You're listening to Financial Advisor Marketing, the best show on the planet for financial advisers who want to get more clients without all the stress. You're about to get the real scoop on everything from lead generation to closing the deal. James is the founder of TheAdvisorCoach.com, where you can find an entire suite of products designed to help financial advisers grow their businesses more rapidly than ever before. Now, here is your host, James Pollard. [00:31.7]
James: What’s going on financial advisors? You've probably already read the title of this episode. It's Small-Thinking Financial Advisors Will HATE This Episode. And it's true because I'm going to talk about some things that are relatively abstract and require some critical thinking in order to understand. So, if you're the type of person who never gets brain freeze well, because you don't have a brain, then please turn off this episode and come back next week you hear. But if you're an intellectual who knows that success relies on more than just a little tactical things, I think you're going to find this useful. This episode is going to be a conglomeration of a few stories and or strategies. I don't really know yet because I haven't talked about them yet for helping you think differently because your results come from your behavior and your behavior comes from your thoughts. [01:26.1]
There have been some times where I've worked with advisors and I've told them exactly what to do while I was working with them. And they got incredible results. It's me either standing over their shoulder or they have a zoom call with me and they share the screen. I literally just tell them, do this not that. Change this button, do this thing, change the settings here, that sort of thing. And they get incredible results. And then it was awesome, we had a great time. We high five, everything's cool. But as soon as I leave, they fall back into their old patterns and habits. WHY? It was because they didn't change their underlying thoughts. And since they thought of themselves, as people who operated a certain way, that's what they did. And I am kind of sort of tell when people change the thoughts and something clicks and they changed or a different person, and the minute someone becomes a different person. I know that person is on the right track as far as being a different person as a successful person. [02:20.5]
And maybe I'm too much of an optimist, but I genuinely believe that deep down, most of us want to do better. We want better things to happen in our lives. And when you view the world from that premise, you start wondering why only a select few people get the results they want, especially when you begin seeing people with the same opportunities in front of them. You can have two financial advisors in the exact same city with the exact same niche, with the exact same amount of experience, and one will likely do better than the other. I've been racking my brain for answers on why for years. And I do have ‘How successful financial advisors think?’ if you see that, then make sure you get that. I'm not really going to plug it in this episode. [03:07.1]
Of course, the superficial answer is that they did different things. Their behaviors were different. And yes, that makes sense. If you go to the gym and workout and I sit at home and eat Cheetos, we are going to get different results because our behaviors are different. If you're a financial advisor who goes out and talks to 100 prospective clients every single week, and I just hem and haw about and call the reluctance and prospecting reluctance, I don't really want to do anything and I'm just, I don't do anything, my behavior is non-existent then yes, we are going to get different results. Yet, remember, what is the source of the behavior? It's our thoughts. Now, I'm going to assume here that the majority of my audience doesn't smoke cigarettes. If you do just substitute something you don't do for cigarettes in this example. So here we go. Here's the example I have for you. [03:60.0]
You are probably not going to go out to the store today and buy a pack, a pack of Newport’s and start lightening up. Why not? Because you are a non-smoker. Think about that. You view yourself as a non-smoker, that is your identity, your thoughts form around this identity and the smoking behavior runs counter to what you think and believe about yourself as a non-smoker. Now here's where it gets trippy. If someone like me came up to you and began telling you that smoking two packs of cigarettes a day was the secret to health, wealth, and happiness, you would probably be skeptical and uncomfortable. Even if I provided you with proof, proof and more proof, tons of evidence, supporting materials and sworn statements from people, just like you, who experienced positive change from smoking, you would probably still resist the idea. [04:54.4]
And the reason I'm using cigarettes as an example is because I remember reading a fascinating article several years ago, and I wish I could remember the title because I would give it to you. But I just can't. It was about how smokers had trouble quitting because smoking was a part of their identity. The key to quitting smoking is to view yourself truly and honestly, as a non-smoker. You are quite literally changing how you view yourself. And when you change, how you view yourself, your behaviors, they aligned with that. It's really, I don't want to say it's that simple because it's not exactly simple, but it's what happens. Also, in many types of addictions, there are triggers found in the environment. If a smoker goes to a particular spot, he or she will begin craving a cigarette. If every single morning, they get up and they go outside on front porch and they just light it up, right? [05:48.0]
Isn't that interesting, but it makes perfect sense. It's like positive reinforcement. You ring the bell and the rat wants the cheese. It happens to all of us. The questions you need to answer for yourself are what is your bell? And what is your cheese? And the beautiful part of life is that you get to design these. It is not easy. It takes time, but you call the shots. You are the boss. You get to craft your environment, to have the triggers, that shape your thoughts, that shape your behaviors, that shape your results, fascinating stuff. Remember your results, come from your behaviors, which come from your thoughts. So, your results come from your thoughts. This is just simple logic. [06:29.1]
One of the wealthiest people I know has clocks all around his office. He's got the Old Felix, the cat clock with the eyes to go back and forth and the tail that swings. He's got the Mickey mouse clock. He's got some old watches hanging up on the wall and so on. His office is it's this huge basement that has several rooms and I think one or two conference rooms, I can't remember. And you can't go anywhere without having a view of at least one clock. And his explanation for doing this is that he never wants to be anywhere in his work environment without having a reminder that time is slipping away. And I think that's brilliant. He is keeping the rails up on his mind. He won't let himself slip into thinking that his time is so abundant that he can waste it. That's why he's so efficient and yes, wealthy. [07:14.2]
Hey, financial advisors – if you’d like even more help building your business, I invite you to subscribe to James’ monthly paper-and-ink newsletter, The James Pollard Inner Circle.
When you join today, you’ll get more than one thousand dollars’ worth of bonuses, including exclusive interviews that aren’t available anywhere else.
Head on over to TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching to learn more. [07:36.7]
Have you ever gone bowling with a small child? Maybe you don't, maybe it's not a small child, maybe you use these, the bumpers, the bumper reels that come up so you cannot get a gutter ball. This is what's happening in his mind. He's got the bumpers up. It is quite literally impossible for him now because it's part of his identity and because he has these triggers in his environment, supporting that positive identity, he can never get that figurative, the gutter ball because of those bumpers. He's given himself reminders for thinking differently. He wants to make sure he stays on the right track because he knows that if left to his own devices, without these bumpers, he may not make the most efficient decisions. And small thinkers will hear that and they'll think to themselves, well, I don't need all that. That's overkill. I don't need all those clocks. Well, isn't that strange too? Isn't it weird that the person with $400 in his bank account will criticize the person worth $400 million because of, again, his thoughts, his beliefs, you've got somebody worth $400? They'll be like, oh, we've got, that's just stupid. I don't need all that. That's just goofy. Why would anyone do all that? Why would someone put in that much effort he's worth $100 million? You're worth $400. I know that seems harsh. I know. Seems like I can't even say arrogant because it's not even me, but it just, it is what it is. He's thinking differently. [09:01.9]
And of course, a lot of this stuff is going to sound weird to people because according to a survey from bankrate.com, a whopping 61% of Americans can't come up with $1,000 to cover an emergency expense. If you walk down the street in any major city in the United States, Boston, Chicago, LA Atlanta, doesn't matter if you walk down the street and pass 100 people, 61 one of them will be broke and more of them will be close to broke. And it also means that being broke is the majority. It is the most popular option. Our culture, the American culture is built around, broke people. And one of the reasons I'm not particularly active on Twitter is because Twitter allows people to retweet and push other people's tweets into my feed. So, if I follow someone and that person follows another person, that person retweets, that person's content, I don't really want to see that. I don't need that in my life because I don't want to be influenced by what the majority is doing. [10:03.2]
I do have a Facebook account and I follow maybe 200 people. I'm not one of those people who maxes out their friends list with 5,000 friends on Facebook, that you have no idea who these people are. I specifically, and intentionally only follow people on Facebook and all of them are winners. 100% verified I can prove it to you, winners. They've got the receipts to prove it. I get on Facebook maybe once every two or three days. And I'm just blown away with what these people are doing. And on Facebook, they can't retweet. Yes, they can share other people's content, but it's very rare. I go in, I just see what these people are doing. I see how they're operating in their business. I see who they're hiring, why they're hiring these people, the moves they're making the mistakes they're avoiding. And I am just blown away. [10:46.3]
Now I guarantee if I got on Twitter and I started reading what the majority of people think and say, I would begin thinking differently. It would influence me. I cannot put myself in that environment to be around the “normal” people. Normal is broke, normal is doing nothing with your life. Normal is getting no results. Normal is just going to the grief with the music still inside you. And I do not want that. I don't need it. And I hope you're picking up the lessons from this cast because it is a heavy topic. I know it's a lot to absorb at once, but if I can get the gears spinning in your head, I know I can get you on the right path to changing your life. And I've talked about this concept in detail in inner circle newsletter issue. So, I don't want to give anything specific away, but I want you to get the message that you will never be more than average if you live and die, by what average people do. It cannot happen. [11:41.7]
And as far as the financial advisor marketing part of the show, let's talk about something. If you have 100 financial advisors and they all have access to the same marketing tools, how come some will get different results. Again, it's their thoughts. It all starts there. It's how they think about using the tools. And I want you to be very careful about these two things. First, I want you to be careful about using tools that try to eliminate that they are thinking for you. I know it's attractive. I know everybody wants the easy button. It's a great selling proposition where you just put something in front of them and you say, Hey, just press this easy button and everything's going to be done for you. You pull up the mobile app, you click a few buttons and boom, your marketing is done. You'll be a superstar. I know that's attractive. I am a, I am a marketer myself. Okay. I know how to sell these things. I know how to get this in front of people, but I'm telling you right here right now that that is not the answer. That is not the right way to move because most people are going to be attracted to that. And when you go back and you realize that most people are broke, 61% of Americans can't even come up with a thousand dollars to cover an emergency. Really ask yourself if you want to be that. So, and plus, if people will do the thinking for you, you are not in the driver's seat. I'm just saying, it's not exactly a recipe for success. [12:59.6]
Second, I want you to be careful of using these tools the same way that everyone else does. That is the underlying message of this. I'm trying to get this to you because if everybody has access and they all use the tools the same way you were guaranteed to get the same results. For example, my email marketing campaigns are way different from what most people do when it comes to email. And guess what? My results are way better than most people's. A recent inner circle newsletter bonus was about hiring virtual assistants. There was the bonus for the August, 2021 newsletter issue. And it's gotten some amazing feedback this far. The way I screen for and hire virtual assistants is way different than how most people do it. This means I hire way better people because my process is different. And my process is different because my behaviors are different and my behaviors are different because my thoughts are different. [13:53.7]
If you can take that idea and methodically implement it within your life and within your business, it will be hard not to get better results. So that is it for the show. I know this was a short episode, but it's, it's a lot to take away. I don't want to keep going and try to hammer the same thing over and over in different ways. If you're not an inner circle member, you are missing out. Head over to TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching to subscribe. I'll catch you next week. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you. [14:19.8]
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