Executive Summary
Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 504th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today's podcast is Sheri Fitts. Sheri is the founder of Sheri Fitts and Co., a marketing, event, and consulting business that works alongside financial advisors and firms.
What's unique about Sheri, though, is how she helps financial advisors develop their personal brands to both stand out in the eyes of good-fit clients and to ensure their work is in sync with their values.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Sheri finds that intentionally cultivating a personal brand is important because an advisor will already have a brand (whether they like it or not), why Sheri suggests that a first step to establishing a personal brand for a financial advisor is to go where the ‘yeses’ are and investigate what made the last few new clients the advisor onboarded want to work with them, and how Sheri has found that these reasons can be illuminating to advisors because they show what clients truly value (and the attributes the advisor might want to lean into further in their marketing).
We also talk about how Sheri sees the next step in brand-building as identifying the client segment that both meshes with the advisor’s strengths and brings them joy to serve, why Sheri recommends that advisors then determine whether this particular client segment represents a viable market (perhaps aided by AI tools that can help find data on how many individuals might fit into this group and where they congregate), and how Sheri finds that experimentation can be a valuable (and low-cost) tool when building a brand (for example, by meeting individuals in the chosen client segment to find out whether the financial issues they face are a good match for the advisor’s strengths).
And be certain to listen to the end, where Sheri shares the value of being bold when it comes to building a personal or business brand, how Sheri has found that identifying one’s sense of purpose is key not only for making career decisions but also in constructing an advisor’s brand, and how Sheri’s own business-building journey has demonstrated the benefits of taking risks as long as they align with one’s values.
So, whether you’re interested in learning about building a personal brand, leveraging that brand to attract more good-fit clients, or how to overcome doubts about narrowing the field of potential clients you could serve, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Sheri Fitts.
Podcast Player:
Resources Featured In This Episode:
Sheri Fitts: LinkedIn | Instagram | Website- The Hardest Part of Standing Out
- Trust Transition Report
- Sway Live Boulder
- Perplexity
- The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin
- #FASuccess Ep 073: Why Successful Advisor Marketing Is More About Staffing Than Spending with Sheri Fitts
Full Transcript:
Michael: Welcome, Sheri Fitts, to the "Financial Advisor Success" podcast.
Sheri: I'm so excited to be here with you, Michael. Thank you for having me.
Michael: Absolutely. I'm excited to have you join us. Or I should say, have you back to join us? You were with us early on, all the way back, seven or eight years ago in episode 73. So kitces.com/73 for anyone who wants to go back and listen. Back then, we were talking a bit about the past of scaling marketing and institutionalizing marketing in advisory firms. And I'm kind of excited to come back to this. I feel like now we're going to tackle, at least what I think of as, sort of the other end of that spectrum, which is when marketing comes down to the individual advisors and their brands instead of what it looks like, or maybe in addition to what it looks like when you market the firm.
Because I feel like there's a broader shift underway, a societal shift underway, where we don't trust institutions as much as we maybe used to. And I mean this isn’t specific to us, Gallup and the folks that do the national polling…there's reduced trust in government. There's reduced trust in corporations. We trust people we know and have relationships with. I think in the advisor world, ironically, that's made us much more mobile as advisors, because now when the advisor leaves and the clients have to choose, whether they'll choose to stay with the relationship with the advisor or the relationship with the firm, they almost always choose the advisor at this point. Almost everybody follows and leaves. And because of that, I think, I actually see more firms trying to build more centralized marketing to grow the firm, and even a hesitancy or a fear sometimes to build out brands for their advisors, because if the advisors leave, the clients follow.
But then, when I look at some of the fastest-growing firms out there, I often see most of them are thriving because they have a founder or multiple advisors with great personal brands who are building and scaling them. So I think of James Conole at Root Financial, David Bahnsen at Bahnsen Group, Josh Brown and multiple other advisor brands they've built at Ritholtz Wealth, or even, dare I say now, old school from last decade, Rick Edelman building whatever they were, $20 billion plus of AUM, all organic, all around Rick's personal brand before they sold to Financial Engines. And lots of individual advisors that are now increasingly building personal brands. So I think I'm excited to talk about, probably nerd out because we both love getting really nerdy and deep on this, what it means to build personal brands in today's environment as a financial advisor. And I find, in particular, what quickly crops up for most advisors, how we find this balance between being "professional" as an advisor, right, where you're not supposed to say certain things and talk about certain topics, and then what we actually do to stand out and get noticed and build a personal brand, which I find often is about saying some of the things that you're not supposed to say because that's what gets the conversation going.
Sheri: Yeah. This pull, tension, between an advisor brand and an organization's brand, and where some are hesitant to help amplify that voice, and where some start to see that there could be this collaboration and symbiotic relationship of growth of the advisor's voice equals growth of the organization's presence as well. It's very real.
The Value Of Personal Branding [06:20]
Michael: It is. And I'm trying to figure out even how to frame this as a discussion because I see a couple of layers. Why do we really have to go all build personal brands? Or do we all have to? Do some of us have to? Why personal brand now? And then the dynamics of how do I actually go about doing it, and how do I navigate this as a larger firm? But I think I would just start with the premise question, do we really have to do this? Do we all have to do this? Do some of us have to do this? We have so many different ways for advisors to market. Is this just another way of marketing, choose your own adventure, or is there something different about this path?
Sheri: Well, I think the one thing that I always say is you have a personal brand, whether you're intentional about it or not. So choosing what that is, being intentional about it, being clear on what you stand for, what you stand against, what you bring to the table, the value you bring, the transformation that you promise people that you work with. That doesn't mean that you have to stand on top of a table everywhere you go and scream at the top of your lungs. That's not personal branding. In my belief structure, it's more about saying, I realize I'm responsible for this. I realize that I have a brand and I want to be clear about what I bring forward. That, in a way, is the basis of all marketing anyway, in my kind of world. I remember before I was at Sheridan Road, I had my own agency. And when I would work with owners of organizations, I would tell them, as we started to work on their broader, bigger brand, "You're going to feel like you're on the psychiatrist couch for a while because I want to get at some of these core values because that's what's going to help differentiate your organization broadly. We're going to pull on your brand first because you founded this thing." It was really a moment of getting them to be very, very, very intentional about what it is they wanted to bring into the world and how do they want to show up.
Michael: Help us connect the dots more. When I watch discussions about branding and personal branding, I think particularly in the advisor community, as you've highlighted here from the marketing, branding end, it usually starts with some conversations about intentionality or, what do you want to be? How do you want to show up? What are you going to stand for? From the marketing end, that's the lens of how marketers do marketing things. From the advisor end, it feels like a lot of "I have to choose hard things I don't want to choose from knowing that I'm going to alienate people who don't fit the thing that I choose. Sheri, I've come to you because I don't feel like I have enough marketing and growth. The first thing you're asking me to do is choose a whole bunch of people I'm going to alienate and not support. I was already feeling scarcity, and the first thing you're asking me to do is narrow the aperture. That feels scarier."
Sheri: Yeah. Yeah.
Michael: "So why do I have to go down this road? Why are you making me do this?"
Sheri: We can't be all things to all people. We all say that. And we all see it. We all choose to go to a specialist when our knee is messed up, we don't go to a general practitioner, nor would they even try to serve us. So getting clear on the people you love working with the most who you can provide the most value to does feel like it's narrowing the lens, but it allows you to serve them more deeply. The more you can know them, the more deeply you understand them. What's surprising is that there can be massive growth from that effort of narrowing the lens. You are a great example of that when you guys launched XY Planning [Network], as an example. A small group of people, seemed like a very specific, focused, targeted group of people, and now it's a massively successful organization continuing to bring more people into the community.
Seth Godin is a marketing god and has written a lot about this. One of the books that I love is called "The Icarus Deception." One of the things he always says is you don't need a lot of people, you just need your people. Here's the thing that we don't talk about when we speak to this idea of personal branding and marketing and all that kind of stuff, is the mindset that's behind all of it. Part of that is courage. Part of it is realizing that it's never going to be the perfect answer and that it's always going to be an experiment in one way or another. The more you serve people, the more you'll learn, and the deeper those conversations will get, and the more clarity you'll get about who you are and what you're here to do. Then there comes more clarity and more clarity and more clarity and less fear. We don't spend time talking about that either. So, yeah, I can see why, "Wait a minute. I came here because I want you to help me get loud, not get quiet."
Michael: "I feel like I don't have enough, and the first thing you're asking me to do is cut off a portion of my opportunities."
Sheri: What's interesting about that is that a confused mind does not buy. So an example, there's an organization that came to me, and they were interested in coming to my conference and speaking at my conference, and it just wasn't a good fit. But I did think of other opportunities that might be good for them and people to connect them with, and I asked them to send me a brief little email outline so that I could make an easy introduction to some of these people. They sent me a page of possible options for them to speak to. Not one or two, but there were like 25 different options of where they could speak and where they could speak and what this was.
Michael: "I was trying to give you an opportunity. I wasn't looking to spend an hour diagnosing your offering and perusing your recommendations."
Sheri: I felt like I wanted to go for...
Michael: "I was trying to be a consumer of your services, and you've created more cognitive load for me, and my brain was already tired this morning."
Sheri: You got it. We work in the world of behavioral economics, and there's that famous jam study that some university did, that when you walk into the grocery store and they give you a choice of tasting this jam or that jam, if there's just two, oftentimes you end up buying the jam. If there's 12 jams, you don't end up buying any jam.
Michael: I'm like, "I don't have the time to try all 12. I wasn't really in the mood to try all 12. But if I only try three, I can't just buy one of the three because I feel like I might be missing out on the other nine, but I don't really want to try the other nine right now, so I'm just going to move on."
Sheri: Right. Cognitive load, exactly. A confused mind does not buy. Let's also be clear. There are a lot of advisors promising that they're all things to all people. Okay. One of the best ways that you can stand out is to say, "I am not all things to all people. I choose to work specifically and be a specialist for this type of individual or this group of people," or whatever it is. And then when they arrive at your website or arrive on your LinkedIn or meet you somewhere or are referred to you because their clients goes, "Oh, you need to talk with Michael because Michael does X, Y, Z."
Michael: Right.
Sheri: Clarity creates clarity, not just for you but for the people who want to work with you.
Michael: We have seen that even including in some of the marketing research we do on the Kitces platform. Advisors who have clarity of the ideal client tend to get more referrals because their clients can figure out who to refer. "We work with anyone who has complexity and at least $500,000."…"I don't know if that defines my neighbor." People get stuck that way, "I don't really know how much my neighbor has. I guess they're saying things that are complex, but it's different than my stuff. I don't know if you can help them with that as well. So I'm not really sure whether I'm supposed to refer you or not." Whereas the firm that comes like, "We help successful oil executives in Houston navigate their stock options and executive compensation."
Sheri: Boom.
Michael: I'm like, cool, if I'm in Houston at one of the big energy companies, I know exactly who I'm supposed to refer, the person I know at the club who is an ExxonMobil executive and was griping about the fact that he's not sure what to do with all of his options vesting. There's a clarity to me that does start to support the growth flywheel. I think the challenge that I see for everyone that goes down this path is everyone who's gone down the path sees the flywheel start to spin faster and faster as the clarity creates clarity, and I know who I'm talking to, and then my messaging gets better to them, and I get better-known in that community or segment or whatever it is, then more people understand what I do and they start referring me, and all the growth starts picking up. And when I don't have any of the momentum yet and I'm just watching the narrowing when I already feel like I'm in scarcity mode, it is so brutally hard for everyone who's not there to start.
Sheri: Yeah, it's a grind. It's a grind. Our world, particularly on the advisor, of working to serve clients, get clients, get clients to refer you, it's a grind. And getting clarity sooner than later can help even just as you start to think about where you show up and where you put your limited time and dollars from a marketing perspective, because you don't want to throw it all against the wall.
The Differences Between Having A Personal Brand And Serving A Client Niche [18:37]
Michael: So we're talking about some of this in the context now of who we're going after, who the ideal client is. We're sort of bordering on various versions of niches. So I want to take us back a moment or maybe just ask the question, so is this part of personal branding? Is there a difference between personal branding and going after some niche and specialization? Do I have to do that to personal brand? Can I personal brand without that? How linked are these, or how linked do they have to be?
Sheri: Well, for me, what I say about what your personal brand is, it's everything that you are and all that you believe into all that you do. So you know, that's where my...
Michael: Wait, say that again. There were a lot of layers there.
Sheri: Yes. Everything that you are and all that you believe into all that you do.
Michael: Okay. It's a little heavy. I'm not going to lie.
Sheri: Yeah, I know. But my belief is that it's about spending time learning more about...this is kind of where I take a sharp turn to the woo, right, where I believe that a personal brand that is steeped in purpose and service, and is clear about what I'm here to do and who I'm here to serve, brings up more authentic presence than somebody who's just like, "Let me stand on the table and be the loudest person here." And so in an environment where there's a lot of people standing on the table being the loudest person here, which turns a lot of people off, particularly financial services, because we know from the Edelman Trust Barometer that we're on the bottom from a trust perspective.
Michael: We're right between Congress and used car salespeople, I think.
Sheri: Yeah. Exactly.
Michael: It's not a great place to be right now.
Sheri: Yeah. And it's been that way for forever. And I think that what we've seen is the advisors that do bring that clarity and that purpose to the voice of their brand see better outcomes. Not just in clients and referrals, but also just frankly in how they feel about themselves. So I think this journey of personal branding, frankly, is a journey of a lifetime. And that it's really... Michael, if I were to reframe it, I'd say that it's Dharma. And we can't serve everybody. It's just not humanly possible. But to understand who we are and what our unique talents are and who we feel called to serve, when we get some clarity around that, it makes everything so much easier. And it also makes some of the decisions about where to spend money, and where not to spend money, and what to do, and what to say, and how to show up, and who to show up for, all of those decisions that are marketing decisions from a tactical perspective start to be easier. So I said a lot right there, especially Dharma.
The First Steps To Create A Personal Brand [22:24]
Michael: I think now I'm just trying to process, how do I get started…I'm an advisor. I've been doing this for a couple of years. I've got some clients, not as many as I would like, and not all of them are quite at the level I would like them to be at. But I'm past what Steph Boggan calls the rent-and-ramen phase. I can put food on my table, I have shelter. I'm surviving, and I'd like to do this a long time and have it be more pleasant for growth than the past few years have been. What am I supposed to start doing now that I'm not doing? How do I get started down this journey?
Sheri: Yeah. I think one of the first things I would do, and certainly I've done it myself, is that I would go to where the ‘yeses’ are. Which means that there are some...the last three or four clients that you've gotten, start to look at how they found you, and why they found you, and why they picked you. Because they might be telling you something about what they value in your services and what specifically kind of drew them to you.
Michael: Am I supposed to literally ask them this? Is this a conversation I'm supposed to have with them, or am I looking introspectively trying to figure out, why did they pick me?
Sheri: Yeah, I would actually suggest both.
Michael: Okay.
Sheri: I'd suggest both. Because also what will happen in those conversations when you're asking those people is, "Well, I'm honored to have an opportunity to work with you on your financial plan and some of the things that matter to you most. And can I spend a few moments just learning more about how you decided to work with me?" And then pay attention to what the words are that they use. So just do a little bit of man on the street.
Michael: And so what am I asking here? How did you find me?
Sheri: How did you find me?
Michael: Why did you pick me?
Sheri: Yeah, why did you pick me?
Michael: Okay.
Sheri: Yeah. And that's always, when I sit down with somebody, that's always one of the questions I ask, which is, "How did you get your last client?" And, "How did you get your favorite client?" Because if your last client isn't your favorite client, okay. Because you already do have a brand, you already are a human being with talent and you have a certain vibe, whatever it is, you're eccentric, you're not introverted, you're really focused on the technical aspects, you're really focused on the familial aspects. Who knows? The way you show up is already a clue already. And what I'm asking you to do is go and look to where the yeses are. The, "Hell yes." I want to work with more people like this.
And the flip side, when they're the "hell yes" to you, because both of those will give you information to help just... You go, "Okay, I'm not going to cut off everybody, but what I'm going to do is say, all right, maybe I can narrow my focus just a little bit more. And for two days a week, I am going to spend more time on these 'hell yes' people."
Michael: So what, what kinds of answers am I expecting or looking for or trying to spot when I start asking these questions? Like, "How'd you find me?" "Bob told me about you." "Why did you pick me?" "Because you seem like a good advisor." Cool. Now what?
Sheri: "Okay, cool. Great. Thanks for that." This is where the skillset of emotional intelligence becomes one of the best skillsets that you can have, which is, "Well, why does me being a good person matter to you? Why?" "Well, you know a lot about this or that or that, and I don't. I felt nervous about this or this or this. You seemed like you knew a lot about X, Y, Z, and that was important to me." "Well, why was X, Y, Z important to you?" So you can ask the five whys, which is just keep going. You can keep digging, which is kind of hard to do, not necessarily easy. So maybe you only asked three whys, but you're going to get beyond, "Just because you're a nice person." "Was it the way I answered the phone? Was it because I did your financial plan before you agreed to work with me? Was it because Bob's a retiree from a farm, blah, blah, blah, and you are too?" Just get as curious as you can and understand that this kind of conversation takes practice.
Michael: But I guess I'm just trying to visualize, what kind of answers am I looking for? What am I trying to get to?
Sheri: You're trying to get to, what was it about you that resonated with them? What was it about you that resonated with them? You grew up in rural Kansas. You're familiar with the ups and downs of the farming community. You know the struggle that your grandfather had financing the equipment for his soybean fields. Whatever it is. You already have a brand. People are already finding it. While I make it sound all complicated and everything, especially if you're past the rent-and-ramen situation, there are people that trust you. And what I want you to do is just pull on that thread a little bit and start to see and recognize what is it in you that was different than the other time they talked to an advisor or tried to.
Michael: Because the idea is I'm going to take whatever's different and amplify and do more of that.
Sheri: Exactly. I was talking to a really amazing woman on a LinkedIn live yesterday, Raeanne Lacatena, and she started off the conversation, when I asked her to introduce herself, by clearly stating what her superpowers were, curiosity and empathy, and gave examples and owned that that was something that she valued in herself. And I thought to myself, how often do we do that as human beings? Not often. And if you can get a little glimpse into what other people value about you and start to see, "Oh, wow, this is a skill set that I have. Oh, wow, this is something that I'm good at. And I do like working with farmers and gruff grandpa types from the Midwest," who knows what it is, you're going to start to get a few little clues. And you don't have to go too far. But you could say, okay, is this a viable market, gruff grandpas in the Midwest that have a farming background? Probably.
Determining Whether A Particular Client Profile Represents A Viable Market [30:48]
Michael: Well, in the old world, most of us can have wildly successful practices with 50 to 100 great clients. You can actually get pretty narrow when you get down to it. There's enough Midwest farmers that I'm sure there are enough gruff grandpas to fill out 50 to 100 great clients. So, is that kind of step two in the process? Step one is go talk to a handful of my recent clients. "How did you find me? Why did you pick me?" Because I'm trying to figure out, what actually made me different and compelling to them? And then step two is a gut check, "Okay. If I went after that, would that actually be a viable market?"
Sheri: Yeah. Is that a viable market? Do I want to? Is this something that I want to do? Is this something that I have the skill set to do? I think about those gruff grandpas and I think about not only as you're thinking about...one of the biggest issues in the farming community is succession inside families and it not happening because of the financial burden that many of these family farms are under. And there's a lot of...from me looking from the outside, using this as an example, Michael, there's a lot of financial healing that needs to take place around these family farms. And there's this beautiful stories that could be brought forward with figuring out how to be of amazing value to them, being their true financial quarterback to use a silly metaphor, right?
Michael: And how do I figure out if it's a viable market?
Sheri: There's Future Farmers of America. So that tells me that there are kids that want to continue in this thing. Maybe there's not a lot of them, but there are, they're there. And there are schools that are agriculture. Oregon State University is an agriculture university, right? And so there are family farms that are getting more sophisticated in how they manage the farm, and they're sending their kids to college to do it. So, be smart, think creatively, is there an association for this kind of person? If this person was to go and hang out with his friends, where would they go, beyond the bar? Is there an association to further their company, or who they are, or meet with like-minded individuals, is there an association that serves them? Because it's surprising, there's even corgi races, where all the corgi owners get together, right? So just start to ask kind of simple questions about, if they gather, where do they go? If they want to get better at this, where do they go? If they, whatever. So that's the first thing, and that's just basic kind of stuff.
And then I love Perplexity from a research perspective to say, I need deep numbers on this opportunity. What are the issues that they're facing? Where, from a financial perspective, could I support them? What kind of financial resources do they need? What kind of financial products might be available to them? And I do some research.
As an example, the other day I was working with an advisor on his personal brand, and we spent a whole day doing this interview conversation about starting to really just say, "You already have a brand. You already show up this way. It's not some kind of magical thing. You don't have to change who you are. You are already your brand, we just are trying to explore it and bring more intention to it." Okay. So that was the first day. The second day, halfway through it, because I spend two days with people usually, second day, halfway through the second day, I said, "Let's just stop for a second. When's your next sales call?" I'm the kind of marketer that is always like, "When's the next sales opportunity?" Because that's the most important thing. Not a brochure, not a LinkedIn post. When's your next sales opportunity?
And it was with an independent digital agency in Silicon Valley. So I mean, by digital agency, a digital creative agency in Silicon Valley. And I'm like, "Whoa, independent," much like the world of financial services. I know, because I'm in kind of the marketing sphere, that an independent large marketing firm like Wieden and Kennedy or some of those big ones, they don't exist. There's a lot of M&A happening in that environment because there's scale in buying up all of these smaller marketing firms and then making one big marketing firm. And so I knew a little bit about it, but I was just amazed that they were independent and they had been independent since 2003 or something crazy like that, for a very long time, more than 20 years. And so just a little bit of being curious. Then we went to Perplexity and said, "They're interested in a cash balance plan. These are my skill sets. This is what I bring to the table. Where might I step on a landmine?" And found out more information about this opportunity that was indeed a very complex retirement plan opportunity, which this dude is really good at, to make the conversation even deeper. So that's how I would start to kind of see where the opportunities are.
Michael: And again, I want to come back to the question. So am I building a personal brand here, or am I picking a niche here, or are these opposite sides of the same coin, same thing?
Sheri: Opposite sides of the coin, same thing.
Michael: Okay.
Sheri: I think. What do you think?
Michael: It's hard to have a great brand of who you're showing up for until you're clear on who you're showing up for. I mean, there's always been some aspect of that. I'm a native East Coaster. So there's standards of business dress here, but I'm in the mid-Atlantic region. So I can wear what's normal in the DC area. And if I go to New York, I'm going to stand out for how underdressed I am. And if I go to some parts of the Midwest, they'll pull out scissors and cut the tie off my shirt if I walk in with it.
Sheri: And if you come to the West Coast, they'll be like, "Why are you not in your pajamas?"
Michael: Yeah. Yeah, "Like seriously, what?"
Sheri: Casual Friday got scary for a while.
Michael: Right. And it's a simple example, but to me it comes down to...I don't even know what appropriate business dress is until I get clear on what kinds of clients I'm trying to serve. A lot of us have a tendency to serve people like us from the communities and environments that we're from and grew up in, which means how we show up often just naturally works. Because frankly, if it wasn't working, we wouldn't have gotten a lot of yeses from that group in the first place. But yeah, I do agree that it's very hard to figure out how to show up well if you don't know who you're trying to serve, because the whole point is things that show really well to some clients will annoy and piss off other clients, whether it's how you’re dressed or what you say or what your value prop is. If you work with super-busy executives that are always forgetting things, they'll actually really appreciate it if you proactively nudge them all the time to say, "Hey, you were supposed to do this for me, you didn't do it," whereas other clients would find the nudges annoying, and some client segments just don't need that. I started my practice with retirees. And I used to joke how many clients we had that had so much stinking spare time on their hands and didn't know what to do with it when they retired. We would send them a form to fill out, and they'll be like, "Oh, I could just drive it by your office this afternoon." "No, you could just mail it back. We don't really need it for a week." "Yeah, but I can come by this afternoon." Oh, okay, you're bored and have nothing to do.
Sheri: You better have cookies and coffee and stuff as well.
Michael: Yeah. So apparently I need to plan for 30 minutes to chit chat with you when you bring the form back because you just literally have nothing to do and you need to fill your time. And my executive client is not hand-delivering a form to my office and would fire me if I required it. Apparently, that was a service to my retired clients at the time that I was available to chit-chat with them when they brought the form back by hand because they wanted someone to chit-chat with. And that's why they insisted on bringing the form back by hand. So tell me who you're trying to serve, and I'll tell you how you need to show up to do well with that, which means you’ve got to pick who it is.
Sheri: Right. I think one of the things that happens most for me when I'm doing these intensive little personal brand things or whatever it is, is that I'm the one reminding the person of, "Here's what I see in you. This is what I see in you. This is what I see in you. This is what you just told me. This, this, this. Look at this." And that's clarity and all that kind of stuff and 30 years of doing this. I call myself a fairy godmother sometimes because people go, "You see things in me I don't see in myself." That's very true. There's 30 years of experience behind it. And I think sometimes people think that their brand is not enough, that they have to be something different and shiny and louder and better. And the fact of the matter is, chances are, it's absolutely enough. And to your point, people have said yes to them. And you probably made a decision, Michael, to say, "Okay, we can't do those retirees anymore. That's not necessarily scalable for me to stop and chit-chat."
Michael: They were lovely, but not efficient.
Sheri: Right. And though, depending on where you live, it might be the perfect place.
Michael: Sure. Oh, I know others out there that love those clients and doing that, but I'm an efficiency nerd. My clients' unplanned interruptions to my productive day was a little disruptive to me.
Sheri: Really?
Michael: Bless their souls. Yeah.
Sheri: Gets in the way of your big rocks.
Michael: Yes. Gets in the way of my big rock planning.
Sheri: Yep. Yep.
The Benefits Of Experimenting To Test Out A Personal Brand [42:43]
Michael: So then what do I do with this information as I start surfacing it? When do I get to "I'm building my personal brand"?
Sheri: If you go to where the yeses are, and begin to ask some questions, and get really practiced in understanding that, and know that, obviously, there's some experimentation. You and I have both probably experimented. You and I have both evolved over the past 20-some odd years. At least a good ten, more than ten years, we've known each other, and our brands have evolved and evolved alongside us as we've gotten more clarity and/or made decisions about where to pivot or what to do or what not to do. And so then it's a matter of beginning to just simply try it, experiment. So if you say, these are my people, these are who I'm serving, find out where they gather, find out where they get information, find out how they learn, because then those are the places where you can start to insert yourself and listen carefully for what's important to them, and then decide, if you choose to, to be the answer person for some of these questions that they have. That simplifies it an awful lot, but where do they go for information? What do they want to learn about? What are they worried about? What are they living in and through? All of those questions can provide insight into how you might want to put yourself in that information flow.
And so, as an example, back to our gruff grandpas in the Midwest, chances are they are not podcast consumers, but who am I to say? Because they might be in the combine, however many hours a day, and they might be rabid podcast listeners. I don't know, but I'm going to find out where they go for information, or who are their trusted sources, and decide how can I put myself in that trusted sources stream of information.
Michael: And so I don't have to go rebrand my website to Gruff Grandpas or anything yet? At this stage, I'm just in the, why don't you go to a farmer's association where they might gather and just start meeting and talking to some of them and understanding more about what's going on in their world.
Sheri: Yeah. Yeah.
Michael: Okay. Thus, the question from the viability end, is there someplace they gather or go to learn? Otherwise, I just don't necessarily have a good way to meet them to ask these questions.
Sheri: Yeah. Remember, way back in the day when financial advisors first started, they would tell you to go to your natural network right before they put a yellow pages in front of you.
Michael: Major natural markets sell a lot better than smile and dial, and phone book, so yeah.
Sheri: And this is just that, but a little bit more focused. And the other thing is, is that when you're at that farmer's association meeting, that might meet in your county or your state or a tri-state area or whatever it is, you might get there and you might go, "Nope. I don't see it. I don't feel it. I don't want it." Okay. Good. I would prefer that before you spend another $15,000 trying to make your website work for them.
Michael: So I went to my yeses. I got some ideas. I did some research on whether it can be a viable market and where they might gather. I go to their gathering places, and I start asking them questions. And I like how you framed it, can you be the answer person for the questions they have and put yourself into their information flow of where they go for answers? That does resonate to me in a, "Oh, okay. So I'm just trying to show up where they are with useful information so that when eventually they need a financial advisor, they know who I am and that I have good answers because they've been seeing that already."
Sheri: Yes, exactly.
Michael: Is that the essence of what we're trying to build towards?
Sheri: Yeah. Yes. Yes. And then, back to the point of, these are family farms, and they've got layers of complexity of financing to debt, to all that kind of stuff. Does it fill your heart to serve them? When you're across the table from them, in a way, you get to ask the question, does this bring me joy? And I don't know...for me, it's kind of like, can you find a purpose there?
Michael: It's a fair distinction. I had a point earlier in my career where I built a lot of annuity expertise back in the early 2000s, when all the first generation of annuities with living benefit riders had come out, and I was publishing material. I published a book on it. It created a lot of cool opportunities, including...I spent two years doing a whole bunch of expert witness kind of work, often against agents that did bad things, taking advantage of consumers with inappropriate annuity sales. And I found I was really good at it, I had a lot of technical knowledge. And my brain works very logically, so I got along great with the lawyers and could help them dissect information discovery and help them frame their cases, and got some good outcomes, both from consumers that got taken advantage of suing advisors and actually a few advisors that got very inappropriately sued who really did nothing wrong and just got chased by some plaintiff's attorneys because it was popular to sue annuity agents back then. And then found, after two years of it, these are just really unhappy litigious people fighting each other.
Sheri: Hollow.
Michael: I really don't enjoy it. I was really good at it. It paid really well. The hourly rate I got to charge was quite spectacular then, more than I could charge clients for doing traditional advisory work. And I found I just really don't enjoy hanging out with upset, angry, litigious people all day and their lawyers who are bent on destroying the other side, whichever side it is that they might've been coming from, because I got a little bit of both. And I ended up completely walking away from that because...I could do it, and I was pretty good at it, and it was remunerative, I just really didn't enjoy it. It dragged me down. I realized I was really cranky and unhappy at the end of days that I was doing that because it's like the negativity of the mood and the vibe just wore off on me in very negative ways.
Sheri: Yeah. Perfect example. Perfect example. Exactly. All that you are, all that you believe, into all that you do. And it matters how you spend your days, you know? And so, for me, I started in the industry as a graphic designer, creating 401(k) education and communication materials. And at first, I'm really good at space and color, and I got to design via computers. I was adept at technology, and that's how I came into design. And then I was not going to be just a lazy desktop publisher. I didn't want to do that. So I went to school and got more familiar with typography and design and flow and readability. And people would often come to me and go, "Make this look pretty." And I can do that. But for me, making stuff look pretty every day didn't fill up my cup. I mean, the technical component, to your point there, the technical component, the ability to kind of design under pressure and make something look really good, get it out the door, there was that. That was fun, but it didn't fill up my cup. And what I finally figured out was, and this helped me an awful lot at a younger professional age, was that, okay, yes, I was making things pretty, but let's be clear what I was making was making 401(k)s available and understandable to many people. I was working on creating content and imagery and readability and consumability and all of those kinds of things available to more people by the work that I was doing. And that shifted, really, the trajectory of my career because then I made a very clear, distinct decision to stay in financial services. I didn't leave, even though I was offered other jobs elsewhere, because I felt like the work that we were doing really mattered to people. And that little drop of purpose has multiplied into really honoring the work that advisors do. And frankly, many people do who have dedicated their careers to this, to this industry. It comes with a baked-in purpose. And I really love it, and the technical stuff is fun, and there's always another regulation coming out that shakes things up. And still, there are people doing amazing work serving people, and it brings me joy.
Deciding Where To ‘Show Up’ For A Target Audience [54:09]
Michael: So, continuing on our brand-building journey.
Sheri: Thank you for staying on task. I love it.
Michael: I just want to come back to it. We're going through this sequence.
Sheri: Yes.
Michael: I went to their gathering place. Learn more about their problems and where they go for information. So this very practice, what do I do next? What comes next in this "I'm building a brand" sequence?
Sheri: Yeah. So, I often say that personal brand is kind of inside out. So there's the inside work of all the things we've been talking about and then there's the outside decision work that happens, which is, okay, so now you see that there's an opportunity, one that asks more of you, that is more than just doing a single financial plan and consulting with them on a quarterly basis or whatever, that there's an opportunity to go deeper into serving them and bringing them more value. And then the question is, where do you want to show up? Because, Michael, you intentionally do not film these podcasts. You've made this decision. You've also made a decision that you have very long podcast conversations. It's a really cool...it's part of who you are. And the curiosity you bring and your commitment to the audience that you serve, that you want to get to the iceberg that's underneath that visual that you show every once in a while. And so this podcast has been around for a long time. You started as a blogger, writing content and making a clear decision about the content that you wanted to write because you had a natural inclination to writing.
So you get to choose. There's so many options for how far and fast you want to go with being available, being the answer person. Because you could say, "Listen, I'm in Kansas. I want to be able to drive to every one of my clients. Within a three-state radius, there's 500 family farms. And I want to make sure every single one of them know who I am and why I'm the best fit for them." So then that tells you, all right...again, maybe they watch YouTube videos, maybe they don't. Maybe they read their daily newspaper every day. Maybe they don't. Maybe they listen to local radio…finding out where they go for information, and finding out what you want to do to kind of put yourself in that information stream to help make yourself just a touch bit more visible.
Michael: So it's all about finding this intersection of just literally, where do they go for information? Do they listen to local radio? Do they read the newspaper? Are they listening to podcasts while they're out on the machinery in the fields for hours? And which of those channels or mediums do I want to go and hang out in?
Sheri: Yes.
Michael: Some of us love to talk in front of an audience. It's like, cool, do seminars or make a video. Others just like to talk, so we do podcasts. Others just like to write, so cool, hole up and write. This is like, pick whatever channel just works for you, as long as it's something that they consume.
Sheri: Right. So you could be in that tri-state area and just decide to go visit the farms. Who knows? What do you feel comfortable doing? What do you want to do? Where do you want to spend your time? And I think also you got to also be a little clear and do some more research around, where do they look? And do you want to be the farm, to keep this metaphor going across the United States, or do you want to just stick in your tri-state area? That also matters too.
And then you can pick a channel. It could be in person. It could be email. To your point, what sounds fun to you? Because if it's something that is fun...I just launched a LinkedIn live series because it's fun for me and it's easy for me, Michael. Find cool people to talk to. Do a little graphic in Canva. Wham, Riverside FM Studio or whatever. It's recorded. It's on LinkedIn. I can get the show notes and do some fun things with those. But it's been really delightful. It's like having these kind of conversations just with a little bit different twist on how the audience gets reached.
Differentiating Between A Personal Brand And A Business Brand [59:17]
Michael: And so at what point in all this journey is it a personal brand versus a firm brand, a business brand? My business, my advisory firm, generically speaking, could say, "We want to go after the Midwest farmers, and we're going to get involved in the local association, and we're going to stand up a YouTube channel or a podcast or whatever it is and go do the things." If I'm a multi-advisor larger firm, I could choose to do that as a firm. What makes this personal brand?
Sheri: To your point that the clients follow the advisor, in my trust transition report, it's the first thing that I bring for a signal that I say that the shield, the logo that used to matter, especially for these larger organizations, doesn't matter as much as the individual anymore. And so, for me, that's something, to be really honest, that I continue to kind of go, "I don't know." If I think about the business saying that this is who we're going to serve, then I would anticipate that the advisors that were part of that organization agree with that purpose in that direction.
As an example, there's a B-Corp advisory firm. They've been doing green investing for a very long time, very long time. And even that it's kind of fallen out of favor right now, in some cases, they've made the decision to continue to serve in that environment. When they're recruiting advisors, there's a natural recruiting kind of component there. So that's the first thing. The second thing, though, is say that this was just kind of sprung on you, and all of a sudden, we're supposed to be all in on this whole family farms component, but you have a deep niche inside the women's marketplace. I don't think that that necessarily precludes you from continuing to serve the women's marketplace. I think that firms understand that different people go to different people. And if they demanded that you only serve the farming community, well, maybe that's not the advisor shop for you. Or maybe they're just a generic kind of aggregator that doesn't really have any kind of niche at all. Well, there's the perfect opportunity for you to develop your own. So I think that there's organizations that decide to make a commitment to, as an example, serve women, serve LGBTQ as an organization, that kind of thing. That's one thing. And there's just this generic, big aggregator stuff that's going on that screams for the desire for people to stand up and say, "These are the people that I serve inside these resources provided to me by this organization."
Michael: So what if it's the... I guess I think of it as cropping up the other way. What does it mean to build a personal brand in a firm that's got their big fancy firm brand?
Sheri: I think that you've got to find, in that Venn diagram of that big fancy firm brand, what are the components of that big fancy firm brand that speak to you? And what I believe is that the value of the big fancy firm brand is size, scale, security, compliance, team. Right?
Michael: Those are assets in a marketing sense and, hopefully, in a firm sense when I'm tied to a bigger firm. Yup.
Sheri: Right. And you are the one that starts to get to know, uniquely, the needs of a specific type of client. So you can exist uniquely serving a specific type of client that might, in the broader, bigger, fancy firm brand, in fact, they're counting on that because they need size and scale and they want to be all things to all people. So their advisors naturally, in a way, need to find their way with their unique personal brand and the types of clients that they want to serve.
How Sheri Supports Advisors Build Their Brands [1:04:07]
Michael: So, now to bring this, I guess, a little bit broader for the moment, because we haven't really talked about this yet, Sheri. So help everyone to understand, what do you do? What does Sheri do for a living in the context of all of these branding-related conversations?
Sheri: So as I mentioned, I've been in the world of financial services for more than 30 years, and I grew up mostly on the 401(k) side. And as you know, that marketplace has shifted, and so has my understanding of the broader wealth management advisory world. And so I've worked for...I started, working inside an investment consulting organization alongside advisors and consultants. They had their own RIA way back in the early '90s. And he had left a brokerage house and started the firm focused on...
Michael: In the days of pension consulting, institutional clients.
Sheri: Exactly. Right. And they also had a wealth management arm. I didn't interact with that because I was doing most of this 401(k) stuff. And then I moved and went to work for a bank for a little while. Then I moved and went to work for a record keeper. Then I moved and went to work for a broker-dealer. And then I left corporate America and started my own marketing firm. And in my marketing firm, we created branding materials, websites, brochures, white papers for, predominantly, the 401(k) side because that's where my natural market was. And then while I was there, got tapped to come back into, not corporate, but work for a large institutional firm out of Chicago to be their CMO. And then when they ended up being acquired, I worked for them for a couple more years in a contract capacity. And then in 2020, decided to kind of step away and do my own thing, full-meal deal again. And that is an interesting journey because I'd been working for organizations and been working to deliver services to organizations.
And in 2020 is when I decided it's just me. I'm not going to do marketing per se. I'm not building websites. And that's been kind of an interesting journey. And so now I do quite a bit of speaking, and I speak on the topics of emotional intelligence, artificial intelligence, and the intersection of those two things. I call that digital EQ. And then I do a lot of work around personal branding and this idea of personal branding. And that has been my focus for the past four-plus years around this idea of personal branding and marketing generally. Because I looked out there and, as a speaker, I was always kind of shaking with a little bit of rage and angst about our industry conferences, that we know advisors need help with marketing, they say they need help with marketing and branding, and yet, when push comes to shove, the content that ends up getting delivered at our industry conferences is predominantly around technical skills or products, which are both really crucial, but usually there's not really very much content focused on marketing or personal branding even.
So I just decided, "What the heck? Why don't I start an industry conference on personal branding?" So now I do, specifically, in addition to my speaking, I host an industry conference called SWAY Live. This will be the...we're going to be going on our fifth year once this podcast goes live. And then I also have a community that I serve that focuses on personal branding and thought leadership. So to your point, what's next after I've decided where to go, where the yeses are, what do I want to do? This community is kind of the place to kind of learn all about those tactics and get support around that. And then I work with executives and others who want more focused help on their brand to kind of get up to speed faster. And I do a lot of coaching and consulting around the idea of personal branding and what it really means and where it's going and what the trends are there.
What Surprised Sheri The Most Building Her Business [1:09:04]
Michael: So what surprised you the most in building your own personal brand's business as you transitioned to your own version of this, what would be six years ago, 2020, and have lived it as your own journey?
Sheri: Right. Because when I left that broker-dealer, Michael, I said, when I grow up, I want to be a speaker and do my own thing. And I immediately put up a shingle and started a marketing firm because I didn't think that... I had some hesitancy in holding myself up as a speaker alone. Interesting, right, that in a way, I was hiding behind the name of my company, and it was very successful and very fun. And I recreated my corporate job, and then I went, what the heck am I doing?
Michael: You hung your shingle as a marketing firm and took on marketing clients and now you're doing all the marketing website and collateral builds that you were doing in the corporate job you left.
Sheri: Exactly. Exactly.
Michael: Okay.
Sheri: And along with all the headaches that come with that.
Michael: Right.
Sheri: And so what has surprised me most about this continued understanding of being a voice for the idea of personal branding in the financial services industry, it has been more self-discovery, more mindset than I expected. I thought that it was more about learning how to do podcasting, and learning how to do video, and learning how to... But what is interesting is the minute you turn the camera on to shoot a video, all my self doubt just shows up. "Not enough. I don't look right. My tooth is cracked." All of the gremlins, all of my mindset shows up more frequently than I anticipated it would.
Michael: So, what did you do?
Sheri: So what I did was, one, I got a coach. So that's the first thing, I put myself in places where I could learn more about this idea of mindset and this idea of beliefs of the stories that I tell myself about what I'm capable of doing or not. And then I have been working, for some time, on just doing it anyway. I'm super proud of it, and even thinking of it now still gives me the heebie jeebies. I was working with a client on a brand activation project for a large industry conference recently. And their sales team is a younger team, skews late-20s, early-30s, and as does their event team. And they're a new player in the industry. And yet some of their actions felt like they were just trying to copy the existing three-story booth people at the conference. That's not possible, you're a disruptor and you're acting like your old guard. You can't do that. You said you're a disruptor, but you're not behaving as a disruptor brand. This is such a perfect example, right?
And so, we were having the event in Tampa, and it started out with them saying, "Well, we're going to have a sunset cruise." And I said, "Oh, cool." So the big insurance provider was renting a yacht. And this other firm showed me a picture of a water taxi. And I laughed my tail feathers off. And I said, "Okay, we got to go all in." Because in Tampa, those taxis are called pirate taxis. So we're going to go all in because you cannot say we're going on a sunset cruise and somebody walks out, and they see the one yacht and then a yellow taxi thing next door. It's just not going to work. So we're going to have to play it hard. We're just going to have to...whatever it is, we're just going to have to do it hard. And I suggested that the whole team dress up as pirates. And then a friend of mine suggested, "Well, maybe you might want to get some actors to help because that's asking a lot of people." And I went, "You're right. You're right. You're right." So I found a Johnny Depp lookalike guy, and then he came. It's surprising how many of them are in Tampa.
Michael: Like a whole bunch of Jack Sparrows on the boat now.
Sheri: Yes, totally. So he came and he actually had a crew of other pirates with him. So to their credit...
Michael: A pirate captain brings his crew.
Sheri: Right? To their credit, they did go all in on some of it. And I kept my commitment to dress up as a pirate for two days. Now people are like, "Well, Sheri Fitts, of course, you could dress up as a pirate." I'm like, you would be surprised at how hard it was for me to put on that flipping hat and wear it all day and be in the pirate garb all day. It was really hard. It was. I asked a lot of myself and it gave the rest of the team courage to be all-in on the pirate thing. And that's exactly why I wanted to do it, is because I wanted to show them what being a disruptor needed to look like. And it changed the trajectory of their whole conference.
So I wrote a blog post about that, Michael, it's on my LinkedIn page, about how hard it was for me to show up in that flipping pirate outfit. And how people would kind of be like, "Sheri, what the heck are you doing?" And some lady was in the coffee line kind of viscerally pissed off at me for being a pirate. And thankfully, Johnny Depp was there. So there was a little bit of buzz about these pirates running around. So that was helpful. But I was the only one out there. I'd go to all the breakout sessions and then I'd ask a question, they'd be, "Pirate in the front row." So it was hard. And I was surprised. I thought it would be easier because, sheesh, I show up with cowboy boots and hats on all the time. This is just a different kind of hat. No, it was way more than that.
The Low Point On Sheri’s Journey [1:16:05]
Michael: So what was the low point on this journey, aside from the horrors of donning a pirate hat?
Sheri: There was a couple of spots. So one of the reasons why SWAY is in August is because in August of 2022, I didn't know whether my business was going to make it or not. Because I was predominantly doing just speaking, and that can be a really up-and-down kind of business from a cash flow perspective.
Michael: Especially when we were still in 2021, 2022, because events were still periodically canceling on short notice because there was a surge of COVID wave and people couldn't travel. So that was...
Sheri: And I had an amazing 2020 and 2021 because I was teaching people virtual skills because a good friend of mine said, "Sheri, the stuff you know now people will pay for." And so there were a lot of people going, "Okay, that webinar, Zoom stuff, people know it now." No, they still don't know it. They can't look at the camera, but that's a whole other thing. But August, 2022 was, I don't know. Maybe I will go to work at Starbucks, really, truly. And so one of the reasons why...and then that September, things picked back up again, not massively or whatever. So then I decided to start looking at ways to go, "Okay, I have 30 years of experience that is valuable." I started to kind of do some of the things that I've been sharing with you. Where are the yeses? Where do people want help? How can I help them? Where do they go for information? How can I be that information source? The job I was dreaming of getting to save me from this yuck I was feeling, do that for yourself. Follow your own damn advice. And so I started the SWAY Collective, which is that group of people. And I thought maybe I'd have 12 people, and 47 people swiped with their credit card for a lifetime membership. And I went, okay, I guess I'm onto something. How can I serve them deeper? And I intentionally went, "August is a really dead month. I'm going to put something, honestly, put energy into that month." So that's why I chose to have SWAY in August was because I needed something that had energy and vibrancy and community and all that stuff that when August is quiet, usually in our speaking industry, I wanted to put something there. So that's why I did that.
Sheri’s Advice For Her Younger Self And For Newer Advisors [1:18:45]
Michael: So what other... I was thinking of these pearls of wisdom of what you know now going down this personal brand journey for yourself that you wish you could go back and tell you six, eight, ten years ago as you were thinking and starting this path?
Sheri: That it's not narcissistic to acknowledge your gifts.
Michael: Tell us more about that.
Sheri: When I talk about personal branding, I talk about these two opposing feelings. There's one that we are amazing and each one of us is a unique, different individual, and holy crap, I've had some unusual experiences and 30 years in an industry of digital marketing. I know how to print stuff. I know how to... I was teaching the Xerox...I was teaching the FedEx woman how to do a booklet on a Xerox machine last year in Milwaukee because she didn't know how to do it. And that was from something I did back in 1997 or something crazy. So I had this unique set of skills. And through life experiences, we've all probably experienced that, no, it's not okay for you to sit there and say how great you are. I'm a miracle. We are all miracles. And so there's that one side, right? This unique, amazing human being that I am.
And on the other side of it is this deep desire to belong, to have people acknowledge me, to be part of a community, to not be alone. And these two things tend to pull on each other. And the belonging usually wins in a way of us believing that to belong, we need to be less than we are. And what I've learned is that by bringing a deep focus of purpose and meaning to what I bring to the table, I can be all of who I am and still belong. In fact, what I've done is, by being this geek, woo-woo fairy godmother combination, I've created a space for other people to be the same thing. And the more I allow myself to be me, the more I learn how I get to serve others. I don't even know any other way around it, Michael.
Michael: I like that framing, the more I allow myself to be me, the more I learn how I get to serve others.
Sheri: Yeah. Yeah. And to your point about the guy who loved to do all that annuity stuff and all that technical stuff that we both like to do, there's nothing better than color coding an Excel spreadsheet for me some days. One of the things I value the most is learning and generosity. And I get to bring both of those things to the table now.
Michael: So what advice would you give younger, newer advisors thinking about a whole career in front of them that, maybe now or in the future, involves building their own personal brand?
Sheri: I love having these conversations because I love, one, deeply this world of financial services and the opportunity that it provides people. I mean, my life has been changed by working in this environment. And so, there's an organization that always has a cohort of college students that join them at all of their conferences. And I find myself migrating to the college students at the dinners just to sit there to be that chrome, wisdom-bringer. And I usually put this question in most every one of my personal branding presentations. What would working on your personal brand have an impact on for you as an individual, for your firm? Why would focusing on your personal brand benefit you, your firm, our industry, and the world? By focusing on who you serve and how you serve them and being all that you are and all that you believe into all that you do, why would working on that benefit you, your firm, our industry, and the world?
Michael: It's a heavy conversation.
Sheri: Yeah. And it's a skill set that I'm studying called appreciative inquiry, and it's really cool. And it gets people out of their head and deeply into their heart center. And what's amazing is the answers that come back is by being fully who I am, I'll be able to give permission to others to be fully who they are. That is pretty much it. And so, when I'm talking to the younger generation, what I really try to have a conversation about is, what matters to you right now? Where's the purpose? You came to this industry, you're interested in it. Tell me more about that. And I just start to ask those why, why, why questions to get to...chances are they had a grandma that had three jars on the counter, or maybe they knew somebody that had to work into their late seventies, who knows, but chances are there's some kind of story about money or investing or availability or freedom or something like that that brought them to our industry. And then I just try to pull on that thread a little bit and do what I can to help surface purpose.
What Success Means To Sheri [1:25:08]
Michael: Okay. So, in that vein, this is a podcast about success, and one of the themes that always comes up is that word success means different things to different people. It can evolve for us through seasons of life and evolution of career. And so now you're on this wonderfully successful path and building out SWAY and this, I guess, you're on your third or fourth iteration of career things. You've had a lot of business successes over the years. How do you define success for yourself personally at this point?
Sheri: I wrote a blog post about this, too. I said to myself...I said out loud to somebody, I can't remember who it was, that I didn't do a very good job of selling in the fourth quarter this past year because I was spending too much time with Seylah. And then I went... So Seylah is my granddaughter and she's two and a half now, and she's a miracle that she's alive. There's just a story behind that of recovery and tenacity and courage that is just beautiful, about my son and the journey that he's been on. And to be able to hold her in my arms, Michael, it's like one of those wishes that I never ever allowed myself. And then I went, "Hang on a second. I'll do that every day." So I feel like success, for me, to the question that I asked was, does it bring you joy? I guess that's how I would define it is that, does it align with my values? Does it bring me joy? Can I still get up with the sunrise every morning and walk? Come on, the entrepreneurial journey from a financial perspective has not always been easy. And that's just what it is for me. I was a sandwich generation, taking care of my parents and my kid, and all of those kind of things. And I feel super grateful that I have time to walk every day. That, to me, says success, that I get to move my body every day, that I get to see my granddaughter, that I get to elevate the voices of different, creative, geeky, beautiful people in this industry. It has been so much fun for me to see them taking the stage and having success. I suppose those are the things. It meets my values, it lets me learn, it gives me freedom. Those are the things that I count in the success bucket.
Michael: I love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Sheri, for joining us on the "Financial Advisor Success" podcast.
