IDEAL Plans Ideal Advisors

Towards the end of every year advisors are bombarded with messages from coaching firms about making some key changes that will help you finish the year strong or build a foundation for next year. Those messages are sound but are easy to ignore since most advisors feel they are already doing what they are supposed to be doing. So the best message isn't about making a few tweaks to your business but asking the right question: Are you the advisor you need to be? In this podcast episode, we will address why the events of 2020 have created an opportunity for you to evolve into the advisor your clients need you to be in 2021 and beyond. There has never been a year quite like 2020. All the turmoil has reinforced an old rule of thumb that the more crazy things are, the more likely clients want advice from financial advisors. Now consider all the changes that are coming in 2021. Some will affect everyone but some will have an outsized impact on certain people. It is this difference that creates your opportunity. Are you prepared? If you aren't sure, listen to this episode. We'll discuss how to take an objective view of your business to see if you are positioned to deliver the advice your clients need so much.

We are an aging industry. Studies show the average age of a financial advisor is 50 years old, with some 45% over the age of 55. In fact, close to 40% of advisors are likely to retire in the next ten years. So there is an existential threat to our industry and there could be a very real personal threat to your ability to attract a viable successor. This episode is focused on how you can attract and support new advisors to your practice. There are numerous benefits to you for adding someone, not the least of which is a successor. Many advisors are simply looking to improve their own business or they may be looking to create a larger organization (the OSJ model). Some benefits to adding new advisors are enhanced scale, depth, revenue, competitiveness, or even access to new markets. By listening to this podcast you will learn the steps to determine which kind of advisor to attract, what you should expect from them, what they should expect from you, and how to make the final hiring decision so you can have a more profitable and survivable business.

An ideal advisory practice is one where you serve the clients you want, the way you want, while living the lifestyle you desire. Sounds good right? But how do you do it? There are lots of possible solutions, many of which sounds too good to be true. "Join our coaching program and you will be an elite advisor!" Or "Sign up with us and all your dreams can come true!" You don't need sales pitches. You need an honest approach. This episode will explore how you can take an honest, no-nonsense approach to uncovering exactly what you need to achieve YOUR vision of an ideal advisory practice.

Advisors are always wondering how best to speak with a prospective client. They often meet or know plenty of possible ideal prospects, but they don't know how to strike up a conversation that will generate an appointment. They don't want to sound too salesy or blunt but they know they can't convert a prospect to a client without getting that first "yes". The answer is to master your conversational marketing. Conversational marketing has two meanings in today's world. One is the technology application of a chat box on a website. The other is the actual words that come out of your mouth. This podcast is focused on how the words you say will empower your prospective clients to say yes to meeting with you. So we will explore how to create a conversation that will lead to that appointment. You will learn how to lay the foundation of your CTA (Call to Action) by clearly articulating whom you serve, what you do, how you do it, and why you do it. You'll also learn how to create an emotionally powerful personal story that will help your prospects understand why they should work with you.

Clients are the most valuable asset of any business. Many of the best run companies work tirelessly to improve their client experience since that is one of the best ways to compete in the marketplace. Potential investment clients have plenty of options. For the vast majority of clients, they can pretty much get whatever they need from just about anybody in the industry. So why should they pick you? When everybody is selling the same things, you have to do something special to stand out. On top of that, we face fee compression and an ever evolving threat from robo-advisors. So what are you doing to ensure your clients are loyal advocates while encouraging new clients to engage? In this episode we'll explore how you can co-create your client experience with the people who matter most - your clients. We will discuss how you can identify some of the key themes that will drive new levels of loyalty and advocacy. Ultimately, you can learn from your clients exactly how to deliver what they truly want from you.

Partnerships can drive financial practices to new heights of success. They can also be very stressful and damaging to the participants if there isn’t a high degree of compatibility and alignment. There are many reasons you should have a partnership such as scalability, enhanced business value, and leveraging of different resources and skill sets. No matter the motivation for having the partnership there are many factors that go into forming, maintaining, and optimizing it. In this podcast we'll explore how to optimize your partnership so that you can effectively execute your shared business vision. You will do this by identifying and then solving the key issues that can damage a partnership - communication, personality, and motivation.

In honor of Labor Day, this episode will address how to create an optimal balance between your work and your life. Many advisors struggle creating real balance between their work and their life. Reasons vary but the big one is simply not accomplishing what they want in their business. This can lead to regret or a sense of guilt. Many will then compensate for their work by taking away time from their personal life. The best way to stop feeling guilty about not getting enough done at work is obvious - create an ideal work week! This episode will discuss how you can create that perfect, ideal week where you accomplish everything you set out to do. Then we'll talk about how you can reallocate time and energy in the other parts of your life that are so important - family, health, friends, community, personal growth, and any passions and interests you may have. After all, you don't live to work, you work to live.

We take great pleasure in announcing that all of our tools and coaching resources are fully integrated into our state of the art learning management system and available online through our website! The IDEAL Plan Builder © is an interactive and instructive program that creates personalized IDEAL Plans for financial advisors to achieve their vision of an ideal advisory practice. An ideal advisory practice is one where you can serve the kinds of clients you want, the way you want, while living the lifestyle you desire. The Builder takes advisors through the IDEAL Plan Process ©: Identify where you are now and where you want to go Determine your business model and possible adjustments Evaluate your skills in Critical Business Elements Assess optimal strategies based on your skills and priorities Leverage resources in sequence to achieve goals You will receive your unique plan immediately. Then you can choose to implement the plan on your own or with our help though our online only courses or our immersion coaching engagement.

Clients have needs and aspirations they can't put a price tag on. Client's attitudes towards their own longevity, health care, elder care, career, charity, community, spirituality, and legacy all lack a dollar value. These areas, and possible many more, are all very important yet cannot be solved purely through a quantitative or numbers-based approach. This mismatch creates an opportunity for a wealth manager to use a qualitative approach. To solve non-numeric issues you need to ask the right questions and coordinate different disciplines of knowledge. However, you may not have all the required knowledge to solve every need. So assemble and coordinate a team of experts in the different complementary services your clients require. By listening to this episode, you will learn how to identify those life issues, how you can work with other experts, and why your clients will appreciate you going above and beyond the empirical to help them. Not only does this approach work to help your clients, it helps you development more revenue while enhancing your position in the marketplace. Coordinating complementary services is not something the "robo-advisors" are going to duplicate anytime soon.

Today's wealth management has evolved far past its origins in financial planning. Clients have more than one advisor in their life because they have more than just investment needs. Regardless of their overall net worth, many clients have a CPA, have used an attorney at some point, they may have a relationship with an insurance agent, and they could have other people giving them advice in other areas that are not traditionally financial. The problem is they could be missing out on advice because they lack a central knowledgeable figure who coordinates everything. Here is the opportunity for today's wealth manager. Imagine if you could be the person at the center of every element of your client's financial life. You can and should be asking your clients and prospective clients about everything that is important to them and then probe to uncover what other issues may affect their overall health and wealth. They could have a very strong need for guidance on health and wellness, elder care, longevity, career or business, sense of charity, and other things that matter. You may not consider all those topics to be purely financial - that is OK. But they are important to your client and that should make them important to you. So in this episode, we'll explore how you can discover these issues and how you can be that central figure in your clients' lives. And here is the kicker. This kind of wealth management service can help anybody - not just the super-rich.

Becoming a "Go-to" advisor is about becoming an expert. Advisors can become experts by publishing on social media. Many of the most successful advisors today have established a very robust social media presence as they know potential clients want to read about you online before making any decisions. So, what do they wish to see from you? Research supports that investors expect you to be highly competent, or even have expert status in knowing and solving their challenges, and they want to see proof. If they can't find proof of your competency there is good chance you never will speak with them. That is what makes social media so powerful today. In last week's episode we talked about how you can interview your clients and Centers of Influence in the market you are targeting. The knowledge you gain in those interviews can easily be written about in blogs, podcasts, articles, postings, etc. in your social media platforms. So, you have plenty of opportunities to become an expert. You just need the platform. By listening to this episode you will learn how to determine which platforms you should use to reach your target. We will share some insights on the different platforms, and we'll discuss the steps for testing and enhancing the effectiveness of your publishing campaigns. Taken together, this show will help you on your journey to becoming the "Go-to" advisor in your marketplace.

A "go-to" advisor is an expert to a particular group of people. It is worthwhile to become an expert as studies show people are far more likely to hire a financial advisor if they feel that person is an expert at solving their problems and challenges. So how do you become an expert? It is easier than you'd think. Just ask the right questions. By listening to this episode you will learn how one advisor is positioning himself as the "go-to" advisor to the construction trade by gaining insights into their behavior. We'll discuss how he identified a Center of Influence within that target to learn about the mistakes people in that group often make. If you know what mistakes your target audience makes, you too will be able to position yourself as the advisor best suited to solve your ideal clients' challenges. Then you will be able to mobilize your newfound expert status to everyone in your target audience and to all the professionals who share your passion for that market. You just need to ask the right questions and you are on your way.

In the last episode we provided financial advisors the steps to create an impactful and meaning message that would resonate with their ideal clients. In this episode we will explore how to maximize the value of that message by ensuring your public understands your brand, your value, and your mission. It is not a big surprise that many clients really don't know how to talk about their financial advisor. For many people, and advisor is simply an generic term for anyone who provides financial advice. But that is doing a huge disservice to both the client and their circle of friends and colleagues. If clients understand exactly what you can do for them and why your role in their life is so important they may take full advantage of what you can do for them. And - they may become an advocate by sharing your message with the people they care about. The stakes are that high.

Many advisors struggle to differentiate themselves in this hyper-competitive world. Without a clear message or identifier it will be even harder for you to attract the exact kind of ideal clients you wish to serve. So in this episode we'll explore the steps you need to follow to create a meaningful message that will attract the right clients. You'll learn that your best allies are your own clients. They can help you understand what is most important to them and how the value you bring could make a huge difference to other people just like them. With that knowledge in hand you can take the next steps to assemble that message. What's more is that your own clients and Centers of Influence can become effective advocates to mobilize your new message. Taken together, these steps could transform your brand from a bland, generic financial advisory offer to an impactful, targeted message that resonates with the people you wish to serve.

In this episode we'll explore what are the key building blocks to a fully optimized business - one that you can fully enjoy and that has tremendous value! Topics include: working with partners, supporting new advisors, staffing, exit planning, profitability assessment of your service matrix, maximizing business value, and optimizing your work/life balance. By listening to this podcast you'll be able to take stock of your business. When you know what needs to be improved you'll be more confident to take action. If you take action you can see your vision of an ideal advisory practice become your reality.

In this episode we'll explore how you can reset your relationships with your clients given the changes we all have been going through in 2020. There are a number of ways to make a much bigger impact on your clients simply by the way you work with them. Topics include creating a "wow" engagement, the 1st 100 days communication, client feedback, intergenerational client retention, and big money events. By listening to this podcast you will hear that by focusing on your clients' lifestyle, passions, and relationships you can learn how to serve them best. We will also explore the nature of the business model that works best in fostering an incredible client relationship. 2020 has been challenging to say the least. So why not learn how best to make an enormous impact on your clients? The tactics and strategies we'll explore can help you finish this year strong and lay the foundation with your clients for a fantastic 2021.

In this episode we'll interview Mark Lamb, a wealth manager in the heart of Silicon Valley - San Jose, CA. Many clients simply expect you to have a great technology platform - commonly known as a tech stack. But no one knows technology better - or has higher expectations - than the people who live in the birthplace of Apple, Google, Facebook, Netflix, and many more leading technology companies. Mark will talk about which systems he uses and how they provide the foundation for his service model. He'll also discuss how he goes beyond the technology in his ability to connect with his clients through his 5 Point Discovery Process. Listening to this podcast may inspire you to combine great use of technology and personal connection to fuel your business growth.

In this episode we'll interview Efrain Trujillo, a wealth manager in Los Angeles. Efrain grew up speaking Spanish which gave him perspective and inspiration to represent his heritage as a financial advisor and to serve the large Spanish speaking population. After graduating from USC with a degree in finance, he literally began his career working in the mail room of branch office of a major wire-house firm. Turns out that was a great move as it allowed him to learn all about how the industry actually works - and how to get things done for your clients. He learned so much that by age 26 he became a branch manager himself. By listening to this episode you may be inspired by how he uses his technical expertise to serve his clients and to shorten the distance between himself and his clients both in the US and in Mexico.

In this episode we'll talk about Decisive Business Development. As the coronavirus pandemic unfolds, financial advisors have a choice to make: play defense and wait for the crisis to pass or step up and position themselves for substantial growth as this crisis fades. We will discuss just three things: what to say to your clients during this unprecedented time that will help you better understand how to help them, how to reach out to other professionals to help them with their marketing, and how you can tie it all together by doing webinars that will drive in new business.

In this episode we'll interview Scott Brantingson, Sr., of Monocacy Wealth Partners of Bethlehem, PA. Scott is an industry veteran with over 30 years experience as a branch manager and wealth manager. He will share with us how and why he decided to leave a very lucrative branch management role to start his own wealth management firm with his son Scott, Jr. By listening to this episode you will learn how they have evolved their client engagement and operational practices. He will talk about how those changes have made it easier for prospective clients to understand the value they deliver and how they help current client feel emboldened to make referrals. And lastly, Scott will discuss some of the of the biggest challenges any family run wealth management firms may face: how to create an equitable division of labor and responsibility between the generations, provide a clear career path and room for growth, and ultimately how best to support each other and their clients in good times and bad.