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Jamie Shilanski  

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