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TPR nation, when it comes to prospecting, having a process in place, and one that you follow, is essential. But what impact does that process have on your prospects? What if it set expectations for them get a glimpse of what it looks like to be a client? What if it helped put them at ease and allowed you to provide an exceptional experience? If you’re looking for a tried and true process, then it’s time to get Matthew Jarvis’s Sleep On It Process. This process will help prospects get answers to their critical questions and ensure that they feel confident in their decision to hire you as their trusted advisor. Visit theperfectria.com/sleeponit for your exclusive access. 

Matthew Jarvis  

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Perfect RIA podcast. I’m your host, Matthew Jarvis with me today special guest Dan Murphy. Dan wears multiple hats at Commonwealth. He is the head of wealth strategies. He’s on their executive team, which now oversees some 120 advisors, and he’s still a practicing advisor himself. So Dan really excited to have you on the show to talk about delivering value to clients from really several different angles. 

Dan Murphy  

Yeah, absolutely happy to be here. Hopefully I can share something of value to those that are listening in and, you know, I think I’m excited to share some of the transformational growth that we’ve had in our firm, and hopefully give everybody a couple action items here to walk away with. So thanks for having me, Matt. 

Matthew Jarvis  

Yeah. I’m glad to have you on and I’m excited to talk about that transformation, because, of course, Commonwealth is under sort of the mass mutual umbrella, which is one of the oldest financial institutions, at least in the United States, in the world. And I’m glad that we’re gonna be talking about planning, because often there’s this sort of stigma with the older firms that, hey, it’s still just product focus. It’s just like the old days, like people are stuck in this whole mindset, yeah, as if companies 100 years refused them all but, but really, with what you’re doing at Commonwealth, you’re kind of like leading the charge. Let’s be fee based planners. Let’s provide comprehensive planning. Let’s deliver massive value. And again, you’re doing it for your clients. You’re doing it for the wealth strategy team. You’re doing it for and how many advice I said 120 number. 

Dan Murphy  

Yeah, it’s been 120 fee based advisors underneath the firm. Yeah, to your point, I think in the, you know, institution that we’re in the mass mutual space, and in general, I think change is here. I think many of us have started to see it, and I think this trend will only accelerate. The reality is, I think buying behavior now is a little different. I think it’s focused on the experience that they’re getting in working with advisors, clients in general, I believe want a more personalized service than may have been there in the past. We know technology will continue to change and disrupt, hopefully, just enhance what we do as advisors. And ultimately, I think what’s has and always will be important, but is maybe even more important now is transparency and trust in working with advisors. And we kind of saw this change happening in the industry and what consumers wanted, and really tried to adapt the way that we treat our end clients. Because of that.

Matthew Jarvis  

Let’s spot on as as we’re having this discussion today, discussions recently, it strikes me the things that used to be considered like real high level value, like real add ons, like only these select firms were doing. It’s now becoming table stakes, right when we’re talking about things like estate planning or tax planning, or behavior management or comprehensive planning like these used to be the creme de la creme add ons. But now it’s, this is entry level stuff. It’ll longer like, Hey, listen, maybe on a good day, I’ll talk to my clients about their life goals. Like, if you are not having those in depth discussions anymore.

Dan Murphy  

Totally. There’s been this evolution of financial planning, right? If you go back in time the dawn of it really started as, hey, planning is free, yeah, what that really meant is buy a product. The sales was free. Yeah, right. And then, and then we entered this, this stone age, which was basically like, how much can I put together in one binder and actually get the client to pick it up and take it home with them, right? Like, let’s charge by the poundage reports can we put together. And the product was the planets up, right? What people were selling was that as that document and that thing that they were buying and thinking that there was ultimately value in all of these different charts and graphs and millions of pages of numbers and data points. And what we found, and many others have found, is that was not what the client wanted. It was not engaging. It didn’t get them to understand and educate and teach them the things that they wanted to know. And so as much as we have shifted into modern financial planning, the table stakes like they’re up, right? Yeah. And so when we look at modern financial planning the way we define it now, it is truly focused on what our clients, goal values, that’s that’s the basis for the relationship and working with them. And when we believe that what the advisor is selling is no longer a product or it shouldn’t be, it’s really confidence and goal achievement and working together in this relationship. And so yeah, to your point that the things that used to be important, or we thought was important, at least, charts, numbers, packaging all these different services together now they’re just table stakes, and we’ve really started to shift towards this idea of modern financial planning being what clients want and what advisors should and are hopefully focused on. So yeah.

Matthew Jarvis  

Totally agree. Dan, I’m curious, with all the advisors on your team, and you have a whole spectrum of of newer advisors. Of advisors have been practicing for for decades. How are you training on these skills? Right? So one of the allures of the binder of paper as the financial plan is it was very like quantifiable. It was like type in 100 variables into whatever software and print out 1000 papers and and here you go, right? You could teach someone to do that, right? You can treat a trained monkey to do that, but these more in depth discussions. How are you training your advisors on this? How are you cultivating this? Give us some insights here. 

Dan Murphy  

Yeah, oh, man. Where to start? Where to start? We do have a very in depth curriculum that we take folks through. I guess the way I would start to answer that question is we have three main pillars that we tend to orient our new advisors and and advisors looking to shift the way that they do business around. One of them is mindset, which probably the biggest, and it’s really the shift from this old way of doing things to a new, a different, a better way of doing things. That mindset is probably the biggest pillar that the second is, is operations. I think getting to this idea of what does modern planning and what does good planning look like, you have to shift the way that your entire practice operates around that change in mindset. And so, yeah, we tend to spend a lot of time a little bit more tactically in the operational side of things. And the third is the platform, right? What tools and what are you using that the client is actually seeing throughout this process? And how do you how do you catch those two that one tends to also be a little bit more tactical in nature, but we really try to start Matthew and do we have the right mindset going into the relationship with clients and understanding what we’re trying to do, one of the ways that we do that. Have you ever heard of the experience economy?

Matthew Jarvis  

The term seems familiar, but I can’t, can’t speak to it right now. 

Dan Murphy  

It was this idea that there was two guys who they were at HBS heart Harvard, back in like, the late 90s, and they ended up writing a book called the experience economy was Joseph pine and James Gilmore, and their theory was that economies over time change. Give me this backstory, because I think it’s helpful to come up with your mind. Their theory was economies over time change and develop and consumer what they end up getting and valuing, also changes, right? So, years and years ago, we’re in a commodity business, right? If you had the thing, that thing itself had value. An example of this is, you know, coffee, sure. Okay, years and years ago, that commodity itself was was valuable, right? That was what happens. Is, over time, the economy changed. Right, so what, what happened next is we entered something called the goods, economy, which we took these coffee beans we packaged them together, and we. and we sold them in one bundle, right? That became the thing that was valuable was the was the package of coffee beans. Over time. What did we do now? We brewed those coffee beans for folks, and you got a cup of coffee and the service was now what is most done, it was the goods, the commodities are now the service. Think of like your local diners cup of coffee over time. What we what companies did is now they grew into what we call this experience account. And what consumers now want is more than just a brewed cup of coffee more this coffee bean more than a package together, right? They want something else with that coffee. And so Starbucks is the most classic example of Hey. They they built a whole business around charging for the experience of that coffee bean, right? They knew your name, they knew your birthday, the whole environment in which you got that cup of coffee was this calming, at least years ago, maybe not as much today. What was this, was this calm place where you could go and you could hang out, and they took that coffee bean that is worth two cents, and they were selling it for, depending on how many things you’ve done, that cup of coffee, $7 right? And their theory Pine and Gilmore is that the economy will continue to move in this way, and if you don’t adapt, if you don’t change, you’re going to be left behind. And I think that’s directly relatable to how we view this industry. If you’re if you’re just providing that cup of coffee as a financial advisor, if you’re just doing things quickly and efficiently, nearly behind to somebody that is creating memorable, lasting experiences working with clients. And so we tend to orient our advisors around the fact that what you’re providing is not just service. It is not just a commodity of of investment products or insurance products. What the consumer ultimately wants, and what people really value is the culmination of all of those things, but delivered in a way that is personalized to them and creates lasting, memorable experiences and leads them walking away saying, Wow, I really enjoy working with that person. They know me. There’s a memory, there’s something here that is lasting, and that’s ultimately worth paying for in that process. So we that’s one part of how we try to coach our advisors to look at shifting away from maybe what they weren’t doing around I’ll do things quickly and easily into maybe it’s actually better to engage this client in something more deeply, more thoughtfully, time with them, building experience, versus just doing something quickly. 

Matthew Jarvis  

So, yeah, that’s an interesting point. And again, to take that Starbucks analogy one step further. We’ve all heard that for, I don’t know, you know, been a long time right since Starbucks County. I grew up in the Seattle area, so we were, you know, first members there, but the things that Starbucks delivered that was, that was groundbreaking the time. But now it’s kind of like I see that everywhere, every store I go into, is that in, and I liked your comment about right. How is it leaving the consumer, in our case, the client, feeling right? So if, if at one point we were trying to give them something, a financial plan, a life insurance policy and annuity, or whatever it was, and now I want them to experience a certain way. I was training with my team this morning. We have a client coming in. Client coming in tomorrow, doing a mini surge. She was recently widowed, and so I’m working with my team, and they’re running through all the technical things. And I said, Alright, guys, at the end of the day, like, how does this meeting need to go down? And they said, we have all these things to get over. I said, No, no, we really don’t have anything we need to get over or go over with the client, except that Is she okay in a financial situation. In other words, this client recently lost her husband, and say, Hey, listen, there’s a lot of things we can go over. The only thing we have to go over today is that you have enough cash in the bank so you’re sleeping well at night. And if that’s okay, all of the rest of this can wait. Because, Dan, to your point, the feeling I want her to have is we’ve got this under control, not how are we going to optimize your tax situation in the next seven days? The feeling is, I want her to leave my office and say, every time I go and meet with Matt, I feel like things are under control. I feel like I’m hurt. I feel like I’m in a safe space all those things. Yes, we need to get to all this technical stuff. But it comes after, comes after the feelings. It’s not like it doesn’t proceed it. Okay? It really comes after it. 

Dan Murphy  

Yeah. And that, I think, is also the difference as we, as we talk about where financial planning goes, between what technology or AI will do on its own and AI will give you all the best service, right eventually, maybe all the right technical answers, but what it won’t give you is that connection with another person, that empathy of really understanding them and where they’re at, and that’s ultimately what they’re going to value. To your point is, does this person know me? Do they understand me, and do they feel for me? Do they emphasize with me? And that that is, I think the future of financial planning is moving more and more in that direction. Then let me give you the right answer as quickly as possible. 

Matthew Jarvis  

I’d be curious. Dan, under experience, you and I both work with a lot of advisors. As you kind of say that as I’m reflecting advisors that I consider to be the absolute best at their craft as measured by the number of clients they’re able to help. And it’s really the ones that hold the most space for clients. They’re like, they’re the most empathetic, they have the most yes, they’re incredibly smart on a technical side, but in my experience, they’re not the ones with this whole alphabet soup of designations behind their name. They’re not the ones that have been to a bunch of advanced degrees. They’re ones that can sit in the room with a client, even the most curmudgeon of a client, or whatever, and they can get to the heart of the heart of the heart of the heart of the issue like they were opening a lock right and these kind of the advisors that have clients are absolute raving fans that have a waiting list to come see them, who are getting referrals, referral and they got a new designation. It’s like they really know how to get into somebody’s soul, to your point, AI or computers in general. They will eventually know everything that we know. They’re not even that far away, by the way. What they won’t yet be able to do is, how do we have that conversation? How do I sit across from a widow and say, Hey, what are you most worried about right now? I don’t, I don’t care the computer spending. Like, what’s what’s top I understand, has your experience been different? Or what nuances would you add to that? 

Dan Murphy  

Well, I think it all comes down to asking good questions. Yeah, when we, when we get into this industry, sometimes, sometimes it’s the newest of us ask the best questions, because they’re genuinely curious, and they just are seeking to understand, because they actually don’t know. We teach this all the time. This is something I learned in going through the Sandler system, which is there’s this thing called the dummy curve. When you’re new, when you actually don’t understand something, you tend to ask really good questions because you legitimately do not know, and so you’re just, you’re curious. You’re seeking to understand, what would it look like if you what would it look like you did this? Kelly, can you help me understand that? A little bit very open ended questions with general premise, I just want to know what you’re thinking. Help me understand that. And then what happens is, as you get a little bit of experience, you tend to think you know all the answers, and it’s very much an answer. First type of response that I think advisors get conditioned to giving, they have to feel like I’m the expert. Let me share this as quickly as possible, right? So in that scenario, it’s like, you’re all the things that you need to do after you lost your husband, and you’re like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I think because they need to prove that they’re the expert, right? And I think a lot of people get trapped and what, what the dummy curve actually says is the true expert X facts, very similar to the new unknown dummy, but they’re way more intentional about it. So I think it just comes down to asking good questions and really trying to understand what somebody is truly concerned about, or really seeking to know, and that comes from I need to know what they’re really feeling questions and clarify and get to the root of what it is that they’re bothered or that that’s going on with them before rushing to give them an answer to something. And that’s what I’ve seen really good advisors do time and time again, is they probably know the answer, but they’re not going to get dividend. So they they know exactly what somebody is really asking Den is really good point, right? I mean, we can almost guarantee they know the answer, right at some point

Matthew Jarvis  

Well, I think it all comes down to asking good questions down that that experience curve, the dummy curve, like you’ve seen this question so many times, I’ve met with so many widows, I could probably tell you what her next seven questions are. But I still to your point, I’ve got to come in with so much curiosity, right? Because, again, to your point, it’s not the it’s not really the answer, it’s, it’s the question and then the intention behind the question, right? I might even just know the questions to ask, but if I can’t come in there with curiosity and really pull those out, like, Hey, listen, what’s really on your mind here? Like, what’s weighing your soul? Like, what’s the one thing we need to figure out today that can’t just be a throwaway question, right? Like, a risk tolerance question, or, like, if the market goes down 20% options A through C, like, I got to really get in there and know what’s going on with them. Yeah, totally, totally. Dan, how about So you mentioned with advisors on different perspectives of this, this dummy curve, right? Which is kind of a fun, a fun angle. Sometimes I feel like a big dummy on things. How do you cultivate that? And I guess I’m gonna tie this to the mindset as well. So we start at the top of the dummy curve. We acknowledge we don’t really know anything we’re asking. Like, just these are sincere questions. We don’t know what to ask, but at some point it seems like it can always translate into being callous. Like, hey, listen, I know how this industry works. I know how to ask these questions. Like, how do you help that mind shift to get back to the curious spot again, either for yourself or with the advisors that you’re working with, right? Because you come from an industry that you mentioned this, you shifted from buy a product, and then we shifted to sell a plan to now we’re like, at this deeper level, these are, these are big changes, 

Dan Murphy  

Yeah, totally, totally. I think there’s two. There’s, I mean, there’s probably a bunch of different answers for sure, to that question, right? I think part of it is remembering why we’re in this business, and ultimately it’s a service businesses. But what we tell our advisors, we are going to help and and we get, we do get paid very well to do that, yeah, but that means having to be deeply present and deeply caring in those conversations with your clients. That’s, that’s the very definition of what we’re doing as advisors and being advocates for people is is doing that for them. And so I think part of it is really trying to remember that, and having that be present as we as we work with folks. You can’t be in this business for the wrong reasons, ultimately, otherwise, it’s not going to work out in the long run for you. And you know, I think the other one, the other one that comes to mind for me, Matthew is is going back to this idea of what it is that we’re trying to do with folks, is build build experiences versus service, right? So another analogy that I that I give people all the time is, if you’re going out for sushi and you’re going to you know that the sushi restaurant in the mall, or the sushi restaurant in the strip mall around the corner from you, the menu that you get is there’s probably, like, 3000 things on the menu, A, one, b2, like, check these things off and giving it to them, and they’re pumping it out as quickly as possible. But if you ever go to a really high end sushi restaurant, there’s probably no menu, and you are there for hours just trying things and being patient and enjoying the experience. And that’s what we have to do with our clients. We need to act more like a high end sushi restaurant than the one that you pick and choose from the 3000 different options that are out there. And so I think part of it is having that patience is you’re trying to build experience with people is rushing things doesn’t lead to the ideal result.

Matthew Jarvis  

Yeah, it requires such a high level of intentionality, right? You mentioned the sushi example, and that applies to any high level experience, right? Because everything is either adding or detracting from the experience of the clients having, whether it’s again, in our offices or the sushi restaurant anywhere else like I came into my office this morning and I noticed that the candy dish had no candy in it. Okay, well, that seems like a non issue, just a little bit, but that’s great, an experience saying, Hey, we’re not intentional enough to refill the candy dish. Where else are we not being intentional? So we had a discussion with the team like, hey, this seems like a non issue. Why were they not lifesavers again? Like, it seems like a non issue. It is, in fact, an issue. The chairs not being straight, and lobby, all these things, how I hold my pen when I’m talking, how I’m seated at the desk, my zoom camera looks all these things are building that experience. And so I love, Dan, your highlight on, hey, we’re really at this stage in the industry’s evolution. We’re creating experiences. And either your experience is a positive one for the client, or it’s gonna be one that’s gonna leave them looking for a better experience somewhere else. 

Dan Murphy  

Totally, totally it’s creating time well spent. It is, I think, is what we’re really trying to do with folks, and we want them to look back and say, Wow, I really enjoyed my time with with Matthew, with Dan. That whole thing was crafted to me, and that was totally worth it. The financial advice is table stakes, like you can’t do this and not be able to understand, you know what? What is good advice versus bad advice? But when you think about things that go into crafting that experience with folks, that’s what really helps us maintain relationships, grow relationships, retain clients over the long run. And I think more and more we need to shift in that direction to continue to do. So, yeah, that’s a good way that I try to summarize it for people is, did the client feel like that was time well spent? 

Matthew Jarvis  

Yeah, yeah, which is sometimes tricky to know, because right, the client may not necessarily consciously register it, but we’ve got to be real intentional there. Well, Dan, let’s talk about some some actions, because this podcast is, of course, all about taking action. And so let’s kind of noodle for a second on things that advisors can do. And I want to pull want to pull on your we’ll use either coffee or the restaurant. Example, whichever one your fanciest a nice restaurant or nice coffee. Let’s go with restaurant, because I enjoyed nice restaurants. You know, go to take Your Spouse To, like the nicest the sushi place or nicest steakhouse in town. Note that experience, and then go to like the diviest one. Now be careful don’t get food poisoning if you call Dan and I that you went to like the strip mall sushi strip mall sushi and you got sick, I can’t help you there, but make a list like 10 or 15 different things that are different in that one experience versus the other. There’s the location, is it the lighting? Is it the menu? Is it the quality of the chopsticks? Is it the napkins? Is it how the plates are set? These things all make a difference. It’s why one can charge $200 a plate, and one can’t charge $20 a plate, and then go back to your office and apply that same thing, right? Do I have the equivalent of cheap chopsticks in my office? Is that creating a non ideal experience? Dan, be curious, what else comes to mind for you, for actions people can take? 

Dan Murphy  

Yeah, totally. That’s a good one. I would add that. I would add to that just a little bit, even when you, when you think about it. It’s not just the visit to the restaurant, right? It’s what happens before you step in there, what happens after you and so really, an experience is often made in some of the anticipation and some of the exiting of it, the post event. What continues to drive that feeling is not just, you know, the thing itself, but what happens before and after. And so we spent a lot of time focused on focused on that. 

Matthew Jarvis  

Yeah, definitely, does he have funny note on that? So I live in Las Vegas. The hands down, best Steakhouse in Las Vegas is a place called the Golden steer. It’s not on the strip, it’s just off the strip. And it takes three months to get a reservation there, three months. And so to your point, that creates this experience like, Wait a second. I gotta wait three I can get any I go to Jeff Gordon Ramsay restaurant tonight. If I want in Vegas, I go to all nine above one. If I want it the golden steer, I have to wait three months to get a reservation there. What the heck is going on here? Like just that alone creates its own, its own experience, and we see that with advisors, right? They’ll send out their Calendly link, and it will have 10 slots a day open every day for the next three months. That’s created an experience of, why isn’t anybody else want to see this guy, right? So there’s, there’s so many pieces there. Yeah? One one more. Yeah, please. Tactical action item

Dan Murphy  

One one more. Yeah, please. Tactical action item we, um, yes. What we do in order to use technology to make this a little bit easier is, yeah, not dissimilar from the way that you do value adds on a quarterly basis. We have something that we call the financial planning experience platform. We’re talking about those three pillars, yeah, this fits in this platform bucket. We actually deliver something out to clients on a quarterly basis that is educational and interactive. Think of it as is. It’s kind of like a fancy newsletter, yeah, but it’s a way for us to give people four topics for them to think about around their planning and directly click in there and schedule time with us to talk about any of those that are important or urgent. We give them topics to read about. Well, by the way, we segment these out into four different quarterly themes. We give them topics to read about. We give them a book to read once a quarter, and we give them videos to watch every quarter. And so this is our way of making some of the financial planning a little bit more actionable to clients. Is literally hit them with something once a quarter that gives them these conversations, a book to read, articles to read and videos to watch. Not just around financial planning, some of them are being mindset focused. And then we’ll hit them with with basically reminders throughout the corner of some of the content that is given to them. And we found that the engagement in these is it’s another touch point that we’re trying to continue to embrace. That idea of planning is not a one time event, it’s a continual process. And this is another way to give them multiple different ways to engage with us, either picking that book of the quarter, clicking to talk, reading or watching so trying to hit a couple different learning spectrums for clients on that side of it. So I love that. I think part of building that out that experience is not just the client meetings, what happens before and after, but what does that touch what are those touch points throughout the year? And how are you staying proactive in that inside your practice? 

Matthew Jarvis  

Yeah, you can’t just be waiting. This goes back to the evolution industry, right? It used to be you could wait for clients to call you, and you could call them once a year and see if they wanted to come in and chat with you. And those days are, those days are gone, right? Because, again, any robo advisor, the fidelity office, they can all do that. You’ve got to be next level. You got to go above and beyond. Well, Dan, hey, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for pulling back the curtain and give us some insight on colors of mindset, operation and platform and kind of the evolution right from this sort of caveman, cave woman buy this product to this binder of financial plans to Hey, what experience are we creating? So for all of our listeners, watch that experience in your own office and until next time, Happy Planet, today’s episode is brought to you by growth, not just anyone’s growth, but your growth, more specifically, the growth of your net income. That’s right, the money that lands on your tax return, the money that goes home to your family, growing your net revenue, doubling it in the next 12 to 36 months. Now why that range? That is the range where Micah and I have both in our own practices and in hundreds of advice we’ve coached, been able to double their net revenue. That’s a bold claim, but it’s backed by a lot of experience our own and again, the practices we’ve coached go to theperfectria.com/grow G, R, O, W, to learn how we can help you double your practice, like we’ve done for so many others.