Marie, the floor is yours. All right. Well, hello, everybody. I'm so excited about today's session. You all know me, Marie Swift, I've been the playbook moderator for a number of years now. And today we're talking about everybody's favorite subject, selling, or maybe it's not your favorite subject, but we have a number of great panelists here who I'm just delighted to hear from, and I'll introduce them to you in just a minute, but I wanted to start with this. If you've ever wondered why the advisor down the street is getting more business than you are, but they're not as competent, they're not as ethical, they're not as smart or credentialed or caring, then chances are that they're doing something that you're not, that you might be able to shore up, to level up. So for all of you mild-mannered fiduciaries out there, you know who you are. You know if you're shrinking away because you're uncomfortable, maybe you've been burned in a situation or you don't want to be appearing as if you're slimy or a smarmy salesperson. But at the end of the day, we're all selling something, aren't we? We're selling ourselves all the time. We're selling our ideas all the time. If we're not sold on ourselves and who we are and the value that we bring, then how can we communicate that in a passionate, authentic way where people really feel that they get who you are and why you're doing what you're doing and it's not a hidden agenda. It's really a conversation. It's a dance. It's a collaboration. And so today we're going to be hearing from Bob Veras, George Kinder, Eddie Kramer, Meg Bartelt, and of course me. And we're going to be talking in today's series about conversation, listening, and how you can get people engaged in a conversation where they just naturally want to say yes and be with you if it's the right fit. I'm going to start with a couple of my own comments and my own examples of hiring three financial planners over the years, and you'll probably know a couple of them. And then next month, we're going to come back again and we're going to dig deeper. We're going to talk more about how you look. I call it the three L's, look, language, and leadership. So we're going to go deeper beyond the words, beyond listening. What can we do to seem as more credible, charismatic people that everyone just wants to be around? And then we're going to come back together in November and we'll have more of an interactive experience where you'll have some homework. We're going to invite you to play along with us and come back prepared to share and interact for 75 minutes, not just for an hour, but for 75 minutes on November 30th, and that'll be our capstone. So here are our panelists today. We know Bob from Insight Information and the Insiders Forum, George Kinder from the Kinder Institute of Life Planning, Eddie Kramer, who is a long time practitioner and a fiduciary advisor and Meg Bartelt, who is also a practitioner. And I just learned a career changer and a registered life planner. So welcome panelists. And as we get going, I just wanted to ground our audience on some of the things that we're going to be covering today. We're going to cover questions like what's the difference between marketing and sales, how to move from thinking of selling as a bad thing and more of a noble cause, any secrets to selling and persuasion. And I'm going to start by offering my own comments and then I'm going to open up the floor. We're going to go in order. Our panelists have some prepared comments for you today. And then we're going to have time for Q&A at the end. So a long time ago, it seems like a long time ago, 2015, I co-wrote this article, which was published by the Journal of Financial Planning, and it's about selling. Sell is not a four letter word. My co-author was Marion Asness, who was just a dynamo, one of the powerhouses of our time. She was at the time the chief editor at Financial Planning Magazine. And I used to pitch her all the time because I'm a PR person and that's my job is to do matchmaking and to get my clients connected with smart journalists, especially in consumer personal finance outlets or in industry outlets. So Marion thought this was a great topic and I would invite you to take a look at this article because as I reread it today, I felt like some of it was dated, who I am today is not the same person that I was in 2015. And maybe you feel the same way as you evolve and think about your communication and progress as a human being. But this is a good basis. And I think that some of the tips that you'll find here about reframing your thinking around selling and conversation can be helpful. But here we are, it's 2023, we've been through a global pandemic and a lot of other things that have just, I think, made us feel like we can all be more vulnerable. We can all be more human. And so that's where I think it's more interesting to start thinking about how selling is really a conversation. And when we look at this awareness funnel, excuse me, this marketing funnel, we see that awareness is the first thing you need to do with your marketing and then pique someone's interest, the right person's interest. And then you have a conversational dance to get to a mutual understanding of how you could work together and if it's in everybody's best interest. And then there's a decision that's made and an action is taken. But I know that some of our panelists are going to share how this can become easier if it's not forced and there's not really a set formula or a script, but more of a gut feeling and an intuition and a grounding that occurs through this dance. So I'd like you all to think of a time when you bought something and you felt really, really good about that purchase. It was effortless, it was joyful. What was that like for you? Just think for a minute and then if a couple of words come to mind, go ahead and pop them into the chat box. What was that like to have a joyful experience where you bought something, you really needed it, you were glad you found it, and it was a joyful experience? So I'll just count to 30. Okay. So for me, when I think about looking for things that I need, I don't always know where to look and how to engage in the selling process. But when I think about going out to buy, sometimes I feel like I need to put on my armor, like I need to suit up because I might have someone try to manipulate me. And I think that more than anything, when it comes to money, this is how most of your clients feel when they're engaging in that initial conversation. And maybe you do too, maybe when you go to buy a car. Recently, I did go to buy a couple of cars with my family. And the tale of the two car shopping experiences is very telling. So if you think of a time that was really uncomfortable for you, what were the things that made you uncomfortable? So just take a minute and type those into the chat box. So recently my husband and I remodeled our backyard and it was a joyful experience to find the right Collaborator somebody who really got us and what we were going for This oasis that we wanted to build so all we had to do is step onto our back Patio our back deck and have the experience that we'd always dreamt of it wasn't even about the money anymore it was about trusting the person who really understood who listened to us and Understood what we wanted as far as the whole feeling of our oasis Now when we went to buy a car, this is the tale of the car sale gone wrong Our daughter who was at the time 16 had her eyes on a mini Cooper Countryman and so we went into the local BMW dealership and we Negotiated through that process. I wasn't there but Julie our daughter came home in tears She was crying on the showroom floor. My husband had heated words in the showroom floor We never will go back to that BMW dealership again. We love this car, but the process was horrible so the reputational damage at least to us and when we talk to our friends about going to shop for a car is Not in this brand's best interest Contrary to when we used caravana My husband during the pandemic was shopping for a car and it was really difficult to shop for cars So we thought I'm gonna try caravana What was great is we were already sold on this car and the process before he even went to the showroom floor He went to one of those towers. It looks like a vending machine and the people there were messed up He was messed up with our daughter. They made it so fun One of the salespeople salespeople was an ex-marine and all he had to do is to make it fun for our husband My daughter and our husband my husband I should say to get this car So they had him dance to the machine put a coin in this like an elevator The car came down like a gumball machine and out came this beautiful Kia We've since bought another car from caravana this time We had it delivered to our home because we've done the vending machine thing and we tell everybody how wonderful It was to work with caravana So that's the car sale done, right? So then I wanted to share as a consumer How I have selected how my husband and I have selected financial planners and wealth managers over the years So there was a time when we were do-it-yourself investors and we were great savers at one time my husband was in Employed by a company that gave him some stock options and then they came do where we had a lump-sum Decision to make and we were perplexed. We didn't know what to do We'd never worked with a financial planner, but I knew what I wanted. I wanted someone who didn't accept commissions I wanted someone who was a CFP I knew that that person had to get us to understand us to care about us and to be smart Smarter than me because I was a pretty smart consumer So I called up this woman who I'd seen in the local news You may recognize her Cheryl Garrett one of the pioneers in our profession and I started to bellyache about my predicament about how Bill and I were getting all this money and We didn't know what to do and she paused for a minute. She let me finish and she said Well darn and that just cracked me up because I knew that I could trust her She didn't get her at her piece of paper and go. Ooh, how much money are you getting or you know? Let me quiz you She was just with me and just got who I was and I knew that I could work with her Because I'd already done my homework I knew she was smart and it was the relatable part of it that sold me on working with her as Many of you probably know Cheryl and I went on to do other collaborative work in the industry We co-wrote a book together and it was a wonderful experience until Cheryl decided to no longer work with clients So the network continued on and I looked around for another advisor and I'd heard this guy on the radio Randy How you're he met all of our credentials and experience requirements. So now it was about personality I actually called him up and he said why don't you come in and consult with me about my RIA? So we did some work together and a comfort level was established and we felt like old friends by the time you said hey Marie How come I'm not managing your money yet? And I laughed and said well, it's probably time now that Cheryl's stepping down So that's how we found our second financial planner over time Randy Decided to spend more time in Florida than Kansas City and I felt like it was time to look around I wasn't as comfortable with the other people at the firm that they wanted us to work with so I was just on Twitter one day and I got a note from someone a president of the Midwest Trust Company and FCI counselors is what it's called. And he said hey come in and talk with us. We think there should be some Collaboration we weren't sure what that was going to look like, but ultimately we decided to move our family's financial planning and wealth management over to FCI Midwest Trust because Through the process is still today this company really really really I mean really makes us feel special We feel like we they roll out the red carpet for us every time we come in They invite us to social gatherings as a result. We bring my kids and they know our names It's kind of like cheers that pub and cheers where you go and everybody knows your name Every single person with an FCI name badge on came up to me and said hello. You must be Marie Swift Is this your daughter Julie? I was blown away That has endeared them so much to us as a family This is my beautiful daughter-in-law who went to one of the wine tastings So, I mean you hear about this all the time go to the country club Take your clients to the country club have them to wine tastings But I think that that knowingness that we matter to them has what's made the difference not the meals so to us I think about for us a good communicator Someone who's going to be become a friend or feel very friendly to us over time because we want to share about our lives They're listening to us. They're being with us in a way that doesn't feel like we're manipulated that we're being well served So the qualities of a good communicator if you just pause for a minute and think about for you What makes a good communicator? So if there's words that occur type them into the chat box I'd love to have this on the record and maybe I'll write an article about this What makes a good communicator and is there somebody that you emulate for me? I have a friend who is a performer. She's a singer and She is just the star of the stage whenever she comes on and she's someone that I emulate when I'm feeling Afraid or lonely or not worthy of talking to people So Meg I know that you have your own Perspective on this and I wanted to throw the baton to you first If you would jump in and talk about what occurs to you at this moment related to marketing and sales Yes, you unwittingly actually set me up really well by mentioning the country club When I got into this industry I used to be in the tech industry and I switched in my early 30s The firms I worked for there, they're pretty small fee only firms But I remember the the the founder and the principal at the second firm This was in Southeast, Virginia, and it was very much like he got his clients largely literally from his country club and he was very suitable for that part of the country like he wore blue blazers and pressed slacks and it was a But from my perspective is sort of a formal environment and I remember thinking at that point How am I ever going to make it in this industry? Because that's not me and As I have aged I've learned it's okay like both both me and that are okay It's just that that's not me. And if that were the requirement For getting clients and a few in a financial planning firm. I might as well just hang it up now because I can't do that and So my journey when I actually started my own RIA Was was one really of confidence when I figured out which? Which community of people I was going to work with and that was women in their early to mid career in tech I realized oh, I Actually know them more than almost any other advisor out there and that alone Allowed me to you know do sales, you know show up to these, you know prospecting conversations Well, you know put out marketing materials and that worked Well well enough And then I went through the evoke training as part of the the kinder Institute in early 2020 and that just gave me a completely different perspective on the sales conversation And you know George will go much more in-depth into sort of what the what life planning and the evoke process specifically is and can offer to both planners and clients, but a few of the things that really impacted me in terms of the selling process from from that life planning training was the idea and this one kind of blew my mind that I Had been trying to establish rapport with prospective clients based on Commonalities shared experiences. Oh, do we both do yoga? Oh, did we go to the same college? Oh, do we both like whatever? But that's all very superficial and does not in fact help me Be their financial planner at all And so the shift through life planning was to shift from that sort of rapport to a relationship based on empathy Like I don't have to have gone through anything that you have gone through if I can simply sit and listen and empathize With your experience and the connection that comes from that empathetic Conversation is so much stronger feeling to me Than any of the sort of commonality based rapport that I previously Sort of focused on and then of course the idea of spending way more time listening than talking And finally sort of specific to the kinder Life planning training I use the prospect call As an opportunity to do the first e in that evoke acronym I use it as an X as the exploration meeting where we start really digging into What is that client's vision of their ideal life and really? Giving lots of space for them to explore what that life is And I can talk more about that later But man that just completely revolutionized my sales process for the better like with with way better Results, I would say Like I said, I'll talk more about those, you know specific experiences in my practice. But for now George, I thought I'd Hand the conversation to you and just ask you to Do your thing as it were? My first thing is coming off mute, so I I'm not sure what doing my thing is, but I this is a great conversation and a wonderful deal from both of you To begin it I've been thinking about this for weeks now Marie Thank you for tossing the ball my way in this regard And I think I mentioned you first of all when you asked me to be part of this. I said the best sales Are the best selling is? Is a sale where there's been no selling And so the you know, the question is well, how does that happen? How can that happen? And of course, I think somebody who was analyzing sales would say well you're selling here. Are you selling there? Are you selling here? Well, let me let me tell a few things for first of all There's the marketing piece and I just want to touch on that because that's so important getting the right client in to Actually engage with you and be interested in engaging And so you're doing a little bit of selling right there And so you're doing a little bit of selling right there in your marketing, of course And some of the things I would do in marketing is that I would one of the things I would do is that I would teach at a local community college or adult education and get consumers coming in and Uh, and they would always at the end. I always was trying to teach the purpose of my teaching was to get them To be able to do their own work So it's never about oh i'm going to show you how cool I am and you won't be able to do this But come to my firm and i'll get it. No, no Let me show you how you can do it And at the end of the meeting they'd come up to me or they'd ask me they'd say so How do we find a financial advisor? And I said go to napfa Go to napfa look at the list of napfa and they said no. No, we want someone just exactly like you And there was the there was the client right there and it was from serving them basically Um, and we of course do that in our process the evoke process that meg was talking about as well The other place that you think of selling is, you know, you're you're in the elevator the old elevator speech piece And how do you do that? And um, uh, and again, I don't I don't I don't think of myself as selling but if if someone is asking me What do I do? I'll tell them i'm a financial life planner and look at what's that, you know, and uh, uh, I might say a little bit of something about it and they'll um, And they'll go well i'm interested in and I go this is the one place I ask a question It's I very rarely ask a question i'm going to touch on that what meg mentioned earlier But I might ask them because it's in the elevator I've got this much time to figure out who they are and what they want, you know, what do you want? You know, what are you looking for and they might say different financial categories And I would say to them well we do all those things, you know, we're we're And and i'd say something about how good we are at each of those things I say we do all those things but what we really do what I what I really do and what the clients I want Are I really want to know who you are? And I want to make sure that the money works to make your vision of who you want to be Totally successful as quickly and as efficiently as possible And then if they ask well, what is what do you mean, you know Then I might lead them through the three questions that everybody's familiar with you'll not go to google and you'll find out my three questions Um, so i'd go to and I go to a deep, you know, i'd reflect deeply with them in that elevator speech You know on their life And they go. Oh, wow So We don't have a sales meeting We have a meeting that people come through a very product various process and of course i'm not doing I haven't done financial planning other than with financial advisors for many years. I train advisors, of course, but the um, uh the meetings that I would have They've got gone through a process of the marketing and figuring out who we were and and uh, they wanted to have that initial meeting Usually I charge for that initial meeting And so but I would often give it back if they became portfolio management clients So I was um, so the thing that that happened in that meeting I mean i'm i'm aiming at the end of that meeting, you know, you think you want that contract signed don't you george? and from a business standpoint That's where I make my money You know, I make it from uh in those days. I made it mostly assets under management Occasionally, I would have a retainer kind of practice, but that's where I make my money. So from a business standpoint. The answer is yes From a personal standpoint. No way No, I couldn't care less about the contract and um, and the the uh, and I would make that and the the clients would feel that that what I cared about in that meeting Was who who they are? And who they want to be. And we do it, Meg was alluding to this, by not asking questions. Because every single question you ask is your frame. Even if they brought up that they love to garden and you go, Oh, tell me more about that gardening stuff. Yeah, I'm really good at that, too. You know, I'm really into that. Right away. It's your frame again. You've picked up on something that touched you. No, no. I want to hear from them. I want them to completely see that I I'm excited about who they are. As Meg says, it's an empathy driven process. But it's also excitement driven. I'm excited about the things they're excited about. I'm concerned about the things they're worried about. One of the things we say in life planning, sometimes is there's only one sale that we ever do in life planning. And that is we sell a client on, on being the person they want to be. That's the only sale we ever do. And, and the and in a similar way, if you want to know the success to selling if you're the and I saw this in the chat a lot, I'm so glad so many people are good listeners here. But if you want to be the best if you want to be, you know, the best kind of seller in a way, you will be the person that hears best, who the person wants to be, who they really are, how they really want to think about themselves, or how they do think about themselves. So it's all about listening. And so the first meeting, we just ask one question, we go, so, you know, after a little chit chat and everything, so why are you here? You know, and, and they start off and maybe they say their 401k or portfolio management or something that they might, although usually, because they've heard that we're fiduciary advisors, we're life planners, they know that we're interested in their life. If they go into the financial piece, we'll pull them back a bit and say, No, no, you know, if we were to really work with you for a while, what would happen? What would be? Why are you here? What do you want? What do you want to occur? And then the main question that we ask, there is one other question we ask. It's the main question. And after they finished saying something, we ask. And the pause is important. We ask anything else? And that question we ask again and again, in different ways. And we'll talk about that sometime, I think next month when you're talking about charisma and gravitas and what's your manner and everything, because you can deliver that question in dozens of different ways. And the question is what what what my purpose is in that meeting is to in that meeting itself, I want the client to go further with becoming who they really want to be. And the only way that's going to happen is if I'm really connecting with them around what their passions are, what their excitements are, what their concerns are, what they're worried about. And if I can connect on an emotional in an emotional way, that shows them that I'm right there toe to toe with them. But without putting my frame in, in any way ever, they will keep unraveling and going and going and going deeper and deeper and arrive at where it is that they want to want to go. So what's interesting is just you talk about sales. So here's what happens at the end of that meeting. So in terms of how was it, how do I know it was successful? So I would say on average, that 10% of the clients at the end of that meeting would look at me in some astonishment and say, George, that was the that's simply the best conversation with a financial advisor I've ever had. And of course, I wouldn't know, you know, I didn't know whether to accept that as a compliment or not, but I did. Best conversation with a financial advisor, 10% of my clients, 10% more said more simply and more directly and more beautifully. George, that's if not the best conversation, that's one of the best conversations I've ever had. That told me something. And told me that I did what I wanted to do, because I hardly said a word. They were the one who talked the whole time. And the other thing that happens is that our process was that we they'd have the contract, they'd have seen the contract, maybe they'd read it, read it over. It was there. But usually, if it came up at the end of the meeting, I'd kind of toss it aside, we don't have to do this now, you know, and 90% might be 80% 80 to 90% of the clients would say, No, I want to do this right now. I want to sign this, I want to get busy, I want to transfer the assets, I want to get going. 80 to 90% of the clients, the other 10 to 20%. First thing in that second meeting, they brought in a signed contract. So, so put the putting the client first really being a fiduciary. That's who we really are. What are we going to sell? I mean, even selling ourselves isn't quite right. It's, it's showing not telling showing that I'm here for you. And we're going to make something extraordinary out of this out of this engagement. So I don't know if we have any time for Meg to add anything. Thank you, sir. Anything you want to add in a minute or two, and then we'll go to Eddie. Yes, a very practical aspect of my business. So I work entirely virtually, my clients are vast majority of my clients have never worked with financial advisors before, they have tons of questions. But of course, if they're asking questions, that means I'm talking in the meeting and the most precious use of those, that little time that we have face to face with clients, even over zoom, in my case, I don't want to be the one talking. So I try very hard to answer all of their questions preemptively on my website, on my blog and social media, and also via emails that I send to prospective clients, so that they can know things like, what is the fee? What's the meeting cadence? What topics do we talk about all these very logistical questions that I can simply answer preemptively for clients, so we can focus on them, understanding, getting to know them during our face to face time. All right, Eddie, you're next. Well, I feel like I have reached the pinnacle of my career. I'm couched between George Kinder and Bob Veras with Marie Swift, leading the way. This is great. So thankful to be invited to be a part of this panel. This is a topic that is near and dear to me. I think it's one area that I have found to be very rewarding for me in my career and found some good success with this over my time. Yeah, I would say that I agree with everything that's been shared. So anything I want to share is just additive, if you will, kind of standing on the shoulders of the master class that you just heard. I believe that we do sell something as financial advisors. I believe that we sell organization. I believe that we sell synthesis. And that we sell communication. You know, we are in a helping profession. We're here to help people. And then the best way for us to help people is by having a trusting relationship with them. And, you know, when you walked us to that exercise, Marie, about what was that great experience that we had in that sales process with somebody where we were the person buying something, what it was is that you felt like you could trust that person. You felt like they were on your side of the table. I'd say in an inquiry meeting, I think one of the most important things to do from a mindset perspective is that you're not there to have them sign a client advisory agreement at the end of the meeting. That's not why you're there. Quite frankly, you know, we have very long-term relationships with our clients within ESP-only advisors where this isn't a short in and out type relationship. These are long-term relationships. You don't know that you want to have that long-term relationship with the person you're talking to when you start that conversation. And so take some pressure off of yourself and take some pressure off of the person that you're talking to. I love to tell them that, you know, my goal and going through our time together is just to get to know you, to understand what you're looking for, what you want to accomplish, and to help you take the best next step for you. That might be with us and it might not. Let's just take the best next step for you. And so that's my promise to you is that by the end of this meeting, we can talk about what the best next thing is for you to do. It's amazing how just saying that up front, it just, you see them from, you know, sitting, you know, at the edge of their seat to all of a sudden it's just like, all right, you mean I can just talk to you? I can just have a conversation with you and you're going to listen to me? Yeah, that's what we're going to do. You know, ESP-only advisors, we probably don't do a whole lot of cold calling. By the time somebody's talking to you, they have sought you out. They probably found you on the NAFA website. They have done some homework to get to you. They see that they have a perceived need, you know, something that they're looking to accomplish. And your goal in this is what brings you here today? I love to start that conversation. Just like that. What brings you here today? Something brought them here. I didn't force them to come here. They reached out to me. They've done some work up front. They've completed some type of questionnaire. You know, they've already jumped over some hurdles so that we can be in this sacred space right now so that we can have this conversation. And so my goal is, what is it that, what is it, why are you here? That helps, that helps a lot. I have seen that, and I've seen this for a while now, that we live in a knowledge economy. If you go into that conversation and you're not trying to sell them on anything, you just want to hear them, you want to hear what their needs are. You listen to them and you, I give out all sorts of free advice, if you will, during that time. It's akin to what George just said when he was doing presentations and that if the best next step for them is to just do it on their own, I want them to be fully equipped to go and do that. And so being in that knowledge economy, if I'm not, if I don't feel like I have to harbor this information the whole time, if I don't feel like I have to harbor this information, hold back, and I just share with them, it creates a really good opportunity for them to test drive what it feels like to talk to me, to ask questions, and I listen to them and I advise them. So it's this internship, this test drive that they're able to do during that meeting in a very no-pressure relationship. I do think that there are some sales skills that, as fee-only advisors, that we can bring to the table beforehand, some homework that we can do beforehand to improve. So one thing is, this was shared with me a while back, but people do business with you because they know you, they like you, and they trust you. And if you remember that, that will help you in these conversations. I think that the second thing is, every question, I've had many, many, many inquiry meetings with people over the years, and every question that has been asked about the practice that I was in or what we do can be summed up in what I call the six Ps. The profile of the firm or where I am, the people that are there, the philosophy, the financial planning philosophy, the investment philosophy, the process that I'm going to take them through or that I use, performance, and price. I know that some of you might hear that and say, oh, that just sounds so salesy to even talk about that. But those are the questions that people are going to ask you about. And so if you can do the homework of just, if someone asked me about, how can I very succinctly share about the profile of our firm? If they ask about about who else is here and who's on the team that you've role-played, that you've practiced it, it just rolls off your tongue when they ask you about the team. Can I explain my financial planning philosophy, my investment philosophy, jargon-free, just in real easy-to-know terms, that I'm ready to have that conversation when it comes up? What is my financial planning process that I take a client through? And no one is ever going to say, tell me about your profile, people, philosophy, process, performance, and price. You're never going to talk about all these things during a meeting. But they're going to ask you questions that fall into one or a couple of those categories. And you will appreciate having done the homework beforehand to write down the answers to those questions. Think about that. And for you who are solo practitioners, this has worked for you. But for those of you who have larger firms, who's going to be in the inquiry meetings and practice on each other? Doing role-play, always call it the flight simulator. This is your chance to practice, to fall on your face, to crash the airplane, and it's OK. Practice going through profile, people, philosophy, process, performance, and price. The next thing I wanted to share with you is two books that I have found helpful. And I will post them in the chat now. The first one is a book by Jay Conger, The Necessary Art of Persuasion. And I will give you the CliffsNotes version now. This is what he says. I taught a course at California Lutheran University for a few years called The Social Psychology of Leading Clients. And this was a book that I had all of our students go through. Maybe for homework, some of you might want to look at that. The other book that I have found very helpful is a book by Robert Cialdini. And he talks about having a written commitment, a public commitment, and foot-in-the-door technique. And that's what I want to talk to you about with my remaining time with you. I have found it very useful that from the time an inquiry reaches out to me by email or by phone, that I can listen to them, capture the goals, and feed it back to them. Remember what I told you is that one of the things that we sell is synthesis. We live in a world that has many, many, you know, we're not lacking information. We're lacking somebody who can be a guardian of that information and tell me what is important for me to know and what it means to me. And if you can show them the test drive that I'm talking about, if you can show them that as they're talking to you, as they're sharing all this information, everything that George and Meg just talked about with getting them to tell you more, asking what else, and then you can succinctly frame back to them what are the goals that you're hearing? What are you hearing that's most important to them? It's amazing how powerful that is that the person has been heard. And you can say in three bullet points what's important to that person. Now they're seeing I'm not telling you I'm a good listener, but I've showed you that I'm a good listener. With written commitment, following up from the meeting that I'm talking about now is follow up with a note capturing those things that you have heard. And when I was at Advocates Planning Group, Cheryl Holland taught us to make a pinky promise. And pinky promises are really, really important. Pinky promises are something that you can say during a meeting or during some social gathering that you're promising that you're going to do this thing for them. And the dirty little secret is that you might do that same thing for a lot of people, or it's really easy for you to follow through on it. But when you can promise somebody that you're going to do it, and then you follow through right away, you're establishing credibility and you're building rapport with that person. I know that persuasion can sound like, are we allowed to say persuasion? And what we do, we're feeling advisors, is that okay? And I'm going to say yes, because we're persuading them to do those things that are going to help them reach their goals and live the life that they want to live, do the things that are most important to them. So this is the best use of persuasion. This is not a bad use of persuasion. And then the foot in the door technique, that's where, with the pinky promise, is what you see there. So making small promises, following through on those promises is very helpful. I believe I've exhausted my time. Hey, thank you so much. I could listen to more from you, and we're going to pick this up next time because the questions are flooding in over here. So I do not want to short shrift our last panelist today. Bob, would you please share anything in the remaining time we've got? And everyone, we're not going to answer these questions live today. I'm going to pose them to the panelists for next time. So Bob, you're up. Well, I'm going to go quick, so maybe we can answer these questions. I was pleased to see that we get CE credits, NAFA CE credits, because normally when I'm speaking, we subtract NAFA CE credits from the listeners and panelists. So this is good. This is new for me. I'm going to reframe three things. I happen to think that CEL is a four-letter word in a sense, partly because it does actually have four letters in it, but partly because CEL implies an underlying agenda, the idea that you want something for yourself in this conversation. And I think we have to get away from that. I think the profession has been moving away from that. I think when people left warehouses, they started that journey. And I think the NAFA advisors and George's cohort are pretty much away from that journey. I want to see us completely get away from that journey. And there are three aspects of it. The first is marketing outreach. And what I would recommend is that advisors take away any personal underlying agenda to their marketing and simply focus on figuring out a way to help the community navigate financial issues and challenges without any expectation of reward or return. And this especially works when you work with the press, and I'm a member of the press, so I understand this perfectly. And this is kind of where I came from with it, is that I respond much better to people who say, look, let me help you educate your audience and let me show you what I know and give you whatever information I can about what you're trying to do. But sort of the same thing when you engage with clients. Let me give you for free as much information as I feel comfortable giving out as much as I can. Let me help you with things. And if you're wanting to come back and talk, I'm happy to be here and talk with you. And 90% of the people who read these things or who see your blogs or see you on video will not contact you. But the other 10% will say, you know what, this guy is really helping me and I want more of that help. And I think a focused conversation would be helpful. So having no underlying agenda in your, what they call top of the funnel, which is not my favorite phrase, but is I think important to successful marketing. And I've written a white paper about it. I have some ideas about pro personal marketing. I think the more you share about yourself, the more people relate to you. And that's something we can talk about. The second aspect, all right, so now you've got people in your office and you're talking to them about your services, only you're not. The idea that you need to close the clients, the idea that you need to sell your services is another underlying agenda. And I think where people make the biggest mistake is they don't meet clients where they are. And so I really like the, you know, tell me your story, tell me what brings you here. I think that's a good open-ended start to a question, but then most advisors pivot to, all right, what we do is we sell comprehensive financial planning as a fiduciary and sometimes even worse. And George, I think, will agree with me. When you introduce life planning and the concepts, the broader concept, you can really screw up a relationship in a hurry. At the very beginning, you say, you know, tell me all your most cherished goals, dreams, and desires. And then you wait and somebody, you know, who doesn't know anything about you is going to look at you in astonishment. What is this? What I think advisors need to do is hear what the client's presenting symptoms are without expanding on them, without, you know, get their story, show that you're interested in who they are as a person, which distinguishes you, and then what brought them there. And instead of saying, all right, well, we offer comprehensive financial planning, we'll do a full boat financial plan for you. Basically, I'm going to sell you the services I want to sell you. You say, all right, we can help with those things that you've talked about. And after that, I want to talk about a broader array of issues and see if any of those interest you or not. I mean, the way to begin up a relationship is to ease the pain is to, you know, you go to a doctor and you say, you know, my leg is, has been cut off, and I'd like you to sew it back on again. And the doctor says, all right, I'm going to give you a full checkup. And and that's going to include, you know, blood work and this and that stuff they want, they want you to fix the presenting issues first. And so you meet them where they are. And if you are selling a comprehensive financial plan, you're selling your you have an agenda. So those are the, the simple things that I think I'd like to correct. And I think we've kind of gone down a path where there's a more scripted way to deal with clients when they come in the office. And I think we need to get away from that. There's a there's a certain cult of efficiency that's taken place in the financial planning profession. And I think we need to get away from that. I think you want to be less efficient, expand that conversation, and then focus it on what they need. And I think you'll close a lot more clients if close is the right word, by focusing on what they come in wanting and helping them with that, then you will having this broader engagement or offering this the super broad engagement that life planning represents. Thank you, Bob. Well said, and I'm learning so much just by being here. You know, the water keeps flowing when you're standing in the river and we can all learn and grow over time and think about how we can be better people in the selling process. Someone once told me a prospective client who was looking for PR and marketing services, that I started providing value before they paid me a dime and that that made the difference kind of what you were saying, Eddie, about that pinky promise. There is a question here. Can you give an example of a pinky promise, Eddie? Yeah, so I'll give the most recent example. I was meeting with a member of the board of directors here where I'm working now, and he and his wife, and as we got into the conversation, she started talking about how life has changed for them as they've come into wealth and they've become quite wealthy over the last, you know, 10-15 years, and that she's living in a life that's very different than what she grew up in and she's concerned about what that means for her children. Well, Dr. James Grubman's book, Strangers in Paradise, is the first thing that came to mind for me. I began to talk with her about this metaphor, just enough to let her understand what the metaphor is about immigrants to wealth and natives to wealth. It really captured her, and I said, I would like to share this book with you. She didn't know that I had a copy of the book in my office, but then I was able to tell her that I would give it to her husband during the next board meeting and was able to pass that along. It was a very easy thing for me to follow up on, but now as soon as she receives that book, it reminds her back to that initial discovery meeting and, oh, he promised that he would do this. This meant something to me then, and now I can read about this, and there's fodder for us to talk about and there for future conversations. Meg, I wanted to go back to you. It occurs to me that some of the chat, which you've been a champion replying in real time to these people about how you do things, that this isn't visible. I don't think it's visible to everybody, so is there something about the Q&A that you've been answering? Maybe what do you send in advance of the meeting so you don't have to do that nitty-gritty in the engagement period? What would you call out? Sure. It's really just me and Greg. I had mentioned the very last thing I said after George spoke was this idea of preemptively answering prospective clients' questions so that I don't have to answer them in the meeting, because to me, that's not an effective use of time, me blabbering on about really just logistical issues of what it looks like to work with me. I try my hardest to think about how can I preemptively answer as many prospective clients' questions as possible before we even meet? That is outright marketing stuff. My blog, for example, demonstrates that I am a subject matter expertise in the issues that my target client would have or could have, so I don't have to spend the time demonstrating, like, well, I saved this person a million dollars in taxes on their IPO, that sort of thing. But then also the logistical issues of how many meetings do we have? What are the meetings about? What topics do we cover? Do you help clients with this, that, or the other? What would my fee be? What is the fee structure? Not only do I try to answer a lot of those questions on my website, my prospect process is two meetings. It's a short 15-minute fit call, which I will take with more or less anyone. Most of those aren't what we'll call qualified prospects. They wouldn't be a good fit for my firm. We wouldn't be a good fit for them. I will point them in the direction that would best serve them. Then for the prospective clients who are qualified prospects who would make a good fit for the firm, we move on to the second, much longer prospect process. Before that meeting, I will send an email that has links to videos in which I explain the meeting situation, in which I explain what's going to make this relationship work best, and links to other pieces of information. They have a chance to consume that information before we even have that much longer, in-depth prospect meeting. We have three minutes, and we are going to end on time. Please know that anything that's on your mind that's percolating or that you put in the chat, that we will get to it. I'd like to give Bob the last word today, but before we do that, George, there's a question here about controlling the meeting from the start by asking questions to change the trajectory of the first conversation. Anything about that, or just quickly to recap today, what's bubbling up? Yes. We do have a process that we use, and Meg's articulated it, and I've articulated it, I think. The client comes in, how Meg frames her website and all that, that's kind of what we do in life planning. Then, so that the meeting is really there to hear who they are and what they want. It starts with the urgent questions that Bob was alluding to, that they think is pressing, but then we go deeper by just allowing them to speak, and by being really good listeners. That way, we get to what they really want, and then we can get to what they don't want, we get to what they really want, and that's something then that we're able to deliver as NAPFA planners. Bob, what would you add as we shut down for today? Well, I think I'm going to emphasize some of the things that were said. I think what Meg said about having a niche and having better... When we wrote our white paper, it became very clear to us that the people who have a niche, I call it a specialty, can provide better and deeper advice to their clients and demonstrate that in their marketing messaging, which is, as I call it, helping messaging, giving people. I think what George said about what brings you here and listening, marketing to me is really about connecting, and connecting is much easier if they see that you're focused on them. If they see that they're the most important thing in this arrangement, and of course, that's the fiduciary concept, and that's something NAPFA was founded on, so I don't think the audience is going to have a great deal of difficulty with this. I think there are some bad habits that have crept into the profession about selling something different than what clients might bring in and want, and I think there's some adjustment around the margins, if you will, but for the most part, I think if you're truly following the other directed concept or mindset, which is fiduciary, then I think letting that govern all of your outreach efforts is probably the best way you can market. Thank you so much, everyone. This conversation will continue. You all should have the dates. There are two slides with homework. I'm not going to read them. We may add some more. Pick one, pick more, but you can always find the recording on the NAPFA console in your engagement center, and then here are some of the resources that we have been talking about today, so until next time, and thank you, panelists. We appreciate everything that you've contributed, and for everyone to be here today. Thank you all. Thank you. Bye-bye.

selling

financial planning industry

building trust

connection

authentic approach

empathetic approach

listening to clients

understanding needs

providing value