Conversations for Financial Professionals

CFFP #06 How to Use TikTok to Market Your Financial Services Practice ft. Brad Klontz

Show Notes 

In today’s conversation we have Dr. Brad Klontz. Brad helps people master the psychology of wealth and live a life of abundance. He’s also managing principal at Your Mental Wealth Advisors™, Co-Founder of the Financial Psychology Institute™, and Associate Professor of Practice at Creighton University Heider College of Business. Dr. Klontz is also an author of 5 books on financial psychology, including Mind Over Money, Facilitating Financial Health, and Financial Therapy and most recently "Money Mammoth: Unlocking The Secrets Of Financial Psychology To Break From The Herd And Avoid Extinction".  

 

Today we cover money, psychology and marketing.  More specifically, how social selling and the digital marketing landscape has evolved since Dr. Brad entered the business. We will also dive into a relatively new social media platform--TikTok.  Dr. Brad will share some of the tools for crushing content on the platform along with the advantages/disadvantages, and finally a posting strategy that you can use.

 

Show Highlights 

 

• How Dr. Brad turned 2020 into a “win-win” situation. (2:25)

• Dr. Brad talks about the evolution of marketing and why some businesses hesitate with getting into social media. (9:16)

• Why your comfort level can cause you to miss out on opportunities that platforms like TikTok bring and the key to selling online. (11:29)

• Dr. Brad’s perspective on TikTok as a social media platform. (12:41)

• Why TikTok has an extremely “low bar” for content creators. (13:39)

• Dr. Brad shares his number one tip on starting a TikTok account and how to be successful. (16:07)
• Dr. Brad shares his posting strategies and how he got to 260,000 followers (26:56)

 

Resources:

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If you'd like to connect with Dr. Brad, click here.  Check out Dr. Brad’s latest book by clicking here.

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Thanks again for listening, reading, and watching!

 

 

00:00:00

Dominique

Welcome to conversations for financial professionals, a podcast to help. Shape the next generation of financial advice. I am your host, Dominique Henderson, and today's conversation is with Dr. Brad Klontz. Dr. Brad  and I met each other in 20, early 2020. I invited him on the podcast to talk about behavioral finance, because that is his expertise. But as of late, Dr. Brad has been spending a ton of time on developing his social media strategy specifically on TikTok. Today, the conversation is all about how to use TikTok to market your financial services. Dr. Brad  and I talk about the missed opportunity that financial professionals are possibly losing out on when it comes to social media and specifically this platform. We talk about why we talk about some strategies from a macro and a micro standpoint about how you can actually start putting content out there and what it's all about. Are you mission focused? Who are you trying to reach? And do you have a strategy for doing that? This promises to be one of those conversations that you are going to walk away with a greater understanding on exactly what you can be doing to use TikTok  to market your financial services practice. So let's go to the conversation.

00:01:25

Dominique

 Welcome to another episode of the conversations for financial professionals podcast, where we are shaping the next generation

 

00:01:35

Dominique

Of  financial advice today, we have Dr. Brad Klontz. You help people master the psychology of wealth and live a life of abundance. I got that right from your LinkedIn via, in addition to that, you're a managing principal at your mental wealth advisors, co-founder of the financial psychology Institute and associate professor of practice at Creighton university Heider college of business. Woo hoo. I am afraid and alum, you're also the author of five books on financial psychology, including mind over money, facilitating financial health and financial therapy. Most recently money mammoth unlocking the secrets of financial psychology to break from the herd and avoid extinction. The reason that largely you're here, my friend is because I know of all this stuff through your TikTok  account, because you are such a TikTok  savant. Welcome to the podcast.

 

00:02:28

Brad

Thank you. It's I, I love chatting with you, so I'm very happy to be here. Yeah,

 

00:02:32

Dominique

Man, we share a lot of similar interests, a lot of common folk that we know together. Matter of fact, I was just talking to a mutual friend, Sandra Davis. And so yeah, this is really cool. Let me ask you this. How have you been like, we're in a new year? 20 Delta is a hand that most of us would not have expected. Do you have any specific takeaways?

 

00:02:45

Brad

Yeah, I like, I'm just fascinated with, first of all, it's terrible, it's been awful. Like let's just all admit it. Right. And, but what I have this little mantra that I, that on good days, I say to myself, which is where's the opportunity. This is something that I'm constantly feeding into my own mind, so that I can be aware of where the opportunities are. So, with that awareness, I ran across a bunch of opportunities in 2020, and I actually had a fabulous year creating content, exploring some other business models, creating some couple courses. I mean, I've just been throwing myself into, this is the reality we have. So where's the opportunity within this reality?

 

00:03:41

Dominique

No, I think that's wonderful. I, I don't know if this is a Chinese proverb, but it's like the same symbol for chaos is the same symbol for opportunity. It's like where there's chaos, there's also opportunity. Which I think is a good segue too, because what I want to talk about today, we know that you can go with the best of them on the financial therapy and the behavioral finance front. We'll link to that previous episode that we talked about before, in judging risk tolerance. I'm pretty sure we'll overlap some subjects with that, but I really want to talk about, how to market financial services, and what maybe financial professionals can be thinking about using some of these platforms, specifically a platform such as TikTok, which, I don't know if people know this term, but about organic reach is incredible, for this platform. I want you to kind of dive into that and I think the way I want to kind of set that up though, is how do you believe did take me through the evolution first? How do you think marketing has changed from like winning you and I got in the business versus now, like kind of opine on that for .

 

00:04:44

Brad

Yeah. I mean, I, I'm not, I wouldn't consider myself an expert in marketing, although I probably am from, outside perspectives, but I feel like there's been a big hesitation to get into social media from the compliance side of the business. We're always slow on that side. Because when you talk to your compliance office about doing anything, you say, Hey, I, can we talk about, and then they say no, because that's how they get paid and that's how they stay alive. That's, they're much happier if you do nothing.

 

00:05:16

Dominique

Can I say something parenthetically though? okay. I do agree with that notion largely I think let's call it Tim cases or seven or six, or maybe even more than that eight out of 10 cases are like that. Would you also say that compliance officers, in a, let's say you're managing a thousand or 1500 or 10,000, registered reps. You also have to manage to the lowest common denominator too. Right? So you have to say no, almost right, because you got Joe knucklehead over there, that's going to be doing something. Whereas you got all these other people that would be following the rules, but then you've got the Joe knuckleheads.

 

00:05:51

Brad

No, it's absolutely true. Unless you're making it crystal clear, you're not going to have any recourse in terms of saying, Hey, didn't, you weren't supposed to do that. So, it's nothing but love and good vibes for your compliance officer, but just understand their job is to keep your business around, and to make sure that you're doing right by society and taking care of people. And so that's their mindset.

 

00:06:13

Dominique

No, I would agree. They, they got that the mentality of the can't sink, the battleship, it only takes one person, to be, somewhere on the SCCs radar or the state, it's securities advisor and that one headline tanks, the whole ship. So I get it.

 

00:06:29

Brad

It does, it does seem to be like a shift though, where more and more people are on social media. I mean, that's what LinkedIn is, by the way. Like, if you've ever put a post on LinkedIn, it's the equivalent of doing anything on TikTok or Instagram or any place else, frankly. I mean, you're putting yourself out there. It's these, it's essentially a website, an app. I think it's hard to find advisers right now who aren't involved in social media.

 

00:06:53

Dominique

No, I, I think you are right in that. I think one of the things that I've always admonished or strongly encouraged, the advisors that I work with too, is making it personal. There's nothing wrong with crossing the lines. I think maybe you can, of kind of speak to this, those maybe what advisors probably perceive or financial professionals as a whole perceive as a gray area, right. Where I don't want to talk too much about my personal or I don't know how that may fill into fit into the narrative of what I'm, whatever I'm trying to, offer from a financial services standpoint. Do, do you think there's a gray area or do you like, this is all me, this is all Dominique, this is all Dominic. Like, how do you view that?

 

00:07:37

Brad

I look at it, like if I have a client in the office, who's just walked in more of a traditional introduction. I might not just lay out my entire life story like that I don't think they really want to hear that, but I think in terms of social media, I think the more that you can talk about yourself and be yourself, the more likely you are to attract clients who are exactly the ones you want. I feel like social media does throw yourself out there in a broader context in the world. I think it's actually to your advantage, frankly, to talk about some of your interests and, more personal information about yourself, do you have kids? Do you like tennis? I mean, what is it you're into because people will, they're looking for ways to connect. Like how do you stand out from every other advisor? And some of that personal information can be really great in terms of attracting people who frankly, you probably want to work with anyway.

 

00:08:27

Dominique

No, I love that. I love that. You're saying that because I think what advisors and financial professionals may think about, they may think about the cell first versus the connection first, because there is no cell without the connection. So I'm glad you said that. I think the opportunity that is potentially lost, if you don't wait out onto the dance floor of social media, is that, people don't get to know the non-suited up button up person that is behind all of us. Right. There is a, whether we actually physically wear a suit and tie or not, there is a more conservative side to what we do. That's what I think consumers view us as, but when we show, spending time with our significant others or whatever that may be, that does offer another perspective into who you are. That's what clients like you said are connected to.

 

00:09:16

Dominique

So I love that.

 

00:09:16

Brad

No, that's great. If you feel weird about selling on social media, if this gives you a bad feeling inside, I just want you to honor that feeling because it's a terrible idea to sell on social media, by the way, I mean, it's just the absolute wrong thing to do. Because people really get turned off on it really fast, but social media, the opportunity there is for you to sell yourself and to provide content that's helpful, that's useful. That's engaging. What you want to have is people think of you when they think of that problem, eventually that they run into in their financial life. They think of you as somebody that they know they trust. I mean, there's this weird psychological phenomenon where we feel an intimate connection with people on social media. It's something really to be curious about and this step back and think about this.

 

00:10:01

Brad

Like, if I've watched 20 videos of yours, I'm going to feel a special connection to you. It's, it's the K person brain. It's like, if I'm staring somebody directly in the face and listening to them, my brain says, this is somebody, and trust because our brains have not evolved to the point of social media where we realized actually this person doesn't know you at all. What's so fascinating. It creeps into your subconscious that there's this connection. And it happens. It happens to all of us on social media, and there is the opportunity for you to feel a connection and have other people feel connected to you and feel a sense of trust and connection.

 

00:10:33

Dominique

Let's double click on that for a second. Cause I want to park right there. I think you bring up a lot of good points and I'm loving the fact that you're bringing the behavioral science part of how humans just interact. I think this may be lost on some financial professionals. That's why I want to dig in because the more video content you create, whether yours there's one like, or no likes or 1500 likes, you're still building that connection because people are seeing you more. They're they're getting to know like, and trust you like Ziglar says, so I wonder to your point earlier, or maybe not, is it a sell so much if you are just connecting with them, right? Like, what is your opinion about this whole notion around selling? Cause I know some people feel a funny way about that word. What, what would be your thoughts about it in the context of making that consistent content and connecting with people? It seems like the cell has patterns naturally.

 

00:11:29

Dominique

That's my opinion.

 

00:11:29

Brad

Yeah. That's my opinion also. I think direct sales and sales on social media always feel bad. Like they do. Like if you want to give away content that's actually the culture of social media is giving away content, giving away information. I think that you got to think about what is it you're selling. And in my opinion, you're selling yourself. You're selling yourself as the expert, as this incredibly helpful person. If people don't have to look really far, all they have to do is click on your profile to find your website and see exactly what you do. It's not like you're hiding that in any way, but you want people to be attracted to you based on this incredible value you're giving to the world. They're going to find you if they want your service. Absolutely. I agree. I agree. So let's pivot here because,

 

00:12:13

Dominique

People listening to this at this point are probably like, okay, so like what is TikTok as opposed to Instagram or Facebook or any of the things that I'm let's call it, I'm more, they're more normalized or are they more familiar with kind of give us a, a macro breakdown of like really what TikTok is as an information platform or social platform, before we kind of dive into the weeds of maybe strategy.

 

00:12:41

Brad

Yeah. I just see TikTok  is just the next big social media app. I don't see it as a whole lot different from Facebook, from Instagram, from Myspace, do you still have a MySpace account, but you take it as back it's just the next thing now what's interesting. It has its own culture, which is really fascinating. You have to approach each one of these social media apps and websites as a culture. Like you really have to understand the culture. It's a totally different culture. All of them are by the way, but what TikTok  does it's you gotta think short form video. This is punchy stuff. It's 10 seconds, 15 seconds. You can go as long as 60 seconds. I think the average one that really hits is around 10, 15 seconds long. And, it has a lot of incredible in-app editing tools. The thing I love about Tik TOK is that the bar is so incredibly low on production value that there's like literally no excuse.

 

00:13:39

Brad

What's so fascinating about the entire platform is highly produced. Content is sort of shown there. What people want is they want to see you in your living room. I'll be honest. They want to see you in your bathroom. There's a line, there's a lot of content that has been created where people are standing in their bathroom in front of the mirror. Essentially they're looking at their phones, staring at the mirror, looking back at themselves. It's unbelievable. People have created millions of viewers based on that, but that shows you the intimacy people want to see you in your natural setting. They don't want to see a studio. They don't want to see a bunch of production.

 

00:14:13

Dominique

Let's pause right here, because I've worked with, I don't know, I've probably consulted hundreds of advisors and we talk about a term. You just use production value, right? Because there is a certain Polish that let's say a video on your website, talking about your financial services and how much AUM you manage will be different from the content that you put on TikTok . What I've always told advisors though, is before come up with an idea about what needs to go on your website and you hire a crew and you blah, and do all that kind of stuff. Wouldn't it be nice to kind of know if that idea is going to even fly by testing it out on social media. You only need a phone to do that. Like, do you agree with that? Like, cause I think these platforms have a really great testing mechanism, like a trying mechanism when you kind of think about maybe refining some type of precious metal and all the draws burn off, like your message can get a lot better if you hone it by social proof.

 

00:15:13

Dominique

Like, do people even resonate with one idea that you have thrown out on TikTok  or one of these other platforms before you do a whole lot of production value with your website? Would you agree with that?

 

00:15:22

Brad

I think that's brilliant. I absolutely agree with it because the great thing about TikTok  and some of the other social media platforms is you're going to get feedback almost immediately on whether or not this is resonating with people because the algorithm doesn't lie.

 

00:15:37

Dominique

Explain that, unpack that because all these platforms have their own algorithm, right? So just for kicks and grins, so YouTube, which I've kind of made my home on is it's all about video views and it's watch time and everything else, desert it's pales in comparison, comments likes all that kind of stuff. That's great. But video views watch times. That's the biggest thing. Long form content is a better idea, especially if you're giving really helpful stuff. Whereas it sounds like it's the opposite on TikTok.

 

00:16:07

Brad

The opposite on TikTok , the same metrics apply though. It's all about watch time and it's all about views. It, but essentially the attention span is so much lower there because of that one minute, barrier. So it's gotta be punchy. It's gotta be short. I mean, it's really been an exercise for me on how to deliver like, viral content because it's not going to go anywhere unless you grab somebody in the first one to three seconds. I feel like on YouTube, you have more like you have 15 to 20 seconds to grab somebody. Right? And so I think it's a very different and I feel so much more pressure putting out a YouTube video when it comes to production content too. Like it takes me for a four minute video on YouTube. I'm going to say five hours to write it, to edit it, to, put it in B roll, whatever I'm going to do there.

 

00:16:56

Brad

What's so fascinating about TikTok  is I'll make six videos a day in an hour.

 

00:17:03

Dominique

Because you're just really just shooting on your phone and it's just, stream of consciousness type of stuff.

 

00:17:09

Brad

You're shooting on your phone. It's incredible. And there's, that's what I love. I love the low barrier. It just takes away all of your excuses. Like just write down all of your excuses right now about why you're not producing content and they're all erased when it comes to TikTok. Nope, you actually don't have to do your hair. You don't even need to leave your bathroom and all you need is your phone. So get on it.

 

00:17:30

Dominique

No, I love that. I love that. That kind of dovetails into maybe why you chose that platform to kind of, really build, a following there. I think one of the key things here is, as an, as a financial professional, there's a lot of things that we do afraid we take tests, afraid we, get licenses, and are afraid. We talk with clients. This just seems like another barrier of things that you do afraid, and you put yourself out there. I'm wondering, what have you noticed from just a mental barrier standpoint that may keep people from moving forward with this? I know we kind of went up, went over this a little earlier, but I'm just trying to think maybe with your talks with peers or whatnot, they're like, I don't really know. Cause that's my my market's not on there or whatever. 

 

00:18:19

Brad

Yeah. So, I mean, you obviously have to think about what persona you want to put out into the world. That's something to think about, right? Like who are you on social media? And it's not like you're pretending to be somebody else. I mean, you all have various roles. Like I'm a very different father than I am professor. Like, so you have to just think about who you are on social media and not only that, but on which platform, like, I'll be honest with you. There's 99% of the stuff I put on TikTok. I would never put on LinkedIn, are you kidding me? Like my Dean's going to see that stuff. And so.

 

00:18:53

Dominique

I don't know,

 

00:18:53

Brad

If he is, I'm very scared right now. So, so you've got to think about like the culture, like, what is it for me though? I gotta tell you it goes beyond that. Like, so I actually feel like on a deep philosophical level, like I'm here on earth to do something and I don't really care. I have this avatar onTikTok  that I have in mind. This is somebody that I deeply love and I care about, and I'm going to try to connect with this person, whatever it takes, if I have to do like a silly like dance, if I have to do something like that, I don't care. Like I I'm so mission focused on TikTok  in terms of trying to give a certain message to this person that I care about on there, that a lot of that melts away. I that's actually been my hack for overcoming my ego around giving speeches around doing podcast interviews, media interviews, television, the whole deal is what is my mission? And my mission as you mentioned, is, it's to help bring hope and healing to the world.

 

00:19:52

Brad

That's my mission. I run everything through that and then my ego melts away. That's, that's,

 

00:19:58

Dominique

It's actually a good segue. I want to talk about, let's talk about TikTok  micro strategies. Like if somebody is listening right now and they're like, okay, I'm buying in. I think I can do this. Let, let me start to think about some tangible steps where I can use this specific social app to start to get my message out. I think you provide a really good blueprint. Let's kind of unpack that. Have a mission that basically you see how you're impacting the world as a financial professional, whether that giving comprehensive financial plans or building investment strategies or whatever that is to whoever that is. That is a very first, a good, very first step. What would you say is kind of next, or maybe something from Dr. Brads  blueprint of how you create content?

 

00:20:45

Brad

I would say have an avatar in, so by avatar, I mean, who is the person on the other side of this phone, who's going to be watching your content? Who is that person? What do they care about? What are they worried about at night? What do they love? What do they, and so I, by the way, I have a different avatar for each app, essentially because they have different audiences. I'm speaking a different language, I'm talking to a different person. I think that really helps that is if there's anything that I could pin my success on TikTok , it's probably that, like, I have a very clear avatar in there. Somebody I'm talking to, it's not in frankly, it's not my typical multi-million dollar wealth management client. Although much of it applies, I have a very specific avatar and the more specific it can be about who is this person you want to talk to, it just really helps you get really clear about the message you want to deliver.

 

00:21:35

Dominique

Yeah. Cause I think, one thing I've been guilty of, in the past and even now, right, is getting a little lazy with the different cultures across social media, in that I post the exact same thing one platform and another, and I start to get a little, savvy about that, which is you change the, some stuff is, one-to-one but very rarely nowadays. To your point, if you have an avatar in mind, that's a specific message to that particular avatar in that community, based on the culture of that platform. Your posting strategy on TikTok, though, from looking at your profile seems to be, like you said, up to six times a day, and I don't know that works on like a LinkedIn or anywhere else. Can you kind of speak to that about the amount of times that you post in, like when you post and things of that nature?

 

00:22:25

Brad

Yeah. So I agree with you. I think it's very platform specific, but I've also seen a undeniable correlation with the amount of content somebody puts out and the impact and the reach, like you just can't separate those two things. If you posted six times a day on LinkedIn, I can guarantee you within one year, you're going to have way more action, way more views, way more followers, et cetera. Now, now granted, you're really going to have to dedicate yourself to that, right. I mean, because that's a major strategy and about two years ago, that's what I did. I essentially said, I'm going to spend an hour or two a day on social media. I started, we're talking to financial planners here, right. So I actually have a spreadsheet. Okay. Where I, I track all my numbers for the last two years across my social media platforms, because I decided I'm going to put some energy into that.

 

00:23:14

Brad

I'm going to put some energy into growing those platforms. And so, yeah. The more content you produce, the more action you're gonna do.

 

00:23:20

Dominique

Yeah, no, I think so. What I'm hearing from you is have a mission because it starts always with your, why I would agree, have an specific avatar that you are targeting. Then, I guess with that, you got to learn the nuances of the community dynamic or the social platform dynamic. You gotta be, I would say you got to start tracking your metrics. I think, cause that just talks to the strategy. Cause you're, these are for, this is forethought, right? You're not like maybe there are some stream of conscience and stuff that you're just doing, but do you have a social media content calendar? Like on this day I'm going to post this particular thing or around this particular thought that you do that too?

 

00:24:00

Brad

I don't, I don't at all. Yeah. I, I have a target where I'm trying to post three to six times a day on TikTok. I try to take one of those posts if they're relevant and push it over to Instagram or LinkedIn, that kind of thing.

 

00:24:15

Dominique

Okay. Okay. Having a strategy, whether the accountant is planned out or not is still part of what you would agree or recommend for people to have.

 

00:24:28

Brad

Yeah, absolutely. Like I have a plan in mind, like what are the platforms you want to focus on? And I think it's a good idea to pick one primary and then maybe two or three secondary. So you're going after maybe three platforms. You have a primary and a secondary, because it can be really tough to hit all those at once. But yeah.

 

00:26:16

Dominique

Talk about, talk about having that primary or maybe that hub. I think that's kind of key because I think at least with the conversations that I have financial professionals are like, yeah, I'm fine with doing this. It's just, it's just so overwhelming. Well, I mean, because there's Twitter, there's Facebook, there's Instagram, there's YouTube, there's blah. It's like, well, pick one hub where you can maybe have your let's call it cornerstone content or whatnot. As you said, push them out to those other two or three that are kind of minor in tertiary with maybe segments of it or split up content or whatever. I mean, if, I guess if you pick TikTok , you may have to think about some longer form stuff because of the time limit. What, what would be your thoughts on that?

 

00:26:56

Brad

Actually my best, LinkedIn content happens to be TikTok videos because they're pretty right. And they're punchy. Right. So yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And, and you just need to have a general philosophy, like how many posts do you plan on doing a day? And I know, and I'm, as I'm saying this, I'm just imagining the listener going with all these mental blocks to doing this, right. You're going to look like a fool. You're going to look, people are going to judge you and it's like, look, your first videos are your worst videos. Like they're just absolutely the worst and you're going to have to get over that hump. I would suggest that you make terrible embarrassing content right now versus three years from now. So get embarrassed right now. Get it pumping out now, because three years from now, you're going to be in a much better place.

 

00:27:40

Brad

I'll tell you this, I actually, I think I posted, Oh my goodness. Almost a thousand videos last year on TikTok. All of oh no, just on TikTok. Yeah. I think it was in the 900 range. I'm going to tell you what, like they are way better now than they were at the beginning of 2020.

 

00:27:59

Dominique

Wow. Okay. Let me just unpack that for somebody that is cause I'm big on numbers. For somebody that's out there, if you posted a thousand on just one platform, that's roughly 20, which the math is about two to three a day. For all of those out there dislike does just, can't do one. I mean, there's inspiration for you, but I mean, let's talk about something that I want to park on real quick. Went over this before, but I want to unpack this because you brought it up a couple of times. The actual talk track that is going on in your head when you're putting yourself out there and you're making a thousand videos is man, I'm gonna do this. Whether people like it or not, this is my mission. I'm focused on the person that I can help. I may look foolish. I may not do everything right.

 

00:28:49

Dominique

I'm gonna make some mistakes. At the end of the day, I'm going to check this thing off as done because I actually did it as opposed to, I don't have the right phone. My compliance department's going to say whatever, maybe talk about some of the self-work or self-awareness personal development that maybe needs to take place with that person. That's repeating that in their head.

 

00:29:14

Brad

Yeah. You got to get over yourself. I mean like it, one way to look at it is, that is like the most devastating form of self-love and ego adoration. It's like, look, you can't really love yourself that much. Right? Like, it's almost egotistical for you to be that worried about it. It's like, who are you? Yeah. Right, right. It's like, so for me, anyway, that's kind of where I go with it. I'm giving you my own mental tricks. Like, the other thing is like, how dare you? Like, all right. Here's the other thing, how dare you? Honestly, I am so upset if you're listening to this right now, and you are a financial expert and you are letting the financial conversation be had by all these people who know nothing about it. If you want to know what got me onto TikTok, it's this, my nephew showed me TikTok.

 

00:30:04

Brad

And I started flipping through there. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was seeing day traders, selling day trading, talking to me about all their returns, talking about this incredible thing. This is the way to make money. I got so upset. I got so angry. That's why I started creating content. I'm like, there's an entire generation of people here who are falling into this trap. And I was stunned. I couldn't believe it because I thought that kind of died away in the nineties. When the tech bubble, I couldn't believe that it was back in full force and I sat there and I saw all these people and I could picture them all being incredibly hurt by this misinformation. So, psychologists do this all the time too. Like they're not very good at speaking to the public. They're not very good at making things understandable.

 

00:30:46

Brad

All the best-selling self-help books are written by non psychologists. Some of the information they give out is just, is terrible and harmful. I'm just going to say that, come on, man, I need you. I need you on these social media platforms, sharing the truth, educating people if because you're not doing it. Other people are doing it. Guess what? There's an entire generation of people are consuming this content and getting all this misinformation because you are too afraid of being judged by somebody.

 

00:31:15

Dominique

Wow. I think, that deserves an a man because I resonate with that so much. I think there are a lot of us that, Andy Andrews has this very great quote that says that the whole purpose of analysis is to come to a decision like weigh the pros and cons, to the, to your point, you're qualified, especially if you're like a CFP. I mean the amount of stuff that they dump into our brains during that education process, good could power a whole career of content creation. The point is I think you hit a lot of nerves there because it, they essentially, it is just being afraid of how people may judge you and think of you, let me ask this was some of this, fervor and, maybe some inspiration for money mammoth. Cause I want to talk about that next. I mean, this is, I think from a standpoint of truth versus falsehood or untruth, this what you just said in the last, 30 seconds or so is definitely something that this new consumer financial services needs to hear.

 

00:32:28

Brad

Yeah. I think that it did influence my work on TikTok. First of all, the other thing I get so much hate social media. Let me, let me just explain this to you. Like, it's not like you're going to be sitting you sit back and be received with loving, open arms. It's like, there's a bunch of like angry 14 year olds on that app. Right. They're really gonna give it to you with your bald head and your gray beard and okay. Boomer. So just understand that's absolutely gonna happen. I've just described to you though, my mental strategy for dealing with that. I know they're all 14 year olds who, quite frankly, they might even be 50, but they have this like very wounded 14 year old inside of them. What you're going to notice is that the most criticism and hate you get on any social media platform is going to come from people who have anonymous profiles and have never posted any content.

 

00:33:19

Brad

So understand this. They are, they're really afraid of being judged and they're hypercritical of themselves and they're probably super nasty to themselves. They probably had a parent who was nasty to them. They've internalized this like highly critical nastiness and it's very, confining for them. What they're doing is just projecting that on you. Just understand if you're getting hate from people, that's who you're getting it from. And, and frankly, as a psychologist, I care about those people. I, I feel bad for them. I worry about them. I wanna support them. Anyway, that's your mental strategy for dealing with hate because that those are the people who are doing it, content creators, like if you're actually putting your stuff out there into the world and think about this in your own life, like you're really putting yourself out there. You have a lot of compassion for people who have the courage to put stuff out there.

 

00:34:07

Dominique

No, I would agree. I, and I think, one way that I've kind of mental hack that is when I actually started getting negative comments or posts and things of that nature, or even a thumbs down on YouTube is I realized, man, I must actually be touching a nerve if somebody is disagreeing with this, I think, I mean, from a creativity standpoint, you got to start thinking that if you're putting stuff out there and nobody's saying anything negative, then you may need to push a little harder against the establishment is kind of the way I think about it. One of the parts of what I do is I try to be polarizing not to be off putting necessarily, but just to say, I may have a different opinion or different way of thinking about something than you. Let me challenge you with that, to see how you accept me or not.

 

00:34:57

Dominique

Right. It's a very telling sign that I use with people that I want to bring into my practice or people I want to work with. Because if you, if we disagree on something and that's going to be that off putting for you, that's probably going to be a detriment to our business relationship and we, that we don't want to go there. Right. Right. Absolutely. Let's talk about, the book just like what is the premise of it and in what can people expect when they read the money mammoth?

 

00:35:25

Brad

Yeah. For money mammoth, it was influenced by all the stuff I've been doing on social media. In that it's the first book where I actually put in a lot of, I'd say some basic personal financial planning information. I've avoided that in the past. Partially because I wasn't a certified financial planner for the first few books. I felt like there's a real need for it. Here I've created a bit of a following and I have a bit of credibility with a certain audience. I thought, I would find ways to do it in a totally appropriate compliance way where you're not telling people what to do. This is the other thing too, like you don't dispense advice on social media, like, and if you do that, your compliance office should be very concerned about you. You know, that's not what you do. You don't, I'll get comments all the time.

 

00:36:10

Brad

Like, should I do a Roth IRA? It's like, well, you never say yes to that. I have no idea who this person is, what their circumstances. You find ways to talk about it. The Roth IRAs can be incredible under the right circumstances. You know, I don't know your situation. I can't tell you what you should do. I mean, there's very easy ways to get around the quote advice. Not to get too stuck on that, but for money mammoth, I did include some of that information because I saw such an important need for it. And essentially money mammoth. The concept is around the metaphor of the cave person back during the days of the wooly mammoth. This is the brain that allowed us to survive and thrive in that environment. It's the same brain we have right now that trips us up in terms of our relationship with money.

 

00:36:51

Brad

The whole book is wrapped around that metaphor, looking at your ancestors, looking at your tribe, the influence of the people around your family, your parents, and then getting into survival techniques. It's interesting, we had that whole concept before this crisis happened, but it turned out to be a, pretty apropos just in terms of how to survive a crisis and how to manage and avoid extinction if you will. We put a lot of information on, in there on how to essentially survive these crises. By the way, there's going to be another one, and these things happen. How do you manage it psychologically in terms of making the right financial decisions?

 

00:37:25

Dominique

No, I think there's a great setup, especially for the segment of the audience that will be listened to this that are consumers or financial services, because I know that in the last several months, specifically during the pandemic, I've gotten a lot of people come to me and say, Hey, I've had the time to kind of contemplate my future. I've been putting this stuff off so long. Like what do we need to do to get everything in order now? And I think this presents an excellent opportunity for financial professionals and providers or financial services to really connect with people to your point earlier because people are wanting this information. They're not, no one is sitting around saying, I want my N to be bad. I don't want to finish well, people know they need to plan. The, the fact of the matter is not because of a lack of information, but it's usually because of the lack of guidance it's like, because there is so much information and it's like, should I do this? Or should I do that? And the inaction comes in and I think that's where, to your point, your call to action to financial professionals is to, Hey, you have this information, let's guide people to where they need to go, because we're essentially are just facilitators.

 

00:38:32

Dominique

So, no, I love that. Any other resources you have? I know you said you may have a TikTok training course in that work.

 

00:38:40

Brad

Yeah. We've been working on a tic-tac training course, mainly because it's this strange platform. And, I found tic-tac to be actually incredibly receptive to professional content. As a matter of fact, they reached out to me and, asked me to help create more like legitimate financial education content on TikTok, which is, which has been really incredible. I actually see them promoting the expertise from people who are actual professionals who have a knowledge base in certain areas. And that's incredible. They've recognized that there's a lot of misinformation going on. That's more than any other platform that I've ever heard of. It's, it's incredible. Like, I'm wearing a TikTok hat and they sent this to me and I'm on weekly calls with them around creating content that will be useful. As I mentioned, that's legitimate from professionals. So, that's one of the things I've been a huge fan of.

 

00:39:32

Brad

As part of those calls, we're always talking about, best strategies on TikTok, how to get the most organic reach. Essentially yes, we're, I'm creating with a partner, a course on TikTok for professionals on how can we use this and how can we maximize it? And, we talked about this a little earlier too, and it's like, I didn't really choose tic-tac. I would say TOK chose me and what happened. You mentioned this earlier with the organic reach and I had one video, so I'm posting across all these platforms and I had one video go 6 million views. I got to tell all of a sudden you're like, wow, like that's a significant percentage of the us population for that just saw this video that I created and obviously resonated. It was obviously helpful. I think it was that type of organic reach that I just kept doubling down on the content on that platform.

 

00:40:20

Dominique

No. Good for you, man. I'm really happy to hear that. I know you do great work. I know you are also invested in academia and the next generation, which is the reason why I think we resonate so well in overlap in our synergies with what we're trying to do with change, how people view financial advice and financial advisors, period. I no longer in one of the reasons why I created this podcast, candidly is because I'm really tired of at a dinner party. Somebody saying financial advisor in the room clearing like we do way better work than that. The people that do that work, I want them to come to the front and the people that want to get in here and do that type of work. I want them to be attracted to the industry. I'm so glad for what you're doing. We always close with, the fact of empowerment, right? So this podcast is to help, empower tomorrow's financial professionals with tools to serve their clients at the next level.

 

00:41:12

Dominique

And so in that context, Dr. Brad, I would love any word or words of wisdom that you would want to leave with. Tomorrow's financial professionals.

 

00:41:22

Brad

I think it would be this, that just go ahead and get in the game. Like at the end of the day, this is going to sound pretty morbid, but at the end of the day, we're all going to be stuck in a hole with dirt thrown on top of us, and nobody's going to care, I mean like a hundred years from now, and it's like, look like you're on earth here to do something like, I don't know what that is. I mean, the opportunity in the financial realm is like, this is the number one thing that stresses people out like money is the number one stressor. And, in the, in America, eight out of 10 people, stress kills people. I actually see us in this profession as being in a unique opportunity, a unique place to actually heal, like, to actually be a source of hope and healing for people that I that's, the mission that I am really trying to live out in my life.

 

00:42:06

Brad

I see that as a financial professional, this isn't just about returns and making people more money. No, no. You are in a position to help people deal with the thing that keeps them up at night that kills them. So this is the mission I see. If you can just embody that mission, it's so much easier to create content because essentially you're saving lives. I'm not saying that I actually wrote an entire article. I have a very solid argument on how you're actually saving lives by helping people with their financial plans. That's really the way I see it. That's the mission that I'm living in my life and I really want you to live.

Conversation Transcript:

00:42:41

Dominique

Wow. Wow. That's great. I cannot agree more. This has been great, Dr. Brad, TikTok savant. Thank you for spending time with us on conversations for financial professionals. Thank you. My pleasure. 

CFFP #05 - Inside the CFP Exam and What You Need to Pass ft. Gary O. Clement

Welcome to another episode of the Conversations for Financial Professionals podcast where we are shaping the next generation of financial advice.

 

Today we have Gary Clement.  Gary is President of Clement Asset Management, LLC, a financial planning and investment management firm, a lead instructor in the Kaplan Schweser Certified Financial Planning Program, an adjunct professor at the College for Financial Planning, and an assistant professor at the University of Alabama. Gary also holds several professional designations and multiple educational degrees.

 

Today we discuss: what it means to be a Certified Financial Planner™; the difference that this certification can make in the eyes of the public; where Gary see’s the profession headed; as well as, some techniques of how to pass the exam (i.e. what to focus on!) 

 Show Highlights

 

• Gary’s POV on the obstacles and opportunities of 2020. (03:00)

• What it takes to have the title “financial advisor” and why there are currently less than 90,000 individuals holding the Certified Financial Planner™ designation versus more than 350,000 individuals identifying themselves as “financial advisors”. (05:19)
• Gary speaks on why he feels the profession will move toward “behavioral finance” as a matter of priority instead of happenstance. (09:08)
• Why individuals with no financial background have an advantage earning the Certified Financial Planner™ designation. (22:10)
• Gary shares his thoughts on the two main reasons people do not pass the Certified Financial Planner™ exam on the first try. (24:29

Resources:

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Thanks again for listening, reading, and watching!

Conversation Transcript:

00:00:00
Dominique
Hey there. Welcome to conversations for financial purposes!

00:00:04
Dominique
A podcast to help shape the next generation of financial advice. I'm your host Dominique Henderson today we'll be talking with friend and colleague Gary Clement, who is not only on the practitioner side as president of Clement asset management, but has spent many years in academia, teaching CFP candidates, the actual education and the tools that it's going to take to pass this exam. He has done a stint of academia at many institutions, including Kaplan certified financial planning program, the college for financial planning. Most recently the University of Alabama in today's conversation, we will be handling the topic of what it takes to actually pass this rigor of the CFP exam. We're going to be taking you inside with some of the strategies and the techniques that Gary has told his students and CFP candidates to use to pass this exam on the very first time, we're also going to talk about what you need as a career changer, and what you should be thinking about as you go down this journey. 

00:01:15
Dominique
We're also going to be talking about where the financial planning profession is headed. There are a lot of things in regards to robo-advice and technological advances that may scare you away from this profession. Gary is going to reinforce and underscore the importance of really good financial planning and why only humans can do that. I want you to sit back because you're going to leave this conversation with knowing what it takes to pass this rigorous exam so that you can be a successful financial professional and create those deeper relationships with your ideal clients along the way. And now for our conversation with Gary, 

00:01:53
Dominique
Welcome to another episode of the conversations for financial professionals podcast, where we are shaping the next generation of financial advice. Today, we have Gary Clement. You are the president of Clement asset management, a financial planning and investment management firm. You're leading structured at Kaplan, a certified financial planning program. You're an adjunct professor at the college for financial planning, assistant professor at University of Alabama. I mean, you're, super-duper credentialed in the financial services field holding several designations. I'm not, I'm happy to not only call you a colleague, but also a friend. Welcome to the podcast, Gary. 

 

00:02:45

Gary

Thanks. Dominika I'm so glad to be here. 

 

00:02:52

Dominique

Yeah, man, it's been great. It's been great to have our relationship over the months. We, kinda met early, I guess, 2020 or something like that. I guess I want to just kind of ask you, if you could sum up 2020 in one word, what would that be and why?

00:03:00
Gary
Oh man, it's been a real challenge all the My one word is challenging and challenging on a personal standpoint, just dealing with the changes that we all, I have had to deal with in terms of staying away from people, practicing good practices, meaning keeping masks on, staying away six feet away from people being cognizant of not being in places that could potentially be dangerous. That's meant that there's been a lot of changes, like changes with regards to how we do things, why we do things. It's been interesting, but there's been a lot of advantages to it. I've been an early adopter of zoom and that has helped me deal with a lot of this because we get a chance to at least approximate some of that person to person interaction with zoom. It's not the same, but it's close. 

00:03:56
Dominique
No, no. I get that. I, and I, I really resonate with the whole, what I would call reflective nature that, 2020 has afforded a lot of individuals, including myself to not only kind of zoom out and look at what I'm doing personally, how I'm growing as a human, what goals I'm achieving, but I've also seen a lot of my clients and prospective prospects, prospective clients, have that same approach to, I I'm wondering if you've kind of noticed that on the business side of things and maybe even to, into academia. Yeah. 

00:04:29
Gary
I've noticed that as well. One of the things I've also noticed is that I, as well, as many other people have had to really guard our mental health, because we're not connected to other people in the same ways that were in the past. We have to find ways or had to find ways to circumvent what could be a really lonely experience when you're not, and connection with other people and in relationship with other people and try to find ways to maintain your connection with people. Again, zoom has been good with that, but as you said, it's also been good to slow down and take stock of the things that you should be grateful for. The things that have worked well and things have worked well and really look forward to moving into the new year and years positively. So it's done that as well. 

00:05:19
Dominique
No, absolutely. I think that's a good jumping off point for our conversation because one of the reasons I want to have you on, I mean, by some counts, if you look at the surveys out there, I think an associates does a really good one that basically puts the number of “financial advisors”. We got that term in air quotes at about 350,000 men and women. As, a job description, if you will, but there's just shy of about 90,000 certified financial planner practitioners as of, I guess this last November exam, realizing that there's of overlap, in these two groups, could you kind of speak to the differences between you, between those two groups of people, financial advisors as a job description in that larger number and what you're really noticing about the difference between that person and a certified financial planner? 

00:06:12
Gary
Yeah, it's actually pretty stark. Unfortunately, anybody gets to call themselves a financial advisor. There's nothing that could prevent somebody from doing that. Why, I'm the pied piper of CFP land. I'd like to say that those that pursue and ultimately obtain the rights to use the CFP mark set themselves way apart because the CFP designation is the gold standard for financial advisors and financial planners. It's because of the rigor that's involved in obtaining and maintaining those designations. So that is important. The other thing that's important is that more and more prospective clients and clients are becoming aware of it in the beginning to ask for CFP practitioners. It's important to set yourself apart by getting the designation, but also it's important because it's going to put somebody in a position to help your client in a far more comprehensive way. Unfortunately, we come from different silos in the business and a lot of times we tend to focus on what our traditional line of business has been, but just like any carpenter with only a hammer says that every problem looks like a nail. 

00:07:25
Gary
Well, unfortunately that's not the way we should approach financial advice and financial planning. So the CFP definitely sets people apart. If they're going to be a financial advisor now you got to swim in that lane where there's other people that are called financial advisors, but we can make a serious distinction between those that have gone forward and gotten far more of a well-rounded education than those who haven't. And it shows. 

00:07:56
Dominique
No, no. I, and I'm glad you answered that question that way. I think one of themes of what I want to talk to you about today is really inside the CFP exam. I, I guess if we make that more macro the designation itself, like, there are a lot of people that attempt this thing more than one time, right. Colleagues of ours and cause it's the rigor that you spoke about that is there, before we get into kind of some of the granularity of maybe techniques or strategies and some of the things that you're even doing and telling your students about, I wanna see where you think the industry or rather the profession is going as a whole for the person that's kind of on the fringe about, Oh, I don't know if I want to put in, two or three years of my life, for the exact, the study, the coursework, the experience and all that kind of stuff. 

00:08:49
Dominique
I gotta, I gotta do it. Could you talk on that moment for where you see things headed? I mean mentioned gold standard and I resonate with a lot of these things, but you're, I think you're unique in that you not only practice, you also teach people on how to get this. So where do you see the profession heading? 

00:09:08
Gary
Yeah, one of the greatest things over the last couple of years for me is I started teaching behavioral finance with a college of financial planning. I am so Dominique, the future of financial planning is going to run through behavioral finance. So, I mean, and this is something that I always thought, but I'm so much more sold now because I always used to tell clients and prospective clients that and students as well, that personal finance is more personal than it is finance, meaning it's more about somebody's behavior than the numbers. That's something that's being recognized more and more. We know that behavioral finance attempts to explain the, what the why and the, how people make decisions, but it implicitly recognizes that there's a difference between rational financial decision makers and irrational financial decision makers. Now, the bottom line is, we want to assume, and we're taught to assume that people are rational decision makers, right? 

00:10:10
Gary
Unfortunately we know that most people are not rational decision makers, but that just makes them normal. We've got to recognize that we're trained as technicians, were encouraged to adhere to what's called traditional financials, which is assuming that people are going to be rational. Unfortunately, we know that many people will not be rational, but the big thing about behavioral finance is that people make suboptimal decisions in somewhat predictable ways. We can understand the ways that people are making suboptimal decisions. We stand a good chance of really helping them in the bottom line is, look, the industry is inundated with global advisors with computer algorithms, with websites and what nothing's going to replace people. Advisors can bring that human element to the relationship that can't be reproduced in any other way. 

00:11:08
Dominique
No, I'm glad you brought up that point. I think, obviously we, I've had you on before we've talked about this. I've had, also Kevin Calvin Williams, talk about this aspect of the irreplaceability, if you will, of human interaction, just the ability of simply able to notice somebody changed their demeanor or their body language on a zoom call or across the table, where algorithm's not going to be able to do that. To the point that you're making about behavioral financial, I think this is a large component of it, or at least some characteristics of advisors that need to be cognizant of what is included in that topic is the fact that, is to your, I guess from your purview, is the CFP actually capturing those nuances that I'm talking about in behavioral finance, in the curriculum and helping those that will use those marks in the future. 

00:12:07
Dominique
Understand what you just said? 

00:12:09
Gary
Yeah, that's the tough one right now. The CNP has that as part of the curriculum. It's I think it was instituted somewhere around three to five years ago. It popped up in the curriculum. It's becoming more and more of a, of the area that's going to be focused on, but I think that it's difficult to test that it's difficult to figure out well, how do we, not only give this the weight that it deserves, but how do we assess now whether someone really understands this and can put this in practice. That's something I think is a work in progress more than anything else. Now, of course, there's other entities that are popping up that are really doing a good job with regards to getting people comfortable with the behavioral aspects of financial planning, and I can rip off many different names, but the bottom line is there's no shortage of places to go. 

00:13:09
Gary
If someone really wants to really get steeped in behavioral finance, even though it still is a relatively minor piece in a zap curriculum right now. I expect that it's going to be a bigger and bigger piece as the years go by. It's just, how can we test it? How do you test behavioral finance, I don't know yet. So that's something that's difficult to create. Yeah, 

00:13:35
Dominique
I think that the other thing, the nuance about that we're hinting around, but I'll just say it is that, consumer demand drives a lot of this. Right. People have, let's call it evolved from the days of discount brokers. Even before that commissioned salesmen, largely, probably with insurance and annuities and things of that matter, mostly fixed products, to, then getting into this, assets under management, whether it be fee only or fee based, from a standpoint and now comprehensive financial planning. I mean, we're throwing a lot of these, things in front of the consumer to then digest and figure out how it works into their own personal financial plan in a very human way, in a very relatable way. The industry obviously has to do some catch-up with training it's PRactitioners on how to continue to evolve as quickly as the is consuming this type of information and dictating to you the way that they want their money to intersect with their life. 

00:14:37
Dominique
Right. 

00:14:38
Gary
Exactly. Exactly. And, thinking of those lines, 12 Dysport TD Ameritrade, Morgan Stanley just bought E-Trade commissions are going down to zero and there's going to be a need for us to continue to show the value that we bring to clients. If it's not what we can do with them with regards to investments, if it's not just a plan and it never was just the plan. Right, right. I always said that the last piece in the financial planning process, which is monitoring should be motivated because if you can't motivate somebody to do what they say was important for them to do to complete or accomplish their goals and objectives, then what are we doing it for all of this meaningless? So how do we take the ability to not only help somebody plan your future, the life that they want and have them move forward towards that. 

00:15:39
Gary
That I think is all about behavioral finance, how do we alter somebody's behavior so that they're doing the things that are going to put them in the stream to get to where they want to go? 

00:15:52
Dominique
No, I love, this is the benefit of interviewing and having a conversation with someone that actually teaches this. Cause you just so easily weaved in one of the steps of financial planning. Let's go ahead and let's take that. Let's take that rabbit trail into this vein. I want to talk about, really kind of peeling back the onion of, not only the exam, but the rigor of it. I, I know I've talked to people like yourself, Dr. Preston Sherry, who's mentioned that he's seen PhDs in finance, like try to sit Cole for this exam and not be successful. This is not an exam to take lightly. I know that I've had experience with the CFA first level and it's a different beast. It's a different animal with the domain of knowledge that you're responsible for. I wonder if you want to just kind of talk lightly about, kind of some of the coverage areas there, and then we can kind of dive into, top tips and strategies for passing things. 

00:16:54
Gary
Yeah, of course, the coverage areas are well-defined, it's general principles of financial plan, it's insurance, it's investment planning, it's tax planning, it's retirement planning and income planning in retirement is a state planning. So all of those are important. The thing that's great about it is what I mentioned before. It really gives you a comprehensive view of the industry and what can be done to help a client. I think that is the true value of going through this process because you see that there's a lot of different ways to skin a cat in a lot of different ways to help a client gain perspective on what they want to accomplish and then go forward and accomplish it. 

00:17:39
Dominique
Yeah. On average, what are you seeing? So I think the current pass rate is around 60%. Sometimes it hovers in the mid sixties. What are you seeing as the average time from start to finish when somebody says, okay, I'm going to pull the trigger on, the coursework, which is usually the first domino to kind of fall. Right. Isn't it enrolling in that first course? What do you see, is that the average time from start to finish? I know I've been telling people, give yourself nine months. I've, I've read people, who've done it as quick as six months. Obviously you have the, kind of the anomalies where you can do a transcript challenge or something like that, but let's just say cold turkey I'm coming in. How long on average does it take? 

00:18:21
Gary
That's a good question. I'm one  that thinks you are really looking at about nine months and let's make a distinction between the education classes and preparing for the exam. Certainly there are a lot of accelerated classes do self study. You could go through it far more quickly. Most certification classes are going to be one class for two and a half months. It's going to stretch out over a period of time. Certainly if somebody is taking these classes as part of a college program, it's going to spread out over a long period of time as well. I think nine months, even 12 months is a good, I guess you could say, what's the word I'm thinking about? It's a good estimate with regards to how long to take now. I want to make another distinction there too, with regards to the education process. This is really for those folks that are doing self study. 

00:19:17
Gary
A lot of times people can get bogged down in studying for each and every one of those classes. This is true with those that are in normal classes as well, almost say normal live classes as well. The major thing that I tell folks is the education process is your first pass through all this information. You don't need to memorize all of it at that point. The focus there should be, how can I get through this and get through it as quickly as possible, getting the requisite grade, I need to move on to the next class. There's a reason why I say that because this thing is about multiple passes through the information you're going to need to, after you finished the education process, go back to page one day one and go through everything again. When you do that, you're going to need to go back to page one day one and go do it again. 

00:20:11
Gary
Maybe upwards of 10, 15, 20 times. No one, let me not say no one. It's the very rare person that is going to be able to understand everything that they go through in this huge body of knowledge and understand it the first time, don't worry about it. You're going to have plenty of opportunity to do that in the education process. The main thing is to get that ability to register with the board so that now you can prepare for you review class and prepare for the board exam. 

00:20:48
Dominique
Now, before we get on to, okay. Before we get onto the part that you have to, actually prepare for the exam, cause that's like you said, that's a different beast. I wonder if you have any, particular, I guess advice for the, I just came from a totally different disciplines. Let's say I'm a career changer. I'm 15 years in as an engineer, but I've been helping my people with, my friends and family with personal finance and I'm like, Oh, you're not looking into this. I go, there's a lot of different things out here. There's AFC, there's CFP and they'd start to gravitate towards CFP. Cause I've talked to a lot of these people. What would you say that 12 months could still apply to them? Or would you kind of give them maybe a more elongated because if I'm just doing the math, I know I did Dalton courses, six classes, time, eight that's, 48 weeks with no breaks. 

00:21:42
Dominique
That's almost a whole year right there. I mean, maybe they get longer just because they're coming in to finance cold possibly. 

00:21:49
Gary
Well, I think it still can be done in 12 months. Perhaps it would be good for somebody who doesn't have a background to take longer. One of the things that I like to say about that is this, there's a distinction between CFP test world and the real world. 

00:22:08
Dominique
I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah. Okay. 

00:22:10
Gary
Many people that are practicing or studying for the CFP board exam who are in the industry, they sometimes get challenged around the way we do things in the real world versus how it's done in the test world. Somebody who doesn't have a background in the industry can say, they've got an advantage because they don't have that background. They're going to do what is mandated or told to them that they should do without that background going on in your head. While it certainly could be an advantage for somebody that has a background and maybe they're able to go through it quicker, we could say the same thing for somebody that doesn't have a background because they don't have these preexisting, beliefs about how you do things in the real world. 

00:22:57
Dominique
This is a good point because no, I didn't do my CFP. I didn't start my CFP coursework until 15 years into the game. I had already finished my master's degree and I actually did a transcript challenge to satisfy some of the classes. To your point, studying for the CFP exam, I had to work to remove some filters. Cause I was like, I'm already practicing with clients. This is not how this works in the real world. To, to prepare for what you need information wise in order to pass the test successfully is not necessarily a one-to-one mapping to what you would do in a client situation. 

00:23:37
Gary
Exactly, exactly. That's what I think there's something that, those of us in the industry, we've got to really make that distinction in our minds so that we don't fail to put the appropriate time into a specific area that we need to study. That we don't assume that the way it's done in the real world is how it's going to be tested on the exam. 

00:24:04
Dominique
Talk about that for a second, because I would imagine you talk to just as many, probably way more people that attempt this exam and don't pass on the first try. What have been, let's call it the, maybe top two or top three reasons behind that is it. I would imagine what you just said has to be very high on that list. 

00:24:29
Gary
That's one of them, but that's not really the main one, the main two. I'd say if there's two reasons why people don't pass the exam, one is they don't take it seriously enough and they don't put in enough study time. That's the major reason. I think a lot of that, especially for those that are those of us that are in the industry, we might assume this is similar to a FINRA exam. It's not. This exam. Doesn't bear much resemblance to a FINRA  exam. That's the first one, don't put in enough time. No one put in enough effort, don't put in the kind of study that it takes to get through this exam. The other thing that I think is a major issue is people taking too long on questions on the exam. This is a corollary to what we talked about before you shouldn't take too long going through concepts and the education process. 

00:25:24
Gary
Even when you're studying, you want to begin to build speed. You've got 90 to 120 seconds per question on the exam. And the exam is hoping that test takers do, is take too long and questions so that as the test goes on, they start running short on time. Questions that they could have answered now they're rushed in hurry. They may misread the question, jump to a conclusion and answer a question wrong if they could have gotten right, because they took too long on other questions. The bottom line is, as you prepare for the exam, you've got to really develop your internal clock. When you're bouncing up against two minutes and you don't have answer for a question, you got to mark your lucky answer or your favorite answer, mark it for review and go on. 

 

00:27:38
Dominique
Okay. You're a, you're hitting on some goldmines of stuff, especially for people I know that are maybe going to sit for the March, 2021 exam, which is the next one coming up. I think one thing that I want to kind of bring out or tease out is this notion around not spending enough time, like underestimating the amount of time that you need to spend, because I think the time component, if you spend enough, we'll help you with, let's say the familiarity that you need to have around a particular question. If you're in the test bank and you see something, post or you like four or five different ways when you get on the test, pretty much, you're gonna be like, Oh, I get how this question looks instead of it being something new. So talk about this time spent. Cause I, I, I remember distinctly  a candidate for, I think sat for the November exam in 2020, if I'm not mistaken. 

00:28:26
Dominique
We went back and forth on direct messages and it basically got to, the question of me asking, well, how much time did you spend? And they were like, well, I spent the time that they told me, and this is not the first time that they failed. I wonder if you have a rubric because if I'm not mistaken, the example that I got gave me a number that I should be shooting for as far as total time to study for this exam. What do you tell, what are you telling people? 

00:28:59
Gary
Well, what's in the booklet is 250 hours. I don't mean to, I'm going to be honest with you, Dominic, it's going to take as long as it takes for anybody. I say that's different for everybody, but you want to think in terms of 300 hours or more, and you want to think in terms of when you're doing questions, 5,000 questions, and if you can do that, then you stand a good chance on the exam because you're right. There's only so many ways that questions can be asked about different concepts. You want to be very cognizant of the different ways they can be asked. You want to be cognizant about ways that they're going to try it on steer you away from the answer. You only get that by doing question on top of question. Now, the thing that I always say about this is about perspiration and not inspiration. 

00:29:56
Gary
300 hours is also just a guideline. I would like people to do even more than that. You got to do whatever you got to do. And you got to let,
00:30:06
Dominique
You're not sitting in there again to take the exam is. 

00:30:08
Gary
Say in terms of this is the only time I'm sitting in here. Look at the general pass rates or 60%, but first time pass rates are 64% from the last test in November, the repeater pass rate for November was 45%. What does that tell you if you're going to be repeating this exam, your chances of success are less. So. 

00:30:33
Dominique
It is just because there's a, maybe a CA overconfidence going on overconfidence bias with what, like, I kind of went over this. I only need to study this part that I messed up on. From the last time. 

00:30:44
Gary
People lose confidence, it moves confidence and they start to doubt whether it is they can do it. To be honest with you, people who may have not taken it seriously and putting enough time the first time often do that the second time and the third time as well. So there is no shortcut. You got to put in as many hours as humanly possible. That's why are 300 hours is just, it's just a guideline. It's whatever it takes for you. Now, I say that when you're done with the education process and you're preparing for your view class and the board exam should be no less than three hours a night before, if you can do it. On the weekends, maybe six on a Saturday and six on a Sunday. If we're talking about three months between end of an education process and the exam we're talking about over 300 hours, but if you gotta put in more time, then you got to put in more time and only the person preparing for the exam can gauge that. 

00:31:46
Dominique
Well, and I, I mean, candidly, my numbers and I've shared these before, I finished the education capstone August, 2016 ish, sat for November, 2016. There's my three months, but I know I average 15 to 20 hours during that 12 week period a week of stay. It is what it was. This was someone that, I mean, I had a background in finance. I worked in the industry at that time, but in my, to your point, and somebody told me this early is you do not want to have to prepare for this again. So make this your only time. I took that to heart and that's, I think that was a big element in me being successful is because I did put in the time I, I actually make this, I guess, somewhat of a joke is that when I got there, I actually felt over prepared. 

00:32:37
Dominique
I felt like my practice exam harder with the rigor I put myself through. I got there, I felt really well prepared. 

00:32:45
Gary
Yeah. I think that's what, test takers should do. I mean, I'm in the same boat, when I was getting ready for the exam, I studied three hours to four hours a night and I studied more on the weekends. I took no days off and I built in because I was going between jobs two weeks from the end of that job, through the new job. The weekend prior to the new job was the test date. For that two week period, I studied anywhere from 10 to 14 hours a day. I went into the library college, local college library when it opened. And I left generally when it closed. My whole mindset was that over kamikaze pilot, like you said, I'm going in screaming. It's a one way trip, I'm not coming back and that's the mindset that helped me get through it because I didn't want to go through that kind of effort again. 

00:33:38
Gary
And it gets harder. That's the thing. I think that's the other reason why the repeater pass rate is so much lower. It gets harder because after having put an effort like that, put in an effort like that to then have to motivate yourself to do it again.

00:33:57
Dominique
This is a good point. I never thought about it from that angle, but yeah. Yeah. I was thinking maybe there's an overconfidence. It, matter of fact, the young individual that I spoke with, that I referenced earlier, they were like, I think the first time that I did it, or the second time that I did it, I was, this was my mistake. I felt like I knew this, but then I didn't go back and study that kind of deal. It brings into the light of what you said earlier, which is, and this is how I want to kind of tie in, asking a question about reviews is each time you do it, you have to do it. Like it's the first time, there is no retention necessarily acknowledged that is going to help you. It's like, you need to prepare for this as if it's new again. 

00:34:40
Dominique
I want to follow that up by asking, do you strongly believe in, like purchasing a review program or having some type of review course that you do after the education for individuals? 

00:34:54
Gary
Yeah. Review course is a must. It's it shouldn't be thought of as a nice thing to do something. That's not a mandatory, it's a must. You got to have a review class, and there's a lot of reasons for that. It helps you focus your study. That's number one, number two, you'll get a lot of tips by going through the review class and the review provider, giving you those tips just before the exam, which is the vital time you need them. To get the most out of a class, what I tell students is this, you got to prepare for the weekend or your view of class. Like that is the weekend that you're taking the test because you want the review class to be just that you want it to be a review. You do not have the time to learn all of this stuff in your review class. 

00:35:45
Gary
Not only do you not have the time, it's not going to happen. You've got to put your best foot forward, put in as much time as necessary in getting back to what you were saying a second ago, gets back to those multiple passes through the information you should go through at least 10 times before review class. One of the great things about going over the information over and over again is that every time you go through it, you'll go through it faster because the things that you're not going to spend as much time on. The things that you're not quite as clear on, you can spend more time on, but over time going through it over and over again, those things that you don't know as well are going to be fewer and fewer as you go forward. You should build in the idea that by going through this, you're going to reach a point where you can go through each section in a matter of hours. 

00:36:39
Gary
Not days when I was going through that period where I was preparing for the exam, I was able to go through each distinct section in four hours. Now, not everybody's going to be able to do that, but I promise people that if they go through it enough, they'll be able to go through an entire section extremely quickly. 

00:37:02
Dominique
What are you seeing from, you've got a lot of, you got a pretty large sample size of people from Kaplan, people from college, for financial planning, even at the university level, teaching this stuff. What are you seeing? and I want to use this time for obviously we've gone through it, but anything that you can kind of think of that we haven't covered, from a best practices standpoint, what you're seeing, the most successful candidates do. I know we say the time spent obviously, the review course is a must. I know, I, I think I hear a lot and I've even said this before. I've probably been guilty of saying this, that if you do it at the undergrad level, you can choose whether or not you want to do a review or not just because it's been, so, and fresh for you. You've probably been doing it for the last two years or not. 

00:37:51
Dominique
So, take your, pick your poison there, any other top, kind of strategies or tips, cause, and really maybe speak to the career changer. Cause I get so many people that are thinking about this as a career and they haven't really decided if they want to, fully commit,

 

00:38:07
Gary
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I do want to make a point about those that go through the process at a university in a degree grant program, it's even more important for them to go through you class because many of the  classes are taught on the college level, and tend to be courses that bring a lot of it. A lot of into the class that are not necessarily things that are tested. The great thing about a review class is review class focuses. What is going to be tested. The other thing is because it's been a two year period, it's going to take somebody some time to go back to reacclimating themselves, to what they went through in general principles of financial planning. I think it's even more important for them. The other thing is, the classes at, Caplin per se, they are focused on what you need to know to pass the exam. 

00:39:04
Gary
That again is different than what you might find a college degree granting program where it's designed to help you learn, but not necessarily pass the test. That I think is a big deal. The other thing with regards to preparing for the exam and preparing to get through either as a career change or not, the major thing is you gotta really change your mindset, your study mindset. Number one is everybody is motivated when they start this process right. 

00:39:38
Dominique
Everywhere. There's like, 5,000 people that start off, but not everybody finishes.

00:39:43
Gary
Everybody's motivated on day one, but motivation is not enough is consistency of effort. That's going to get somebody through. It's studying day after day. Sometimes that means you've got to negotiate with family. You're not going to be doing the things that you were doing. Sometimes it means you're not going to watch those things that you wanted to watch on TV. Well, guess what? That's not an issue nowadays. When, when I took the test, that was an issue. Now you can pull it up anytime you want and get in that mindset that you'll have plenty of time when this process is over to watch the masked singer or whatever it is that's out there that could be a distraction for you. The other thing is you have to recognize that yeah, consistency of effort is important and times are going to get tough in terms of studying. 

00:40:39
Gary
Sometimes you're not going to want to study. Sometimes it's going to feel like drudgery. Sometimes it's going to feel like an obligation. You have to stop thinking about studying as something you have to do and think of it as something that you get to do. In other words, you want to think about studying as an opportunity and not as an obligation. So. 

00:41:03
Dominique
I, I mean, just, I want to, I have to park on that point because I'm thinking about, although as a certified financial planner, as a practitioner, you're not going to be in this mode of constantly studying, but you will be in a mode of constantly acquiring knowledge and to some degree studying your client or the market that you want to go into. To have this, I guess this, the posture of always learning, I think is a good thing right now. It may not always look like I got to study to pass an exam, which hopefully makes things easier for people. I love the way that you put that in that there's gotta be this attitude and mindset of wanting to learn and you getting to learn not so much. Oh, I just got to check this box. Yeah. To a certain degree, you do have to check the box. 

00:41:56
Dominique
You will never be able to use the marks unless you pass the exam. To kind of maybe game-ify it or whatever you need to do in your mind to make you start falling in love with learning, I think is a good approach. 

00:42:10
Gary
And that's what it does. Thinking about it as an opportunity does game-ify because there's a pot of gold metaphorically at the end of this process, right? You help yourself tremendously because you got knowledge that you didn't have before and it can help you with your own finances. Certainly it helps your family and helps your extended family and your friends. And this is where we're going. It's going to help the clients. So this is a huge opportunity. Any time it starts getting tough, cause it gets tough for everybody. If you just reorder your thinking and think about it as an opportunity, those tough days will be easier to get through. Hopefully there won't be that many of them. Those are the things that I think that are part of the study mindset. It gets back to what I was saying before about this is a process that's about perspiration, not inspiration. 

00:43:02
Gary
You can't wake up two weeks before the exam and get inspired and hope to pass the exam. It doesn't work like that. 

00:43:10
Dominique
No, I get it. I get it. All of my audience, that's listening, they may not realize some of the efforts that you're definitely putting your money with your mouth, where your mouth is not only where you're actually, getting paid to do that, in a, a practitioner standpoint or from a participant of academia, you and, a colleague of ours, Keith Beverley, you guys have undertaken helping, our community, black men and women actually prepare to pass this exam. I want you to kind of speak to that about the efforts that you guys have going on there. If I'm so inclined how somebody could participate with that particular effort. 

00:43:55
Gary
Yeah. That has been something that we chose to do to have an impact on the numbers of African-Americans that are represented in the industry is certainly the numbers that are represented among CFP practitioners. Now we know that of those 80,000 or 90,000 or so CFPs that there are about 1.2% that are African-American. Of course there's a lot of talk about how to change that. The bottom line is talk is cheap, right? You gotta do something. We decided that we were going to do something by helping people, get much of what were just talking about to reorder their study strategy, to reorder their study mindset, to begin to tackle the exam in a way that would help them be more successful. I probably should have told you this before yet beforehand, but, this is something that we did as a, an objective ending in year 2020. Our objective was to help 20 African Americans get their designation by the end of 2020. 

00:45:10
Gary
And we largely met the goal. We didn't quite need to go. Whether we're going to do that moving forward or not is still up in the air. I don't want to leave anybody with the, code that we're going to continue to do this because, we've put a lot of time in and we definitely were able to see what works on a granular level on test taker by test taker basis. That's part of the reason why I can say some of the things that I've said with a lot of confidence, because I'm pretty sure at this point what it takes to pass this exam. It's one of the exams that it's going to be, if not the most difficult for people, one of the most difficult exams that anybody could take. Definitely, something that is still up in the air. Let's put it that way. 

00:46:04
Dominique
Well, no, I think, whether you guys move forward with that effort or not, because I, I just think it needs to be highlighted because there are so many conversations I have, and I know you have them, Keith as well, where, you hear the refrain of, well, there's nobody out there to support you. There's, there's not enough help out there. It's like, well, where are you looking? Because, there's a lot of things going on, efforts that you may or may not know about. I think this gets back to some of the things that I've talked about, in prior podcast about what people need to do in order to get started in the industry. One of the main things that I tell people first is to do their homework, do their research, see what's out there, the quad A's and the FPAs and the NAPFA is, and all these different organizations of the world or where you can find, efforts like what you just named and other, I mean, study groups, mentors, sponsors all kinds of things. 

00:47:01
Dominique
There's no reason I guess is my point that you have to go at this alone. There's absolutely no reason. 

00:47:08
Gary
Let's look at it this way. There's an old African proverb, right? It says, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, you go with others. This is a test that requires that you go far. I recommend that nobody tries to do this on their own. It's difficult. If it takes a mentor, get a mentor, if it takes a group, get a group. The great thing about groups is that together people are going to be able to fill their individual shortcomings by other folks in the group who understand that particular information better. The other thing is it's an accountability issue. If you're coming to a group meeting where people are expecting you to be prepared, then that is a commitment that you're making to others. Sometimes it's easier to make that commitment and follow through it with it, for others than it is for ourselves. 

00:48:03
Gary
Those are the kinds of things that can create the kind of motivation to move forward. The other thing that's good about it is sometimes these evolve into friendly competitions and that's a good thing. All of these things can help people get through the daunting period of getting ready for the exam. 

00:48:23
Dominique
Not just that, I think, I mean, I'm pretty sure that you've seen this. I know I've seen it in the industry where those groups form into, maybe even partnerships to build firms or definitely, at a minimum someone that you can have in your network that can vouch for, your character or your study ethic, all these things. So I think that's great. Absolutely. 

00:48:49
Gary
Oops, I got a lot more tips, someone wants it, if you want some more tips. 

00:48:54
Dominique
Yeah. I bet you do. I bet you do. I think I want to reserve some of that because you and I have talked offline about some things that you may be doing, so they just, they need to get in contact with you because you're a wealth of information. I, I want to, as I kind of close our conversation, I want to ask, since this is a podcast to help empower, tomorrow's financial professional with tools to serve their ideal client at the next level, in that context, Gary, what word of wisdom or wisdom words, would you leave with the audience today? 

00:49:32
Gary
Yeah. I go back to behavioral finance, understand that it's the personal relationship more than anything else. That's gonna be important as you deal with clients, the information you can get, if you don't have it, you can get it from somebody else or you can study. That's not the issue. The issue is how you actually advise your client, how you actually interact with your client and how you support the client, meet the goals and objectives that are important to them. That is the most important thing. I know, especially those of us who got in the business in the investment side of the business, we probably were thinking, Hey, we're going to move. We're going to set somebody up and make all this money from investments. That's never been what it's always been about. I had to learn that the hard way. I remember cold calling the guy who was a, a tangential family friend. 

00:50:32
Gary
I cold called this guy over and overwhelmed after a while it wasn't a cold call, but I called this guy repeatedly. And, he was putting me off, put me off. Finally, one day he said, I'm really not looking to establish another relationship. I'm sitting here thinking I got a girlfriend. I don't want no relationship. It years had not dawned on me that this is what is required of financial advisors to really understand the client, understand what's important to the client, understand what the client is trying to achieve and helping that client as not just a financial advisor. This is in keeping with what I've been saying as a coach. That really is hand in hand with now understanding behavioral finance on a better deeper level, because what we do really is about counseling and coaching. 

00:51:36
Dominique
No, I think that's a, I think it's a beautiful way to put it. I think it's a great way to, tie and put a bow on this is understanding that yes, we have the competency levels that we need to get to, whether we're deciding CFP or PhD or AFC or whatever, all these different letters we can put after our name, but at the end of the day, it's about building that relationship with the client to take them to the next level. I love it, Gary climate. I really appreciate your time, man. 

00:52:07
Gary
Of course. It's my pleasure. 

00:52:09
Dominique
All right, man. Absolutely. We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye!

CFFP #04 - The Evolution of Marketing Tools ft. Neil Patel

In today’s conversation, we have Neil Patel.  Neil is a New York Times Bestselling author. The Wall Street Journal has called him a top influencer on the web.  Forbes dubbed him one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine stated that he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies.  He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations--so no better to probably discuss the subject of marketing on today’s podcast.

 

Neil and I discussed several things including: (1) the evolution of marketing, (2) how to bring the financial services industry into “21st century marketing”, (3) a “foolproof” step-by-step technique to use for your social selling strategy, and (4) finally, I got his opinion on whether websites are dead. 

Enjoy the episode!

Show Highlights:

 

• Neil discusses how everything is moving online due to COVID, that businesses are being created online and that people are starting to use AI and machine learning. (02:49)
• Neil speaks on how over the next few years he foresees seeing less people in marketing because most things will be able to be automated with tools. (05:30)
• Neil talks about how individuals in highly regulated industries can bridge the challenge of their ideal person having a short attention span.  (08:10)
• Neil explains the difference between direct marketing and social selling; advantages that social selling methods have over direct marketing methods. (12:23)
• Neil gives advice on how to warrant the attention of your ideal client regardless of your industry. (13:21)
• Neil explains the difference between direct marketing and social selling; advantages that social selling methods have over direct marketing methods. (12:23)
• Neil discussed pros and cons of paid or organic marketing (14:55)
• Neil shares a success story of a good friend that runs a hedge fund (22:57)
• Are websites dead? Neil talks about his experience with this and gives his wisdom on what you can do.  (29:42)
  
  

Resources:

Read the blog.

If you'd like to connect with Neil, click here.  Need help with SEO, try Neil’s free tool by clicking here.

Are you a current or aspiring financial professional?  Click here to receive tools that will help you become a next-generation financial professional!

Watch a video clip of this episode on our YouTube channel by clicking here.

To receive a newsletter digest of Jumpstart community happenings, click here.

 

Subscribe to the podcast by clicking here.

Want to connect with me? Join my exclusive “tribe” by clicking here.

Thanks again for listening, reading, and watching!

CFFP #03 - Creative Ways to Address the Lack of Color in Financial Services ft. Bob Veres

Today we have Bob Veres. Bob is editor and publisher of the Inside Information guide to trends and innovations in the financial planning profession, author of The New Profession, and for 20 years was a contributing editor and columnist for Financial Planning magazine. He is also an award-winning journalist, including the Jesse H. Neal Award from the American Business Media. 

 

Today’s topic of conversation is a big one. It’s about a tender topic...race.  The discussion has begun and won’t finish with this podcast.  We will get Bob’s perspective on the persistence of the lack of diversity and inclusion in this industry for so long.  

 

Bob also discusses the future of the advisor/client relationship in the future, the wealth gap that exists in our society, and ways it can be narrowed and/or eliminated altogether. 

 

Show Highlights: 

• Bob’s thoughts on the industry mainly being skewed towards a certain demographic and why it is such an issue not only for the provider of the financial services but particularly the consumer financial services (03:43). 
• Why is there still such a divide and discomfort level in 2020 within the industry? (06:23)
• Bob’s recommendation for solutions to fix the wealth gap with financial planning; how underserved communities can access financial planning at scale. (11:36)
• Bob’s idea of a department for financial planning at HBCUs. (13:03)
• Bob’s advice and recommendations on what services advisors should be offering and the future of the industry (15:33) 
• Bob’s thoughts on the brokerage/wirehouse model. (20:31)
• Rapidly evolving brokerage firms and the evolution of the financial industry (21:09) 
• Enjoying your investments along your journey (22:40) 
• Bob’s words of wisdom for the next generation of financial professionals (32:30) 

 

Resources:

Read the blog.

If you'd like to connect with Bob, click here.  To download a copy of Bob’s 2020 Inside Information Fee Survey, click here.

Are you a current or aspiring financial professional?  Click here to receive tools that will help you become a next-generation financial professional!

Watch a video clip of this episode on our YouTube channel by clicking here.

To receive a newsletter digest of Jumpstart community happenings, click here.

Subscribe to the podcast by clicking here.

Want to connect with me? Join my exclusive “tribe” by clicking here.

Thanks again for listening, reading, and watching!

CFFP #02 - Using Media to Boost Your Personal Brand Ft. Cameron Huddleston

Today I have Cameron Huddleston, an award-winning journalist with nearly 20 years of experience writing about  personal finance. Cameron’s work has been featured in such publications as Forbes, Kiplinger, and the Chicago Tribune. Cameron is also a recent author of the book: “Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk - How To Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances”.

During the show today, Cameron touches on some of the new challenges faced by financial professionals in light of the pandemic. We’ll also discuss some myths about using media to boost your personal brand.  Cameron also shares some strategies and tools that financial professionals can use such as HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to become a reliable successful source to the media in your industry.  Finally, Cameron shares her own story as an example of ‘personal stories’ can be used to enhance your brand.

Enjoy the episode!

Show Highlights:

• How has the pandemic helped shape the financial industry bringing it into the virtual environment (4:47)
• Does having a virtual meeting have a level of intimacy lost instead of meeting face to face (10:55)
• Cameron discusses how the younger generation has developed texting as a language (13:22)
• Cameron disputes the fact that it costs to get quoted by the media, and how to do it at no cost (15:07)
• How HARO can help you get quoted by the media for free - all it takes is your time (19:20)
• Cameron’s top 3 tips on how to submit a tip to the media and using social media platforms to expand your outreach (22:35)
• Cameron’s thoughts on having your own blog (27:53)
• Cameron’s advice on how not to get overwhelmed and where to focus, where to boost the blog and how to get it recognized (30:03)
• Cameron discusses her book and her personal story behind it (36:08)
• Being yourself and being personable and how that helps you connect with your clients (44:33)

Resources:
Read the blog.

If you'd like to connect with Cameron, click here. To check out Cameron’s book on Amazon, click here.

Are you a current or aspiring financial professional?  Click here to receive tools that will help you become a next-generation financial professional!

 

Watch a video clip of this episode on our YouTube channel by clicking here.

To receive a newsletter digest of Jumpstart community happenings, click here.

 

Subscribe to the podcast by clicking here.

Want to connect with me? Join my exclusive “tribe” by clicking here.

Thanks again for listening, reading, and watching!

CFFP #01 - Uncovering Your Superpower and Becoming Indispensable to Your Ideal Client ft. Seth Godin

Today we have the one and only Seth Godin!  Seth is the author of 20 worldwide best selling books (including Purple Cow, Linchpin and now The Practice). He is one of only three people that have been inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame, and in my opinion, one of the world's best educators and teachers of...common sense.

 

During the show today, we are going to connect with Seth on the themes of his writings, what he means when he talks about being indispensable to your ideal client while working within your own superpower, the “industrial machine” that is the public education system; and how the pandemic has affected us.

 

Seth dives in and tells us about his personal influencers, his own client stories and brings us great advice and words of wisdom! 

 

Show Highlights: 

• Seth discusses being a cog in the machine of life and being indispensable versus embracing mediocrity.  (03:34)
• Who inspired Seth and steered him towards his career path (06:02)
• Being a linchpin, the industrial machine that we call public education and how a pandemic can either make or break the system (09:27)
• Obtaining new financial services clients during a pandemic and the ideal client(10:34)
• What Dom’s word of the year “Patience” means to Seth and how he perceives it for the new year (16:01) 
• Seth’s advice for a new financial advisor in the midst of getting started (24:42) 
• Words of Wisdom from Seth to the next generation financial professional (27:21) 

Resources:

Read the blog.

If you'd like to connect with Seth, click here.  Ready to take your creativity to the next level, check out one of Seth’s Akimbo workshops.

Are you a current or aspiring financial professional?  Click here to receive tools that will help you become a next-generation financial professional!

Watch a video clip of this episode on our YouTube channel by clicking here.

To receive a newsletter digest of Jumpstart community happenings, click here.

 

Subscribe to the podcast by clicking here.

 

Want to connect with me? Join my exclusive “tribe” by clicking here.

 

Thanks again for listening, reading, and watching!

The Conversations for Financial Professionals - Trailer

It's time to change the narrative...

 

The Conversations for Financial Professionals podcast (#CFFPPodcast) is all about shaping the next generation of financial advice.

 

What you've just heard is just the tip of the iceberg of what we will explore in these "conversations".

 

For consumers and providers of financial services alike, these discussions will challenge your thinking about intersections of finance and money within "day-to-day" living.

 

We'll talk with thought leaders from inside and outside the financial services industry to provide perspective and insight on what tomorrow's financial professionals should be considering when serving their ideal client.

 

Go ahead and subscribe now on your favorite platform, Season 1 drops on February 3rd.

 

 

The Value of Financial Coaching ft. Saundra Davis

Show Notes:

What the value of financial coaching?

I've noticed Saundra Davis from afar, but not until recently have we connected so I can bring her perspective on financial services to my audience.

Saundra brings a wealth of knowledge to our conversation from her work in financial coaching, education and planning.

I am especially eager to dive into the topic of financial coaching as it relates to the financial health continuum.

Here are some highlights from our conversation:⁣
⁣
🔥 How she carved her way into financial services after 3 careers (I guess the 4th time is a charm :-)⁣
⁣
🔥How her role in academia has shaped her into a better practitioner⁣
⁣
🔥How networking gave her the advice that helped shape her career in financial services and gave her an internship in her 40s⁣
⁣
🔥How financial coaching fits into the financial health continuum...⁣
⁣
🔥The difference between financial coaching as doing something and how you show up for your clients⁣
⁣
🔥The necessary path of self-awareness that financial professionals have to walk...⁣
⁣
🔥How having a commitment to excellence is the formula to success⁣
⁣
If you'd like to connect with Saundra, click here.

If you'd like to learn more about what it takes to enter the financial services industry, you can register for one of our live online trainings by CLICKING HERE.

Thanks for listening, reading and watching.

Are you a current or aspiring financial professional? Click here to learn more about how I'm helping you jumpstart your career!

Want to connect with me? Send me a DM on Linkedin (@dhendersonsr) or Instagram (@dominiquehendersonsr).

--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dom-the-maven/message

Financial Services - A Look at Past, Present and Future ft. Gary Clement

Show Notes:

A more appropriate title for our conversation may have been "the skinny on the financial services industry" because Gary Clement and I covered nearly everything.

I really enjoyed our talk and Gary's perspective because of his pulse being on both the view as a practitioner as well as an educator to the future generation of financial professionals.

We covered a lot of ground such as:

• some of the most shocking phenomena he's witnessed over his career,
• 2 things that aspiring financial professionals should realize about this business and the real job of financial advisors,
• the question Gary gets from his students all the time,
• the different routes into the industry, especially as it pertains to career-changers and the CFP designation,
• what the industry is "getting right" and what he believes is the future of financial advice

If you'd like to learn more about what it takes to enter the financial services industry, you can register for one of our live online trainings by CLICKING HERE.

Thanks for listening, reading and watching.

Are you a current or aspiring financial professional? Click here to learn more about how I'm helping you jumpstart your career!

Want to connect with me? Send me a DM on Linkedin (@dhendersonsr) or Instagram (@dominiquehendersonsr).

--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dom-the-maven/message

Financial Coaching as a Profession ft. Wilson Muscadin

Show Notes:

My guest today to talk about financial coaching as a profession is Wilson Muscadin founder of The Money Speakeasy Wilson has thrived as a financial coach and had a long tenure in the financial services industry.

You don't often get such a candid insider perspective on a subject like "financial coaching".

That's exactly what I was able to do with Wilson Muscadin of The Money Speakeasy.

Wilson and I got into:

• financial coaching as a profession,
• its place in the continuum of financial advice, and
• the challenges faced by both consumers and providers of financial services.

If you're an aspiring financial professional that is looking for a 360-degree view of the profession you'll want to check out this conversation.

If you'd like to learn more about what it takes to enter the financial services industry, you can register for one of our live online trainings by CLICKING HERE.

Thanks for listening, reading and watching.

Are you a current or aspiring financial professional? Click here to learn more about how I'm helping you jumpstart your career!

Want to connect with me? Send me a DM on Linkedin (@dhendersonsr) or Instagram (@dominiquehendersonsr).

--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dom-the-maven/message