The Story Your Data Tells with Erica Pauly (Ep. 20)

Welcome to Full Advisor Coaching the podcast with Kristin Harrod. From launching her RIA to guiding countless financial advisors, Kristin is your VIP ticket to reach new levels of success and fulfillment. Dive into growth strategies and grab next level marketing, sales and leadership insights to supercharge your business. Joined by industry experts, Kristen's here to help you do more of what you love.

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Welcome to the Full Advisor Coaching podcast with Kristen Harrod. Kristen, good to be with you. How are you?

I'm great, Bill. How are you doing?

I'm well, thanks. We're coming. As we're recording this, we're coming to the end of summer and autumn is beginning. And I have to admit that I, as much as I love summer, I absolutely love, love, love autumn.

I know it's a great time of year. I absolutely love it too. And unfortunately, by the time this comes out, we'll probably be in the midst of winter. But for now, we can. We can be excited. Our guests won't care that it's winter, though.

And you'll see, our guest might be happy that it's winter.

She's. Yeah, exactly. She's going to be. She's going to be pretty psyched about that. But we'll get to that. Yeah, for sure. Today, Bill, we're gonna. We're gonna do something we haven't done yet, which is we're gonna dig into some data and numbers. We're gonna get a little nerdy.

Nice.

And this episode is gonna pair really well with episode 17 that we did on goal goal setting and forming goals that energize you. This will help keep you accountable for Those goals. So that's what I'm excited about today because, you know, all the best goals and plans and we, and actions don't mean a lot if they're not working. And we need to know what's working and what's not working. So today's guest, Bill is she is the founder of a company called Track that Advisor and she is coming to us from Arizona. So definitely hoping for some cooler weather. I bet. I'm really excited today to work. Welcome Erica Polley again. She's the founder of Track that Advisor. She has been helping advisors understand the numbers behind their business, looking at metrics that matter, helping them bring their visions of what they want to create to life by getting into the data behind the work that all of these advisors need to do to grow their business and become successful. So welcome Erica. Thanks for coming.

Thank you for having me. Yes. I'm coming to you from a cool 106 degrees in Phoenix. So thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's great, great to have you on. I'm really, really excited about talking with you today because it really, I think the work you're doing really helps advisors get a true look at how, where the holes and or opportunities could be in their, like, what I like to call the business development ecosystem. So, you know, when you, when they set growth goals and they're like, we want to grow, we want to get out there and they get gung ho about the shiny new tactics, then it's like, okay. And then when things aren't necessarily matching up, I like to look under the hood and say, hey, let's, let's look at all the parts of the client journey and the client experience and how they're interacting with you. And it may not be that the holdup may not be where you think it is. So I think today you're going to help us shine a little light on that. But before we, before we dig in, can you just give us sort of the speedy version of what your company does and just how you approach working with advisors?

Yeah, it's odd. We are at a very niche business, but I am passionate about it. I love what we do. It was, we recruit what I was born to do. So think about when we say data for most advisors, they just immediately shut down, shut off.

And they're like, I'm not going to.

Listen to this podcast. So I don't really want to use that word too much, but it will get brought up. We make data fun. So that's my five second elevator pitch. But really what we're doing is three things. So we are helping teams get good, clean data just from an entry level, very minimal tracking standpoint. And then the second thing we're doing is giving them live reporting and dashboards so they can see, so they can have a visual on where business is. What are close rates, what are stick rates. And then kind of the big thing that we're known for is making it come to life, which is our data storytelling. So they're getting good, clean data. They can see it on a screen, but then we are mapping it out and saying, okay, we're going on this journey. You want to go hear kind of what you were saying, Kristen, about them setting these goals and they're different for everybody. And so we start with that. You wanted to go here. Here's kind of what's standing in your way. This is what the data is telling us. These were where you've kind of veered off and it's not moving the direction that you're wanting to move. And here's why. So those would be the three things that we do in a, in a nutshell, right?

I love the term data storyteller. It already sort of opens it up to me to be like, oh, that sounds like more like something I can digest and comprehend and ah, I want to tell a good story. I'd like my data to tell a good story. Like, I, I definitely think that positioning gives you a little more, it, it takes it, it elevates it beyond the sort of cold, hard numbers, right? So it's like, well, what can we extract from this information?

And I think a lot of advisors too, feel like when they look at data, they're being told what they're doing wrong. And data storytelling flips that on its back and says, actually, you're the protagonist of the story. The data is just doing this thing, right? It's this separate entity. You have all the power to like, move it and shift it and guide it. And so it helps them to. You know, I've had people get on calls and they say, I just feel like I'm going to get in trouble. You know, they're nervous for these talks.

I'm glad you mentioned that because I, I already do feel like, even from, you know, being a business owner myself, as soon as you say, well, let's look, let's look at the data, you immediately go, oh, no, I know what I'm. I know what's wrong. Like, you kind of inherently have a sense of what may or may not be working as well as you might like, and then. Or you may be afraid of what it could reveal when you're like, oh, I thought that was going just fine. And it wasn't. So I love the protagonist positioning too, because now I feel like I have control and like, okay, this is the story I want to create here. So that. Yeah, that's pretty exciting.

Yeah, we try.

Yes. Yeah. So I mean, the biggest thing that I see, you know, is, as you know, the full advisor coaching sort of community is all about helping advisors create version 2.0 of their REA. So advisors who have been in the business who are. Have a sense at various points of the journey, but they got to a point where they have reached a certain level and they have a new vision or an iteration of a vision of where they want to go and may not have all of the information strategies, know how on where. How to get like, what got them to where they are today won't get them to where they're going. And so that is something that I think the data story, the storytelling that you do can kind of like layer in and help. When they start going, they come in with growth goals usually tied to revenue. Right. Like, we need X amount more revenue. You know, how. How is it that you would approach working with an advisor and, and helping them bring that revenue goal down to a. All right, this is how we're going to approach.

That's so common. I love your 2.0 mentality. And we deal with. That's primarily our audience. Right. I mean, we have people who. I was just at a conference and we had one of our clients who was one of the keynote speakers, and he was up there saying, initially I knew I was really good at selling, but I didn't realize that I wasn't good at building. And I feel like that's the difference between version one and version two. For most advisors, a hundred percent is they're so good at selling and they're these entrepreneurs and you can. They can sell ice to an Eskimo sort of a deal. But then when they get into higher revenue goals goals, they get into bigger goal setting. They're. They say, okay, I didn't. I don't really know how to build this. I don't have a map. I never had a map. I just was really successful. So we go into the map section and, and we really try to tell people it's a journey, it's a trek. I mean, we talk about track that advisor. We really map this around. Like we're going hiking, like we're going on a track. And in order to do that, we have to have a map, right? We're going into no man's land. We're going into the forest. And if we don't have some. Some tools on how to get there or to tell us where we're going, like a compass, we're not really gonna be able to get there. And I laugh a little bit about this because when we work with advisors, what we're doing for them is a lot of what they're doing for their clients, it's just tweaked a little bit differently, right? Like, they're walking clients. Whether it's an RIA or people, you know, who are advisors for retirement, they used a lot of this terminology, like, we're your guide. Let us be your compass. You know, let us help you do all these things. So we tell them, hey, we're just doing that for. For you. We're. We're your guide to get where you want to go. And so most of the time, when people come to us, they are in version 2. They've sold for a long time. It's been, you know, throw it against the wall and see what sticks. And now they have goals, and now they have a revenue goal. Now they want to hire people out. And they. I know in one of the offerings that you have, from a coaching standpoint, it's like, hey, be the CEO, get time back now. You know, work on the business, not in it. It's those types of advisors. And so it's us saying, okay, if you want to be working on the business and not in it, then now the goal is to hire replications of yourself. Let's talk about how to do that. When do we do that? How many first appointments do you need? So we backtrack. And that's where we start with. With most advisors, when they come on is, okay, you're ready to start tracking data, but what are your goals? So that we know where the heck we're even trying to go.

Right, right. And so one of the things I see is you mentioned how many appointments do we need? How do we, you know, how do we kind of back into it? One of the things I often see is that advisors do think so much from the top of the funnel of, like, we need to get more people in. We need more appointments. More appointments. And it's all about the volum. If I could just get. I hear this all the time. If I could just get more at bats. And I'm like, yes, that's great. You know, I love that, you know, More at bats. We want to first of all make sure we're getting at bats with the right people. But a lot of times when we do look at, at the ecosystem, the full ecosystem of marketing, sales, client experience, the, the holdup or the sort of obstacles can happen further down the. I hate to say the funnel because it is an ecosystem, but it could be along the journey. It could be like you are great with those appointments and people are coming in and you're getting all, you know, you're having those meetings. But you, you know, I like to talk about the lead to client conversion process and it's like that, that can get gummed up in the works a lot. Right. Like people get stuck and the follow up's not happening or the people are dropping off after the second meeting. But advisors don't always know. And I know that is something that the, if someone were tracking it and we had a handle on that we would be able to like plug the right holes, as it were.

Yes, you. Okay, so you wrote an incredible article on this and I'm gonna give you a shout out right now because I think it was on LinkedIn. I'm not sure I saw it. Maybe it's your newslet. Um, but you were, you're talking about four different ways to increase revenue and oftentimes to your point. And I'm with you, I hear all the time it's just about first appointments. It is if you know all of your other numbers and it's about first appointments. Right. I mean then it is, right?

And you go whoop, boop, boop. Yeah, yeah.

But for the most part, a lot of people don't know what the data story is saying and what it's telling. And you're waste. They are wasting money on the shiny ideas because they have enough leads. And so I did that. The article that you wrote was so good. I agreed. It resonated with me. And I think what would be cool too is if we could even go through some of those to talk through from a data standpoint on. All right, you know, this is something that you're seeing one maybe. What should we track there?

Right?

Or what do we look at?

Thank you very much. Yes. That was my latest LinkedIn newsletter which has gotten a lot of positive feedback and, and also inspired, you know, questions from advisors. So that's really exciting. I love the idea of looking at each section. So the first, you know, the first one was just get more of the right people in the door. Right. So that is the top, the top of the funnel like, you know, you can grow your revenue. There's four primary ways. You can get more people in the front door. You can convert more of the people faster.

Qualified leads.

Yep, yep. Qualified leads. Exactly. Qualified leads. And then.

Client engagement.

Yes, Client engagement. Thank you. Good. You.

Yes.

You've read it more recently. So yes, let me look at client experience and how do we get more share of wallet and or more referrals from those people. And then ultimately you can. The fourth way is you can raise your pricing. And that's probably the easiest, fastest way. Most impactful. It's. It probably falls a little out of this of the same flow. But I think that there is information in close rates and things like that that we can talk about there too. So let's, let's take it from the top.

Yeah. Attracting more leads, you know, higher quality leads. So that is one way. And how we examine that is by average case size. Right. So if we're looking at, I mean one, what is your avatar client in general? So let's make sure we are attracting kind of the avatar client, but we also want to know what is the average case size. So some of our advisors don't care about that. They just want first appointments in. Their average case size is fairly low, 250,000. But they do need a lot of first appointments because they have a lot of. It's going to be smaller for some of our advisors. They have an average case size of 2 million to 5 million. They only need to sit with 50 people the entire year for them to hit these big revenue goals. And so I want to just caution people there. Right. Sometimes it's not just get more in, it's who do we want in and how many of those do we need to hit these goals? So that comes into play as well on that one.

So when we're looking at tracking that, how do you, how do you look at that? It's, it's clearly. Is it a look back then to say, okay, we saw over this period of time that the average case size in your language was, you know, $900,000 or whatever the, the metric is that matters to the firm.

Yep, yep. So we do historically. And our dashboards and reports are live, so they can see them right now. But when I'm doing the coaching and the storytelling, it's looking back. So, you know, right now we're just wrapping up our mid years of what happened with all of the leads that came through June because it takes time to nurture these people and close them and make revenue on them and so that is what we look at. Of the X amount of leads that came in from January through June, this is how many, you know, stuck the first appointment, how many closed, what our revenue was, what our ROI was. And we break it out two ways. We'll break it out by marketing source. So where they came from.

Okay.

And then we break it out by advisor. So if you have multiple advisors in your office, not all of them can close a million and above cases, right? Like there's not some of them are green and they're working on building books or they're working on their sales process. And that all goes back to goals, right? If we're trying to move out as a CEO, but we hire a green advisor or a son in law or a brother or someone like that who's new to this industry, they're not going to have the same caliber of sales. And we have to have that conversation to say you might need to stay in selling a little bit longer because so and so's not up to speed yet. So that conversation comes in when we talk about that too.

That's really interesting. And I think that can get into. And I'm probably getting ahead of myself but like when new leads come in and there's a qualifying process of okay, you know we have this lead and I've seen this from various RAAs. I've done fractional, I do fractional CMO work as well. And I'll see this with some of the larger firms that have multiple advisors. And so the way they route the lead is again like if it's a smaller, they have screening in place. So if smaller but still qualified in that way it might go to a more junior advisor. But then we have the, you know, 5 million to 10 million, 5 million and above people always go to the, the founder or elite, you know, the lead advisor versus a junior advisor. So I imagine this process helps with sort of looking and saying okay, how do we, who are we attracting in and how are we. And this is probably getting into the next phase, right. Of the. How are we converting qualification. Yeah, qualification and converting moving leads faster through the system and making sure that we're getting the right type of advisor in front of that person.

And and so we call that the prospect story. So what is happening in the story of the prospect? And we map it on a graph. Let's and we'll, let's start with the qualification piece and then we'll go kind of through that because I loved your follow up message. So we'll talk about that. The the qualification should be a definition in your office that everyone can recite. And it's the same. There's, it's so gray and all the time of every office we work with, the founder will say, well, everyone's qualified because that's how I've always done it. And I work hard and I just get whatever I need. Because that's their entrepreneurial spirit. As they grow, that might need to shift. Like just who they think is qualified doesn't mean their sub advisors or junior advisors are going to agree with that. And we start seeing huge, huge issues in that.

Interesting.

So having a, it doesn't really matter if you're a solo practice, which for most of your clients or people who listen to this, your version two. So they're probably not a solo practice anymore, right?

Or they, or they're just on the verge of like adding, you know, adding a team member or they have a partner and they're, they're like now, okay.

Yes, just starting to move. And it's just starting to get more complex. When we bring complexity in and we get more people with more opinions and different judgment. We have to have a black and white definition there. And they don't like hearing that. But I've done too many coaching calls where I'm saying, and we just did one the other day. We have the founder, he does great. Everyone comes to their meetings, he closes all of them. He has two junior advisors. Both of them were struggling to move people to a second meeting. So in their process, they close in a second meeting. Both advisors were really struggling here. So it was affecting their close rate. And when we looked at the data and we looked at the qualification piece, it was two separate problems. One of them was saying they weren't getting enough qualified leads. The other one was saying everyone was qualified, but they actually couldn't set the second meeting. Like their process was broken. They weren't building enough trust. So that's two, one, that's two separate problems, two separate conversations and then two we have to ask. There's one advisor out of three who's saying they're getting non qualified leads. Is that accurate or is this just your opinion that you're getting non qualified leads?

Right.

So that really matters in the beginning. So that's first. And I, and I like you say like converting more qualified leads because it starts with good leads. We have to have good leads coming in to even work with them.

The right messages are getting out into the world so that everyone is telling in your language the same story so that it's consistent at a, at a company level. And then as we're attracting people in and I imagine some of that gets down to being very clear on what a qualified lead is so that advisors who are out in the world selling, engaging, having conversations are all reiterating the same messages who you work with and, and how you work with them. And then as we bring the qualif. The qualified leads in and you have that information, you're looking at then how many of those people then move on to the close closing phase which could be a multi meeting process is what. What I'm hearing. So depending on the, the firm, it could be multiple meetings, it could be a call and a close. And, and so you're setting markers along there around that's accurate.

Yeah. And, and so your point of follow up, this is a really good one. If we are good in the first meeting and we build trust and we build authority and they set the second meeting. So the worst thing to happen right there is for them not to show up. Like we've already invested this time, we've invested the effort, we've invested training them, we've paid for the lead and for them not to come to this second meeting or third whatever one that, that's, that's such a hard thing. The good news about that is that it's very, very easy to solve for first. You have to know it. You have to know that your stick rate at a second or third meeting is low. So we should be measuring that. But solving for is follow up. Solving for it is a phone call. It's a bomb. Bomb. It's a, it's a white paper. It's a. We talked about this at our meeting. I'm excited to talk about this in our next one. Done. And, and I would tell people to delegate to someone else or automate it.

Like you don't have to do it 100%. And it is the. Oh my God. When I see a client that does not have the strong follow up in place, I know we're in a good spot because we can move the needle quickly. Right. There are certain things you can fix faster than others. And getting someone to actually follow up and show up for the meeting where you'll be able to close them is a huge piece. Like just the basic. This goes way back to when my very first like class that I taught on the relationship marketing and the six stages of taking someone through a process and I was talking about it and that the one thing I remember specifically, specifically putting in a flowchart was confirm the appointment and who will do that? You know, and this was before there was all the calendar apps that will literally send out a confirmation and then. But I mean getting your admin or an EA to. To pick up the phone and say, Mr. And Mrs. Jones, we're looking forward to having you on the call on for meeting number two on Thursday at this time. You know, basic things like that. And then I do love the bomb bomb, the use of bomb bomb, which is video. If we go back, if anyone wants to hear more about that, go to episode. I think it was episode 10 with Katie Braden on video and how to use video. So she, she did a piece there on how to use bombbomb. So that's just a more high touch way to ensure that someone comes in to the meeting. So I imagine the data will reveal or the numbers the story will reveal. Is it that people say they'll come to that appointment and then like kind of at the end of the intro being like, sure, I'll come in for the next one. And then, you know, is there a drop off? Because they didn't necessarily see what the value of the second one is. If there's a big gap there, maybe it's the messaging in that first meeting.

So, you know, advisors like to talk about how busy they are and that's a fine ish method. Right. Of hey, our calendar's so full so we have to book out two weeks. But if we can't get them in between 10 and 15 days, we immediately see stick rates drop. So we have to look at time too.

That's a great metric.

Yeah.

Yes. Because I know that advisors do like to say, I'm so busy, I've got so much going on. We want to want to be wanted.

An urgency. Yes, totally. I get this psychology behind it, but from a data mind. Right. I'm kind of like, well, we got to do a dance here between psychology and statistics of we get too far out in that we're going to start losing them. And I. And we see that too. So that happens.

I bet that's a very good marker to think about. I would, I would say because, you know, as it is, it's hard enough to get someone over the hump to meet with you in the first place to put the priority on this because it's not all. It's not always urgent and or it's something they want to avoid or they've never done before or you know, they're unfamiliar, they're uncomfortable. And so we want to keep that momentum going, which Is, you know, I think about it from the communication standpoint is we just want to keep the momentum going and have, and build that trust and, and get in front of them and, and not let their busy life take over and, and drop it. So I imagine 10 to 15 days is probably even max. Yes. I was going to say I would, I would want that to be tighter if possible.

Seven to ten. Yeah, I mean that's ideal. Seven to ten would be ideal. And that's also an indicator too. I mean that all these numbers do. Are different indicators for different things. If you have the founder who's trying to move into the CEO role, you know, if his days between appointments are really, really long, great, it's time to hire somebody because your calendar doesn't allow it.

Right.

So it's also an indicator of hiring that we can see for advisors as well. So that would be.

I love that.

Follow up and getting them and moving them through. So that's a big one. And the other one is just pending people. I think looking at, I mean everyone is trying to measure their close rate and that's important. That's in our top five things to look at the pending people poses a little bit more power because it's going to tell the advisor the amount of money that they're spending in marketing it, what's really happening at the end of the day. Right. If we have, we have this cost per appointment that's, you know, $5,000. I mean the benchmark is 1,000. Let's just say that, let's say we have a really high cost per set appointment. So we're already paying a lot of money just to get them in the door. If we're looking at close rates and they're a little bit low, but we have a hundred people who have open opportunities. We hear this all the time. That is not realistic that you're going to be getting to a hundred people. If you're going out and doing another event next month, like you're going to be excited about the new people and we're losing momentum for, to use your word, the momentum just gets lost on these people and then that number stacks up and you just paid $5,000 a pop for those hundred people and we're forgetting about them now.

Right, Right.

So that's a big one.

You are singing my song on that one. Yes.

Nurturing open opportunities. You know, they get left behind and they kind of get forgotten. And I'm like, there's so much ability right here to make a sale.

I was like, you have so much more likelihood of converting and you know, engaging that person as a client than someone new who's come to your workshop next week. I mean, it just, it's, it's mind blowing to me. And I think that with numbers behind it, when I, when I have been in the spot where I've been, you know, working with advisors who do look at the numbers, they are, they do see the importance of that and, and then look to strategies on what can we do there and you know, coaching around that and what do we do to move those things along. I had an RA that I also did a fraction of CMO work for a larger firm. And they, they have a Monday meeting, every Monday where they print out the prospect, those pending prospect lists and go through it and go, all right, you know, Joe, this is your lead. I mean, your prospect. What's on tap for this week in terms of are you reaching out? Are you sending a video? Are you, you know, are they, oh, they're on vacation, you're going to reach out next week instead, you know, and they work line by line on that.

So that's even one of the reports that we have, like for that reason is it's automated of everyone who's listed for that reason. So on Monday morning, each advisor can go through their open opportunities. Is this really an open opportunity? If it's six months old, it's probably not. And in their defense, you know, again, for them to be the protagonists. Right. I think that people feel like I'm harping on them a lot and I'm not to be. For them, to paint them in a, in a kinder light, they're so good at sales and they, the follow up feels very boring and it's very tedious and it's old news. And so that is hard. They naturally are not inclined to be excited about that. And so if we can make it exciting, if we can, you know, tie, tie bonus if we can tie things to that.

Interesting.

That's really helpful because that's not how a lot of their brains work. And we can't. You know, it's, it's really hard to teach somebody to be excited about something that they, they're not wired to be excited about.

Right, right. Yes, that makes a lot of sense. And I always try to, I do try to paint the picture of like, look at all these people. They, you know, they need to hear from you multiple times before they're making a decision. So we're moving that needle. Right. You know, we're moving them right along. And so you're right on track. And so I imagine having that report, like you said, that says here's, you know, the, the pending prospects and this one's six months old and I've reached out eight times, never heard back, and, and those conversations. But having that information allows the advisor then to prioritize their week and say, I'm going to spend X amount of time focused on prospect follow up and then Y amount of time on new things that I'm getting out and doing. Yes. And then Z amount of time on current clients. So talk, let's talk about the current. The current, yes.

And that's moving us into our client engagement.

So it's a perfect. Exactly.

Segue. Yeah. We do have benchmarks on really the marketing stool and where, how, what percent of business should be coming from where. And 30 to 40% of their business should be coming from existing clients and referrals. Most of them have this flip flopped. Right. They think like 60% should be the shiny ideas and the new stuff and.

Right.

It shouldn't. Lots of reasons for this and we'll talk a little bit behind that. But then 25% should be some sort of event, dinner, seminar, educational workshop. It can be sourced through mailers, it can be sourced through digital, I don't really care. But 25% should be some sort of an event type thing that you're doing. Webinars would count there and then we have the remaining for a stable others. So whether it's, you know, dinner workshops would be one of them, then educational workshops would be another one. Or webinars is one. And dinner seminars, we kind of should have two that feel fairly stable and dialable. Right. We can turn them up, we can turn them down. And then bright shiny ideas like the new fun things should only be like 10 to 20% of their business. We should not be anticipating, expecting, planning for more than 10 to 20% to be the new idea. And why that is is because the shiny ideas, the good ones end up turning into the stable other. So shiny ideas are great and there's a place for them. And I don't want to be a no person. It can't be all of our business because we're going to waste money there, but they will eventually. The cool ideas that are the unicorns and they're unique and I see them all the time from these entrepreneurs who are so creative and I'm like, that is so cool. How did you think of that? But it turns into a stable other for them and that's what we want to see. But maybe 1 out of 10 shiny ideas turns into a staple opportunity.

When you're looking at the client experience, then like, what, what are the, what is the data or the story that we're looking for there in terms of. You mentioned 30 to 40%. Yep.

So 30 to 40%. And that would be client referrals and existing clients together. So most offices average maybe 50, maybe 60 if they're high in client referral. And what we're looking for there's is. And this will go into pricing next. So we're going to kind of team these together. When we service our clients, when we see them and when they need to be seen, or else they will walk out the back door, they're going to refer people. If we have events for just our clients, they may or may not bring a friend, but it will remind them that they have money that they wanted to give to you. You know, these sorts of things immediately increase revenue with no market spend at all. And because we have our clients that are happy with us, they refer people. The referrals will pay for the shiny ideas. So we have to think of it that way. If we get more referrals, that's going to float the bill for something that isn't making us money for six months to a year and we're fine. So if you think of it in that, in those terms, they're really, really important.

Important that is very, very helpful and think about because I also encourage. One thing I do see is that many advisors go, well, we get a lot of our business from referrals, so we're fine. And I feel like that is too, is very passive in terms of, you know, we're waiting for the phone to ring type of thing. So is there anything you look at to try to help inform advisors on proactive things they can be doing in the client experience to, you know, generate more revenue from that element?

Yeah, we have a lot of advisors doing a lot of things. So like quarterly meetings with some of them do it just with their top clients, like their top, you know, high net worth or whatever it is. And it's like, hey, every quarter we're going to do, you know, what is the market doing? So we just do like lunch and you come in and we're just talking through the market and things happening, interest rates, I mean, whatever topic you decide, but it's just keeping them informed. Like they just want to know that you're thinking about this stuff. And then if you're thinking about them, what a great thing. I mean, if any of Us think about a doctor or professional colleague we have if they were to send us something or say, hey, I was thinking about you. You know, this is what I came across. It's. It's so meaningful. Like, you have my business forever because I'm top of your mind. So events like that, it could be quarterly client referral stuff is a little bit more important. I mean, I do think you should be doing a client referral event every other month. And even if two people come, don't worry about it. It'll.

It will grow.

Advisors don't like having a small event. They feel like it's a failure.

Right? Right.

I worked for an advisor before. I did all this. And we did, we tried out something new. We tried this event and there was two couples there and they looked at me. The advisors were like, what? I was their marketing person and they're like, what did you get us into?

Right.

And we wrote one of the people from there. They were a $3 million client. It paid for the year for the whole thing. And we've always said that, you know, you just need a Newman. That was their name, and all you need is a Newman. So think through that when you're trying new referral events, because all you need is one. And then I also would segregate it in your mind and make sure your clients really understand what is a client only educational event and what is a referral event. Sometimes you advisors want to have an event and you're like, okay, you can only come if you're a client and you bring a friend.

Right.

If those are the only events that we're doing, we're going to train them not to want to come to our events. So if we're really clear, this is just for our clients, this is just for us to live on. You talk to you, see where you're at, see how things are going versus this is a referral event, we would love for you to bring a friend, blah, blah, blah. So just being very clear in your.

Messaging about who they're for, that makes sense for sure. And so in terms of metrics that we're looking at, is it, you know, conversion on the events? Is it amount of new money coming in from existing clients? Like, what do you, what do you advise that advisors should be looking at there?

So people coming in for annual reviews. Right. I mean, as a fiduciary, for a lot of you, that's an important piece to really be looking at their investments and bringing them in for annual reviews. But a lot of times there's Money that's found, right. That could be reinvested or that they haven't invested with you yet. I mean, there's a lot that can go there. So one, are we doing annual reviews? Did we find any money that we potentially could write? And then what happened with that? So we do track existing client book of business. And I mean, that's how we can know, you know, we're. If it's 30 to 40% or what percentage it is. So we are looking at that. And yes, we do track the events as well. So we have a client that does a Christmas party every year, and nearly every year they end up writing like 3 or 4 million. And that's not the intent of the party, but it's because it becomes top of mind, right? And Bill comes to the party and he's like, man, I've been meaning to call you guys. Right?

And they finally go, oh, right, yeah, my life was busy. And now I remembered.

Yes, exactly, yes. So we do track existing client events as well.

All right. We're going to be short on time soon, but I want to make sure we touch on pricing really quick in terms of looking at that. You know, I've kind of always had this just arbitrary. If you're able to close nearly 100% of people, then your price is not. You're not charging enough. Um, and that's very, like, off the top. People ask me, how many should I be closing? Is it? And I usually say, hey, I like it. I like the tension of three out of four. You know, I like a 75%, like, based. If we're talking about the price conversation, and it was very high level. How do you. How do you recommend advisors? Look at that.

Yeah, yeah. The pricing structure is all over the map. We don't have a benchmark there. And I think that's good for people to know that there isn't some. This one works better, this one doesn't. It's so about the landscape of your data and so about who you work with. We have some who charge a lot, and their average. Their average client is $5 million. And those people are fine. It's not about that for them. It's not tit for tat, you know, so we have to take into the landscape and you have to know your data to play around with that. I would not increase pricing if we're closing below 30%. So of all the people who sit in a first meeting with you, if we're closing under 30% of those, I wouldn't even have the pricing Conversation. Additionally, if you don't have 30 to 40% coming from referrals and existing clients, I also wouldn't touch pricing because no one's referring to you right now and you don't have a lot of existing clients coming back in to give you money. So why would we mess with what we're taking? So that those would be. The two I'd look at is referrals, existing clients, and close rate to make that determination.

Ah, great. Okay, that's helpful. And I don't usually put that at the forefront. I just like to bring it up as a, let's remember it's worth it pricing because sometimes, you know, if, especially if you're charging on planning and various things like that and there's more room to move, I know assets under management can be a little different, but it could also be about raising, getting back to the top, which is the avatar, and raising the minimums or, or changing the profile, sort of shifting more up market. So there's a lot that can be done there, but kind of just to quickly review some of the key metrics that matter for advisors. You talked about case size.

So we have our top five.

Oh, great. Yeah, let's run through those. Yes. Yep.

And I will make them very quick because we've talked about three of them, four of them. So the first one is your stick rate. So we didn't really talk about this, but this is just the number of people who keep a first meeting that set it with you. So you set a hundred, how many close or how many come to that first meeting. So that's the stick rate. You should be looking at that by advisor and by marketing funnel. Then our close rate of the people who keep a first meeting with you. What percent eventually close down the line somewhere. So you would just take a time, a timeline. Right from January through June, this many people came in south me through first what percent became a client. Then we have the average case size that really comes into play. So don't forget that one pending people. So those open opportunities people forget about it. And it's a big, big one because it affects close rate. It affects average case size, affects everything. And then our cost per client. So I talked about cost per set, which is different than like acquisition cost. If you can get both of those, even better. But if you can look at your cost per client, then we'll know we have the whole picture.

Right.

Are we, are we paying a lot per client? The average case size is 2 million. Then maybe that's fine. Like maybe there's not a problem there. We can afford to pay that much for a $2 million client. So they all tell a story, and I will just. Just heed a warning that if anyone noticed, ROI is not in our top.

Five, that might be a separate episode.

It is.

Wow. Okay. Yeah, that's. That's great. All right. Wow. This is a lot to take in and so helpful. I mean, even for myself. I'm thinking through my own business and thinking, okay, what do I want to be tracking and how do I think about that? So, yeah, one or two more things and we'll wrap up. This is, you know, we're the full advisor coaching podcast. It's all about work and life integration, you know, and finding fulfillment across the board. What fulfills you?

I had to whittle that down many years ago when I was running like crazy. And I. It's four things I keep my life as simple as possible, but the four things I can have every day. I feel like I'm whole and I am complete, and that is my family time with God, my work. I love. I do love my work and running. So those four things really keep me fulfilled and keep me feeling very whole and like I'm on track.

Oh, that's fantastic. That's great. And. And it's great to have that clarity, to be able to just shape your. Your days and your weeks and your months and be really, really clear on what matters to you. Video.

Yeah.

Yes. I'd love to do a whole nother episode, too, on how you managed to do it all, but that will. We might have to do part two. We'll do roi. Why it doesn't matter as much. And secrets to integrating work in life. Those all sound good.

Yeah.

All right, so if. This is great, Erica, thank you so much. If advisors want to get in touch with you, they're finding this interesting. Where can they go?

Our website has so many resources. It's got studies that we've done, it's got KPIs, it's got benchmarks, it's got videos on what we do. So. Website trackthat advisor.com. you can also find me on LinkedIn, which is where I do a lot of just personal promoing. So you can find me at Erica Pauly on there. But we look forward to having you. If you're interested in our services, we just do a quick meet and greet. It's 30 minutes. Me talking to you about integrations, what we do. But first, peruse our site because a lot of people can find answers there without even chatting. With me, they can just be nosy on their own.

So great. Thank you. Thanks so much for coming.

Thanks for having me.

Good, good conversation. You know what I, what I liked, we started this conversation with, you know, Kristen, you talking about the fact that it's like you intuitively might know. And what we did was we took it to a definition of how you really might know. You know, and I think, I think people have a data aversion, Erica. And I'm just kind of curious if this has been your experience, if people have sort of an aversion to data when they first come to you and then they walk away thinking that was actually a good experience or that was really different than what I thought it would be.

Yes, all the time. I mean, people will have our dashboards and they'll work with us on our platform for years before they ever get coaching. And they'll finally get coaching and they're like, that was so not what. You know, I thought I was just gonna get in trouble from you the whole time, you know, so we continue to try to tell them, like, it's not as scary as you think it's gonna be, but I, I get why they think it is. Yeah. I mean, I just. You say, data, we want you to win. Yeah. Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly.

And that's great. That's great. And I just like, I'll leave an editorial comment as I move to Chris, Kristen here for a second. I spent 30 plus years as a business and financial news journalist, so I love the idea of, you know, data storytelling. I could have used that phrase with a lot of young writers. We know how to get a hold of Erica. But for folks who are listening to you and are maybe interested in what you could do for them, how do they get a hold of you?

Well, it's super easy. You can find me on LinkedIn @KristenHarrod. And as a, as Eric mentioned, I do have a newsletter that I send out through there. But if you want to get directly in touch with me, go to full advisorcoaching.com we have a bunch of resources there. And you can click that little button in the upper right corner that says request a call and we can have a conversation. No obligation. Just check in, see how we may be able to work together there.

And, and they can. Just so I'm clear, they can sign up for the newsletter there?

They absolutely can. If you go to full advisorcoaching.com resources, there'll be a beautiful green box in the middle of the page. Put your name and email address in and you're on the list.

Very good because that newsletter got referenced a lot today, so some folks might be interested, you know, subscribing to it.

As a matter of fact, that's on LinkedIn. Look me up on LinkedIn. Scroll down click subscribe to Newsletter super interesting. If you want to be on the Full Advisor Coaching in our community and be on the that, you know, that mailing list, you can be on both. There's. There's plenty of information to share.

Terrific. For those of you who are listening to this podcast for the first time, there's one other thing you can do that would be really simple to do, which is just reach out and hit the Follow button. You're a subscriber. And then every time Kristen drops a new episode of the podcast, you'll be notified and you can give it a listen. It's really just that simple. And remember, Kristen wants you to win, just like Erica wants you to win. This is a good thing, maybe a scary thing, but it's really not. It's a good thing. So until next time, I'm Bill Tucker thanking you for taking the time to listen today. And on behalf, Kristen, I want to remind you that you can go out today and make today a great day or not. It is your choice. Thanks for listening. Until next time, thank you for tuning.

In to Full Advisor Coaching the podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please hit the Follow button so you'll never miss an episode. To learn more about how you can become a part of the Full Advisor community, visit FullAdvisorCoaching.com Remember, stay connected and get notified as soon as brand new episodes release. Click the Follow button now. The content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Kristin Harrod or Full Advisor Coaching.