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: This is the fourth and final installment of the How to Think Better series, where I go over a bunch of ways to help you well, think better. Thinking is the greatest skill you will ever develop because it will help you rise above all the noise that's out there and come to your own conclusions based on evidence, it will help you become a better problem solver and it will help you avoid problems in the first place. One way to become a better thinker is to either change or expand your perspective. One of the biggest benefits you get from seeking a coach or a mentor or a consultant, and I'm not always 100% in support of getting a mentor. I'm not always 100% in support of getting a coach because there's a lot that can go wrong. But one of the benefits that come with that is getting a fresh pair of eyes on your business. I mean, have you ever taken a job and from day started noticing a bunch of stuff that people could do better it's because you had fresh eyes, you were the new perspective. [01:31.0]
Everyone else at the job had gone blind to the problems. Galileo once told a story, describing the limits of our perspective that I really love. I, I want you to imagine you're on a ship crossing the ocean and the ship is maintaining a constant speed and it's going in a straight line and we're gonna talk about that speed and velocity. You are on this ship and you're below the deck. You have no porthole, so you can't see anything except what is inside the ship. It's like, you're in a room with no windows. You drop a ball to the floor, to you from your perspective, it looks like the ball is dropping straight down. Now imagine you are a fish with x-ray vision. You can see inside the ship and you're watching the ship pass you. You see a person inside dropping a ball, except you can see not only the vertical change in the position of the ball, you can see the horizontal change because the ship moved through water and so did the ball. [02:35.1]
The person on board with no external perception was not able to see this horizontal shift. Here's another example. Imagine three people are the looking at a forest. The botanist of the group sees the ecosystem and all the plants within the forest, the environmentalist sees the impact of climate change, how things are getting worse over time. Or if we're taking measures to save the forest, how things are getting better over time. And the business person of the group sees the value of the land. They all see different things based on their experience and their motivations, even though they're looking at the same forest. This is one of the reasons why I discuss so many topics in my inner circle letter. It's not necessarily because I want to believe me. If, if I could only write about marketing within financial services, I would, but it's because I know what leads to results for financial advisors. [03:29.1]
Learning what other industries are doing, it allows advisors to form a more well-rounded understanding, which can help them make better decisions. I mean imagine having the perspective of the botanist, the environmentalist, the business person all at once, that is what you're going for. If you're trying to become a better thinker, you want to view problems from different angles. You want to explore things from different perspectives. And if this isn't just a theory, either, if you don't believe me, here's what I want you to do. I want you to Google a list of Nobel prize winners, and I want you to start reading through their biographies. You don't have to go to the library and get a big, massive four- or 500-page book. You can just go to the Wikipedia page. Okay, you just click through you Google a person's name and you go to the Wikipedia page and just read through, okay. You'll see that even though the Nobel prize winners, obviously they specialized in things that won them, the prices, they also had other interest and those other interest supported their specialties. That's what I'm doing with financial advisors. [04:32.7]
When I talk about stuff like Vann Halen and Elon Musk, or a completely different industry, I'm doing it because it's proven to make the mind work better. I don't wanna give financial advisors a fish. I wanna teach them how to fish. And if they learn how to think they can, not only can they call people out on their BS, if they're BSing them. I, I had a financial advisor, send me a message on LinkedIn and where the marketing agency that he hired, literally wouldn't even give him a cost per click. It's crazy like WTF. They won't give him a cost per click. They won't even give him the numbers, the metrics, like how is it even possible? Just log into the account and show the poor advisor, man. Like it's insane. And if you know how to think, you would call people out on this BS and you will know what to look for. It's kind of like if you outsource your taxes, you gotta know a little bit about taxes to make sure that your accountant or your tax prepare isn't ripping you off. You have to know a little bit. [05:24.2]
And the same is true with marketing. But back to the perception thing with like Galileo and the fish, this happens all the time. We all have limits to our perception and there are things we can't see. I did an entire episode about putting yourself in your client's shoes. You, you literally walk through your office, you make a marketing process a as if you were the client and you, once you create the process, you go through that process as if you were the client too. And this is a great exercise because it's, it shifts your perception. You see your business from a whole new angle. And if you can apply this sort of thinking elsewhere in life, you'll be amazed at the things you will notice. Another way to shift your perspective is to think about the future. You don't wanna just move your mind in space, where you're in the boat. And then you shift your thinking to being outside the boat. You want to move self in time, not just space. You're moving yourself in time. So, time and space. [06:20.9]
What does this situation look like a week from now? What does it look like a year from now? This can help you get a better understanding of what's going on. In last week's episode, I talked about a few mental models you can use this week. I want to continue with that theme. The very first one I want to discuss is it involves the law of inertia. Newton's first law of motion states, and I quote, “an object at rest, stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed in the same direction, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” The key here is unless act upon if a force say friction, isn't present, the object will keep moving without friction or any force acting upon it.I think you have static friction, and then you have kinetic friction. Okay? But it, without kinetic friction, a ball will just keep rolling. So, what does this mean for you? Two things. [07:13.2]
If you aren't getting the results you want, you must do something different. You must introduce a new force into your environment. This is science. It also means that systems resist change. This is a good thing, and it's a bad thing. It it's good, if you have a system that's working because it means it can continue its momentum. It's bad if you want to change something because it means it's going to take a lot of work. You're gonna have to apply force. But even that has a silver lining. Because if you know, it's going to take a lot of work, you're not as likely to get discouraged. Nathan Barry, somebody, I, I highly respect, ge's the founder of Convertkit, he has this quote. “The number one rule for creating anything worthwhile it will take, or for those creating anything we're worthwhile, it will take significantly longer than you think. And I've talked about what I call the optimist cursed on this show before it sounds counterintuitive, but optimist, they tend to get discouraged, be or discouraged more often because they optimistic nature, it gets them to expect that everything will be fast and easy for them. That's the optimist part. [08:19.6]
And when that doesn't happen, they move to the next bright, shiny object and they rinse and repeat, they rinse and repeat. You know, when that doesn't work, they move on to the next one and so on and so forth. Look, I get it. Changing stuff is hard. That's why people stay at jobs they hate. They stay in relationships. They hate, they avoid opening their minds. They keep doing whatever it is they've been doing for the past few years. I've encountered financial advisors like who have been making cold calls for years, years, years, they haven't built any inbound marketing systems or anything because they've resisted change. In the real world, you can never really eliminate friction specifically kinetic friction, which is the friction which occurs when two objects are sliding past each other. So, a ball sliding across the floor. In theory, a rolling ball will roll forever without forces acting upon it. But here on earth, there's always friction, you can't get away. But you can reduce it, I mean, a ball rolled on marble is going to roll more than a ball on carpet even with the same push. You can also reduce friction in your business. A lot of this comes down to systems and processes. You can also do it by a specific example, I'll give you is batching your task together. [09:33.4]
Because the first law of motion also, it completely, completely, totally skewers the idea that multitasking works, because inertia means that once you stop doing something, getting started again is harder than continuing the whole time would've been in the first place. When you shift from doing one thing to another, you exert unnecessary energy. When you back, that's your task, you're maximizing your energy expenditure. An example of this is planning out your social media content in advance. You could sit down for a few hours one day and plan out like a couple weeks of social media content. That way all you have to do is find it and share it instead of spending 10 or 15 minutes per day, and trying to figure out your social media content, racking your brain. I hope that makes sense. You're reducing the friction; you're taking advantage of what is literally the first law of motion. [10:24.5]
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Head on over to TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching to learn more. [10:47.1]
Moving on another mental model I want you to understand is the difference between speed and velocity speed and velocity are not. The same thing is how fast you're moving. The definition is the rate at which something is able to move or operate. You could run in place quickly. You could be speedy in place. If there's a machine that is just stuck in a factory and it's bolted to the floor and it's making widgets quickly, it's got a lot of speed. Velocity is defined as the speed of something in a given direction, and it could be time, it could, it could be space and time. So, velocity has a direction. You must go somewhere in order to have velocity. A hamster could be stuck in a wheel going fast, but it wouldn't have any velocity. Like I said, if you run in place, you have speed. [11:36.0]
But if you take a baby step forward in a certain direction, you now have velocity. And this has, it's got everything to do with goal setting, because there are people who really get the concepts confused. They do a lot of stuff, but nothing gets accomplished because they have no velocity. I would rather have you go slower in the right direction than go fast while making no progress, because there's a huge difference between being busy and productive. Have you ever completed 90% of your to-do list items without getting those two really important items checked off? You know what I'm talking about? We all I'll do it. If so, you were busy, but not productive. You had speed, but not velocity. Busy people try to cram as much stuff, whatever it is, they can find into the calendars as possible while productive people thought the lead chiseled their calendars down to the essentials and build from there. And we talked about going to the, the essentials thinking from first principles in the last episode. [12:33.5]
And by the way, there's a lot of psychological research that it suggests that people keep themselves busy to avoid dealing with trauma. It's really fascinating. Don't have time to get into it, but if you're someone who just crams your calendar, filled with a bunch of stuff that doesn't really matter. It's just meaningless chatter. You don't have velocity, all you have is speed, you're probably trying to avoid sort of trauma. Well, I just drop something heavy on you right there. But yeah, you can Google that, get down the rabbit hole. If you wanna learn more, just email me. And if I have the resources handy, I can give them to you. Otherwise, I can just give you a summary busy people. What they do is they jump like Pavlovian dogs every time they get a phone notification, productive people, they don't even have their phones in the same room with them. Busy people try to multitask all the time while productive people, they focus on one task at a, at a time they're laser focused. In fact, one of the biggest differences I've seen between successful and unsuccessful financial advisors is the ability and I'm being dead serious, it sounds so simple, but I'm being 100% serious right now. It is the ability to just sit in a room and focus on something for a few hours. [13:37.3]
When was the last time you were in a room alone for four hours straight with no distractions? I mean, none, not a phone call, not a text message, not a social media notification, nothing. Just you and your goals. Again, it's not about how fast you're moving, it's about direction now. Of course, moving fast in the right direction is better than moving slowly in the right direction, of course, but you must make sure you're going in the right direction first. I I've mentioned this on the show before about people digging. The amateurs will say, how can I dig faster? The professionals will say, how can I make sure I'm digging in the right place? This is all about speed versus velocity. I'm just giving you another way to think about it. This is one of the most important mental models I can ever give you. Please do something with it. [14:22.5]
Next one. It's all about catalyst. In purely scientific terms, catalyst accelerate change. They decrease the amount of time required for a change to occur. However, the, they cannot make a reaction occur that would normally not occur. The catalyst that makes paper cannot bake bread, even though both require catalyst of some sort. Over the past few years, there's been a trend for people to know their why, like figure out your why, like you just need to figure out your why and everything will be great. But the people who do that, they're missing the fact that you can't have just one why. You need lots of them because your why is a catalyst. You have a why for making bread, you have a why for making paper, these are the different catalysts. You cannot use, the same catalyst is for everything. You wouldn't recommend a cookie cutter financial plan to your clients, would you? Well, you shouldn't use cookie cutter motivation either. Of course, it's not as simple as finding, you know, one thing in each situation that will get you going. Sometimes your catalyst, it it's a mixture of items. For example, not everyone is motivated by money because there are some marketing campaigns that can make a lot, a lot of money, but they're difficult. So, money alone won't do it. I don't know what it is for you, but you need to find the catalyst to get you moving in each section of your business. Having one, why isn't enough. [15:46.7]
And finally, the last mental model I want to discuss revolves around the law of the minimum. This is fascinating. The law of the minimum states that the yield of a crop will always be dictated by the essential nutrient that is available at the lowest level. It doesn't matter how abundant all the other nutrients are being deficient in one will always limit the crop's growth. This means when you're thinking, you must think of your business as a plant that needs all the right nutrients to survive. Some financial advisors get in trouble when they try to spread themselves too thin. When I say you should have multiple marketing strategies, yes, that requires work. But I would rather have you use three marketing strategies really well. AKA have those, if your plant only needs three nutrients, you give those three nutrients in abundance, then to try six marketing strategies and do them poorly at the lowest level, you fall off on the six “nutrient,” and your plant is limited, especially when you consider that prospective clients are likely checking you out in multiple a areas as well. [16:54.2]
Let's say someone visits your website and your website's amazing, but then that person visits your LinkedIn profile and sees that you have a crappy profile photo, a weird headline, or maybe there's not much activity. The work you put into your website doesn't matter as much. Your growth is limited by the lack of this metaphorical figurative, nutrient. Here's another example. The price of a fertilizer goes up, so, farmers use less of it. This is economics. They say, oh, this fertilizer is more expensive, we're gonna use less of it. Okay. And they use more of cheaper nutrients so, they're overcompensating. But it doesn't matter because the other nutrients cannot compensate for or lack the missing nutrient must be there. And this is true if you break your business down into its component parts. If you have incredible marketing, but terrible service, your business will suffer, if you have incredible service, but terrible marketing, your business will suffer too. You need everything. And the reason you're listening to the financial advisor marketing podcast, presumably, is to improve your marketing because you know, that marketing is so important. [17:57.6]
There are lots of financial advisors out there who could run circles around, you know, the average financial advisor academically. They got tons of experience, tons of designations. They are so good at what they do, it's it's like, mindboggling okay. They regurgitate different facts, different statistics, like an Excel spreadsheet, it's just, it's sory what they do with these things. But they suck at marketing. So, they they're stuck making $80,000 every single year for their entire career. And they wanna tell people, oh yeah, I'm a business owner. And they go to the little meetings, you know how I'm about? I mean, yes, this can be kind of hurtful. Yes, it can be kind of mean, but it is what it is. You have to have all the nutrients there. You have to obey the law of the minimum. There are many people out there who have five outta six components just rocking and rolling. They're doing so well, but they're limited by this one thing. And if they had the mental model to address it, if they knew that this even existed, they would rocket themselves into the stratosphere. [18:54.9]
And that is it for this four-part series. Thank you so much for listening to it. I hope you enjoyed it. If so, leave a five-star review wherever you're listening to podcast, share it with someone again, doesn't cost you a dime to share it, but it helps me quite a bit. It helps the show quite a bit. Give me your feedback. Let me know what you thought. Tag me on LinkedIn. Send me an email to james@theadvisorcoach.com. Do something and I'll catch you next week. [19:19.1]
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