How to Articulate Your Move and Maximize Client Retention

Unknown: and if I could I i’ be glad to share what I think I did really bad yeah Corey I just wanted to call and share some really exciting news with you uh Jeff and I we made the decision we’re going to bet on ourselves we’ve decided to start our own company we’re going independent and the reason that we did that is boom boom boom if my financial adviser told that to me I’d be like absolutely let’s roll I would have zero questions you know the one other thing that I would say Nick that I’ve seen advisers have a lot of success with it’s kind of natural throughout the process you know clients aren’t dumb they realize that there’s big checks that are potentially involved in things like that and I would say if you were in a bank the one thing that I would encourage people to do is if I had to do it all over again I would never have connected that deeply with we lost a little bit of the control that we were the planner we were the plan because we had such a deep connection hey everyone thank you so much for joining the podcast I decided to do this video today because I’ve seen a lot of content out there in the industry around picking the right firm at a high level industry education but what happens after that how do you get your clients from point A to point B what are the best practices how do you articulate your actual move to clients and after helping over a thousand financial advisers transition I’ve seen some of the best practices out there in the industry that I’d like to share and I also brought on a fantastic financial adviser himself to kind of go over the story of him transitioning he had an extremely successful transition and I definitely think that he has a ton to add Nick thank you thank you so much for joining today hey Corey thanks for having me I’m I’m glad to talk about it it was a very stressful but fun time and looking back on it seven years later I’m so glad that I made the transition to go independent we just had a lunch uh it feels like two weeks ago uh for your for your fiveyear anniversary so um go I’m really flies I heard a great quote recently that the days are long but the years are short yeah unbelievable well I appreciate it Nick so I you know I was the recruiter at LPL during the time when you were exploring from sunrust now truest and trying to figure out you know the right place to go and and just through the years I know you’ve had a really successful transition and I just wanted to hear just have you come on and tell a little bit of your story in terms of how you prepared you know what you actually said to clients I think a lot of financial advisers get up to the point where they find their actual home and then they’re like man what do I do every Financial advisor’s question is how many of my assets are going to bring with me and any tidbits that you can give to help maximize um you know what that end number is at the end of the day in terms of clients and assets I think is going to be huge

Crafting the “Why” Behind Independence

Unknown: yeah and I think I have the great Insight now where I can really look back and say like these are the things that worked well these are the things that I would do differently and if I had to do it all over again this is kind of exactly how I would do it and I I think the thing that went well for me was the phrasing of the why we went independent I think we were really good about that when we reached out to our clients and we B basically said and I I I will cave up with this at that time I did not know a single independent advisor other than one person Chad panel who we met right before we made the move to go independent everyone within my uh Circle were were Bank advisors or wirehouse advisor so um it was a little bit different for me going independent because I really didn’t know anybody who had done it before and have the opportunity to bounce ideas off of but what I think worked well was the message that we wanted to control the relationship of who we worked with we wanted to make sure that no client was too small that we had to hand them off to a call Center and no client became too large that we had to hand them off to the wealth management or trust department and at that time in 2017 that was a very prevalent thing that was happening within the bank Channel with book segmentation and then for my business partner Jeff Walters and I personally we didn’t want to get stuck in a very narrow window of trying to manage assets for people who had between $250,000 and $1 million right we we felt that there was a very real possibility that we would lose a lot of our clients who were either too small or too big so that was number one we wanted to control the relationship number two is that we wanted to con uh control how we communicated to our clients we were very limited in the type of communication that we could do and and since we left we’ve created you know our own website we have a Weekly Newsletter that comes out and our clients really like you know specifically they really like the newsletter that they get on a weekly basis just with some stories you know real life insights into what we’re doing and who we’re meeting with on a day-to-day basis and then third we wanted to control how we communicated to Future clients and you know I think when you just summarize the three things hey we went we went independent because we wanted to control who we worked with we wanted to control how we communicate with the families that we guide and we wanted to have an opportunity to communicate directly to potential future families no nobody pushed back at that at all they completely saw um the vision that we had um and if I could I I’d be glad to share what I think I did really bad

Keep It Short: Two to Five Minutes

Unknown: yeah yeah for sure but before we go into that though I I definitely want to know that but how how long were these conversations with clients when they picked up the phone and said hello who is this this is Nick neelen like like what was it like a minute long conversation in terms of what you were saying um I mean it was it was quick right I mean these were two to five minute conversations it was hey Nick neelon your friendly financial planner Corey I just wanted to call and share some really exciting news with you uh Jeff and I we made the decision we’re going to bet on ourselves we’ve decided to start our own company we’re going independent and the reason that we did that is boom boom boom and we would really love the opportunity for for you to come along on this journey with us and continue to serve as your trusted financial planning team the vast majority of people said wow Nick congratulations that sounds awesome what do we do next you know hey Cory what we really need to do let’s just schedule some time for you to come into the office we have some paperwork for you to sign remember this was in a world before docu signed yeah right so it was still bringing people into the office so the whole goal was can we get this conversation done in you know two to five minutes maybe a minute Y and schedule a time for them to come into the office to physically do the paperwork so that’s awesome and I appreciate that feedback because that’s one of my recommendations you know everyone’s heard the the acronym kiss you know just just keep it keep it simple I I I recently just helped a a really big meril Lynch team um in in North Carolina transition to Independence and this adviser is self- admittedly long- winded and he got himself into a situation where he’s going into like a 15 minute pitch and literally halfway through the conversation the advisor the client just cut him off and said we love you we’re we’re we’re we’re coming with you so it was just a big lesson that you know I saw from him his mistakes to keep it as simple as possible if clients have additional questions after that be ready to talk about those objections but you know just make it you know as clear and simple as possible yeah absolutely

The Biggest Mistake: Overcomplicating the Structure

Unknown: which if I can share leads me to my biggest mistake was uh unneeded complexity and jargon um so I for whatever reason I had this desire to maybe even proactively answer the question who LPL was I think it might be a little bit different today where you know consumers at least in the Charlotte Metro Area have an idea of who LPL is just because of you know they employ a couple thousand people but 2017 was certainly different nobody really knew who LPL was because they’re not they’re not a brand that advertises like a Fidelity or Schwab and um I decided to add this overwhelming complexity of trying to explain well LPL is our broker dealer and our custodian and we have independent advisor Alliance they’re our registered investment advisor and we’re doing business as Black Bridge Financial so we added this just like overwhelmingly complexity to it clients didn’t understand what an raia was they didn’t really understand what the broker dealer was they didn’t understand who the custodian was so I’m here on the Whiteboard you know drawing out this triangle of all right you know here’s Black Bridge at the top yeah well who’s blackbridge I see there’s 50 advisers on the website so then I had to kind of dance through that and then it was you know I just made it overwhelmingly complex where people really didn’t want to care so I just kind of added that you know hey we went independent because of three bullet points and we’re powered by LPL Financial they’re the largest independent broker dealer in the country over 20,000 advisors just like myself have decided to affiliate with them and then we also are partnered with independent advisors Alliance who gives us support when we offer advisory products and compliance oversight and people like okay great that sounds good but I had this I had this overwhelming to desire to like uh Define like what is a custodian what is a broker dealer what is an raia what are their in this I mean that was my numbing for myself I can’t imagine putting myself in the client shoes today so I would say you know just come up with a little 30- second story about how you affiliated and why

Be Positive About Where You’re Going

Unknown: I think that makes a ton of sense I think a lot of financial advisers number one underestimate the value and and and trust that they have with their clients I mean clients are hiring a financial adviser to work in their best interests and if you sit in front of somebody and you’re on the phone and you tell them listen I’ve been doing deep due diligence for 6 12 18 months on this and I’m going to this placees for the for for for these reasons if my financial adviser told that to me I’d be like absolutely let’s roll I would have zero questions yeah and I would I think the other thing is um just be incredibly positive about what you’re creating and what you’re going to and not necessarily being negative or condescending about what you’re coming from right it wasn’t necessarily that sunrust was so bad or they were the you know they were Darth Vader and I was trying to go you know to the light you know it was just the fact that this was a great opportunity we felt really positive about doing this and affiliating this way and creating our business and this is the direction that we wanted to go because of these reasons so just trying to be really positive about the direction of where we were going and I don’t think um there’s not too many people who are going to um poooo you for being overwhelmingly positive yeah absolutely

Confidence, Reps, and Practicing the Script

Unknown: something else in what you originally said sometimes it’s almost as important you know how you say something versus like what you’re actually saying I mean this is a huge leap it’s a huge risk obviously financial advisers are going to be extremely nervous um especially on their first couple phone calls so just making sure that you have excitement in your voice about the opportunity if you’re you know really nervous and you’re like yeah we’re really excited about this uh you know this uh this opportunity and you know that’s going to cause some pause and definitely some more questions with your clients but this is a couple of the other bullet points that I had prepared combined but you know write down what you want to say just at least in a bullet point form in case you get lost you know rehearse it with with your business partner rehearse it with your spouse you know the more reps that you get just kind of talking about what you’re going to say the better and more fluid you’re going to be no one just goes into a you know a presentation and and and and just Wings it

Start with Easier Calls and Build Momentum

Unknown: definitely you know the one other thing that I would say Nick that I’ve seen advisers have a lot of success with it’s kind of natural throughout the process you want to reach out to your number one clients right away your most important clients the ones you 100% want to bring with you but sometimes it just makes makes sense when I applied for jobs when I was younger you know the first three I went through I didn’t really you know do very well I was nervous I didn’t know the answer to all the questions but by the fourth fifth you know person the job that I really really wanted I knew the questions they were going to ask I knew the objections I walked in with my chest puffed out and I just had a different confidence about me so maybe start having conversations with some of these people um some of your clients with some that you’re more okay losing for a lack of a better word yeah so the way that that we did it we segmented all of our clients into ab and in a we thought they would 100% come with us we had a great relationship with them we felt those would be kind of the easiest calls B were people that we wanted them to come with us we didn’t feel like there was maybe as as great of a connection with them as our A’s but we still wanted to extend the invite and then we had people that were seized that maybe we just didn’t really know as well because that mean that happens in the bank where people get assign to you um and we just thought there was a low probability of them coming with us and the way that we did that is is we just assigned the probability in a there’d be an 80% probability a b would be a 40% a c would be a 20 and if you just kind of multiplied that by assets and revenue that kind of gave us an idea of where we thought we would be and we were pretty spoton um with that

Handling Rejection and Staying Mentally Strong

Unknown: but even with that being said you have to realize that even the A’s were assigning like an 80% probability to at least going from bank to independent and you’re going to have people that you love like family and I know that I got completely blindsided by one Jeff got completely blindsided by one and it kind of like completely takes your breath away yeah um because not everybody’s going to come with you in in a scenario like that and um sometimes they say Hey you know hey Nick hey Jeff we love you but we’re a bank client we have everything at the bank we’re going to stay with the bank forever it’s nothing against you it’s just comfort and you just have to take a minute to catch your breath but then you have to go on like you have to continue you can’t let that overwhelm your day and just stop or shut down um and so what I would do when those you know or people just say hey I need I need to think about it I’m not ready to make that commitment yet so then I would say all right let me get a couple what I think are going to be really easy one who who on the board do I like the most or who I think likes me the most all right let let me let me call Mrs Burns I feel like feel like she’s my grandma or whatever yeah and kind of get you back in the rhythm of things but it can be easy to get kind of into a negative downward spiral if you get a larger client who’s unsure or not confident but you got to keep moving for forward what we did is we got um a bunch of the um like you see for the NFL draft like the little player cards we got the little small magnets that were like one inch by three inches put all of our clients names on them and so it it kind of helped us to see that we were gaining momentum just by moving the magnetic name cards from this big board of hey these are everybody that’s on the that we need to call into hey these are the people that have committed to us these are the people that have said maybe and they want to come in and meet with us so just physically moving the chest pieces on the board gave us kind of the mental encouragement to keep going and we made the right decision that’s awesome

Always Articulate What’s In It for the Client

Unknown: so the last thing you kind of said it in the beginning in terms of bullet points that I had is make sure that you’re articulating what’s in it for the client during your conversation I know that seems like something very very obvious but when you go through this process um and you’re talking with recruiters from firms when I’m alongside the financial adviser many time I’m listening in on these conversations and it’s all about what’s in it for the adviser um it’s up to the financial adviser that’s considering a change or alongside a consult consult as a team to figure out how this is best for your clients as well and I always tell people to put a line down you know a piece of paper what’s in it for me and what’s in it for clients and when you’re having these conversations and things get really blurry when you’re talking with multiple firms and going to multiple home office visits make sure you’re writing these things down so you just have a clear list that you can you know build into your script when you when you start these conversations yeah I completely agree with that because no matter how good it is for the adviser there has to be something in it you know for for the client as well and you know clients aren’t dumb they realize that there’s big checks that are potentially involved in things like that and as much as they might like you they don’t want to just support your lifestyle or your ability to get a seven figure check or something of of that sort so yeah you always have to keep the client front of Mind

Bank-Specific Lesson: Don’t Give Away the Relationship

Unknown: Nick is there anything else that you you you think you should add I would say it is it’s not as difficult as people make it out to be like we did this fre docu sign um so I think it would be you know substantially easier uh today I would say if you were in a bank the one thing that I would encourage people to do is I would say one of our mistakes that we did is we had such a great connection with the premier Bankers that probably at the beginning of our bank stage we were really hey if you need anything call us the warrior guy and we got so in deep with the premier Banker that Premier Banking role was basically hey if you need anything call the premier Banker MH and if I had to do it all over again I would never have connected that deeply with the premier Banker because um we lost a little bit of the control that we were the plan or we were the plan because we had such a deep connection with these Premier bankers and um you know when you do leave a firm this is you know very advisor Centric F focused I wouldn’t tell anybody at your existing firm you know that you’re leaving I think um you know people will take advantage of that and then you know the people who are your closest friends at that institution uh may not be your friends after you make the move yeah so you have to have a little bit of thick skin and understanding then I probably could have done a better job of setting expectations with my wife about what was you know required to do a transition like this yeah so just just plan you know vacations and big trips accordingly to give yourself um some run room but in today’s day and age I think if you probably go really hard for two to three weeks you probably get at least 80% of the heavy lifting done

You Are the Brand

Unknown: awesome so Nick you me you mentioned the premier banker and just to to to to wrap this up it might not always be a a a premier Banker at another firm but it might need might be the brand name of that organization when you first start out in your career and maybe you’re a little bit more insecure about your abilities you are leaning on the the reputation and the size and the scale of that firm to kind of help you will win clients and over time I think it’s really important to help understand that you are the person um you’re the person that you know provides the secret sauce and you’re the go-to person throughout the process whether um that’s steering away from a p a premier Banker or maybe another member on your team or um or the brand I think that’s just something that’s extremely important that you could do years ahead of a transition to make sure things go uh much more efficient much more ideal yeah and in the vast majority of our appointments we would always jokingly say like hey just know that Nick and Jeff love you as clients now we could wake up tomorrow morning and the name on the door could completely change um you know sunrust might say JP Morgan on and there’s nothing that we can do to control that and they might like us or they might fire us but just know that if anything change with where we work how we affiliate we’re going to give you a call and let you know as quickly as possible um and people referenced that when we did call when we made the change they’re like well you did say that if anything ever changed you’d give me a call um so they appreciate and they remember little things like that awesome Nick I really appreciate the time I really think this is going to help a lot of people I think a lot of this is a mystery that people kind of build out all on their own and um uh it’s definitely something that I I know I help with with the financial advisers that I work with and if anyone has any questions at all my contact information is all over my YouTube channel my website my podcast um and I look forward to talking soon thanks Cory appreciate the time thanks Nick
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