Turn great client relationships into a predictable referral engine.

Diana Cabrices (0:00): We have a pretty bold title here, right? We want to talk about specific strategies to grow your referrals by 300%. And so when David and I planned this webinar, we knew we wanted to be bold, because we both absolutely believe in the process here and the little things that you can implement that make a really big impact. So I have a quick agenda. I like to cover what we're going to talk about. But before we do that, perhaps, David, for anyone who doesn't know you here, if you maybe jump in and give yourself a quick intro.

David DeCelle (0:31): Yes, of course. So I was in your shoes about seven years ago for seven years. So I was an advisor for seven years, transitioned over to the consulting side. So now I own Model FA, bought that company right around this time last year in July. A good friend of mine, Patrick Brewer, that you may know of, started the company. And he's now a CEO of a large RIA. So him and I are still tight, still friends. But yeah, running Model FA now, which is coaching, consulting on one side of the business, and then the other side of the business, we're fractional CMOs. And we also do all the things that a marketing agency would do, from website development all the way down to creating one pagers that you use in your sales process and everything in between. So anything an advisor needs for marketing, we can certainly help with. But that's a brief, brief background.

Diana Cabrices (1:30): I like how you guys position yourself too on your website. And we're going to make sure, folks, that at the end of this session, David has a little bit more time to talk more about Model FA in case you're curious. I'll give myself a really quick intro. My name is Diana Cabrices. I am the chief evangelist at Wealthtender. And my job and my goal is to educate advisors on all things growth, from a marketing perspective, a branding perspective, but also technology, because I'm a firm believer that technology helps you scale that growth. I've been doing this for about eight years, kind of moved a little bit all over the industry in different roles, supporting advisors from different angles of their business, not just marketing, but also succession planning, mergers and acquisition, even recruiting. So I have my fair share of experience with advisors. I like to say I'm a bit well-rounded, and I love the topic that we're jumping into today. So without further ado, because I know you're probably ready to go, let's look at a quick agenda. These are just some of the things you're going to walk away with and help us stay on track to make sure we keep this organized. We're going to talk about three challenges that advisors have to overcome to grow their businesses. We're also going to dive into client experience and give you some really cool and simple ideas that you can implement. We want to help you convert your clients into what I call brand evangelists, or just advocates, if that's not your thing with that word. What the C3 mindset shift is. This is a really interesting one that David taught me when we planned this webinar. We're going to teach you how to implement it to boost referrals naturally. Everything here is very organic. And then finally, the three types of advisors and understanding where you stand for success. So we want to know which type of advisor you think that you are. David, I would love if you could go ahead. In just a moment, we're going to have you share your screen. But before that, I actually have a quick poll. I like to run these sessions. I like to make them engaging. We want to hear from you folks. This is an optional poll. You don't have to respond if you don't want to. But curious, what is your current state of referrals? How would you describe your current situation? Do you get a lot of referrals? You're confident in your strategy? If you're here, I'm not so sure. Maybe there's a few. You get some, but you definitely want to improve your referral strategy. You hardly receive referrals and you want to be more intentional with creating a real engine, a real approach there. Or you don't really focus on referrals, but you're interested in learning more. And finally, you're just not sure where to start. Totally cool, to be honest here. All right. I'll give you about 10 more seconds. Looks like most of you have answered, which is great. We'd love to see you engaged.

David DeCelle (4:19): I will say, as we're seeing the results come in at the moment, I think this is a good group of folks for this particular topic. Oftentimes, I would expand on, I received some referrals, but I'd like to improve my referral strategy. Oftentimes, that means you're either not getting the amount that you would like, or it's not as predictable as you would like, where it's, hey, I'm getting X amount per month based on the system that I have in place. So today, we'll help both increase the amount of referrals that you get and make it more predictable so that you actually can start to model what your growth will be like, as opposed to, I get a random referral here or there. So I think this will be very timely and helpful for folks.

Diana Cabrices (5:09): Agreed. And I just shared the results back with everyone. So you can see for yourself what your peers are saying, right? A good chunk of you do receive some referrals, but you want to improve that strategy. And I kind of put this in some of the marketing for today's webinar, but being a little bit more proactive rather than reactive. We know referrals are a huge growth source for you. So why not lean into that a bit more and just create, again, more of that engine, more of that machine for your business, that scalability. So thanks, guys, for answering the poll. We love to hear from you. And now, David, why don't you go ahead and share your screen, and let's hop right into our content.

David DeCelle (5:45): All right. Excellent. Let's rock and roll. So the way that I'm trying to position this presentation, just a couple of quick logistical things to set expectations. Number one is I want to make sure that I'm finishing this around 1235, 1240 Eastern Time, just so that we have time at the end to answer questions. So as we're going through this, please put in the chat box some questions that you have, some reservations that pop up. If you want to push back on anything that I'm sharing, that is more than welcomed. And then if we need to expand upon any of those questions, perhaps we can allow you to come up and speak and unpack it a little bit if you're comfortable in doing so. So that's one thing. Please drop some questions in the chat box along the way. Number two, this presentation intentionally is positioned to be very simple. So you're going to see some just images, because I don't want the words on the screen to distract you from what we're trying to share and get across today. So just as a heads up, this is a very simple presentation, but I'm going to be adding some color and flair along the way. So with that being said, let's dive in. So the advisor's dilemma, I find, because we've worked with hundreds of advisors, one-on-one, thousands of advisors at scale, and we've started to notice that there's a few main things that advisors struggle with that I struggled with when I was an advisor as well. One is what I refer to as the client experience hurdle. So when I come across advisors, I find that their service model is very well buttoned up. They know exactly what an advisor, excuse me, what a client is going to go through from introduction to onboarding and beyond. But where there's opportunity for growth and improvement is having a well-defined experience model, because foundationally, when you think about getting referrals, people refer not because you meet their expectations. They refer because you exceed the expectations. And if you stop at your service model, that's just meeting their expectations. When you layer on that experience model, that's when you start to exceed them. But the problem becomes, how do we actually do so in a scalable way? And we're going to unpack that today. The second thing is thinking that it will happen organically, naturally. So I'm sure, because I know that I've struggled with this before, but as you think through the clients that you would love to get referrals from, you probably have the, oh, crap moment when you realize, well, it's been three months, four months since I've had any interaction with them. Because we can blink and that much time passes. My wife and I got married back in October. We bought a house a couple months ago. And I feel like it's been like two days and it's really been like almost six months. So we can blink and time can fly past because we're all busy. We all have stuff going on and we don't want to go too long without interacting with our clients. But we just need to figure out how to do so in a scalable way and create a system to hold us accountable to actually implementing it. Just like I would imagine you all have a system or should have a system that reminds you when it's time to reach out to a client to schedule their semiannual review or whatever your cadence is for reviews. We need to have that same system for the experience component. The third thing is just like most people, we want to get results yesterday, right? Like just the immediate results. And oftentimes when we implement certain things into our business, because you listened to a podcast, you joined a webinar like you are today, which thank you, by the way, or you go to a conference or you read something in the book and you decide to implement it. And then after a few weeks, after a month, you don't get that result that you were hoping for. So then you either stop doing that thing or you replace it with something else and you never see it through to actually get the results. So think about, you know, the example I'll use is when you start going to the gym, right? And usually it's like 60 to 90 days before you see those results in the mirror, right? You may feel a little bit better in that first month, but it's like 60 to 90 days. And then when you fall off from going to the gym, like we all do at times, you don't really feel the pain of that until 60 to 90 days later, where you blink and you're like, whoa, I'm back to square one. So typically when you're implementing something, be it you're going to the gym or it's a marketing strategy, business development strategy in your business, we have to be okay with a little bit of delayed gratification and see things through before we get the shiny on object syndrome and go hop to the next. So I would just encourage folks, whatever you decide to implement, whether it's stuff that we talk about today or things that you've been wanting to implement that you've learned about previously, you just see it through, give it a solid quarter before you reevaluate.

Diana Cabrices (11:25): And if I can jump in on that, David, I think the key word there is accountability, right? Because as business owners, first off, there's a million things going on in our heads at all times, but also I think we have great intentions. We want to stay the course and really see things through, but accountability is going to be our best friend in doing that. It's super duper important. So I'm a big fan of systems to help stay accountable. So I'm excited to dive into that.

David DeCelle (11:53): Cool. Well, let's rock. So client experience, again, we already alluded to this. We need to layer this on top of whatever your service model is. So let's say, for example, I'm sure we've all heard the saying of like, hey, trust just takes time. I would argue that that's a fallacy. Time is certainly a component, but I think that trust is based on the accumulation of experiences and the exposure that you have with one another. So I'm making this up for sakes of an example, but let's say that to equal trust, there has to be 50 touch points. Again, just made up example. And you decide, okay, cool. I'm going to do 10 touch points a year over five years. At the end of five years, boom, trust established. All right, cool. But what if you did 50 touch points in a year and the same result was true? It ended in trust. You just shaved four years off of that process. Hypothetical example. And the question becomes, what are you doing to interact with these folks that isn't annoying, it's not overbearing, it's helpful, it's valuable, it's funny, it's engaging. What are you doing in that regard? So again, I said that these slides can be very simple. So if I go to a McDonald's and I get a, which I don't, but if I go to a McDonald's and get a Big Mac and I ask for no onions on the Big Mac and I go to the drive-through, I get it, I open it up and I see that there's no onions. I'm not calling people to tell them about my experience at McDonald's because all they did was they met my expectations. Whereas when I go out with my wife to a nice steakhouse, there's a place here in Tampa called the Meat Market and they greet, have you been there?

Diana Cabrices (13:46): Yeah, I've heard of it. I've been learning about it in Tampa.

David DeCelle (13:50): If you end up going, let me know, I'll give you the manager number to text and coordinate. So that's one thing right there. I have the manager's number to text. When I walk in, they greet me and my wife by our names. They walk us over to the bar to grab a drink while we wait for the table. We go to the table, they pull out both of our chairs. It's just a five-star experience from scraping off the crumbs in between. It's wonderful. That's something, I mean, think about it. I'm talking about it right now, right? That's worth talking about with others. So I would ask yourself, what are you providing to your clients? Is it that McDonald's style, meet your expectations, sometimes sort of vibe, or is it I go above and beyond for my clients? So that may be, think about something at the very onset when you get an introduction or you get a lead and they schedule on your calendar. Are you doing anything in advance of that meeting? It's just like, hey, looking forward to meeting with you. Talk to you on Tuesday. Or is it, hey, really looking forward to meeting with you. Here's a short two-minute video introducing myself and letting you know exactly what to expect in our time together. You have the video and then underneath that, looking forward to it, please let me know if you have any questions. Cheers, David. PS, here's a link to our reviews so that you can see what other clients are saying about working with us. That's more of an experience than your staff saying, hey, David is looking forward to meeting with you on Tuesday next week. Please let us know if you have any questions, right? You're actually putting a face to the name and you're making it known that, hey, they're not the first person considering working with you. There's 30, 40, 50, a hundred people that have already had a five-star experience. Here's a link to go show you that, right? So that's just an example as to how you can start to elevate the experience. And that's something that you can certainly build in as a standard operating procedure in your business where that video that you shoot, you don't have to say, hey, John, you can say, hey, really looking forward to our meeting coming up. That's evergreen and that can be standardized moving forward. So that's an example as to how you can create a scalable experience in that micro moment of simply confirming an initial meeting.

Diana Cabrices (16:25): Something as small as an email goes a really long way, especially if there's a video in it. I mean, video emails in general just have better engagement, but love the idea of adding the testimonials. I think we're going to kind of sprinkle that throughout this entire presentation. And if you signed up for this webinar, you probably saw, we want to talk about testimonials, but that's storytelling at its finest. And so you're already extending this sort of emotional connection for these people before you've even met them. So I love that idea. If you're on the call, write that down. We'll of course send a follow-up recording of this meeting and you can always refer back to that. But it looks like we already got some questions coming in the chat and Megan, we're absolutely going to spend some time on Q&A. David, we could sprinkle them throughout or we can just kind of save them for the end, whatever you'd like.

David DeCelle (17:14): I do want to just make one more point and then I actually don't see the question. So if you are cool with teaming up.

Diana Cabrices (17:21): Okay, totally.

David DeCelle (17:22): So I will say, and Michael Barrasso, who we mentioned earlier, could attest to this. And Michael, if you're still tuned in, just drop it in the chat that I'm not fibbing on my end. But I want to say your firm, United, with your father in his profile has like 46 reviews. Last time I looked and by integrating it into the process, they've noticed a higher conversion rate from initial appointment to client. And when they do presentations and things like that in their own marketing, and they're looking to convert people to their calendar, a higher conversion rate when they're showing and integrating the reviews into their process. Because again, think about anytime you try a restaurant or before you pick an air conditioning company to come and fix your air conditioner, like what are you doing? You're on Google, you're on Yelp, you're on a platform looking at what other people are saying. So if you can help guide these people to what other people are saying, and I will say too, it took me, and I laugh when I say this, but it took me like, I don't know, four months to convince Jerry to finally move forward with Wealthtender. Because he was, what if I get a one star review? I'm like, they wouldn't be working with you. And then he's finally implemented it. And he was, just like most people say when they know they should be doing something, they're like, I should have done this way sooner. But yeah, there's been a higher conversion rate. But yeah, we can take some questions before we go over to the next slide.

Diana Cabrices (18:57): Oh my gosh, love it. All right. Michael did confirm that you're not lying. And actually for everyone, I linked the case study that Wealthtender built out on United Financial Planning Group and their experience with reviews. And I'm just going to read out Megan's question here, and I'd love to take a stab at it. And David, add any of your thoughts as well. But Megan says, how do you think about reviews from a compliance perspective? Can be tricky. And you're absolutely right. And this is one of those strategies that you can't really afford to go wrong with compliance. And so with any review that you collect, first off, you have to ask all of your clients. The SEC doesn't want cherry picking. So we advocate for sending a single email to all of your clients. I'll actually give you a sample email in the chat you can use. And then when you start to get reviews and you promote them on your website or social media, on third party sites like a Wealthtender, you always want to have disclosures. Triple C, client compensation, conflicts of interest. Is this person a client or not? Have they been compensated or not? Are there any conflicts of interest in the relationship? Wealthtender was built to actually do this for you. So it's an advisor tech built to make compliance, the entire process around reviews compliant friendly from collecting to promoting. But those are just a few of the things you have to consider. There's other things like if you're going to take a single review and promote it somewhere, it needs to always link back to all your other reviews. But the SEC new marketing role lays out all of the groundwork. State registered advisors are where there's a little bit of green light, red light, kind of yellow light situation going on. Not all states have approved it. And then if you're FINRA, broker dealer affiliated, that's very similar to the full SEC marketing role. So I will link a testimonial marketing playbook for you in the chat, Megan, and for anyone else who wants it as well. All right, David.

David DeCelle (20:49): Ready to rock?

Diana Cabrices (20:51): Yeah.

David DeCelle (20:51): Awesome. And then just as a quick teaser, everything that we're discussing today, we have modularized in a training course. We sell that for a thousand bucks for like a sort of DIY model that doesn't come with any ongoing coaching or anything like that. But we will be giving that away at the end. So stay tuned for that. So just a little teaser to keep you all engaged. But let's rock. So we need to make sure that we're very systematic with advancing relationships. Again, it's something that we think happens organically, but it's best done when you have a system around it, just like, frankly, the other areas of your business. This is no different. And what I would say is that when you think of, and you'll come to learn, I use a lot of silly examples, but this piece of the process that leads to more referrals, think of like a lawnmower. Before you pull the cord, you have to prime the pump. So before you ask for referrals, and I'll share with you the way in which we suggest that you do that, you have to make sure that you're pouring a lot of love into these people so that they're having a great experience. So we're at that priming of the pump moment right now. So think about when you're with your clients, at least this is a situation that I found myself in when I was an advisor, where every time I reached out to them, I was essentially asking for one of three things. I was asking for their time to meet. I was asking for their money to have me manage. Or I was asking for their network, right? I was asking for referrals. And all those are withdrawals. And think about when you're at a bank, if all you do is make withdrawals and no deposits, eventually that bank's going to be like, you know, hey, you got to, you got to go or you got to put some money in because this relationship is very lopsided. You're going to run out of your cash. Well, if we use that same sort of thought process with all the relationships around you and the clients that you serve, we need to make sure that the deposits that you're making in the relationship are way, way, way, way, way, way, way more than the withdrawals that you're making from that relationship to the point where when you do go in for some sort of ask, they're almost feeling like, oh man, like, finally, I can pay you back for all the help that you've provided me. And if you can, it's more notable. Okay. What I found is it's more notable when you have an impact on your clients outside of the scope of what you're compensated to do. So when you help them within their financial plan, sure, that's awesome. That's what you get paid to do, but that's also kind of the expectation in them hiring you. But if they're into personal development and you send them a book recommendation or a podcast recommendation, or they love cooking and you send them a recipe or just some of these like softer, sort of lighter touch points, they're able to associate that value with you in a totally different area of their life. And they truly view you as that trusted person that they can go to for anything. If they need a new roof for their house, like you got a guy that can help them with that. Like making sure that you are the go-to person for anything they need really helps elevate you in their eyes to where they want to reciprocate because you've impacted them way more and way beyond just financial planning. So in our system, there's a couple of different ways that you can do this. You can have a nice dashboard like this, which you can reach out to us and we can build this for you. This is just monday.com. So you could build this as well, where we basically have the prospects, the COIs, the clients in which the relationships are that you want to really focus on. And we have it notify you on the date in which you should be taking that next step. What is that next step that you should be taking with them? And every time you do something, you schedule what that next thing is. You either schedule the date of when you want to do something or you schedule the date of what you're going to do if you already know what that thing is. So again, you're tracking this and you're being reminded when you need to do something. So this is how you can hold yourself accountable. This can also certainly be in Excel if you review Excel enough to remind you and organize it by date. This can be done in your CRM depending on what CRM you use and its functionality. It does not have to be our system. We just happen to have one that we've built. So the point is to have a system to hold you accountable to again prime the pump before you rip the cord. Okay. So that said, before we go into the C3 list, there's another methodology. So you all may have heard of a gentleman by the name of Dan Allison in the industry. Him and I, we've become really good friends and business partners. So he has a referral methodology. So assuming that you're delivering a great experience, what will happen is you're basically making it so that the clients are primed and ready to make referrals or give referrals. But oftentimes, you're not their first priority as, hey, how am I going to help David grow his business today? But when asked, they're more than happy to do that. Right. And it's the saying of, like, you have not because you asked not. And there was a study done by dimensional fund advisors. And I forget the exact, exact stats off the top of my head. But essentially, it's like 87% of clients are more than happy to refer. And when asked why they don't refer, it's because their advisor never asked them. It's because they didn't know that their advisor was taking on new clients. Right. Think about small talk at the beginning of a meeting. Oh, how are things? Oh, things are good. Super busy. That kind of communicates that you don't have time to serve more people. So careful what you're saying during that small talk. They don't know what type of clients you want to work with. Right. So Dan has this process that he's been speaking on for over 20 years. That's called feedback marketing and their interactive client surveys.

Diana Cabrices (27:53): Now.

David DeCelle (27:54): So these are things the way that this is positioned is you basically open up when you reach out to them and say, hey, you know, if you're open to it, I'd love to spend some time with you. One of our big initiatives this year is to really help elevate the client experience that we're providing for you and all the other families that we provide. And rather than, you know, sitting in the conference room and figuring this out on our own, we figured it'd probably be best if we just asked our clients where we're doing well that we should double down on or where perhaps we're dropping the ball, because at the end of the day, this is the business, but the business is run by humans and we're not perfect. And we'd love to get some constructive feedback from you as well. Would you be open to spending some time? So they agree. You spend some time. And the way that that process is structured is you get some feedback from them. You have specific questions that you ask. You then do what we call cross-educate them on the services that you provide, because they may not know that you do something that they ultimately need. And rather than them going and finding someone to help them with something that you could help them with, now they know that you can help them. Or maybe there's someone in their world that has a different need than they had previously or that they've experienced. And now they know, oh, you can help them too. And then, and I'm being brief in this because the giveaway at the end, we have like two hours of content on this exact process. So there's more to come on that. But you then, and this is internal lingo, not client facing lingo. There's a series of questions that you ask that determines, are they a gold mine or are they a can mine? Are they open to making introductions or not? And oftentimes what you find is they're open to making introductions and they have made introductions, but they've made introductions in the way in which they think an introduction is made, which is, oh, yeah, I've given your information to like three people. And you're like, well, I haven't heard from any of those people. Right? So now you have the opportunity to educate them on how to best make sure that they get the help and the guidance that they were seeking in that moment. So that's a 90 second overview of about 90 minutes to two hours worth of content that we have in the course that you'll all get access to. So, but that said, psychologically, what you're doing in that process, for those of you who aren't familiar with your reticular activating system, or your RAS for short, it's essentially your brain's filter of relevant information. And the example that I always use, where people are like, oh, yeah, I know what that is. Think about the last vehicle that you bought, you buy that, and then you're driving around, you're like, everyone has this car. Right? All those cars were already there. Your brain just didn't filter as relevant information until you bought one yourself. So your clients, they have opportunities all around them. But now that you're activating their RAS, by having the conversation around referrals, they're going to start spotting opportunities more and more. When you go back to tie in reviews again, when your clients pause for a moment, and leave a review, one thing that I'm super impressed with anytime I see folks leaving reviews for advisors that I help implement Wealthtender to is that it's not like, Jerry's great, definitely with him, like they're, they're well thought out. They're, they're, it's like, wow, that's so kind, right? And nice. So in that moment, you're getting them to pause. And I'll say verbalize, but in written form, you're getting them to verbalize the impact that you've had on them. And when they take a moment to do that, typically, people want to share that positive experience with other people. So by leaving a testimonial by bringing them through this process, you're activating their reticular activating system to ultimately start spotting more opportunities. Oh, and by the way, like I said, most times they're like, oh, yeah, I shared your information with someone or I've shared your information a few times, you can actually get re-referred to those folks that were already referred previous to that. So when we talk about increase your referrals by 300%, well, after three, four months of implementing a great client experience, and actually asking for introductions in a way that's comfortable for you and comfortable for your clients, that's when you start to see a big uptick. Now, granted, if you're used to getting a referral a month, you're probably going to get more than a 300% increase of referrals, who probably more like a 10x, you know, increase in referrals. But my point is, is when you're intentional about anything in life in general, nevermind just referrals, and you track it, and you work at it, those things tend to improve drastically. But we have data that can support because in our coaching portal that we have for our clients, we track all the asks and the referrals received and conversions to new clients like we have data that supports the average, you know, advisor increases this stuff by 300%, which is where that number comes from.

Diana Cabrices (33:18): Right, we didn't just pull that one out of thin air.

David DeCelle (33:21): No, we have a whole tracking mechanism, all of our relationships that we have. So again, get access to that stuff. And now I'll pause in case there's some questions or, you know, if there's anything that you want to add, and then we'll round it out with the C3 list.

Diana Cabrices (33:38): Absolutely. So first off, what you're saying, just being intentional, right? I like to also position it as you're giving energy to this strategy. Like, there's a lot of different strategies, some that are just kind of riding idle, when you really start to like rev the engine, you're giving it energy. And so I think that being intentional is really important. The other thing about testimonials is people actually love talking about themselves. So when you're asking them, can you write about your experience, you're asking them to talk about themselves and you're spot on, David, we've got over 1500 reviews on the Wealthtender platform. And I just like scroll through and read them and I'm blown away. Like so many of them, 99% of them are five stars. The 4.9ers are because those people are never going to give a five star review anywhere. And that's okay. And you know, there's a thing to be said psychologically about people seeing a 4.9, not just all five stars actually feel it to be a little bit more genuine. The last thing that I'll add here, because this came to mind was when you were talking about, you know, they're not really verbalizing the review. They're kind of getting in and writing. I like to call that digitizing the review. And I also like to say that client referrals, I'm sorry, client testimonials, which again, these are stories, client stories are scalable referrals and they sell themselves, right? So you're digitizing the message, the referral, the recommendation. And then instead of it just being given to one person or two people or three people, they know now tens, hundreds, if not thousands of people online get exposure to that recommendation. So it's a, again, going back to keyword of scalability, it couldn't be a better strategy for that. Guys, if you have any questions, we've gotten some comments along the way. Some people have had to jump for meetings, but they all asked about the recording. Yes, we will send out the recording. Kirsten Petras, which I worked with her a long time ago when she was at Oak street funding. She said, fantastic session. I have to hop, but look forward to the recording. So thank you, Kirsten. If you have questions, there's two ways you can drop them for us. And we'll make sure at the end of this session, we have a dedicated Q and a, we're going to get into the C3 mindset, which I find fantastic. I find it super interesting. Drop your question in the Q and a box or in the chat box, whichever one you feel comfortable with. Do not be shy. And we'll do one more poll at the end too. But I say, let's keep moving forward, David.

David DeCelle (36:01): Cool. Let's rock. So a lot of times when advisors don't ask for referrals, it's because of one of two, if not both of these reasons, one is they know in their heart of hearts that they have not made enough deposits in their relationship that justifies an ask. And if that's where you're at, then what we've talked about so far can help kick you in the right direction. The other reason is due to a lack of competency. And in my experience and opinion, I think that confidence comes from whether or not you keep little promises to yourself on a daily basis. Because if you can't follow through with what you said you were going to do, I wouldn't be confident either. And I've been at that stage in my life plenty of times. And as a result, I have not been confident. But then there's been times where I actually do what I say. And therefore, confidence is through the roof. And I can ask for referrals, I can do the things that I otherwise wouldn't do. So this system will help with that. Okay. So C3 list, as actually that alluded to the three C's are committing to something being consistent with those some things, and then ultimately building your confidence. So let's go through and talk about what this actually is. So C3 list, there are three categories, and you do five things per day, two things that you move that you that move yourself forward, personally, two things that move yourself forward professionally. And one thing that moves others forward. So what I found is, if I was working, making a bunch of money having a lot of impact, and things were great with work, but I let the personal side go by the wayside, I just felt off. If personal side was all buttoned up, having a bunch of fun doing all the things that I should be doing, but work was tough, I felt off. And if those two things were working, but I wasn't intentionally trying to care about and do nice things for the people around me, I just felt off. So that's why there's those three different categories. Now, these things don't need to be groundbreaking. It can be waking up at a certain time, again, don't necessarily get lost in all these examples. But these are just examples, you don't have to pick from this list. But it could be waking up at a certain time, like not hitting the snooze button, like that first thing in the day, just like follow through on that first thing, and you're immediately going to have a better day than otherwise would have. But it could be working out, it could be eating clean, it could be listening to an audio book, it could be meditating, it could be journaling, it could be whatever it is that, frankly, you know, you should be doing, that you haven't been following through on. Professionally, for sakes of keeping in line with this conversation, it could be advancing three relationships and making that deposit, those deposits, and then asking for an introduction. Right? So that's how you sort of build in that consistency with the things, again, if you want to generate more referrals, well, what does that take? That takes relational advancements with folks, and actually asking for what you want. So align your actions with the outcome that you're looking for. And then things that move others forward, it could be send out two gratitude texts, you know, per day of people that have had an impact on you, calling, you know, your folks or, you know, family member, just checking, see how they're doing, connecting to people, or my favorite, holding the door open for that awkward amount of time where they start jogging towards the door, because they feel bad, whatever it may be, just something that impacts someone else's life, no matter how big or small, you know, that may be. But what you may have noticed as I went through those is they are 100% in your control and action oriented, they are not results oriented. Okay, because your confidence is going to come from not what the results are, but are you doing what you set out to do. And then if you have that delayed gratification mindset, okay, 60 to 90 days, this stuff is going to pay off. And you trust the process, you just do this every single day, you're gonna be a totally different human. But think about, again, and I don't speak on this as I'm sitting up here, so to speak, like I speak on this having needing to develop this because I was not in a very good spot at the time. And what I realized is that you can get your stuff together rather quickly, just by being intentional with the actions that you take on a daily basis, and not just be loosey goosey, see what life throws at you, right, just add that level of intentionality.

Diana Cabrices (41:07): I like how the moving me forward personally is first on the list. Absolutely, I think that matters more than anything else on that list, because it all starts with you. It starts here. I would be curious, I think you gave an example of something that you were doing. If any of you want to engage with us and drop in the chat, like what is an example of that look like for you or something maybe you've been wanting to do, but you haven't done yet. I'll share a quick example for myself that has made a profound impact. I used to get up, you know, I run my own business, right, I used to get up at 6am and I was immediately on the computer, because that's when my brain is firing off. And also when I find that I'm most creative, because I have no distraction. But over time, I have found that that just was taking its toll on my health, it was driving up my cortisol early in the morning, I wasn't nourishing myself or taking a moment to like just center myself before getting the day started. And so what I do instead now is I wake up, take my supplements, get me a little warm lemon water, and I go straight outside for a 20 minute stroll. It's just a simple stroll. It's not even really exercise. It's just a simple stroll. And then I come back and I am so much more centered, I have less stress, I can sleep better. It's there's something to be said about connecting your light with the eyes first thing in the morning. So if I didn't make that change, I don't know that I'd be able to continue juggling all the different things that I juggle as a business owner. So again, David, I love that you put that first. We've gotten a couple other questions just real quick. Leonard was curious if we could send out the slides for the session today. I'm sure he was really interested in getting this list.

David DeCelle (42:50): Yeah, so the slides may not be necessarily relevant because of the french fries and the steak that are on there. But all this stuff that you're seeing here, like the handouts, for lack of a better way to put it, is in that video course that we're giving away at the end under the C3 list video. So all these are downloadable in that. I love it.

Diana Cabrices (43:17): And then we had somebody leave a comment that they have a bad habit of reading the news on their iPhone as soon as they get up.

David DeCelle (43:23): Oh yeah, I've gone down that rabbit hole, that black hole, and my life is infinitely better since I stopped doing that.

Diana Cabrices (43:33): Yep, I agree. It's too much stress. Our thoughts absolutely become physical and they manifest into physical things. So we hope that maybe you can kick that habit and do something more centering. All right, let's continue on.

David DeCelle (43:47): Cool. So this is just kind of a list of do's and don'ts. We won't spend a ton of time here because this is going to be in that video course you have access to. But again, emphasize list of action items, not a list of goals. And then this isn't a 10, 15, 25 item thing. This is a five item thing. So just a couple quick things there. This is just a tracker that you can choose to use or you can simply do it on your phone or whatever. So that said, there's three types of advisors that attend webinars, that read books, that listen to podcasts, that go to conferences. And I'm curious to know which one you are or which one you're going to be. So there's those who feel like they're doing something because they attended a webinar, but they don't actually do anything with it. That said, if you don't like the information in the webinar or the conference or whatever the setting is, and you don't do anything with it, well, that makes sense. But if something intrigues you and you want to implement it, don't be this type of advisor. And this isn't just an advisor thing. This is a human thing. There's those who take the information and they implement it for a period of time, but they never experience the results on the back end because they didn't give it enough time. They weren't consistent with it long enough. And then there's the people who take the information, they surrender to the process, they commit to it consistently, excuse me, and ultimately they get results. So I would ask you, I don't know if this is a poll question or what, but I would ask you what type of advisor are you? And if there's anything that we can do to help support you in this process, obviously we're happy to do so, but I encourage you, even if there was one nugget, like even that video and pointing them to a review email before an initial meeting, like that's something that's so easy to do. Like just do that, right? Just pick something that you implement. So again, depending on what you decide to do, that's going to change where you are one, three, five years down the road. So with that said.

Diana Cabrices (46:13): That's awesome. I couldn't agree more. And we've already got some questions in here, which is exciting. I'm going to launch just one last poll here, and then we will move right into you guys' questions. So now that you've sort of learned a bit about these different experiences, you've learned about how intentionality is really important, how the systems you can set up can help you stay accountable, different mindsets, how crucial those are. I'm curious what your next step is. What are you going to do next? And this is honestly just part of helping you stay accountable. So already setting the attention of what you're to do next. Feel free to answer this poll. We'll give it about 15 seconds. And while we get this poll moving, we will have sort of an Ask Us Anything section where it looks like some of you have already put some questions in, which is exciting. And then we'll also give you a little bit of information on where you can learn more about Wealthtender and Model FA. We are both partners in this space. We work with advisors separately. We also work with advisors together because our tools are highly complementary, right? The client testimonials, the full-blown growth accelerator, all the different things you learn from David today. So we'll make sure to come back to these slides here in just a second. But I'm going to go ahead and end this poll and share it back with all of you. It looks like most are interested in the client experience ideas, which is cool. But all of you, nearly, that answered this poll said, hey, I'm working on all of the above, which is wonderful. OK. So let's look at some of these questions here. So David, we've got an interesting one here, really about an idea. But Joseph asks us, how do you feel about an introduction via a lunch suggestion with multiple people? Or is the one-on-one approach more preferred?

David DeCelle (48:12): That's a great question. So in the video, which I'll point out here momentarily when I share my screen, the question that you ask the client is, hey, based on what you know about so-and-so, whoever they have in mind, how do you best think it makes sense to make an introduction? What I've done in the past is just a simple email introduction. So I can hop in, introduce myself, help facilitate scheduling. Other times, folks would prefer to just go out to lunch to help break the ice and do that. So it's you're kind of putting the client in charge while feeding them some ideas. So if that's something that they want to do, if that's something that you want to do, that's something that is totally fine. But ultimately, it comes down to what the client's open to in the prospect, of course.

Diana Cabrices (49:03): Yes. All right. Wonderful. And then Sarah asks, is there a specific way you recommend we ask for the review or any specific language?

David DeCelle (49:16): So when I help my clients who implement Wealthtender, I know Wealthtender, you guys provide the email template and that goes out to everyone. Honestly, compliance-wise, I'd probably stick to that. But then as you're meeting with clients, after you check that compliance box, say, hey, I'm not sure if you saw the email that goes out or that went out, but our industry has finally joined 2024 and allows us to collect client reviews and testimonials. And as you know, when you're looking at restaurants or service professionals, it's one of the first things you look at is how they're rated. We're now finally able to join that club. Would you be open if I sent you a link to just spend a moment and share your experience? A small business like ours, as I'm sure you can imagine, has a big impact. Is that something you'd be open to? And I think most often, 9.9 times out of 10, they'll be like, yes. However, just know that people have the best intentions, but they have busy lives too. So do not hesitate to follow up and say, hey, hope you're doing well. I know life gets busy. Just a friendly reminder. You mentioned that you'd be open to leave in a review. Here's your friendly reminder to do that when you have a moment. So oftentimes, they'll do it on the second time you ask because life gets busy.

Diana Cabrices (50:42): Absolutely. We actually have an advisor who shared with us that he sent out an email to all his clients on his birthday. And he said, hey, it's my birthday. And something that would be deeply meaningful to me is if you could take a moment to write your experience. And he got just a flood of responses. So I love that strategy. We have another question here from David. He says, how do we go about asking a client for a referral when they've had a bad experience with a previous firm partner?

David DeCelle (51:14): Let's see. So I would imagine you're referencing, David, like they work with someone else at your firm and they were like transitioned to you. So I probably wouldn't start off with the referral ask. I would start off, which I'll show you in a moment. I would bring them through that interactive client survey that I referenced. Get some feedback because they're going to share some positive stuff, but they're going to share some constructive stuff. Let them verbalize that. Empathize with them. Let them know what you're going to do to fix it. Oftentimes, when there's conflict like that, if you handle it head on directly, but with some grace, it tends to strengthen and build relationships. So I wouldn't hide from that conversation. I would go directly in there and then whatever the feedback is, whatever the things are that you can improve, go and do that and then ask for a referral down the road when it's more appropriate. But I'd probably unpack that bad experience some more and fix that before you actually go in for the ask.

Diana Cabrices (52:33): Couldn't agree more. While we wait for any other last questions to come in, I'll just share a quick tidbit about Wealthtender. So a lot of you are asking about reviews and the partnership with Model FA. We are a find an advisor directory where we help you collect and promote those reviews compliantly. We drove about half a million consumers looking for financial advisors and financial help to our website, to our directory where you are featured in the last 12 months. And we do that through engaging content and great SEO. So reviews, Google loves websites with reviews. It's going to give us a good SEO boost, but also we're giving you the spotlight on our, for example, ask an advisor series to ask and answer questions that have been asked by consumers. So lots of content on the website. If you do want to learn more about Wealthtender, we have some really reasonably priced options here that help you get that SEO profile page. The testimonials will help bring all your testimonials in from Google if you have them there, because unfortunately they're not compliant on Google and you can't actually promote your Google reviews. And a lot of other features here, we help you connect with journalists, for example, if you want to get featured in the media. So we have a whole growth engine here. So you can see here, Wealthtender.com forward slash grow. I'll drop that in the chat real quick. And then David, I know you wanted to share your screen and talk a little bit more about Model FA and there's some sort of giveaway here as well for our audience.

David DeCelle (54:01): Awesome. So, and perhaps Dan, can you type my, it's just David at ModelFA.com. And with the follow-up email, do you mind just including this little bit in there for some of the folks that had to jump off for other meetings? I don't want them to feel gypped. So basically, if you email me, David at ModelFA.com and just in the subject line, say, thank you. That's all just something simple. If you want to expand on that, obviously feel free, but just say thank you. So I know that it's from this. Set expectations. I'm back to back today. My mom's flying in. So I'll probably get back to you within a couple of days, if not sooner, but just to set those expectations, I will give you access to this for free. But to kind of guide you, we have a few different modules, particularly the second one, this video here, the exponential relationship system, that is a much more in-depth process and overview of what we discussed today about advancing relationships. We have ideas, we have templates, we have all the stuff that you need to implement this. There's a plethora of other videos here, but the other one that I want to point out is the feedback marketing section at the bottom of module two. This is the referral methodology, which I promise you, if you actually implement something like this, this in particular, you will get more referrals, you will deepen relationships. But again, what type of advisor are you? So again, just email me david at modelFA.com in the subject line, just put thank you. And this is something that we sell for a thousand bucks and we'll give it to you for free for joining today. So thank you.

Diana Cabrices (55:41): That is awesome. Thank you, David. You have been just a wealth of knowledge and cool creative ideas for the audience. I'll make sure to send that follow-up email folks. You'll get it tomorrow. It'll include the links to David's information and also to learn more about Wealthtender. So thank you everyone for joining. We hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day weekend and we look forward to seeing you on the next session.