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Between Now and Success

We interview top financial advisors and visionary voices to bring you the strategies, tips, and tools you need to make a difference in people's lives. So rope up and get "On Belay" as we climb the summit to success with your host and Chief Belayer, Steve Sanduski.
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Now displaying: 2018
Dec 13, 2018

Life-centered planning, improving client behavior, the client experience, positive psychology, marketing, and technology are some of the hot topics I got to discuss with finance industry leaders and thinkers on my Between Now and Success podcast during 2018.

I think some of these topics, like a renewed emphasis on your human touch as an advisor, will continue to have a huge influence on where advisory goes in 2019.

And others, like, say, cryptocurrency ... Hmm ... Maybe not quite so much.

Let's take a look back at some key learnings from my 10 most popular podcasts of 2018.

Nov 20, 2018

What are the top firms doing to outperform the rest?

How are they growing?

What’s the silver bullet that’s going to help my firm hit that 16% five-year growth CAGR I’m seeing from the best of the best?

These were hot topics at last month’s Charles Schwab IMPACT Conference in Washington, D.C. And of course, the very reason that so many of our industry’s best and brightest were gathered there to speak, learn, and network is that there isn’t one “silver bullet” that’s going to transform your practice in 2019.

But some guiding principles for advisors looking to grow did emerge at the conference, which I discussed with Lisa Salvi, Vice President of Business Consulting and Field Experience at Charles Schwab. Lisa and I were joined by Mitch Reiner, Chief Operating Officer, Managing Partner, and Senior Investment Advisor of Capital Investment Advisors, who is a graduate of Schwab’s Executive Leadership Program.

Nov 5, 2018

For advisors who want to grow their audience – and hopefully, their client base – content and distribution is King, Queen, and Jack. But how do you build your audience? What is going to set you apart from the crowd and make your blog post or newsletter a must-read, your video channel a must-watch, your next podcast a must-listen?

Caleb Silver, the editor-in-chief of Investopedia, discussed these hot topics at the recent FPA Annual Conference in Chicago. After his presentation, “Building an Audience: Top Strategies for Exponential Audience Growth,” Caleb sat down with me to discuss the 10 ways he believes advisors can improve their online presence and create content followers won’t swipe past.

Oct 22, 2018

What do you need to be a successful financial advisor?

An Ivy League degree in finance? A family practice that you can inherit? A group of wealthy connections that you can network? An "in" at one of the major firms?

Well, Rebecca Rothstein doesn't check off any of those boxes, and she's currently managing over $4.5 billion in AUM.

Without even a high school degree, Rebecca left home at age 17. She bounced through a series of odd jobs -- including walking racehorses after they'd finished running -- and by the late 1980s she was slogging through an unfulfilling sales position. She jumped to finance and earned her Series 7 just weeks before Black Monday. Anxious investors looking to take their portfolios in a new direction responded to Rebecca's curiosity and tenacity, two traits that she credits with helping her build her business brick by brick, one phone call at a time.

Today, from her office in Beverly Hills, California, Rebecca's client list includes celebrities, athletes, musicians, and top CEOs and entrepreneurs. Rebecca has appeared numerous times on Barron's List of the top financial advisors, and according to Forbes, is currently the #1 woman advisor in the United States.

In our conversation, Rebecca Rothstein and I discussed how drive and perseverance helped her to overcome the obstacles she faced early in her life and build a multi-billion-dollar AUM business.

Oct 8, 2018

If you want to be a better financial advisor, learn how to land a jet plane on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night.

Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating just a bit …

But I really do believe that the top advisors of the future will be those who are open to a wide variety of insights that come from a wide variety of experiences you and I might never have. Talking to and learning from people outside of our field can really get our gears turning. Suddenly you’re approaching challenges and opportunities from different angles and finding creative ways to deal with the stresses of running a business. You’re also equipping yourself with new ways of thinking that will help you make long-lasting, indispensable relationships with clients.

That’s why I was excited to talk to Lieutenant James Licata on a recent podcast. James is a Naval test pilot who’s often in high-pressure, high-stakes, life-or-death situations. I wanted to discuss how he handles those environments, and how those of us with two feet firmly on the ground can adapt similar strategies to perform under the pressures we face running our businesses.

Sep 24, 2018

Building a top-notch intern program doesn't simply mean hiring a few planning interns. Top financial advisor David Armstrong took it much further and hires creative interns too. These are students who major in the creative fields and can build a portfolio of work at David's firm while David gets to stay on the leading edge of marketing and social media.

No two paths to financial services are the same, but David Armstrong's was particularly unique. As he served overseas in the Marine Corps, David couldn't spend any of his money. But he could invest it. So he taught himself the ins and outs of managing money, and by the time he left the service, his ROI was, “along with a few bucks in cash as a bouncer, good enough to pay for an MBA, a new car, and two years of living expenses.”

David also credits an internship with providing crucial real-world experience that eased his transition into our industry. So it's no surprise that his own company has a robust internship program that attracts students who, like David, might be approaching financial advisory from unconventional angles.

David Armstrong is the President and Co-Founder of Monument Wealth Management. In this conversation, David and I are joined by some of his team members and a current intern to discuss Monument's unique approach to its internship program, succession planning, and lessons from the Marine Corps that David has used to build a successful independent RIA.

How does jumping out of airplanes apply to managing clients' money? Listen to find out!

Sep 10, 2018

The AUM pricing model is prevalent in our industry but in many cases, the pricing is significantly disconnected from the real value being delivered.

Depending on your expertise and your client base, you might add value through tax management or estate planning advice. You might add value by fostering a positive attitude in your clients about investing, talking clients down from the ledge and helping them avoid a bad decision when volatility shakes the market.  If you're working in the life-centered planning space, you might create value by forging life-long relationships that make you indispensable to your clients. 

And that's the rub for our industry: we're pricing based on investing, and less so on the real value we're adding. Clients and prospects think they're paying for portfolio performance, so it's almost like we're giving away the planning and advice piece of the pie for free!

So how do we change this backwards structure? How do we price our value?

Matthew Jackson is a director in the financial services division of the pricing consultancy firm Simon Kucher & Partners. He specializes in the area of the psychology of value communication and digital presentment. He also has a Master of Arts degree in classics from Oxford University and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

In this conversation, Matthew Jackson and I discuss eight different pricing models and how to determine which one is right for you and your clients.

Aug 27, 2018

What separates the merely good from the absolute best of the best? Is mastery an end that we can achieve, or is it a lifelong process of continual evaluation and improvement?

I've been fascinated by these questions for a long time, particularly as they relate to what drives peak athletic performance and how those concepts might be applicable in other disciplines as well.

Like, say, going from being a competitive long distance runner as a kid to running a successful life-centered planning practice! After all, you and I won't ever stand on an Olympic podium. But we do have to excel in the high-stakes sport that is business so that we can deliver the best results for our clients.

So I googled "top sports psychologists in the US," and it turns out that one of the best in the country was right down the road from me.

Dr. Barbara Meyer is a professor and director of the Laboratory for Sports Psychology and Performance Excellence at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.  Dr. Meyer is not only an academic, she's also a sports psychology coach who works with professional and Olympic athletes on the mental side of the game. In fact, Dr. Meyer has trained athletes at every Winter Olympics since the 2002 Salt Lake City games, where her client won a gold medal.

In this conversation, Dr. Meyer and I discuss how to prepare mentally for a peak performance in any profession, striking a balance between sticking to the process of mastery while still achieving your desired outcomes, and how the concepts of self-regulation and visualization can help you monitor your behavior and alter it based on the demands of the situation you're facing.

If you're serious about personal improvement and growth you're going to love this episode.

Aug 13, 2018

This is a presentation I delivered with Mitch Anthony. In it, we:

1. Share 3 new client dialogues that will completely differentiate you from all other advisors.
2. Show you why the current investment-focused planning model is broken and a new model that will replace it.
3. Show you how to future-proof your business from low-cost competitors and encroaching technology.

The industry is shifting from an investment-focus to a life-centered planning focus. These 3 dialogues pave the path for you to have meaningful conversations with your clients that go beyond what the market is doing. Ultimately, money is just a tool to help clients live a better life. These dialogues equip you to facilitate that life-centered conversation so your clients can live the best life possible with the money they have. 

Aug 6, 2018

If you don’t “know thyself,” you’ll have difficulty succeeding in a world where technology is making average human advisors obsolete.

Self-aware advisors understand that they have blind spots and they seek to shine a light on them, make changes, and turn them into strengths.

Joe Deitch, the founder of Commonwealth Financial Network, joins my podcast today and shares wisdom from his four decades of running a top broker dealer and drops some amazing insights from his new book, "Elevate: An Essential Guide to Life."

In this conversation, we discuss overcoming blind spots, closing the knowing-doing gap, leveraging the multiplier effect, deep listening, meeting people where they are, and much more. By the end of this episode, you’ll have a good understanding of the key skills you’ll need as an advisor to thrive in the years ahead.

For additional notes and quotes, visit https://www.belayadvisor.com/134

Jul 23, 2018

What's working right now in financial advisor marketing? Based on my conversation with marketing pro Abby Salameh, you'll be very surprised.

While attending the 2018 In|Vest Conference in New York, I had a chance to sit down with Abby Salameh for an in-depth conversation about the state of advisor marketing. We talked about which marketing strategies are working the best, branding, the client experience, referrals, making a good first impression with prospects, the proper role of technology in marketing, and much more.

Abby Salameh is the Chief Marketing Officer at Private Advisor Group, a RIA with 620 advisors overseeing $27 billion in AUM (See my earlier podcast with John Hyland, the co-founder of Private Advisor Group). Her sterling career as a RIA marketing expert has included stops at Sanford Bernstein, TD Waterhouse, and the Fusion Advisor Network. She was also a founding member of the team that launched Investment News.

One consistent thread among the most successful advisory firms is they know how to market. And they know how to strike the right balance between using technology to scale their marketing efforts and using the human touch to engage potential new clients. So if you're looking to improve your marketing efforts, generate more qualified leads, and position your firm for accelerated growth, you'll want to listen to today's conversation with Abby Salameh.

Jul 2, 2018

In this excerpt from a Master Class I presented for First Assent Asset Management, I discuss 5 strategies to close the 70 basis point gap in your value. This gap comes about from the fact that advisors charge an average of 100 bps for their services, yet robo-advisor type services (and Vanguard and Schwab) are closer to 30 bps for investment management. Advisors have to make up this 70 bps gap by adding non-investment related services that clients value.

In this excerpt, I share 5 of the 9 I discussed in the Master Class. Make sure you listen all the way to the end – the 5th point might sound like a bit of a head-scratcher, but I think it’s extremely important to improving your practice and your relationship with your clients.

Jun 18, 2018

There are few things more detrimental to our wealth than the negative money stories we pickup in our youth that haunt us as adults. And there are few things more impactful you can do as an advisor than to understand your client’s money stories and work with them as you engage in your planning relationship.

Let’s face it, we all grow up with hang-ups around money. In those formative years of our upbringing, we start to absorb the financial habits and attitudes that we hear and see modeled in our family and other social relationships. Positive habits, like an emphasis on saving and investing, can set us up well for long-term financial planning. But some negative attitudes, like a fear of market volatility, can cause us to make poor emotional decisions about our money. Over the course of a lifetime, those can be seven-figure mistakes.

Dr. Brad Klontz, CFP told me that he believes the very best advisors learn what their client's hang-ups are and use that knowledge to work more effectively with their clients. And Dr. Klontz is tackling those hang-ups from two sides: first, as the managing principal of his own RIA, Your Mental Wealth Advisors; second, as the founder of the Financial Psychology Institute and as an associate professor of practice in financial psychology at Creighton University's Heider College of Business.

Dr. Klontz keeps these businesses and clients separate to avoid any unethical conflicts of interest. But through his unique experience as both a researcher and a client-facing advisor, Dr. Klontz identified four broad Money Scripts that show how our experiences shape our attitudes about money.

Jun 4, 2018

Are your multi-millionaire clients any happier than your merely millionaire clients? As your clients' net worth increases, have you seen a direct rise in their level of happiness? Have you ever felt frustrated that all your hard work on the financial side of your client relationships didn’t move the needle in their sense of well-being?

Helping clients save, grow, and protect their money is a service that clients value and appreciate. But there is so much more you can do to help them beyond just the numbers.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being maximum life satisfaction and well-being, what if you could help your clients move from a 6 to a 9? Or even to a 10? Think about how that would add meaning to your work and satisfaction to your client’s life.

 

My recent podcast guest, Dr. Martin Seay of Kansas State University, researches how we can apply the concepts of positive psychology to the financial planning process. And advisors who incorporate Dr. Seay’s work won’t be drifting off course into “touchy-feely” territory. They’ll be putting sound scientific data into action and future-proofing their businesses.

May 21, 2018

Have you ever seen an advisor on TV or read a quote from an advisor and thought, “They should be talking to me; I’m just as smart as that advisor.”

The fact is, that advisor may not be any smarter than you from a technical standpoint, but they may be more media savvy than you are.

Now more than ever, money is news, twenty-four-seven. Baby boomers are retiring. Millennials have major money issues. Health care costs, Social Security, and Medicare are a constant source of political debate. The pros and cons of the new tax laws are still contentious. Cryptocurrencies could be bigger than the internet…or simply the next pets.com.

And one group of pros uniquely qualified to weigh in on all these hot button issues is…You—a financial advisor.

Recently I visited CNBC Studios in New Jersey and talked with Jim Pavia, award-winning journalist and Money Editor at CNBC Digital, about how advisors can get themselves ready for prime time.

May 7, 2018

Michael Chasnoff discusses how he grew Truepoint Wealth Counsel, his fee-only wealth management firm, to $3 billion in AUM and 750 households without any mergers or acquisitions.

Apr 23, 2018

Barron’s recently wrapped up the 2018 edition of the Barron's Top Independent Advisors Summit in Orlando. Whether you were in attendance or are looking to catch up on what you missed, today’s episode will give you an insightful snapshot of one of the most valuable get-togethers in our industry.

My guests today are Bill Keen and Matt Wilson of Keen Wealth Advisors, a fast-growing RIA with more than $400 million in AUM. Bill also has his own excellent podcast, Keen on Retirement.

Bill and Matt have attended the Barron’s Top Independent Advisors Summit and the wirehouse version for many years, so they have the perspective to connect the dots between the lessons from past conferences and where the 2018 summit is pointing. We talk about some of the key takeaways from this year’s event, the ongoing trend towards Life-Centered Planning, and how advisors can put these insights into action right now to grow their businesses.

Apr 2, 2018

John Hyland was unhappy.

Fresh out of college, the big firm lifestyle of late nights and steak dinners had taken a physical toll. John felt unhealthy and out of shape. 

At a tailgate party he heard some friends talking about Ironman races, how impossible they seemed, how no average person could complete one. 

“I just had this a-ha moment in my mind,” John told me on a recent podcast. “I just had this moment of clarity and said to myself, "I need to do this." 

John finished the first of eleven Ironman Triathlons in 2000. The lessons from that transformative experience didn’t just improve his health, it gave him a new perspective on how to transform businesses that continues to guide his company, Private Advisor Group.

“I think it's just a great example of having a belief, having a goal and committing to it,” John says. Just like business, Ironman is not a short event. It doesn't happen in a day. It happens over years of training to get the results that you're looking for. But I think it's just that perfect example of setting a goal, breaking it down to what do you need to do every week, what do you need to do every day, monitor your success, alter things when needed and just continue to focus.”

Today, John Hyland is the co-founder of Private Advisor Group, an RIA with approximately $15 billion in AUM and more than 600 affiliated advisors.

Mar 19, 2018

Historically, the financial advisory business has been about a story of numbers. Today, it’s about a number of stories, say Mitch Anthony.

Of course, good advisors always knew that viewing our industry as a matter of number-crunching was just a fairy tale. And today, revolutions in technology and an aggressive marketplace have made that fairy tale ancient history.

Instead, pioneers in life-centered financial planning, like noted author and speaker Mitch Anthony, want to refocus our industry on a different story: the client’s.

How? By having better conversations that take place where money and life intersect.

Mar 12, 2018

If you are in the “inform” business, and not the “transform” business, you won’t be long for this business.

Technology services are quickly chipping away at the value-stack financial advisors offer to clients. There may come a time when, “I turn on my phone and I say, ‘Hi, Alexa. Tell me what my bank account is today. Transfer $10,000 from Bank A to Bank B. Open a 529 plan for my kid. Then, rebalance my brokerage account.’ And tell me how I'm doing against my goal of buying this house,” said Lex Sokolin, Global Director of Fintech Strategy and Partner at Autonomous.

In this near future world, you won’t need MoneyGuidePro, e-Money, or Advicent. Instead, “You have a more modern architecture, so you don't have a UI. You might have APIs that allow machines to talk to each other. Then, you can plug that into all sorts of chatbots for conversational interfaces,” said Lex.

Lex isn’t describing some crazy sci-fi dystopia. Rapid advancements in AI, algorithms, chatbots and a host of other technologies is bringing planning services to your favorite digital friend faster than you may think. And if Amazon, Google or some other behemoth decides to get into our business in a big way, well, you can forget about competing by using technology as a differentiator.

There is only one ultimate differentiator; it is your ability to help transform people’s lives.

Feb 26, 2018

I’ve long said that there are many ways to be successful as a financial advisor. My guest today, Steve Cassaday, founder and CEO of Cassaday and Company, Inc., is a perfect example. His main marketing plan is a throwback to the 1990s. He spends hundreds of thousands of dollars per year doing high-end dinner seminars for a carefully selected group of people. And when they become a client, he creates a comprehensive financial plan for them but he does NOT use financial planning software to do it.

Steve Cassaday and I talked about how he’s grown from $44 million in AUM to the #12 ranked advisor in Barron’s list of the Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors and $2.7 billion in AUM. We also discussed the principles that guide his business, how he explains the firm's value proposition, the service differentiators that his firm delivers that are above and beyond what most firms do, and the marketing strategy that has added about one billion in new assets and is still working today.

Feb 12, 2018

My guest today, Dr. Elliot Berkman, is a tenured Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon, where he directs the Social and Effective Neuroscience Laboratory and conducts field-leading, federally-funded research on goals, motivation, and behavior change. He's also the Associate Director of the Center for Translational Neuroscience, and an author who writes about psychology and neuroscience for lay audiences, including in Psychology Today. We talk about the concept of the will and the way of goal pursuing, where the way is the set of cognitive skills, capacities, and ability that we collectively call the executive function, and the will is the motivational factors that propel the behavior. We also talk about how to increase our motivation and influence other people's behavior, the idea of flow states, and how that applies to achieving goals.

Jan 29, 2018

With the accelerating pace of technological change, how can you be sure you are making the right technology choices? What should your tech stack look like?

One of the biggest changes in the financial advisory business over the past 10 years or so has been the rise of technology. Now, of course, technology has always been a part of the business -- as anyone who, like me, struggled with Advent Access performance reports in the 1990s can attest. But the accelerated rate of technology change in the last 10 years has been amazing. Unfortunately, for many financial advisors, the rate of change, and the number of choices available, has also been overwhelming.

My guest today, Matt Sonnen, is the founder and CEO of PFI Advisors. Matt's firm works with billion-dollar breakaway advisors who are looking to set up their own firms. In our conversation, Matt and I sorted through the tech stack that advisors need to run a top-notch firm and compete in today's marketplace. We "name names" to help you figure out which companies and products will offer the best solutions for your practice.

Jan 15, 2018

How long could your business survive without you?

For financial advisors, I think that’s really two questions in one. Part one is a question of scale. Part two is a question of how you want to connect with your clients, build a sense of community, and run a modern advisory practice.

Brighton Jones is one of the top fee-only wealth management companies in the country, and one of Washington’s 100 Best Companies to Work For seven years in a row. Brighton Jones also placed on Barron’s List of the Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors, and Forbes’ List of the Top 50 Wealth Advisors.

And they racked up these accolades, in part, while the CEO was on a year-long jaunt with his family that covered 35 countries.

My guest today, Jon Jones, is the CEO of Brighton Jones. We talked about how he prepared his company to run without him for a year, why financial advisors should put more focus on revenue and less on AUM, and how his firm divides up responsibilities between business development and advising clients to achieve scale without sacrificing the Life-Centered Planning experience.

Jan 1, 2018

If you could come up with 3 words for this year, that would drive your actions and keep you on track to make this your best year ever, what would those 3 words be?

For several years now, I’ve begun the year by identifying 3 words that will set the course, give me direction, and totally excite me as I move through the year. I write these words at the top of my Daily Focus sheet and look at them daily throughout the year.

The premise is simple. Pick 3 words that motivate you, remind you, and guide you on your road to making 2018 your best year ever.

I encourage all of my clients and I encourage all of you to do this same exercise as it will help you stay focused on the most important outcomes for the year.

In today’s post and podcast, I discuss my 3 words for 2018 as well as review my 3 words for 2017 and discuss how well I executed on them.

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