Winning Clients And Moving ‘Upmarket’ By Being Confident In Telling Your Value Story: #FASuccess Ep 512 With Chris Smith

Podcast Player:

Resources Featured In This Episode:

• Chris Smith: LinkedIn | Website
• PSBLTY Upmarket Toolkit
• Kitces Report On How Financial Planners Actually Do Financial Planning
• What advisor-client conversations reveal about markets, sentiment, and client outcomes
• "The Effective Executive" by Peter Drucker
• The Strangest Secret Earl Nightingale Conant 1950's Original

Full Transcript:

Michael: Welcome, Chris Smith, to the "Financial Advisor Success" podcast.

Chris: Thank you, Michael. I'm super honored and stoked to be here.

Michael: I'm thrilled to have you on today and to get to have what I think is going to be a really interesting conversation about what it takes for advisors to move upmarket and work with higher-dollar clients. From the research side we do on kitces.com, our productivity studies are actually very crystal clear that advisors are more productive when they work with higher-dollar clients that have more complexity. In the end, we provide services to clients that take time and expertise. They remunerate us for our time and expertise. It turns out, when you work with higher-dollar clients with more complexity, they pay more to get those problems solved when there's more money at stake. It's the same phenomenon that leads certain clients to hire the $1,000-an-hour partner at the law firm and not the $300-an-hour associate when their financial stakes and complex legal problems get very complex. In the end, most of us in the advisor world don't literally charge by the hour, but you can take your annual revenue from AUM fees divided by how many hours of client service you deliver, and you will come up with an equivalent hourly rate. Once you recognize that, it gets pretty clear you grow a lot faster by going from $250-an-hour clients to $500-an-hour clients than you do by trying to do $250-an-hour work faster with tech. You can't double the whole thing with tech the way that you can by just working with clients that will pay you more for the value of your time.

Some of us just like working with the mass affluent and don't want to move upmarket. If that's you, that's cool, but a lot of us do want to figure out how we work with clients who will pay more for the value of our time. The caveat then is but you can't just wave a magic wand and say, "Now I'm only going to work with bigger clients with more complexity, who will pay me more fees for my greater value." You have to do the real work to position the firm and your process to actually attract and bring on higher-dollar, more-up-market clients.

I know, Chris, you have spent years building a process of how you did this yourself and then how you help advisors go down this path of moving upmarket. I'm excited to delve into all the things you have learned about what advisors need to really do in order to move upmarket successfully if that's what they want to do.

Chris: Sure. I'm happy to share anything and everything I can that would be a benefit to advisors.

Chris’ Journey Into The Financial Advice Business [04:43]

Michael: I think just to kick us off, give us a little bit of a background of just your journey into the profession in the first place.

Chris: Great. Thank you for that, Michael. Yes, the thing that we are known for at the PSBLTY company is helping committed advisors move upmarket. Before we got there, I was a commercial real estate broker in Phoenix in my early 20s. It was one of those situations where I was...I think I was 24, but I looked like I was 14. I had no connections, no credibility, really no business, actually, probably, doing commercial real estate. But a guy took a chance on me and said, "Well, I usually only hire people to have degrees, but if you'll continue to keep going to school while working here full time, I'll mentor you." So I did.

What was interesting is I didn't know very much about commercial real estate, but I quickly became pretty good at sales and getting listings and getting clients and getting buyers. Some of the guys that had been in the firm a lot longer than me were like, "Man, how are you doing this? You have no credibility, no background.

Michael: I'm assuming commercial real estate has some similar dynamics even to the advisor world.

Chris: Totally.

Michael: You tend to work with some folks with some dollars, some affluence, and some age and worldly experience, and it gets awkward, and they're like, "Oh, you're the age of my son," or, "...my grandson," or, "Can I set you up with my granddaughter?"

Chris: Totally. It was actually a blessing in disguise because what I realized quickly, Michael, is I can't rely on my credibility, my track record, my knowledge of the industry. So, "I have to get really good at two things," is what I thought. I had to get really good at connecting with people and making it all about them. What I found is that people will trust you immensely if you make it all about them. The more you can get them to share, the more they know you care. The more you get them to share, the more they know and feel you care, which is a basic, basic philosophy we teach of how to do discovery as an advisor.

So I was like, okay, if I can get people to connect with me and really open up and share, and I get to know them. And then, two, I've got to get better at telling the story. So while there might be other brokers in the office who know more about the industry than me, I'm going to be the best at articulating the value we offer. And I found that that was actually pretty easy. I could articulate more powerfully, more succinctly, more clearly the history of our firm, what it is we offered, and the value.

Michael: That's just a weighty thing. I just want to pause there for a moment. I'm 24, I'm coming in, all the industry age bias and the rest, and to basically say, "So I have no credibility, no track record, and not much knowledge of the industry. So how am I going to win business in any way?" Those are all the negatives. That's quite the uphill context that you paint. I think it's fair for almost any of us coming into a new profession. This was commercial real estate for you. It feels very parallel to what we go through as advisors as well. How do you get retiring clients with a lot of dollars and complexity when you're young and new, and you don't have credibility or a track record or a lot of knowledge of the profession yet? It's the same uphill battle.

Chris: Totally. Had I known, like, "Oh, well, don't be salesy," or, "Don't be too pushy," or, "Don't be too aggressive," that might've really gotten in my way, but I didn't even know anything about that. That did dawn on me at the time, like, "Oh, this is interesting. These guys are clearly seeing something that I'm doing that's unique and different. I don't really see it as unique and different, but maybe there is something to this idea of connecting with people and being able to tell our story." I just kept honing that.

Michael: Can you give us more context of just what is that story? What does it mean? For all of us in the advisor relationship world, I get the more you can get them to share, the more they know and feel that you care. Or some version, what they're saying in our industry, "People have to know, like, and trust you. You have to show that you care." So I get that end. What's the story? What was the commercial real estate story that started driving outcomes and bringing in business?

Chris: So, yeah, a couple of things. One is the most important story told is always their story.

Michael: Okay.

Chris: That's always just a good reminder that their story has to be the hero and the conversation has to be about them. But then when it is time to tell our story, what most of us do, especially advisors, we spend the majority of our story, without realizing it, talking about what we do, which is actually the thing that differentiates us the least. So another way of saying it is we spend the most time talking about the thing that differentiates us the least, which is what we do. Because everyone has their version of what we do, just like if I was in commercial real estate and I'm like, "Well, let me tell you about our listings and let me tell you how much real estate we've moved over the last year and let me tell you how long we've been in business." It's like they're hearing that from every single other broker.

Michael: "We provide comprehensive financial planning and investment management. We have deep ongoing relationships with our clients, with our years of experience and our credentials. We build a solid, successful track record with our hundreds of clients and millions or hundreds of millions of assets," or whatever the number is. Like that kind of framing in our industry.

Chris: And so when I said my story, I always made sure, again, I have to understand their story first so that I can know what are the relevant parts of my story to connect to theirs. So if someone shared with me why this piece of real estate mattered to them and why this move for their business, or why they were leasing this property to start a business or expand their business or why they were selling this legacy piece of land that's always been in their family, I could then say, at some point in time, the conversation, and it was the smallest part of the conversation, which was my story. I would not dominate the conversation with my story, which, again, I see so many advisors struggling with. But at some point in time, I would say, I would acknowledge them for everything they shared and said, "Man, thank you for that. Can I just share with you how we serve clients just like you at a really high level? And can I also tell you why I decided to get into commercial real estate?" I would always ask their permission. And we teach advisors to do the same thing. So if I'm in a discovery meeting after I've spent the majority of the time on them to be able to say, "Man, Michael, thank you for everything you shared. First of all, I really believe we can help you. Second, can I just share with you at a really high level how we serve clients just like you? And second, can I also tell you why I chose to be an advisor and why this work means so much to me?"

Michael: Okay. I'm intrigued now. Even hearing that, I'm like, "What do you do for people? Why did you get in the business?"

Chris: Notice that I'm not saying, "Hey, can I tell you about what we do in this industry?" It's like, no, "Can I share with you at a really high level how we help you?" And then I make that story like, "Here's how we're going to do this for you. Here's how we're going to bring this to life. Here's how we're going to make all this possible for you." Because that's what people are really interested in. No one really wants to know the what of our story, although that's what we've gotten into a bad habit, in this country, of asking people, "Hey, what do you do?" What we really want to know is, how could you help me?

So the what and the how of story are very nuanced, but most people just see them as one in the same. So there's what you do, which again, that's okay to talk about a little bit, holistic, comprehensive, integrative, whatever that is. What they really want to know though is, how do you do it? Which implies an outcome, which implies you're going to solve my problem. So tell me how you're going to do this. And then, yeah, I'd love to know a little bit about, yeah, why did you choose to do this? Why does this mean so much to you? So that's really all I would do. And I would keep it very, very succinct and brief. And then at the end, I would say...and here's another thing, part of your story is like a direct ask. So I would see a lot of other brokers, although they had a lot more success than me, they would kind of beat around the bush when it came to the end of the meeting. And instead of just coming out and asking for the listing, Michael, they'd say things like...they'd get right up to the point of it, just like advisors do, and they'd go, "So what questions do you have?" Or they get right to the point of asking for the business, and they'd go, "What are your thoughts?"

And I just was like, why would we ask them what questions they have at the very end if we've spent an hour asking them questions and letting them ask all their questions? Why would I ask them what their thoughts are? Why would I not just say to someone after I got done telling them how we could help them and who I am, why would I not just say, "Hey, Michael, based on our conversation, I'm more confident than ever that we could help you. On behalf of our firm, I'd like to invite you to become our newest client. Will you accept my invitation and can we get your property listed today?" And you know what was wild, Michael? People would just go, "Yeah."

So, same thing with advisors. I see advisors, Michael, all the time at the end of the second meeting or the third meeting...depending on their sales process. A lot of advisors don't ask for the business right at the end of the first meeting, that initial discovery meeting. But you would not believe, or maybe you would, the number of advisors we see that get to the end of the second meeting or third meeting, and it's a great meeting, they love this prospective client, the prospective client loves them, and they'll get right to the very end, and they'll go, "So what questions do you have?" Or, "Hey, what thoughts do you have?" And then you get people thinking, "Well, should I have questions? Should I have thoughts? I didn't have any, but let me come up with some," versus just going, "Hey, Michael..."

Michael: Apparently, I'm supposed to have questions now. So I mean, I've watched this play out. Apparently I'm supposed to have questions now. So even though I didn't have any questions and I was just ready to move forward, I'm going to stop my action to move forward and now I'm supposed to like come up with a question and sound intelligent because I don't want to sound like an idiot in front of this person who's telling me I'm supposed to have questions now.

Chris: Yeah. Versus just going, "Hey, Michael, I was really confident at the end of our initial meeting that we could help you. I'm even more confident now that we've had an opportunity to dive into your situation a little bit more. So look, I would love to work with you. And on behalf of Kitces Financial, I want to officially invite you to become the newest client of our firm. Will you accept my invitation?" So I just started doing those types of things in commercial real estate. And so, between telling my story, really making it about them, being very bold and confident, and asking people, I had a lot of success.

And then here's what happened. A buddy of mine who I started playing city league basketball with, he owned a financial planning firm. They're their own RIA. And he kind of starts picking up on the idea that I love sales, that I'm not intimidated by it, that I'm pretty good at connecting with people. And one night at basketball, he goes, "Hey, have you ever thought about getting into the financial advising, financial planning business and joining an RIA?" And I was like, "RI...what?" I didn't know any of the acronyms. And at first I was like, "Oh, no, that sounds awful. Because I had in my mind...I thought being a financial advisor meant you sit behind a desk and just move money around all day long on a computer. You know what I mean?

Michael: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris: And I had no idea. So I was like, "No, not interested at all, man." But although I didn't really love commercial real estate, I liked it, but I just didn't love the transactional nature of it. And you're always starting over. So he was pursuing me so much that we kind of made one of these deals that it was like, "All right, dude, if you'll stop talking to me about this, I'll come take a look at it just to kind of get you to leave me alone." And I went and looked.

Michael: His persistence. Yeah.

Chris: And I went and saw their firm, and I was like, "This is actually a really cool industry." And look, here's another thing that I think is interesting. I think the same perception I had about this industry was it was unfair. I'll say that on my...but I think that's the same perception a lot of clients and potential clients have about this industry. They don't really know what's actually possible and the profound work that advisors really do. I didn't. So when I saw that, I was like, "Wow, this is cool. You get to work with families, potentially, for their lives and make a generational impact. You're making a profound difference in people's lives." And so it was a big, big, at that time, career move for me. Because I was doing really well. I was a very established commercial real estate broker at that point, but my wife knew I wasn't super happy, and she was confident in me. And so she said, "Yeah, go for it."

So I joined the firm, and I got my 65, but here's the deal I made with him. Michael, I said, "I don't want a book of business." And they were like, "Oh, what do you mean? Everyone has a book of business." And I was like, "No, I'm not going to service any clients." And again, they were like, "That's not how this works." I'm like, "Well, that's how it's going to work here." And I said, "Why would you guys want me servicing clients? You want me out telling our story, doing what I do." And so it took some convincing, but I really ultimately became the head of business development, which at the time I hadn't seen a lot of firms really do that. Every advisor was their own head of business development, their head of sales, their head of client service, right? So I got to do what I love doing again, and I got to do it in another industry. Because I was like, maybe it was a fluke in commercial real estate. Maybe I just got lucky. But in this industry, Michael, I did the exact same thing. I was like, I don't know much about the industry yet. I'm not super well-versed in how it works, or I'm not super knowledgeable, but here's what I do know how to do. I'll go connect with people. I'll understand their story. I'm going to study the firm and learn how to tell our story more concisely, more powerfully than any other advisor. Even though I don't know as much as other advisors, I'll be able to tell the story better, and then I'll be confident and bold in my ask.

So I just, I just did the exact same thing I did in commercial real estate. And again, quickly people were like, "Dude, how are you bringing this many assets? How are you getting referrals from CPAs and estate attorneys?" And that's when it really dawned on me. I was like, okay, I've done this in two different industries that are similar, but pretty tough industries to break into. And to make this part of the story really short, what happened was we were a fee-based financial planning firm, had our own RIA. There was a comprehensive insurance planning firm that mostly did insurance planning, and we decided to merge because we wanted to create a more comprehensive holistic solution under one roof. And I was all for it because I was like, yeah, sounds great to me. It'll give me more to sell. When those two firms came together, we moved into a new office together. And I don't know if you've ever been a part of a merger, but they're tougher than I think most people realize on the surface. We're not just bringing business models together and business efficiencies, we've got to figure out how to integrate these cultures, these brands, these messages. And I just didn't see that it was being done with the most intentional approach. And although I'd never done this, I just intuitively felt like I could because I had been so intentional about my own brand and story.

So I went to my buddy who had recruited me. I said, "Hey, can I just, can I help think through how to bring these two firms, two cultures, two brands, two sales processes together?" And he was like, "Please, help us." And so I got to make a lot of mistakes, but I always joke they couldn't fire me. It's hard to fire a volunteer. But long story short, Michael, we got really obsessed about, okay, who are we? Now that there's two of us, like, who are we that's bigger than any one of our companies? What is our brand? How are we going to sell? What is the culture we're creating here? And then how do we go out and tell that story? And that was the first time I ever got to actually work with other people, teaching them what I had done. And we made a lot of mistakes, but we ultimately figured things out. And within two years, we were bringing in as many assets under management a month as either of those firms had ever done in a year. And here's what was wild. We didn't change a thing about our planning. We didn't change a thing about our asset allocation approach or risk strategies. Yeah, we evolved like every firm does, but we really just went out and told a more clear, concise, powerful story with more boldness and conviction. And it was just by getting more clarity in our brand, more consistency in our sales, and more conviction in our culture, we started moving upmarket and started to just have more success.

And then that's when the light bulb went off for me of like, I love this industry now. And actually, I love being at a firm and an advisor, but I actually think I want to go out and show the rest of the industry that this is possible. And although they weren't happy about it, I totally had the blessing of Jeremy, my best friend, who's my best friend to this day. And he was like, "Well, I don't want to lose you, but," he goes, "I do think you'd make a big difference in this industry. And if you're going to go, I'll be your first client." And that was 11 years ago.

The Importance Of Leadership During Discovery Meetings [20:16]

Michael: So take me further into what it is that was happening in this merger integration. What wasn't working, and what actually started to change in sales process, marketing, branding, whatever the things were? What actually wasn't working and got changed?

Chris: When it comes to sales, you could watch five discovery meetings. And what do you think you would observe, Michael, in those five discovery meetings?

Michael: Well, everybody sells and manages their process their way, based on their journey, based on what they've learned, and what they want to highlight about themselves that's gotten them here.

Chris: Yeah. And they were asking me. They were like, "Hey, Chris, you're good at sales. You really love to sell. Help us get better at selling." And so I would observe some of their client discovery meetings, and I was like, every one of your client discovery meetings is so different. It's almost impossible to arrive at any best practices, if that makes sense. It's like there's not even any semblance of a framework. And I'm not asking you to all sell the exact same way. I would always want you to make it your own. And then I started realizing, what if we at least had an agreed-upon approach? What if we at least had an agreed-upon framework that we all followed, that we believed in? Then we could actually arrive at best practices and get better. And so we adopted that and we created, "Okay, here's how we approach a discovery meeting with a prospective client. Here's a little bit of the script and the framework." And then same thing with second meeting, a third meeting.

Michael: So do you recall, can you share with me what was that framework? What did it become as you were doing this live with the firm going through their transformation?

Chris: Yeah, happy to share. And it's the exact framework that we teach now today. And hopefully I can share some things in it that are actionable that someone listening to this could be like, "Ooh, I'm going to go use that in my very next discovery meeting with a prospective client." One of the things that I noticed, Michael, early on when I was observing this was when I would ask advisors like, "Hey, tell me about the sales process," or, "Tell me about the discovery meeting." I could tell that, in their minds, it just seemed like it was kind of one long run-on narrative or like it was one long run-on conversation or sentence that felt very overwhelming to them, and they kind of didn't know where they were at when they were in it. It's just like, they just were like, "I know I've done dozens or hundreds of these, so I just kind of know what I do."

And I started actually seeing, no, there's actually some really basic components to this as you break it down. There's how we open the discovery meeting, and we call that framing. There's then the actual discovery, which hopefully is the majority of the discovery meeting. Interestingly enough for most advisors, it's not, although we call it a discovery meeting. So there's opening, discovery, the presentation, and then the close. I was like, "Oh, what if we just embrace this simple four-part framework? I think it would simplify it in everyone's minds. It would quiet the noise around it. It wouldn't feel as much like one long run-on sentence. And then we could start to help people get really good at all four parts." It's like, "Hey, here's how you get really good at opening a discovery meeting in a way that builds credibility, expertise, authority, and shows that you're different." "Wow, what if, what if you could do that in the opening two minutes of a meeting with a prospective client, like in two minutes you could establish authority, expertise, credibility, and send a really clear signal that you're different than any advisor that you ever talked to? Let's just teach you how to do that."

And then people started getting really good at opening the meeting because, my gosh, Michael, I started listening to some of these advisors, how they would open their meetings...and again, they just didn't know any better. No one had ever shown them. And I see a lot of advisors today. It's so unintentional. Let's say you and I sit down, and we exchange some pleasantries or some niceties. And then I go, "So Michael, what, what brought you in today? What do you want to talk about?" There's so much risk in starting a client discovery, a meeting with a prospective client that way. But anyways, that's what...so then I was like, "Oh, let's teach him how to do it in a way that's actually really intentional with some specific phrasing."

Michael: What is a good open look like then?

Chris: So let's actually use. This will be fun. Can we just role-play a little bit?

Michael: Sure. Sure.

Chris: What would you say... Let's just take Kitces.com because I know you have multiple successful businesses. Actually, let's use your advisory business.

Michael: Sure.

Chris: What would you say, Michael, now and then, what is it you guys wanted to be known for? If there was one thing that you wanted to be known for as an advisor that it's like, "This is really the thing I think kind of makes me unique, and yeah, this is what I as an advisor want to be known for."

Michael: Oh, gosh. I mean, when I was building actively in advisory days, I wanted to go deep on all the cool intersections of tax and retirement planning for folks who are transitioning in retirement with about $1 to $5 million. Because to me, there were enough dollars I could do neat tax things, and it added up to enough money to have a very significant impact. And I actually didn't like working with much bigger dollar clients because they tended to be business owners, and business owners are a pain, which I can now attest to as being one.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seriously. Yeah. Business owners are a pain. Wait, I'm now a pain.

Michael: Yeah, yeah. I can live the other end of that now.

Chris: So I'm going to use you, I'm going to pretend I'm you back in the day. So this is exactly how we teach it. Again, I'm telling anyone who's listening to this, steal this, use this, go start your next discovery meeting with this and just see how it goes. So a little bit of the background on this though, Michael, is that would you agree, Michael, that most people come into a discovery meeting with an advisor, although they want to be there, we didn't force them to be there, although they want to be there, would you agree that most of them come in still with some level of uncertainty, nervousness, anxiousness, pressure before the meeting even starts?

Michael: Yeah. I feel like there's almost always some level of concern or fear or skepticism. Is this person really going to be any good? Are they, are they going to be able to deliver? Are they going to be able to help me with this depending on the person's background, or are they even actually a credible person, a real advisor, or they just come end up selling me something? Because a lot of people have had that bad experience. So yes, most people don't come in in a happy state.

Chris: Okay. So here's what I started getting fascinated with...now we're backing way up when I was an advisor, right? When I was observing all this, I was like, "Okay. If I know that..." And I think that one of the most dangerous things we can do at the beginning of a discovery meeting is look and sound like every other advisor in their minds, right? If I start the discovery meeting in a way that has them be like, "Ah, yeah, Chris is kind of like every other advisor we've talked to," that's a really tough thing in my opinion to recover from.

Michael: They're probably talking to us and two others. So at least if I win one out of three, because I'm one out of three, that ain't bad.

Chris: Totally. Totally. So in my mind I was like, okay, how do I design a start to a meeting that accomplishes a couple of things? Again, it sends a really clear signal really quickly, "Wow, this guy's different." It also relieves the pressure from them instantly or as much as I can so that they can really be present with me. Because the risk of conducting a discovery meeting with someone who is feeling a little bit anxious, nervous, uncertain, they probably aren't hearing much of what we're saying actually because it's getting filtered and tied up and all that noise. So I started becoming fascinated with, how do I release the pressure? And it's my job to do it because they don't know how to release the pressure or else they would have. So here's what this looks like. And again, there's room for niceties, pleasantries. "Did you find the office okay? Did you get on Zoom all right?" We do all that. And then I want to send a really clear signal to you that the meeting has started and I'm going to lead the meeting and I'm in charge of the meeting because that's actually what they want. They want you to lead it.

And this is the framing. This is the opening. And I would say, "Hey, Michael. Man, first of all, I just want you to know how honored I am to be with you today. I recognize that you could be doing anything with your time and the fact that you chose to spend some time with me, I'm really honored, it means the world to me. And as far as I'm concerned, today's meeting is really all about you. I'm excited to get to know you, get to know what's important to you. Maybe some of the goals you have, some of the challenges that you're facing. The only thing that I'll tell you about myself and my practice, what I'm known for more than anything is I'm really known for helping clients be very confident around the intersection of tax and retirement planning. And I specialize in working with clients that are usually between $1 and $5 million investable assets that are nearing retirement that just want to have the confidence that they deserve to have heading into retirement. And my only intention for our time together today, whether we work together or not is to add value to you. And look, there's no pressure to today's meeting. The only decision you and I are going to make today is if we have a second meeting. And so here's the promise I'll make to you. By the end of today's meeting, if I really think I can help you navigate the intersection of tax and retirement and help you, I'll tell you that and we'll set up a second meeting. And if I don't think I'm the best person to help you, I will tell you that because I do not want to waste your time or mine, but I'll make sure you get value from today regardless. Does that sound fair?"

Michael: Yeah, I can't really disagree with that. You'll give me value and if you're helpful, we'll meet again. Like okay. Hard to object. In a positive way. Hard to object.

Chris: Yeah, Michael, when we started opening meetings that way... And by the way, this is the only thing we worked on at first because there were so many things we needed to work on. I was like, "Hey, keep doing discovery the way you're doing it. Keep presenting the way you're presenting. Keep closing the meeting the way you're closing it, but just start starting your meetings this way and just see what happens." By just us framing the meeting with more intention and differentiation, people were like, "I'm having the best discovery meetings I've ever had. I've never had people open up to me this much. I've never built trust with people this quickly. I've never had..." And so it's like, and here's a belief that I have in any business, how you start the meeting is likely how it's going to end. It's really tough to recover from the start one way or the other. So if you start the meeting really, really powerfully and really well, it's kind of tough to mess it up. But if you start the meeting unintentionally or poorly, man, you have to work so much harder to recover.

So there's a lot of psychology in that frame. This idea of...it's very intentional, the line of "I'm going to add value to you whether we work together or not." That's a pressure releaser, and it's authentic. I don't know if we're going to work together. But what I'm telling you is I'm going to add value to you whether we work together or not. People are like, "Oh," they kind of breathe a sigh of relief. And then, you know what's funny is we know that the only decision we're going to make in a first meeting with someone is to have a second meeting, but they don't know that. So it's like, why don't we tell them? Why don't we just say, "Hey, there's no pressure today. The only decision we're going to make is if we want to have a second meeting." People are like, "Oh." And then, "Hey, if I can help you, I'll tell you that. If I can't, I won't." People really appreciate that authenticity and transparency.

And here's what I found ultimately. What we're really doing with this frame is we're just telling them, "Hey, here's where we're going to go today. And here's what might be the possible outcome," because when people know where you're going to take them, they feel so much more comfortable going there with you. When people don't know where you're going to take them, they just get nervous. And they're like, "What's going to happen? How's this going to end? Where are we going at the end?" And so that's just one of the fascinating pieces to us about, yeah...and for me, it's always been how do we start a meeting that gives us the highest probability of serving that person, connecting with them, and sending a clear signal that, hey, we're different.

Michael: And so the idea here is, A, I'm probably showing up a little bit differently just because other advisors don't necessarily open the meeting as clearly as I am when I'm following this process. But more directly, if my client is feeling more comfortable and less uncomfortable and fearful coming to the meeting, the rest of our conversation after this is just more likely to go more smoothly because I've had a good, clear open.

Chris: Totally. I have this belief, Michael, that if I'm free in the meeting from the very beginning and present and you're free and present, man, the speed with which we can connect and build trust and get things done is remarkable.

Michael: Okay. So then what comes next after the open?

Chris: So then after we open the conversation, how do we then... And that "Does that sound fair?" is very intentional, right? And that's where we're creating a micro commitment with them. Because here's a mistake I think we make in sales a lot in the industry. We don't really create any kind of smaller commitments with people. And then, all of a sudden, somewhere we spring like a really big one on them and they're almost not ready for it. You know what I mean? These little micro commitments of, "Hey, does that sound fair?" And they're like, "Yeah, that actually does sound very fair."

Chris’ Grounding Exercises To Get In The Right Mindset For Discovery Meetings [32:32]

Chris: Can I actually back up and share? Have you been in In-N-Out Burger before, Michael?

Michael: I have not. We do not have a lot of them out east in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Chris: Well, next time you're out west, I'm taking you to In-N-Out Burger. It's my favorite.

Michael: All right. Deal.

Chris: It's my favorite fast food, not just because I think the burgers are great, but just their culture and the way they do things. In-N-Out has a very straightforward menu. You can get a Burger, a Cheeseburger, or a Double Cheeseburger. You can add fries and milkshake. What they have is a secret menu where you can customize things or personalize things and it's fun. Yes, there are the four parts of a discovery meeting of a sales conversation I mentioned. Framing, which is the opening, discovery, presentation, close. A bit of the secret menu is...one of the things that we teach advisors is we call it the mindset for enrollment and discovery. It's a little grounding exercise that before you even walk into the discovery meeting, and it's this simple, and we teach it to everyone, is you remind yourself, "I am a leader here to provide leadership." Because I think that just gets you in this frame of like rooted in your identity of, I'm not just an advisor here to give advice or sell something. I'm a leader here to provide leadership to these people. And you just kind of hold yourself differently. Number two is...

Michael: What's the difference there though? But, Chris, I am an advisor.

Chris: Right. Right. So one of the things I say from stage a lot, and it kind of...it confronts people, but then they'll come talk to me about it. So one of the things we often say is advisors give advice and advice informs. Leaders provide leadership and leadership transforms. And you can be both. But if you're just an advisor committed to giving advice, you're going to be easily commoditized because people can get great advice from so many different places now and so many different sources, but what they can't always get is the advice as well as that bold, convicted, committed leadership. And so it's kind of just like...again, there's nothing wrong with being an advisor. Obviously, I love advisors. I love being an advisor. But even when I was an advisor, I never wanted to walk into a room seeing myself that way because I felt like that's how everyone saw themselves. I was like, "Yes, I am an advisor and I hold that in high regard and I take it very serious. But the way I want to see myself, the way I want them to experience me is as a committed leader who's like in their corner doing everything in my power to like serve them."

So it's just a little bit of a reframe of your identity. So I'm a leader here to provide leadership. And you can say I'm a leader here to provide leadership and advice. Number two, I know that I will help these people. And that doesn't mean that they have to become a client. But just how much more confidence do you have walking in with, "I'm going to help them somehow, some way and I know I can."

And then third, and this is the most confronting I think, and it was for me, and I have no place to get but to serve them. And the reason I came up with that one, Michael, was for myself. Because, full transparency, there was a ton of sales conversations I'd find myself in, and I'd realize I'm only listening so that I can sell them something. I'm only thinking of things to say to get them to want to buy my product or service. And while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, what's limiting though, is think of all the things I don't hear them say. Think of the things I don't hear them even not saying. Think of the things I don't think to say because I only hear what I need to hear to sell them something. I only ask questions. So that was kind of a leap of faith for me to be like, I'm going to start trying to go into these meetings with, "I have no place to get but to serve them." I don't have an agenda. And here's what's fascinating to me is by having no place to get, I never started getting places with people faster. Because when I have a place to get, it's almost like, well, that's all that's possible. I've already defined what's possible and where I can go. It's like this agenda that I have. But by having no place to get, we can get anywhere.

So anyways, that's just like a little bit of a mindset that has proved really beneficial for me, for our team, for people. That's even before we even walk into the meeting. So I just wanted to share that really quickly.

The Importance Of Listening For The Majority Of The Discovery Meeting [36:13]

Michael: Appreciate that. I appreciate that. So now...

Chris: So now we do the framing.

Michael: Yeah, as I get through open, "Does that sound fair?" and the client says yes, so now it's like, where am I going with this?

Chris: So now I seamlessly, and I say seamlessly, I don't want to say to someone, "Hey, Michael, I just opened the meeting. Now I'm going to take you through discovery," right? I don't want to signal. So what I say is, "Does that sound fair?" You say, "Sure." I say, "Michael, almost every client that comes to us either comes to us with a big opportunity or some type of challenge. And sometimes it's a combination of the two. Where would you say you're at?"

And if you notice that frame, that only applies to about 100% of all people, right? Everyone's going to come to you with one of those three. Like, "Hey, almost every client that comes to us either has a goal or a challenge or sometimes a combination of the two. Where would you say you're at?" And they're going to say like, "Oh, it's a goal." And we teach the most powerful magical five-word phrase in all discoveries, "Tell me more about that." And I don't have any bias of whether they say it's a goal or a challenge or a combination of the two. Tell me more about that. We encourage advisors to say maybe dozens of times in an initial 45, "Tell me more about that. Tell me more about that." And you want to know what's so fascinating is every time you tell a prospective client to tell you more about that, guess what they do?

Michael: They keep talking, they talk more.

Chris: They tell you more about it. And again, and the more they share, the more they know you care, the more they feel connected to you, the more they're like, "Wow, Chris really is listening to me. He really wants to know." Here's the thing, we believe, this is our belief, 80% of the sale happens or doesn't happen in discovery. What happens at the end of that initial meeting or at the end of that second or third meeting is just actually an outcome of what did or did not happen in discovery. But sadly, a lot of advisors are talking way too much in that initial meeting. And if they have a note taker, they can even go and see like they're probably talking oftentimes 50%, 60%, 70% of the time.

Michael: I think Jump AI was the one that had put out a study recently. And I'm going to get the numbers slightly wrong, but directionally right. It was something to the effect of 70% of advisors think they talk less than half the time and their clients are mostly talking. And in reality, it was 30%.

Chris: Yeah. No, I saw the same study. It was completely flipped what they thought versus the reality.

Michael: Yeah. It's like completely flipped. A little painful, a little awkward to reflect on, but cool thing about the note takers, they'll just track it. The numbers and the data is the data.

Chris: The note takers are the truth tellers regardless of what I think.

Michael: And decide what to do with that. But yeah.

Chris: And here's a principle that I used to try to live by, again, all the way back to my commercial real estate days. And now we teach this to our own sales team and to advisors is...this is just a belief I made up one day. I have to listen in the first meeting to earn the right to talk more in the second meeting. The first meeting, I haven't earned the right to talk a lot yet. Now I'm going to share something. I'm going to talk at a high level about, again, how we help you and a little about why I became an advisor. That mindset of, "Man, if I'm doing the majority of the talking in that initial meeting, something's off already. I'm already not really understanding the art of discovery." But if they're talking 70% to 80%... Michael, I wish I could draw this on a graph and prove this out and maybe you can help me with this someday. I'm telling you, every firm or advisor, regardless of how successful they already were, when we get them to talk less and specifically talk less about the industry, their conversions go up.

Michael: Yeah, I've seen the same thing. I've experienced it as I think of myself with prospects over the years. I don't remember where I heard it first, but it was some version of some very experienced salespeople saying...the shorthand they gave to me, which probably isn't a perfect rule of thumb, but is pretty decent, is the percentage of time in the meeting that the prospect talks is your close rate. If they talk 30% of the time, you're going to have a 30% close rate.

Chris: That's awesome. I've never heard this before.

Michael: If they talk 70% of the time, you'll have a 70% close rate. So shut up and let them talk more was basically the gist of it. Now, to be fair, probably falls off at some point. I don't think I would have actually said if the client talks 100% of the time, you'll have 100% close rate. At some point, you got asked for the business. It was directionally pretty impactful. As I looked around at my experience and other advisors in the firm at the time, it mapped pretty well. It lined up pretty well.

Chris: I also have heard, and I didn't come up with this, but you've probably heard it. He or she who talks the least in the conversation is actually the one leading the conversation. I also think it'd be important to point out, well, why do advisors talk sometimes too much? It's actually because they care. It's coming from a great place. But again, if you really want them to know how much you care, it's not going to be by how much you share. Here's another thing, Michael. I think we feel this pressure as advisors of like, "I have to let them know at some point in time, not just that I care, I have to let them know that I know what I'm doing, that I'm credible, that I'm intellectually..." Here's what we find. The best way to flex your intellectual capital and credibility isn't by how much you talk. It's the depth of the insightful questions you ask.

Michael: I find, if I reflect back on where does the talking start, it's usually one of three spots. I feel some pressure to prove knowledge, expertise, credibility, something. At some point, we're trying to do the proverbial dog-and-pony show to prove, "I know things, and I'm worth paying money to." Sometimes I'm just trying to ostensibly create rapport and connection. "Oh, you're from Arizona? I was out there recently." And now we're having some conversation about a side trip because I'm trying to show we've got some connection to a place or an alma mater or a sports team or whatever it is. But now I'm maybe talking more in the meeting than I was supposed to, but I thought I'm supposed to create rapport and connection with the client.

Chris: So true.

Michael: We go down that road. Or at some point, and maybe this is what comes next to your sales process, or at some point I'm just trying to get to the, "But Chris, I think I am supposed to eventually explain what I do and ask for the business because you've made it very clear earlier I should be asking for the business. At some point I'm supposed to get there and do that. And if the client opens the door in the moment as we're talking, I often want to go through that door. So maybe I do that at the end of the meeting, maybe it comes up as we go." I feel like it's some combo of those. I'm trying to build rapport, I'm trying to demonstrate credibility or I'm trying to actually show I do useful things and would like to work with you. Don't necessarily have a structure, but that's often where it comes from. And then when you add all those up, it's like, "Well, I talked a lot more in this meeting than I meant to."

Chris: Yeah. It's like, "Oh, gosh, how did that happen? I dominated the meeting. I didn't mean to." And just to put... But also those are very real things. It's like, "But I do want to connect with them. I do want to establish rapport. I do want to let them..." And here's what I'm trying to put people at ease a little bit. You can establish all the rapport, credibility. What was the third one you said?

Michael: Just like asking for the business, showing how I can actually solve their problems and that they should hire me.

Chris: Great. So you can establish all of the rapport, the credibility and like the expertise that can solve their problems simply through the questions you ask. If you ask enough deep, insightful questions, and we've seen this play out time and time and time again, the person over there is going like, "Wow, Michael clearly has done this before. He's obviously helped people with this. He's easy to connect with. He's easy to share with." You can do the majority of your...and here's another thing I used to get in the habit of doing is I would compete with their story without meaning to. So there's a fine line to this, but if you go like you said, like, "Oh, I used to live in Arizona." And if I go, "Oh, I live in Arizona." I used to think that was like a good thing around rapport building. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but what I found is like I found that the value and the usefulness I get out of that isn't as powerful as I thought it was. Now maybe later in the conversation or maybe in the second meeting, but in a first meeting, I don't want to compete with their story and I don't want to like accidentally one up their story where they're like, "Oh, I just went here." It's like, "Oh, I've been there." It doesn't build as much rapport as I think we think it does. And it actually ends up competing with their story. And sometimes it actually has us inadvertently talk more about that thing that they're trying to relate to us through than they talked about it.

So one last thing I want to say about discovery, because I mean, I could spend hours just on...because I believe it's everything. I think sometimes we walk into the discovery meeting, again, like we said, with a place to get, already thinking about what we're going to say, what we're going to do, what we're going to present, how we're going to "close them" or close the meeting. And in that we skip the most important part of the entire process. So for example, if you walked into an emergency room and a doctor handed you medication before asking a single question, you'd likely question their credibility. And in their world, that's malpractice. But in our world, it's not really any different. A prescription without diagnosis is kind of malpractice. And here's what's interesting, the best advisors we've ever seen that are the best at sales, they never act like closers. They act more like physicians. They slow the conversation down and they run a proper triage. They're like, "Well, what hurts? When did it start? How long has it been going on? How bad is it? How bad is it on a scale of one to ten? Where is it affecting other areas of your business? Why don't we take a look and see how bad it is? How soon do you want to fix it? And like, those aren't just good questions. It's like the foundation of influence.

If people remember nothing else from what I say about discovery, I hope it's this. When you understand the problem as well or better than the person experiencing it, you earn the right to solve it. When you understand the problem better than or the same as the person experiencing it, you earn the right to solve it.

Michael: I like that.

Chris: Because no one really pushes back on a clear diagnosis. If the doctor walked into you or I and goes, "Hey, guys. Here's the X-ray, here's the tear. Here's why it's causing pain, and here's what we need to do." We're not arguing with the doctor. We just decide. And that's what we're after in a discovery meeting. It's like, we're not trying to convince, we're trying to uncover. So if we could just slow it down, get surgical with our questions, and build so much clarity around the goal or the problem, the solution becomes the obvious next step. We really believe the sale is never won in what we present in the discovery meeting. It's all won in the discovery and then the diagnosis.

Michael: So what comes next? Do I ever get to the part where I do my part of the dog and pony show?

Chris: Totally. Now here's another thing I'm a huge fan of in discovery, Michael, is I know there's note-takers now. I know that none of us technically have to take notes. We really encourage advisors to still take handwritten notes for a couple of reasons. One, think of the subconscious silent signal it sends to someone when you're taking notes during discovery. They're like, "She might actually be listening. This is important enough for her to write it down." Not to mention, when you write things, you tend to retain it better because you're hearing it and you're writing it. But there's an even bigger purpose.

Once I've done as much discovery as I think I can or time allows, at some point in time, there's a real power in saying, "Man, Michael, first of all, thank you for everything you've shared. This is incredible. Can I just repeat back to you what it is I heard you say just to make sure I captured it accurately?" This is where you blow people's minds in discovery meetings because now they're like, "Wait, you really weren't just doodling a self-portrait over there? You were actually capturing all that?" You ask permission, "Can I share back with you?" They go, "Yeah." This is a skill you can get better and better and better at. I then repeat back to them, almost verbatim, what they said to me, but better than how they said it to me. I'm repeating back to them something that they've never had anyone repeat back to them. It's like their full picture. I was just pulling it out of them, and they just felt like a stream of consciousness. They've never had anyone consolidate that much about their goals and challenges and world back to them. It's almost like a revelation to them about their own situation. I repeat it back and then I go, "Michael, did I capture that accurately?" We've had advisors, Michael, that will say once they do that, clients will go, "Yeah, you did and you captured that better than I've ever said it. Can I get a copy of those notes? I didn't even know that about myself. I'm inspired by my own story."

It sets up a beautiful transition to be able to ask them. They're like, yeah, you did capture it accurately. For me to then go, "Well, first of all, again, thank you for sharing this with me. The first thing that comes to mind to me, based on everything you're sharing, I really believe we can help you." Now I'm not asking you to become a client yet. I'm not telling you we're going to help you. I'm just like, "Yeah, I believe we can help you. But here's the question I have for you." This is the million-dollar question we believe in discovery. I'm not asking it for me. I'm asking it for you as the client. I say, "I really believe we can help you, Michael. I guess my question is have you decided this is something you are committed to taking action on? You're just looking for the right person to help you? Or are you still trying to decide if you want to do something about this?" What it causes them to actually sit with over there is like, "Yeah, again, whether I work with Chris or Michael or not, am I actually willing to do something about the things that I say I'm committed to?" And most times they're like, "Yeah, yeah, I am willing to do something about this. So can you say that again?"

Michael: How did you frame the question?

Chris: So it's like, "Michael, I truly believe we can help you. I guess the question I have is, is this something that you've decided you're ready to take action on and you want to do something about this, you're just looking for the right person to help you? Or are you still trying to decide if these are things that you even want to do something about?" And if they're like, "Yeah, I want to do something about this," it's like, "Great. Can I share with you at a high level how we serve clients just like you? And also, can I just share with you a little bit about why I chose to become an advisor and why this work means so much to me?"

The Presentation Of An Advisor’s Background And Value Proposition [50:06]

Michael: Okay. And so now we're back to that conversation...

Chris: The presentation.

Michael: ...that you shared earlier in our discussion of what you were picking up from the real estate days. I can't differentiate on my credibility, my track record, but I can by opening these conversations of "Can I tell the story of how we help clients like you and why I chose to become a real estate broker advisor?"

Chris: Totally. Now in your presentation, a distinction, there's a big difference between education and awareness. I'm going to encourage you, even if you do it consistently, stay more on the side of awareness than education.

Michael: Meaning, when I start sharing how we help clients like you, to not get too deep.

Chris: Yes, I promise you, none of them are ready for or want to know what you think about asset allocation, risk assessments, risk management, dollar cost averaging. They don't even know how to receive any of that. So instead of getting into the education of like, "Here's our process, and here's how it works, and here's all the details, and here's what it is," share at a high level. "Here's the process we guide you through. Here's why it matters so much, and here's what we see it consistently making possible for our clients." So even just me knowing what I know about the fact, when you were actively working as an advisor, that you loved working at the intersection of tax and retirement planning and working with $1 to $5 million clients. So if I was even riffing, that's all I knew Michael, my presentation, if I was you would have been something like, "Can I just share with you at a really high level how we serve clients like you and the process we take them through?" And you're like, "Sure." It's like, "Well, one of the number one things that we're looking for and that we focus on with our clients is we want to make sure that we efficiently plan for this intersection of like taxes and retirement because quite frankly, we don't want to see you pay any more in taxes than you need to and we see a lot of people paying more in taxes than they deserve to. And so one of the things that we do in our process is we take you through a really intentional process to create a strategy of how we're going to maximize a tax strategy for you so that we can be as efficient as humanly possible with taxes for you in retirement. And so we're going to uncover what that looks like for you. We're going to design a really intentional comprehensive plan that would address those things and then we're going to execute that plan so that you're as tax-efficient as possible." Now, I just made that up, and I don't like...

Michael: Sure. But I mean, that's the level we're going. This is a 30- to 60-second explanation.

Chris: Yeah. And Michael, we rarely have advisors telling us that clients at the end of that will go, "Well, that's not enough detail for me. I need more."

Michael: I was just thinking that. I think my average conversation on that is a whole lot longer. And if I'm fair to the once or twice where it probably end up being shorter, it is very sparse where people are actually like, "No, no, please tell me more. I want more detail than that." Like, yeah, that doesn't happen. I mean, every now and then there's an engineer client and they ask 17 more questions. But short of that, yeah, almost no one actually asks for more detail.

Chris: Totally. And in fairness, if I had a little more time, we would beef it up a little bit more than that. I was just kind of riffing. But here's the thing, also keep in mind that we're talking about an initial meeting. Prospective clients need far less information than we think they do to have the confidence to schedule a second meeting with us. Listen, the second meeting when I'm actually coming with a little bit of a plan and a proposal, that's when I am going to get a little bit more into the education, not just awareness. But it's like we try to do too much in that initial meeting when it's...we've got to step back sometimes and go, what's the purpose of the initial discovery meeting? Well, for us, there's only one purpose to the initial discovery meeting, that's to serve them no matter what, whether we work together or not. Okay, great. That's the purpose.

What's the successful outcome? Well, successful outcome of the initial meeting is we got the second one. That's the only job it has to do. We don't need to make it do any more than that. But I think sometimes we feel like we need to do more, which is why we shorten discovery a lot of times and we lengthen presentation, but to our detriment and to the detriment of the prospective client. But if we could just remember the only thing I need to do in the first is build enough credibility, connection, and trust to get the second, oh, man, I can spend more time in discovery because I don't need to present as much.

Michael: So, this is my whole presentation section. It's going to be a minute or few because I'm still doing this at a fairly high level. How deep do I really follow this up or I don't?

Chris: So would you agree, on average, from what you did and what you see, most advisors, that initial discovery meeting with prospective client is about an hour, would that be fair to say?

Michael: Yeah. I think a one-hour initial meeting is very common for most of us.

Chris: So let's give the best-case scenario that someone's actually on time to the meeting. We're on time to the meeting. It starts right on the hour, right? So even that best-case scenario, which usually doesn't happen, but okay, we started right on the hour. We're probably going to do some exchanging some pleasantries, small talk for maybe let's just say the opening five minutes, three to five minutes. Let's say we're five minutes in. The framing exercise that we taught at the beginning of like, "Hey, Michael, super honored to be with you. I know you could be doing anything with your time. The fact that you chose to be... Does that sound fair?" That's about five minutes total, right? Now we're 10 minutes in. My goal, and I know this may sound daunting or feel daunting to a lot of advisors, is if you could spend the next 35 to 45 minutes in discovery.

Well, think about the time left in a meeting. Let's push it to the 45. Well, if we're five minutes into ten in a 60-minute meeting, we don't have that much time to present anyways to finish at the top of the hour. Which just a little clue, that's all intentional. I'm trying to get advisors to spend so much time in discovery that they don't have enough time to over-present even if they wanted to. To save them from themselves, you know what I mean? Because I'm as tempted as anyone. If I've got enough time, I'll fill it up, right? But if I could get in the perfect scenario between exchanging pleasantries and framing, we're ten minutes in. I spend 40 minutes in discovery, that's 50. I spend three to five minutes at a high level sharing, "Here's how we work with clients like you and here's why I chose to become an advisor, why this means so much to me." And then I transition into our next step, which is setting up a second meeting. That to me is like a really great structure for very, very successful meetings that I think have a high probability of getting to a second meeting.

Closing The Discovery Meeting With The Goal Of Securing A Second Meeting [56:34]

Michael: So what comes in my close?

Chris: In the close, at the end of an initial meeting, we're going to make an assertive assumption, not an ask. When I'm asking you to become a client, it's an assertive ask. And the reason I say an assertive assumption is after I've presented at a high level, told you why I loved being an advisor, here's what I'm going to say. "So Michael, I know I already shared this with you, but I really believe that we can help you and I'm really excited to come back and share with you in our second meeting a plan and a strategy of how we can help you accomplish these things that are important and meaningful to you. And here's what we're going to cover in that meeting, here's the purpose of that meeting, and here's the value you'll get from the meeting." So I also have to enroll them a little bit, not a lot, but a little bit into that second meeting, which I find a lot of advisors aren't doing. They're just saying, "Hey, let's set up a second meeting." So it's like, we're going to set up a second meeting, here's what we're going to do in that meeting, here's what I'm going to share with you, and here's the value you're going to get.

"So I need a little bit of time because there's some information I'm going to need to gather from you and I want us to create a really clear agreement, by the way, around that and when you're going to get that to me. But if you give me that information, the time necessary, I can come in and share this plan with you. Does next week or the week after work best for you?" I don't ask, do you have questions? I don't ask what you're thinking. I don't ask if you want to. I'm assuming we're going to have a second meeting because we just had this incredible first meeting.

Now, let's also say we didn't have an incredible first meeting and I don't think I'm the best fit to serve you or want to, then we don't have to do this. We can off-ramp as well, which I could talk about. But that's how we close out the first is I reaffirmed to them that I believe we can help them. I would love to work with them. I tell them I want to set up a second meeting with you. Here's what we do in the second meeting. Here's the value that you're going to get. Here's the outcome of the meeting. I might say whether we work together or not. Again, that statement of just pressure relief. "Hey, whether we work together or not, here's the value you're going to get from the second meeting. There is some information I'm going to want to gather from you before that. But I think a week would be enough time. Does next week or the week after work best for you?" We commit to a date. The amount of advisors that are allowing people, Michael, to leave and like, "Hey, we'll call you to set up the meeting" or "Hey, follow up with us." We enter this crazy game of chase and we never serve them. We just make this assertive assumption that we're going to meet and we get the date on the calendar.

Michael: I feel like for most of us, the hiccup there is some version of, "But Chris, isn't it really pushy or salesy to not ask them if they have questions" or give time to do something else or all the other things that you basically were saying. You're not asking, you're not offering them or asking of them. I find that seems to be the blocking point for most, some version of, "I don't want to be salesy and pushy" or "I don't want to seem salesy and pushy." So, help me with this struggle.

Chris: Can I just share something philosophical on that first?

Michael: Sure.

Chris: I believe if, in this industry, Michael, we put as much energy into getting better at sales as we do avoiding being salesy, we'd serve a heck of a lot more people. I've never seen another industry that puts more energy in trying to not be salesy. When in reality, it's like, well, that's not a very good use of energy. Don't put energy into not trying to be salesy, put energy into being better at sales and make the focus on serving people, not...so here's the thing. The reason I also don't ask them if they have any questions is I feel like I just spent 40 minutes answering every question and giving them chances. Now listen, I'm not opposed to them asking questions, but here's what I love about questions. I want a direct ask to surface their questions. Not me saying, "Hey, what questions do you have?" Because to your point, what if they didn't have any, but now they're like, "Oh, my gosh, should I feel dumb for not having any questions? Should I have some?" Or like, "Hey, what are your thoughts?" I trust the people if they have questions or if they have thoughts, they're going to say that based on me pushing them to move in a little bit of a direction somewhere. Then if they go, "Well, Chris, I'd love to set up a second meeting, but I have some questions." Awesome.

Now, here's one little just thing we've learned about questions. Have you ever had a client, Michael, that they ask you one question, you answer it, then they ask another one, you answer it, and then it just never ends?

Michael: Oh, yeah. So here's what we've learned. Simple. So if I go, "Hey, Michael, so what I'd love to do is set up a second meeting. Does next week or the week after work better for you?" And you're like, "Yeah, I'm interested in that as well, but I have some questions." Here's what we've learned to say. "That's awesome. Go ahead and just let me get all of your questions now, and then I'll just come back and kind of go through them one at a time." And what we found is that by getting all of the questions now, it dramatically reduces the likelihood that they just keep asking never-ending questions. Or they might say, if I say, "Hey, I'd love to meet with you, does next week or the week after work?" Someone might go, "Maybe, but here's a concern I have." "Oh, yeah, awesome. Tell me, tell me about it." So it's not like I'm not going to answer their questions or I'm not going to address any thoughts. I just let the ask or the assumption surface the questions rather than me just going, "Hey, what questions do you have or what are your thoughts?"

Chris: Can I also say something really important at the end of that initial meeting? How many advisors do you think have a situation where they had an amazing first meeting, they got the second meeting scheduled, and then it's frustrating as heck because the client didn't send them the statements and the stuff that they'd promised to in time? So don't leave that first meeting with a fuzzy expectation of if they're going to get you the info or not, create a really clear agreement. And so this is something we talk about a lot, agreements versus expectations. So a really clear agreement, you don't have an agreement without a very, very specific deadline and a date, and you can use this exact words. "So can you and I create a really clear agreement around what's going to happen between now and our next meeting?" "Yes." "Okay. We're agreeing to do this. Here's what we're going to come prepared to share with you. You're agreeing to send us this because without that we won't be able to actually add value to you. So can we create a really clear agreement by what date and time you'll be able to get that to us so that..." And you might even say, "We need it, at minimum, by this date." We found that just by that little frame of can we create a really clear agreement and help them see why it's important, people are better at getting it to them, which we're not chasing people down for stuff.

Using The Second Meeting To Present Findings And Close The Deal [1:02:47]

Chris: So okay, we go into the second meeting. Guess what we're going to do at the beginning of the second meeting? We're going to frame it up almost identically to what we did at the first because I'm not going to assume that just because I told you one time what we're known for that you're going to remember that. So I'm going to say, "Hey, Michael, super honored to be with you again. I loved meeting with you the first time. That first meeting was really all about you and getting to know you, which thank you for allowing us to do that. The purpose of today's meeting is I want to show you at a high-level kind of the strategy and the plan that we've put together that would help you accomplish the things that you said were most important and meaningful to you. And again, I want to show you this plan and help you with a strategy and answer any questions you have today and add value to you, whether we work together or not. And I will say the majority of the time, at the end of this meeting, you and I usually have a pretty good idea if we want to work together, and we'll decide that at the end of this meeting. Does that sound fair?"

Michael: And the goal, or I guess the structure in this process from your end is, so now I'm going to come with some kind of financial plan or preliminary plan or proposal because I guess different advisors do different levels of depth. I don't know if you have a particular preference or suggestion here, how deep is the deliverable thing I'm supposed to bring at this point?

Chris: It is nuanced, but one of the things that I could share at a high level that I think will help people is we're still going to actually do the four parts. We're still going to do opening, then discovery, then presentation, close. We just flip the amount of time from discovery to presentation. So the initial meeting, heavy in discovery, light in presentation. The second meeting is going to be lighter in discovery, heavier in presentation because we're walking them through a strategy. But you still don't want to skip discovery because sometimes...and this is very common that we'll say, "Hey, Michael, really excited to share the strategy with you that we put together today. And just curious, is there anything that's occurred to you between our first and our second meeting that you wanted to share with us or anything that, upon leaving and reflecting you thought, 'Oh, there's another thing.'" People will often have more stuff.

And even in client reviews, I don't know if you guys have experienced this, Michael, but we consistently find one of the greatest drivers of additional assets from already existing clients is rediscovery. I think so many advisors get out of the habit of...what if part of every client review was a little bit of discovery? What if we're never not doing discovery? Either to confirm that the situation is still what it is, but they at least know we care, we're asking questions, or a lot of times it's like, "Well, no, something did change," or "Hey, a new development has taken place." So we're still going to do some discovery, but we're going to do much more in presentation in the second than we did in the first. Is that helpful? Does that make sense?

Michael: Yeah, I think so. I guess just I'm trying to visualize like, am I presenting a proposal or am I presenting my 72 page financial plan? How big of a thing do I need to be bringing into the second meeting for this process to work?

Chris: And like you said, it's so nuanced because every firm is different, but what we would share philosophically is that you're presenting a proposal that shows them how they're going to be able to accomplish what's important and meaningful to them. You're still sharing at a higher level, how it works, a little bit of what it is. And then again, I would rather err on the side of sharing too little than sharing too much because when you share too much, it often confuses people and you've probably heard that confused minds do nothing. When you share too little, I found it has a greater likelihood to actually make people curious and be like, "Well, can you share with me more about this?" Well, that's awesome. If someone asks you to go deeper...

Michael: "I'd love to."

Chris: "I'd love to." So it's like erring on the side of sharing too much creates confusion and confused minds do nothing. Erring on the side of maybe sharing too little can create more curiosity of like, "Hey, tell me more." "Yeah, I'd love to."

Michael: So how do I close this meeting? Because I'm assuming now I'm getting close to my close.

Chris: Yeah, yeah. Let's assume that you asked for the business at the end of the second meeting, or let's say this is a third, whenever you ask for the business. Yeah. I recap again. Do you think, Michael, people like hearing from us if in any business and any industry, someone telling them, "You know what, I would love to work with you."

Michael: Usually, it feels good. Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. I just think sometimes we take that for granted little simple things. So one of the things that we say right before that is like, "Michael, man, I just want to say thank you again for your time. I really enjoyed being with you in our first meeting. I left that meeting very confident that we could help you. After sharing with you today the strategy and this proposal and seeing your reaction to it, I'm even more confident that we can make a difference for you. And look, I would love to work with you. And so on behalf of Kitces Financial, I would love to officially invite you to become the newest client of our firm. Will you accept my invitation?"

And guess what? If they have questions, they'll go, "You know what? Thank you for that. But I have a few questions." "Awesome. Let me get all of them and then I'll go through more." "Hey, I have some thoughts. Yeah. Tell me more about that."

Now, I will say we have some advisors that are like, "Hey, Chris, I'm just never going to say it that way. I'll never ask someone that way. It feels cheesy or feels whatever." I'm like, "Oh, fair enough." They're like, "Give me another one." Here's another one that we love that is, it's very bold, but it feels very, just kind of inviting. I say the same thing I said earlier and I go, "Michael, man, I would love to work with you. We should work together." And you kind of say it with a laugh. You say it with a smile.

Michael: Yeah. I'd just say like, "Yeah, we should work together."

Chris: And it gives them something that's easy to respond to. "Yeah, I think we should," or, "I would love to." Here's another thing I think. I think sometimes we don't make it very easy for people to say yes to working with us. We don't mean to do that. You know what I mean?

Michael: Yeah.

Chris: But anytime an advisor at the end of a second or third goes, "So what questions do you have?" You know what we're actually hoping that prospective client says? "I don't have any questions, but I would love to become the newest client of your firm." That's what we're hoping they'll...they don't know how to say yes without... So we've just got to make it really easy. "Hey, will you accept my invitation," or, "Hey, I'd love to work with you. We should work together."

Michael: So instead of asking if they have any questions and hoping they say, "None, I'll just become your client." Just ask them to become your client and then they can ask questions if they have them. You still cover the same ground, but don't put it on them to figure out that when I say, "Do you have any questions?" the correct answer is not to ask me a question, it's to say, "I have no questions. I want to be your client." It's a weird guessing game.

Chris: Yeah. It'd be beautiful. Wouldn't it be if we could ask every prospective client, "So, do you have any questions?" And they're like, "Only one. How do I become your client?"

Michael: That would be amazing.

How Chris Works With Financial Advisors And Firms To Help Them Move Upmarket [1:09:23]

Michael: So Chris, now I guess just bring us forward because you've talked about this in the context of the firm that you were doing this with originally. So what do you do today? What is the business of Chris Smith today?

Chris: Yeah, love it…so as I said at the beginning, the thing we're known for is helping committed advisors move upmarket. And we do that through brand, sales, and culture. So we help them create more clarity in their brand, more consistency in their sales, more conviction in their culture. But the one thing I really want to emphasize for us upmarket, yes, it is the strategy of working with higher-dollar clients. And that's relative. That's what I love about upmarket. You might today be serving...maybe the average investable assets of your client is $100,000. And there's another advisor listening who the average investable assets is $20 million. So upmarket is still relevant relative to where you're at. But for us, upmarket is not just the strategy of working with higher-dollar clients, Michael. It's also a philosophy and an identity. And that's where, to me, upmarket gets really cool because we have some advisors that come to us that are like, "Hey, Chris, I don't want to necessarily move upmarket. I want to keep serving mass affluent clients. I want to keep serving the ultra-high net worth or high net worth clients I already have."

It's like, okay, "Well, do you want to serve more of them?" "Well, yeah." Well, for us, that's still moving upmarket because upmarket is also kind of a commitment to just leveling up. So it's like not just how do we move upmarket and working with higher-dollar clients. How do I move upmarket in my leadership? How do I move upmarket in my mindset? How do I move upmarket in my vision? How do I move upmarket in my brand, my sales, my culture? It's like, how do I level up in the areas that are important and meaningful to me in every area of my business? How do I create more advisors on my team who can run discovery meetings so it isn't just me? How do I create more leaders on my team who can drive our culture so it isn't just me?

So we say that upmarket for us is a strategy, it's a philosophy, and it's an identity. So it's yes, serving higher-dollar clients. Yes, it's a philosophy of how you see yourselves, but it's also this idea of who we become. And so upmarket isn't the same thing for everyone. It isn't just higher-dollar clients. Sometimes it's more of the clients I already have, and sometimes it's, "I just want to level up in these other areas of my business so I can continue to grow and scale and make an impact."

Michael: And I guess structurally as you're describing it, so relative to a few folks out there I know just that teach moving upmarket to high-net worth clients because they get into here's like the practice management value proposition and deliverables that you should bring to ultra-high net worth clients if you want to attract more of them, it sounds like your framing is much more along the lines of if we get really good at our brand and sales and business development culture and do it with clarity and a strong process, you are going to win more business that moves up because you're just going to run a better process. And when you point that at people who have more dollars and complexity, you're going to win some because you've got a brand and a process to do it. So now you're just going through a repeatable motion to grow the business.

Chris: Beautifully said. Yeah, that's actually...yeah, that's 100%.

Michael: So, Chris, now just help me understand, what do you actually do? What is the firm? What does it cost? Just help us understand the business now of what you do to help advisors with this versus when you were doing it in the firm yourself.

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. I'd be happy to. So really there's three ways that advisors really work with us and we call it, community, cohorts, and coaching. And really the program is called Upmarket. And so we have Upmarket for you, Upmarket for teams and Upmarket for enterprises. And Upmarket for you and Upmarket for teams are...it's a 12-month coaching engagement in which we are helping you move upmarket. And the promise of the program is that you will leave with more clarity around your brand than you've ever had, more consistency and confidence in your sales than you've ever had, and more conviction in your team and your culture than you've had. And so we develop these paths around brand, sales, and culture and then we're guiding you through. One of the things that I say a lot of times, Michael, is advisors' clients feel like they really have someone in their corner. Not just like meeting them once in a while, but like really in their corner, helping them see it through. But then a lot of advisors don't feel like they have someone in their corner with the same level of commitment that they are in the corner of their own clients. And so we want to be that for those advisors.

And so Upmarket for you, really designed for that independent advisor, solo advisor, maybe a small team. Upmarket for teams, that's when you're starting to get into maybe like a core team of like three to five. You've got other advisors, you're wanting to like scale beyond just you and really elevate some of the leadership of your other team members. And then Upmarket for enterprise, those are engagements where we're serving lots of advisors through enterprise-type opportunities.

Michael: Okay, makes sense. And I guess conceptually, the idea is you just you go through the 12-month program, you learn the tools and techniques, and you can now graduate and be in a better place growing forward from here.

Chris: Correct. Yeah. And I would say on average, most advisors will end up working with us for two or three years and we love that. But at the end of every one of these paths, we call them growth paths that we take you down, there's a really tangible deliverable that we put in their hands. And one of the things about the program that we really emphasize and that I think is important is this is definitely not a, "Hey, learn as you go and kind of implement it when you feel like." It's like very, very action-oriented. So if we teach you a principle, let's say, today around framing, we create a really clear agreement with you, "Okay, between this session and your next session, how many discovery meetings do you have?" "I've got three." "Okay. Will you implement the framing that we taught you in these next three sessions?" Like, "Yes." And so we're building it, but also implementing it as we go so that people can see these measurable wins. And yeah, the goal is that by the end, they're like, yeah, I know how to do this. I know how to grow. I know how to move upmarket.

Michael: So I guess then you're...that connects back now to the comment you made earlier. We try to work with advisors committed to moving upmarket. Don't sign up if you're curious, sign up because you want to do things differently and learn how. Am I reading that appropriately?

Chris: 100%. So one of the things we hear a lot of times from like...let's say it's an individual advisor reaching out, the individual advisor’s reaching out to us saying things like, "I'm so tired of feeling like I'm the best kept secret. I know I'm unique. I know I'm different. I don't know how to let people know. And I so badly want to have people know how I'm unique and different."

Michael: I feel like I'm talking to people, but like, I'm just not getting the growth that I want.

Chris: Absolutely. And then when the advisor comes to us, who's already built a team, maybe has another advisor or a few advisors on the team, they're more like, "Hey, I know I want to move upmarket, but I'm not just in working with higher net worth clients. I want to move upmarket in my leadership. I want to create other advisors who can service clients. I want to create other advisors who have the confidence to run a client discovery process without me in the room. I want to create other advisors who can even go out and do business development." So the desires around moving upmarket can be different, whether it's the literal, "I want to work with higher networth clients," or, "It's just like, man, we know that more is possible and we just want to level up in these areas."

Michael: And just help level-set our expectations. What does pricing look like? I'm sure there's some volume discounts if you're doing lots of people kind of thing, but give us some neighborhood of how this works.

Chris: Yep. I would say like a really great range for like an advisor or a firm you could consider like in the $1,000 to $5,000 a month.

Michael: Okay. Lower if it's just me, higher if I've got multiple people going through and getting coaching.

Chris: Correct. And one of the things that we really love when it's a team environment, you have a team, right, with your businesses. I have a team. It's kind of like having kids sometimes. I can tell my kids a thousand times something and then their baseball coach will tell them the exact same thing and they're like, "Dad, you're never going to believe what my coach said to me." And so one of the things that I love too is it's almost like sometimes with advisors, we're like, "Hey, lend us your team on a regular cadence and we promise to return them back to be more inspired, more bold, more committed, more capable. Let us help pour into your team. You're pouring into them as well and you're doing great. Let us pour into them as well and help elevate their leadership."

Michael: All right. So Chris, what do advisors do if they're trying to figure out how to put all these pieces together?

Chris: Yeah, great question. So we've designed a really cool, I'll call it like a resource called the Upmarket Toolkit. What we see across the industry, Michael, is that most firms sadly are growing about 3% to 4% a year organically if you strip away market performance.

Michael: We see the same thing in our research. Yep.

Chris: Yeah. And it's just like, that's really not growth. That's just barely keeping up with inflation. And so, we found that the advisors who break away from that pace, they're not doing anything magical. They're just intentional about the three things that we believe is brand, sales, and culture. But most firms maybe don't stop to really evaluate those as much as they could. So we just built something specifically for advisors like the ones listening today and it's called the PSBLTY Upmarket Toolkit. There's nine tools, three built for brand differentiation, three for sales mastery and three for performance culture. None of it's theory, it's tools that you and your team could put to work this week. And then you also get a little preview of what we call the "Selling As A Leader" Masterclass. And yeah, we'd love to have as many people take advantage of the toolkit as possible.

Michael: So folks that are interested, I guess, so you don't have to scribble down URLs, this is episode 512. So if you go to kitces.com/512 and just scroll down to the show notes section, we'll have a link out to the Upmarket Toolkit if you want to take a look and try it out.

What Surprised Chris The Most On His Business-Building Journey [1:18:37]

Michael: So now as you've gone down this journey, so I'm curious, what surprised you the most about building your own business, helping advisors build and position and grow their businesses?

Chris: Yeah, that is such a great question. It might be...at the end of every year, I kind of reflect on what was the biggest lesson that I learned this year and I have to narrow it down to one, which is kind of tough. And maybe it's this lesson of one of my biggest takeaways last year in growing my own businesses, really two things. One, I can never expect the business to grow at a pace and a rate that's faster than my development as a leader. And then number two is as a leader, as a business owner, you never get what you actually deserve. You get what you tolerate.

Michael: Say more about what that means.

Chris: There's been times where I've had these really painful awakenings where on one hand, I'll say, "Oh, this is who we are as a business. This is what our standards are." But then actually, I will tolerate performance, behavior, whatever it is from others or myself that's below that. And so your standard is never actually what you say it is. It's what you tolerate below the standard. That's actually the standard. And so we don't actually get what we deserve. We don't get what our intentions are. And so it's like one of the things I'm realizing is, man, as a leader, I have to continually raise and hold the standard for myself and others because that's how we continue to perform. That's how we continue to impact other people. And it's not just all about performance. There's also an element of belonging in that. People want to belong to something where they feel like they're making a meaningful contribution and there's growth that's taking place. So it's kind of like, yeah, what is the standard I'm willing to set as a leader? More is caught than taught. My people will learn far more by who they catch me being and what they catch me doing than what they ever hear me saying. So am I willing to be the demonstration of what I'm asking of my team to the best of my ability?

The Low Point On Chris’ Journey [1:20:26]

Michael: So what was the low point for you on the journey over the past 10, 15 years that you've been building this?

Chris: I think a lot of times we as entrepreneurs use the terms grow and scale synonymously and they could not be more different.

Michael: Correct. I try to emphasize that difference a lot. You can grow by just sizing up. You 10x your business by 10xing your people and all the things. It's 10x the size, but it's very different than scaling and actually driving incremental efficiencies and outcomes.

Chris: Totally. So another painful lesson for me, but a good one and it might sound simple. Most people probably came to this way earlier than me is growth is about getting bigger. Scale is about doing it more efficiently, more profitably, more predictably and less dependent on you. I didn't learn that for way too long and it was really painful. And I think I was just throwing out terms like, "Oh, grow, scale." So I think what happened in April was April revealed to us where we were being delusional in our company. Not on purpose. I don't think any of us are ever like, "I'm going to try to be delusional in my business."

Michael: The illusions pop up on their own.

Chris: Yeah, but it was just like, oh, the way we're tracking certain things, the things we're paying attention to, the things we're not paying attention to, the things that we believe are going to happen, but we're not keeping score around it or we don't have the data necessary to... And look, all good things we've been going through this really crazy kind of hockey stick growth for the last three years. And I don't think that's sustainable. I hope it's actually not sustainable because I don't want to keep doing that. But I think it's really dangerous, as a leader, to not be brutally honest with yourself and constantly be willing to tell yourself the truth. One of my favorite quotes is by John Spence, "You cannot change what you refuse to confront." And I just think there were some things in our businesses that we were either unknowingly not confronting or kind of conveniently not confronting until we were forced to. So every business at some point is going to have to look at the challenges. It's just a matter of, are we going to willingly look at the challenges and get out ahead of them or are we going to be forced to look at the challenges and address them at some point in time?

Michael: So was there a particular moment or issue or thing that broke that culminated to the awakening realization?

Chris: Yeah, I would say that it was really mostly around us keeping score. And one of the things that I mean by keeping score, just like tracking sales metrics, data, forecasting. It's one of the easiest things to not do as a business owner because it's just not that much fun for most people.

Michael: You're growing well, the numbers are going up and to the right. Things have to be fine.

Chris: Yeah, it's kind of like that. "Hey, are we growing?" And it's like, "Hold on, let me lick my finger and stick it out the window and see if the wind is..." "Yep, we're growing." I think we got caught in a little bit of that. I'm not trying to throw my team under the bus. We have the most amazing team and the most incredible leaders. But look, I'm 100% responsible for all of it. I'm the CEO and the founder of the company. So any mistake in the company is mine. And I think that we just weren't being intense enough and stringent enough about keeping score and tracking the things with a diligence and an intensity and a consistency.

And here's an interesting thing. I talk a lot about playing to win to advisors. "Hey, are you playing not to lose? Are you playing to play or are you playing to win?" Because I think there's a lot of advisors that think they're playing to win, but maybe have kind of gotten lulled into this little bit of false sense of security or complacency and they're kind of playing to play without realizing it. Same thing, if you'd asked me, are you guys playing to win? I'd be like, "Oh, yeah, for sure." But what April revealed to me is like, yes, there are some areas we're playing to win. We're being super intentional, very diligent, very consistent. But then there's some areas over here where we're not even really tracking these things. So it's kind of like in a sports analogy, how could any sports team say they're playing to win if they don't keep score?

Chris’ Advice For His Younger Self [1:24:10]

Michael: So any other pearls of wisdom of just things you know now from experience you could go back and tell you five, ten years ago as you were starting down the, "I think we're going to scale this bigger"?

Chris: That is such a great question.

Michael: What do you know now you wish you could go back and teach you then?

Chris: Double down on developing yourself as a leader. I don't mean just getting better at like your skill, your craft. I don't mean just like, oh, be better at being an advisor or maybe be better at sales. No, no, no. Put an insanely intense focus on what it means to actually become and develop as a leader. Get mentored, hire a coach, consume podcasts, books on the topic of what does it mean to actually... I just finished Peter Drucker's book "The Effective Executive." Such an incredible...it's that how do I become effective to this organization? A really big insight that was useful for me is I think it's also really conveniently easy for business owners to kind of be on it, be really diligent and disciplined when it serves them, but then also be really undisciplined when it serves them and when they want to be. When I stepped into the role of CEO, when I knew I'd stepped into it, Michael, when I was like, "Okay, I'm going to act like I'm a hired CEO of this company and I have a board that I have to report to every single month. Just like any CEO would, right?" That changed everything for me because it was like, oh, I can't just do what I want to do because I own the company. If I really showed up to this like a CEO...and so I just, yeah, if I could go back five or ten years, I would have been more focused on who I'm becoming and what investments I'm making into being a more effective leader because I believe leadership solves everything.’

What Success Means To Chris [1:25:50]

Michael: So as we come to the end here, this is a podcast about success and just one of the themes that comes up is that word success means very different things to different people, right? It can change for us as we go through our careers and the growth of business. And so the business itself seems to be in a wonderful place for you all. Hiccups of joyous growth notwithstanding, the team has grown to something very quickly and you're getting out there to the advisor community. And so the business seems to be on a wonderful path here. How do you define success for yourself personally at this point?

Chris: I'll share a definition that I heard years and years and years ago that I really loved and then I'll share kind of mine, but I really aligned with this. So this was by Earl Nightingale. He passed away in 1989. He was an American radio host, author. He was really a pioneer in the personal development industry actually. I think at one time they called him the Dean of Personal Development and he wrote...he's most well known for a spoken word essay, "The Strangest Secret." That which, by the way, if any of you listening have not went and listened to "The Strangest Secret," I would highly encourage you. He said that success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.

Michael: Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.

Chris: Yeah, which means it's a mountain with no top. There's no finish line, there's no pile of money, there's no top, like "Oh, I've arrived." It's the daily act of continuing to tap into, pun intended here because we're the PSBLTY company, but it's continuing to step into possibility and see a bigger vision of what's possible for myself and see a bigger vision of what's possible for others, and we're never going to get there. But that's kind of beautiful. It's like I love the idea of a mountain with no top because the higher up the mountain I go, the clearer the air, the greater the vision, the better perspective I have. And so for me, what that translates into my own definition is what success looks like to me is to speak as much possibility into as many human beings in one lifetime as I can.

Michael: To speak as much possibility into as many human beings in one lifetime as I can.

Chris: Yeah, I actually think, Michael, that this is the work that advisors are actually doing and most of them don't realize it. Meaning, sure, we do financial planning, we do retirement planning, we do income planning, tax strategies, all these amazing things that really do make a profound difference for families. But I think the greatest gift advisors give their clients is they help those clients see a bigger vision of what could be possible for their life and their families generationally than they otherwise would have without meeting that advisor.

Michael: And that's why PSBLTY is the name of your company.

Chris: It connects together. And the reason we spell possibility the way we do sometimes people...because we spell it P-S-B-L-T-Y. People ask us funny things all the time, "Do you hate vowels?"

Michael: Yeah, "Did you lose the vowels?" "The recorder is broken, we were just making do."

Chris: Yeah, that's right. "Do you not know how to spell?" And I always make the joke, "Well, the domain was available, so that's one." And people laugh, P-S-B-L-T-Y. But the deeper meaning is because possibility is always out there and it always exists, but it's not always going to be spelled out for us. But if you're looking for it, you will tap into it. And if you're looking for it, you will see it. And it'll be revealed to you and you'll know how to tap into it and know how to help others. And so we want to help people see the...because that's what's interesting about human beings, I believe, is we can never see what's actually possible for us. We can only ever see what we think is possible.

Michael: I love it. I love it, man. Well, thank you for joining us on the "Financial Advisor Success" podcast.