Bill Cates: Welcome to the Top Advisor Podcast brought to you by ProudMouth’s PodRocket Academy. I’m your host, Bill Cates, creator of the Cates Academy for Relationship Marketing. In each episode, I interview one of our industry’s top performers, getting them to pass on their secrets to success to you so that you can impact more lives and generate more income. Now, on to the show.
Welcome. Welcome. Did you know that I have a new book? You’re going to love this book. The title is The Language of Referrals, the words and scripts financial pros use to gain more ideal clients.
Most advisors who come to me for coaching or training, they always say, how can I be appropriately proactive without looking like the cheesy referral guy? Sometimes I get sleazy referral guy. Look, the key is having the right approach and then having the right words, words that are natural to you. Having the right approach and the right words, it will boost your confidence, that leads to more action, that leads to more results, more right fit clients for you. The secret to generating referrals and transforming personal introductions into new clients really boils down to 2 things. It’s confidence and fluency. Mastering what you say and how you say it in a manner that feels completely natural, authentic to you. The language of referrals will become your blueprint for finding the right words and phrases to elevate your referability, you’re confidently asking for introductions, addressing concerns or objections, and then turning a client’s willingness to refer into an effective connection, the new prospects. So to get your copy, go to www.languageofreferrals.com.
That’s languageofreferrals.com. When it comes to being appropriately proactive for more introductions to ideal clients, you’ll never be at a loss for words again. Now on with today’s show.
When I tell you that in today’s show, we’re going to talk about speed, what comes to mind? Speed kills? I have a need for speed? Speed bump ahead? Well, today’s show, you’re going to what you’re gonna wanna share this really with everyone on your team. Cates that important to helping you keep your current clients and attracting new clients. About a month ago, I sent a question to one of my business advisors via an email, and a week later, I had still not heard from him. So I sent the same request again, and they responded to my second attempt. And though it wasn’t an urgent question, I have to say that I wasn’t pleased that I had to wait a week and send a second email to finally get a response.
I know that some financial advisors have set standards for how long it will take for them to respond to a query from a prospect or a client, and I know that some have not. How about you? Do you have a standard, to how you respond to queries and that your team adheres to as well? There’s an adviser in Dayton, Ohio, actually interviewed him, in previous podcast, who provides his a level clients with a special phone number to reach him and his team, and he tells them he says, I’m providing you with my firm’s VIP line. We know when that line rings, it’s a VIP. We’ll do everything to answer that call, and if we just can’t get to it, we know we have a message waiting for us to which we need to respond as quickly as possible. With all this in mind, my featured guest for today’s show is Jay Baer. He’s the author of a national research study entitled Time to Win, the Consumer Patient Study, which I find that patients are interesting because most consumers don’t have it. And from this new research, Jay has authored his latest book, Time to Win. And as you’ll learn in just a few minutes, Jay has a fresh, a creative perspective when it comes to this aspect of how we serve our prospects and clients.
I wanna brag on Jay just a little bit, and then I promise we’ll add his voice to the show. Jay is a business growth and customer experience author, researcher, adviser. He’s a 7th generation entrepreneur. And to stay with 7, Jay has written 7 best selling business books and created 6 multimillion dollar companies. He’s consulted for more than 700 brands, including Fidelity, Motley Fool, American Express, US Bank, United Nations even. And Jay grew up in the financial advisor world as his dad was a CFP and a broker dealer for more than 30 years. Jay and I are both members of the National Speakers Association, that’s where I met Jay, and we both share the same honor of having been inducted into Professional Speakers Hall of Fame. Jay, get this, in her spare time is, and this is his words, the second most popular tequila influencer and educator on the planet. I’m gonna have to ask him about that.
Jay Baer, CSP, CPAE, author of Time to Win, zooming in from Bloomington, Indiana with a slight cold. Welcome to Top Advisor Podcast.
Jay Baer: Fantastic to be here, Bill. Thank you so much. Always great to spend some time with you and all the advisers. Can’t wait.
Bill: Yep. You sound great. Alright. So before we get to the need for speed thing, tequila influencer and Cates.
Jay: Yep.
Bill: 2nd most popular. Tell us more about that.
Jay: I grew up in Arizona. And for many, many years, I was interested in agave spirits and tequila and mezcal. And over decades, we learned more and more. We started to go to Mexico and visit distilleries, etcetera. And about, 2 years ago, not even about a year and a half ago, I guess now, I stopped recording my own podcast, which I’d done for 10 years weekly, more than 500 episodes. And I said, alright. Now I have some extra time in my schedule. What if I just tried to teach people some of the things that I’ve learned about tequila over the previous 25 years? And so I started to make some videos.
You know, there’s, like, a 90 second long videos on Instagram and TikTok. And bingo bango bango, I became, the 2nd most popular tequila educator out there. More than a quarter 1000000 people watch, my videos every week about about tequila. And I gotta tell you, Bill, as somebody like you who is a a professional speaking hall of fame and written lots of books and all those things, I get recognized in airports now every week, and it’s only for tequila. Nobody cares that I wrote 7 business books. Nobody cares that I give speeches. They don’t care at all, but you make some tequila videos and everybody wants to talk to you.
Bill: That’s booze sells always. Yeah.
Jay: It’s true.
Bill: I have my, possible future, son-in-law, my daughter’s boyfriend. We just spent the week in Costa Rica. He owns a bar, and I actually learned about the difference between tequila and mezcal. I always kinda thought they were the same thing. They’re I guess they’re related.
Jay: Cousins. Yep.
Bill: Yep. But, learned a lot about that. Hey, by the way, since we’re on the booze topic, I’m sure you know a little bit about bourbon. He gave me a body, a body. Yeah. A dead body. He gave me a bottle of Pappy.
Jay: Oh, wow.
Bill: For now to folks who listen don’t know Pappy, it’s it’s, it retails at a $1,000 a bottle. Now he owns a bar, so he got a little deal on it.
Jay: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. He might he might really wanna close the deal on this on this marriage thing.
Bill: That’s what I’m thinking.
Jay: Yeah. That feels like, that feels like a question inside a bottle.
Bill: Well, I gotta tell you, all Christmas day, I just kept looking at the bottom because we had a little taste test. And, people who didn’t know anything about bourbon, I didn’t let them in on the taste test. I’m not gonna waste. He he they charged $55 a shot at his bar for Pappy. So
Jay: Which makes sense. Right? You figure it’s 20 20 x bottle cost is usually how they how they price it. Yeah. I know some advisers out there do like tequila, and it’s funny. You mentioned bourbon. A lot of people are moving over from bourbon to tequila because bourbon’s gotten kinda expensive and crazy out there. So it’s, tequila j bear on, Instagram and TikTok if you’re
Bill: Thank you. Tequila j bear, and that’s spelled b a e r Correct. For bear. Good. I I again, before we get to the speed thing
Jay: Sure.
Bill: I heard you talk a little bit on a a program about artificial intelligence, and I just wanted to capture a little bit of that for our group because I know that a lot of listeners are beginning to experiment with AI to help them create content for prospects, clients. Advisors are a little concerned. Everyone is. How is it gonna impact our business? Is it gonna replace us? It’s certainly another way for people to get answers for their financial questions. How do you think we should perceive the quality of information from AI and and our concern at how it might replace, some of the roles of financial advisers?
Jay: Oh, we could probably do a whole show just on this topic, but, you know, WebMD didn’t replace doctors.
Bill: True. WebMD made it has made their job harder, though. People come in with every everything they learned on WebMD. Right?
Jay: Yeah. And I think that’s the exact same thing that’s gonna happen. Mhmm. People are gonna ask a generative AI tool like Chad GPT or all the others, you know, what should I do about my, you know, my my target fund that’s targeted 2030, and they’re gonna get some sort of answer and they’re bringing that into their advisor and say, well, I learned this on the internet. How come we don’t have more bonds? Or how come we’re not doing sector rotation or whatever? So it’s gonna be super annoying from that perspective because the clients are going to have this false sense of expertise that that ChatGPT tends to empower you with. Because, you know, the way generative AI tools work is they just give you an answer. Right? It gives you a paragraph or a page or a book or whatever. Right? It’s not like Google where it gives you a bunch of websites, and then you gotta go spelunking for the answer.
Jay: It gives you the answer. The problem is the answer is just as likely to be wrong as right in some cases. I always say that AI actually stands for average information be because it
Bill: Love it.
Jay: It really is, a little bit of a crapshoot out there whether or not the information you’re gonna get is accurate. And and that’s because of the way AI actually works. It’s not going out and finding a source, from, I don’t know, The Wall Street Journal and copying what The Wall Street Journal says and then giving it to you. That’s the way Google works. So it doesn’t do that. It actually ingests the whole Internet. It makes a copy of the Internet, which I know sounds crazy, but that’s how it works. Basically, Xeroxes the Internet and then says, okay.
Usually, if somebody says the word bond, the next word is fund. And and so it literally assembles the answer in real time. Consequently, you can see how mistakes can be made. So, clearly, every single adviser is going to have a whole flotilla of people in compliance, talking about this right now if they haven’t already. They’re not gonna want you to be using these kind of tools on your own to distribute any kind of financial advice because there is a risk of it being incorrect and that’s a problem. However, you just have to understand that your clients are increasingly going to turn to these kind of sources. Now, is it going to disintermediate the necessity for advisors and financial professionals? Of course not. However, it is going to help, I think, think you and I have talked about this in the past.
Like, my wife at one point, think you and I have talked about this in the past. Like, my wife at one point was a paralegal. Mhmm. And those kind of roles are going to be I don’t wanna say replaced, but certainly augmented by this kind of technology. Right? Because I can say, make me a contract for a speech that I’m gonna do for financial advisors, at Fidelity on May 15th. Here’s here’s what they’re gonna pay me. Here’s what my travel clause is, etcetera. And literally, in 4 seconds, I have the contract.
Now, do I need to clean that up? Yeah. I probably should double check it. But it it just the the the routine tasks that you do over and over are gonna largely be, run through this kind of technology. And if you play this game right, advisors, and and hear me when I say this, think about AI as an efficiency tool in your practice, not the tool you use to create or distribute information.
Bill: And I remember you said something about how we just need to be better than what AI can do or something like that. Can you I mean remind me what you said there.
Jay: People get concerned that AI is gonna take their jobs. Right. And that’s not necessarily true. People using AI are gonna take the jobs of people that don’t use it. Because imagine you’re playing golf. Many advisors can understand this analogy. Imagine you’re playing golf, and you have a full bag of 14 clubs. And you’re playing against somebody who only has a 2 iron.
Now even if you’re a really good golfer, only having a 2 iron is definitely a challenge. It’s a handicap, literally.
Bill: But and there’s there’s an old joke that only god can hit a 2 irons.
Jay: Exactly. And which is true. I play played on the golf team, and I I can promise you it’s not easy. And and so, that’s the sort of way this works. Like, somebody with, you know, any professional plus AI is going to be able to run circles around any professional without AI. And that’s why I think it’s actually a great way to get into this episode because what AI really gives us is time and speed.
Bill: Perfect segue. Back to time to win, your newest book, your study, your book. I’m curious. What sparked what prompted you to conduct the study about speed related to client service? There’s a lot of aspects to client service speed being one of them.
Jay: This is my 7th book, and every book I’ve written prior had at least a chapter on responsiveness as a way to have a competitive advantage. So the the notion of speed as an important factor of the business success equation is is not new to me and is not new to you nor advisers. I don’t think anybody out there is saying, you know, what we really built our practice on was being slow. I I don’t know that anybody anybody says that. However, my observation was coming out of the pandemic, we had all these trends built, things like quiet quitting and the great resignation and, people, wanting to work from home because they don’t wanna spend time in their car commuting. And and leisure travel, you heard of this one, the combination of business and leisure travel. Bleisure travel, it’s when you bring your kids to the conference so you can double dip the trip.
Bill: Right.
Jay: That’s, like, literally, like, a big thing now. Okay. All of those trends, even baseball. Right? Baseball, new rules, pitch clock, 26 minutes a game shorter now. Because nobody wants to spend an extra 26 minutes a night watching somebody stand around and scratch their nuts in the batter’s box. It’s it’s amazing. So all of these trends, I realized, were the same trend. The same trend, which is that people care about their time and how they spend it more than ever.
We always knew this. Right? But but I think the pandemic sort of really sunk home that nothing’s guaranteed. Right? Tomorrow is not promised to us. And and each and every one of us, has, you know, a finite number of minutes per day. And how we spend those minutes matter. Like, you’ve you’ve heard the phrase, of course, time is money. It’s been around for a really long time. But it’s weird that it’s been around for so long because it wasn’t actually true.
It is true now. It is actually true. It is mathematically true that time is money. And it’s because we live in an era today where we interpret responsiveness as respect, and and we interpret speed as caring. If your adviser gets back to you in an hour, you interpret that differently than if your adviser gets back to you in a day. And and that’s just human nature now.
Bill: I remember I was doing a program when I was cutting my teeth on speaking many, many years ago. It was customer service program, and there was a Stanford study that people’s perception of time is off. In other words, it said that if you’re standing in line for 5 minutes and someone asks you how long you’ve been in line, then you’d say, oh, about 5 minutes. But once it goes over that, it’s like the perception doubles. Yeah. It’s it’s it’s weird. So and and and it’s also we’re we’re up against expectations that we don’t even know. Right? We don’t know what our client expects unless we’ve talked to them, I guess, about that, right, if we communicated our standards.
Jay: But Well, I can tell you what the client expects. Okay. Because we did the research on this.
Bill: Please.
Jay: If you don’t set the expectation, if you don’t explain to the client, here’s how long it takes to buy, sell, change the paperwork, change the beneficiary on, a life insurance annuity, whatever. If you don’t explain to them how long it takes and, especially for younger clients, why it takes long because they don’t take anything at face value. If you don’t explain how long it takes and why, they will assume it can be done instantly. I see. Because so many things in our world now, Bill, can be done instantly. Things that never could have been done instantly in the past. I can grab my phone right now, and I can click a button, and I can summon a car. I can summon a hamburger.
I can summon a girlfriend. Like, there’s a lot of things I can do with one click. Yeah. I mean, there’s the things I can do with one click that would have taken weeks in the past, and Yeah. We can’t help but understand that those kind of instant gratification things will naturally slop over in into this kind of practice. Now look. It was not that long ago. I’m gonna say 4 years, certainly no more than 5, that that people would say something like this.
You know, that’s pretty responsive for a financial adviser. That’s pretty responsive for a bank. That’s pretty responsive for a manufacturer. Nobody says that anymore because they’re not holding you to a different standard because of the industry you’re in. They don’t care. It it you don’t get a pass because you’re in the money business. And and that’s why I really think it’s important for advisors to hear this message. I am not suggesting that anybody listening to this terrific show doesn’t care about speed.
I am suggesting that you need to elevate a culture of responsiveness in your practice because your clients care more about this than they used to. Period.
Bill: Well, first of all, big lesson already is, you know, your study revealed that people interpret responsiveness as respect.
Jay: Mhmm.
Bill: And that goes to the trust issue, of course, and that’s what’s, you know, that’s the grease that makes any advisory relationship work is the trust. So anything else about I know we’re gonna get into some very specifics here. Sure. Some things advisers can do. Anything else, on the high level of why this is important?
Jay: It’s it’s because we talked about this this responsiveness as respect. What happens is and we study this exclusively in the study. And I should just say, this isn’t just like, hey, Jay asked a 100 people. Right? This is thousands this is thousands of of American consumers, pegged to the census. You know, this is university level comprehensive research. It really is the most comprehensive study ever done on on the topic of responsiveness. So this isn’t just, I think this is a neat idea. This is this is real math.
And one of the things we found in this study is that much of this is actually psychology. That that when you are faster or slower than your client expects at anything. Right? At answering getting an appointment set up, at sending paperwork, at bringing them coffee in the conference room, like, at any of the things. It doesn’t matter. If you’re faster or slower, it actually triggers meaningful emotional and attitudinal response. Right? So when you are faster than they expect, people say they are happy or they feel respected. And if you’re slower, they’re unhappy or angry or sad or all kinds of other emotional states that isn’t typically great for client retention. And I will say on that point, I know 2 things to be true.
A, because of the research and B, now that I’m working with lots of companies to put these principles into practice, 2 things are true. 1, if you build a culture of responsiveness in your practice and and you make speed a greater priority than perhaps it is before you listen to the show, 2 two things are gonna happen. 1, you’re gonna get more clients because your current clients are gonna tell their friends, I can’t believe how fast these guys get back to me. And second, you’re gonna keep more clients. 85% of American consumers say that speed is an important factor in their loyalty to businesses. Because, again, if you interpret responsiveness as respect, at some point, every client you have has to revalidate their decision to work with you. Right? You get an annual representation agreement. You get a monthly statement.
You’ve got a portfolio review meeting. Like, whatever the cadence is, that client has to say, do I wanna keep working with Bill? And if, like, remember that time I sent those guys an email, I didn’t get anything back for 4 days. Right? That chips away at that at that foundation. Right? So not only will you get more clients, but you’ll keep more clients. And to me, if I’m building a practice in this industry, both of those are are good news indeed.
Bill: Yeah. One of the cornerstones of my system around referrals is having check ins around expectations. Yeah. And I think setting them on the, up on the front end is important, and talking about that actually, you know, is a trust building conversation, but then having conversations to clear the air, if if an expectation wasn’t met. It’s not a big deal. It may not be a a business killer, and people like to vent. They like you to know. Absolutely.
Right? So, yeah, so you’ve made a great case, I think, for why we wanna focus on this, and I like the idea of building the culture and just adding it to the a little more emphasis in in the new year. In about 90 seconds, I’m gonna ask you to discuss your 6, what you call your 6 piece time to win framework, 6 piece time to win framework, 6 strategies and corresponding tactics. But first, let’s take a very brief pause to listen to a word from our sponsor, PodRocket Influence Academy, brought to you by Proudmouth. First, they make this podcast possible, and their core business is helping financial advisors accelerate their influence through marketing activities like podcasting.
PODCAST SPONSOR MESSAGE: This podcast is sponsored by Proudmouth, the influence accelerators. If you’re like our clients, you wanna spend more time educating people and less time selling. That’s why we turn main street experts like you into trusted mainstream authorities. We help you amplify your influence over a growing audience of magnetically attracted fans who will chase you down instead. Visit proudmouth.com to learn more.
Bill: I wanna let you know about some free resources that I invite you to retrieve after you’ve listened to today’s interview. You’ll find checklists, guides, videos, other tools. Simply go to referralcoach.comforward/resources. Now write this down unless you’re driving. Referralcoach.comforward/resources. It’s also in the show notes. While you’re there, make sure you sign up for our weekly tips. We’re always sharing best practices.
We’ll notify you of our newest podcast interviews as they go live. And while these are free to you, I think you’ll find them quite valuable. Now back to my conversation with my featured guest, Jay Baer, author of Time to Win and other great books, researcher, marketing guru, fantastic speaker, and tequila influencer and educator. Jay, for anyone interested in contacting you as well as learning more about your newest book, Time to Win, where should they go? How do they find you?
Jay: Thanks. Go to the time to win.com. Thetimetowin.com. That is the dedicated website for this project. The research that we’re talking about is there. You know, you have to give me an email address. Download it. Keep it.
Love it. There’s links to the book. The book is also available on Amazon. The book is only, like, $9. Why? How? How is that possible, Bill? How can the book only be $9? It’s because the book is very, very small. It is, like, very small. It’s, like, 50 pages. You can read it in less than an hour.
Why is the book so small? What am I compensating for? Well, here’s the problem.
Bill: Sorry.
Jay: Thank you.
Bill: I have to laugh at that.
Jay: I appreciate that. Thank you. I started writing the book. Right? And I’ve written 6 other books, and they’re, you know, full length real books. And I’m like, wait a second. I can’t ask somebody to spend 5 or 6 hours reading a business book about speed. It’s, like, literally the exact opposite of the vice the advice I’m trying to give you. So I’m, like, alright.
I’m gonna write a very short book that people will actually read and they can take with them. So grab it on Amazon. You’re gonna love it. It’s funny. I just shipped out another couple of boxes, to an adviser who saw me speak. It was like, I would need one of these for my whole team, and I’m like, no problem. So, it’s a nice little pocket guide to to, to keep around.
Bill: Holding it up to the camera now.
Jay: Yes. It’s not a mock up. That’s the real book.
Bill: This is a real book. Yes. It is. Good. Great little book. I love it. That’s why we’re doing this. So I foreshadowed a a minute ago that we’re gonna turn this conversation over to your 6 piece let me say this again.
6 piece time to win framework.
Jay: Yep.
Bill: If you don’t mind, go through the 6 real quick, and then we’ll 0 in on a couple, that we have time for today.
Jay: Yeah. And I just wanna point out that I I would never write a book or or give a speech that doesn’t have this kind of actionable framework. I don’t wanna just throw out a premise like, hey, you should make speed more important in your financial advising business without giving you specific ways to do that. So it’s important to me that there’s things in here that you can actually tackle. And it’s not gonna cost you a tie a ton of money either. So here’s the 6 piece framework. The first is to perform what we call a got it audit. Got it audit just asked you to understand how long does stuff take you now? Like, how long does it take? And that probably sounds pretty obvious, but it’s not really.
How long does it take you to answer a client call or an email or to set up new account paperwork or to get a schedule, a meeting scheduled, or to do a beneficiary change, or any of the other things that you do. How how long does that take?
Bill: You know, but I know where you’re starting. Right?
Jay: You don’t actually know.
Bill: Yeah. Right.
Jay: Here’s here’s what I hear. Well, Jay, usually, it takes, you know, a couple of days. But if it’s over a weekend, of course, it could be 5. And if and if Shirley, she handles most of the new account paperwork. If Shirley’s on vacation, I could take an extra day or so. You know? And I’m like, wait a second. That’s not data. That’s a collection of stories that you tell yourself.
And so if you’re gonna really use speed as a competitive advantage, and you absolutely can, and I think you should, you have to actually know the numbers. So this is gonna require you to do a little analysis, some backwards analysis, and say, well, how long does it take us on average to set up new account paperwork? And a lot of advisers don’t know because the the front office staff are the ones who are handling that stuff. And so you just kind of assume that it’s pretty fast, but you don’t know. So this is the first piece in why this is the one that you really should do first, is to perform this got it audit, which asks you to figure out how long does it how long does it take clients to get what they need from you. I do wanna point out this idea of using this as a competitive advantage. There’s a business in Indianapolis, not far from me. They’re in the accounting business. So, you know, similar dynamics about how they work with clients.
They’re called Bogdanoff and Dodgers. And they have literally built their practice around this principle. They answer every client call and email within 5 minutes. They have a whole process that they built internally to do this. If one person’s on the phone, another person answers it. They’ve got a special email triage system. They they they just built the operations to handle it. Right? Five minute response time.
Now number 1, what does that say about how they value your client relationship when you get a 5 minute response time? Right. They don’t lose clients. And the second thing is they’ve got, like, 75 Google reviews, which I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of accountants in my business career, Bill. You probably have too. I’ve never written a Google review for an accountant.
Bill: No. I love my accountant, but what happened? You’re right.
Jay: I mean, what’s the review gonna say? Hey. I got my tax return back. All the numbers added up, 5 stars. Like, it’s just Cates, like, what am I gonna write this about? They have all these reviews. And if you look in the actual text of the reviews, almost every single one of them specifically mentions how fast they are. So when I say this is a way to actually gain new clients, I’m not kidding. This is literally a way for you to outperform your competition. And I wanna reemphasize that point by saying this.
Every single thing we’re talking about on this show, you’re gonna do. Every single thing we’re talking about, you are going to do. It’s just a question of when. Because your clients will eventually simply demand that all these things happen. What was fast 5 years ago is slow today. So all these things are gonna happen. The question I ask you is, do you want to start doing these things now and therefore outperform your competition until they figure it out? Or do you wanna wait till they make their first move, and then you’re trying to play catch up with them?
Bill: Yeah. And I know that advisers are always looking for ways to talk about their business that make them a little more distinctive than others, and this is certainly one of them. Yep. Great. In the interest of time, Jay, let’s give me the other 5 real quick.
Jay: I’ll do them quick.
Bill: 2nd one is on a couple more, but that first one was a great one. Thank you.
Jay: Got the first one. And that’s what you should do first. The rest of these aren’t necessarily sequential. It’s to answer before they ask. Right? Which is to be more proactive about how you provide information. 3rd is to respond without answers. 4th one is to set speed expectations. Close uncertainty gaps, which is to make sure that that, wherever possible, clients know what you know.
And the last one is to offer a fast pass, which is to give clients an opportunity to jump the line if they choose to do so.
Bill: Which is kind of that special VIP
Jay: Mhmm.
Bill: Phone number that some clients may get. So the one that really sticks out for me, the first one I want you to focus on just a little bit is this idea of respond without answers.
Jay: Yeah.
Bill: Tell us more about that. What do you mean by that?
Jay: I tell you, in this one, I’ve been doing now for about two and a half years or so in my own life. And this will help you not just in your practice, but it’ll help you with your spouse and your kids and your mailman. Like, this is gonna this is a game changer. So today, if a client or a kid or a friend has a question and you don’t immediately know the answer, what do you do?
Bill: You wait until you get the answer.
Jay: Yeah. You go you go look it up.
Bill: Or you go find it.
Jay: Yeah. Yeah. You you ask Google. You ask compliance. You ask, you know, you you you get paperwork from from the fund, like, whatever. You go do what’s necessary to manifest the answer. And then once you have that information, you respond to the query.
Stop doing that. Don’t do that anymore. Because the whole time you’re manufacturing the information necessary to respond, the person who asked the question is slowly freaking out. If I send even if I send you an email, Bill, and I don’t hear back for a couple days, which should never happen, but let’s just play a magical game. And and I send you an email for a couple days, I don’t hear back. I start to play this mental game. Is it possible that I have Bill’s email wrong? Is it possible that Bill’s on vacation but didn’t set an out of office? Is it possible that I attached something weird to my email and it went to spam? Is it possible the bill’s mad at me for some reason? Right? You start playing is it possible, Should I follow-up my email with a phone call? Or does that make me seem sad and desperate? Right? So you start, like, playing all these games. And meanwhile, you were just getting the answer that I needed.
But I don’t know that part. So here’s what you should do. And this is really important for for front office staff as well. Somebody has a question. You can’t answer it. You say, great question. So good in fact, we don’t know the answer. We gotta look it up.
So we’re gonna do that and then we’ll let you know. And the second that you say, oh, we’re gonna handle it, then it goes off of the client’s mental to do list, and they put it on your to do list. And that has a huge psychological change. Number 1, it massively increases how fast they believe you to be. And number 2, it actually buys you more time to get the answer because once they know you’re on it, they give you more time to actually get back to them. Because, important note, time of response is more important than time of resolution. Time of response is more important than time of resolution Because the psychology is what’s really important here. This isn’t really about time.
It’s about the psychology around responsiveness. So respond without answers. Just say, I got it. And that will change the tenor of the whole interaction.
Bill: And if you promise that you’re gonna have an answer by a certain time frame and you don’t have it, still respond and let them know you’re still working on it. Right?
Jay: Yeah. Great. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Good point.
Bill: Yeah. I wanna alert folks to, an episode I did, early on in my podcast with Rod Gibbings out of, Kelowna, British Columbia, episode number 16. It’s part of his onboarding process is exactly what Jay is talking about. If someone transfers money in, you know, they’re transferring money over to you to manage, there’s that lag time. It could be a few days, could be a week, could be a few weeks, whatever, or if they’re going to underwriting for a life insurance policy, there’s that time. And he and or his staff is always in touch with his his brand new clients. This is the onboarding. In the interim, even it’s like no news is good news types of phone calls and emails just to manage the psychology.
Right? The worry, the concern, the angst that they may have, is it gonna be smooth? Is it gonna work? Is it still in the works? Yada yada. Yep. So, you know, can I trust you? That’s really the big question. So I I I preach the advisers that a huge way to damage a relationship is when a party alright. We’ve all been here. A party has an expectation. It doesn’t get communicated, and then it goes unfulfilled. Yep.
Unexpressed and unmet expectation can just really kill a relationship. So your strategy set speed expectations. Is that related? Is that what you mean by that?
Jay: Absolutely. Because people’s expectations around speed and responsiveness have changed dramatically of the whole world. Like, all of these things that we have been experiencing over the last handful of years have now changed our own mental acuity around what is fast and what is slow. And we, I think, in the advisor profession have largely not changed our own response times accordingly. You know? Are people are people actually faster now than they were 5 years ago at doing the things that advisers do? I would argue largely no. And and maybe that’s impossible. But if you can’t actually be faster, you have to be more proactive about setting expectations. Because as I mentioned earlier, if you don’t tell clients how long it’s gonna take, they will assume it’s instant because of things like Lemonade.
Do you know that company Lemonade?
Bill: I’ve heard of it. Yeah.
Jay: It’s an insurance company, and they mostly do renters insurance. And it was built, with speed as their competitive moat from the very beginning. It’s AI fueled. The way it works, I’ll just give you a little example because I think it really is, symptomatic of where we’re headed. And and I’m glad we talked about AI to begin with. So my son actually is a lemonade customer. And and so, for example, there’s a guy, his name’s Phil, and he lives in New York City, and he had, like, a $900 Canada Goose, like, parka jacket. And he went to the bar in New York City, went to the bathroom, left the jacket on the barstool stupid jacket got stolen.
So he opens up his Lemonade app. It’s a mobile app. Clicks the button, records a 32nd video that says, hi. It’s Phil. I’m in New York City. I had this $900 Canada Goose jacket. I went to the bathroom. It got stolen.
Click. 32nd video. On the back end, Lemonade runs a bunch of AI algorithms on his account history, also uses facial recognition software and some other things to try and determine whether or not he’s lying in the video, like body language assessments and these kind of things, tone of voice assessments, the whole thing. They determine using their algorithms whether or not he is likely telling the truth. They decide that he is. They process his claim. They deduct his $250 deductible, leaving him a balance of $650 in benefit. They have his bank account because he had to insert it in the app when he signed up for the account.
The money gets wired to his account, right, And shows up. He gets $650 in his checking account. So this entire process of claims management, from the time he hit submit on the video to the time he had $650 in his account, 3 seconds.
Bill: Sure.
Jay: 3 seconds.
And if you’re taking a week to get back to a client about a question about about a portfolio Right. I’m telling you, this is why I said earlier, every single thing we’re talking about, you’re going to do. It’s just a matter of when do you start.
Bill: And the, the veterans in the listening now are thinking, alright. Maybe I’ll be able to retire before that happens.
Jay: And and I totally understand that. Like, hey, man. Like, I I had a typewriter in college. I I didn’t you know, I’m not a child. I didn’t grow up with this. I had to evolve and evolve again and evolve again and evolve again, and and that’s what the strong do. Right? And and and the weak perish.
Bill: Yep. Survival of the most flexible actually is is what Yeah.
Jay: I mean, my my dad sold his practice and then and then subsequently is unfortunately passed away. But, I mean, he would have been screaming bloody murder about this book and all the things I’m talking about because he was still, like, why can’t I just handwrite all this paperwork? You know? I’ve always handwritten it. I’m like, because it’s 2020, dude. Well,
Bill: Hence the name Lemonade. I just figured that out. Right? The the guy had a lemon experience. They turned it into lemonade.
Jay: Exactly. Exactly. It’s a great it’s a great name. Right?
Bill: Right. So build a culture, set speed as just a higher priority focus, you know, do an assessment. Where are you now? What can you how can you improve? Speed as a competitive advantage. Love that. The website is the time to win.com, the time to win.com. Any any summary statement before we close this thing out, bud?
Jay: Look. This is probably scary for some folks, but it doesn’t mean to be, and it doesn’t need to be. I’m not suggesting that you revolutionize your practice or you turn your business upside down. I don’t think that’s necessary. I’m simply suggesting that you elevate responsiveness on your list of priorities because your clients already have.
Bill: That’s it. That’s it. My featured guest, today’s show Jay Baer, business growth and customer experience strategist, researcher, author, keynote speaker, tequila expert, his which may end up taking over. I it sounds like newest business newest book is, Time to Win. Jay, thank you so much for being part of Top Advisor Podcast today.
Jay: Absolutely. My pleasure. Thanks, Bill.
Bill: Yeah. My pleasure. Our pleasure as well. To you, the listener of this podcast, may I ask you a favor? If you like the episode or like the podcast in general, please leave a 5 star review on the platform. You’re listening to the show. Not all platforms have a place for reviews, but if yours does, we appreciate it. We’d be grateful. If you haven’t already, there are 3 places you wanna visit.
In addition to Jay’s book, the time to win.com, the time to win.com. Also, language of referrals.com, language of referrals.com, referralcoach.com/resources, and our updated new spanking new high content, thecatesacademy.com. I’ll tell you more about that in a Cates show. This is Bill Cates reminding you that ideas do not make you more successful. Only acting on those ideas will bring you the success you desire. Thanks for stopping by. Thank you for listening to the Top Advisor Podcast brought to you by Proud Mouse PodRocket Academy. I encourage you to visit my website, referralcoach.com for links to my books, online courses, and to register for the Cates Academy.
