like it. It's probably the Catholic
27:50
inside of us, but divorce planning. Divorce planning is a
27:54
really, really important aspect of financial planning. It's a
27:58
sometimes underserved market, but it's just a heart wrenching
28:01
one. It's just a heart wrenching one to go through. So we don't
28:05
like to do divorce planning. It's not that our clients don't
28:09
experience divorce or have divorces. We just don't do
28:13
divorce planning, but that is an area that a lot of people can
28:16
really focus on. ESOPs. That's another area people could really
28:20
focus on, what. What are you curious about? What? And what
28:24
would you be passionate about, conveying information. Focus on
28:28
that and then go write all of your content around that. Jamie,
28:32
why would I do that when Google has, you know, 10 million pages
28:36
on this subject, yeah, but looking for 10 million answers,
28:39
they're looking for an expert in their local area who they could
28:43
call and go sit down and have a meeting with and ask questions.
28:47
That's why this works. What works in marketing, everything
28:51
that you're willing to work so when you're in this growth
28:55
stage, that is the only thing that you should be refining. You
28:58
should be refining your client presentations. So clients leave
29:02
that office feeling so gosh darn elated about the conversation
29:06
and value that you delivered that they turn around and and
29:10
refer you to somebody else. And then, second of all, you need to
29:14
be focused on your marketing. And how do you grow your
29:17
practice? How do you get to that next level? And I gave you that
29:21
high level, right? More in the galaxy. Where do you want to
29:25
serve? Area? I want to serve this region. And just like I
29:29
said, draw a circle on a piece of paper. That's how I always
29:32
start this and say, Okay, great. So here's Earth. You're gonna do
29:36
all of Earth. We're doing Africa. We're doing South
29:40
America. No, no. Jamie, this and then just begin to narrow it
29:44
down, because you're trained brain to be more and more
29:47
concise. So no matter where you might think you should measure
29:51
up, there's only three stages in a financial advisor's life.
29:55
There's the growth stage, the freedom stage, and then the
29:58
enterprise stage. That's it. That's where we are at as
30:02
financial advisors. You're either growing your practice and
30:05
you need to concentrate on that growth and revenue and therefore
30:09
getting more clients and perfecting your client delivery
30:13
experience, you're at the freedom stage that says, hey,
30:16
I've got almost all the clients that I need or want. I'm a still
30:20
process, because I absolutely love doing that, but I'm looking
30:24
for more time outside the office. I'm looking for more
30:28
freedom and opportunity to go do other things with my friends and
30:32
family that maybe I had wasn't present for because I was
30:35
grinding gross change. And then you have the enterprise, and the
30:39
enterprise says, Okay, great. You know what? I've founded this
30:43
firm. I did all of these things, but now I'm the freaking
30:47
linchpin. Now I am the linchpin and all of this, because nobody
30:51
can operate at the capacity they need to without me involved. TPR
30:55
nation, this is Jamie Shilanski, in an episode of Worlds to
30:58
Conquer. Go find people who share your values and change the
31:02
world.