As some of you may know, we have a premium platform called the Exchange. The Exchange just crossed 600 advisor members last week. We have multiple courses from some of the industries best coaching firms covering everything from marketing, prospecting, efficiency, technology, and increasing your client base and profitability. In addition, all of the coaches are at your fingertips doing virtual coaching daily to help our members grow. The community of advisors is incredibly active helping one another in their businesses and raving about the platform. We decided to offer something special this week that is available to all of you in this community. You are able to access everything in the Exchange for free for a 7 day trial. You can binge all the content, read through the community interactions or post your own challenges to get support, and participate in getting coaching at no cost during this trial. If you think it's not for you, you click the cancel button and will not be charged anything. In addition, we are offering all members to invite another guest at no cost so you can buy one membership if you chose to stay ($99/mo after free trial) and anyone you chose can have a membership with you for free. I strongly encourage you to check it out at skool.com/exchange You will not be disappointed. I coach people through referral situations daily and I hope to see you in there to help you implement my stuff, and all of the great coaches in there will do the same! Go to skool.com/exchange and check it out.

When I was first on Kitces podcast, I didn't understand the reach he had with his podcast and message. On a recent trip to Asia, Australia, and New Zealand I was able to deliver 11 talks to thousands of advisors on client and COI engagement throughout Singapore, Sydney, Queentown, Auckland, and South and North NZ. While the cultures around advice and biz development are slightly different, one thing was consistent.......Kitces. At some point in each of the talks, someone approached me to tell them they were familiar with my work through the Kitces podcast. He's a great interviewer and one of the rare ones who contributes to the conversation as much as he asks questions. If you haven't listened to the first one I did when first introduced to Michael, it may be a good listen. https://www.kitces.com/blog/dan-allison-referral-gap-feedback-marketing-group-brokers-clearing-house/

There are three touch points that I have always focused on in a prospect/client journey that present unique opportunities to establish how referrals flow within your relationships: ✔️ When you first meet the prospect- while I wouldn't suggest asking a prospect for referrals, meeting with a new prospect who was referred to you presents a opportunity to positively reinforce the referral behavior using the strategy in this video. When behavior is reinforced, the likelihood of it happening in the future increases. ✔️When you onboard the prospect as a new client- most advisors want to "wait" awhile in the relationships before they've delivered enough value to "deserve referrals". Again, I don't ask new clients for referrals, but I do have a conversation to understand how they feel about referring in the future (video to come soon). ✔️When a client has been with your firm for 12-18 months- once they've been a client for this period of time, I begin to implement the "Interactive Client Survey" process. This process covered in the classroom allows me to: 1️⃣ Gather feedback from client to ensure they are having an experience that is valuable enough that the client would take a risk and refer. 2️⃣ Educate and update the client on all of the services that are currently available to them and those they care about. 3️⃣ Let the client know if you have capacity to take on new clients, how many clients you have capacity for, and update them on your ideal client profile or clients "you help best." 4️⃣ Re-educate clients about the importance of introducing anyone who needs help vs. giving out your contact information. 5️⃣ Talk about any current referrals once I know it's comfortable for the client to discuss. This video covers step 1, reinforcing the behavior of referring.

This is the ONE challenge that stops advisors from getting ALOT of referrals. If you haven't used this language, give it a try and event better, do it proactively to stop it from happening and start getting the referrals you deserve.

Most of the firms we work with have grown their business to the point that they have established AUM minimums. Whether that is $500k or $5 million, I notice a few things that I think advisors need to think about. First, nearly every single firm I have worked with violates their own minimums all the time. While it sounds great to commit to only working with clients who have a minimum of $2 million of investible assets, it's not easy when a $5 million client refers their $400k friend. Now we risk offending the referral source by not helping their friend, or we take on yet another client below our minimum. Second, as you know, I am a big fan of insuring clients understand your firm's ideal client profile. If we are hoping they will become the best source of referrals, they can't be effective if they aren't aware of the profile. I am always amazed at how few clients we interview know the advisors target market. Even worse, many firms aren't able to define it. If you tell a client, we only work with people who have a minimum of $2 million of investible assets, you placed a bottle neck on referring. I have never heard a group of friends discuss what their "investible assets" are up to and if I know you have that minimum but am not sure of my friends "investible assets" you will miss referrals to great people who aren't flashy about their wealth. A couple of quick tips: If you have minimums, don't discuss them from the company's perspective, but from the client and prospect perspective. Instead of saying "we have a minimum of $2 million of investible assets" try the following: "Most of the people we help have investible assets of $2 million or more. We find this to be the population of people who have the financial complexity to benefit the MOST from the model of planning we have developed. We do not expect our clients to know the investible assets of people they care about. So if there is anyone that you care about who you feel needs help, introduce them to us and we will take the time to understand the situation. If we think we are the best fit to solve any issue that is identified, we will bring them on as a client and provide solutions. If their needs are different and I do not feel we would be the best solution, you can trust that I have vetted people who will be, and I will make sure they are taken care of"