Takeaways from Magellan Momentum 2022 (Part 1) – 5 Traits of the Most Successful Advisors
As many of you are aware, Magellan just hosted our top producer summit, last week, called Momentum. We certainly appreciate everyone who joined us and we are looking forward to that event growing and getting better each and every year as we add new top producers and continue to grow with the ones who have been great partners for us over the years.
Although we had a lot of fun celebrating all of the successes from 2021, we also had tremendous business meetings where I found myself in the back of the room vigorously taking notes trying to keep up with all of the amazing information and insights being shared by each and every speaker on stage so that I could come back and share with all of you. So for the next week or so, I am going to break down and share with everyone the most important takeaways I had from this event in the hopes that they will also allow you to jumpstart your “Momentum” in 2022 and beyond!
Our very first speaker was none other than the Chief Distribution Officer at Foundations Investment Advisors, Dan Biagini. Dan shared his insight on what 5 traits all of our top advisors had in common. They went as follows:
They Compete on Value
The biggest companies in the world are spending millions of dollars to create awareness of their products and market their brand. What the company reaps from this expenditure can make or break it. Your company brand is more than the products or services that you sell. It is what you stand for. Your company logo, products, website, or marketing campaigns may change with time, but your brand value must always remain the consistent.
Where most advisors miss the mark on value proposition is they make the mistake in thinking that value proposition is about them. When in contrast, they should be thinking about their clients because it is about them. Stop flexing about your personal numbers and start talking about the experience that people actually have as your client!
The service you provide is a commodity but the feelings about the service are what make you valuable.
They Build a Culture
If 2021 taught us anything, it’s that nurturing your firm’s culture and putting greater emphasis on collaboration are more important tools than ever for elevating your practice. Focusing on these areas can bring tangible benefits to your client relationships, and that’s increasingly important in a wealth industry where the need to deliver superior value to clients is now omnipresent.
No matter the size of your firm, whether it is two people or 10, everyone performs better when they feel part of the business.
· Is work done in silos? Are you sharing what works and what doesn’t on a regular, planful basis?
· Are the right people doing the right tasks based on their strengths and what they enjoy doing? If this is true, the service they deliver will be at its best, too.
· Do you take time to celebrate or share “wins”?
· Do you talk about work-life harmony and/or find tangible ways to encourage it? Whether it’s remote arrangements, early closing on Friday during the summer, or a volunteer day for community support, look for ways to be kind to yourself and your colleagues and allow for life enrichment.
Your practice’s culture is something that you get to develop to be uniquely yours and it is something that cannot be taken away.
They Eliminate Roadblocks
This one is really super simple but requires some thought on your part. What I want to do here is share some incredible examples of companies who have figured out how to eliminate the roadblocks for clients to do business with them so that you can internalize and figure out how to add things like these to your practice
1. Amazon – If you haven’t ever purchased something from Amazon (I find that hard to believe 😊) you might not know what Im going to refer to here but, if you have, you will notice that there are two options for purchasing that item.
a. Add To Cart – “I need to ask my wife/husband before I buy”
b. Buy Now – “I’ll ask for forgiveness later”
As you can see, Amazon removed a major roadblock for consumers by adding option B
2. Bomb Bomb – Many Financial Advisors are familiar with this video email delivery service. They eliminated a roadblock for advisors by giving them a way to send a video email that doesn’t direct the recipient to a separate playback service. The video plays right in the email window making the ease of access a top priority
Think about what you can do to help a client avoid as many barriers or roadblocks that would stop them from doing business with you and create a better experience overall.
They Know Their Numbers
Do NOT do another seminar or radio show until you read this email. Here's the deal. All the normal numbers are important like:
· What percentage of prospects that meet with you become clients?
· What is your average case size?
· What is the ROI on each of your marketing funnels individually?
Honestly, your numbers should go so much deeper than that.
· How does your response rate different from this restaurant or that one?
· How does your response rate differ from the seminar topic on the invitation?
· What marketing funnel tends to give you the highest net-worth people?
· How does that affect your closing ratio?
· What percentage of your revenue comes from Seminars? Radio? TV?
There is so much valuable information at your finger-tips, but you have to take the time to tap into it and use it in your business. I know, it’s not easy and takes time. Because of this, a lot of producers fail to do it altogether.
I know, I’ve heard it all...”marketing isn’t working like it used to”...”results aren’t worth the cost”, and so on. No matter what you are telling yourself, none of that is the truth unless you really know your numbers.
They Implement
Is it possible you are limiting your own success due to beliefs that you have adopted?
What excuses are you telling yourself? Are they really a problem, or just serving as a mental barrier and preventing you from taking the action you want and need?
I’ve heard it all…
· My market is too small and people don’t respond to my marketing like in other areas
· My market is over-saturated and way too competitive
· My clients don’t have as much money as they do in other areas
· We don’t have as strong of products in our area, it’s much harder to sell
“If only, this wasn’t a problem, I could take more action and do more business…”
Successful advisors abolish these limitations that they put on themselves and give themselves permission to take more action to overcome these barriers. The barriers are only getting in the way, creating fear for them, and holding them back. They take good ideas and direction and they run with it!
Obviously successful financial advisors can encompass a wide array of character traits. We’ve found these five traits of successful financial advisors above to be particularly important to the most lucrative Magellan producers that we work with. Stay tuned for part 2 and beyond, I’m excited to share the week we had with all of you!
-Trent Martin
Gaining Instant Trust
Selling aggressively and fast using manipulative selling tactics has always been the moral for sales professionals, and for good reason. These traditional selling techniques have generated a substantial amount of commissions. At the same time, however, these tactics have also created deep levels of mistrust, driving public opinion of financial professionals to an all-time low.
The old school style of selling is more prevalent than one might think. Even highly respected companies like Standard Life, in June 2012, had to disavow a memo sent by financial advisors suggesting that they push products that generate higher commissions and fees. Almost every consumer has a story of how they were pressured or misled into buying something that wasn’t necessarily in their best interests. It’s a major reason we are seeing the changes brought on by the DOL today!
In my world, this selling approach is not only unethical, but ultimately self-defeating. In fact, my experiences lead me to an interesting conclusion: Today’s more sophisticated, educated and wiser consumer is demanding a different way of doing business. I discovered, especially with the leading edge of boomer consumers, that they don't want any part of old school selling. They don’t want somebody ‘closing’ them, probing them, warming them up, or digging to find their hot buttons. To be better, we have to figure out a different way to sell, a way that has no ‘selling’ in it, yet could make more sales. A method that builds instant trust. A non-selling, selling system. Many of what you read on this site will focus on exactly that approach.
In client meetings, it is so important to place the majority of the emphasis on how a change in finances can improve the client’s quality of life rather than placing it on growth and performance numbers or product features and benefits.
Most financial professionals think they're in the business of helping people with money, but that's really not what the client is there for. A better sales approach involves checking on your clients' reactions to different investment options. When you suggest a new strategy, you should be wondering, “Will using this product or employing that strategy improve your life?” At the end of the day, you can tell your clients that if what you suggest doesn’t improve their quality of life, then they shouldn’t do it and that they are ok to move on to something else! Where have they ever heard something like this??
As advisors, we want to be keenly aware of each client’s emotions because I believe that all sales are the result of the clients’ inner drive to relieve themselves of painful emotions or to satisfy emotions yet unfulfilled. For example, a big part of providing greater quality of life is ensuring that clients feel secure, relieving their fears about their money and their future. Clients are absolutely petrified of the economy, of politics, of institutions, and of the world economy affecting us. Bottom line, they want that fear to go away. If your strategies relieve that fear, they will buy, and they will do so without you ever having to manipulate them into some artificial closing situation.
-Trent Martin
Managing Negative Annuity PR
So picture this… Your brand new prospect marches into your office, reaches exasperatedly into their bag, pulls out a magazine and says, “Well, I was going to buy that annuity but I just read this nasty article in Money magazine that scared the daylights out of me. Why on earth would you recommend something like this for me? I thought I could really trust you!” At which point they plant the article, which ripped indexed annuities (IAs), squarely in front of you.
You’re obviously stunned while a stream of images, a veritable history of negative articles about indexed annuities, goes through your head — Forbes magazine, The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, FINRA, the SEC and now Money magazine. “What on earth was going on here,” you say to yourself. “And, what on earth should you say?”
Your brain starts to sift through your options. You decide that the best option is to take a moment to regroup. You say, “Just let me glance through this article for a moment to see what it says.”
Now, it doesn’t matter the veracity of any article and it doesn’t matter the product in question. When clients receive negative input from seemingly “reliable” sources, it becomes a huge issue in the selling process. Your client’s article is no different. You know, of course, what this article was going to say. And you also know, because of that article, that your sale is in great jeopardy; that your status as a reliable financial professional, in your client’s eyes, was tenuous at best and failing fast.
For better or worse, the written word is very powerful; sometimes it is much more powerful than we recognize or are willing to admit, especially when it’s negative. Once something is in writing, most people unconsciously will endow it with the absoluteness of truth. Even though an article might be misleading or biased, the fact that it is written lends it great credence and authenticity. And if the article is written cleverly, peppered with threads of truth (as many in our industry are), dealing with it is far more difficult.
OK, back to our current client situation. You can feel your reaction, immediate and powerful, a defense bubbling and boiling up and wanting to erupt from your lips (see if this looks familiar): “Mr./Mrs. Client, this just isn’t true. They’re not telling the whole story; they really don’t understand how indexed annuities work. Look at this here, that’s just a lot of you-know-what. That statement there is an exaggeration. And over here, it’s just not going to happen that way. And, this paragraph here is totally insignificant. An indexed annuity is a great product. Look what it can do for you. See how it fits your goals and how it delivers what you are looking for? And here are a whole bunch of articles that say just the opposite: how good these annuities really are. Let’s review it again, OK? I think you’ll be fine after that.” It takes all of your willpower to keep your mouth shut and your thoughts to yourself.
We’ve all been there and done that — tried to defend our products. And what are the results? When we fall into a defensive mode, clients tend to dig their heels in deeper. The more we defend, the more they seem to doubt us and the more they believe the article. I’ve seen trust erode quickly, replaced by a battle between advisors and the article. Defending is a strategy that has rarely worked for advisors, which is why my first rule is never to defend.
My First Rule: Never, Ever, Defend
Now, there’s a little voice going through your head saying, “Whoa! You don’t want me to set all that nonsense straight? No way! The best defense is a good offense! Somebody has to set the record straight! Chances are that I’m going to lose the sale anyway, so I might as well go down fighting!” And so on and so on.
The fact is, the little voice in your head, which sounds so logical and sincere, and so reasonable, is just your old caveman instinct to survive showing its fighting face — a fight-or-flight reaction deeply embedded in your DNA that worked well in the days of hunting and gathering, but is totally out of place in this modern era. When you see it rear its ugly head, screaming at you to go into defensive mode in a sales meeting with a client, you need to immediately cut its energy off and just stop defending. You will soon see that your best defense is no defense. Just the opposite of what your little voice is telling you.
OK, you stopped. Now what? If you’re not going to defend, then the only other choice is to agree. And that’s my second rule: to always agree.
My Second Rule: Always Agree, No Matter What
Now, just sit there and say to your client something like this, “Yup, that’s true; yup, that could happen; yup, that’s certainly possible; yup, yup, yup.”
After all your “yups” are done, sit back, look at your client and as sincerely as you can (because you are about to say the truth), say, “Wow, that’s a lot of stuff. After hearing all that, I can absolutely understand the decision not to buy one of these.” Then, pause and let that sink in. It’s absolutely not what your client expected to hear from you.
When clients give you negative articles (or any negative message for that matter), they expect you to defend and try to convince them otherwise. Because we know that’s their strategy, it would be in your (and their) best interest to do something extraordinary, something that short-circuits their negative thinking. So, we agree! But, that’s still not enough. We then need to take it further than that. And that’s my third rule: to always go negative.
My Third Rule: Always Go Negative
We agree with our clients, but we need to go further than they expect — to the point where we say to them that if all that negativity is true, we wouldn’t buy either. Instead of creating a battle, we go negative with these clients and align ourselves with their thinking. Both of you are now sitting at the table looking at the article, agreeing that, based on the article, you both wouldn’t buy it. Clients don’t know what to do with that.
Then, we go one step further and actually get more negative than these clients do. If they’re upset, we get more upset than they are; we get more negative than they are. What happens next is remarkable. Seeing you so upset actually motivates your clients to bail you out, to rescue you. They actually begin to minimize that negativity of the article, all by themselves. They will say something like, “Trent, it’s not that bad. I think you’re overreacting. You know, lots of these articles are just written to sell magazines.”
Now you can say to Mr./Mrs. Client, “Gee, maybe I did overreact. Where do you think we should go from here?” And this leads to my fourth rule, which is to reverse roles.
My Fourth Rule: Always Reverse Roles
Your client will answer your question of where to go next with something like, “Well, I don’t know. Like I said, they can’t be all that bad. When you showed them to me there were things that I did like: the guarantees, the income in the future, doing better than my CDs, the fact that I couldn’t lose. I guess I’m still interested but I just don’t know who to believe.”
Now, look what’s happened. Our roles have reversed. Your client is now selling you on the benefits of indexed annuities, instead of you selling him/her. They are disqualifying elements of the article themselves. All you did was be honest with them, align yourself with their thinking, open a different door by going more negative and let them walk through it. Once the roles have been reversed, you will regain control of the meeting. Negative articles about your product rip control of the meeting process out of your hands. Having your clients sell you (and themselves) puts that control back.
Now you can really open up and say more of what you wanted to say in the first place. Why? Because your client feels heard, understood and respected. “Mr./Mrs, Client, I don’t know what to tell you. The problem is that there is a grain of truth in everything that’s being written here. There are surrender charges. There are caps. They can be confusing. There are some poorly designed products and, I might add, poorly trained salespeople.”
After taking another breath, you add, “How can I possibly defend this product other than to say that it has worked well for millions of people and the author of this article doesn’t say that anywhere. He would make it sound like all those folks were duped and that the division of insurance in every state in the union would permit their constituents to be ripped off. I don’t know about you, but that just doesn’t register for me. Based on all that, what makes sense to you?”
If said genuinely, your clients, invariably, will agree with you. But that still won’t allay their fears or supplant the power of the written word. There will continue to be a part of them that is still very wary. You address this by bringing it right to the table, “Folks, if I’m sitting in your shoes I would be totally confused and very wary, as well you should be, right? And, if I were you, I would have two choices. The first is to toss the potential of using this product out the window and go in a different direction. The second would be to remain open-minded and learn more, especially how significant, or insignificant, all these threads of truth really are. I’m good either way. So, what will it be?”
More than 90 percent of time, your clients will ask you to review the product again, and eventually buy.
Conclusion
By getting out of a knee-jerk, defensive mode (which clients expect), the power of the written word is diffused. Without a defense, there cannot be an offense, and vice versa. Columnists thrive on controversy, and it is that controversy that empowers their words. When you take controversy off the table and substitute it with a healthy dose of collaboration, then power and control will align with you, taking you from the back to the head of the class.
Remember, the more popular you, your preferred product, your service and what you stand for become, the more negative PR will rise to try and tear it down. No person, product or service is exempt. Mutual funds, variable annuities, gold, ETFs, options, bonds, REITs, stocks, banks, insurance companies, indexed annuities, Wall Street and even CDs have all had, and will continue to have, their share of negative PR.
Negative PR is directly correlated to popularity. So, instead of moaning and groaning, fighting and defending, and getting into a battle of your articles versus theirs, learn to harness and reprogram yourself. Follow the four rules I’ve given here and your clients will turn themselves around by themselves. When that happens, they win, you win and life is really good.
Developing a Strong Call to Action
Is your call to action speaking to the right people? Are you specific enough? Are you making it easy to work with you?
Watch the best of the best give their CTA’s in the video below:
Setting Proper Goals
It’s that time of year! Time to start setting your goals for the new year. Here are the best ways I have found to do that!
Is Your Marketing Message Sticking?
Take a hard look at your marketing message and how you deliver it at your seminars. Is it getting lost in the visuals? Deliver something from the heart and from a place of passion and you will increase your return!
The Importance of “Disqualification”
Sales reps don’t want to disqualify leads. Even if a lead doesn’t initially look like a winner, they still want to give it their best shot. They presume they have ability to show the true value of the product, to find the need for the client and — ultimately — close the deal.
Even if they can’t close every deal, the thinking goes that the more opportunity there is in the top of the funnel, the more there will be at the bottom, leading to more revenue.
But this mindset can be devastating for company and reps alike. It means hours of wasted time chasing bad leads, which results in less time focused on each individual prospect, which means less revenue for your company. Chasing every lead means that you aren’t fully focused on making your prospective customers, or your sales team successful, successful.
Here is why it’s crucial that you start a disqualification process within your sales and marketing team, and how you can set it up to make sure everyone wins.
First Meeting Mastery
This workbook will be the guide to you becoming a First Meeting Master!
The Daily Big 6
By 1918, Charles M. Schwab was one of the richest men in the world.
Schwab was the president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the largest shipbuilder and the second-largest steel producer in America at the time. The famous inventor Thomas Edison once referred to Schwab as the “master hustler.” He was constantly seeking an edge over the competition.
One day in 1918, in his quest to increase the efficiency of his team and discover better ways to get things done, Schwab arranged a meeting with a highly-respected productivity consultant named Ivy Lee.
Lee was a successful businessman in his own right and is widely remembered as a pioneer in the field of public relations. As the story goes, Schwab brought Lee into his office and said, “Show me a way to get more things done.”
“Give me 15 minutes with each of your executives,” Lee replied.
“How much will it cost me,” Schwab asked.
“Nothing,” Lee said. “Unless it works. After six weeks, you can send me a check for whatever you feel it's worth to you.”
The Ivy Lee Method (The Daily Big 6)
During his 15 minutes with each executive, Ivy Lee explained his simple daily routine for achieving peak productivity:
At the end of each work day, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks.
Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
When you arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task.
Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.
Repeat this process every working day.
The strategy sounded simple, but Schwab and his executive team at Bethlehem Steel gave it a try. After six weeks, Schwab was so delighted with the progress his company had made that he sent a letter to Lee and wrote him a check for $25,000.
A $25,000 check written in 1918 is the equivalent of a $400,000 check in 2015.
The Ivy Lee Method of prioritizing your to-do list seems stupidly simple. How could something this simple be worth so much?
Why Does The Daily Big 6 Method Work?
The Daily Big 6 is a 100-year old strategy for helping people get more done at work.
The productivity hack works because it’s very simple to do. It saves you time and it forces you to make decisions, prioritise and focus.
The most important thing to remember is to do your most important task first thing in the morning.
This is also known as “eating the frog”.
“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
Mark Twain
Why 2 Million Dollars Could Make Your Clients Anxious
As we continue delving deeper and deeper into the financial picture of retirees and pre-retirees, the psychology behind how people think about retirement is really interesting. A mentor of mine once told me that we should “retire” the word retirement as it doesn’t mean much anymore with the changing landscape of work, family, and the economy. In fact, there have been several studies that suggest the majority of individuals working today will probably continue working into retirement.
“What’s My Number” Mentality:
If you jump online and Google retirement savings, or watch some of these financial planning infomercials on TV, you will be hammered over the head with a philosophy concentrated on “what’s my number” as it pertains to retiring in the future. Basically, what they are suggesting to you (and your clients) is that there is a specific amount of money you will need in the bank on the day you stop working to continue to provide you with the income you need to live out those Golden Years.
I am convinced that this type of planning is both flawed and old fashioned. I submit to you that if you help your clients plan out this specific “number” and they actually hit it, you will stick them in a corner that could cause some serious paranoia as they age through retirement. I believe that there needs to be a serious shift in mindset from the old fashioned “what’s my number” philosophy to the more important “what’s my paycheck” mentality.
Let’s put this into perspective. You truly work hard at your job and you begin to achieve some serious success. You are socking away the maximum in your 401k plan, take the company match, and maybe get some nice stock options for 20, maybe 30, years. Your money is, of course, invested wisely and you achieve a reasonable rate of return. Your financial advisor runs all of your projections and sets you a goal of $2,000,000. They tell you that, when you reach that number, as long as you use a certain withdrawal rate, you will never run out of money.
On the surface you might think, “This sounds great! What’s wrong with that analysis?” The truth is, advisors are missing a very important item that should absolutely be discussed—when you achieve this level of success and hit your number, you are 100% guaranteed to spend down your assets—sending you on a psychological roller-coaster.
In the first few years you may experience a sense of euphoria—maybe even spend more money than you would in normal years because you want to check off some items on your bucket list. After you come back down from the clouds, you will start to withdraw money at the reasonable spend down rate, but this is where the problem lies.
When people work their whole lives building up a capital base (their “number”), it upsets them when they see their assets balance go down. Logically, they understand that this money was built up for this very purpose, but it becomes nearly impossible for them to just sit and watch it run down. This is why, often times, you will hear people say that the wealthier people in the world can also be the some of the cheapest. The reason: massive fear of this cherished money slipping from their hands.
The Retirement Lifestyle Shift:
So what do most retirees do when this phenomenon starts to sink in? You guessed it—they begin to downsize their lifestyle—to the point where their investment balances remain stable. In my mind, this is actually counter intuitive to what should be happening.
You worked your whole life to build up these assets so that you can enjoy everything in retirement and do the things you want to do. Instead, folks become frantic, thinking that every single month they are going to start running out of money. Who would have thought that the success of hitting that “number” could actually be devastating to your retirement down the road?
A New Mentality:
This is why, as advisors helping cleints plan for retirement, we should start to understand that all of our discussions with clients should revolve around the notion of “what’s your paycheck” and forget all about “what’s your number.” In my experience, working with dozens of advisors, I have noticed that the happiest people they get a chance to meet with for the first time are teachers, government workers, and others who have the luxury of receiving a steady pension from their former employers. They don’t have to think as much about the market or the statements they receive in the mail each month.
To us, this means that as you plan for your clients’ retirement you should strongly consider how much of their assets you can earmark to give them real, pension like, paychecks for the rest of their lives. There are many types of products that can solve this part of the equation, all being some sort of annuity.
The good news is that your clients should be familiar with these types of products as they (knowingly or not) already own one—Social Security (a paycheck that continues for life)! Annuities may work in a plan, and they may not. That is why it is important to work with your clients to determine where they might fit in the framework of thier entire financial picture.
One Final Question:
If you were to ask your clients and prospects, “If you had 3 million dollars in your accounts when you retire, do you think you would be happy?” I would venture to say that the vast majority of them would unequivocally say yes. However, I also submit to you that 10 years into retirement, emotions would take over and they might start agonizing about those account balances every day.
Ask them to picture themselves living in a beautiful location where they always wanted to retire, but all the while missing out on those things they promised themselves they would be doing in retirement because they’re glued to their iPad or TV worrying about what the markets are doing or watching account balances like a hawk.
Start to consider that notion of retirement being about a paycheck and not just about a lump sum. If they know the check was in the mail every month, how much fun would they have? How many of those bucket list items would they be checking off? Think of what this would do for your business in terms of client satisfaction and referrals. It’s time to shift our focus.
The Retirement Plan “Fitting Process”
If you have read my blog posts in the past, you will undoubtedly know that I am a total nut about the game of golf. In fact, I even made a living at it for a brief part of my life after college. As a competitive golfer, I was perpetually looking for opportunities to improve my game. This is where golf club fitting came in.
Without a properly fit set of clubs, a golfer’s swing and mechanical changes may fail to reach the desired outcomes. Playing with ill-fitting equipment can undermine even the most talented athletes in the world—in all sports, not just golf.
Now, if you’re also a golf fan you will know the name David Leadbetter. David is a world renowned golf instructor and has taught some of the very best players in the world. David had this to say about club fitting, “It never ceases to amaze me that golfers buy clubs off the shelf and assume they’re right for them. Whether you’re a great golfer or a casual one, getting a custom club fitting is one of the quickest ways to improve your game.”
I bet you can already see where I’m headed with this one! Building a retirement plan is much like building your new set of golf clubs. You can’t just buy products off the shelf and hope that they will fit your needs and goals. People come in all shapes and sizes and each one of them probably swings the club differently. Meaning their set of clubs should look very different from one another. The same goes for retirement plans. Everyone’s plan should all have a unique mixture of products inside of it, designed to be custom fit for the individual buying them.
“Fitting” Considerations:
When it comes to getting fit for golf clubs, in order to do it to the absolute best of your ability, you need to look for four key things: equipment variation, the technology used, the fitter’s expertise, and how the club is actually built. These are the same key elements that you should look for when creating your retirement plan. Let’s look into those four key elements with a little more in depth.
1. Equipment (Product) Variation:
How many different products can you explore during your fitting session and even better, can you mix and match them? At the end of the day, the more choices you have, the better. If you’re only getting fit for one or two retirement products, you are not getting even close to the breadth of combinations available today. This is why it’s so important to work with an advisor who is not captive to a specific company or product line. Can they offer you products on both the red money side and the green money side?
Just as you wouldn’t work with a golf club fitter that only offered one brand of clubs, you shouldn’t work with an advisor who can only offer one line of products!
2. Technology Used:
When you’re getting fit for golf clubs, a launch monitor is a MUST. It is imperative that you see your data on the screen so that you can determine if you are moving in the right direction with the products you are testing.
When you’re planning for retirement the same mantra applies. You need to see if the products and portfolios being recommended to you fit into your plan and truly make the story better. You should be able to see this clearly on a screen and shouldn’t have to take your advisor’s “word for it.”
3. Your Fitter (Advisor):
If you think reading a launch monitor and your fitter saying “Your spin is too high, try this” is all there is to golf club fitting, think again. There is an art to the science behind all of this, and if your fitter hasn’t been fitting for long or hasn’t seen a couple hundred people, you’re taking your chances that they truly know what they’re doing.
You should be asking the same questions about your advisor. How long have they been taking care of others like you? How many clients do they have? Are they truly independent, or do they represent a specific company (Northwestern Mutual, Mutual of Omaha, Nationwide, etc.)? Make sure you do your research and find someone who is truly out to help you select the right mix of products for you!
4. Club (Plan) Building:
At the end of all of this, if you have a perfect 3 out of 3 score from above, but your clubs are built in the “custom shop” of a manufacturer (i.e. assembly line) your odds of getting the clubs built exactly to your specifications decrease considerably. No two sets should be alike, and you need someone to get those lofts, lies, lengths, and swing weights dead-on to take full advantage of any golf club fitting process.
Your retirement plan, of course, should be built the same way, by someone who knows how to put the pieces together. If you followed the steps above, you might have some tremendous products to put into your portfolio, but you still need someone to design the plan for how you use them. Remember, no product should ever be purchased before seeing how it fits into your plan as a whole!
Finding the Perfect Clubs
From drivers (the most aggressive products, built for the long game) to putters (the club you need to rely on each hole, built for the shortest shots) it’s important that each club in the bag enhances a golfer’s skills while compensating for their tendencies.
But often times, products bought right off the rack require a golfer to adapt his or her swing to adjust for the clubs. You do not want your retirement to mirror this in any way shape or form. Unfortunately, this happens to so many people in their Golden Years. Because the products weren’t fit to their plan, they had to adjust their lifestyle (often negatively) to compensate.
Custom fitting and planning works the other way around, by identifying a golfer’s swing characteristics to build a perfect set of personalized clubs which maximizes that players performance or, in our case, a retirement portfolio that helps you live out those years to the fullest!
Is The Grass Always Greener?
It is impossible to argue that our business is constantly evolving. It is important that, as Advisors, you stay ahead of the curve when it comes to prospecting and selling. In fact, many of my top producers would tell you that a lot of their success can be attributed to new ideas and trying new things.
BUT, if implemented incorrectly, trying new and exciting ideas can be a very dangerous and costly strategy.
Last year I sat down for dinner with one of my fastest growing producers. This was someone who I looked up to in this business and who I felt had all the necessary skills to really become the best of the best. We were discussing his production for the year and his plan for the next few months. As we were talking he looked at me and said, “Trent, I still don’t love the idea of feeding a room full of strangers. I can’t get past the idea that they are all just using me for the free meal and I want to try something new”. Interested in where he was headed I continued to listen and ask for details. He finally came clean and let me know that he wanted to start to market to Federal Employees. I had reservations about this but he was so sure that it was for the best that he went off and started that process. The rest is really history…
When we re-connected at the end of the year, he was left scratching his head wondering why his production had dropped so significantly. See, he wanted to grow his business but abandoned what had been working for a new idea. The truth is, if you really want to scale your business you need to EXPAND rather than TRANSITION. Needless to say, we helped get him back to what worked and now he is back to being one of my top producers again.
So what lesson did I take from all of this?… In order to grow your business, you need to consider scaling what is already working BEFORE you decide to add new ideas into that mix. See, you already have a formula that helps you win. Now we need to create a plan to win 50 more times, 500 more times, etc…
In my experience advisors suffer from 2 major internal issues.
They never really get started and never find that first real win! So inevitably they cannot scale or grow.
Once they get those 500 wins they start to say, “I’m tired of this game, I want to try something new”. They become bored like the producer we just discussed.
It makes perfect sense… Of course, they’re bored and tired of that, they get that way because they absolutely have more potential and can grow even larger if they wanted to. Unfortunately, they pull back and start over with a new idea and are left looking for that first win all over again.
Too many advisors suffer from the age-old adage, “The grass is always greener”. It might be greener, until you get over there and realize you have to mow it, water it, fertilize it, edge it, and clean up all those leaves! There will always be the glitz and the flash of the next new idea in this business. But I would advise you to add those to your practice responsibly. Build upon what is working and add new ideas that have been TESTED first. Much like what you do for your clients, by keeping those wins intact, you are protecting your business from the going backwards and picking up the pieces at the end of the year.
-Trent Martin
A Delicate Balance
I have done literally hundreds of financial plans for advisors across the country throughout my career in this industry and one thing glares at me as I look back. That is that so many advisors feel like they have succeeded when their financial plan shows the client dying with as much money as possible! Is this truly the goal? I challenge you to really think about whether that financial plan has helped the client live the LIFE they wanted.
A year ago I attended a tremendous industry conference in Orlando and this very same concept came up when listening to a speaker who I truly admire and respect. He explained that there is a very delicate balance that you must maintain as an advisor, and that is to help clients understand the consequence of choice. And to take it one step further… how these choices are limited by their personal constraints like:
Time
Energy
Money
Values
No client can absolutely have it all (at least not the ones I have encountered). Our job as advisors is to understand the financial picture, yes, but to also make sure that the choices that are made align with the client’s standards and values. For example, if your client indicates to you that their priorities are to make sure their children get a good education and that they also want to spend as much time with them as possible, your job then becomes to ensure that they aren’t working so hard that they miss all of that time and the kids are already off to college.
This very idea has made me realize that most advisors fall into the trap when it comes to investing or wealth management that it’s all about “Delayed Gratification” (what’s in the future). But, in reality, it is truly about immediate and continuous gratification.
However, as an advisor, this lands you with a strange and interesting dilemma. This way of client thinking is one of the major reasons so many retirement plans remain underfunded across the world! “I can either buy these shoes today and feel great about them, OR I can potentially save for some unknown future in some unknown market”.
That trade-off decision can only be made in the context of the consequence of the choice. If, as their advisor, you can help your clients understand that by not buying those shoes today, their kids can go to a good college, or that they’ll be able to take that amazing vacation in a few years, you will prove yourself to be invaluable not only in helping them live in retirement but also in helping them live today!
Remember, the money itself isn’t what makes people happy. Happiness is the end result of making smart choices that are aligned with your values. Help your clients with these choices and your business will absolutely win as a result!
-Trent Martin
How to Pick a Mentor
We’ve all read the many stories of famous people either getting bad guidance or not having any guidance at all. Take, for example, Bono the legendary front man for the band U2. While it’s great U2 raked in over $130 million in 2010 as the world’s biggest-selling music act, according to Forbes, that sum wouldn’t even cover the amount Bono lost on his worst investment. When Bono bought a stake in private equity firm Elevation Partners in 2004, it gave him a nearly 30% stake in Palm, including stock worth an estimated $325 million. In the pre-iPhone smartphone market, that wasn’t too shabby.
When Palm fumbled the Pre, however, and the iPhone surged in market share, that investment started to look a lot more shaky. It got worse when H-P (HPQ) bought Palm for $1.2 billion in 2010, but only valued Palm shares at $5.70 when they were trading at $18 just a year before. The whole deal set Bono back $140 million and, while it’s tough to top U2’s Pop album as a career low point, his disastrous Palm investment trumped it in Bono’s typically grand fashion.
Or what about all the folks who trusted their money with people like Bernie Madoff or Kenneth Starr. The lists of defrauded clients for both of these swindlers read like the guest list at a gala fundraiser. As mentors they both get an F on their report card.
In both stories, appropriate guidance and direction was either missing or extremely bad! So, what lesson does this teach us as advisors? No matter how successful you are as a producer, you have to find the right guidance and direction in order to succeed and grow to the next level! The next question I get all the time is, “Trent, how do we pick the right mentor for our business”? In my opinion there are 3 simple steps.
Commitment:
In my world, true commitment means an investment of TIME and MONEY. If you are willing to put real time into developing yourself, you also need to be ok with investing money to do so. Make sure that you and your chosen mentor have some SKIN IN THE GAME! Make sure that they are also invested in your success. A free mentor is not a true mentor because they have no responsibility for your success.
Figure out Who will be your mentor:
Find someone who is a big thinker and doesn’t settle for average
Find someone who is still IN THE GAME doing exactly what you do every day and is constantly trying to figure out the ways to WIN at that GAME!
Finally, figure out What you want to improve on:
Be Specific and give that mentor a list
What do you want to handle?
What are the issues?
Advisors who join Magellan Financial or Foundations Investment Advisors get instant access to dozens of potential mentors who are out there doing what you do every single day! I can help you develop all of the same processes that have made many of them successful and we can start building your successful practice as well!
-Trent
5 Time Saving Strategies For Your Business
At the end of each week I try to take some time to organize all of the things that I want to do in the following week. It never fails either, that when I get done with that process I step back and say, “How is it even possible to get all of this done?” Sometimes I can even get paralyzed on where to start! Have you ever felt this way?
Good News! You aren’t alone!
A former study done by the Financial Planning Association showed that only a mere 13% of advisors report that they feel in complete control of their time, while 3-in-4 advisors are working more than 40 hours a week, and more than 1/3rd are working 50+ hours every week!
I want to help fix this trend! So, I have combined my 5 favorite ways to save time and increase productivity and I want to share them with you here!
Number 1: Learn how to delegate
There are only so many hours in a day. Being able to maximize those hours with activities that make your firm money is essential for creating a healthy and growing advisory practice. Delegation doesn’t have to be a nasty word. Here are a few examples on how to spread the workload:
Assign degrees of urgency to your task list: Determine which projects must be completed by you, which items could potentially be given to someone else, and which items could clearly be passed off to someone else. This last group is your winner group!
Start slowly: Pick one or two of the winners and find a trusted employee or third-party resource to help you. Make sure you are comfortable with that person and that you have worked with them before. Give yourself time to adjust, build comfort levels, and trust for all parties involved.
Communication is key: Everyone appreciates clear direction. The same goes for the person taking on your projects. Set clear expectations and be open to questions when and if they arrive.
Number 2: Find a CRM
If you don’t have a customer relationship management system, it’s time to find one. This tool is essential to streamlining your practice because it provides insight into one of the most important components of your practice: clients. Thankfully, there are CRMs available like the one we use, Salesforce, that come with advisor specific functionality. When used properly, a CRM can help you:
Automate client communication with triggered emails.
Have better insight to all client interaction: every piece of communication will be tracked in one location so anyone can access.
Segment your book of business: Analyze your client base to more easily determine possible cross-sell or up-sell opportunities
Number 3: Kick the email habit
In a world where you may receive as many as 100 or more emails every day, it’s easy to feel like all you do is check email. The problem with incessant email checking is that it divides your attention, keeping you from focusing on a single task and tanking productivity. Do yourself and everyone you work with a favor by setting some limits for checking email:
Set time on your calendar to check email and don’t cheat: This will allow you to fully focus on your responding to your email when it’s time and your clients when it’s not.
Use a cloud-based collaboration tool: An internal chat software or collaboration tool allows you to quickly interact with employees without clogging up your inbox or getting lost in an email chain. Ask your question and then get back to work. A good example of this is Slack (www.slack.com)
Don’t forget about the phone: A quick phone call often clears up confusion more quickly than email and provides the personalization that email lacks. This rings true for both employees and clients. Instead of defaulting to email, consider picking up the phone to increase human interaction and efficiency.
Number 4: Collect your content
Creating content is a major time commitment and potential productivity killer. Even if you are a seasoned writer, finding a reputable third-party resource to supplement your content stream is essential to staying connected to your clients without burning the candle at both ends.
Remember Step 1: Learn how to delegate. Whether you have staff that can curate content from the web or social media, assigning someone to find content is a huge time saver. No staff to help? Using tools like Pocket or creating Twitter lists can be a great starting place for locating relevant content your clients will want to read.
Don’t reinvent the wheel: There are many third-party content providers that create FINRA approved articles suitable for newsletters, blogs, or quarterly updates. Put hours back into your week by not writing your own content.
Help from friends: Have a client story you’d like to highlight or colleague who might want to create a guest blog? Having guest writers helps boost your content stream while also helping you network and support your partners.
Number 5: Unchain yourself from your desk
Bluetooth integration, cloud-based software, and wi-fi hotspots. Technology has ensured that business as usual doesn’t mean business in the usual location. Your local coffee shop, train, plane, or beach chair all have the potential to be an office if the need arises.
Plan your office around your calendar: Every week, review your calendar to see where you have meetings and plan virtual offices around your trips. Decide if you need to return to your office or whether working from a remote location will save you time.
Get the right technology: Set yourself up for success with platforms built to save you time. Figure out where you need the most help, project management, team collaboration, social media, financial planning etc. and find a few apps that make it easier to be on the go. Slack, Evernote, and Trello are all great ways to stay connected and be more efficient, but there are many, many more.
Put time back into your calendar for the things you love doing. Implementing just a few of these ideas will increase productivity and help you run a more efficient practice.
-Trent
Setting Proper Goals
The biggest issue I run into when working with producers is that most of them don’t even know where to start when it comes to setting their goals. It makes it very difficult for us nail down what a real solid business plan looks like because we have no clarity on the target we are trying to reach. Being clear with yourself and your business about your goals is so fundamentally important that I thought I would try to shed some light on how I set my goals and how other successful advisers do as well.
Let’s first start with the 2 biggest mistakes I run into most frequently when discussing goal setting with the advisers I work with:
Setting your goals too small!
The major issue with this is that goals and targets that are too small don’t provide you with the drive necessary to achieve what you really want! This can chain reaction into a couple other problems…
If your goals are too small and don’t require you to really elevate your action levels to reach them, and then you don’t… you will end up devastated and looking back at a year that will be considered a failure
On the flip side, you might end up reaching your goals easily and then realize that your potential was much greater and you feel like you wasted a great opportunity.
Not Reviewing your goals frequently enough!
We want these goals burned into our brains and you must review them all the time for that to be the case.
Reviewing your goals also gives you a specific sense of purpose when you need it most. For example, if you lose a sale or have a bad marketing event, it is nice to be able to go back and review those goals to remind you that there is a purpose to get you re-motivated!
I want to challenge you to play a little game. I call it the Lottery Game (I’m sure you have played this before). Think to yourself, “If I won the lottery, how would I spend that money?” How does that make you feel? It is tough to argue that the potential is so much more exciting than the reality. When you set your goals you should get that same feeling towards what you would do with the reward for reaching that target. Only in this case, the work you do is not just because you have to do the work, it is to absolutely get you closer to reaching that target and making your dreams become reality. If these goals aren’t clear, you will despise the work it takes to get there and you will ultimately fail.
What does having clear goals mean? As an adviser it should absolutely revolve around how much money you want to make in the given time period. We do this job to take care of ourselves, our families, and our employees so this is the most important number you want to nail down for your business. From there we can reverse engineer our numbers to get there.
How many sales do you need to make to get to that revenue target? (You’ll need to know your average client size to calculate)
AUM
Annuity
Life
How many people do you have to sit with to make that many sales? (You’ll need to know your closing success ratio for this)
Finally, what does the work look like to get that many appointments
How many calls?
How many mailings?
How many referrals?
How many seminars?
Etc.
The final way to really set yourself up to reach your goals is to internalize and determine where you need to develop personally. If you have had issues reaching your goals in the past it might not be the goals, it might very well be your skills.
Do you need to get better at presenting to a group?
Do you need to nail down a better sales process and improve your closing skills?
Evaluate where you can improve and make a commitment of TIME & MONEY to develop those skills. Make it a great year and make your potential a reality!
-Trent