Steve Long and Andy Reiss, Supernova

Every aspect of our daily lives has been impacted in the past year by the Covid 19 pandemic.  We have adapted our regular practices and patterns to accommodate the medical and emotional toll that many of us have faced.  We all would agree that the past year has been unprecedented in numerous ways.  Meeting in person with clients, prospects and centers of influence has morphed into a kaleidoscope of new technologies and new methods to communicate virtually.  The impact we believe will be felt for years to come and will probably result in a new “normal.”

One of the sustaining elements of a Supernova practice is implementing a 12-4-2 model of client communication that applies to every client in the practice.  The client receives 12 monthly calls that are scheduled in advance, 4 quarterly portfolio reviews, 2 of which are supposed to be in person.  While most of 12-4 have been implemented, the 2 in person reviews have been either postponed or now over the phone.

We reached out to some of the recent FA’s utilizing Supernova and inquired how they have adapted the 12-4-2 method to today’s environment.  Their first thought in this disruptive period was the appreciation  of having Supernova and bringing a laser focus to doing only things that create value for the client.  They also stated that keeping 12-4-2 was helpful in eliminating things that distracted or diminished their focus on the client experience.

What makes the 4 reviews with 2 in person so impactful?

The process is flexible and creates rituals for both the advisors and clients to follow in any climate. Not meeting in person doesn’t alter the process. The client receives an outline of agenda topics several days in advance of the meeting.  The client input is solicited as to any other items they would like to discuss at the meeting.  A revised agenda is sent 24 hours prior to the scheduled time. In the pre-Covid period the client would arrive at the office, be offered refreshments and directed to a comfortable conference room. Team members needed would be included in the conversation. Following the meeting an executive summary would be sent within 24 hours and be placed in the client folder.

With today’s restrictions there have to be a few minor changes to the process. Prior to the actual meeting date, the CSA or Administrative Assistant would set up the technology platform to be used and provide some instructions on how to join the meeting.  Some advisors send a gift card to provide some refreshments for the session.  It is sometimes necessary to limit the number of participants on the actual call or video link to make the communication less cumbersome.  The conversation and review are conducted and the executive summary is provided within 24 hours of the meeting.

What is critical to remember is that 12-4-2 doesn’t stop because you can’t meet in person.  If done properly the meetings can still be impactful because the client receives the same experience on reviewing their progress against their plan and has a personal and private conversation with the advisor.

Many advisors that use Supernova feel “todays” technology is effective in saving everyone time and keeps the focus on the client and their needs.
It will be interesting to see what happens when the threat of COVID-19 is eliminated.  Hopefully, we will  be able to have that discussion soon. In the interim, adapting the Supernova 12-4-2 process can be very impactful and help bridge the gap between in person reviews and virtual reviews.

This approach regardless of the current environment can create what we call, “break away velocity. The ability to differentiate yourself from other financial advisors, accelerate your practice and give you a better balance in life.

Steve Long and Andy Reiss, Supernova

There are five distinct principles of the Supernova process that every advisory team must embrace to be fully immersed in improving their business.  Those five principles of Segmentation, Organization, Acquisition, Planning and Leadership are all essential to improving the client experience and improving the overall success of the business.

The Planning section is critical to fully understand the clients real financial and emotional needs. The Planning is based on discovering the values of the client, and their attitudes and perceptions on what they are attempting to achieve with their assets.  The process is purposeful and is geared toward obtaining a deep knowledge of the clients needs.  Everyone who is a client in a Supernova practice receives a comprehensive, multi-generational plan.

There are numerous methods to provide a comprehensive plan for clients.  Over the years most broker dealers have introduced planning software that can support the planning process.  The output, or actual plans can vary in size, scope and recommendations.  We have seen some planning software create over 150 pages of data and recommendations for clients to review.  Other more popular planning packages are simpler and easier for clients to understand.  The most important thing to remember is to have a planning package that can provide an understanding of the clients estate situation, how they will pass their assets along to the next generation, as well as how to invest their assets that is consistent to their needs and risk tolerance.

The only way you can really provide exceptional client service is to have a thorough understanding of that the client expects from your relationship.  Without a viable plan you can’t implement the Supernova client service model of 12-2-4.  The planning section helps provide guidance for the relationship and allows you the advisor to provide support and coaching to the client.  It also provides accountability to the overall relationship and is the best benchmark to keep the client fully engaged.

Let Excellence Be Your Minimum,

How can we as financial advisors demonstrate leadership to our teammates and clients during a crises? What about setting goals and stick to them in chaos? How can the five star model help teammates collaborate, measuring performance? Rob Knapp and Curtis Brown discuss these issues and more.

Bear Markets are naturally occurring events. This creates a tremendous opportunity to develop our leadership skills so we can be there to support each other and your clients. Rob Knapp explains the process to stay healthy while growing your practice in difficult markets.

 

Curtis Brown

Retaining clients and doing a “deeper dive” to examine clients’ goals, problems, and overall financial needs and

concerns is an area that teams can excel at providing.

Teams have a leg up on sole practitioners because of the perceived value that the client is getting more than one person serving their needs. 

This initial differentiation is a distinction in the value teams provide. Teams need to establish a high level of service for clients. An example of this might be the Supernova 12-4-2 model: offering 12 contacts per year (one per month), four appointments with two of the four appointments being in person; a financial plan and  multi-generational planning; a one-hour response to problems with a 24-hour resolution.

This high level of service can only be accomplished with highly organized teams.

Another example is having all the FAs on the team meet with a client at least twice a year during their in person meeting. Each member of the team can take a different role such as presenting the financial climate, the client’s risk measurement, progress with their plan and so forth. Perhaps one team member specialized in retirement planning and can address that topic. By showing your clients that there are multiple people working on their situation resonates with client.

However, if one team member has a better connection with a client and the other team member is better at planning/investing let the client know you are working together in their behalf.

If teams have some kind of diversity you can also play to that strength by attracting like-minded clients. For example, if your team has both male and female FAs, multi-cultural FAs (Hispanic, Asian, Indian, African American, etc.)  they will have different strengths and approaches to issues. This will allow the team to prospect clients they may not have had access to otherwise. It is very important to communicate in the language of the client which adds to the WOW client experience.

By Rob Knapp

If we’re lucky enough to be well-parented (and I was), we’ll often enter adulthood carrying great gifts. We may or may not be consciously aware of them. We may not realize their  importance until much later. When you are subject to optimal parenting there are all manner of useful gifts and lessons deposited into our psyches. The power of a negative example can provide a purpose that drives one toward a remarkable life. In my case my father was a positive example. With a single sentence I’ll never forget, he armed me with an idea that grew more and more powerful the longer I carried it forward.

My father was an industrial engineer for Armstrong. The company made linoleum floors and his job was to make them more efficiently. He was given the task of relentlessly squeezing costs out of the manufacturing process; and relentless he was. He used to say, “believing you’ve eliminated all the costs was just a failure of imagination.”

Dad was a smart guy, and even my 15-year-old self wanted to learn something from him. I asked him one Saturday when he brought me into the office, “What’s your job?” His answer is the gift he gave me. He said,

“My job is to eliminate my job—my job is getting everyone else to do the stuff that’s in the job description so that I can think up new things.”

His job was to think, to envision cost savings, to invent new workflows. It wasn’t to send memos or sit in staff meetings (although I’m sure he did his share of each). And with that idea perking inside me, I entered adulthood. As my career unfolded and Supernova emerged, the idea of getting other people to do your job so you can do your real job crystallized into a bedrock principle I live by. Today, I call it radical delegation.

It’s easy to see this principle at work in a growing Supernova practice. The administrator runs the office. They schedule the 12-4-2 sessions; they move the folders into place, they even schedule the acquisition calls. Why? First off, they are organized and dispassionate about the tasks, meaning they are more resistant to avoidance and procrastination. But most importantly, it’s not your job.

Your job as a leader and FA is to think about your clients and your team. Your job is to get deeper and deeper into their lives so that you can understand the complexity and respond with a plan and with solutions that make their lives better. Your job is to become your client’s CFO, and as soon as you think you’ve done everything you can you need to look at it again so you don’t have your own ‘failure of imagination’.

Are you thinking about creating or joining a Mastermind Group?

There’s no better referral source than a Mastermind Group because all of your introductions will be high-quality and the probability of closing them is going to be dramatically higher. These referrals are going to be a great fit because the members of this group know you the best. Every person in your group is going to have very high credibility. These are the best of the best. And like a good wine, this will just get better over the years.

An example of that in action is from an advisor we have worked with over the years:

“This is an excellent way to make deep friendships, but it can be hard for people because they’re so busy. It’s not golf; you really get a chance to share business challenges with each other and help each other to solve them and create that third mind. We are very selective about who we choose to bring into our small group. It’s important to get it right the first time. You want people who are like-minded with positive energy and a positive attitude about helping each other build their businesses. If there’s not that collaborative process, I don’t think it works. In one group I have been in for twenty-five years, we still answer the 3 questions:  1. What’s new; 2. What do I have to give; and 3. What do I need?”

There are a variety of ways to organize your group, but the constants I’ve found that balance everything are structure, leadership, people willing to share their goals and their obstacles to reaching those goals, a confidential climate, and an 85% attendance minimum. You should also have unanimous acceptance of new members, and you have to be consistent about firing people. That doesn’t mean that that person can’t continue to be a friend or a COI but they just can’t be part of the Mastermind Group.

My friend Bill Cates has six overarching principles that will guide you through the process:

1. The concept of the mastermind is that third mind. It’s hard to solve problems and come up with solutions in a vacuum. It can happen sometimes. Sometimes just walking down the road we have an “ah ha moment.” What I’ve learned is that if we have a problem, an issue, there’s a good chance there are other people who’ve had the same problem, same issue. We just need to find out who they are and we need to tap into that. That’s the power of broad networking and making sure we know a lot of people in our industry and outside of our industry as well. We get an industry-think sometimes that we have to be careful about. For me, I have three Mastermind Groups. One group I’ve had for a long time.
2. The whole idea is to share an idea, something that’s working.We have different agendas different times it seems, but the basic principle in most meetings is to bring an idea that’s working for us that we share with others. We talk to each other and review each other about that idea. How can I make that idea apply to my business? Sometimes someone will say X and it triggers Y in our brain. We don’t know why it triggers another idea. It relates somehow and we make that investment in time worthwhile.
3. We bring a challenge. One of the keys of a good functional Mastermind Group is the willingness to put our ego at the door and not try to be there to impress everybody and to come with a challenge.
4. Come open-minded and with a little bit of vulnerability and be willing to take on other thinking and not “pooh-pooh” somebody’s idea too quickly. One of the things I’ve also learned that’s helped me with the mastermind is that if somebody is having success with something—let’s say they’re doing Supernova. I see someone’s having success with Supernova but I can’t seem to make it work. I’m struggling to making this happen. What’s the difference in George having success and me not? It’s my beliefs, my belief system. I’ve got a limited belief; a mistaken
   assumption somewhere along the way that’s keeping me from somehow engaging in a process that other people have proven to work. That’s the mindset we need to bring to the Mastermind. We have limiting thinking.
5. Remember, we all have blind spots. One guy in my Mastermind Group calls it a scotoma (that’s the medical word for a blind spot). Another guy says, “it’s hard to see the picture when you’re in the frame.” It’s the value over time of these other people that builds these trusting relationships where you know each member of the group has your best interest at heart. Any kind of critique, constructive criticism or questioning of your assumptions is coming from the place of wanting you to be successful. That takes time to develop. Time is a critical element. Then we can start to see those blind spots that maybe we kind of sensed were there but didn’t really know. We don’t know what we don’t know. That’s one of the powers of the groups, to find those blind spots and dissolve those things away for each other. Pretty much every Mastermind Group I’ve gotten into has started purely on the business level, but has always gotten to the point where we started to talk about other stuff in our life. It’s all blended anyway.
6. That being said, some incredible friendships build from these things as well. I have one group, we meet quarterly for a full day; we used to meet monthly; we’re local. I have two other groups that meet twice a year and we’re in different parts of the country so we rotate around where we meet. Those usually are day-and-a-half meetings to get a lot of good work done. Whenever someone thinks they’re the smartest person in the room, they always discount the advice from other people. There are probably some people reading this nodding their head because they know somebody like that. Other people are wondering if they suffer from that phenomenon. You have to all be committed to each other’s growth. You have to be committed to leaving your ego aside and not trying to impress each other. Some of that slips in, I get that. We’re sharing wins with each other, but it has to come from that place of caring about helping the other person and also looking to get help.

Read more about Mastermind groups and other acquisition techniques in “The Supernova Multiplier” by Rob Knapp.

Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team.
—John C. Maxwell

It’s our belief that managers are an undervalued resource; they’re the unsung heroes–they move advisors toward a vision for success as well as helping them with their development. The manager leader must create the right environment in which teams can thrive. Without leadership, it’s going to be very hard for teams to thrive. The right environment is created through building a culture that is sustainable. In other words, the leader must be fully engaged with the advisor teams.
We see the leader as your business strategist and coach. The manager as coach facilitates the building, creation, and leading of advisor teams. This is an individual who helps to promote collaboration among teams, both internally as well as across organizational silos. The leader is establishing a common vision among all the advisor teams in the market area of responsibility, and the vision is a unifying purpose among all the advisors. As a business strategist and coach, he or she meets with advisor teams at least on a quarterly basis and helps to shape business plans that meet the objectives of client, the advisor, as well as the firm.

When you think about this role and how busy this individual is, it seems overwhelming. The leader must create an infrastructure in the office and build his/her internal team to be able to help execute on the advisors’ most important activities that are necessary for success. We have witnessed some leaders having one or two sales managers, having individuals work with the on-boarding of new advisors, establishing roles around administration, compliance, strategic marketing and product areas and the tactical product areas for the firm.

The leader is the unifying person who helps elevate the entire team to have an impact on advisors. He or she understands the “pain points” in his market. For example, someone working in a Florida market might have a distinct set of pain points relative to retirees or opportunities as opposed to someone who might be working in a very entrepreneurial environment in the Silicon Valley in California. This is an individual who is going to understand their market and is diligent in helping and coaching advisors to seek out specialized niche markets and other business opportunities that might exist.

By Curtis Brown

Focus your prospecting efforts on specific niche markets to acquire more clients.

Do you want to master 20 different markets or just a few? You can’t be an expert in everything nor can you be all things to all people. You may have started in the business accepting any client that was living, breathing, and had a pulse. Sound familiar? Many of us started that way. Over time, the business began to control us rather than the other way around. Perhaps you have fallen into the trap of being a jack of all trades and a master of none. Maybe you haven’t really thought much about the value of establishing a specific niche market or a means to differentiate yourself. It’s not enough to have impeccable product knowledge or excellent relationship skills in today’s competitive environment. You need to have intimate knowledge of the client segments you are going after. Having an area of specialization might be a means to differentiate yourself from everyone else and demonstrate your unique value. We live in a world of mass commoditization of products and services. It’s hard to stand out from the crowd. It requires a change in how we go after and establish new markets and acquire new clients.

What’s a Niche Market?

A niche market is defined as concentrating your marketing efforts on the specific needs of a segment or subset of the population. The needs of this segment are either not being met or are being poorly met by other service providers. This is where your background and experience can add value. It’s not enough to just focus on CPAs, Attorneys, or Business Owners, for example. You must drill down on specific subsets in these categories. Some advisors make the decision to focus on a company by getting familiar with the Human Resources department. They then get an understanding of the benefits offered to employees, stock plans, stock options, 401k’s, and deferred compensation plans. They read trade journals, research reports and position themselves as experts on the companies benefits. You must spend time educating yourself on employee or executive needs and have a clear understanding of their business. This will enable you to add value beyond the recommendation of a product or service.

How to Identify Pain Points? 

What are the pain points of a business owner, for example? You must be prepared to ask some fundamental questions. How is the cash-flow currently being managed? Is there some seasonality to the business when cash-flow is strongest? Are there retention strategies to keep key employees? I’m sure you can identify more questions to ask and then think about the potential solutions in your repertoire of services. By asking the appropriate questions you are beginning to understand the “pain points” of the business. “Pain Points” are areas that frustrate the client or buyer. Your goal is to eliminate the pain. Recall the feeling after leaving a prospect meeting and you didn’t quite connect on an emotional level. Perhaps you didn’t uncover any significant pain points during your discussion. By establishing yourself as a solutions provider you will gain the confidence of those in your niche and obtain quality referrals.

Become an Expert in a Niche

How do you move beyond a superficial understanding of your niche market to more of an expert? You must invest the time by interviewing people that work in or serve these niche markets. You must read industry trade journals and publications. Attendance at industry-specific conferences will enable you to keep current with what’s being discussed in your niche market as well as meet important connections. Immerse yourself and get educated on the markets you decide to pursue. Some sample journals that are industry specific are Tech Crunch for technology-related businesses and Business Management Daily that discusses issues relating to the small business owner. Additionally, review the attached web publication to see a list of journals under each market niche. ((https://www.webwire.com/IndustryList.asp) For those of you interested in pursuing the non-profit sector, here’s a list of trade journals you might find useful. (https://www.nonprofitexpert.com/publications/)

Develop Centers of Influence

Once you have reached a so-called expert or very knowledgeable status in terms of your level of understanding of this niche, you can now focus on developing centers of influence that can support your efforts in cultivating your market. A center of influence moves in the prospect or client circles you are going after. They can make valuable personal introductions to the prospects you want to meet.  We all need allies of support. Staying current and up to date on your market(s) can eventually provide huge rewards.

Specialize in a Specific Niche

I work with a Financial Advisor in the southwest who specializes in pensions and retirement plan services for businesses. The team receives referrals from CPAs, attorneys, and pension consultants. They have defined their expertise and value proposition as “providing strategic wellness solutions for their clients”. Other members of the team are developing an expertise in the philanthropic services area. The team subscribes to several online trade journals and stays close to the heartbeat of change and industry challenges in their niche markets. The results have been phenomenal with new assets, clients, and referrals.

Do Your Homework

To develop your niche market, do your homework and get immersed in the needs of your market. Review trade journals and publications that are specific to your niche. Identify and review blogs and vlogs. Conduct a Google search and undercover useful market intelligence that will help you expand your brand identity and engagement in these markets. Brainstorm with a client or center of influence. Be conversant on issues that the prospect in this niche might find helpful, such as social media marketing, business strategy, and human resources. These are areas that you can opine on that add value. Find the “pain points” and you will be on your way to more success in your client acquisition efforts.

 

Imagine it’s 2:30 in the morning. You are a trauma surgeon trying to save the life of an accident victim with multiple gunshot wounds. Your team is ready to go. The airways are checked. Breathing is checked. The circulatory system is stabilized. The life of that patient relies on you and your team working in synchronicity with each team member performing his or her job at the exact right time to keep the patient alive.

Execution is everything.

That’s what Trauma Surgeon Dr. Andre Campbell discusses in a new book by Curtis Brown and Rob Knapp titled: Supernova Advisor Teams, a Pathway to Excellence. Being released this April through Amazon. Supernova Advisor Teams is a handbook for building healthy teams in the financial services industry. Team members who work in harmony make the sum of the whole much greater than the individuals working parallel but separate paths. This has been documented many different ways but none so dramatic as a trauma surgery team. A group of Wharton professors following surgery teams found that amid what seems like chaos is a well-choreographed process that advisors can learn from and emulate.

Whether you are looking to take your existing team to a new level of performance or are considering starting or joining a team, this is a must read to continue your future success. When each team member clearly understands their roles, a fluidity in solving the complex problems for the client takes place. This book breaks new ground on the complexities of team building and leadership roles. Pre-order today on Amazon.com

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