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: Here’s something interesting I learned recently. Did you know that Waffle House employees communicate . . .? This is a hundred percent true. I'm not making this up. They communicate with ketchup and mustard packets and the jelly packets. [00:45.6]
Their employees are instructed to place condiments and ingredients on each plate as the order is called. The position and orientation of each item indicates what was ordered and how it should be prepared. This is real. You could look this up. So, a jelly packet placed vertically at the bottom of a plate means the customer once scrambled eggs, and the same packet, that same little jelly packet placed at the top of the plate, means the eggs should be cooked sunny side up.
I could not stop cracking up when I learned this, because there are legitimately so many combinations. I mean, you put the ketchup here and the jelly here, and if you put a little piece of bread on top here, just so many different things. I wrote a few down just so I could share with you on the podcast.
Check this out. A jelly packet on top of a mustard packet means the customer wants an extra egg. I mean, of course, of course, it does. What else would it mean? A jelly packet, turn horizontally, now not vertically, so turn horizontally and place near the top of the plate means the customer wants an omelet with ham. Yeah. I mean, totally, I could see that, right? No. [01:56.7]
I know this is so hard to believe if you've never heard of it before, but they have this elaborate communication system. And you know what? Good for them? If it works, it works. I don't even care as long as I get my waffles. Look, I love me some Waffle House. I don't even care that I might witness a fight or see an employee catch a chair to the head. I'm just there to get them scattered, covered and smothered, if you know what I mean.
I bring that up to show you that your systems don't need to be fancy. You just need to get off your butt and create something. Maybe in your client meeting, you grab a plate and put a jelly packet and a ketchup packet on and slide it over that your client will be like, What does this mean? Oh, it means that your fees are increasing. Something to think about for this week.
But this week's episode is not about Waffle House. It's about one of my favorite words in the entire English language. It's a wonderful word, and that word is “deference.” Ooh, what a beautiful word. Let me say it again, “deference.” [02:56.1]
According to Wikipedia, it is “the condition of submitting to the espoused, legitimate influence of one's superior or superiors. Deference implies a yielding or submitting to the judgment of a recognized superior, out of respect or reverence.” Ooh, such a beautiful definition.
The word defer is usually said as delaying or postponing, like, “I'm deferring this project. We're going to wait on it.” But it can also mean that you have your own judgment, but you're going to accept the demands or preferences of another person who is superior to you, so, “I defer to your judgment. I defer to what you're going to say.”
Deference is the most important contributor to what little success I've had in my life so far. For all of my good and bad qualities, one thing I absolutely excel at is deference, and if there's one thing I've gotten right in my life, it's the ability that I have to defer to people who know more than me and who are better at things than me. [03:57.7]
I recently caught a lot of flak for making fun of the financial advisors who make a few hundred grand per year and think they're hot stuff and they're just awesome, and they don't want to listen to anyone. These are the people who believe they've got it all figured out. They don't need to learn anything else. They don't need to check out anything new.
A few people just like that wrote me little nasty grams complaining about it, because that's how they fill the free time. They've got nothing else to do. They're not learning anything new. They're not learning any new skills. They're not reading. They're not taking programs or courses. They're not getting mentoring. They don't have anything to do.
These people have a ton of free time, so of course, they send me little messages talking about how offended they are, because what else would they do? They have a whole bunch of time to complain, but no time to hire people to help them or to read books, or to go through programs or do anything whatsoever to defer to one of their superiors.
I am not naive. There are so many people out there who are way better than I am at so many different things, and I want to learn from them, because guess what? You can get better at multiple things. I don't know if you know this or not, but you can get better at multiple things. [05:03.7]
The copywriter I study, the one that I love the most, made so much money from direct mail that he had to hire people just to cash all his checks. He had full-time employees that didn't do anything else except cash the checks. At one point, he was mailing 700,000 pieces per month.
I don't even know if I've crossed 700,000 in my career yet. Maybe I'm already there for the people that I've helped, but speaking personally, I don't think I'm anywhere near 700,000. So, if he was mailing 700,000 pieces a month, then maybe, just maybe he knows something I don't know. Do you think it would be smart of me to defer to his wisdom? [05:46.0]
I'll give you another example. I have been interested in anti-aging for a while. One of the people that I've hired for help has done multiple anti-aging studies. He has peer-reviewed research, the whole nine yards. He's even done stuff on his dog. He has this beagle. No, it's not a beagle. It's a basset hound. He has this basset hound. Maybe it is a beagle, I don't remember. It's a basset hound or a beagle, and he has basically been running little experiments on his dog, and his dog used to have eye trouble and now he can see perfectly, and he used to walk around slowly, and now he's running around like a puppy.
He does all of this stuff. He's also been experimenting on himself. He has been seeing great results. I, on the other hand, haven't published a darn paper about anti-aging at all. I've never done it. No one in the world wakes up in the morning and says, “Gee, I wonder what James Pollard thinks about anti-aging.” Literally, no one cares. No one cares about my opinion on the subject. He is a world-renowned leader, published author, all of that, been on talk shows, the news. Do you think I should defer to him? [07:06.3]
I've discovered something cool. I discovered you can have an incredible life if you defer to people who are better than you and know more than you. The more you practice this skill, the better you get. When I bring up the fact that you could do multiple things, guess what? I can learn from the copywriter. I can become an awesome copywriter.
I can learn from the anti-aging guy. I'm already a better copywriter than he is, and I can use his anti-aging skills, and then I can go back to the copywriter and I can say, “Hey, look, I'm aging slower than you because I know more than you here.” You can learn from multiple sources. I believe you can learn from everyone.
Let's say someone is a decamillionaire, but has a terrible home life. You can learn the things that he or she did to make a bunch of money while ignoring the home stuff. You don't have to copy everything. Let's say someone's in incredible shape, but broke. You can try to pick up the things he or she did to get a great body while ignoring the money habits, because if you can learn from the fit guy or gal, then you learn from the rich guy or gal, you can become rich and fit, right? This is not difficult stuff, don't make it complicated, and if you don't believe me, I strongly urge you to listen to . . . . [07:55.3]
See, here's the thing, when I say I urge you to listen to it, this means you're going to have to defer to something else. You're going to have to defer to me, so the people who are never going to listen to this advice probably can't be helped anyway. But I'm stupid and I make episodes like this, and I just try to ram my head against the wall, helping people who don't want to be helped, I guess, because I never learn, but I'll do my best.
Listen to the Book of Proverbs. There are so many verses in the Book of Proverbs that support what I'm telling you here, so if you're not going to listen to me, at least listen to a book that's been around for thousands of years. The book starts off in the very first chapter. It wastes no time. It says, “Let the wise hear and increase in learning, increase in understanding.” Hey, that should be enough. That should stop you right there, so listen up. But just in case you didn't get it, there are other verses.
Proverbs 11:4 says, “An abundance of counselors brings safety.” How many counselors do you have? How many people do you have helping you in your life? How many people can you ask for help if you need it? Ordinary people, sometimes they think it's really strange that I have so many mentors and take so many courses, and read so many books. I subscribe to so many newsletters. But I'm simply trying to be safe. [09:08.2]
I am a very fearful person. I fear all the time. I'm scared that all of this is going to go away and I'm going to have to start from scratch, and I'm scared that if I take a day off from my skills, my skills are going to go into the gutter. I'm very scared all the time, okay? I have had no problem admitting that when I've had private consultations with financial advisors.
They’d pay me a bunch of money to do this stuff. I don't do that anymore, but when I did, they would ask me private, personal questions. They would say, “How do you stay on top of stuff?” and I’d just tell them straight up, “I'm terrified.” I'm literally terrified all the time, okay? I don't know what it is.
Now, it's not debilitating. I've harnessed it. It's kind of like the rider and the elephant. I'm riding the elephant and directing him. If you know what that reference is, you're an awesome person, but it's just one of those things that you constantly have to stay on top. [09:53.3]
Back to Proverbs about counselors, okay? How many people do you have helping you? What’s kind of meta is I'm using proverbs as a counselor in and of itself, so I go back to Proverbs all the time because I want that wisdom from Proverbs to help me be safe in my life.
Proverbs 15:22 adds on this by saying that, without counsel, let's say that you just don't do it at all, plans fail, but, but, let's go back to the counselors thing, “but with many advisors”—it uses the word “advisors” this time—“they succeed.” I don't know if you caught that or not, but it explicitly says that, without counsel, plans fail. I don't know about you, but wise counsel seems like a necessary ingredient of success. That's why I think the people who try to figure everything out themselves are foolish and it's not just me saying that. The Bible, the Book of Proverbs here, literally calls them fools. [10:48.6]
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Now, before we go any further, I'm not saying that you should outsource all of your thinking. That is not what deference is. You should not become some robot that does whatever other people tell you to do. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is you should consider the results other people have and ask yourself if the things you are doing are getting you closer to those results, assuming you want them. [12:13.3]
I recently joined a paid community led by the world's strongest man. This guy can squat 525 lbs. for 24 reps. I can't even begin to tell you how insane that is. Do you know what that is like, 525 lbs. for 24 reps? 99.9% of the male population cannot squat 525 lbs. for one rep let alone 24—so, if I want to get better at my squats, I should probably defer to this guy. I should show deference. He says something, I say, “Yes, sir, absolutely. I'm going to do it. I'm going to run the program as is. I'm not going to question you. I'm not going to second-guess you. Whatever you tell me to do to achieve this goal, I'm going to do it,” because I practice deference. [12:56.7]
Imagine if I thought like some financial advisors out there. Sometimes I'll talk about something like the Inner Circle Newsletter, which has success stories out the wazoo. Or forget the Inner Circle for a bit. I'll talk about my own marketing results. I recently shared a screenshot online proving that I received more than 1,000 visitors to my website every single day, and a good chunk of that traffic is what's called direct traffic, which means someone types in my URL or clicks from something like a PDF. I had something like 10,000 direct visitors in a month.
Oh, and by the way, this was also something called first source, which means this was the very first time people ever visited my website, so I had 10,000 brand new people who had never heard from me or of me ever before directly going to my website in a month. How much website traffic does the average financial advisor website get? A few hundred? A few thousand maybe? [13:54.1]
I put up proof that I got 10,000 people typing in my URL and going directly to my website. If you are a financial advisor who wants to get more visitors to your website, then maybe you should defer to the stuff that I know how to do. If I am getting better results than you, you should probably listen to me.
Back to Proverbs. Proverbs 12:15 says this way better than I ever could, and I quote, “The way of a fool”—calls you fools if you're not listening to counsel. “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” This is so true. In my experience, there exists this gravitational pull that ruins otherwise capable professionals, which is the urge they have to seal themselves off inside of their own certainty.
Here's something to think about. The fool in Proverbs, when you see that word, that fool isn't stupid. He doesn't have a mental deficiency. He doesn't lack actual mental capacity or processing power. There's nothing wrong with his brain, okay? He's just self-sealed. He's too dependent on himself. He thinks that his reasoning is sufficient and his perspective is complete. [15:12.8]
The wise person, on the other hand, is not necessarily smarter than the fool in terms of, again, mental processing power and capacity, and natural ability to think. Their minds and brains work in the same way and they have the same potential, but the wise person is more permeable. The wise person is willing to accept outside advice. The wise person is weighing competent voices more heavily than his or her own beliefs and preferences. Do you get that?
So, the word “listens” is not passive. It is operational. It's an operational verb. “Listening” means you are doing something. It means you change your behavior. You identify someone who has the outcomes you want and you weigh that person's counsel more heavily than your preferences, what you think is right. Then you run the play or plays as written before you put your spin on them. [16:07.2]
Doing that has made me more money than any hack or trick I've ever shared on social media. It has made my life better. It's made my family life better, my health better. It's made my productivity better. You're not going to get this advice anywhere else. Most people don't actually listen. They just sample. They act like they're just listening, I don't know. They want the social clout that comes from pretending that they're listening, and when they do, quote-unquote, “listen,” they cut the dosage in half, they swap ingredients, then they blame the recipe when the cake fails. Okay? That's not listening.
When you listen, you suspend your cleverness. I know you're smart. I know you can do things on your own, but just wait a little bit. Don't change what the person tells you to do on the first day. Just do the darn stuff. Just follow directions. [16:56.3]
I like to think that I've mellowed out over the past few years. I used to be a lot more aggressive with financial advisors. I used to be like, foot on the gas, go, go, go, nonstop, go hard, and I used to be really aggressive with advisors who would ask for my help, and one of the questions I would ask is, “How is that working out for you?”
A financial advisor would come to me with all of these excuses about how something is too expensive or how they can figure things out themselves and all this nonsense. I would just smile and ask, “How is that working out for you?” At this point in my career, I rarely bother anymore. It's not that I don't care. It's just . . . . Well, it is. I don't care about helping the people who don't want to be helped.
I’ve realized that I don't want to spend precious time of my life trying to convince people who don't want to be convinced, because the truth is that somebody has to be in the bottom 99%. It ain’t gon’ be me, that's fo sho. That is fo sho. It ain't gon’ be me. But in order to have a top 1%, then there has to be a bottom 99%, so in a sense, I'm grateful for these people, because they make it a little bit easier for me up here. [18:00.8]
But back when I asked that question, most of the time, the answer was, “Uh . . . not great,” and I saw this all the time when I would launch various programs. I have 20-something courses and trainings right now. I actually might have more than 30 at this point with all of the upsells and the order bumps and things. Sometimes advisors would purchase these programs and immediately start editing them. They would skip parts that feel awkward or they would add steps that weren't even in there. They would swap things and move things around, and then they would wonder why they didn't get the results the programs were built to deliver. It's because they weren't actually doing the program.
I think a good mindset to have is you need to earn the right to customize. You should follow something or someone as instructed for at least a little bit of time. Don't make any changes. Don't do anything at all except run the stuff exactly as described, and then look at the data, because you're going to win either way. [18:59.3]
Here's why. If it underperforms, awesome. You have a baseline. You can improve. You can make it better, and you'll have even more confidence in yourself, because the stuff, if it works, if you are the genius and you make everything work, then that's awesome. Imagine what that does to your self-confidence. But if it overperforms, or performs as described or whatever, then you get the results that you thought you were going to get. But if you Frankenstein it from the jump, you'll never know it actually works.
Let me give you a simple example. An advisor refused to send a daily email, actually multiple at this point. I mean, a lot. They just complain. They like to complain. “Oh, daily is too much. My clients already get too many emails. People already get too many emails. I don't want to do that.” Cool. How's that working out for you?
Meanwhile, advisors who send the exact same format that I recommend every single day with an autoresponder sequence get replies and referrals, and booked appointments, not because they're marketing savants, but because they executed the boring thing consistently. They just listened. Ego loves to be complex. Results love simplicity, so something to think about there, too. [20:05.2]
I'll share one more thing with you. This is a strategy I've been fleshing out. I don't have this completely thought out yet. This is going to be my thing, so you heard it here first. I have googled this. I couldn't find it anywhere. Nobody else in the world has named this strategy. I am sure that after I talk about it here, some financial advisor, marketing, coaches, consultants, gurus and lead gen experts are going to start talking about it like they invented it. But this podcast is timestamped, so I'll have proof. I'll basically be able to say, “Hey, look, look at the date on this podcast. When did you start talking about it? Hmm.”
I am calling it the “become or befriend” strategy. Here's how it goes. Let's say there's a skill you want to develop. I'll assume you want to be a top 1% person with that skill. It doesn't matter what it is. It could be speaking or writing, or running or cooking. Let's say it's speaking. If you cannot become a top 1% speaker through your own efforts, then you need to befriend a person who is. [21:03.3]
This works extremely well for financial advisors, and it doesn't mean you have to be the one gaining the skill either. That's the become part. You can become a great marketer. You can become a great speaker. Of course, if you want to gain the skills, then you should try to gain the skills, but you can't be all things to all people. You can't be number one at everything.
If you can't become a top 1% Medicare expert, you need to befriend the best Medicare broker in your region. If you can't become a top 1% tax strategist, then you need to befriend a rock star CPA—and if you can't become a top 1% storyteller, then you need to befriend, yes, the “become or befriend” strategy, you need to befriend someone who tells stories in your market.
Something to consider, okay? I'm still fleshing it out, like I said, and I'll talk about it in future podcast episodes, but for now, that's all I have for you.
If you want to learn more about how I can help you build your business and get clients, visit TheAdvisorCoach.com. That's the website. Don't wear it out—and with that said, I will catch you next week. [22:08.2]
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