In 1984, Andy Schwartz and his twin brother Scott joined a startup Northwestern Mutual district agency in New Jersey. Four decades later, their firm, OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners, manages approximately $15 billion in assets.

Andy, now CEO and Managing Partner, describes their early days as operating like a "band of pirates" sharing resources and reinvesting heavily in building capacity. His firm's trajectory accelerated significantly when they left Northwestern Mutual in 2015 to become independent, and in 2024, Andy and Scott took an investment from Joe Duran's Rise Growth Partners to fuel their next stage of expansion.

What makes Andy's story compelling isn't just the size of the firm he built, but his intense focus on the fundamentals: outworking the competition, relentlessly reinvesting in the business, and creating a culture where everyone -- from the newest advisor to the receptionist of 30 years -- shares in the firm's success.

On today's show, Andy Schwartz and I discuss the pivotal moments in his extraordinary career, his philosophy on giving equity to team members, and how he plans to scale a $15 billion firm even as the bottom might be "falling out" for financial services.

I recently had the pleasure of joining Dave Zoller on his YouTube channel, Streamline My Practice, to discuss something I've been thinking deeply about lately: the difference between owning a business and being owned by your business. If you're a financial advisor wondering whether you've built a thriving enterprise or just created a demanding job for yourself, this conversation is for you.

Dave and I discuss:

• The Four Levels of Advisory Business Evolution
• The Identity Shift That Changes Everything
• The Power of a Compelling Three-to-Five-Year Vision
• Two Real-World Examples of Extreme Freedom
• The Get-Keep Framework
• Technology, AI, and Practical Action Steps for Advisors

Guest: Dave Zoller, CFP®, owner of Streamline Financial Services in Warrenville, IL. Streamline currently manages over $450 million in assets for 250 client households.

In a Nutshell: Digital marketing isn't about trying to strike lighting and "go viral," although that certainly helps! The advisors I've talked to who have mastered YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook. email, and other channels turn clicks into clients through consistency, rigorous analytics, a personal touch that connects them to their audience, and yes, some luck of being in the right place at the right time.

On today's show, Dave Zoller and I discuss how advisors can get started with YouTube marketing or optimize their existing channels. We cover everything from ideation and workflow to Dave's meticulous process for steering ideal clients towards that first phone call.

Interestingly, Dave's biggest problem is his lack of advisor capacity to serve all the qualified leads that reach out to his firm. If the prospective clients don't have $1.5 million or more to invest, they don't get on an advisor's calendar. So, if you are looking for a sweet advisor role, reach out to Dave--he's hiring!

Dennis Morton, Jr. CFP,® CHFC® is a Founder and Principal at Morton Brown Family Wealth in Allentown, PA. I've known Dennis for several years and he and his co-founder and business partner, Kathryn Brown, have built a really outstanding firm.

He also hosts one of my favorite podcasts, "Leading with Purpose." Dennis was kind enough to let me share this outstanding episode on developing versatile leadership. Joining Dennis for this conversation about leadership, blind spots, and adaptability are Craig Reynolds, former CEO of Cigars International and current Senior Advisor to Scandinavian Tobacco Group, and his Executive Coach, Eleanor Lawrence of Human Dynamics, LLC and the Center for Creative Leadership.

Imagine you've just given a fantastic presentation to a roomful of executives. You're pumped because you know all your preparation and rehearsal paid off. And you can tell from the energy in the room that your audience was knocked out too.

Then, as you're shaking hands, one of the execs "compliments" you by saying they were amazed by your intelligence because given your ethnicity, it had predestined you to a life of mediocrity. That's exactly what happened to today's podcast guest, Cecile Munoz!

I was stunned when she shared that story with me. But, in a certain sense, I wasn't. Anyone who's been in financial services a couple decades is far too familiar with incidents like that. Too many pockets of our industry were boys' clubs, and usually, the higher up the ladder you got, the whiter and more male the organization looked.

Thanks to executives like Cecile, that's finally changing in a meaningful way. On today's episode, Cecile talks about how her experiences as a Hispanic woman inspired her to create an executive search company that's helping advisory firms redefine what leadership looks like, especially post-pandemic.

Is the key to growing your business narrowing your niche?

I know that sounds contradictory. And I know many advisors worry about the "Million-Dollar Prospect" who swipes past your firm because she's a pediatrician and you specialize in orthodontists.

But if you're one of 10 advisors in town that offer the same services, you have a 10% chance of winning a prospect. If your specialization, your marketing, and your values set you apart, then prospects who are drawn to your firm have a binary choice: you versus everyone else. Your 10% chance just skyrocketed to 50%!

My guest today, Samuel Deane, started with a pretty narrow niche: comprehensive planning for millennials working in tech. Then, Samuel zeroed in on a niche within his niche where Deane Financial Partners could establish a real competitive advantage and make a positive impact on communities across the country.

Due to advances in technology and the rise of centralized systems that limit privacy, the very nature of how we think about money and the government's role in it is evolving.

The clearest manifestation of this is the rise of cryptocurrencies, of which bitcoin is the most prominent.

In today's conversation, we go back 5,000 years to explore the beginning of money and then trace how the way we think about money and how we distribute money has evolved over time. Along the way, we touch on gold, central banking, Modern Monetary Theory and yes, bitcoin. It's a wild ride!

My objective in this episode is to give you some historical context that has led to the development of bitcoin and how it is being used today so you can speak more confidently to your clients when they ask about it.

My guest to discuss all this is Michael Casey. Michael is a true pathfinder. He spent over three decades in journalism including 18 years with Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. He's been in business and academia, and he has a real grasp on the big technological, geopolitical, economic, and social trends that impact businesses, communities and individuals.

Currently, he's the chief content officer at CoinDesk.

In addition, he's the author of five highly acclaimed books including:

• "The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything"
• "The Social Organism: A Radical Understanding of Social Media to Transform Your Business and Life"
• "The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and the Blockchain Are Challenging the Global Economic Order"

In a Nutshell: To stand out from all the fake news and clickbait cluttering your audience's inboxes, you have to produce content that's authentic, entertaining, interesting, and above all, human.

Guest: Brooke Southall, the founder of RIABiz. Back in 2009, Brooke built his online-only news publication on traditional journalistic values like using multiple sources and editorial analysis. Brooke and his team captured the rise of new models for providing client-first financial advice against the backdrop of Wall Street's decline during the Great Recession. Today, RIABiz is one of the go-to sources for deep, sophisticated analysis of the most important issues affecting the RIA business.

My Key Takeaways: To create engaging, authentic content:

• Don't be boring. Before you even start writing, ask yourself, "Is this an article I would click on or swipe past?"
• Slow down. Brooke believes that the race to be first has really hurt online journalism. Working important news into your regular communication rhythm will result in better content than a rushed newsletter.
• Keep your eyes open. Brooke says the key to writing good articles isn't great writing ability, it's curiosity about the world and other people.

Also Learn:

• Why hiking with his dogs is an integral part of Brooke's writing  process.
• How to use other people's stories as a jumping-off point for your next blog or newsletter.
• What separates a compelling headline from pure clickbait.
• Why Brooke believes showing weakness is more important to good writing than demonstrating success.

Building one advisory firm with billions in AUM is hard enough. Joe Duran has done it twice, most recently selling United Capital to Goldman Sachs and becoming Head of Goldman Sachs Personal Financial Management. 

We had an insightful conversation about how he did it and what he sees for the future of financial advisors and for the advice they deliver.

In March 2020, Covid-19 lockdowns were starting, businesses were scrambling, and the markets were in a state of shock.

Despite all that, Creative Planning, Inc. had one of its best months ever.

According to President and CEO Peter Mallouk, his firm brought in $500 million in net new assets. Instead of panicking and trying to get their money out of the markets, Peter says many of his clients were giving him more money to manage – and sending more referrals as well.

The seeds that Peter's firm planted many years ago led to his clients turning to the firm during a moment of unprecedented uncertainty. While great marketing will get you noticed, it's the total client experience package that will get and keep clients as Peter's firm has amply demonstrated.

Some advisors lament the chaos caused by Covid-19, but others realize there's a tremendous opportunity to go on offense and see this as a time to reach out to people who need you now more than ever.

Covid-19 is teaching investors that there's a big difference between auto depositing into a robo account and working with a professional who is sensitive to your unique life needs.

And, increasingly, people are willing to pay for that difference, if you can deliver it.

On a recent virtual event, Peter and I talked about how advisors at any level can develop the kind of five-star experience that underscores your value to existing clients, drives referrals, and protects your business from fee compression.

9 months of job interviews. 27 "No's" from top advisory firms. 33,000 cold calls.

That's all it took for Erin Scannell to open up his independent office and land his first client back in 1999.

Few people would have powered through that long, but as Erin Scannell explains on today's podcast, he learned some hard lessons in perseverance and resilience growing up that continue to motivate him to this day.

Erin is the founder and CEO of Heritage Wealth Advisors in the Seattle area, where he directs 50 team members, 18 advisors, and about $2 billion in assets under management. Erin is also a regular on Barron's list of the top advisors and an inspiration to anyone who thinks the next hurdle in your business' growth is insurmountable – even if that hurdle is a global pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced financial advisors to shift the way you market your services. In person marketing and networking is severely restricted for the near future and if you want to succeed in this new world, you have to adapt to the new virtual reality.

Even before the pandemic, our industry was already making a shift towards digital marketing combined with digital events. Things like pay-per-click advertising, newsletters, podcasts, video, and virtual events like webinars, panels, and summits have been gaining steam for years. But now, the pandemic has accelerated that trend to light speed.

The most successful firms have jumped all over the virtual marketing trend and are crushing those firms who haven't.

To help you succeed in virtual marketing, I hosted a virtual panel with two experts. Bill Keen is the founder and CEO of Keen Wealth Advisors, which is an RIA in the greater Kansas City area with half a billion dollars in assets under management. Lisa Salvi is Vice President, Business Consulting and Field Experience at Charles Schwab, where she oversees the advisor consulting group and produces the industry's gold standard annual benchmarking report.

In a Nutshell: There's no "silver bullet" marketing strategy that's going to turn your blogs and tweets into clients. But if you identify a niche and develop a consistent media presence that's appealing and engaging, you can reach your ideal clients where they're more likely to see and hear you.

Guest: Wes Moss, the chief investment strategist of Capital Investment Advisors, which is a multibillion-dollar RIA in Atlanta. Wes has been ranked as a top 100 independent advisor by Barron's. He's also the host of Money Matters, which is Atlanta's longest running live call-in radio show on investment and personal finance, a regular contributor to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the author of three books.

My Key Takeaway: To build your media presence:

1. Get writing. Wes and I both believe that writing is the key to finding your voice and starting to create stellar content.
2. Re-purpose. Break down a good newsletter into a week's worth of social media posts. Turn audio from your webinar into a podcast. Use the intro from your last blog as a script for a 2-3 minute YouTube video.
3. Automate and delegate. If you can use AI or a team of assistants to handle basic communication tasks you'll have more time to write, record, and get personal with clients.

Also Learn:

1. Why the ability to self-publish media gives independent advisors an advantage over larger firms when trying to reach people.
2. What advisors should know about trying to break into radio versus trying to start a podcast.
3. How Wes answers the question, "I'm your client. What is the value that you provide to me?"
4. What Wes' experience as a contestant on "The Apprentice" (back when President Trump was the host) taught him about succeeding in marketing and media.

Guest: Josh Self, CLU, ChFC, CFP®, Managing Partner of Ridgeline Wealth Advisors in Raleigh, NC.

In a Nutshell: Do you serve your business or does it serve you? Josh Self decided to do a complete rebrand and design his business around his personal passion of being an everyday explorer. He wanted to attract other like-minded outdoor enthusiasts so his website and podcast are 100% geared toward that specific demographic. If you share your passions with your audience and tie them into a holistic approach to Life-Centered Planning, you're going to grow something more valuable and durable than a client base. You're going to create a real community around your practice.

On today's show, Josh Self explains how "Financial life planning for the explorer living out their bucket list" became the organizing principle of his firm, especially on the branding and marketing side of the business.

In a Nutshell: It's human nature to want to be part of a community. Hosting and participating in live events is essential to maintaining a connection with your client and prospect base and to furthering your own personal development -- even during quarantine.

Guest: Alison Rooney, Global Managing Director, Wealth Management, Barron's Group. Alison's team oversees the underwriting, membership, and content development for all of Barron's live events, including over 20 conferences geared towards elite practitioners.

My Key Takeaway: To create memorable events that will benefit and grow your community:

1. Delegate responsibility. A Barron's-sized event requires a team of pros focused on specific details, but even your next webinar will have many moving parts to coordinate.
2. Diversify your content. The broader your range of perspectives, topics, and speakers, the more likely you are to surprise, engage, and delight your audience.
3. Never run out of coffee. Your attendees are going to remember whom they saw and what they learned, but it's the little hospitality touches that will determine how they feel about your event. For virtual events, "coffee" might be a friendly thank you email or an exclusive offer.

Also Learn:

1. How Alison moves from "ideas by committee" to one lone decision maker when designing consistent and cohesive conferences.
2. What the big three reasons are that attendees go to conferences and how to appeal to each.
3. How the content that's most interesting to advisors, clients, and prospects has evolved in recent years.
4. Why Alison always zeroes in on three or four people she wants to meet ahead of any conference she's attending.

In a Nutshell: Growing your business -- especially during a crisis -- depends less on your ability to manage money that it does on your ability to become an important part of your client's story.

Guests: Arthur Ambarik CFP® is the CEO of  Perigon Wealth Management, which currently has $1.8 billion in AUM. Rachel Elson has recently transitioned from a career as a personal finance journalist to working as a Financial Planning Associate at Perigon.

My Key Takeaway: In order to make you and your services major players in your client's financial narrative:

• Do what other advisors don't. Find those pain points like helping family members or advising on a potential career change that fall through the cracks of old-fashioned advisory.
• Be your client's friend. And remember: friends do things for each other because they genuinely want to help, not because they expect something in return.
• Look outside the box when you're searching for talent. Money managers are a dime a dozen. Caring, curious, motivated people who are excited to learn the ropes are gold.

Also Learn:

1. Why Arthur and Rachel replaced traditional discovery summary letters with personalized financial narratives.

2. How your quality of service trumps your asset management when it comes to getting referrals and winning new business.

3. What Arthur has learned about balancing CEO-level responsibilities with client service responsibilities.

Recently I was a guest on the Better Conversations, Better Outcomes podcast presented by BMO Global Asset Management. Host Ben Jones and I discussed my 5-point framework for effective communication with clients during a crisis. I developed this framework based on the mistakes I saw some advisors make back in the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). These advisors got hit with a double whammy of market declines and lost clients as they failed to effectively communicate with their clients as the GFC unfolded.

In a Nutshell: Silicon Valley unicorns make the billion-dollar headlines, but the true measure of an entrepreneur's success is how you align your business with your goals, your lifestyle, your values, and the impact you make in people's lives.

Guest: Author, journalist, and speaker David Sax. His new book, The Soul of an Entrepreneur: Work and Life Beyond the Startup Myth, approaches entrepreneurship from a broader, more personal, and more realistic perspective.

My Key Takeaway: To define success for yourself as an entrepreneur:

• Accept that your business isn't Amazon or Facebook. You don't have to become a billionaire to be successful.
• Be yourself. The misfit eccentric who dropped out of high school and skateboards to the boardroom in a hoodie is the exception. Successful bakeries, salons, restaurants, and, yes, financial advisory firms are run by hardworking people like you who have a dream and put a plan in place to achieve it.
• Set purposeful but personal business targets. Don't try to grow like everyone else is. Build the business that you want to run.

Also Learn:

• How to "get over the hump" of not seeing yourself as a real entrepreneur.
• Why taking on loans or third-party investments to accelerate your growth might hurt your business more than it helps.
• What seeing Heidi Klum on the cover of Maxim taught David about the unrealistic expectations our country sets for entrepreneurs.
• The process David uses to write his books.

Seth Streeter is the CEO and founder of Mission Wealth, a leading wealth management company with more than $2.5 billion in assets under management. Seth was an early proponent of our industry's shift into Life-Centered Planning, and I could listen to him talk all day about how advisors can help folks redefine what wealth and happiness really mean.

Recently I heard an episode of the Wellness Revolutionaries podcast in which Mindbody co-founder Blake Beltram talked with Seth about this concept of redefining wealth. Their discussion was so insightful that I reached out to Blake, and he's been kind enough to let me share this episode here.

Some of the topics Blake and Seth cover include:

• Why Seth believes money counts for only 10% of a person's wealth.
• Seth's 10 Dimensions of Wealth and 7 Dimensions of Wellness.
• How the values of a new generation of workers are reshaping the classic American Dream.
• How to help retirees develop a "Life 3.0 Vision" based around the freedom to pursue passions, strengthen relationships, and build their legacies.
• Preparing your business for the paradigm shift Seth sees in how our culture views money and defines wealth.

Thank you Blake and Seth for letting me post this episode.

In a Nutshell: Hard work, a deep love for his clients, and a niche working with retirees of a particular company led this advisor to the pinnacle of the profession.

Guest: Barron's Hall of Famer Scott Tiras, President of Tiras Wealth Management, which is a private wealth advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial Services. Scott has more than 30 years of experience as an advisor. Currently he manages around 700 family relationships and more than $1.5 billion in assets.

My Key Takeaway: To create an experience that makes clients feel like they're your only client:

1. Identify your "bread and butter client," meaning the people to whom you can bring the most value over time.
2. Focus your pitch and your value proposition on what Scott calls "the soft side of retirement" — the things clients and prospects will be retiring to, not just their raw numbers.
3. Challenge yourself and your team to excel. Scott channels his competitive energy into running a world-class business. You need to find a similar motivation and drive to deliver "hall of fame" service and keep growing.

Also Learn:

1. How Scott targets a local company niche with on-site workshops that demonstrate his expertise and lay the foundations for strong relationships.

2. How Scott leverages his team of 16 to support him and personalize the relationship building touches that keep his clients connected to the business.

3. What Scott does to build his brand and play an active role in his community so that he has a noticeable, positive presence.

In a Nutshell: A "wow" customer service experience meets clients needs, engages customers on terms that gel with their lifestyle, and creates genuine human connection. Hitting those check marks is what separates Ritz-Carlton, Starbucks, Zappos, and the best financial advisory firms from the rest of the pack.

Guest: Joseph Michelli, a bestselling author, an international speaker, an organizational consultant, and one of the world's leading authorities on how to develop joyful and productive workplaces with a focus on the customer experience.

My Key Takeaway: To give your clients a "Ritz-Carlton" advisory experience they'll be sure to tell their friends about:

1. Don't strive for excellent customer service. Seek perfection. The companies that try to deliver better service tomorrow than they did today are the ones that build the priceless brand loyalty that sets them apart from their competition.

2. Focus your client experience around addressing "peaks and pains." Find small ways to celebrate big wins with clients that your planning helped them achieve. Use your financial expertise and your human empathy to mitigate painful moments -- like, say, a sudden market downturn after a global virus outbreak.

3. Make the most out of every face-to-face interaction you have with a client. Your most effective marketing doesn't happen in Facebook ads or on a billboard. It happens when a client is in your office getting five-star treatment from the moment they walk in the door. You won't have to ask your clients for referrals -- you'll be earning them.

Also Learn:

1. Why you wouldn't take a first date to McDonald's and what that says about good service vs. great hospitality.

2. How to integrate your tech stack with your advisory team to create elevated customer experiences on a consistent basis.

3. What Joseph Michelli learned about world-class customer service and team leadership from Howard Schultz, Airbnb, and Mercedes-Benz.

On this special bonus podcast episode, I'm doing something I've never done before: republishing someone else's podcast. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode of the Top Advisor Marketing Podcast, hosted by Matt Halloran and featuring guest Mitch Anthony.

This was a really fun listen for me because I go back a long way with both of these guys. Matt was one of the best coaches we had when I was running Peak Advisor Alliance. And Mitch is my business partner in ROL Advisor, our online platform that's helping advisors refocus the planning conversation on people's lives, not just their money. And that idea is at the heart of Mitch's conversation with Matt. They do a real deep dive into how advisors can use the discovery process to reveal the client's story and understand how significant life experiences have shaped the client's relationship to money.

In addition to discussing how ROL Advisor builds out that initial storytelling into an engaging client experience, Mitch and Matt also talk about:

• How to guide clients towards an empowering decision-making mindset that makes them feel more in control of their planning.
• What kinds of questions you can ask to help clients connect their means to a sense of meaning.
• Why dialogue is more powerful than monologue.
• What the true purpose of money is.
• How to get more comfortable and more adept at helping clients manage the emotional side of financial life transitions.
• How to pull all of the above together to create a value proposition that's truly valuable to clients and prospects.

A big thanks to Matt Halloran and the team at Top Advisor Marketing for letting me share this insightful conversation.

Where does the drive come from for top achievers who keep knocking it out of the park long past the point that many of us would have kicked up our feet and called it a career?

That question has fascinated me for decades and today's podcast guest, Laila Pence, CFP®, shared with me one of the most compelling stories I've ever heard about overcoming early life challenges to become one of the country's most successful and respected financial advisors.

As we talked at the Barron's Teams Summit in Las Vegas, Laila also explained how her approach to overcoming some incredible personal hardships informed how she built her billion-dollar advisory firm with an intense focus on creating true, lasting relationships with her clients.

Laila Pence is the President of Pence Wealth Management, one of the nation's leading private wealth management firms with over $1.0 billion in AUM. She's currently ranked in the top 1% of female financial advisors nationwide and, in 2019, she was named among the top 6 female financial advisors in the country by Forbes, and the #38 top independent financial advisor nationally by Barron's Magazine. Forbes also ranked Laila #1 on their Best-in-State Wealth Advisors List for Southern California in 2019.

In a Nutshell: All financial advisors deliver services and advice. The ones who are growing their businesses find creative ways to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace and attract a niche of clients they can offer the most value to.

Guest: Steve Wershing. Steve is the President of The Client Driven Practice and the author of Stop Asking for Referrals. He's also the cohost of a great podcast called Becoming Referable.

My Key Takeaway: To differentiate both your firm and your prospective client base:

1. Discover, design, develop, and declare your niche.

2. Craft a unique client experience that will cater to your ideal client.

3. Remember: a niche is a need that sets your clients apart, and a need that you are able to service in a unique way.

Also Learn:

1. Why separating "target" from "niche" is essential to transforming your business.

2. How simple tweaks to things like your meeting calendar can have a big impact on your niche client experience and drive up your value to clients.

3. What kinds of dialogues you can have with clients that will lead to referrals ... without you having to ask for them.

In a Nutshell: Steve and Amy Koenig, a financial advisor coach, are back for a deep dive on an issue every advisor will face at some point which is, how do you transition existing clients to another advisor and do it so the clients stay and there's no drop in service.

Sometimes there's a personality mismatch. Sometimes goals aren't aligned. Sometimes advisors need new challenges.

Or, as was the case for Heritage's Erin Scannell, sometimes an advisor has to clear the deck so that he can step into a leadership role and drive the vision for the company's growth.

Whatever the reason, there will be times when your firm needs to move clients from one advisor to another. And, on today's show, Steve and Amy detail the system they use to ensure a smooth transition and optimal results.

In a Nutshell: Delivering great service is table stakes. Drive toward extraordinary by creating a unique, emotionally engaging experience for each individual client.

Guest: Julie Littlechild. Julie is a leading expert on the drivers of client engagement. She's also the cohost of the Becoming Referable podcast and the author of the book The Pursuit of Absolute Engagement.

My Key Takeaway: To create an engaging client experience that becomes a magnet for new ideal clients:

Be intentional about designing a discovery and planning process that engages your clients emotions and makes them feel more connected to you.
Focus less on a prospect's assets and more on how they view themselves, then deliver an experience that is tailor made for who they are.
Draw a distinction between service and hospitality ... and excel at both.

Also Learn:

1. Why creating a client journey map should be an essential early step in thinking about your systems and services.

2. How to put your firm and its ideal clients to an "Authenticity Test" that will make you think about what you're really trying to accomplish as an advisor and as a business owner.

3. What it means for advisors and their clients to "co-create" a financial planning experience together.

In a Nutshell: In 2020, the most successful advisors have moved past worrying about "competing" with technology. Instead, they're finding ways to automate the 30 - 40% of the mundane tasks that are necessary for relationships but don't enhance them, so that they can focus on the human conversations that create real lasting value -- and more business.

Guest: Matt Reiner, CFP® CFA®, the cofounder and CEO of Benjamin, "the world's first A.I. assistant created for advisors by advisors."

My Key Takeaway: Used properly, AI can do things human advisors don't need to be doing so that we can focus on things AI can't do, like:

Build better relationships with our clients.
Coach our clients on financial matters so that they make better decisions and feel more in control of their futures.
Help clients clarify what their money is for and live their best life possible today, not just in retirement.

Also Learn:

1. Why you need to start thinking about technology -- and AI in particular -- as your partner, not your enemy.

2. How an AI platform can help keep your margins and expenses under control during a burst of high growth.

3. What nuts and bolts integration and training looks like when you decide to add an AI component to your tech stack.

A single word or a short phrase could permanently change your life.

When you were young, a teacher may have said something to you that forever altered how you viewed yourself—good or bad. Maybe a parent said something that still sticks with you today. Or perhaps a former boss made a comment that drives you nuts to this day—I'm in that boat!

In a similar way, this "My 3 Words" exercise I learned from Chris Brogan is designed to empower you with 3 words that drive your actions and keep you on track to make this your best year ever.

This is the sixth year now where 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 Outcomes 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 2020 your best year ever.

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

In a Nutshell: The largest financial advisory firms have developed consistent marketing programs that deliver a predictable stream of ideal clients...and there's just a handful of different ways to do it.

Guest: Brad Johnson. Brad is the Vice President of Advisor Development for Advisors Excel. He's also the host of a great podcast for financial advisors called The Elite Advisor Blueprint.

My Key Takeaway: To get your marketing machine humming:

- Understand that marketing is NOT optional. Referral marketing is not enough. Choose from a list of five broad marketing buckets (with an infinite number of tactical ways to execute), and implement aggressively and consistently.

- Marketing is math. Don't let your emotions distract you from the key numbers that will determine how and when a particular marketing initiative will pay off. 

- Make practicing a practice. Once you identify the most effective marketing strategy for your ideal client pool, practice and pursue mastery of it. 

Also Learn:

1. Why strong marketing that keeps your business growing double digits each year is one of the most effective ways of retaining top talent.

2. How one well-produced piece of content (like a book) can be repurposed, sliced and diced, and become an evergreen source of more content (like blog posts, short videos, and social media posts).

3. What sets apart a valuable proprietary process from a generic commodity that prospects can get from any advisor.

In a Nutshell: Shifting from being a financial advisor to being a financial coach could be the next evolution of how financial guidance is delivered and enable independent human advisors to remain profitable and relevant.

Guest: Todd Tresidder. Todd is a former hedge fund manager who transitioned into a successful financial coaching career. Recently, he has adapted his coaching into a series of premium online courses on wealth building at Financial Mentor. 

My Key Takeaway: In order to keep adding to your value proposition:

-  Spend more time empowering clients and less on enabling them.

- Help your clients find the path to the next step, help them always be taking that next step, and help them avoid the missteps that are in their path.

- Consider getting formal training in how to coach people, from organizations like Coaches Training Institute.

Also Learn:

1. How the act of gaining financial freedom doubles as a path to personal growth.

2. How a financial coach's services differ from a traditional financial advisor's. 

3. What separates most people from setting their wealth goals and actually achieving them. 

In a Nutshell: Clear career paths and offering a path to partnership and equity ownership are key ways to attract and retain next generation advisors and advisory firm leaders.

Guests: Lisa Salvi is Vice President of Advisor Services at Charles Schwab, where she oversees business consulting and education offerings, including their one-on-one consulting engagements, the annual RIA Benchmarking Study, and other programs that support the development of advisor talent.

Yonhee Gordon is a principal and Chief Operating Officer of JMG Financial Group just outside of Chicago, which has more than $3.0 billion in assets under management.

In a Nutshell: Whether you're writing website copy, sending email newsletters, social media posts, physical mailers, or a combination, you have to master the psychology of engagement to turn your prospects into clients and keep your business growing. 

Guest: Adam Bensman. Adam is one of the top direct response copywriters and consultants in the country, and he has a particular expertise in helping financial advisors improve their marketing.

My Key Takeaway: If you want win more business from your copywriting, you need to craft a compelling offer that:

1. Differentiates your firm.
2. Reaches your ideal client right where they are.
3. Addresses the questions that are going in their mind.
4. Provides a high level of perceived value. 

Also Learn

1.  Why you should delete your glossy headshot from the top of your emails, open with an ellipsis (...),  and always end with a PS.

2. How to address your prospect's pain by appealing to the "search trigger" that brought them to you in the first place. 

3. What 4 quadrants Adam says your marketing needs to hit in order to set yourself apart and demonstrate your value to your audience. 

The growth of United Capital is a fascinating case study in how being early on a trend, M&A, technology, financial life planning, and a charismatic leader all came together to create one of the industry's biggest and most innovative RIA firms. Today, we'll take a deep dive on this story through one of firm's longest tenured employees, Matt Brinker.

Starting at $0 in 2005, Joe Duran founded United Capital, and one of his early hires was Matt Brinker. Matt joined the firm when it had about $300 million in AUM and rode it all the way to $24 billion in AUM. He left after 13 years when the company was sold to Goldman Sachs in mid-2019.

Most recently, Matt was the chief business development officer and head of acquisitions for the firm.

If you're not learning faster than the world is changing, then you are going to fall behind very quickly. And businesses that fall too far behind usually don't get a second chance to catch up.

A big challenge for financial advisors is, how do you stay on top of everything that's required to run a successful advisory business?

As Josh Brown put it at the recent Wealth/Stack Conference, "A good advisor is both coach and quarterback, on-demand psychologist and personal friend, historian and futurist." That's an awful lot of ground for us to cover in our personal and professional learning. Plus, we have to track technological advances that are impacting our industry, while also adapting to best practices that help our businesses stay ahead of the competition.

If you haven't made a commitment to learning one of your top responsibilities as a CEO advisor, today's episode will help you get with the program.

My guest today is financial planner, author, podcast host, and speaker Taylor Schulte. Taylor is the founder of Define Financial, a financial planning firm headquartered in San Diego, CA. He's also the co-founder of Advisor Growth Community, a place for financial advisors to connect with and learn from each other, and the host of two excellent podcasts, Stay Wealthy and Experiments in Advisor Marketing.

Taylor and I talked about why all financial advisors need to be lifelong learners, our sources for learning, and we share a few marketing ideas too.

When was the last time you talked to a Netflix employee about your account?

How about an Amazon employee?

I'm guessing for most of you the answer is: never. Netflix automatically charges my credit card every month and uses its algorithms to push content it thinks I'll enjoy to my home screen.

A shipping problem or return request with Amazon is usually resolved with a couple swipes or clicks. It's efficient customer service, but it's all faceless, online, impersonal.

Now, when was the last time you stayed at a Ritz-Carlton or Four Season? How did that experience make you feel? Pretty darn good I bet!

The key to your success as an advisor is to marry the tech efficiency of an Amazon with the deluxe service of a Ritz-Carlton and underpin it with high technical competence. It's really a three-legged stool—tech efficiency + deluxe service + technical competence.

I sometimes worry that our industry has become so obsessed with the tech efficiency leg of the stool that we are losing sight of what clients are really paying us for—helping them make better financial decisions so they can live their best life possible.

I couldn't attend this year Wealth/Stack Conference, so I invited two of my favorite past guests who did attend to recap some of the key themes that emerged from the conference.

My guests today are Dennis Morton and Matt Wilson. Dennis is the co-founder of Morton Brown Family Wealth along with his partner, Kathryn Brown. Matt is the Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director of Keen Wealth Advisors along with his partner, Bill Keen.

Here are four major themes from the conference and our thoughts about each.

Guest: Lisa Salvi, Managing Director, Advisor Services at Charles Schwab.

In a Nutshell: If you could start from scratch and sketch out what the ideal advisory practice looks like, what would you come up with?

Lisa Salvi and her team have developed just such a blueprint for what the most successful firms at Charles Schwab are doing to manage and grow their businesses.

On today's show, Lisa and I dig into the details of Schwab's 2024 Benchmarking Study, paying particular attention to the five Guiding Principles for Advisory Firm Success that Lisa says separate good firms from the best of the best.

Email Marketing is one of the most effective, least expensive, and underutilized marketing strategies available to you right now.

I'm on the record as saying a person's inbox in the most valuable piece of marketing real estate you can own. When a person gives you permission to show up in their inbox on a regular basis, you can develop a personalized relationship that leads to new business and long-term loyalty.

Now, you might be thinking, "Steve, have you lost your rocker here? Email is so 1990s. Why are you talking about email marketing? Email is dead. We've got Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn, texting, Instagram, webinars and much more, so why are you talking about a dinosaur like email?"

Because it works!

Just like I was early to the podcasting space five years ago when I started Between Now and Success, the next big marketing and education platform is a resurrection of an old one—email.

I started using "electronic mail" back in the 1980s when I worked for corporate giants Caterpillar and Hewlett-Packard. In those pre-commercial internet days, it was a closed loop and I could send mail only to other employees. I thought it was really cool back then and today, it's even cooler now that your "email" is as unique and ubiquitous as your thumbprint.

To explore email marketing, I invited one of the country's leading authorities on email marketing, Dan Oshinsky, to my podcast. Dan is the founder of Inbox Collective, an email consultancy that helps brands grow audiences, build relationships, and get results via email.

Previously, Dan was the Director of Newsletters at The New Yorker, where he helped launch new newsletters, optimize their suite of products, and drive paid subscriber growth through email. Dan was also the Director of Newsletters at BuzzFeed, where he built a team that grew newsletters into one of the biggest referrers of traffic to the site and drove 250 million clicks to BuzzFeed. Dan also wrote more than 200 posts for BuzzFeed, including one that hit 1 million views.

A top-notch tech stack is table stakes. And you won't "out tech the tech titans" so you can't win on technology.

So what can a financial advisor do to remain relevant and thrive in the years ahead?

You can double-down on your ability to humanize the advisor-client relationship, to understand and deliver on exactly what your clients really need, and you should do it in a technologically-enhanced way.

"You're not competing on your toolkit or the software that you deploy in your office," says podcast guest Lex Sokolin. "You're competing on the core need, which is that most people don't have enough money. They don't know how to retire. They're super anxious. I think the smart financial advisor will shade the constructs of how they work and move towards what the human need is in this evolving world."

Lex Sokolin is the Global Fintech Co-Head at ConsenSys, a blockchain technology company building the infrastructure, applications, and practices that enable a decentralized world. Lex is also a futurist and entrepreneur whose newsletter, Future of Finance, should be on your must-read list every week if you want to stay ahead of the curve (I read it each week).

In today's conversation, we discuss the sweeping changes in the fintech landscape and what new skills advisors will need to thrive in an industry that's getting more digital and more automated every day.

"You're either growing or dying." How many times have you heard that chestnut? Too many!

But what if you decided you didn't want to grow? What if you decided you'd be happy at the current size of your business and just add new clients when an existing client leaves or passes away?

Does the thought of that idea make you vomit or is it liberating?

If you decide it's all about growth, what are you willing to sacrifice to scale?

My guest today, Carolyn McClanahan recently decided her practice was "big enough" with 100 families and she has now closed her firm to new clients.

Carolyn is the Director of Financial Planning at Life Planning Partners in Jacksonville, FL and she has a fascinating background. She's actually a M.D. who decided to become a CFP® after she and her husband couldn't find a financial planner who provided the kind of life-planning advice that they really wanted. After she opened her own firm in 2004, Carolyn split her time between advising some of her doctor buddies and treating patients as an emergency room doctor.

In our conversation, we discuss how Carolyn replaced the old "big book" financial plans we all remember with a more personal, goals-based narrative approach. She also talks about her unique fee structure of pricing based on complexity, and we discuss how she concluded that 100 families was the optimal size for her practice.

The classic educational seminar still works if you spend the time, and yes, the money to do it right.

My podcast guest today, Matt Gulbransen, has mastered the science—and art—of delivering seminars that convert. 

Matt is the President of Pine Grove Financial Group, which is an RIA operating in the St. Paul, Minnesota area. In our conversation, Matt discusses what attracted him to seminars, what works for him, a few things that don't, the kinds of events he hosts, the formula he uses to calculate his ROI, and, maybe most importantly, the emphasis that he and his team place on rehearsing your presentations until not even a power outage is going to throw you off your game.

Today I'm going to share 3 maxims used by Navy SEALs that drive their elite performance.

These maxims have been used by SEALs for decades and have proven their worth in thousands of Special Operations missions in every corner of the world.

The good news is, they'll work for you too. Apply them to your business and to your personal performance and watch your results soar.

My guest today is Commander David Sears of the United States Navy. David retired after serving for 20 years in the Navy SEALs. He's a decorated veteran who planned, led, and executed hundreds of Special Operations missions in more than 40 countries on five continents.

In our conversation we talk in-depth about three maxims that guide how Navy SEALs operate. Each maxim is so nuanced that once you dig into the surface-level truth, you'll find deeper levels of insight that can apply to any kind of business – including, of course, financial advisory.

I really love making these kinds of connections. I firmly believe that to be successful in any business, you need to diversify your inputs and learn as much as you can from whomever you can. You might not think that advisors and Navy SEALs have a whole lot in common. But more often than not, I've found that strategies that the absolute best of the best use to excel in one field have lessons for folks in other businesses as well.

Imagine for a moment if you could build a highly profitable practice that served a total of just 10 families and individuals. And through your personalized, indispensable service you could create clients for life, and perhaps even for a generation or two.

That's exactly what David Dunn is doing at Kingsbridge Wealth Management. David describes Kingsbridge as a family office featuring a "full stack financial infrastructure" that provides high-net-worth families and individuals with everything they need to manage their wealth. That means a thorough understanding of how each client thinks about their money, offering specialized services, and incorporating some outside-the-box thinking on asset allocation (hint: it's definitely NOT modern portfolio theory).

Even if your typical client's net worth is in the 7-figures, as opposed to 8, 9 or 10 that David works with, you'll gain a great appreciation of the psychological and service needs of all investors and how to apply that understanding to better meeting your client's needs.

You're not going to reach the top of this profession without having a competitive streak in you. And when you channel that competitiveness into "winning" for your clients and "winning" in the growth of your business, that's a dynamite combo.

Today's guest, Michael Bapis, is a competitor who played golf for the University of Utah, then collegiate-level basketball while studying abroad in Greece for two years. After finishing school, he moved to Phoenix and ran Jim Flick's Golf School at Desert Mountain. Once he decided to follow his father into finance, Michael kept learning and achieving at a very high level, first at Morgan Stanley, then at HighTower. In 2018, he opened Vios Advisors under the umbrella of Rockefeller Capital Management, working with high-net worth individuals, pro athletes, and entertainers.

We connected in person at the 2019 SALT Conference and discussed a wide range of topics including two key lessons he learned from his early mentor Jim Flick. These lessons became foundational cornerstones for how he built his advisory firm to more than $1 billion in AUM.

I'm convinced that one of the keys to success is to have extreme clarity. But clarity can be difficult to define, and even harder to achieve. In our business, many advisors don't do a thorough enough job defining themselves to an ever-more-crowded marketplace. "We help you achieve your financial goals" might fit well on your website's masthead. But does a phrase like that really say anything meaningful about who you are as an advisor, what kind of value you bring to the planning process, and who your ideal clients are?

To help us all achieve some … well, clarity on these important issues, I sat down with the "King of Clarity." My guest today is Steve Woodruff, who is in the business of helping people discover their fit and then craft the words that become their verbal business card. He's also the author of a great book called "Clarity Wins: Get Heard, Get Referred." In our conversation, Steve discusses the five questions he believes all business owners need to ask themselves about their branding and messaging, especially when it comes to your website.

And make sure you listen to the whole episode, because at the end we hold some advisor websites up to the King's clarity standards. Steve's feedback on the good, the bad, and the ugly of clarity will make you look at your own marketing in a whole new way.

(Don't worry. Names have been disguised to protect the innocent. And the guilty.)

If I only knew then what I know now …

As advisors and business owners, we all think about this from time to time. But how often do you actually put what you've learned into action?

Right now, you're probably sitting on a lesson or idea you could use to transform your business. In fact, you might have enough "A-ha!" moments stored up to do something really exciting, like starting your dream RIA from scratch.

My guests today did just that. Dennis Morton and Katie Brown are the co-founders of Morton Brown Family Wealth in Allentown, PA. They used lessons learned during their previous 10-year working relationship at another firm to grow Morton Brown from $0 to over $100 million in AUM in just 12 months.

In today's show, we discuss the specific ways they designed their firm from Day 1 to be an enduring business with no regrets and no more "if onlys."

A master class from Sterling Shea on how to revamp your business and thrive as a world-class financial advisor, taught by someone who literally writes the book on where our industry is going and how the best of the best stay at the top.

Guest: Erin Scannell, Chief Executive Officer of Heritage Wealth Advisors.

In a Nutshell: When I talked to Erin Scannell in 2020, he was directing 50 team members, 18 advisors, and about $2 billion in AUM. Four years later, Heritage has doubled to $4 billion in AUM, and Erin is in charge of over 80 team members, including 20 advisors and a robust support team.

On today's show, Erin shares the secrets behind his firm's explosive growth, including their innovative approach to organic marketing, the power of virtual events, and the strategic acquisition that brought them into the high-net-worth space. We also discuss how Erin's role has evolved from lead advisor to CEO, as well as leveraging tech to help advisors move up the value stack and address client's higher-level advice and life needs.

How can financial advisors build an enduring business with sustainable value?

Contrary to what we often hear and read, it's not all about tech. It's about being indispensable in your clients' lives.

Today's guest, Brie Williams, says there are four areas we should focus on to create sustainable value.

1. Be authentic to what you represent.
2. Set, manage, and deliver on client expectations.
3. Remember that perception is reality.
4. Optimize to realize your long-term vision.

These four areas can form the core of your client-centric approach to business.

Brie is Vice President of State Street Global Advisors and Head of Practice Management for the Global SPDR Business. Before she entered financial services, Brie had a great career in advertising and research where she managed big brands like Frito-Lay, McDonald's, and Target.

In our conversation, we explored some of the key drivers you need to put in place to build a sustainable business in our fast-paced world. In particular, Brie talked about the lessons she learned on Madison Ave. that have translated into helping advisors build better practices, and how you can use technology combined with human empathy and curiosity to help clients understand how to engage with you and your team when their money needs and life needs intersect.

Capitalism is taking a beating right now. Rising wealth inequality and low social mobility have been festering for decades. The median income of Americans hasn't budged in 30 years. The overall share of GDP accruing to capital has risen significantly relative to labor. And I could go on.

So is capitalism the problem? No. We don't need to ditch capitalism, we just need to evolve it so more people can benefit from it.

But how do we do that?

For some answers, I reached out to Anthony "the Mooch" Scaramucci. You may know him as the short-lived communications director in the White House. But he's also the founder of a multi-billion dollar alternative fund, organizer of the SALT Forum (BTW, I'll be podcasting from the SALT Forum so register to attend and I'll see you there), and a fun guy to talk to.

In today's show, we talk about capitalism. We discuss what works, what's not working, and what would it take for our country to evolve capitalism so it helps all Americans live the American dream.I hope you enjoy today's show.

Seminars work. I've had multiple advisors on my podcast in recent months who are all killing it with seminars. In fact, today's podcast guest, Bill Keen, raised $90 million in AUM last year from seminars.

Sure, it seems old school in the age of Facebook, YouTube, and Zoom, but people still value human to human live contact. You can only Google, click, and swipe so much before you just want to hear an actual person give you some good, solid information about how to live the best life possible with your money.

If you're behind the curve on seminars and you aren't sure how to start, my guest today, Bill Keen, is going to help you catch up. Bill's firm, Keen Wealth, has almost half a billion dollars in AUM, and seminars have been pivotal to Bill's success.

On this episode, Bill details the 5-step process he used to perfect his seminar process and it could help you get on track to raise tens of millions in new AUM. Yes, there's more to it than just slapping together a good PowerPoint. But if you commit to Bill's process and throw in some personal touches, you'll be on your way to grabbing an audience and growing your client base.