Who Invented Surge Meetings(™)?

Pinning down the origins of Surge Meetings(™) might be a fun exercise, but it won’t help your practice (except for helping you decide who you should trust for advice).

2 min read

Over beers, I’d be glad to lay out the history of surge meetings(™) for you. How Micah and I both started doing them a decade before we met each other; how Tom Gau taught me to do the next level; how in 2013, Micah was forced into doing them so he could be available for his daughter’s intensive medical needs and how in 2019 Micah’s Kitces episode #110 was the first time anyone had publicly used the term “Surge Meetings(™).” Over multiple beers, I’ll share with you my thoughts about the industry ‘experts’ who (falsely) claim to have invented Surge Meetings(™), despite never having done them…but none of that matters!

Pinning down the origins of Surge Meetings(™) might be a fun exercise, but it won’t help your practice (except maybe for helping you decide who you should trust for advice). What will help your practice is figuring out which version of Surge Meetings(™) best matches your practice goals.

For example, during my Surge Meeting(™) weeks, I see six clients daily, but only on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Mondays are my prep day, and I don’t work Fridays. Micah Shilanski’s surge is 7-8 meetings a day, 5-days a week, for six weeks straight. Currently, this level of effort is beyond me, and it’s why Micah earns nearly double my income. Another rockstar advisor, Benjamin Brandt, limits his surge to only the hours his kids are in school and after completing his CrossFit workout.

The key to these three approaches is to be intentional and do what works. Whatever schedule makes the most sense to your goals, the same basic battle-tested rules apply:

1. Never do your own scheduling. All scheduling is done via your team, who needs to use a calendar program like Calendly. This prevents the “what time works for you” or “11:30 doesn’t work for me; can I do 11:45?”. Yes, it seems easier to just schedule the meeting yourself, but it kills both your productivity and your credibility.
2. Have set meeting blocks. In my office, this looks like three weeks in the Spring and Fall and a two-day ‘mini-surge’ each month. We have meetings at 8, 9:30, 11, 1, 2:30, and 3 pm on those days.
3. Be ready for objections. Once you commit to surge, the universe will test your resolve. Take strength, knowing that plenty of rockstar advisors successfully use this system. In my office, when a client asks for a different time, such as a Friday, Colleen responds with, “Matthew sees clients on these dates. Which one works best for you?” If they push back again, she answers with, “I’m sorry, but the day you asked for Matthew is scheduled to spend with his family. If there is no way to make one of these dates work, I can ask him to make an exception. Until then, let’s at least get a phone call scheduled during his available times.”

Of course, this system has dozens (hundreds?) of nuances that can only be learned from running a practice, but this will get you started. You can also download the surge meetings checklist we use by visiting this link HERE.