Bill Cates: How Financial Advisors Can Master Their Marketing Message

This podcast is brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking, and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra-high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at joinwfadvisors.com.

Welcome to Barron's The Way Forward. I'm Greg Bartalus, and my special guest is Bill Cates, an expert on referrals who has authored several books on the topic and who also hosts the Top Advisor Podcast. Today we will discuss how advisors can create a marketing message that cuts through the noise and wins more ideal clients. Welcome to the podcast, Bill.

Hey, great to be here. Thank you.

Talk about the idea that a lot of advisors really don't know how to market. They focus on being a good advisor, which is obviously crucial and fundamental, but yeah, talk about the marketing message, why it's so important, how and why it's misunderstood, and then let's dig into your main points.

Yeah, I think one of the first things to talk about is the distinction between prospecting and marketing. Most advisors are taught to prospecting, or at least encouraged. They're either thrown into a room with a phone book and say, start calling or they have lead programs and or referrals, which as you know, I teach, that's a form of prospecting. I think it's a higher form of prospecting, but all of that is, there's a proactive push, if you will. I hate to use the word push 'cause we're not trying to push anyone, but it's still that outward stroke. And marketing on the other hand is mostly about attraction. It's about getting the right message to the right people in the right way and the right methodology at the right time. And if you do that, then you start to attract people and you need both. You can't just have marketing and no prospecting 'cause then you won't convert people. And if you just have pure prospecting, you'll probably get worn out, which happens to a lot of people. So you need a little bit of both. And one of the things I wanna do is help advisors get better at the, sorry, I was gonna say the prospecting game, I do that, but at the marketing game, if you will. So maybe they don't have to work so hard and the people that they attract are just a little bit more likely to be interested.

Mm-hmm. What's interesting is in terms of a marketing message, I've seen many advisors who, when asked to describe why they're different or how they're different, a lot of them are too close to it to see that the other, the masses don't see them as distinguishable in any way whatsoever. They almost have to widen the lens and they might think that they have, oh, well, we have this, we have that. And it's like, well, many times that's simply table stakes and it's not a differentiator.

It is. Gosh, we could spend a whole show just on that, but let me tell you what doesn't make advisors different. Let's start with that. The fact that they care about their clients, the fact that they provide customized solutions and great service and planning and all that. Now, I'm not saying we don't talk about those things, we do. Those are very important. But they're not differentiators. They're not gonna distinguish you. At the end of the day, what a client really wants, of course, is are you right for me? That's what they care about the most. And sometimes the differentiator can help with that, can help with the attraction, could help gain someone's interest. Sometimes the differentiator is a reason why someone will work with you. For instance, let's say that you specialize in working with employees, particularly high-level leaders and executives in a large company. You know their benefits package, you know their concentrated, stock situation, you know their world in a way that an advisor who doesn't specialize wouldn't know. Now that's a differentiator that really makes a difference and will help you attract. And I'll tell you one of the, we can get into this a little more deeply if you want, but one of the best ways to discover your differentiators is to talk to your clients, is to talk to them about how they talk about you or they would talk about you or how you differ from others they've worked with. So that's one of the easiest, most creative ways to find out what your differentiator is.

Yeah, and I mean, having a differentiator is of course important, but you also need trust in others. That's obviously not enough. So talk about the other elements that are really important here.

Well, yeah, trust is huge. That's what relevance is about. In my book, "Radical Relevance," kind of distinguish between strategic relevance and tactical relevance. And I wrote "Radical Relevance" after I'd been many, many, many years helping advisors with referrals. And the reason I did that is because if their message isn't relevant, then people ignore them. So even if you get great introductions, if you don't have a way of talking about your value prop and the work you do that isn't relevant to them, they'll ignore you and nobody wants to be ignored. Now, one of the fastest, straightest ways to relevance to someone who doesn't know you is an introduction from someone they do know. So working through introductions does create some immediate relevance and you borrow that trust and then, but real true relevance is all about empathy and really knowing your market and really knowing the people you're trying to reach and your right fit clients, the demographic, the psychographic. And that builds trust because people need to see themselves in your messaging, whether it's your website, your LinkedIn profile, an email you send, speak in front of a group, whatever it is, however you message your value, you need your ideal clients to kind of see themselves. When I was delivering my presentation here at Barron's Top 100 Summit, I held up a mirror to the audience, I said, you know, when your prospects and clients look at what you produce, do they see themselves? And if they do, then there's an immediate sense of trust there, right? That's a feeling. Empathy creates that feeling of trust. So there's a lot of ways to build trust, and that's certainly one of them.

What are some other ways to establish that or accomplish that?

Yeah, asking the right questions. Not being in the telling mode, right? Being in an inquisitive mode. All advisors know this. They know they should be asking good questions. They know that they should not be focused on what they do. And yet sometimes they just can't help themselves and they go in with the telling rather than the asking. So one of the best ways to build trust is, to make sure that your lead messaging, whether it's website, whether it's at a meeting, you're using more you and your as opposed to me and my and our. That's just a distinction in language that can help build trust. Another thing that of course builds trust is social proof. Now, for the longest time, most advisors couldn't use testimonials. That's changing. As long as you do it right. And that's huge. I'll tell you one way that I've seen advisors build trust. It's a little more subtle and it's not a direct testimonial. The photographs on their website are actual clients as opposed to, you know, stock photos and stuff like that. And that's a very subtle but real way to show that social proof, which again, builds credibility and trust.

Absolutely. I mean, too, make a parallel, you would have at the bottom of the totem pole, like John R. John R could be not even a real person. Then you could have like John Renfro. Okay, real name, presumably it's a real person. Stock photo, not real. Real person, real client. Okay, now you're— now it resonates.

All of my testimonials, and as an old business partner of mine, Rich, used to call them testabalonials, all of them on my website and everywhere are at least a photo the person's name. In this case, it's advisors, you know, saying nice things about the work I do. When I can use their firm name, I will. If I can't, I don't. I use their city. You just gotta make it as real as possible.

The more specificity, the better.

That's it, because it makes it real, and then people are more likely to trust it.

100%, 100%. You know, just going back for a moment to what you were talking about, about the importance of advisors asking questions, and talking to a client or prospective client and not talking at them. You know, even for advisors who kind of get it right and do ask potential client questions, a lot of them, I think, fall short in that they'll ask questions, but it might be perfunctory and they'll stop too soon and make a snap judgment like, "Okay, I got the answers. We're going to do bup, bup, bup, bup, bup." And the client's like, "Whoa, whoa, wait." I'm like, I've I'm only 20% into what I wanna share and you're already giving me marching orders and that's a major turnoff. So it's not enough to ask, but you have to know how deep and be really extensive and draw out as much information as possible.

Yeah, a couple things on that. First of all, you're absolutely right that, and look, I understand advisors, they're knowledgeable, they're excited, they wanna help their client. It's coming from a good place. I get that. And you know, they believe that prospect Client is there for solutions, which they are. And you're right, you gotta be careful about jumping too far too fast. So people have probably heard this, the difference between listening to hear and listening to understand, listening to respond and listening to understand. And so 3 magic words that I've been using and teaching forever, it's just simple as, tell me more, right? When you ask a client a question about something and they give you a bit of an answer, tell me more about that, or can you explain that a little further? And just keep going deeper and go to the second level, the third level, two things happen. First of all, you learn more, and the more context you have, the better solutions you bring to the table. But you're also deepening that level of trust because it's a genuine caring. And we trust people who we feel genuinely care about us. I had a wife of an advisor call me a while ago said, "You gotta help my husband. You know, we get all these people into meetings, but we can't convert any." And I said, "All right, well, tell me more about it." And she says, "He's so knowledgeable. He just loads them up with information. They just walk away, you know, filled to the brim with things to do and ideas." And I go, "Well, there's the problem, right?" You know, do they care about that? Yeah, eventually they care about that. They wanna have a clarity on what they're doing and why you're recommending it. But they just need to be fully understood. And this, you know, I wouldn't say this is new to the advisory world, but I've been in this for 33 years and this is a growing trend, right? This is a growing trend of getting to know clients better, deeper. And I know not everyone feels comfortable with that, right? That it takes a different skillset, different mindset than, you know, an analytical type person might be comfortable with.

Right, I mean, I think to your point, if an advisor can cultivate genuine curiosity, then that tell me more will become more of a reflex than something that they have to labor to do.

That's it, genuine curiosity, that is it. And that's a huge muscle to learn how to use and exercise, yeah.

Yeah, you know, to this point, I'll just give you the arc of this story. But the idea is simply that, like, you've heard of people who say, you know, I really, really, really like such and such person. And then you ask them, like, why? And then they'd say, well, like, well, I'm not exactly sure, but— and a lot of times in these cases, these people are exceptionally good listeners. And they are the kind of people who will say, tell me more. And so you're suddenly trusting them and you're liking them. And you're doing all— they're doing all the talking. And the person who's liked for being such a great person, they can't, you know, the other person can't exactly, they're not even aware of why. So I think it speaks to this dynamic.

What you're doing, you're reminding me of a story that is attributed to Mark Twain. The memes say it at least, so it must be true if the internet says so. But anyway, so the story is Mark Twain's on a cruise ship and he comes out onto the deck and he sits on a deck chair next to this woman. And they introduce each other and Mr. Twain says, "Tell me a little bit about yourself." And she talks for 20, 25 minutes and he gets up to excuse himself. "Sorry, madam, but I have an appointment." And she says, "You know, Mr. Twain, you're the most fascinating person I've ever met." And he barely uttered a word. So yeah.

That might've been the genesis of it, but I don't know.

Yeah, who knows where that started, but it's worth telling.

Exactly, exactly. That's great. So anything else on empathy that you wanna talk about or?

Yeah, I do wanna talk a little bit about empathy. You know, my book is called "Radical Relevance," but I could have called it "Extreme Empathy." And all right, so empathy is understanding, appreciation for the other person. So what does that mean in terms of marketing? It means having a very clear target market which is different than a category. So for instance, let's say executives 5 to 7 years from retirement, that's not a market, that's a category. Now, if you take executives at Verizon or executives at Google or whatever who are ex, you know, from retirement, Google, they're probably too young for that. But anyway, now you've got the target market mixed up or mixed in with a category that's very powerful. And so you're clear on your market, you're clear on your persona or your right fit client. You can have more than one right fit client and you get, you know, the demographics and psychographics so well that even the questions you ask reveal your knowingness of the client. Model portfolios have evolved from a one-size-fits-all solution. In a recent roundtable conversation, Jeffrey Safe of BlackRock and Alessio DeLongis of Invesco break down what's driving the next model moment, discussing how a deeper level of customization is producing a better alignment with investor goals and creating a practice differentiator for financial advisors. Their world. Mm-hmm. I was, had a prospect on the phone. This was many years ago, and I asked them a question. I said, how are your advisors doing with this? He says, were you at our meeting this morning?

Right?

And that's when I knew that I was doing the right thing, right? Because he, Through my question, he knew that I knew his world. And that's kind of what I mean by radical empathy, radical relevance. And that is just when people can see themselves in your messaging, you're winning them over.

Yeah, and it's interesting to the relevance point, I'm just gonna share from a journalistic point of view an anecdote. So as a journalist, we're pitched all the time from PR companies, et cetera. Our inbox gets all these and, Quite often they have no relevance whatsoever to what we write about at Barron's. And of course, you know, not a surprise, the best ones have a deep understanding of what we do, why we do it, who our readers are, and, you know, and will also explain why it's important and relevant. And so when you get a pitch from those people, you immediately go to the head of the class because given all of this understanding and why we're doing what we're doing. Yeah, it might seem self-evident, but you'd be amazed at how many people just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.

Well, and I talked about that in my session today, and we've all gotten those emails and messages, right, that people don't really know who we are and what we do. We don't give them the time of day, but the more they can demonstrate they know a little, you know, I read your article, I saw this, any sense of personalization, and we're starting to warm up to giving them a bit of our time. And one thing we talked about in the session is in this world of AI, there is no excuse to not have a little bit of research on who you're reaching out to, 'cause it's so much easier to do it now.

100%.

And sometimes, here's one thing I do, especially with AI, and if I feel like I've learned something about a publication or about an industry, I'm not gonna assume it's true. But I'm gonna ask them is, this is what I understand to be true, this is what I've heard, this is what I've read, is that true for you? And that's like even extra because it's first of all, demonstrating some knowledge, but also demonstrating that everyone's a little bit different and not assuming that it's true for you. And so that you put those two together and usually have a pretty good reach and a pretty good quote unquote pitch to at least get their attention. And what'd I say, you gotta be relevant, you're gonna be ignored.

I know you're a fan of the value positioning statement. Yes. Tell our listeners what that is and why it's important.

Yeah, so the value positioning statement is a subset of the value proposition. A lot of people, I believe, confuse that. They think their value prop is that statement they make. No, I would suggest, and this is an exercise I do with a lot of advisors and their teams, it's very valuable when the whole team goes through it. The value prop is, really your soup to nuts from the minute you meet someone, becoming a client, being a client, just all the value that you bring, the sum total, the questions you ask, the things you teach, the work you do, that's your value proposition. And then your value positioning statement is derived from that. And that's, depending on context, we have different abilities to talk about our value. Sometimes we need something really, really short. Sometimes we can have something more medium, and sometimes we have a lot of time, in which case we can elaborate. I wanna give you a little formula and then make sure that I flip it at the end, because when you're in a business setting or you're in front of a prospect or a group that's kind of business and you're talking about your business, there's one way to do it. But then if you're in a social setting, there's a little different way to do it. All right, so the formula is this. My expertise is in, or I specialize in, it could be I specialize in, you know, retirement income planning or whatever, I specialize, all right. I work with who want to. So when you say I work with, that defines your market and could be executives, could be small business owners, could be medical practitioners, could be anything. Who want whatever they want are the benefits. And ultimately what they all want is clarity, confidence, and peace of mind. But there's interim wants too. They may want a plan, they may want, you know, to make sure that they're not paying any more tax than they have to, et cetera. So whatever they want, that's the benefit. So we're able to talk about what we do to find the market, what they want, and then the key ingredient in all of this that a lot of people don't have available is the story. Is the for example. And so this is where you want to develop your ability to create little short stories. They're usually like 1-minute case studies, if you will. So I specialize in, I work with who want, for example, I had a client in my office just 3 days ago who this, this is what they were going through, this is the solution we provided, this is how they feel. Here's how they felt when they came to me, here's how they feel now. So we're not talking about results in terms of getting ourselves in trouble with compliance. We're talking about how they feel about how they came and how they left. And so however you use your little elevator pitch, value positioning statement, whatever, when you amplify it with a little short example, a story, it brings it to life. It makes it real. It helps build that trust that we talked about earlier. And so that's kind of a straightforward way to do it. Now, Let's say you're in a social setting. What do we do in social settings, in dinners, family gatherings, at a bar, at a whatever? Well, we tell stories, right? This is a story of the day, the story of a vacation, the story of how we knew each other when we were kids, whatever it is, it's a story. And so if you're ever asked to talk about or want to talk about the work you do in a social setting, start with the story. Someone says, what do you do? You still a financial advisor? You know, how's that go? Well, let me tell you a quick story about the client, right? So you're in that social setting and then you could, at the end, you could say, so in essence, I work with who want to. So you just flip the formula for a social setting and it's just a real quick, tight, easy way to think about your value.

Well, and people remember stories.

Of course they do.

They just, they forget the numbers and data and all the other, chirping noise, but yeah, the narratives, you can do mini 1-minute narrative arcs and that's memorable and make a connection that way.

And another way that a lot of folks will like to do if they're in a social setting, and this could be a business setting too, is, you know how a lot of people are just, they're fearful that they haven't saved enough money for retirement? It's kind of, you know how, that's almost like a story because it's creating the personal relationship to the value to you. Does that make sense? And so that's another way to get into that.

That borders with empathy too, like you're on the same page. Yeah.

Amen. Yes, sir.

You know, it's interesting with the value positioning statement, you know, having everyone on the same page and understanding it. I mean, I think there's gotta be a lot of utility to that because the value proposition, I would think of, they're very similar, they're similar but different. And the value positioning statement is presumably more precise and more of a clearer, delineation and distillation of it. So once you focus on that, you really are clarifying what your goals are and you're making sure that they're in sync. And if it's all muddy, then maybe your value proposition is not as good as you thought if you can't articulate it with specificity.

Clarity is key. I mean, we know that from just looking at what little neuroscience research I've looked at. The brain, doesn't wanna be confused. The brain wants to conserve energy. The brain wants clarity, it needs clarity. So sometimes we get a little clever or creative with our value proposition. And I'm okay with a little bit of that as long as that creativity doesn't get in the way of clarity. If you're getting people to go, huh? I mean, I heard a long time ago, going through an exercise, somebody said, an advisor says, yeah, I'm like a financial nutritionist. And I go, okay, I'm not exactly sure what that means.

Thought bubble over your head with question marks.

Yeah, it's like, okay, you just lost me, sorry. You thought you were being clever. And we could try to kind of figure out what he means by that, but then forget, you've lost them. And so, and by the way, the work I do with advisors and their teams is, Getting everyone in the firm on the same page is usually a great exercise. Usually when we go through this, they're surprised at how disparate everybody on their team talks about the value of the firm and goes, oh, we should probably get this a little tighter 'cause those people are out talking, even if they're not in production, even if they're not in client acquisition, they're still talking about the firm. And so we should get this a little tighter. And context is king. So you can have more than one value positioning statement. If you have more than one persona, if you have, let's say, medical practitioners or owners of a medical practice and then business owners, there's some differences, there's some similarities. So you can, the context is everything. So usually you're gonna need kind of one broad one And then, then you have the sub ones that, you know, when you know the context, then you can deliver that.

Exactly. Exactly. But they should, right. And it could be like, you could serve multi-generational clients and depending on the age of the person, there's a slightly different discussion. Yeah.

Yep. Always.

Exactly. And I guess all, um, you know, in terms of having everyone on the same page, not only that they can kind of go knowing what they have to do, um, but also for, for word of mouth and referrals that you're, you're gonna, you're, they're not going to be passing on bad information where someone will come to you and then be disappointed because they got bad information. So the more everyone can spread the gospel of your firm accurately, the better the chances of, you know, a potential client not being disappointed.

How you talk about your value will go a long way to helping your clients know how to talk about your value. Now, they may have some of their own interpretation, and that's fine. It's good to get to know what that is, but they're starting, you know, how you talk about it will help them talk about it. To others. So that's, here's the principle at hand of all of this we've been talking to pretty much. And that's this, clear intentions produce clear results. Vague intentions produce vague results. If we have a vague sense of who we're trying to attract, then that's what we'll get. It'll be all around the fringes and occasionally a bullseye, right? But then generally speaking, the narrower, the better.

Absolutely, and this might be a ridiculous comparison, Compare someone walking down the street. The person who's walking in a straight line and knows where they're going will not likely bump into anyone, but the person who's zigzagging a little and going left and right, there's better chance of that awkward encounter 'cause they're not exact, no one's entirely clear where that person's going.

Yeah, when you're first getting started in this business, fine, you wanna bump into everybody. But most of the people listening to this, they're past that point. Now it's not a quantity issue, it's a quality issue.

Yeah, absolutely. So we're nearing the end of the podcast. And I did, before we wrap up, I did want to touch on some really interesting points about your past on a personal level in terms of travels to exotic locations. But before I go there, is there anything else that you want to talk about on the subject that we haven't addressed yet?

Really quick.

Sure.

Let's talk a little bit about referrals. And 'cause I'm kind of known for that.

That's very true.

And one of the reasons I wrote "Radical Relevance" is because I help people get more referrals, and I realized that if I'm helping them meet more people, they better have the best possible way to talk about their value. So real quick, first of all, I would recommend that everyone stop using the word referrals, even though I'm the referral coach and I've written my last book before this was The Language of Referrals. Okay, use the word, but when you're with a prospect, a client, or a center of influence, anyone who has the ability to connect you, use the word introduction or connection, 'cause that's what we need now, right? It's hard to reach people. They don't pick up the phone. Those days of calling people and having them answer the phone are over. And so let's use the word, and you're a word guy, you appreciate this. Let's use the word that represents what we're trying to establish or create here. And that's the word introduction. So that's one quick thing I wanna talk about. The other quick thing is, Gosh, you gotta find a way to be appropriately proactive. We know the research just keeps piling on. It's been this way ever since I got in this business. The people you wanna meet wanna meet you from an introduction from someone they already trust. Could be a client, could be center of influence, but we know that's still king. All right, so the people that come to me for coaching, I get the, here's what they say to me, you'll get a kick out of this. They give me the 3 Disney characters of referrals. Are you ready? They say, Bill, is there a way to be proactive proactive without looking like cheesy, sleazy, or creepy, right? They don't want to look like that. I don't want to look like that either. And the good news is there is a way to be proactive. And so you got to find that way because you will get some unsolicited referrals. Everyone listening should be getting some unsolicited referrals. That's a barometer of referability. Hopefully they're the right kind. That's a whole other conversation, but hopefully they're the right kind. And if you are getting some of them, that's also an indicator that you're probably sitting on a gold mine of opportunity. A lot of clients will do this, but they just won't think of it on their own. You have to nudge the process a little bit, and there are lots of ways to do that. So I just wanted to touch on that, you know, to help people realize, you know, build a business based on how people want to meet you. Simple as that.

That's great advice, and I think something many people don't think about. Enough, at least. Um, so in terms of— you're an adventurer, uh, from your bio. I know you say you've— I'm just going to rattle off a number of things you've done, and there's probably more. You've reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, you've trekked in Himalayas and Andes of Peru, you've camped in the Arctic Circle, lived in a houseboat in Kashmir, India, um, and probably other things as well. Um, couple things. So for what Like, first off, that's really, that's cool, that's great. But what lit the fire in you to do all this, et cetera? I'm curious.

You know, I've never been asked the question why I do that. What lit the fire? I guess I just, I like to do 3 vacations a year, all right? I like to sit on the beach for a week or 2. I like to go someplace to learn something new. I like to go to Europe, I like to go to Africa, I like to go to South America. I like to go anywhere in the world just to learn, be a sightseer, be a tourist. And then I like to take an adventure. And I'm not sure where that came from. I like to push myself physically a little bit. I'm a little older now, so I don't do it. And a lot of my friends that used to go on these adventures with me, they're falling by the wayside. I'm looking for new adventure folks. But there's a sense of accomplishment that happens there. There's that physical thing that you go through to prepare. And I just enjoy the heck out of it. Now, probably my biggest adventure that you didn't mention I didn't mention, I mean, I love Kilimanjaro, Everest base camp, all that, very cool. I toured the country as a drummer in a rock and roll band.

I was gonna ask you about that. That was in the US, so I was gonna save that for the last thing. Oh, okay. Okay, yeah, yeah.

All right, well, I brought, sorry to spoil it.

Oh, no.

And that was probably the most dangerous of all the things that I did. I was just out of graduate school and I'd been playing part-time. I put myself through school playing drums in weddings and all that nonsense. And I said, all right, let's see what I can really do with this thing. And so for a couple years, I toured the country and had a great time. Wasn't something I wanted to do forever, but it was quite the adventure.

What was the name of the band?

Nothing you've ever heard. We were called The Alliance. A lot of COVID tunes, a lot of clubs, some concerts along the way, mostly in Mid-Atlantic. Into the Midwest. Chillicothe, Ohio is when I almost got killed by the ex-husband of a, you know, a jealous ex-husband. I have a fond memory of Chillicothe, Ohio from that.

You can't say that and not tell us the story. What happened?

Oh, oh gosh. Her name was Paulette. I remember that to this day. So we're on a break, I'm talking to Paulette, and we're having a great conversation. This big huge guy comes up and says, I don't want you talking to my wife. And she goes, "I'm not your wife anymore." And so he ignores her, keeps looking at me. Big guy. I don't want to get in any trouble. I'll probably get smushed by this guy anyway. So our break was about over. So I get on the stage and we play our set, and Paulette's gone. Okay. You know, so what? We always got the next town. And— but then Paulette comes back. And it turns out there was a restraining order against this guy. And so she had that put. So we go to a party afterwards, And I walk in the door with Paulette, and everyone at the party said, "You're with her?" And I go, "Yeah." And they closed the blinds immediately. He says, "This guy carries a gun. This guy you do not want." And it was like, "Okay." So I use a little poetic license when I say, you know, I almost got shot by Joe Southern.

I think that's within boundaries given—

We were up against the possibility. Yeah.

And so how long did you do that for? You said—

2 years. That was it. 2 full years.

That's great. So that must have been a lot of fun. Did you guys, like, all travel in a van?

Or what'd you do? Oh yeah, we had vans. We had vans break down. We were in Presque Isle, Maine, as far north in Maine as you can get almost. And the van going down broke. And this was before cell phones. We had to walk 2 miles to get help. It was just, it was crazy. And all the money that we earned from that gig, we spent on having to get another car to get back home. It was— we had some crazy times. It was funny, we were in Bangor, Maine, in this terrible fleabag motel. And I was thinking, I said to my bass player, I said, you know, I wonder if Buddy Rich didn't have to do this, you know? And he says, well, actually, Buddy Rich probably did.

Yeah.

All right. So anyway, so I was curious.

That's a great story. As a drummer, do you have any all-time favorite drummers? Or bands?

Well, yeah, I mean, I've always, you know, Keith Moon from The Who was amazingly complex and could still keep perfect time.

Very dynamic drummer.

Neil Peart with Rush, just incredible. Steve Gadd. Yeah, I mean, just so many great drummers out there.

Yeah, that's excellent. Excellent.

Thank you.

Well, that's a Opportune place, I think, to wrap it up. It was a fun story.

Yeah, bada boom.

Bada boom. All right, well, thank you so much for joining.

You bet, thanks, Greg.

Thank you. My guest has been Bill Cates. For more podcasts and the latest wealth management news, visit barons.com/advisor, and please check out The Way Forward: Next Generation, a new podcast hosted by Allison Tucci that puts the spotlight on the emerging leaders who are shaping the future of financial advice. For The Way Forward, I'm Greg Bartalus.

This podcast was brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking, and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra-high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at joinwfadvisors.com.