You're listening to “Financial Advisor Marketing”—the best show on the planet for financial advisors 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 advisors grow their businesses more rapidly than ever before. Now, here is your host, James Pollard.
James: I'd like to open this episode with a quote from Charlie Munger. I'm a big Charlie Munger fan. I try to reread his Poor Charlie's Almanack roughly once a year. I also listen to the audio recording of his Psychology of Human Misjudgment at least once a year. I think it's one of the most valuable things I've ever heard and it explains why people make bad decisions, or at least many reasons why people make bad decisions. I also watch some of his interviews and his speeches on YouTube. I find them great every single time. [00:58.8]
Anyway, the quote I want to share with you is this: “The iron rule of life is that only 20 percent of the people can be in the top fifth. That's just the way it is.” I love this quote because so many people want to be in the upper-quintile of life, yet they're not willing to put in the work to get there, or they unconsciously hold themselves back. I'm going to talk with you about both of those possibilities today, because, guess what? Life isn't always black and white or cut and dry. Sometimes there are nuances and gray areas. It would be wrong of me to tell you that there is one right way to do something or to succeed.
Of course, let me back up, there are certain right and wrong ways to implement tactics. However, this show is more about strategies than tactics. I've got the idea of being a warrior on my mind for reasons that will become apparent as this episode goes on, so I will explain the difference using an example that might apply to a literal warrior. [01:55.2]
The strategy might be self-defense, meaning, you get out of the situation alive and preferably unharmed. If that happens, then you will have successfully defended yourself. There is no right way to embrace the strategy of self-defense because it is so context-dependent. However, the tactic is the way you defend yourself, and that can have a right and wrong way.
For example, let's say that you use a firearm for self-defense. There is a right and wrong way to operate that tool. It is cut and dry. It is black and white. If you point it in the wrong direction and press the trigger, you will have a bad day. If you use +P ammunition in a tool that is not rated to handle such high pressure, you will eventually have a horrible day. That is crystal clear and I can tell you with certainty that it is a bad idea. But, again, the strategy of self-defense is multifaceted and it leaves a lot of room for critical thinking. Now, does that mean we should ignore patterns or we should ignore context clues? Absolutely not. [02:58.0]
Continuing with the self-defense example, this guy named Greg Ellifritz analyzed 1,800 self-defense scenarios for the purpose of finding out which caliber had the best chance of stopping a threat with one shot. This is called a one-shot stop. The data found that shotguns are much more effective for one-shot stops than the .22, which is really tiny. In case you're not familiar, the .22 is something a child can use. When I was a kid, I had a Ruger 10/22. I loved that little thing. I actually still have one. It's not the same one, but I love it just the same.
My point is this. The data should inform your strategy, meaning, if your goal is to have a tool for self-defense and you want to optimize for a one-shot stop, you should probably consider a shotgun over a .22 pistol or rifle. At the end of the day, you are free to make your own choices and you can do whatever you want, but I think it's very silly to ignore patterns, context clues and data. [03:55.8]
This is what I'm trying to help you with, with marketing and business-building. I'm trying to give you the data, the context, the patterns, so you can make an informed decision. Okay? Business isn't that much different. Neither is marketing. If I tell you that I have thousands of back and forth conversations with my Inner Circle members and the most successful ones do A, B and C, then you are free to ignore that information and do whatever you want. However, you shouldn't be surprised if things are more difficult for you.
The reason I've got warrior on the brain is because I want to tell you that many financial advisors have this addiction. It's an addiction. It just eats away at them. It prevents them from moving forward in their lives. They're addicted to the warrior archetype. I mentioned this briefly on a previous podcast episode and it got a lot of positive feedback. People were asking me about it. People like it when I talk about this sort of thing, so I want to talk about it a little more, because it really is something that can help a lot of you if you take it to heart. I'm dead serious right now. The warrior archetype helps people set and achieve goals. It helps them overcome obstacles and it helps them persist in difficult times. It's associated with the ability to protect and fight. I mean, it's a warrior. [05:05.2]
Now, it's fine to embrace that during certain times of your life, especially if you've just started your business and you're trying to get it off the ground. However, becoming too attached to the warrior archetype can be harmful because it will keep you in a constant state of achieving your goals. I'm talking about achieving, not achieved. Achieving. Put differently, if you're addicted to the journey, then you will unconsciously keep yourself from the destination.
Let me run that back. If you are addicted to the journey, then you will unconsciously keep yourself from the destination. Why? Because you are in striving mode, in achieving mode, in journeying mode. That's one reason why it's so difficult for some advisors to get what they want out of their businesses and out of life. They believe it's more virtuous to work harder to achieve their goals, or that they're somehow more worthy or deserving if they work extremely hard to get what they want. [05:58.8]
The challenge is that it's that very thinking that keeps them stuck, because accomplishing their goals, achieving their wildest dreams would mean they wouldn't have to be on the journey anymore. They wouldn't have to work as hard anymore. They wouldn't have to go after their dreams anymore, because that dream will have been accomplished, and if they don't have that anymore, if they're not able to work themselves to the bone, if they're not able to stay on that journey, then they won't think of themselves as worthy.
So, if you're someone who wonders why stuff is so darn hard for you, this might be why. I'm not telling you, it is for sure, but it might be. If you find yourself thinking that you love to grind, or you love the journey or the hustle or whatever, then that is probably a clue. If you love the grind, then you will keep yourself in grind mode.
I strongly dislike grinding and hustling. I'll do it to get what I want, but I don't want to do it any longer than it is absolutely necessary. Our time on this earth is limited. Why would you want to spend 15 years accomplishing your business goals when you could accomplish them in five? But, again, so many financial advisors are addicted to the warrior archetype. They want to grind and hustle and just go and stay on the journey, and the journey is sweeter than the destination, and all of this, just nonsense. [07:13.5]
I will say this so many times. I've said it so many times in the past. I will continue to say it many times into the future. The bank doesn't deposit extra money because you’ve worked harder to get it, nor does it deduct money because you didn't work as hard as the next advisor. They do not care. I promise you, they don't care at all. They don't check.
A surefire way to cut down on the time required to accomplish your goals is to do this. Drum roll, please. Get help. Yes, that's right, get someone to assist you. Be willing to accept that assistance, but a lot of people don't want to ask for help because they're afraid of looking stupid. Personally, I don't think anyone looks stupid asking for help. I think getting help is one of the smartest things you can do. [07:56.3]
But let's think about this and let's see what makes you look stupider, asking for help, or spending two, three or 10 times as long to get something done. Hmm, yeah, it's probably that one. You probably look a lot stupider taking forever to accomplish a goal.
Another reason why people refuse to get help is because their egos are too big. They have massive egos and they have no reason to have those egos. I did an entire podcast episode about why having a big ego is so dangerous. I think it was called “Ditch Your Ego,” so if you search for that episode, you should be able to find it.
Having a large ego is the thing that prevents you from being the person who should have a large ego. Look, if you're a billionaire with a six pack and a great marriage and children who are happy and healthy, guess what? You can have a big ego, okay? You can have a bigger ego than you used to have. It's okay, it's not necessarily a bad thing. After all, you would have a great marriage, children, happy, prosperous children, a six pack. You'd be a billionaire, right? But you would also be at a different level than almost all of the human beings on this planet. [09:02.6]
But it is a bad thing to have a big ego when you don't have much to back it up. I'm sorry, but you having a little $200,000- or $300,000-per-year business or whatever and driving a little Mercedes at the country club and looking cool for all your buddies, you just don't have enough to warrant having a large ego. I see this thing all of the time, and it's sad, it really is. It's usually the financial advisors who are making a little bit of money, and they have the biggest egos.
Let me give you an example. This is a recent example. I had this guy who subscribed to my Inner Circle Newsletter, who was just an absolute pain in the butt. This guy was so annoying. He subscribed on the 30th of the month, either the 30th or the 31st, and then he sent an email on the 2nd of the next month, a couple days later, and this was at 7:00-something in the morning, and he was asking where the newsletter was. [09:54.7]
Keep in mind that I mentioned it ships out on the first of the month in the emails about the newsletter. Then I say it again four times on the sign-up page. Four times, I went and checked. I did Ctrl+F. I typed in first. I say it four times, okay? And then one more time on the congratulations page that you see after you subscribe. Actually, the congratulations page specifically says that most U.S. subscribers receive it around the 10th of every month, so this is just again and again, and again and again, and again, and this guy just completely breezed through everything or brushed it off. So, that was red flag number one.
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Then this guy emailed me asking what he should do for a direct mail-in and I told him exactly what to do, because I genuinely wanted to help him. And it's okay, we all make mistakes and I'm here to help. I'm not going to hold that against you. I genuinely want to see financial advisors succeed.
About two weeks later, he emailed me and complained that he didn't get any results, and he proceeded to show me this monster that was pretty much the opposite of everything I told him. It was like he purposefully went out of his way to do everything the complete wrong way. He had to try to make it this bad, and I was like, You didn't listen to me. That's not even close to what I suggested. [12:08.3]
Just like I said in the beginning of this show, you are free to do whatever you want. It is a free country. You're free to make your own decisions, and truthfully, I am happy the guy asked for help. I love that. I love it when people ask for help, but don't ask for help and do the complete opposite. Don't try to make this stuff bad.
This guy got back to me and told me, “Oh, well, I've done this in the past, and even though I trust your judgment, I wanted to do it this way because it helped me build my business,” and so on and so forth, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He also shared some numbers with me, and I realized that this guy had been in business for more than 20 years and was still in the mid-300-ish thousands of revenue.
That is wild to me. The reason it's wild to me is because in one of the long, long, long emails he sent to me, he talked about how hard he worked and how he was building, grind-mode language, he was so dedicated and committed and all of this mess. Basically, he had been a slave to his business for more than two decades and he was still only in the 300s. [13:10.0]
I ended up canceling his subscription because I could tell that my way of doing things would only frustrate him, and I wanted him to just fly away, be free. Be free, little birdie, go somewhere else. With all that said, I think there is a time and a place for working hard. Of course, there is. And I said this earlier, it's fine to embrace the warrior if you're in the beginning stages of your career and you need to build and fight your way to the top. That's part of the game.
Another reason why you might not be accomplishing your goals is because you're not doing enough when you are building. When you are in growth mode, you're just not doing enough. Life is made up of seasons. I learned that from Jim Rohn and I think it's one of the best metaphors for life I have ever heard. Sometimes it's spring, and you need to plant your crops, but it won't be spring forever and you're a fool if you think it will be. Can you imagine if a farmer acted like it was spring all summer, fall and winter? That farmer would be checked into a mental institution. [14:05.2]
Yet so many people treat their businesses that way. If they're addicted to the warrior archetype, they believe it's spring, spring, spring, spring. No time for harvest, no time for winter, none of that. They act as if it will be spring forever and they’ve just got to grow, grow, grow. There's no urgency to it, right? Even though they delude themselves into thinking that it is. But if it is spring for you, it's planting season, baby, and you must plant enough. You can't plant one or two seeds and call it a day.
Yet, I hear from financial advisors who tell me they made six phone calls or they sent four direct mailers and they haven't gotten the results they want, or they bought this course from some other guru or whatever, and they haven’t 10x-ed their business overnight. Of course, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but not by much. [14:49.4]
This seems to happen a lot with financial advisors who run online ads. It happens a lot with online ads. They run an ad and they get 10 or 20 clicks, and they try to make a whole bunch of decisions from those 10 or 20 clicks. It's just simply not enough to make a good decision, because in order to make a decision, your results should be statistically significant, and most of the time, you need a lot of data to make a statistically-significant decision. It is not going to happen with 10 or 20 clicks.
If you're trying to figure out which thing or ad works better than another thing or ad, then you need a lot of data to make a good decision. A handful of clicks or phone calls or opens or whatever is not going to cut it. It's just the reality. It is a mathematical law here that in order to achieve statistical significance, you need a variation for one, but you need enough data to prove that that variation is the result of a thing that you're doing.
I also think there is such a thing as a fear of success, and I know that, at first glance, it can seem kind of silly. Who would fear success? But after years of seeing this sort of stuff happen all the time, I am convinced it is real. Oh, it is so real, especially when help is all around you, resources are abundant, information is readily available, and you still can't make it work. [16:06.6]
If that's the case, then I have a sneaking suspicion, just a hunch, okay, that reading yet another book or watching yet another YouTube video probably isn't going to be the thing that catapults you into the life of your dreams. It's probably going to involve getting over the psychological barriers that you are placing in front of you. Other people are not placing the psychological barriers, because they're not in your brain. You are in control of the psychology here.
Why are people afraid of success? There are several reasons and I'm not the know all, end, all be all, whatever, on this topic. I'm just a guy, okay? I'm just a guy with a podcast. Should you listen to me? Gosh, I don't know. I really don't, but I'm just going to tell you what I think. One of the reasons why I think people are afraid of success is because they think success will come with increased expectations. [16:59.3]
They might fear that once they achieve success, they will have to constantly perform at that level. They might also be afraid of change, that's common, but the truth is that you control the level of change that happens in your life. You are responsible for that. If you change everything in your life, you're the person who's doing the changing. Another reason might be fear of the unknown. They're afraid of the uncharted territory that comes with success, so they figure it's better to stick with what they know.
Another reason, and I think this is the most significant, is that they're afraid of losing their identities. People may fear that achieving success will change who they are and how other people perceive them, and identity is kind of both. Your identity is how people perceive you as well, and this is especially true if they come from humble beginnings, because they might worry about the ability to relate to their peers or people who knew them before their success.
I mean, it is kind of weird pulling up to your family reunion at a brand new Tesla Model S Plaid when everyone else is driving rust buckets. It is weird telling your old friends to come visit you and they see your 5,000-square-foot house when they know you grew up in a tiny apartment or a trailer or somewhere. I get it. [18:04.6]
But at some point you have to ask yourself if you're going to live your life to please other people or to please yourself. Besides, you can't control what other people think of you personally. I think that if people think less of you because you're successful, then you shouldn't have them in your life. But, hey, it's your life, not mine.
I'll give you one final reason I've seen for people not accomplishing their goals, and then I'll end this podcast episode. Sometimes I will see financial advisors who sit around waiting for motivation to do something. It's like they think they can lounge around all day and wait for inspiration to strike when they should be doing stuff. Discipline is about doing the things that you need to do even when you don't feel like doing them. Quite frankly, the marketplace doesn't care if you don't feel like doing something, and I brought up Jim Rohn. Jim Rohn called it marketplace, or the marketplace reality. The marketplace is reality, okay? [18:59.0]
Nature doesn't care either. Do you think a hurricane stops because you don't feel like dealing with wind and rain? Do you think a baby postpones its birth because the mother doesn't feel like giving birth that day? Do you think that the cold, icy hand of death will give you a few extra years because you don't feel like dying? No, it won't happen.
I'm an optimist. I love to look on the bright side. I love to find the silver lining in situations. But sometimes you just have to buckle down and do the work. Your goals do not care if you don't feel like prospecting or marketing or building business assets. They don't care. The world will move on with or without you, so it is up to you to get what you want out of life.
I hope this episode helps someone. If you're new to this podcast, please take some time to scroll through the hundreds of other episodes I have for your listening pleasure. I promise not all of them are as ranty as this one. Some of them are, but not all of them. I would love it if you listened to every single episode, but I understand you might want to pick and choose the ones that stand out the most to you. Whatever you end up doing, I want to say thank you. I appreciate you tuning in, and I will catch you next week. [20:05.0]
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