Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to Episode One of the real advisor podcast T R A P. Trap. In the digital studio with me are the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse. My good friends, Karl Wild West wager, Andrew, call me Andy Hart and Alan the storyteller. Smith. Before I go any further, another reminder, please, please, please, please do follow us on Twitter at advisor podcast. That's your conduit to get to us to leave ideas for the show. things you'd like us to talk about things you think the show is really good at. If you want to give us a little criticism, criticisms and things we shouldn't be doing that you don't like, let us know that this is this is this is a conversation, this conversation between the four of us here but it's also a conversation with with you, the audience out there. And please do leave a five out of five review on iTunes, if you could do so that really really does help us. My name is Nicholas, Richard Lincoln, Nick Lincoln to my friends, the eternal gift from my parents. 53 years and counting. Thanks, Mom and Dad love you both. Without any further ado, let's have a look at the guys that are all there ready to go. We've got some topics to discuss in this initial episode. Mr. Karl Wild West widger. You recently held an event I believe in your neck of the woods.
Carl Widger:The Wild West? Do you want to tell us what you did, sir? Because Because although I will listen to this holding events is a big thing. And you you held a big one. So crack on client event? Yeah, so So we've had a look over the last few years, we've done a number of different events. So some were more successful than others. So we just held an event called Future you. Future you was designed as a kind of two day conference that we put together, in order to try and walk the walk and say to people that look, we're always talking about living your best life. And that is not just your money. So yeah, of course, the financial planning part is really important. But can we bring some speakers some expertise together to help people take some time out of their busy lives? Just take some time out to plan and to see Yeah, hype actually matters most to me, what are the things that me and my partner should be focusing on. So I did fill up on financial planning with a really good legal and tax guy did a talk about wills, inheritance, that kind of stuff. We had then some people who've kind of been there done that. And they were really interesting, because they kind of spoke about the stuff that they wished they had planned for the things that they wish they had done before they got into this mega transition. One thing that kept coming up was that you know, the word retirement really isn't appropriate anymore. It's this her of Act, it's this transition into something different. And I think that was that was really good and generated a lot of really great discussions in the in the breaks, etc. We then in the afternoon had focused on wellness, I suppose. So I kind of from two fronts, we did sports scientists talking about physical fitness, nutrition. And then we had a psychologist talking about, you know, mind in your mental health and, and preparing your mind for a big transition like this as well, because that often gets kind of brushed aside. And day to then we did a couple of panel discussions, which followed on from a yoga session on a swim in the sea. And yeah, that talk about wild west that that was the Light west. And that was bloody cold, but fantastic and created some great energy. However, I would have to say that we got some feedback, and I knew it myself, the energy in the room kind of flattened a small bit with the panel discussion. So plus the previous day, Ted Talks went down so well. And you know, the evening time was magnificent, and the dinner was brilliant, the energy for the panel discussion is really didn't work. So that's something that we will change. But it was so well received. Feedback was so good in general, we will do it again. And I suppose that kind of feedback is gold, because it will make the next version of future you even better. So yeah, look, I you know, as I said, we've done some really good events and some not so good events, and you got to take the risk in my view and do these things. And this was a risk that was well worth taking. And we are very glad that we took the risk it went really really well overall
Andy Hart:a couple of questions called I know the listeners will want to ask, so how many people attended did you charge? Did you not charge? Who did you decide to come clients, existing clients, etc. So that sort of stuff.
Carl Widger:Okay, so yeah, we charged I suppose the price point was important. We did kick this around a little bit. It wasn't for us to make money. But we did. What we did was we charged 1000 euro per attendee, on each attendee could bring their spouse partner better half free of charge. So it was $1,000 Whether you came in your own or whether you brought your partner with you and We had 78 people in the room notes when I say 78 people in the room at dinner that night, that that included the speakers as well. But really, really good energy. And I think part of that really good energy came from about half of the people in the room were already clients for us. So we're bought in and we're just taking that little bit of extra time. And then half weren't not clients of ours at all. So once we didn't make money on it straight up, we'd be hoping to get a number of new clients from it, which would be great for us. But I do think that that really helped the energy in the room. And then the other thing that really got the energy in the room was it was kind of 5050 between business owners, so people like ourselves, and then people who were senior VPs and multinationals, etc. So, so nice spliff. And I think that definitely helps the energy. But by the way, I should just say, one thing that almost everybody said in their feedback forms was more group activity. So kind of the, the off the wall stuff like the swimming in the sea, and people were saying it was gorgeous walks, we could have done that, you know, could we do more of that? And that just tells you people we're learning from each other, not necessarily just from the stage. So an important bit of bit, I think,
Alan Smith:notice that Yeah. When you get people together, it is a sort of breakout rooms when we do our own work. When we go to conferences and things ourselves off, there's just the so called branded coffee machine at the watercooler here. Some of the conversations happen are just the gold that just spontaneous. But you know, first hats off to you for doing it. It's it's something that we have never really cracked we've we've done a few like corporate hospitality type things and gone and, you know, laid out a fair bit of cash to go and take take a bunch of clients to Wimbledon or to something else at that distillery. And it's been okay, but it hasn't been we've never done anything like how you describe that sounds like a big event, I mean of interest, as you did over two days. And so everyone, you're presumably will stay overnight at a hotel?
Carl Widger:Yeah, so we did it in a place called the Armada hotel, we should definitely go down there and record a podcast on there. A little bit removed, right? It's on the literally,
Nick Lincoln:ocean, but everything is remote in your neck of the woods Gog.
Carl Widger:Not not as remote as you think it is, Nick. And as I said to you offline, we do now have electricity and running water. That's real progress.
Alan Smith:Congratulations.
Andy Hart:A lot more of these comments.
Carl Widger:So just for the listeners and viewers, I knew he had a few of those lined up, so I'm just giving it to you. Yeah, but so observer
Alan Smith:all caught up. It's I will say it's quite it's kind of scary, isn't it? You don't know if you're going to get I mean, I must say 1000 euros. It's not it's not a it's not cheap. It's, it's a decent price point. It's not inexpensive. I'm sure it's great value for money, you get to stay a night and what sounds like a fabulous hotel and great location and a lot of value. But yeah, that you have to position that appropriately for someone just to cut a check or give you a credit card.
Carl Widger:Yeah, so for business owners, obviously they can put it through their business as a business expense. And then for the kind of corporate executives to companies would have would have paid in order to, you know, an additional benefit. They're all looking to retain their staff and look into one extra
Andy Hart:audit got enough money themselves and it's peanuts for the value that they're gonna get from it. You know, they've got this transition that's coming up that they don't have to
Carl Widger:go through we got we got lots of straight up feedback, as I said, you know, as to how we can make it better and nobody mentioned your price. Yeah, charge more than the price the price point was good. I do have to say that Susan was here in matters organize the whole gig, she came up with the name future you which we love, and we're gonna hang on to and talk about stress and pressure, like it was a lot of stress it was, I noticed Susan had sleepless nights. So these things don't come around easily. They don't just happen. You guys know, Andy, I know you do humans on our management. I know, you know, the effort that goes into these things. So you're gonna do you got it. You got to you got to commit and you got to try and do the most world class event you can possibly do within your budget. So Agreed. Agreed, you know, I think that's really, really important. Otherwise, it just looks a bit cheap and cheerful. And that's not going to help your brand really at all as
Andy Hart:well as pricing. Cool. Go, Nick. Sorry.
Nick Lincoln:1000 euros is a nice round number. Did you? I mean, I can imagine I would sweat for days thinking what's the appropriate sort of ticket price? Because I wouldn't have any idea where to start. They just come to that round number because that just about covered the cost of everyone turned up or was that conscious? Did you really think about how to get to 1000 euros or not 1500 or 750?
Carl Widger:I tell you the truth and that we were willing to do it as a bigger loss leader than it was. And we spoke to our panelists so the people who were Given the talks, and especially listened to the people who have been there, done that to the people who said, This is what I would have really wanted. And they told us to increase the price in order to make sure that we had the right audience there. And it was spot on advice. And that just goes back to the whole point about listening to the people with experience, cuz I thought it was too high. I was really worried that it was too high. But it was we totally nailed it. I
Alan Smith:think. Well, you do have any call offs last minute? None whatsoever. Wow. That's what I've done things in the past. And you just never there's always something happens, isn't it? There's a
Carl Widger:if you give the street homeless something. Yeah. Yeah, give something for free. And you know,
Alan Smith:this is the money. This is the whole science, isn't it about pricing and giving away stuff for free or a bit painful not to go? Because no one wants to waste the 1000.
Carl Widger:year we had two people who were who were coming as a couple. Due to kidstuff. The the one of the spouses didn't come yet what actually made it down that night and join us for dinner or whatever. So there you go. But nobody pulled out. Your your normally factored in how to 20% Drop out or something like that show up? Yeah, no, none at all, you know, we were going to worry that it would live in fire. So if you dropped 20% out of seven.
Andy Hart:I think I think free event is about 20% drop off paid events or about 10% drop off high, highly paid events, probably about a 5% drop off. So the fact you didn't really get any I think sir, is great.
Nick Lincoln:So let you're very good with Harmandir, aren't you? Because Because you you say categorically on that, you know, if you can't make it that's down to you, you know, there's no real
Andy Hart:Yeah, because it's incredibly disruptive to you know, a conference business has to pay a lot of refunds. And before you know it, you know, you're underwater, and it's just a logistical nightmare. It's a little bit like an airline or a rugby ticket, you know, they're not going to give you a refund once you bought bought it. I mean, if there is certain cases, I say, I'll give you a credit connected or something. But it's just a bit of a logistical nightmare. So just to sort of finish this topic off, this is client events and Alan's dabbled in it, Carl's very much in it. Me and Nick, are when I haven't done any direct client events, I've done loads of events for financial advisors. I mean, I've got a relatively small client bank, I don't know, 50 ongoing clients or something. And, you know, two 300 People I've probably done business with, it's not too small. But yeah, I haven't really decided I haven't chosen to do any client events. Nick over to you on that.
Nick Lincoln:It's taking a client out to lunch isn't event for me. And that's that's an it can be a real, real event. That's it. That's how I do the socializing want to I don't know, I just I don't have that mindset. And I don't think I would get the value from it. But what was a much bigger operation with more clients and more staff will get the value from it not they will give me the screening app that even thinking about just
Andy Hart:just again, thinking about why the current events, I mean, most of them that we see a sport related. So cricket, golf, tennis, football, rugby. Sometimes I see events that are very much topic specific, usually inheritance tax, some random golf course or something like that. I know there are some firms that are very aggressive with like Mailshots, or getting client events, usually they're totally new clients. But yeah, if we got anything else to add to this whole client event, subject
Alan Smith:call, you are going to do it again, right? You've learned from the exact same thing to the future, you know, the version, I think
Andy Hart:you should rinse and repeat, tweak, rinse and repeat. Yeah, tweak, rinse and repeat. Yeah, yeah.
Carl Widger:Yeah, one of the things we're thinking about is do we do it in kind of two locations, because we didn't have very few people from our kind of Dublin client base or our prospect list. So it was just too long of a drive. So I'm actually talking to my, my Dublin team next week. And we're going to consider whether we do that. So we may actually do it in two locations next year. We'll see. But I do think the main the way it worked was we got people away. Nobody could go home. It was too far away to go home. So yeah, everybody said the energy in the room guys. It was so much fun. We did a charity piece which we always do. We did an interview with Terry and Brennan ring of cleanness Foundation. And that went down so well. And I know that they've got massive support from that as well. So but the energy in the room it was just it was just magnificent.
Alan Smith:You know, I sense that now that we are emerging kind of blinking to the sunlight of the post COVID environment and we're all living our lives now. Aren't we online much more so Tony for me much more than you guys as well most of your client meetings if not all Yeah, and just meeting other human beings in the same room and just having as you say, the spontaneous the chit chats and stuff that we've been craving it you know, human beings are social animals. So your timing is very good for this as well. I think there's a lot of pent up demand amongst for everyone just to get together with like minded people. So it's great.
Carl Widger:It's totally I love my final point of that Andy we just mentioned the golf course or whatever. So there's so much of that stuff happens but this was about the partnership. So the husband and wife, the partners whatever on that will read He went down really, really well. And I got to know a lot of partners that I didn't know that well. And that was that was that was a major plus for me as well, you know,
Nick Lincoln:yeah, there's tremendous value in that you'll, you know, the the, we're always asked, what's the ROI on any of these big projects aren't when I know you must have been at your company, they must have said, you know, to, you know, how do you measure it and that's, that's a real benefit to get to know the partners, your clients.
Carl Widger:Look, it's another project another podcast altogether about the difference between brand building and client catching. We managed to strike kind of both, I think in this event will come because look, I'm talking about event that went really, really well. We've done some ones that were like, not good at all. So like, that's, that's, we'll come back to
Alan Smith:those in a future episode. All the disasters as well.
Carl Widger:Yeah. And there comes a time to more interesting and funny, but anyway, yeah. Right.
Nick Lincoln:It's gonna sound condescending. But now that I think of me as a little one man band firm. I think that's an absolute bloody tremendous. Thanks, great. Cheers by Susan at your office. Okay, so well can't call callers is talking about working with the clients you've already got, and forming deeper relationships with them and their partners and so forth. But I had a chapter this week with, with with, with a financial advisor that all of us in the group know, or certainly three, three of us do. And he's leaving to go on his own. He's been with a number of firms, and now he's going to set up his own firm. And he's appreciably younger than me. And he came to me, we had a Zoom meeting, and he wants to know how, what are the what are the ways that you acquire clients as you grow your client bank? Now, I'm a bit of a funny source to ask because I went out on my own in 2008. And I had a storming and forming stage back then. But now I've got a mature business, and I don't go looking for clients, I only get them by referral. And I, I turn away as many clients as I take on and I get turned away by as many clients as well. So I'm not really sort of out there pulling in clients looking for cloud, but I spoke to this chat for about an hour and zoom. And I thought, you know, I imagined you do the normal things we did pre COVID. So it's things like networking, I'm not even sure if BNI is that around. But that kind of thing you want to talk to you introduces the solicitors and accountants. We've got the internet now, which I didn't have we had in 2008, but not to the same degree. So you can do blogs, you can do podcasts. All that. I thought when the when the meeting finished, I thought, Is there anything I'm particularly missing? Pressing your existing clients really, really, really hard for referrals? And what if
Alan Smith:you haven't got any This is a startup? Is he starting a brand new company? He might not even have?
Nick Lincoln:No, he has clients? Or clients? Okay, he's gonna happen. So over to you guys. What would you say we're all at different stages of our business? What are the what what would be your ideas for growing your client bank? Was there anything I missed and the obvious kind of almost cliched routes to doing so?
Alan Smith:Go? Alright, well,
Andy Hart:I'll kick I'll kick us off. When you set up a new business, you've got to live sleep and breathe, you know, sales. You know, a lot of people focus so much time on the logo, the website, the business cards, historically, I mean, these are all just boring admin in the background, you got to go out there and get clients. I mean, obviously, you got to have somewhat, you know, your ducks in a row and some of the branding sort of down but don't over stress about it. So yeah, you've got to live, sleep and breathe it. I think a route that I have seen younger advisors setting up new firms, they do focus on life insurance and insurance type products, because it's good cash flow for the business. It depends on how many clients they've got to start with, yeah, what sort of social circles they're in what clubs, they're part of, you know, lawyers and accountants we've mentioned. And then you've got all the digital ways, but digital promotion these days takes takes a long time. You know, if you're starting a creative project, you should really think I'm not gonna see any results for this for about 30 months. That's what they say in the content creation world. That's if you're doing blogging, YouTube channels, podcasts, you know, that sort of stuff. So that's a much slower burn, or sorry, take takes a lot longer time to see the results. So it's got to consume you. Basically, you got to live sleep and breathe it in. I've got this big thing about jobs, careers and callings. I believe all four of us in the call have got a calling whatever that is, but it's more than obviously a job. And it's a little bit more than the career. Yeah, so it's just it's just got to consume me really. And, yeah, everything you do is about trying to get new clients. And in an ideal world, you've got a bit of a burn rate, a personal burn rate yourself. So you've got minimum three months in the bank, but that's cutting it a bit tight, probably between six and 12 months, I'd say. I think that's sort of a sweet spot,
Alan Smith:I'd say. I'd say I'd say I'd say longer. So my take on this and funnily enough, I spoke somewhat about this at an event recently, which we might come back to later on October October members. And it was it was about exactly this about growing your client base growing your revenue and using perhaps more modern digital methods to do so. And I just speak from there if I'm any remote expert, but we've kind of doubled down in our activities affirm the last six months, really six, nine months on this with some positive results, but completely agree with what Andy says he's starting up anything needs to know your burn rate, and I would have 12 to 18 months if I could, I'd assume I'm not going to make anything. Alright, as you say, if you've got sold some products and some policies, but in terms of real proper planning clients, even if you bring one on, it's a long, long game, isn't it, and you've got bills to pay and mouths to feed, and so on. So I'd be first of all, if I was thinking of doing this, I'd be planning way way ahead and say I've got to build up my cash buffer number one, a sim, I'm not going to earn a penny over 12 to 18 months. And what we all know is it is that the internet is both a blessing and a curse. It is fantastic. Because you can connect with anyone in theory, and we are no longer geographically dependent, you will have to deal with people within five miles radius you deal with anyone across the country, which is fantastic. But also so can everyone else. And so can you competitors. So how do you stand out? How do you stand out from the crowd of all the 1000s of other people in I don't know about you, if you go on LinkedIn or anything else, I see just loads of messages from personal finance and finance coaches, and you know, certain big big brands and national brands and so on that promote themselves, to my mind, and it's been talked about, you know, ad infinitum forever. But the concept of, of niching down, or being a sector specialist, really identifying the sort of clients you want to work with, where you've got specific, like domain expertise, and the narrower the better, really, and it because all of a sudden, you're gonna stand out if you deal with, I don't know, let's just make one up list. If you deal with dentists, and somebody's a dentist, and you see stuff that inundated with information, and you see something, you know, specific retirement planning the three step process for dentists to retire successfully. Well, that's going to capture a little bit of your attention. And there's, there's a methodology as a way of doing this stuff. I'm learning as we go. But certainly you can get you can build up a reputation, you can build up traction, and one thing leads to another and eventually you find yourself in the sectors where these people hang out and you found yourself you'll get invited to conferences, you read the books and the magazines that this these up whoever it is that you're targeting, and you speak the language and every profession, every type of person, every business owner, whatever they're into, has their own words and language do you start you realize, or the other of your prospects realize you're one of them? And where they're gonna go when you do need financial advice, a generic guide down the road, or someone who's an absolute specific expert and all the issues key and the challenges, what I refer to as the 3am moments, what are the 3am moments for your unique, you know, micro sector and then just there's there's a there's a book I know, we were speaking about it before this book called show your work? I could Austin clay on there he just as right on track on time.
Carl Widger:That's amazing.
Alan Smith:What we're talking about it before? Well, I mean, you could sum you could sum up that book, when it is a good book, it's worth reading being sum it up by saying all the work you're doing anyway, just show it, put it out there, show it to the world because 99% of people will ignore it because it's irrelevant. But 1%
Andy Hart:is more than enough, friendlier, we say to Dan, do we say do you work in public? You know, whenever a client asked you to work in public, whenever, whenever a client asked you similar recurring questions, don't just you know, hide it within the email inbox, put a blog together about it, you know, so you know, whatever,
Alan Smith:email email response you gave you didn't dress it up, post it, just
Andy Hart:do a quick video. And you know, just as I say, do your work and
Alan Smith:just share it, the stuff that we all think is just basic, because we've got to think, you know, we've got your knowledge base, we know this stuff, we think it's really simple and easy. And to some other people think, oh, that's quite interesting. So you share it as time goes on. And the summing up of this is if you're starting from scratch with a handful of clients, how many clients do you really need to have a thriving practice a thriving business? What you're going to see anything from 50 to 100, not much more than that, I wouldn't have thought. So you just have you just target that audience and go off to say, I just don't need 50 of these people. And then once you've got a few as you say, there's a whole different strategy about referral marketing, which we can talk about later on. But this that, I thought I'd share, I share my work you've you agree? Do you have a different view?
Carl Widger:I look, I think everything you've said has relevance. Right. And I think it's it's it's stuff that all good firms should be doing. But Andy alluded to it, right? If you're going to look at content creation, you're looking at a kind of a longer game. I just I'll come at it from my own perspective and where I came from. So when I started on my own, I was a necessity entrepreneur. So it was back in the financial crisis and I had to basically make a call and say, Okay, I got to do this on my own and I needed to make 1000 a month. I In order to feed my kids and pay the mortgage and pay off some stupid short term debt and all that good stuff, right, so what did I do? I didn't look at doing a lot of content creation. I had a few clients, but only a very few. And I looked at them and I said, Okay, who are the who are the clients that value my service most? And then I said, Okay, I'm going to hone in on those. And then I'm going to try and see, where did the those people hang out? And that's the the, I tried to literally go to the opening of an envelope at that stage. And I did I know, Alan, you disagree with me, right. But I went to a lot of stuff that was probably a waste of time, or as they say, I kissed a lot of frogs. Right. But that's what I did. And I think going back to the point that Andy made, or Iran, sometimes we can, you know, be very evangelical about these things. And forget about that word sales and sales is doing a lot of calls. Yes, with the right type of people, if you can find them, but at this at the start, that can be a little bit harder, but doing a lot of calls, that whether they're remote, whether they're coffees, whether they're out events,
Andy Hart:you need to be here and go for and doing.
Carl Widger:Yeah, and and except that Noah's gonna come your way. Yeah, but doing it consistently over time. And I, I tweeted something yesterday, because I was thinking I knew we're going to be having this conversation. So you know, what is the one thing I would say to to the guy I actually don't know, this guy that Nick is talking about? I'd say you got a, you got to build up your resilience, you know, if you have that resilience factor, and just go out and do it. And I think Ireland, the what you're talking about is 100%. True. And that's what we're doing a madness, right? Or at least trying to do, right? And you're doing fantastically well, in terms of your Twitter content, or whatever. But I do think that's for a little bit down the line or a little bit more mature. That's not to say you shouldn't be doing it at the start. But yeah,
Alan Smith:exclusive that exactly. I'm saying Give it 12 to 18 months and just build your personal brand as a whole other conversation to talk about build your personal brand, get known as an expert in something but yeah, and that said, every everyday create your content, post your content, but you're right, you still got to feed yourself see
Andy Hart:8020 8020 20% 8020 persons? You know, I
Alan Smith:would do though, I'd say what I would do, I would go to if you've got a handful of clients. I mean, presumably all it's been funny how many that that means but every one of them I'd say, I really value your opinion? Can I Can I buy you breakfast? Can I buy coffee? Can I buy lunch? I'd really love to pick your brains can we get together so it's not about your your don't take up their time or their own sort of personal finances and so on. And, and, and share that just say I'm launching something myself and got under my own steam? I'd like to ask you a few. But what what about my service? Have you enjoyed in the past? What else would you suggest I do a bit differently in my new setup? And who else should I be speaking to? And I think most people, if they're going to stay with you and follow you, most people of your clients are advocates they want you to they want you to succeed, and to thrive, and they'll go out of their way, they'll probably start saying so I've done a bit of this in the past probably start saying, alright, you need to speak to this guy speak to this person. You've got some things, I think a lot of them are terrible at spotting opportunities that you can help with. I mean, some clients literally refer you for clients a year, and other clients would have come across 12 opportunities, not a not mentioned you once it's just the nature, which is why the tie this purpose stuff. Yes. But hang on. This is why it's all joined up together. Because if you've shared that, yeah, I did one I did one the other day, right. And it's just a it's a random little thing at the side that I refer to this. We've all got this so called the advisors black book, right. It's nothing to do with our day to day financial planning and so on. But through through the years I've built up and now
Andy Hart:it's a life black book L and not just advisors who sees the life black book,
Alan Smith:a lot of it has been to do with Do you know a great accountant that can help go to sort of complex tax thing I bought a property in Spain, or do you know, as a legal person or
Andy Hart:anything carpet fit or anything? Wow, well, maybe anything, but
Alan Smith:it will certainly travel travel agent. We'll introduce somebody to some of the mechanics in the butt. But what I just posted that in a client newsletter, as opposed to just said, this is something that we've got, because that's just share your work. And guess what, we're a bunch of people, clients of ours come back and say, Oh, I didn't know you did that really interesting. And that's not there's no immediate in it for us. But when there's more glue, and if you're able to share your work, so as you say, your clients may not be able to identify spot the opportunity for you. But if you share examples of work you've done in the past, Oh, that's interesting. Good idea. So I think called the work in summary is a bit of both show your work, share your stuff, post your blogs, do whatever, and then do the good old school stuff. I just meet people face to face.
Carl Widger:And I look to develop one of the points that you made earlier on right if you're, you know, humble enough to say I'm starting out I need I'm trying to make a goal of this Yeah, and you talk to a client who you've done good work for, and sit down. The vast, vast, vast majority people are nice. Yeah. And they're willing to. And if you and if you are humble enough to ask for that help, that's a huge, huge start, I think you will find people will help
Andy Hart:it straight up don't be like vague may not have started up a new business. I basically, I'm trying to grow it I need some new clients not. So my service, you know, just because they're thinking where's
Alan Smith:there's a resource for this, if we are, are we going to have show notes for such? Yeah, if we have shown
Carl Widger:we get to this, if it can do as we are.
Alan Smith:There's just just a shout out. There's a guy called Dan Allison, I met him couple of years ago, from the US, and he's the only person I've ever come across, that has nailed this stuff. And codified this, this current week, he calls it referral marketing, where he does is got it, there's a lot of stuff online, he's got YouTube videos, and so on. And he is kind of scripted, this is what you do, he calls it the advocates meeting, you got to an advocate and you, you go exactly through this, this is what I'm doing. I love working with you, if I can have another 10 or 20 or 30 clients just like you know, my life would be great. And I'd be able to serve them and deliver great advice and great service to them. And so I just asked for their input and their feedback, all of a sudden, you've got 10 or 20 advocates going out there looking for opportunities for you. But you've got to be, you've got to think it through you can't, as you say, and you can't just do it sporadically without a without a lot of thought you got to go at this because you only get one chance to do this with just people. So
Andy Hart:just a final point. But I think it's quite an important point. Again, people don't even know how to close referrals. So for example, if I'm a financial advisor, and one of my clients has met a friend of theirs, and they say to me, I think Andy you'll be able to help this guy or gal, and they'll say something like, I'll give them your number, Randy and I'll I'll get I'll give them your number, Randy. And I'll get them to call you and I go no, no, no, don't do that. What you do is you tell Sarah, I'm gonna call her tomorrow, give me her number, but just tee her up. And then I've got then the job to do. Because very rarely, people think I don't want to bother a professional, I'm a bit intimidated. And they won't make that call. It's a minor thing. But you turn the referral round, this will
Alan Smith:this really are only a three way email, email, introduction, ceremony. And whatever we
Andy Hart:do, we don't give the referral or the referee, if that's their job of doing it. You as the person that wants the business, you take the job on yourself, you just give them a heads up that you'll be contacted. And then it's in your court.
Alan Smith:Do you know on that than that subject, we do a client survey. And we and the quote is kind of the Net Promoter Score type thing? Would you would you refer us to your friends and family so and something like 96% of people say yes, yeah. And
Andy Hart:then we weren't none of them? And
Alan Smith:then you say, Have you referred as something like 40% 50%? So yeah, I have referred you in the last 12 or 18 months? What I can tell you the data, our phones are not ringing, I was gonna say if that was the case, you're doubling every three years. Exactly. And what it is, is, you know, at the proverbial barbecue and cocktail when he gave out on a call, he's my guy looks after our stuff at us give them a buzz. And they don't because we've lost control of that. And so you're exactly right, I think that's because this is this is at the small margins, because if people are kind enough to give you a fair introduction, you've got to grab hold of it, you got to take control of it wherever and so almost educating your clients and going back to this kind of advocates, breakfast, or coffee, or whatever that you might have with some of you, you tell them if you do come across somebody, just give us a quick email introduction, and I'll take it from there. So then you
Carl Widger:always thank the person Yes,
Alan Smith:100% not not just not just thank the person if you then that refer the person is referred becomes a client and they're happy part of our kind of onboarding process. We have this welcome meeting down the track once all this sort of the usual stuff has gone through. We always say Would you do me a favor, go back to the original person who introduced us and just say that you're happy with what's been going on? Because that just completes the circle. You go back and just say thank you so much. I'm really delighted you refer me to Alan's worked out really well. Everyone's happy. Thanks again. It's really good. So that person is encouraged to think about doing it another time.
Carl Widger:Just kind of Nick I don't want to wind it up. Just one small thing. What we do on on that is we have thank you cards little just small cards, handwritten notes, handwritten. Nobody gets post and they certainly don't get 100 Post and the power in that is phenomenal.
Alan Smith:100% Complete agree.
Nick Lincoln:Okay. My My question was so you know, on your kind of surveys and you get 96% of people say they would refer they actually made this might be my mentality is the 4%. That would even that's a tiny number. The 4% or one that would that would cause me some angst. Do you ever go back?
Alan Smith:No, first of all we do. We do this service. Not only
Carl Widger:are you pitching for business, Nick
Alan Smith:here's the thing I remember I, when I was learning how to how not this how not to do this I used to literally now and again, I would say to a client, you would love wrapping up a meeting. If you know anyone that old school thing and doesn't really work that didn't work for me anyway. But I did have a couple of people say that Alan, just love what you're doing. I just don't refer any I don't want anyone don't get involved my personal finances, my friends and family let people do their own thing. I just don't it's nothing nothing personal.
Andy Hart:I'm assuming that that's that's the full percent.
Alan Smith:I'm assuming it's not we don't like you at all we hate you would never refer you it's just that I just don't, I just don't hold and that sort of thing. That's what I'm good. Got to assume. But our client retention rate as it was, for all of us is extremely high. Very rarely.
Andy Hart:Even the bad advisors don't lose clients, let alone the good ones. Right. So you know, the bad advice?
Nick Lincoln:tend to be very sticky. And I think I think it will be that some people will just be genuine. They just don't like doing it. They feel it. It's if it goes wrong, it's on there. Yeah. Yeah. Same way that when people say to you, well, I said the client or potential client, I can't work with you. And we can't work for various reasons. Can you recommend somebody else I was gonna, I really rather not that I steer them towards. I'm biased or vouched for, because I just don't? I don't know. I just I just feel it implicates you, doesn't it? And and for some people that's just not there about so that'll be the 4%. Of your of your of the survey out of you. Yeah, yes. Yeah. Immediate family. What's next? What is next? I don't know, how did you want to have a talk or not?
Andy Hart:I mean, it's, it's a subject we can talk about. It's the whole concept around your number. We work with various people that are all working on their number, what what that number is in terms of, you know, maybe their financial independence number, or an amount of money that they're never going to run out of based on those sort of spending patterns? There was a famous book that came out by Lee Eisenberg, I believe it was called I believe it was called your number. Then the number Sorry, the number Yeah. In the fire Community Financial Independence retire early. They talked about this number, I think they call it the their stash. Like, what, what is that number. And generally, it's worked out 300 times your monthly expenses. If you're if you're only spending 1000 pounds a month, your stash number would be 300,000. If you're spending 2000 pounds a month, your stash number would be 600,000 is based on the safe withdrawal rate of 4% that we could argue all day is horrendously off or horrendously on. Yeah, there's just a little bit of conversation around that. But what I find is, most people who talk about this concept have usually hit their number that their previous self was thinking about. And now they've got this new number in mind. So yeah, any, any thoughts?
Alan Smith:Well, you know, there's a few if you remember reading that I remember I read that book when it first came out, which is quite a long time ago. Yeah. And if you read it, he talks about exact talks about himself. Doesn't he use a writer and editor squire or someone? Yeah. Yeah. And but he talks about he did all his research, he met hedge fund guys and big people and And what he found was that the number changed all the time as you got closer to the number you got close to that, well, I'm now financially independent. But guess what, we've got this kind of lifestyle creep having suddenly now I'm used to going and better holidays or flying business class or first class or something. So the number kept going up. So there's a constant then that dynamic within that and I think this is where really good financial planner as a ton of value. To really work out with do you really need that extra holiday or that extra first class cabin and so on? Let's let's sort of again, talk, talk through that and, and coach the client, because otherwise the trade off is not the number of fact Carlos, you said this a while ago, one of your legendary quotes, which I then Stone did something else with, but can't remember exactly. I'm
Andy Hart:paraphrasing that after a few pints of Guinness or not. It was before, as before,
Alan Smith:during and you do but did you remember I was talking about that? You were so you were talking about? If you don't know the number is always more or something? What exactly, yeah,
Carl Widger:if you don't know, if you don't have a financial plan that has, you know, built in your goals, dreams and aspirations, so you don't know what your resources your money is for? Then when you're asked how much money do you want? Or need? The answer is always going to be more. And that is a really, really poor place to be.
Nick Lincoln:I was gonna say as well that, given what given what we do, which is real financial planning, I mean, a lot of we're not going to be negative, but we all know there was a lot of other financial planning firms that do very little financial planning, and we all four of us, I know we do it almost exclusively with all of our clients all of the time. And actually, all we're doing at the time is working out that now. We're thrilled that you know, someone retiring, he wants to retire at 50, I'll be financially independent and 58, we do the modeling. And we do that the cash flow and the graphs, and it's all lovely. But under that is an amount of stuff of pots they have to have. And it's not going to be a multiple of their monthly spend necessarily, it's going to be their number, because that's what they need to have accumulated when the income taps turn off. So all the time, we're focusing on this number problem. And that's, that's, you know, behind this the title for this podcast, the real advisor podcast, because we are doing the real stuff that changes lives. And it is all about identifying that number, whether we explicitly say you need 1.78 5 million pounds. Yeah, by the time you're 58 That's actually what we're doing all the time in our financial.
Andy Hart:Yep, yep. Yeah.
Carl Widger:The one slight difficulty I have with the number is it's very simplistic, but then again, putting stuff in simplistic terms when it comes to financial planning is probably a good thing. Because the real benefit of having having a real financial planner is that show God your five year plan, right? Things change, right and goals, dreams and aspirations change all the time. And, and certainly when you're dealing with people who have Yeah, man plans really significant worlds, you know? Exactly, exactly. That's exactly it. So if I can just sorry, God, yeah, go on. Yeah, no, just you know, it's way more than the number there's so many moving parts. That's,
Alan Smith:that's what I was gonna do. You know,
Andy Hart:it's a little bit like your monthly, you know, earnings. You know, I'm sure all of you had, you know, when I thought was gonna be only five grand a month, I thought it'd be absolutely flying. You know, many moons ago, five grand a month comes in and you're like my lifestyle change that month, that that much then you're off to the next target 10 grand a month. If I hit 10 grand a month, I'll be absolutely the happiest guy on planet Earth is called the hedonic trade Donek treadmill, and then you have a good season anything Oh, I'll have no problems, then the problems are doubling. Right? Yeah. So it's a similar thing again, with that with
Alan Smith:a care first job first. Given my age, my first job I had delivering newspapers in the morning, freezing my backside off on the west coast of Scotland, the Scottish Rite, to five pounds a week should impress with times, five pounds a week, and I was loaded. I was pretty rich. And I've never I've never felt rich to them. I think.
Andy Hart:I think the biggest jump you ever go through is your first paid job as an adult because you've gotten believe you get all this money you got from like, you've gone from like hundreds and hundreds of pounds. Yeah, exactly. I think my first real after tax wage was about 730 quid, and I remember being in harrow harrow train station, put my card in 730 quid I've been gonna be amazing. I'm not gonna spend this
Carl Widger:was like, textured above? Oh,
Andy Hart:yeah. told me I said 700 days standing there and that casual.
Alan Smith:It was downhill ever since I had another sort of little flavor to this conversation as as you may know, I run another podcast, Entrepreneur Transition please No, no, no, I wouldn't I wouldn't want to compete I wouldn't want to cannibalize this or that or you wouldn't but it does exist
Andy Hart:and you can go money over money
Alan Smith:but but here's the thing talking about numbers so a lot of it is conversations with successful entrepreneurs who are built scaled and exited and got a chunk of money and a recurring theme in not everyone but a lot of them is that the money is firstly we've got the number got more than they weigh about whether whether they've actually worked out in advance or not. But it's a whole different set of circumstances now because perhaps they've lost some purpose they're no longer that business owner that note that got into semi retirement identity purpose you know all the things that keep us vibrant keep us engaged make us get out of bed in the morning and this is coming up a lot and so this is the other idea of this the real financial adviser real financial planner, because you have to be skilled at navigating those conversations because the basic that the fundamentals the mechanics of Cash Flow Planning as you say, if it's not you can't You're not projecting 30 years but the ongoing relationship you have is a numbers phases kind of left brain type thing but the right brain side of it is the creative part is coaching and working with your clients so identify you know, what is life going to look like afterwards cuz you're gonna have something to go to and I mean people who actually have sold businesses but also just regular retirees and there's nothing worse than someone who's got enough money but they just they've got nothing to do no passion no vision no purpose yeah daily basis.
Carl Widger:That was the main the people who spoke at future you was exactly that the lack of purpose or lack of identity and and the lack of preparation to go into that third act. Sorry. And
Nick Lincoln:yeah, I've got a I've got a client couple who they built a business it was predominantly him the husband he built a business and sold it in me would have been about age 4344. I've got millions of pounds for it. And we do this financial planning with their financial planning and work through and they have incredible spend incredible lifestyle. And I didn't say it outright, but he said, I want this plan to assume I'm never going to work again. Because it's done. Now I want you and I bet this guy is so driven and so bright, and just lost the competition just loves being in it. And so he's he's now gone back and lost another firm in the same sector that he was in before because he's now think I can do this better. Now things have changed, the technology has changed his purpose, and you know, bright driven people. And as soon as they got their health, I think it was handy at the start of the show alluded to the fact that there are a lot of our clients are never going to retire even though we've cracked their number. And they're they've gotten what because they get so much value. And they get so much of their self worth through their work. And if What if you're if you're if you're driven and bright and motivated, and really good at what you do, well, those four attributes aren't going to disappear. Maybe you sell, sell the business for gazillions. So what exactly, to me this
Alan Smith:is this is the next frontier, right for financial planning. Because when we would certainly when I started, we were way ahead of the game doing proper cash flow
Andy Hart:when you started out with a wheelbarrow or someone else. Now
Alan Smith:after after I retired the wheelbarrow. That's a private joke, but people can guess what it means. But when I set up my business, and we were pretty early adopters on that stuff way before you boys and it was it was a real it was a real differentiator to be able to do that. And that was it is it is increasingly common. But I do think that the next iteration of that is is much more this behavioral coaching side of things because it's functional, you get your cash flow, have you got enough what looks like you have just need to sort of care and maintenance and don't do anything crazy to blow that up or just
Andy Hart:coaching just coaching in general and and having those conversations with giants. There's very few people that can have those conversations with certainly that people have last night point it's because people in their social circle their family, that they're not equipped to have those conversations we have them you know, their accountant can't do it the lawyer card.
Alan Smith:No, we hold that place in their life in their lifestyle, being that trusted advisor. I think it's a fantastic privileged position to be in but you have to be skilled to do it. It's not just you know, I don't know about you sometimes I've been in quite long meetings, particularly for the couple. I'm drained by it. Yeah, you're giving your very best you're giving your best advice you sort of think about all the moving parts are there. Yeah, your money side and the lifestyle side and the family and the kids and all
Andy Hart:these we've got to get into character and get into their world. It's like, sort of going on stage and you have a conversation or a client meet. It's very high. Like there's good things happening. And there's another client meeting a lot of you know not so good things are happening now we have to switch but we're very adaptable.
Carl Widger:I love I love the chancellor. Our job is to hold our clients feet to the fire of their best intentions. And I just think he's like that amazing quote, but But you know what part of the skill is finding out what are those best intentions choosing that out over time? You can only find that stuff out by by building rapport and trust over time. You can't you can't ask that at the first meeting
Alan Smith:that that another another Mitch Antony he's he's brilliant at the the quotes now the macentee one is you need enough money to sleep well at night and enough purpose to leap out of bed in the morning. I think he's that's what we all need. The both
Nick Lincoln:the client meetings can be draining it's very hard to fake empathy for an hour. So
Alan Smith:you're doing well so far. What's next? Then they can be done? Well
Nick Lincoln:listen to 10 versus fugitive time is flying. So perhaps we'll we'll wrap up quickly. What we're going to do, ladies and gents within within show is have a little culture corner section, where we just discuss things that we've enjoyed content, we've consumed books, films, whatever TV, apps on your phone, a bit of tech that perhaps you've really enjoyed, adequately starts off with just getting the ball rolling. I've just finished a book. It's a bit of a windy title, fake invisible catastrophes and threats of doom. And it's written by a guy called Dr. Patrick Moore, not the astronomer. Dr. Patrick Moore is a lifelong scientist and environmentalist. And he was a co founder of Greenpeace back in 1971. So he was firmly on the on the ecology side and the green movement. But he he fell out of love with Greenpeace by the mid 1980s, when he realized it morphed more into an asset gathering turnover machine with 1000s of employees. And it kind of lost its ethos and this book, fake invisible catastrophes and threats of doom. It's on Audible. It's very readable, title, dry subject.
Alan Smith:Snappy title.
Nick Lincoln:And it's very good. He just basically refutes a lot of the climate alarmism that's out there. He says some of it is genuine, and we should be concerned about it, but there will be remedies but a lot of it is is is is faking uses a cliche. But if you come, I think we will do from the sort of Matt Ridley Joe what right now this very moment is the best time ever to be alive School of optimism because human history just teaches that you're insane to be pessimistic, because all that all historical facts are against you. And you've got to be an optimist. Well, this book is from that, as well as saying that things aren't as bad as they are. You've got to see what's going on here. There's a lot of money in the ecology movement, I'm sure one day we'll talk about ESG. Because I know some of us certainly have a very strong views about whether that is a genuine thing, or just another bit of crony capitalism. So I'd recommend that that's my culture corner and what was called again, oh, my God, I'm gonna address and tackle fake invisible catastrophes and threats of doom by Dr. Patrick Moore, and it's on Audible. So they'll be they'll be a printed version as well. If you great. Press. My button
Alan Smith:nice,
Nick Lincoln:try the veal.
Alan Smith:Let me let me let me jump jump in quickly before I forget, in terms of mine, and I'm just trying to wrap up a couple of things that we've talked about, on this podcast, this inaugural first proper podcast, when it was discussed earlier on about building a brand personal brand, you know, finding clients starting a business from scratch. There is a I think it's a fabulous podcast interview. There's a guy called Daniel Priestley, he'll be known to some of the audience certainly known I've been through his own program key key person of influence programs. He's an Aussie based in the UK based in London. But it was him being interviewed by a US based kind of marketing guy called Crystal, D O crystal for his podcast, his whole program, which is under the brand future. And that's future without an E on the end fu t you are but it was just it was really is an hour's long, really crisp, really it just unpacked all this stuff about building a personal brand, how you create content, the frequency specifics around it, it wasn't your willy, it read just it was just sort of, from soup to nuts. This is how you do it. I mean, there's so many podcasts and things out there as we know that there's rarely time to listen to one twice, nevermind three times. I've listened to that three times. Now, I just thought was so so good. And just drilled everything down. So if anyone is looking at building their brand trying to generate new clients, and so I just find that podcast and give it an hour of your time and he's brilliant. He's
Andy Hart:really good. He's really good podcast, but it's all about the intersection between personal brand and your business, which some people right overlook. And now to sort of build both in a sort of meaningful way you need to focus on both. That's so the advice. Just
Nick Lincoln:Just a quick interject. Interjection Daniel Priestley, his latest podcast episode has Morgan Housel on it. Who seems to be a very popular writer at the minute, so maybe just check out the most recent one if you want to get your latest dose of Morgan Housel. Call Andy COVID Want to jump in?
Carl Widger:Yeah, I, one of my favorite books. Just listen to it for the third time after a summer of excess. Atomic habits.
Alan Smith:Atomic habits. Yeah.
Carl Widger:Just amazing. Yeah. And then I was trying to consider going back to your friend, Nick, who's who's going out in his own and looking at real financial planning at the 100 year life, I think would be a great book for for anybody in the financial planning space to read, to try and just kind of position in their own heads. You know why we're doing what we're doing? I think it's a really good book. So yeah, they're the two I would recommend. I am too I've listened to recently
Andy Hart:on Audible, I did send 100 year life to two clients. I think what clients it works really well with is the clients that retire early and genuinely say, I'm retired now think I sent it to a 53 year old. And I was when anyone is that age sitting with me, you know, having a financial planning meeting. The real problem is how long are you going to live? Obviously, you could pop it in the next 10 minutes, or you could live you know, 60 years. So fill in your time from now until when that point is, I think I think is their biggest challenge. Yeah, it's a really decent book. And it's also got parts of it, where it's if you can remember Carl, it's all about sort of a different generations becoming friends now so that you get like 70 year olds are quite friendly with 30 Are there all these sort of weird dynamics that we've not seen before? And a lot more people living on their own and more more single household? Yeah, it just goes into a whole load of different stuff. I think it's a brilliant sort of following on from that female go for my recommendation I've been banging on this about for a while. It's called dopamine nation is similar along the lines of atomic habits, but I think it's somewhat better focus on slightly different area. It's all about how everyone at the moment is overstimulated over pleasure. Do you know everyone's addicted to something? And it's got stories about her I sort of think she's a psychiatrist in Silicon Valley. And it's amazing that someone could put, you know, a 10 chapter book together that I buy for a fiver, which is basically free and their entire career is distilled into 10 Awesome chapters. That's why I think books are just absolutely amazing. You get someone's career in 10 chapters for a fiver. Anyway, that's why books
Alan Smith:are a cheat code. They're cheap.
Nick Lincoln:I think books books are gonna catch on Andy, I think you really hit something on the head there. Do you think they're gonna be the expected
Andy Hart:they might be shocked and they might be selling them? We should start
Nick Lincoln:online, one step at a time.
Carl Widger:Just so this isn't a total another echo chamber boys. I listened to dopamine nation, Andy and I like to totally disagree is a better than atomic habits. It's not even in the same. No,
Alan Smith:I'm with you in that car. And on that just to talk about, you know, these trendy words like life hacks, sometimes there's so many books to sort of read and consume. I'm a fan of just listened to a podcast because she's interviewed by a number of people she's interviewed by Dr. Andrew Huberman on the Huberman lab podcast, you've got 60 minutes of talking about Yeah, which, seven hours? distills it all down? Yeah. Which is, to me, it's good enough unless a book unless I listened to a podcast, man, this sounds so
Andy Hart:easy, why I'm thinking dominations. Why are we comparing the two I should maybe should have done that. But she's a practitioner. So she's been 2030 years sitting in the chair talking to real people, James clear. It's just sort of condensed all that we know about habits into a book. That's what a lot of people who are really in the habit space are not too much of a fan of his book, The pocket.
Carl Widger:That may be a fair point, but I think a lot of the stories she tells are very extreme to Jacobs, addictions is
Alan Smith:that it's hardcore. I think the moral of the story here is we've all got different, different opinions. And that's fine. That's fair and reasonable.
Andy Hart:I don't agree. I don't agree with you.
Alan Smith:This might be a useful time, Nick. Mr. Chairman, to
Andy Hart:pull on this. The rest of our lives please.
Nick Lincoln:I have to say we've got through
Andy Hart:the end of the year to speak to kids to pick up podcasts to record and
Nick Lincoln:I think we're still we're still friends. That's that's very good. Okay. rebalance. Thank you very much suitability letters. Thanks, ladies and gents for listening to us and during us for the past 55 minutes. As I said at the start if you want to follow us on Twitter at advisor podcast, that's how you get in contact with us suggestions feedback, that'd be great. And please do leave a review on iTunes. Other than that, please do like
Andy Hart:and subscribe on our YouTube channel.
Nick Lincoln:Please do like and subscribe on our YouTube we
Carl Widger:should do this on video.
Nick Lincoln:We should do this on video I just kept passing I mean we can keep on doing this forever because the people listening on Bloody nothing else better to do. Alright guys love you loads. Goodbye. Goodbye, dear audience and we'll soon
Alan Smith:see you next time. Bye bye.
Carl Widger:Cheers, guys.