Welcome to the Top Advisor Podcast brought to you by Proud Mouth’s Influence Accelerator Academy. I’m your host Bill Cates. In each episode, I interview one of the financial service industries, top performers to learn their secrets to sustain success. These short interviews will get right to the heart of what each top advisor is doing to acquire more right fit clients.
You’ll be reminded, renewed and inspired to take powerful action. You’ll impact more lives and increase your income at the same time. Now onto the show.
Bill Cates here, you know, for 25 or more years, I’ve been helping financial professionals acquire more right fit clients. And one strategy we often discuss is that of narrowing one’s focus, pursuing a target market.
Nothing new to you. You’ve heard about that before. Maybe you’re already doing it. In those discussions, some advisors wonder and have often asked me the concept of creating an entirely new website, even giving the company a new name to reflect on their specific market.
I don’t think there’s any right or wrong answer here. Some advisors have done quite well having their current website homepage work as a splitter page. For example, one of my coaching client’s extremely successful business, by anyone’s standards in this industry, focuses on two main markets, medical practices, which is about 70% of his business and small business owners.
His website homepage identifies these two areas of focus and then the visitor chooses which category fits them. And then they split off to the part of the website that’s relevant and appropriate for them. So today’s guest has opted to do things a little differently. She and her partner have decided to create an entirely new DBA “doing business as” with a totally new website.
I believe still under the umbrella of the same company, but a new DBA name for the company. And that’s the topic of today’s interview, the value of focusing on a narrower market and then how that focus is both good for business and also produces the best results for one’s clients. So my guest today is Tiffany Charles. While Canadian by birth, Tiffany has lived in Colorado for 20 years. She’s been in the business of wealth management for over 10 years. Tiffany’s the CGO, Chief Growth Officer of two financial firms. Destiny Capital, which has been in existence for over 40 years and serves a more general clientele, kind of a standard way to approach a wealth manager.
And her new DBA entrepreneurial aligned, which is a relatively new brand dedicated to serving entrepreneurs in very innovative ways. So that’s a long lead up that Tiffany Charles, welcome to Top Advisor Podcast.
TIFFANY: Thank you so much for having me on.
BILL: It’s great to have you. I’ve been excited about this.
Tiffany and I met in person when I had a speaking engagement in Colorado and Denver and boy, we hashed through so many ideas that could be a topic of the podcast. We landed on this one for at least the first one, but don’t be surprised if we have Tiffany back for some other great ideas.
You’re the CGO, Chief Growth Officer, of these two wealth management firms. Let’s start with Destiny Capital. That’s not going to be the main focus but I think we should start where this story starts. Give our listeners a quick overview of Destiny Capital so they know where the story begins.
TIFFANY: Destiny Capital has been around since the eighties. We’re a successful second generation firm. And we take a lot of pride in that. It takes a lot to transition the firm from first-generation to second generation. What was really exciting about where Destiny Capital started was Steve Music was quite innovative in his thinking around financial planning. He knew the IP was in the connection and the advice. So he always maintained being values aligned and putting client experience at the forefront. These principles are still very true to the second generation of Destiny Capital today, but now we’re incorporating how people, the world, our industry advisors and tech has changed.
We are currently a team of 13. We have about 300 million under management. And we are really excited about the impact multiplier we can make as a firm.
BILL: Destiny Capital chugging along. Doing well, profitable business, doing great work for clients. Yet, you and your partner, Jared, had some new ideas of who you wanted to serve and how you wanted to serve them. That gave rise to your new firm Entrepreneur Align.
I gotta make sure I say it right. It’s A L I G N, Entrepreneur Align.
TIFFANY: It’s Aligned.
BILL: Ok, but not entrepreneurs aligned. I think there’s a distinction there that it’ll will kind of show as we talk. So I don’t want to get to too far too fast. What was the seed thinking behind your decision to add another focus to serve entrepreneurs? What gave sprout to this new idea?
TIFFANY: Yeah, this really came from a few things. One, we believe that the greatest value and experience for our clients comes from depth and not width. We’re seeing this shift in many industries, but certainly wealth management. So much has been commoditized in our industry from investments to financial planning, to retirement planning.
Like you name it, our job is to be very thoughtful in the experience that we’re delivering to our clients. And that’s so much more than investment management. And so at the end of the day, we have the approach that it’s not about how many people we serve, it’s about how impactful can we be with the people we serve.
So then we took this belief and we aligned that with where we were as a firm, which meant, we needed to intentionally grow our team so that we could not only add to our existing clients experience, but we could begin to explore a more law firm style approach, where we could create strategic teams to deliver an enduring and specialized expertise and experience to our clients.
So Destiny Capital is actually where we started. We didn’t start with Entrepreneurial Aligned. What we did was, we took note of where are our Destiny Capital clients? While it started as a more generalist firm, they organically started to become a target audience themselves as they grew with our founder, Steve Music.
So when I coach with limitless, we actually often start here, like, take a look at your client book. Is there a natural target audience or niche that exists within it? What we found was that our Destiny Capital clients are nearing or in retirement. And they value having a talented team of advisors that sit between them and the complexity of wealth income and navigating a fulfilling retirement.
So we got our team to a really great place where they’re mission aligned, solid and growing. And that gave us the opportunity to explore who else, who else are we passionate about serving? So that’s where Jared and I started for this next piece, which was, as partners, who are we passionate about serving as a team? Who are we? What communities are we in? Where do we see gaps? What communities are they in? Is there something fraternal that connects these people? And it was a deep exploration because when you niche, you better be passionate and you better be the best, if not better than most.
And so Jared and I have been passionate about entrepreneurship from the beginning. I worked under a successful entrepreneur, starting my career, and was instantly impressed with how far spread the impact can be. Jared and his dad are entrepreneurs. They really had a passion for connecting, researching, and solving their needs.
And from there, we just started to create the model of who are we going to serve. And we understood that we were really well positioned to see them, to know them, to understand them and to help them. And that’s where it started.
BILL: So it wasn’t that anything was broken. The best getting better if you will.
And you said something that I know I like to do with clients that I work with, who sometimes come to me and say, “Bill, I’m thinking about going more narrower and deeper in a target market. I’m not quite sure where to go.” And we talk and you’re right, most of the time it’s sitting right in front of them. It’s already in their book of business.
I mean, any advisor who looks at their book, they’re going to see these clumps of people. Right? All these people work at the same company. All these people are in the same industry. All these people are the same extended family. And so there’s some natural things going on there. I know you’re right there. You gotta be passionate about it. It’s gotta be something you really want to do, especially if you’re going to make this extra effort.
So you could have chosen to keep everything under the umbrella of Destiny Capital. Maybe had that splitter page, like we talked about, but you did choose to do a new DBA to a new company name. A website devoted specifically to this new venture.
So. What did you think about? What were the pros and cons of the final decision?
TIFFANY: Yeah. And I totally agree with you, when you did the introduction. This can be done successfully in so many ways. And we just chose one way that we felt we could best be successful. And so the DBA is not where we actually started.
We started our Entrepreneurial Aligned niche under what we called our private client model at Destiny Capital. We did attempt to put this under one hood and over time we really took in our lessons. We were very open to the feedback and looking for the feedback that’s naturally coming up. Where does friction exists? Where does momentum slow? Why are we getting this really positive energy while we’re out meeting with our center of influence and out meeting with entrepreneurs? And then it kind of fizzles. So those are the things that we were looking at.
Well, when they went to the Destiny Capital website, even though it says we served entrepreneur aligned, there was also words like nest egg and an older couple walking the beach. So Jared and I took a step back and we said, okay, we are choosing to serve two very specific clients, retirees and operating entrepreneurs. And we have a very different client experience that’s set up to deliver depth to both of them. We have different advisory teams. I mentioned the team grew to 13. We have different strategic teams that are skilled and have expertise in working with different types of clients. The fee structure is different. Destiny Capital’s asset under management, this is a flat fee structure that allows us to remove some conflict that exists with entrepreneurs. And the marketing, the tone, the voice, the pictures, the messaging, you know, entrepreneurs aren’t looking for that warmth and comfort. They’re looking for the solutions and opportunity. It’s just a tad bit more bold. And that’s what we want it to be. We want it to be bold with our messaging. We want it to get out there and be like, you’re underserved and we are your solution. And here’s how traditional wealth management hasn’t shown up for you.
And, while still honoring the fact that traditional wealth management has honored and has been set up to serve 85% to 90% of the population. And we’re their solution for entrepreneurs, so that as we were talking through those passions and serving these clients, we recognize the fact that they are going to be more solid standing alone than putting them under one hood.
BILL: A page out of my book, Radical Relevance, to narrow your focus like this, and to really separate the two groups, if you will, and everything you do is going to be more relevant, right? Like you mentioned the photographs, the copy, the words you choose, the concepts you bring up. I always joke about the classic clip art of the older couple walking hand-in-hand down the beach, retired.
Okay. That’s fine. Although not everybody likes that either, but nonetheless people can see that and they say, okay, you know, relaxed lifestyle, retired. Entrepreneurs also sometimes don’t even think of ever really retiring do they? Some do.
TIFFANY: Sometimes our job is to help them never retire. That is part of the Entrepreneur Aligned, right? Like that is a strategy. How do we help you always have that choice that it’s never by force, controllable force obviously, and that it remains an option for you. And so it is a very different approach.
BILL: Were you excited about this new approach? Were there fears that came up?
I mean, in terms of creating the new DBA, what were the perceived risks, if any? Maybe it was just the obvious, maybe it was just, all right, this isn’t working this way. There’s a disconnect, and we have to make a better, bolder first impression. Any mistakes, learnings, fears, opportunities along the way that might be worth discussing?
TIFFANY: I mean, you nailed it in the fact that we knew we were all in on serving entrepreneurs as another focus of our business. And so there was no fear in adding the specialty to serve entrepreneurs. There’s a passion and there’s a need. And quite frankly, we’re really well positioned to serve them. And so for us, it was like, they’re just waiting. We need to go.
Our firm and the leaders of our firm and our team are very comfortable being uncomfortable and making a paradigm shift. What’s been an interesting experience about a DBA is that there was a level of vulnerability that I don’t know that we knew we were going to experience in it.
I think we could feel it a little bit along the way, but a DBA means something is standing on its own. It has its own brand. It has its own mission and vision. It has all these things and it now can be measured and judged on its own. But our credibility and our reputation and our history was built into Destiny Capital.
And so while we can take a little bit of that story to support Entrepreneurial Aligned, it’s just now out there and there’s no turning back. This either succeeds or fails and Destiny Capital is not in that place. It’s stable, it’s sustainable, it’s going to grow, it’s growing well.
And Entrepreneurial Aligned is more in that startup where there’s like major rollercoasters. Are we nailing that message? How’s that showing up? It’s a paradigm shift in the sense that we’re not doing wealth management the same way that it has typically shown up for these entrepreneurs. So it’s a struggle to sometimes make that connection. And so, you know, there was real practical risks on the fact that like, Jared and myself both were like, the time, energy and capital that goes into creating the startup, what happens if we just doubled down on Destiny Capital and our retirement brand and what that looks like versus creating this? How do we feel about that? But then there was real opportunities. One again, direction of industry, where are we if we don’t further specialize?
Entrepreneurial Aligned is a flat fee model. So it doesn’t fluctuate with market fluctuations. And how does that show up in the business and create an opportunity for us as a firm? We can be the leading firm in the nation to serve entrepreneurs, and we’re really excited about that thought leadership. So there’s a ton of opportunities. But it did not come without the thoughtfulness of the trade-offs we were making how to honor both brands really well.
And of course the vulnerability of, this is our baby and we’re going out there with it. And now it has to get it’s legs.
BILL: Well, the word thoughtfulness strikes me because I actually wrote that down earlier as we were talking, you went through a very thoughtful process here.
You just didn’t capriciously move into something else and, you know, throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. I mean, eventually you’ve got to throw it up the wall and see if it sticks, but you pick the right wall and all that. So, I’m butchering a metaphor here. I think I remember you talking a little bit about employees.
In other words, when you’ve made the decision to create Entrepreneurial Aligned, knowing you’re going to be serving different types of people with different types of personalities and needs and different than what most of Destiny Capital employees were used to doing. I mean, in a way you’ve almost formed two companies in that regard, have you not? I mean, it’s different people that are geared towards working with the entrepreneur versus working with the classic client that destiny capital was used to working with.
TIFFANY: Yeah, that’s exactly it. It’s super exciting from like a growth path and opportunities to bring in the best talent in the industry because our advisors have passions in who they like to serve. So, one of our lead advisors, Megan, on Entrepreneurial Aligned, she was previously at a multi-family office, really working through a lot of dynamics and depth and the type of serving that she does with business owners and high net worth families and all the exciting things that come with that.
So she’s really well positioned to serve entrepreneurs and she loves it. She loves solving, how do we work through getting you more equity? What do we look about moving this, possibly small qualified business as an opportunity? That’s just different than what comes up in traditional wealth management.
And so we are looking to build, make sure that the team that we have are set to again, I see you, I understand you and I know you as their advisory team for the client. Yeah.
BILL: Well, a lot more to talk about here. I want to talk a little bit in a minute about implementing this decision, right?
This is a little bit of what was the decision behind it? I want to talk about how you actually brought Entrepreneurial Aligned to life. What it’s meant for the business for your clients.
But first I would like to take a break for a quick word from our great sponsor.
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BILL: By the way I offer listeners of Top Advisor Podcast, quite a few free resources, all geared to help you multiply your best clients. Simply go to ReferralCoach.com/resources. And I think resources has to be all in lower case. And while you’re there, make sure you sign up for our free weekly tips. We’re always sharing best practices and we’ll notify you of our newest podcast interviews as they go live, et cetera.
So with me today is Tiffany Charles the CGO, Chief Growth Officer to wealth management firms, Destiny Capital and Entrepreneurial Aligned. We’ve been discussing some of the decisions that brought to life Entrepreneurial Aligned, and I love some of the copy on Entrepreneurial Aligned website.
This is all about the relevant, the best possible relevant and intriguing and compelling messaging for the right market. So the headline on your homepage, Tiffany says, “Take back your time and capture your freedom because your success should feel satisfying.” Now I’m guessing that wasn’t just something you woke up with one day and said, let’s put that there. This has come from knowing what you know about entrepreneurs. And then the next set of texts, kind of a subhead says, “Traditional wealth management has failed you. That’s where we come in.” So talk a little bit about the creation of this type of copy and the message and how you know you’re bringing the right message forward at the beginning of when someone lands on your website.
TIFFANY: Yeah. So there’s a few things here. One, I think we’re really banging this nail. But having a more defined niche allows you to get more specific with your messaging and really speak to your ideal client, right? Those words are not meant for 85 to 90% of the population, they’re meant for entrepreneurs.
The second way we really look at our messaging is we listen a lot and take notes from our clients and the entrepreneurs we interact with every day. I am telling you, I pick up messaging left and right. They give us those messages. Sit with five entrepreneurs and ask them about their wealth management experience. They will tell you how we have failed them. And that came up very, it was a theme, right? Once pay attention, twice it’s a pattern, three times it’s a theme. How do you take that and wrap that up? And then lastly, we use a compass for our messaging. Shared by our coach Steph Bogan and I’ve mentioned this already once today, but, “We see you, we understand you, we help you.”
We do that with our messaging and if we do that with our messaging, we will get the right opportunities. So I try to put our key messages through that filter. And honestly, Bill, you do an incredible job explaining this in more depth in your book. I love hearing brilliant concepts shared different ways, because I’ve begun to double up my measurement by asking, I don’t know if this is the right way, but I’ve claimed my right questions.
Is it the message of the right person solving the right things at the right time? Right? That creates more fluidity in our messaging too, about how that shows up while we’re exactly in front of our entrepreneur. We can’t solve all things at all times.
So how do we listen and understand, are we saying the right thing at the right time to the right person?
BILL: That’s it. And those are part of the principles of Radical Relevance. A lot of stuff you said there, 85% of the populace, this message will not resonate with well, you know, most of those people are not going to go to Entrepreneurial Aligned, but if they happen to land there, for whatever reason or a small business owners sent a friend who works for a large corporation there, they would see, oh, these are not the right people for me.
And so you’re going to attract the right people or you’re going to repel the wrong people. And, I know repel is a strong word, but it really is what we want. We want to attract the right people. Especially if you’re brand new, okay, they’re breathing, you’ll talk to them, but eventually you’ve got to get a little more selective.
So you said the message or the feeling you’re trying to convey is that we see you, we understand you and we can help you. And I want to unpack that just a little bit, because this is empathy and action. And empathy is not the same as sympathy.
Empathy says, I know a little something about you, I kind of understand and respect your situation. And that’s what prospects need to hear from us. That’s really the first thing they need to hear from us. They need to say to themselves, this person gets me. And sometimes they’ll say, finally, someone who gets me. And I also found that you use the phrase, ”Traditional wealth management has failed you. That’s where we come in.” So that’s the understanding and we can help, but to say, “Traditional wealth management has failed you” that I wouldn’t say it’s controversial, but it’s going to make people wonder, “Hmm. I wonder if I’m missing something”, right? Have I been failed by traditional wealth management and not even realized I’m not being served as well as I could.
Right. Have people ever asked you about the copy? What do you mean by that? Do they ask you questions about how you describe what you do or do they say, you know, I read the copy on your website and man, you really do get us. What kind of feedback are you getting?
TIFFANY: We get curiosity for sure! Which is really great. That’s what I intended it to do. We’re still working on really driving it to a place of more than curiosity. So we’re getting the phone calls, we’re getting the opportunity, but it’s also answering a tad bit more of those questions that are coming up again, just listening as often as possible and narrowing more on who we best serve.
Entrepreneurs could be considered more of a target audience than a niche. And so we’re still working through some of that, some of those things, however, Entrepreneurs get it. I’ve sat with hundreds. When you look at the data, many of them are doing it themselves.
Many of them, if they are doing some sort of structure around personal wealth management, it tends to be possibly with a CPA that likes to go there. Maybe a mentor. It’s very rare that it’s served with a financial advisor. And if so, they’re really keeping them in the safe bucket of only like this liquidity public market bucket, because they’re like, you don’t understand the rest of it and that’s not how I’m choosing to build my wealth.
I’m choosing to build my wealth outside of the liquid public markets. I get that they have a purpose, but it’s not my main driver and it’s not what excites me and all those things. That phrase has been very key in giving us ears, both using that in center of influence marketing, directly in front of entrepreneurs and on the website.
BILL: I could see that, I mean, traditional wealth management has failed you, is failing you, is failing 15% of the population. There’s a lot of different ways to play that and it creates enough curiosity where people want to know more and that’s good. Any time someone raises their hand and says, tell me more.
Kind of an interim question here, a lot of these folks are doing it themselves.
So they are what we could call a do it yourselfer. Now I know my financial advisor generally, doesn’t want to go near do-it-yourselfers first because he’s not had a great experience. They come, they pick his brain for ideas and they rarely do business with him unless they really, truly believe they have failed themselves in doing it themselves.
So I’m curious how that dynamic plays out for you guys. Have you noticed that or not so much. Are you attracting the ones who realize doing it themselves has failed them?
TIFFANY: I think it’s a different kind of do it yourselves because there really hasn’t been an option to serve them. They haven’t had that option.
Of course, I see that in wealth management a lot. Do it yourself with someone who invests a majority of their net wealth in the public markets, there is some real friction in connecting and creating that service. But to be a thought partner in the full planning and how you’re growing your wealth holistically and not having the conflict of where your wealth is positioned has created a really strong opportunity for us.
And that’s what we’re focused on. And that’s what’s really showing up well for the entrepreneur. Was like, Hey, we want to redefine what wealth management is to you, right? Like you’re alone in making decisions, how many people understand entrepreneurs and the weight that they carry? Are they becoming captive to their own creation? That was never the goal.
Those are all things that we’re looking into. And reminding them that, Hey, You are in the seat and there should be satisfaction with your success. There should be joy with it because you have the ability to impact multiples to the normal person, because you sit in a seat of influence and if we can help you take on each step. There’s a lot of money floating around venture capital and private equity right now.
So deal flows coming up more. How is that feeling? How does that sit? Like those are the things that we’re exploring to help our entrepreneurs. So I think it’s just very different because it’s not a matter of them doing it themselves because they want to. It’s a matter of they’re naturally driven, self-motivated people. They have levels of success within their businesses. So there is a level of confidence there but they really haven’t had the opportunity to collaborate and delegate in a meaningful way. And we’re that solution.
BILL: Well, I love the direction. I know it’s resonating with prospects and clients.
I wouldn’t be talking to you if I didn’t know it was working for you. Also I think it was on your website I saw this, you write “In our world, we call you freedom fighters.” So you’re saying that to the prospects, clients who come to your website, freedom fighters. Talk about that word.
And we’re not talking about guerrilla fighters in the jungle. What do you mean by freedom fighter? And how does that resonate with the prospective clients?
TIFFANY: Yeah. You know, this is really meant to be more qualifying language, again, to start narrowing further down and who we best serve for entrepreneurs. We really hope it speaks to the ones that it’s about looking to holistically.
Be very happy and successful. It’s not about the entrepreneurs that want to grit and grind and the empire builders or be status quo and they’re in this lifestyle. It really is about working with entrepreneurs who want, or have the agency to live their best life. Who want to impact others and who want to align their values and capital in a way to do both.
And that is what freedom fighters is showing up for us as, that’s the type of entrepreneur that we best serve.
BILL: Yeah, that makes sense that there’s different types of entrepreneurs. And like you said, you don’t want the serial entrepreneur and all they want to do is just start sell, start, sell, start, sell, or have no balance in life.
Right. Or build an empire, a Jeff Bezos type entrepreneur. Not to judge anybody, right.
TIFFANY: There’s a lot of really great family offices and firms and people who do serve that higher side. And that’s not us. We’re just not that team.
BILL: While Entrepreneur Aligned is a wealth management firm.
I get the feeling it’s really a lot more. That wealth management is really only a piece of how you’re helping your clients. You said something about wealth managing in a more holistic sense, but I know that we’ve talked that you’re having conversations with your clients that have, I guess, a relationship to wealth management, but not what a typical wealth manager role have. Can you give us an example or two of that type of conversation?
TIFFANY: You know, we often talk about what we call like core resources, time, energy, focus, values, relationship, and how your wealth and capital are the tool to support those things. And we monitor and manage and create accountability in all of those resources for our clients. We’re measuring those trade offs. We’re that stop moment that says, “Man, I know that real estate deal looks super exciting right now. But this is going to require this amount of time from you. And you said it was really important to also spend that time with your children.” Those types of things. So we’re definitely having those types of conversations and then they’re coming to us with like, you know, we have the opportunity for this deal or this is happening in our world.
So, it’s very different in the sense that we’re sitting in more of that consultive seat versus necessarily always looking at how their portfolio is positioned is a piece of the bigger pie. And also Entrepreneur Aligned is a community. It’s a community of entrepreneurs who believe in happiness and success.
And I love the direction that this will go because I believe there’s an aspect of the existing entrepreneur organizations out there that is missing this personal wealth side. So a lot of people feel like, and especially entrepreneurs, like we get a lot of questions. FOMO is a really big thing because entrepreneurs have a lot of opportunities that come up and then they’re around other successful entrepreneurs.
And they’re like, “Oh man, should I be doing that? Oh, they seem to have it all together.” And I’m like, you know, it’s not about keeping up with them. And also, can we get to a level of vulnerability about how we ensure our business is serving us as entrepreneurs and that conversation is showing up because all of these entrepreneurs have that fear in them, but they’re not letting that show the personal side of it and these other organizations.
And so we’re really excited about bringing wealth as less of a taboo topic to the entrepreneur community.
BILL: Hence the word aligned, right. In a lot of ways, right? Aligning the wealth around your business, around your personal life. They really are intertwined anyway. And then also alignment with other goals, values, things that you say are important in your life.
So yeah, more than just a wealth management firm, for sure. And I could see where that is an underserved part of the business community.
TIFFANY: That’s exactly it. I think that’s actually true in most communities like monies and wealth is still more hush hush than we’d like it to be. We want to change this power of money and turn it into this positive influence and flow because it does have the opportunity. t’s the tool that has the opportunity to change so much.
And when you create that and then also align that with values and happiness and all those other things, then it changes the world.
Bill, we’ve been talking so much about Entrepreneurial Alligned and myself. I’m so excited to be on the podcast. And I have a question for you. I’ve read your book, Radical Relevance. And in the last chapter, it talks a lot about how we position our business around solving problems. And as I mentioned through Entrepreneur Alligned, we’re really looking into all of this feedback and how do we do this and how do we position ourselves well? And what problems are entrepreneurs aware of? And which ones are they unaware of but we’re aware of, and how do we approach that?
And you have this concept around blatant or hidden problems, and we’re just doing an exercise as a team. I would love for you to explain that.
BILL: Yeah. And I got this idea from a venture capitalist by the name of Michael Skok out of New England. If you can imagine a graph, I guess, on one part of the graph, It’s a hidden or blatant.
So we know there’s the issue it’s blatant, or we don’t really know we have the problem, it’s hidden. And then there’s the aspirational versus critical. So it’s something we’ll get to. Eventually we’ll do that. Sounds good. Yeah. I know. I should have a financial plan. I’ll get there. So it’s aspirational versus, Man, I need a plan. I just have no idea what I’m doing. Well for that person. It’s critical, right?
Critical problems often have a deadline. Sometimes we’re bleeding money or certainly, you know, feeling the pain of missing opportunities. Let’s take life insurance for a second.
For most people, life insurance is what we’ll call a hidden critical problem. Right. Most people need life insurance, especially when they’re younger, certainly. And, they don’t know that they need it. They don’t know the ramifications of not having it or they kind of sense they need it, but it’s aspirational if anything. But a good insurance agent or anyone who’s skill with life insurance can actually show them how, what they thought was aspirational is actually very clear.
And when you move it into that critical spot, that blatant critical that’s where Michael says people will move heaven and earth. People will allocate resources of time and energy and money to solve blatant, critical problems. So doesn’t it make sense that how we go to market, how we message or convey our messaging, strikes or hits people with those blatant, critical problems?
Now we can’t always hit every one of them. But let’s at least have one in there. Right. Where people nod and go, yeah, that’s an issue for me. Right. I had a guy call me yesterday, a large company. He says, Bill, I know we talked last year. We talked about bringing you in to help us with referrals. And you know, when we got distracted by other things, and now we are just bleeding opportunity.
You know, I finally convinced the powers that be, we’ve got to bring in. Well, guess what? That thing that was aspirational became critical. And now it’s a done deal right now. It’s just a matter of working out the details of, of doing business together. So that’s the way we want our messaging to strike people as best we can.
Scott calls this, when something is hitting and critical. He calls it missionary selling. We have to dig in, we have to be on a mission to educate. And sometimes we have to do that. Right. Sometimes there are problems that they have that they don’t realize they have them, and they don’t realize that they’re critical.
And that’s where a good consultative selling process will take you and help you build your business. But let’s look at how we talk about the problems. Are we addressing blatant, critical problems at the beginning of how we talk to people? So we’ll pull them into our world.
And then we have the time and the trust and the energy to bring up some of the other problems that they didn’t even realize they had. So I hope that helps a little bit.
TIFFANY: I love that. I’m like, it’s now my third compass of like how we’re going to work through our messaging. And I love the opportunity of really thinking through how do we earn the opportunity of the hidden, but critical, or hidden plus aspirational and turn them critical because it helps that client in so many ways.
I love the concept and you explained it so well.
BILL: And when you work from referrals, which is, you know, my big thing that I’ve been known for 30 years or more is since you’re working on that borrowed trust and since you did that for their friend, their colleague, those people that come to you through the referral process are going to be more open to your process of digging at that, right?
Cause Sarah’s friend lets you do it and they might even talk about the process. And so yes, you have to earn the right to dig deeper and pull up that stuff and peel the onion back. But when you work from referrals, introductions, it’s usually easier to get into that conversation unless somebody comes to you bleeding, which happens from time to time.
So I I’ve got two final questions for you, fairly quick. I want you to think back over the last 12 months or so, give or take, what have you learned about this business in general, about yourself? How has Tiffany Charles grown over the last.
TIFFANY: I am just in this real place of gratitude. I have so much gratitude for the business we’re in and how we’re positioned to truly change the world from our little corners.
And I’ve grown so much in this past year. I’ve started to own my own entrepreneurial journey. Drinking so much of that EA Kool-Aid right now, the Entrepreneurial Alligned Kool-Aid. I love the idea of how do I have happiness and success? Like, how do we showcase that? How do we change the world through, those things existing at the same time?
I’m trusting myself more as a leader. I took the seat of CGO just a couple of years ago and that imposter voice is starting to quiet. The waves of experiment and fear that comes in running the business and taking new leaps and experiencing failures and big wins. They don’t rock me the same way that they used to.
I have what I would now consider a healthy capacity for leading the wealth management firm, in a way that I didn’t know I needed ahead of time. And personally my journey this last year was working on the art of receiving. I have a hard time receiving. I don’t have a hard time receiving referrals. That’s something that I love.
But I do have a hard time of receiving accomplishments and feeling really true and whole, and celebrating those types of things for myself. I have no problem giving. And so that’s been a big piece of my work and ensuring that I am truly present to my babies and my husband, when it’s out time.
BILL: Yeah, I think what we’re talking about there is confidence and that come from feedback from clients. It comes from a lot of things. I remember, receiving compliments a long, long, long time ago. I was working in this corporate job and a woman came up to me, a woman I worked with and she said, “oh, I really liked your tie today.”
And I go, “oh, this thing? I think I pulled it out of my dad’s closet.” She goes, “You know, that’s a sign of low self-esteem.” I looked at my tie and said, “why?” She says, “Learn how to receive a compliment. Right. When someone says, that’s nice, just take it in.” And that that’s a message I got probably 40 years ago and it stayed with me today when people compliment, I just take it in, I don’t diminish the compliment. Cause then I diminish them when I diminish the compliment. Right.
So the last question is, and it’s gosh, it’s kind of come out already. I think. What are you most optimistic about the business, about Entrepreneur Aligned? Let’s finish with that optimistic feel from you. Cause I know you got it.
TIFFANY: Yeah. I’m a very optimistic person. But I’m really excited about expanding how we measure growth and success as entrepreneurs, as advisors, in our business and our industry, there’s so much more than just to the numbers of AUM or revenue or number of households or revenue per employee. Like it’s, our IP is in the way that we connect and the advice that we deliver.
There’s so many other measurements to it, impact growth, wellness, happiness, time, relationships. And I’m really excited about the challenge as an industry and as people that we’re facing to address these measurements.
BILL: Tiffany Charles, thank you for the great ideas, the insight, the wisdom, the energy, the optimism. We appreciate having you on Top Advisor Podcast.
So our guest today on Top Advisor Podcast has been Tiffany Charles, Chief Growth Officer of two wealth management firms, Destiny Capital and Entrepreneurial Aligned. If you haven’t already, head over to ReferralCoach.com/resources to sign up for our weekly tips and access a ton of free guides and scripts.
Make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss forthcoming episodes. Go back, look at some of the past episodes, a lot of great stories in there. This has been Bill Cates, reminding you that ideas do not make you more successful, only acting on those ideas will bring you the success you desire.
This is Bill Cates, and you’ve been listening to the Top Advisor Podcast, sponsored by ProudMouth. Be sure to click the subscribe button so you don’t miss the latest show and feel free to share this and other episodes with your colleagues. And if you want to learn more about the work I do with other top advisors, just go to ReferralCoach.com
