Will McKenna: Hello and welcome to the PracticeLab Webinar series. I'm your host, Will McKenna. I want to thank you all for joining us today. Great to be with you. Very excited for our topic today, which is Traits of Top Advisors in 2024. And in the next hour, we're going to focus in on three key areas: how top advisors are acquiring new clients, and then the services that they offer that differentiate their practice, and finally the way they run their business to make it even more productive. We got four great speakers here to help break it all down. We got a pretty full house today. But before I introduce these folks, let me cover just a couple of housekeeping details. If you look in the additional resources section of your webinar player, you're going to find everything you need for today's event, including the slides, CE credit quiz. You'll also find some helpful PracticeLab resources.

Maybe go ahead and open those so you have them available. And of course you'll also see a Q&A or comment box there. We love getting your questions and comments, so keep 'em coming. We'll try to answer as many as we can during the event. And if you do end up with any tech problems, just let us know in that same Q&A window and we'll help solve it for you. So with that, let me introduce our speakers today. Mike Van Wyk is a director of Customer Research and Insights at Capital Group. He has 26 years’ experience, has been with Capital for eight years. Prior to that, Mike was director of Global Strategy development Advanced Research Methods and Behavioral Science at Procter & Gamble, who's has a lot of expertise, of course, at market research. He got his doctorate from Temple University and MBA from University of Texas in Austin, and a bachelor's from Michigan State. And Mike is based here in Los Angeles.

Leslie Geller is a wealth strategist at Capital Group. She has 17 years’ industry experience, been with Capital for the last five years. Prior to joining Capital, Leslie was a partner at an LA law firm, LA Law, great show from back in the day, where she advised high net worth clients on taxation, wealth transfer and family governance. She got her master's in taxation from NYU Law School, law degree from Boston College and her bachelor's from Washington and Lee University. She too is based here in Los Angeles. I only have one degree, so I'm feeling a little underprepared for this. But let’s say we're super excited, very excited to welcome two partners and veteran advisors with the Sedoric Group. And they're calling in from their base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Tom Sedoric is the founder of Sedoric Group. Tom started his career back in 1984 at A.G. Edwards, a name that probably rings a bell with many of you.

While he was there, he helped that firm to launch its first advisory program, which they named the Sedoric Advisory Program. Sedoric is now at Raymond James, and they serve about 230 households and with $560 million in assets under management. In addition to his advisory work, Tom is very active in New Hampshire with the Department of Resources and Economic Development and Bureau of Securities Regulation. And Tom was recognized by Forbes SHOOK as Best in State in 2018, 2021, '22, and '23. Casey Snyder is his partner and managing director at the Sedoric Group. He's been a financial advisor since 2008, and he joined Sedoric in 2015. Casey is a certified financial planner. He too has received multiple recognitions for his work. In 2019, he was featured on the Forbes SHOOK Next-Gen Best in State list. 2020, he was named to Investment News 40 under 40 list. And in 2023, like Tom, he was named to the Forbes SHOOK Best in State list.

Now as we get started, interesting little fact about both Tom and Casey. They both attended University of Vermont, UVM and have educational backgrounds in psychology. So is that a coincidence, or maybe that's a trait of top advisors? Stay tuned and you'll find out. And now, one last thing before we jump in. You in the audience might be wondering, well, how do we know what the traits of top advisors are? Well, let me give you three reasons. The first is that our sales teams, our wealth management consultants, met with more than 80,000 advisors across the country last year and the year before and the year before, and the year before. The second is that our practice management consultants worked with more than 20,000 advisors last year and in prior years.

So we've seen firsthand what the traits of top advisors look like across the country. And the third reason is that for the past several years, Mike Van Wyk and his team have been conducting an annual research study of advisors called Pathways to Growth. And we've had more than 3,000 advisors complete that survey, which gives us a very significant sample size to understand what it is that high growth advisors are doing to be successful. And so, Mike, that's a great transition for us to start with you. I would love to hear your key takeaways from that study and what it reveals about top advisor traits.

Mike Van Wyk: Great, thank you both for that great introduction. And as you mentioned, we have been studying high-growth advisors for a number of years now. And in fact, as you mentioned, we've studied this with over 3,000 advisors over the past few years. And what we're seeing is high-growth advisors are definitely different. And a great place to start is to look at how they're different in terms of the way that they're spending their time. So we measured time spent and categorized it into three categories. The first is client management, and that's everything from prospecting to the way that you service and interact with your clients, investment management and then business management. And what you see within these three circles is the time spent for high-growth advisors in those three areas, about half of time for high-growth advisors is spent on client management, about a quarter on investment management, and the rest of the time, about 20%, is spent on managing the business.

Now what's interesting is when you look at that as compared to the average advisor, and that's what's called out in the strip below those circles, and you see it's very different for high-growth advisors relative to the average advisor. High-growth advisors spend more time on client management. They actually have more meetings with their clients, and they also spend more time prospecting, which is a key thing that drives their growth. If you look over to the right, you see they also spend a lot more time managing their business. They ensure that they're dedicating sufficient time to team management, and they spend the time necessary to make sure that that business is operating effectively. Now, of course, if you're spending more time in those two areas, you have to find time from somewhere.

And what high-growth advisors do is they spend less time on investment management activities. And one of the ways that they're able to do that is they actually use model portfolios as a way to drive efficiency within their practice. Now, if we go to the next slide, we can go just a little bit deeper in terms of some other things that make high-growth advisors different than the average advisor. What we see is they actually serve a wider range of clients, and they're just more diverse in terms of their client base, including age. One of the reasons that shows up is because they tend to work across families and generations and have that built into their client base. Another thing is they offer a broader range of services to their clients, and they do that for a couple of reasons. That broader range of services often includes those services that appeal to high net worth clients.

In addition, that broader range of services, it allows them to personalize what they're offering to their client base in a way that really drives loyalty and drives additional referrals. As I've already mentioned, model portfolios are key. We see that high-growth advisors are very likely to use model portfolios, and then team management is another thing that differentiates them. The amount of time and the amount of effort they place on that, and we see it has both an internal component and an external component. The internal component is spending the right amount of time creating a well-functioning team. It just makes for a practice that people want to join and want to work as part of. And then it also plays out in the type of experience that they're able to deliver for their clients. So well, we see very strong differences between high-growth advisors and the average, and that gives you a little bit of a look at what we've learned in our research.

Will McKenna: Such a great overview, and we're going to dig into all those areas. Very interesting to hear about the difference in time spent on client management, investment management, business management, and how that frees folks up to get after what's most important. Well, Tom, you know, I read your bio earlier, but I'd love to have you paint a picture of Sedoric Group in a little more detail, and maybe what makes your practice unique in the markets that you serve.

Tom Sedoric: I'm happy to, and I'm really grateful for the opportunity to speak with you all and our peers today. Just a quick comment about PracticeLab and what Capital's done. This is a game-changer for a lot of people. Been a game-changer for us. I'm almost 40 years in the business, and I find that I'm always learning from what you've done. I think this kind of evolved out of the pandemic, but it's an incredibly valuable tool for all of us. So thank you for what you do. Our practice is made up of primarily well-educated, successful individuals that recognize that they can't do it themselves. They know they're smart, they've been, may been successful in medicine or running a business or whatever, but they want a partner and a trusted partner that they can rely on for whatever life's going to toss at them. And that's what we do. So we've evolved the practice.

I started out with, I hate to say it, Washington Mutual with an 8. 5% load at the time, and now it's all advisory ‘40 Act accounts, which is what it should be, by the way. And our clients are very, very sticky, because of the services we've evolved to provide over time.

Will McKenna: That's fantastic. I know we're going to dig into those services, but Casey, let me bring you into the conversation and hear from you. Take, maybe take it a step further. You know, let's get your view on what's distinctive about the practice and the role that you play there.

Casey Snyder: Sure. And just to start off, thank you very much Will, Mike and Leslie, you know, for all that you do for our clients and the way that you uphold the integrity of our profession. So your firm has changed a lot of lives for the better, but I think what we're excited about here as we look ahead from a client-facing perspective, we've spent a lot of time over the last eight or 10 years focused on deepening our service model in a way that aims to assist clients with anything that may impact their balance sheet, whether it be housing transitions, second homes, career changes, et cetera. And in many respects, this has helped them break their dependency on markets, meaning that they're able to be on track for their respective goals, even when markets or life events may work against us, which certainly happens.

And this has freed up our capacity to help clients with more complex initiatives like tax efficiency and tax strategies, multigenerational engagement, charitable giving, I think subjects that we're going to go into more detail on. And even subjects that extend beyond the balance sheet that impact, you know, overall success and fulfillment. And it's really exciting to us. It's a lot of fun. And then something that you just touched on, Mike, you know, also internally we're really enjoying the strategic planning of our practice as we think about how we aim to help clients 10 years from now and the ongoing development of team members and really helping them reach their potential. So, you know, I think in summary, we're really excited about what's to come regardless of what markets may throw at us.

Will McKenna: That's great too and I wrote down a couple of things. Breaking, break the dependency on markets, which is a great concept there, and going beyond the balance sheet. And then Leslie, I think he's singing your tune around tax planning and multigenerational work where you do the bulk of your focus. But I know you meet with a lot of advisors out there. You see a lot of high-achieving advisors in your travels as a wealth specialist. Give us your views on what makes them successful in today's world.

Leslie Geller: Yeah, so I think my answer is going to rhyme pretty perfectly with what everybody else just shared. So I think there are four things that come up repeatedly and, you know, Mike mentioned on that second slide how these top advisors serve a more diverse group of clients. But one area where I think there's less diversity is around net worth. I think there is a drive-up market because it's just more efficient from a time perspective. With the move to advisory, with the focus on planning, clients take up a lot of time and resources, and you just get more bang for your buck from a time perspective, from a quality of referral perspective, if you are working with a high net worth client. Second is around planning. We all know financial planning and general planning has become a huge part of a financial advisor's job, but how that advisor defines financial planning really depends on where that advisor sits in that pecking order.

And top advisors do a few things with financial planning. So I think, again, this rhymes with what Tom and Casey were saying. They define it very broadly. It's not just about retirement anymore and paying for college. It's about all of the things that could possibly be encompassed or influence a client's balance sheet. So everything from employee stock benefits, career changes, charitable giving, all of those things there's a very expansive definition of financial planning. It's also not about the static plan anymore. It's not about sitting down with your client, printing out a financial plan, showing them the two summary pages. It's about ongoing planning. So continuous touches. It's not about that one static plan anymore. And again, that speaks to the resources required here. It's also very client-driven. There's no set timeline.

Leslie Geller: These top advisers are really using the client and their goals as the center of the financial planning process. So it's very client-driven and responsive to their individual situations and circumstances.

So third, I think what I see is that these top advisors have a very broad knowledge that's pretty shallow. And I'm speaking around financial planning in particular and tax sub-matters. They know a little about a lot, so they can be excellent issue-spotters, right?

So they can look at a client's balance sheet situation, family dynamics and know where to prod a little more, where to ask questions, where to bring in different experts. So they're great issue-spotters. And then finally, and this is a great piggyback to what Mike was saying, they don't work with the client. They work with the client's family. And with the big wealth transition coming down the line, with the connection to estate planning, with the need for connections to COIs, working with the client's whole family, whether that's the spouse, whether that's children, grandchildren, it really helps that advisor keep those assets sticky across transitions.

Will McKenna: That's great. So we'll, I know we'll come back to a number of those topics. But just to kind of summarize, you see folks driving up market for all the reasons you stated. And I think we'll probably share some ideas for how to do that. We talked about defining planning much more broadly, and the fact that it's not about a plan. It's about planning, ongoing planning. We also said that, you know,  it's being,  you have enough knowledge about many things, but you don't go deep on anything. So probably playing that kind of quarterback role. But I love your phrase issue-spotters. And maybe we'll go a little deeper on how you, how the folks in the audience can do that well.

And, finally, the client from to with clients is going from a client to more of a household and multigenerational setup. Hey, great start, guys. Thank you. And what I'd like to do now, we love getting you and the audience involved. We're going to have a little interactivity, because now, we're going to dig into our first kind of main topic area, which is client acquisition. And as we do that, I'd love to hear from those of you in the audience: What is your number-one challenge when it comes to client acquisition? If you can put some ideas and your thoughts in the comment box, would love that, and we'll kind of feed those in as we get going.

But, Mike, you know, you touched on this briefly in your intro. But take us a little deeper into client acquisition. What are the issues there that the top folks are doing?

Mike Van Wyk: Yeah. So what we see is for the top advisers, they are just so intentional about the way they approach client acquisition. And it pays off for them. We see that for high-growth advisers in 2022. Actually, almost two-thirds of their asset growth came from new clients, the balance of it from market appreciation or additional asset from existing clients. That's 50% more than the average advisor. So this intentional focus on bringing in new clients, it pays exceptional dividends for them. One of the ways they do that is they're consistent with their marketing spend. They spend more than the average advisor, actually three times more. And it's not just that a snapshot of one year. That's what they do consistently over time. We've had the blessing of studying high-growth advisers now through different market circumstances and different types of disruptions.

And so because we started this a while ago, we started before COVID. And then COVID hit, and there was this kind of social disruption that impacted sometimes the way you could meet with your clients. And then, of course, we've had market disruptions. And we've seen that high-growth advisors, they continue to spend in marketing, spend in acquisition strategies. They continue to focus on bringing in new clients. And they stay on message throughout those different types of disruptions that they face. As a way of showing how intentional they are, we took a look at how much they standardize different sets of activities. And we see they're two times as likely to have a standard operating procedure for prospecting in place. So a core theme there is they're very intentional in the way that they approach it. And they definitely see a payoff in terms of the type of growth that they achieve.

Will McKenna: That's fantastic. An interesting angle on the COVID, post-COVID, consistency there. And let me just read out. Thank you for these good comments in the comment boxes here. Here's Cindy's,  Cindy from LPL. Her comment is having capacity to onboard new clients, so that catch 22. I just don't have the time to get after it. Maybe, the model's conversation will be about that. Joe's asking, "Where is that marketing span, social media, client events?" We got a lot of that stuff on PracticeLab, Joe. What else did folks say? Meeting an ideal client. From Paul, says, meeting an ideal client, exclamation point. And Fabian says, "Weeding out the time-wasters." So a lot of consistency in that. Thank you for those comments, and keep them coming. But, you know, Tom and Casey, would love to bring you in here. I know you all use a pretty intentional approach to this. You, you get, you have the luxury of getting a lot of good referrals, given your experience. But also, you're quite intentional about how you seek out growth. But maybe, Tom, why don't you start talking about client acquisition? Then, Casey, I want to come to you as well.

Tom Sedoric: Sure. And thank you. And I certainly empathize with the comments from the woman from LPL. In the early days, I had no client acquisition strategy. And it was, it was kind of take what you can get, and God help us, if you know what you're doing. As time moved on and as markets developed and as our relationships with our clients developed, we became much more intentional about who we work with and how we work with them, and how they get in the door, because as we all know, I think they're going to be constraints on our time going forward that are going to be quite marked, which is why models can help, by the way.

But in the early days, it was, you know, referrals from accountants, attorneys, et cetera, existing clients. What happened, interestingly enough, is I was not known as the flashy go-go kind of advisor in the '80s and '90s. And as a result, when the dot-com bubble popped, and Igive some credit to Capital for this too, because we, I won't say we avoided being hurt, but we were hurt very little. And as a result, the floodgates kind of opened. And all of a sudden, huge numbers of people were seeking our services. And I quite frankly couldn't handle them.

So we had to become much more deliberate. We had to define exactly who our client was. There was a gentleman at A.G. Edwards named John Hagedorn who set me on the right path at a very early age about define your client, and don't waste your time on people that are never going to be or aren't going to fit the model. And in recent years, it's become much more planning based. And quite frankly, we won't, I don't think we've taken on a client in the last five years that hasn't agreed to understand the importance of the planning phase, because we now have two CFPs on our team. And that's been a real game-changer as well.

Will McKenna: OK. That's great context and becoming more intentional about ideal clients. Maybe, Casey, take us a step further. What are the activities? I know you're close to the marketing program you guys are running. You're doing cool things on your website that I've seen. But how are you thinking about client acquisition and using some of those tools, be they marketing or other?

Casey Snyder: Yeah. So I think, you know, to start, I don't like to think of it as a marketing strategy, rather our efforts, I think, are meant to be more of a communication strategy. And I think the distinction is important, because marketing strategy tends to be more about sales or client acquisition versus a communication strategy, which I believe is aimed to better educate and inform. And by way of our various methods of communication, our goal is really to create greater transparency into our process, the members of our team, and really share our perspectives.

And, look, by no means are (laughs) we the declared experts on this. I think it's been a process, and we continue to learn as we go. But, you know, we know that clients of all ages digest content in different ways. So we aim to communicate through a variety of mediums with our website sort of acting as the hub. And the goal is to communicate a consistent message that reflects different aspects of our process and the values of our team. So, you know that whether someone digests content on Facebook or turns... tunes into a webinar or a conference call or reads an email update, the message is consistent in a way that we're furthering their knowledge base. And about, I'd say about a year and a half ago, we created a new webinar series titled Beyond Your Balance Sheet, with the goal of addressing various subjects beyond one's balance sheet, that from our perspective either directly or indirectly impact, call it, one's happiness factor or overall well-being. We've covered subjects like mental health, encore careers, financial literacy.

There's a list of episodes within our site, but, and we spend so much time professionally focused on the balance sheet. Yet, we all know that true success and happiness depends on so much more. So we tried to do something-

Will McKenna: Right.

Casey Snyder: ... about it, you know. And I think to wrap up here sort of candidly, I think one of the reasons we're comfortable trying different things is that our goal has never been client acquisition. Rather, it's if we're successful with effectively communicating with our client base and providing value within the community large, people will feel comfortable and confident referring loved ones and friends. And even then, we're very intentional with the growth of our practice, with a self-imposed new client limit of six to eight new relationships per year. And I think that speaks to one of the comments that was made about one of the challenges of client acquisition, is that it's time-consuming, takes a lot of work. So we're very thoughtful and intentional with how we do it, who we do it with, and have a pretty detailed introductory prospective client process.

Will McKenna: That's fantastic. And Benjamin, another comment in here, "How do you find a consistent source of ideal prospect?" So there's a lot of that focus, and you guys seem to have gotten very intentional about that. I don't love the idea that you're competing with these webinars with your own series, Beyond Your Balance Sheet. So Casey, let's just say, "Game on." And we'll get into a little bit more detail on these things. But, Leslie, you know, one of the proven strategies of doing, of attracting clients is having a good center of influence strategy. You were a center of influence as a tax and estate planning lawyer. Maybe you can give our audience some guidance on what they can do to gain more referrals and business from COIs like you.

Leslie Geller: Yeah. So this is the question I get most aside from: Are the temporary provisions of the Tax Cuts and JOBS Act going to sunset (laughing) in 2025, right? Again, that's the question I get the most. Second question is around the COI referrals. And usually, it's an expression of frustration that the advisor is sending clients to tax professionals, CPAs, and tax and estate planning attorneys. But they're not consistently getting referrals back. I think there's a lot of reasons for that.

I know that when I was a lawyer, myself and my partners, our concern was around liability, both as a fiduciary to the client and from a business perspective. Recommending someone to manage your client's money is a business risk, no matter how great they are. That being said though, I had financial advisers that I loved working with and that I really wanted to continue working with, with other clients.

And so the way I would refer them out is I would do it very, in a very, very specific way. So I would say, and I would key my referral to the experience I had with that advisor, not around their investment performance or prowess. And I would be very clear both to the client and the adviser that I was referring the financial adviser based on the experience I had had with them in jointly working on another client, right? They had made my life easier. They had made the final product and the process better for both myself and the client, whether it was around estate planning, gifting, a corporate transaction, whatever it was.

So if there's one recommendation from my perspective that advisor walk away with, it's if you want referrals from COIs, make their lives easier, right? And it doesn't have to be hard. Do the little things that fall through the cracks, the funding of trusts, making sure things are signed, making sure clients are actually reviewing drafts and getting comments back, being kind of that go-between the client and the COI.

I also suggest that advisors think of the COI referral not as a direct one but one that comes through the client, right? So if you're working with an estate planning attorney on a joint client, and that client has a phenomenal experience with both of you, right, they are more likely to recommend both you and that estate planning attorney to their friend, to their partner, to their family member. So it becomes kind of this team effort and team referral. The referral is not coming directly from the estate planning attorney. But the estate planning attorney's work is definitely playing into you getting that referral from the client.

Will McKenna: That's great. So the team referral concept-

Leslie Geller: Yeah.

Will McKenna: ... is very interesting. And also, that frustration that, "Hey, this is a one-way street. How come I'm not getting them back?"  Maybe there's an element folks can use to arm those COIs with some of those talking points about really the service model-

Leslie Geller: Yes.

Will McKenna: ... that you described as opposed to the investment-

Leslie Geller: Yep.

Will McKenna: ... you know, returns or the investment promise. You know, I know Tom and Casey, I've heard you describe your services as what you call a virtual family office when it comes to that breadth of wealth planning services that we've been talking about. Casey, I might start with you here, maybe bring that to life. What do you mean by virtual family office? And maybe there's an example that you might want to share, and obviously, Tom, pipe in as well, but give us a sense of what you mean by that.

Casey Snyder: Yeah, so the virtual family office, I mean, essentially, we are facilitating in quarterbacking conversations between our clients and their team of professionals. You know, we often talk about how our clients may not be the Bill Gates and the Warren Buffets of the world, but they often require many of the same services that Buffett or Gates have within their family office. So everyone needs tax planning, everyone needs estate planning. There's oftentimes charitable strategies involved and such. And so, what we find ourselves in this situation where we're facilitating, we're quarterbacking, we're relaying messages, into Leslie's point, we're trying to make this as seamless as possible for the COIs, for the other professionals, so that it's a very seamless and collaborative experience.

You know, Tom, I don't know if you want to chime in here with an example of a family within the last couple of years that really is, I think, the ideal situation of the virtual family office coming to light in a way that maybe we weren't expecting it to.

Tom Sedoric: Yeah. And thank you. I hope, if it's OK, I'm going to step in just briefly. Leslie, you're spot on about giving the COIs something to sink their teeth into, because that invariably is what's making their lives easier. We have one client, this was a relatively modest family. The woman, ironically, Leslie, was a paralegal for a very prominent estates of trust lawyer in the state, very modest relationship, not a whole lot going on. Husband had a pension, et cetera. So, and then all of a sudden, pennies from heaven landed, and there was over a $30 million windfall from a family business that we knew she was a shareholder in, but really didn't appreciate the scope of her, you know, involvement in the company. And I, quite frankly, don't think she did. So all of a sudden, we put on our fire suits and went into battle, and you can imagine the number of things that came up because of this windfall to this family.

So there was estate planning, there's legal planning. We even consulted with their insurance advisor to make sure that an 80-year-old driver had an adequate umbrella coverage to make sure that if one of the parties got in an accident, that this windfall would not be subject to litigation. I mean, there are all kinds of things that happened. And since that time, we've now got very involved with the estate attorney on legal matters to help the next generation, and quite frankly, even the generation following that. So it's amazing how it can develop. As much as we'd all like to think we're going up market, sometimes the up market exists in your book of business now, you just don't know when they're going to land and how they're going to evolve.

Casey Snyder: Yeah. Yeah. And Tom, if I can-

Will McKenna: Go ahead, Casey.

Casey Snyder: I mean, if I can chime back in, and it also, you know, now all of a sudden, what started with mom and dad has now evolved to we have relationships with each of the three daughters. You know, the meetings at first were mom and dad, the CPA, the attorney, the insurance agent. That morphed into meetings with mom and dad and the three daughters. Then that morphed into meetings with the three daughters and their spouses. And that morphed into each individual daughter and their spouse with the, with the now family accountant and attorney. And then over a couple of years, that morphs into a multigenerational, you know, family conversation. We actually hosted one over the fall where we had an exercise that we called hopes and fears, where we brought everyone around the table to write out and to share their top three hopes and top three fears as it relates to the family wealth.

Because what we knew, because we worked with each one of the families, is that they all had somewhat similar goals and concerns, but they were unaware of it because no one's ever really talked about it. So it was an exercise to make sure that everyone in the family felt heard, especially mom and dad, because they're not looking to control this from beyond the grave. And now we have this meeting to refer back to if or when any of the kids may begin to veer off track. So, virtual family office from top to bottom, it continues. And we're really excited about what we have ahead with the family over the next 10 years and to come.

Will McKenna: Wow, what a great example and story. I love that, hopes and fears events. And, you know, if you guys look on PracticeLab too, Leslie has a great body of work around how to hold a family wealth briefing, which this sounds like and kind of takes the temperature down from a family wealth meeting, which sounds rather stern, but to engage families in that smart way. Boy, that sounds like a good client acquisition strategy to me, Casey. Maybe through different words and techniques, but that's great to hear. So that's some wealth planning. Now we'd like to transition to our third area, which is really around business efficiency, productivity, how you're running your business to get more time to focus on the things that matter and also develop your team in a way that has a great impact in what you're able to do.

To start this, I want to ask another poll question. So, hey, don't be multitasking out there. I need you to focus in the audience. Ready? Give us your thoughts in the comment box. What's your number-one challenge when it comes to running your business more efficiently and increasing productivity? Let us know, and we'll pull those back in. Mike, back to you. And the survey says, what are top advisors doing in this area to make their business more effective?

Mike Van Wyk: Yeah, Will, we do see that high-growth advisors, they're consistently doing a series of things to make their businesses run more efficiently, to run more smoothly. And again, quoting data from the study that you've held up, the Pathways to Growth study. So a series of things that we see, what you see here in the light gray bars are what the average advisors do. The darker bars are what the high-growth advisors do, and it starts with business planning. And high-growth advisors are much more likely to say that they're expert in business planning and goal setting. Now, as you look at it, only 31% are saying that they're highly expert in this. And so, there's still some opportunity for them to improve it, or maybe they're being a little bit modest.

But the key thing there is to look at the gap. They're investing in building this expertise at a higher level than you see the average advisor. The next thing that's called out there, and we've referred to this a few times, they're much more likely to use model portfolios. Here you see the actual comparison to the average advisor where there's a distinct gap in terms of the percent of high-growth that are using model portfolios.

Will McKenna: Saves you time, right?

Mike Van Wyk: Saves you time, yeah.

Will McKenna: Yeah.

Mike Van Wyk: So there's a number of benefits really, but I think in the context of talking efficiency, it definitely saves you time. Then high-growth advisors are also using technology as a way to create efficiency, and they're really embracing all the different ways they can do so. And so, you see a few things here, the way they use CRM, distinctly higher rates of using CRM, and then financial planning software. And then the last thing that's called out here, and I feel I could change it from digital marketing, maybe digital communication based on Casey's points.

Will McKenna: Nice, yeah.

Mike Van Wyk: But we see that the expertise that high-growth advisors have in digital marketing slash communication is much, much higher than the average advisor. They use that to expand the ways that they can have reach to their client base, to reinforce their messages, to create that sense of connection. Much more expertise there that high-growth advisors demonstrate.

Will McKenna: That's great. And, you know, just reading through a few of the comments, thank you for this. Robert says, staff turnover. Keith says, hiring new associates. Rose, so many forms and paperwork. Nathan, so many emails to handle. Kalin, time. Jonathan, assimilate hiring and personnel management. Williams says, delegating. Cindy, finding competent staff. The ever-present regulations by FINRA. Brandon says, biggest challenge is managing team members’ roles and responsibilities. John, serving current clients while focusing on new clients. Theresa, need a better strategy for process. Many of the same things that you've heard here. One of you wrote in: Where's the comment box? Into the comment box. So, you found it.

You know, I think Casey and Tom, it'd be good to hear from you all. I know a couple of the elements of this part of the business, building an effective team. You know, Casey, I know you've been very involved in that. And then I also know succession planning is another topic that's important in this area, and you guys are going through one of those right now. So maybe Casey started on the team dynamics. How do you help develop a healthy and high-functioning team? And we hear so many questions about staff and personnel. And then, Tom, we'll come back to you to talk succession planning, but Casey, take it away.

Casey Snyder: All right. And I just want to piggyback on everything that Mike just shared and that we are engaged in everything that Mike just outlined in terms of business planning, you know, models, in terms of technologies planning, et cetera. So I think that, you know, Tom has always had a line, and I believe he borrowed it from one of his mentors, but hire great people, give them the tools they need to succeed and get out of their way. And he's done an excellent job creating a culture that supports ongoing development. And I think what we're trying to do is expand on this by aligning team members with their greatest strengths when it comes to serving our client base on a day-to-day basis, and their daily to-dos and their daily activities. You know, clients can feel it when someone is energized to serve them, versus when somebody is way outside their comfort zone doing something that may feel very unnatural.

So I think it's also incredibly time-consuming and exhausting for someone to be well outside their natural skillset. So to help with this, we've invested in personality and skill assessments like DiSC and ProfileXT. You know, we've sent various team members the Ritz-Carlton training, A Culture of Excellence, which reinforces the value and importance of culture setting, high standards and attention to details. I've had an executive coach for the past four-plus years now to support the accelerated development of leadership skills and improve my listening skills to help bridge the age gap within our team.

My coach is now working with another member of our team on her development, and we have another member of the team currently enrolled in Excel training. And as a team, we're actually in the process of planning a team outing in June to fine-tune our individual and collective presentation skills. So in essence, we're constantly encouraging everyone within our team to invest in themselves, both personally and professionally. And I think, you know, the two are so intertwined within our profession that ongoing development in general enhances our ability to serve and relate. And I think it was Leslie that mentioned, you know, the diverse and evolving client base.

I think one of the areas that we're still working on and coming back to, we're trying to reintegrate the social aspect. I think we were better at this before the pandemic and everyone's lives have evolved since in terms of children and travel. It's been a bit more challenging, but we certainly want to bring back kind of our social outings and social gatherings outside the office because of how much time and the commitment that we have towards our client base. Want to have some fun along the way too.

Will McKenna: Really interesting stuff there. I love the, you know, the Ritz-Carlton training sounds really neat, culture and I assume hospitality and, as you said, Casey, asking your teammates to invest in themselves, and you guys are making a big investment in this. Those things aren't inexpensive, I'm sure. You know, Tom, take us into the whole topic of succession planning. As I understand it, you and Casey are going through or have been going through this process as we speak. You know,  what are some of the lessons learned about succession planning that you might be able to share with our audience today?

Tom Sedoric: Absolutely. And Casey referenced my mentor who talked about hiring great people, giving them the tools. His name is Ro Pennington. He was a A.G. Edwards legendary manager. We had one of the most productive offices within the firm, thanks to him and his leadership, and he got out of our way. So  when it comes to succession planning, I've had a number of life events cast upon me, not my own health, but others, people that I care about, that very vividly reminded me of the importance of succession planning. And I would say that I think it's an obligation that we have whenever we're touching a dime of anybody's money,

Tom Sedoric: that we make sure that we have the necessary tools behind us that in the, in the event that I'm not able to serve my client, that somebody on the team can. And I've had some very close friends that were managing money and died suddenly and had nothing in place. So we actually talk about it openly with our clients, what we're doing, how we're doing it. And it gives them a great sense of comfort, gives them a great sense of continuity, makes them feel part of the team and feel very involved in why we're doing what we're doing, and they love it and they know it's an investment in them, quite frankly.

Casey Snyder: Yeah.

Will McKenna: That's fantastic. And yeah, go ahead, Casey, you were going to add.

Casey Snyder: Yeah, just to chime in, I think, you know, with Tom and I both having a background in social sciences, and especially psychology, I remember reading something a long time ago about how long it takes for someone to develop trust in someone new. And it can take upwards of six, seven, eight years, especially if your exposure to that someone is choppy, you know, there's an annual meeting this year, then there's a meeting that's six months later. So this is not an overnight process that comes together within a 12 to 18 months time span because you can put together some sort of business plan. This is about the people and the families you serve. And to do that, I think, effectively, and from my perspective and I think our perspective, the right way, it's with intent and it takes a long time. It takes six, seven, eight years of a client meeting someone new, getting to know them. And when the client starts asking personal questions about somebody else, you know that that trust has been created. Because they're genuinely interested, and that doesn't happen overnight. And so I think that's something that we've been very intentional about for the better part of the last 10 years and continue to do so.

Will McKenna: That's great. And, I mean, the couple things I took away from both of you is that this may be a much longer arc than people may have in mind of a two-year succession as I approach retirement, may be quite a bit longer than that, and that advanced planning is really important. And then the word that really struck me is obligation, that obligation to your clients to, you know, fill in that trust and that relationship. I got a comment here from Therese, thank you for this, "Last year, I updated my succession plan and merged my practice into a larger firm with better systems and support. Smartest business decision I've made in my 23-year history of owning a practice." Thank you for that great comment.

Well, what I might do now is cover a few quick things for you in the audience. And then we're going to round toward home and ask these folks to, you know, summarize some key takeaways for you. Let me do this, I want to leave you with maybe three or four asks or next steps, so that you can get started on your own pathway to growth. And the first one of those, this is probably not a surprise, is to download (laughs) this report. I know we have a link in the additional resources, but go ahead and add this, get a copy, maybe print it off, add it to your weekend reading pile, dig into it, spend some time with it, maybe better yet, connect with your Capital Group team to go into the points there.

The second one, the second ask, is really to consider if you're intrigued by this idea of comparing yourself to a national sample of advisors, including the highest growth advisors, all the stuff that Mike was sharing, the 3,000 interviews that we did, I know if it were me, I'd be really interested in seeing, hey, where do I stand compared to that group of advisors? We've got that for you. It's called Advisor Benchmark Service. You go onto the site, it takes a little bit of time, a 20-minute survey or so, but you end up getting a personalized report that shows you exactly where you stand on all the things we talked about today from client acquisition to the services you offer to your kind of business management. It might be a great first step to kind of see where you stand. And then I would add a second step there is, you know, your Capital Group team can really help you develop a plan to attack those areas that you want to improve upon. So very, very useful service there.

And then third, and this is the easy one, you know, you'll find all this on the PracticeLab site, but if you go there, I think you're going to find there's  a lot of useful content, other webinars that you can dig into. Both Mike, Leslie and other of our specialists are profiled there. We have profiles of other top advisors and folks like Tom and Casey. So that's kind of an easy one, and I would just maybe add a fourth step, which is we don't have that on a slide, but really, this could be the most important one, and that is to simply reach out to your Capital Group team. And I think you might be surprised how helpful they can be to you on all things related to practice management. Reach out to those folks and see how you might partner up to make 2024 as productive as it can be for you.

So with all that, what I might do is ask our esteemed panelists to kind of go around the horn and offer some summary thoughts and ideas, two or three key things that you want to leave with our audience today. And I'm going to maybe go in reverse order. Tom, let's start with you. What do you want to leave with this audience of fellow advisors today?

Tom Sedoric: That's a big ask, Will. I do want you to know, we're not competing with you, with PracticeLabs, our Beyond Your Balance Sheet is things that are beyond the balance sheet, and they are things like what's going on in families, et cetera. I would say that the, most the people on this call and most the people that you serve, Will, and Capital Group, are people that are doing God's work. They're helping families achieve goals, they're helping people get their dreams, they're making a big, big difference. And I think that often we're so busy with our heads down on our desks, you know, putting out fires or answering emails or whatever, that we don't quite appreciate how noble our role is for families.

And if you do your job right, you're going to end up with a whole lot of thank-you notes over your career. I'm celebrating my 40th year. I've got a stack of thank-you notes under my desk that you can barely lift. And I've got a wall in my office of all my mentors, all the people that got me where I'm at and contributed to my success. So if you're younger, or even if you're old and gray like me, don't hesitate to express gratitude and remember the people that put you where you are, and keep the notes from your clients 'cause they're going to come in very handy some day, 'cause they really do need you. That's all I got to say on that one.

Will McKenna: I love it. God's work, and it's a noble role. Casey, what about for you?

Casey Snyder: (laughs) So, I think from my perspective, three things. First, I'd celebrate the difference. Well, I say this with the idea of a high-functioning team. So celebrate the differences within your team, because from my perspective, you know, high-functioning teams consist of different personalities and backgrounds. And what makes each team member different is what provides the ability to better relate to a more diverse set of clients. And sometimes, especially within teams, differences can be judged rather than celebrated. And when they are celebrated, they create unique opportunities for learning and growth.

Second, and this is actually something I learned from Capital Group from my last visit a while back, but high trust, high speed, low cost. You know, team dynamics like this, again, high trust, high speed, low cost, allows for teams to be very intentional with their time and not waste time on the little things. And as Pathways to Growth has shown, you know, 30 extra minutes per week equates to value add for clients and growth of a practice over time. So really, there is no time to waste to a certain extent.

And then I think lastly, I'd say that quality of quantity when it comes to client development and client acquisition, because the quality of your client base impacts team members at every step of the process. You know, the wrong client can really undermine a lot of intentional work and energy and really hinders the team from being at their best every day.

Will McKenna: That's fantastic. High trust, high speed, low cost. Mike, over to you, your thoughts to summarize.

Mike Van Wyk: Sure. Well, I'm going to focus on just one thing, and I'm going to go back to what I started with, which is this concept of time. And actually, we heard it in the comments as well, people are struggling with how do they manage their time.

Will McKenna: It's that catch 22,-

Mike Van Wyk: That catch 22.

Will McKenna: ... I can't free up time to do the things that I need to, yeah.

Mike Van Wyk: And I'm actually going to add to your assignment, and I'm going to suggest to the audience that they, if they don't already know how they're spending their time, that they actually document that. When I meet with teams, when I meet in person with people and I share the data on how time is spent, I always pause and I ask people if they know how they personally are spending their time. And many of the advisors that I talk with, they actually don't know, and I think that's a big mistake. And so if you don't know how you're spending your time, and if you aren't certain that the way you're spending your time is aligned to your priorities, you need to fix that. And so, a way to do it, the end of each day, maybe pick a two-week period, and the end of each day during that two-week period, just put into categories what you spent your time on. And at the end of that period, look back at it, and again, see how that matches to the priorities that you hold, and make adjustments as necessary.

Will McKenna: That's great. And those, that time tracking to some extent is in your advisor benchmarks-

Mike Van Wyk: It is.

Will McKenna: ... study, right? Time is the key. And, Leslie, bring us home.

Leslie Geller: OK, so I'm going to stick to one as well, and I remind advisors of this all the time. There is so much value and currency, both for the client and the COIs, in being the client expert, right? So if you see your job as one thing, and I think this is kind of the scaffolding for everything, it's getting to know the client, their family and their goals, right? So take the time to really know your client. There is so much value there, because you become the keeper of information as it relates to COIs. You can help shepherd that transition of wealth across generations. And you can't do nearly as good of a job if you only scratch the surface when it comes to really knowing your client and their family.

Will McKenna: That's great. And does that relate back to, so before, we were saying when you work with COIs, you as an advisor may know a little about a lot, but the thing where you have expertise that no one else does is on the client themselves. So be that client expert and that'll lead to good things. And let me just note, for Tom and Casey, one of the comments from our audience, "Love these guys so much," three or four explanation points. So with that, really want to thank the audience for being with us today and your engagement. Really a fun and wonderful event. Hope it was for you. I want to thank our very special guests,  Tom and Casey, for coming on the show. Don't be surprised if you hear more from them on PracticeLab, whether that's in articles where we go deeper on some of these topics and get into some of the real mechanics of the how to work to get at some of these ideas. Thanks as well to Mike and Leslie, my friends here at Capital. I hope everybody in the audience found this as interesting and helpful as I did. And I want to thank you again, and say enjoy the rest of your day.