Between Now and Success

Your business success boils down to three things: 1) the right people, 2) building, selling and servicing the right product, 3) at the right price and cost structure to generate acceptable profits. In other words, it's about people, product, and profits. The great auto executive and commercial pitchman Lee Iacocca got it right when he said: In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two. In today's show, I go through each of these areas and discuss specific things you can do to excel. Make sure you visit the website to read the full article and see a video of one of Iacocca's classic commercials.

After reading about a new digital platform for financial advisors that builds traffic on the other company's website I thought, 'This is not a good way for advisors to build their digital presence.' So, in today's podcast, I'm going to walk you through a three-step digital marketing strategy for building a digital presence that drives traffic to YOUR website, that builds YOUR leads pipeline, and that builds YOUR brand, not somebody else's(See my podcast: How to Build a Brand That Connects With Your Clients and Prospects). There are so many platforms out there that rely on you to create content for them--for free--in order to build THEIR business. I'm thinking of Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Medium, Advisor Insights from Investopedia, and many others. The trick is you have to be very careful with these other sites to make sure that you get a positive ROI on the time and intellectual capital you spend populating these other sites. I'm not kidding when I say if you pay scant attention to your digital marketing and digital presence strategy, you're going to be history before you know it. All these platforms that have popped up in recent years are trying to grow by getting free content from you and then selling advertising to the platform user base. It's a great business because their cost of goods is like--zero. These platforms know the value of attracting lots of people to their system. You need to do the same. Now, there is a time and a place for you to use these third-party platforms to grow your business. But, you have to be smart about how you do it. You have to carefully choose the third-party places where you post your intellectual capital and devote your time. And the ultimate goal of doing this is simple--you want to drive traffic back to your website, capture the leads, and start nurturing them to become clients. Today, I discuss how to create a digital strategy that drives traffic to your website and builds your brand, not somebody else's.

Why are only 23% of CFPs women? Why are even fewer women in leadership roles? Why aren't more women entering the business? What can existing firms and leaders do to encourage more women to become financial advisors and help them through the tough early years? Those are just a few of the questions Eleanor and I discussed on today's show about how to hire and train women financial advisors. All firm leaders and industry leaders reading this post and listening to this podcast have a role to play in encouraging more women to enter the business and helping ensure they succeed. Frankly, it's a great business for women. They possess certain interpersonal skills that make them ideally suited for the human-to-human nature of this work. Unfortunately, there's a stereotype among many women that this business is all about sales and numbers. Sure, that's part of it, but ultimately it's much more than that. When it comes to training women financial advisors, Eleanor said, "I think a training program has to make sure that she understands the timeline for advancement, the expectations for the role, the responsibilities, where she is going to be in the firm if she meets expectations in the next year, 2 years and beyond." Hiring women makes good business sense. "Firms need to realize that having more women in a firm does very positive things to the workplace environment, to the culture, even the bottom line. Large companies who have put more women in leadership positions, management positions, really do have higher return numbers measured in a number of ways. It's just good business," said Eleanor. Oh, and let's not forget, women may be slightly better investors than men, according to various studies.

Technology is changing at head-spinning speed and it's easy to get confused about which technology to implement and how to go about being profitably innovative. Betting the farm on a certain technology direction is usually not the best idea. But what can you do instead? In today's show, I have a conversation with Lex Sokolin, co-founder of an early Robo Advisor called NestEgg, and now a partner and chief operating officer of Vanare. Lex gave an excellent talk at the T3 Technology Conference in February and we got together to chat about being innovative. (Also, checkout this profile of Lex at Wealthmanagement.com.) We talk about the process of being innovative and how financial advisors can make good technology decisions without betting the farm. We also discussed James Altucher's process for coming up with ideas, lean startup methodology, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. It's a value-packed 25 minutes!

How do you influence people to take action? How do you get people to follow you, rally behind you, and take your advice? Robert Cialdini wrote the seminal book on influence and I encourage you to read it (or checkout the highlights here). But in today's show, I want to share a few more tips that come from an article written by United Capital founder Joe Duran (see my earlier interview with him here), a conversation I had with one of my coaching clients, a podcast I did with professional speaker Michael Port, and from a book by Robert McKee called, "Story." We all want to be more influential so we can help people take positive action to improve their situation. The good news is there are specific ways to do that and I share them with you in today's show. If you have any questions or comments, please email me. I'd love to hear what you like and what you'd like to see improved about the podcast. Thanks!

It was a great week for podcast recording. I recorded several episodes with people from as far away as Sydney, Australia and as close as 30 minutes from my house. And each of them generated numerous insights and on today's show, I'm going to share 3 of them. I close the show with a quote from Buckminster Fuller on how to make change. This quote is particularly relevant to the financial industry right now. If you have any questions or comments, please email me. I'd love to hear what you like and what you'd like to see improved about the podcast. Thanks!

Can you get a true understanding of a client's risk tolerance and place them in a portfolio with the appropriate portfolio risk by asking a few simple subjective questions? Robo Advisors Betterment (see my interview with Betterment founder Jon Stein) and Wealthfront believe they can but today's guest, Aaron Klein, co-founder of Riskalyze, believes those firms have it all wrong. Aaron's firm tackles the risk tolerance and portfolio risk challenge from a different angle by utilizing concepts borrowed from Prospect Theory. Prospect Theory was developed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and essentially says, "People value gains and losses differently and, as such, will base decisions on perceived gains rather than perceived losses. Thus, if a person were given two equal choices, one expressed in terms of possible gains and the other in possible losses, people would choose the former." Source. We had a fascinating discussion about how investors deal with risk and we capped it off with some thoughts about the future of the financial advice business. Aaron has strong opinions and he has the smarts to back them up. Don't miss this episode with Aaron Klein of Riskalyze.

We all love great stories and in today's podcast I share some insights on why stories are better than facts when it comes to influence. You'll also hear my conversation with academy-award winning producer Ed Saxon, as we discuss the power of story. But wait, there's more! At the T3 Technology Conference I also talked to Jay Jay French, a founding member of the popular band Twisted Sister. And you'll hear our conversation on this podcast as we discuss four ways to deal with setbacks. He also shares a story about Keith Richards that you won't want to miss. Fun stuff! Jay Jay is a columnist for Inc. Magazine so he knows more than just how to get a crowd rocking.

This is a jam-packed episode filled with my takeaways from the T3 Technology Conference as well as interview clips from six industry leaders. I cover four themes that emerged from the conference including: enhancing the client experience, offering a client portal, delivering a quality financial planning offering, and using big data to make better business decisions and personalize the client experience. In today's show, you'll hear from: Phil Cunningham, CEO of Advicent Kevin Knull, – President of PIETech Inc., the creators of MoneyGuidePro Drew DiMarino, Head of Sales for eMoney Greg Friedman, CEO of Junxure, CEO of a top RIA called Private Ocean, and author of Advisory Leadership: Kevin Cimring, CEO of Invesco Jemstep, and Josh Self, Envision Wealth Planning Greg Sauer, – Business Development at Oranj

I just got back from the TD Ameritrade National Conference and in today's show, I'll share a few quick comments from the event. Yes, the conference covered the usual slew of technology sessions dedicated to robo advisors and scaling your business. But what I found most interesting was the theme of putting the "human" into finance. TD Ameritrade clearly understands the importance of the "human" in the financial planning process and the importance of using story to connect with others. I start the podcast by discussing an important insight from keynote speaker Sally Hogshead and then wrap up with on-site conversations I had with Matt Brinker of United Capital, Spencer Segal of ActifFi, and Matt Ackermann of Investment News.