Business Innovators Radio - Interview w/ Daniel Collison w/ Advice2Advisors & Author of Building Bigger & Better: Growth Strategies of Top-Producing Financial Advisors

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

Daniel Collison has over 30 years in the financial services industry. Dan is the co-founder and Managing Partner in the financial education firm Advice2Advisors, which trains, mentors, and coaches financial advisors of all tenures.Dan is a CFP, TEP and taught Personal Financial Management, in the MBA Program at the Schulich School of Business since 1998, and is the author of The Financial Advisor’s Guide to Excellence and Building Bigger & Better: Growth Strategies of Top-Producing Financial Advisors.Dan regularly presents keynotes and trains advisors across North and South America.Learn More: https://advice2advisors.ca/Buy “Building Bigger & Better: Growth Strategies of Top-Producing Financial Advisors”https://www.amazon.ca/Building-Bigger-Better-Strategies-Top-Producing/dp/1039143652/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-w-daniel-collison-w-advice2advisors-author-of-building-bigger-better-growth-strategies-of-top-producing-financial-advisors

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us Daniel Collison with advice to advisors and the author of Building Bigger and Better Growth Strategies of, of top producing financial advisors. Daniel, welcome to the program. Thanks very much, Mike. Hey, I'm looking forward to talking to you because I always love when I bring authors on the show because it means that you've done enough work over your career to kind of come up with strategies

and blueprints and things like that. And now you're putting that into a book. So I'm excited to talk to you about that. But get us started first with your story and background. What is your background and how did you get into the financial services industry? Sure. Well, my background is very similar to a lot of financial advisors in that I had no real business in getting into the business in the first place. You know, it happened over 30 years ago. I have degrees in history and political science.

So no economics, no business initially. But somehow I came upon a company that was doing some hiring at the time. they decided they'd hire me, brought me in. I started like all advisors back then building my own business. So I came into the business knowing very little, so I had to go really deep into learning fast. I started my certified financial planners designation and got that after three years while I was still building the business. I ultimately got my trust in the state planner's designation. But what I really loved was working with advisors. I started doing a bit of training of newer advisors. Then I got into the branch management position where I was in charge of

recruiting and training advisors. Ultimately, I ended up teaching part-time at a business school in the MBA program, teaching personal financial management, which really helped me focus on the technical aspects of financial advice. And after, decades of building my own businesses within the industry, my business partner, Tina Carthagher and I decided to split off and started advice to advisors, which is a coaching training and mentoring firm for growth-oriented financial advisors. Neat, you know, when you were explaining that, it just made me think, you know, when you kind of were finding your way being a CFP and getting these designations and landing clients,

and seen what worked and what did work. And then the next logical step is like becoming a manager and working with them. And then you kind of got the teaching and training bug. And then at some point through that time, your systems and strategies, to me, sounded like they got codified. You know, so here is what is working for me. Here's what's not working. But here is what works so that you started teaching your advisors that you're managing. Right. So at what point did you realize you kind of have a nice little blueprint or a checklist to run with to help teaching these other advisors. Yeah, and it was a long trajectory on that route, actually, Mike. It was exactly, as you said, I started to codify the processes that I built out that helped

me help train financial advisors. In reality, I started writing a book many years ago for my MBA students on the technical side of financial advice. And ultimately, I decided, now this. is more necessary for the industry. So I put out the financial advisor's guide to financial advisors guide to excellence. And that was a great book and well received, but on the very technical side. But what I started to find out was that in reality, I still wasn't coaching and training most of my advisors to do any better than the average advisor.

and that took a little longer to figure all of that out, what it was that made the best of the best really, you know, really rise to the top as it were. You know, and probably if you were to ask top producing advisors, what makes you so good? I've heard that many times it's like, I don't know, I just do what I do. So you started noticing some of those trends and triggers and indicators, and then that's what you're putting together in your training.

So let's talk about your most recent book, you know, building bigger and better and growth strategies because that's what it's all about is, you know, whether you're running a solo shop or a small firm, we all would need to grow. And so if there are, you know, like of strategies and if there is a system that's proven and tried and true, I want to know about it. So talk a little bit about your book and what inspired you to write it and then what is, how is this one different than your previous one? Yeah. So the first one, the financial advisors guy, Daxons, as I said, was really based on technical financial planning, every aspect, tax planning, investment planning, risk management,

all of those very in-depth technical. I'd written it as though I was writing it from my MBA students, and it was great for those that were going that technical. But the second book really culminated when I finally put the pieces of the puzzle together of what truly makes a top-producing financial advisor and I had always been missing one piece of the puzzle. I found that there were in fact three pieces in total and just like you said, you talk to top producers and they say, I don't know, I just do it. And they can tell you some specifics, but I still wasn't getting down to the core those puzzle pieces as it were that any advisor could take put together and then grow their businesses as though they were pop producers and in fact become top producers. And in fact, become top

producers themselves. So it took me a lot of years to figure it out. It took, took me talking to thousands of financial advisors, hundreds of top producing financial advisors. And what we do at advice to advisors is we listen to what the top producers say. And then we take their information and we look for research that supports them so that we can break down the science of what they could be just doing what would some people would think would be naturally. But nothing in our business is natural in reality. It's driven by individuals. It's process driven. So that's really what brought my second book together, building bigger and better. You know, I love that you said it that way, because it's not the Dan Collison way. It is you researching, listening, and watching for

recurring threads throughout all of your clients, and then taking some recurring themes, and then backing it with research, and then now putting it together into this book. So I think that is just spectacular. Too many times we try to just throw things against the wall and go, let's see if this will work, or I think this is a good idea. You went and went to people that are currently out on the front lines and you went and interviewed them, worked with them and said, here's what's working. Because it's kind of like success leaves clues. Totally leaves, but you've got to be looking for those clues. And, you know, as we both said, top producers don't always know exactly how to tell you what it is they do. So if you're around it,

enough of them and ask enough of them, enough questions, you'll start to get the answers to the clues you're looking for. And then again, we then take the science of what they tell us and break it down into processes that any advisor could readily use to grow their businesses beyond what they really believe they usually can do. So then in this book, what are those three puzzle pieces that you mentioned? Yeah. And they are very defined. The first puzzle piece is the conference. mindset, which has everything to do with the psychology of the individual. And I got to tell you, that was the first part that I was missing. I always knew that they had to have the right type of person, you know, but that was a very generic thought. And we did personality testing and everything

with them. But I still didn't know exactly what the elements of the confident mindset was until I continue to dig deeper. And it's only been in the last, I would say, six or seven years that we put these three together. So the first puzzle piece is the confident mindset. The second is the confident business structure, which really allows an advisor to have comfort in knowing that the business that they are building or have already built can not only sustain, but take them forward so that it is truly a sustainable business. And the one thing, I heard early on in my career top producers. And then as I started to coach some of them, say, you know, I can't take on new clients,

which has to be about the worst thing an advisor or any business person. You can say I can't take on any new business. I don't have the back office for it. So we started looking at what business structures actually allowed top advisors to never shut down, never stop, never, you know, take their foot off the gas. So we look at what the confident business structure really looks like. and what the different elements within that structure allows that business to be rock solid so that an advisor is totally confident in their ability, not just to maintain, but to constantly

grow their business. And then finally, that third element of the confident mindset is what we call the confident growth plan. And this is an area I have focused on for decades because, you know, just getting into the business, not knowing what I was doing, I was definitely thrown into the fire and prospecting was everything that allowed me to stay in the business and ultimately grow into the business. So looking at what it was that the top producers have done what they do now and what that transition from early on to mature top producer looks like and what they have to continue to have in place to allow them to grow and then how they can actually map out where their growth is going to lead them to the point of, you know, the sale of their business.

the retirement of themselves, you know, really taking it from today until that succession plan finally plays out. That's the confident growth plan that all top producers have. You know what I love about that, Dan, is I can tell you meticulously laid it out very specifically because most of the time, if you were to send out a survey, advisors would go, give me the growth plan. And that's putting the cart before the horse because the growth plan, because the growth plan is if it's not set on a solid foundation, it just implodes. You know, if you don't have the right business structure and you didn't, there's a famous quote that I've heard.

I think it's from someone by the name of Patterson, a business leader. And he said, if you need to build capacity in advance of demand. Most people want to build the demand. But then if they don't have the capacity or business structure, then it's going to implode. If you don't have the right mindset, so I love that you start with mindset. I love that it moves into, okay, now let's get more of the. foundation on the business structure. And then, okay, we'll go ahead and talk about the growth

plan. So I'm excited to talk to you about each one of these things. Let's dive a little bit deeper into the first one. What's the competent mindset? Because it is so powerful, I think of the word imposter syndrome. So sometimes you might find advisors that go, but I'm not really, you are. So talk about the confident mindset. Yeah, and I love the fact that you use imposter syndrome. We use that all the time because that's how I got into the business knowing that I didn't know what I was supposed to be talking about and always personally feeling that imposter syndrome. So the confident mindset allows you to grow unbelievably quickly. And in fact, having all three of these confidences at the same time, you can get into a hugely

growth-oriented position unbelievably quickly if you can put them all together at once and understand that they develop over time. So the growth mindset or the confident mindset starts. The first element is the growth mindset. And that really means you're a student of the business, that you're never going to stop learning and that, in fact, you do enjoy learning and the more specialized you become within your business,

the better you will be and the better you'll be for your clients. And it has a lot to do with being an optimistic person, but what the psychologist called a realistic optimism that you have to have. So it's not some pie in the sky. It's recognizing realities, the downfalls as well as the highs of the business, as well as how that pertains to your clients. So yes, that student of the business, that constant need to learn more to get better at everything you do is an absolutely critical aspect of the confident mindset.

You know, Tony Robbins calls that cannot. C. A. Have you ever heard of that before? You know, it sounds familiar, but I couldn't tell you exactly what it is. Yeah, confident or constant and never ending improvement. You never arrive. You have to always better yourself. And one thing that I think that is important to what I'm hearing you say here is when you then are constantly improving yourself and you are taking the mindset of being an educator and advocate for the success of your client.

and you're doing what's best for them and not for your back pocket, but them. Now all of a sudden, your client gets wonderful results. You hear feedback. Maybe they send in letters or emails or reviews or testimonials, but then guess what happens when you as the advisor receive that feedback and capture it? And maybe you just keep it on your computer and you can review that from time to time. You get more confident in your own deliverable. And so now that starts amplifying and folding over upon itself so that's

your next client, you're even more confident. So I think that's a huge point that you're bringing up there. Yeah, absolutely. And I've yet to hear a true top producer ever said, I'm done. I know all I need to know. They just don't. They don't think that way. They are the students of the business. They're always open to further education. And in fact, they're always sourcing new ways of doing things, better ways. And they talk amongst themselves. They will learn from anybody that can show them a better way. 100%. Okay. So how about things like this? How do you, what is, how does going into confident mindset, how does not only learning more about the industry, but how do you stay updated on non-industry trends that would then help your clients? Maybe you work with business owners. So maybe you need to

learn about business trends so that when you're talking about wealth building for business owners, you're speaking their language. Yeah. And that, that's going to fall into the confident business structure where you decide who your ideal client profile is because once you know who you're going to serve, everything gets easier because I call it the PhD of our business. When you focus on one type of client and get great at serving that client, then you know what you need to know. You know, the specialized knowledge as well as the general knowledge around that cohort of client. And that it's probably one of the more difficult aspects of growth for financial advisors, you know, winnowing down to that ideal client profile.

But it's probably one, if not the top, important element of growing your business because you do become that PhD. You become the expert to that cohort. You know where you have to go to learn, you know, as you said with business owners. So you're going to read more about entrepreneurs, more about how the economy, the global economy, in fact, not just the national economy, impacts entrepreneurs, impacts business owners versus say, I deal with retirees as an ideal. Then I'm going to focus there and look at what the demographics and study that.

So yeah, very specialized knowledge in a big realm around that cohort. So what's another aspect of the competent mindset that we need to keep in mind? because I think a lot of times you would start teaching it or in your book people will read about it. And people would logically say, yep, yep, I agree with that, I agree with that. But there's got to be some ahas that are like, ooh, that's an extra nuance that I've not considered. Yeah, one of the elements that probably kept me down as a branch manager for the longest time in helping newer advisors or even midterm advisors was harnessing their own motivation. I knew I wasn't a motivational speaker and I never wanted to be. I didn't put a lot of faith in motivational speakers, as it were. But what I found through really

studying motivation is, and if you look at really the grandfather of motivation, Edwin Locke is the academic that stands out. And you look at the motivation sequences. He draws it out. And what I found was, if in fact you're not emotionally tied to whatever goals you're looking to, achieve and if your values aren't tied to those goals and they play off each other, you're never going to get anywhere. So rather than having someone try to motivate you or you flail around trying to motivate yourself, understanding that if you don't have the fuel of motivation, what the psychologist call motivation, that fuel is emotion. So I've got to be emotionally tied to whatever goal I'm looking to achieve. I need to do that for my clients. I need to do that for

myself for my business. So that harnessing your own motivation was huge. That was a big windfall learning that science so that we could draw out individual advisors motivation and work. Let them understand how they can use their own emotions and subsequently how they can use their prospects and their clients' emotions to help them drive for their goals as well. 100% yeah that's you know that's it's a building block and that's foundational and I think that's a huge huge piece that that you're bringing up there um it is and you know I don't know I just think that too many times we go you know ready aim fire fire fire fire but we didn't get ready and we didn't prepare that mindset and we didn't aim and we didn't re aim and it's like they say about you know if you had three hours to cut down a tree specifically. in the first two hours sharpening the axe or, you know, you know, measure twice and cut once, whatever cliche you want to think about. It's foundational.

It's that mindset you never achieve. So talk a little bit about when they follow your blueprint and you're polishing up that confident mindset when advisors do this properly or improperly. Boy, there's a dichotomy there, right? So what happens if they don't follow this and don't achieve that confident mindset? How does that impact them both professionally as well as personally? Because I feel like there's an obvious professional impact because you won't achieve business goals. But doesn't it bleed over to your personal life as well?

Totally it does. And just from the very beginning, you know, within our industry, the financial services industry, you know, bringing someone new into this business is almost a mugs game in that we see anywhere between a 70 to 90 percent failure rate for new advisors. And they're gone within one to five years. We lose upwards of 90% of new advisors in. And so much of that is due to that lack of foundational, the growth mindset, harnessing, the motivation.

Then we just have to look at goals, you know, how the whole idea as we look at, you know, begin with the end in mind, as it were, how you actually plan out goals and what those goals should look like, how they should be structured. So it's critical because we lose so many people right from the beginning. And then the old 80-20 rule, the Pareto rule comes into play.

You know, those that make it but don't ever truly grow because they haven't learned how to motivate themselves. They don't have a true growth mindset. They don't go deep enough. You know, they become part of the 80% that produces 20% of revenue, whereas that 20% those top producers produce the other 80%. And those figures aren't absolutely tied to 80-20, but as a branch manager,

I used to have access to my... Pretty close. The advisors and absolutely close. In fact, I studied it for years out of my own branch, and it was never more than 5% off, one way or the other. You know, that it was either 15% of advisors did 80%, 85% of revenue, or it was 25%, but it was always within 5% of that 80-20 rule. And then finally, you know, one of the biggest and probably one of the more impactful elements of the group,

the confident mindset that I found, Angela Duckworth came out in, I think it was 2015 or 2016, with a book called Grit. And she's become the preeminent scholar on Grit. And she calls Grit, passion and perseverance for long-term goals. And she's shown the science of having that passion and perseverance, what pop producers in all rounds, whether it's music, entertainment, chess, players, sports, business, whatever it is. She's shown where that passion and perseverance comes from. And in fact, the one thing about everything that I've written about in this book is that it's all

learnable. It's all learnable. It's all trainable. So anyone that's willing can be trained upwards, which is fabulous. There was a point at which I thought, no, not everybody can. But if you can get to that mindset and create a confident and a growth mindset early on, then you've got that rudimentary base to really help build an advisor. And even those that are stuck in limbo, maybe they're 10, 15, 20 years in the business,

and they flatlined on their business. They're not really growing. There's no organic growth. It's pretty much market growth is all they're getting. Even these people, if they're willing to learn, they can be taught. They can be coached and they can start to really move upwards if they're willing to. Yeah, I love it. And one of the things you were talking about with you have to be able to motivate yourself

reminds me of, you know, like in sales, you don't want to be that push. salesperson, you want to educate people to attract and pull people toward your, you know, solution to their problem. Well, you have to take the same approach in motivating yourself. And if there are certain goals that you want to have in this competent mindset aspect, you want to achieve a certain revenue or AUM or certain revenue goals in your firm, what is it going to be that makes you be drawn toward that goal and not feel pushed? And I think that, you know, each person is different. And that mindset might need to be, you know what? here's what really motivates me.

And I'm going to gamify, you know, my production or when I hit this many, whatever it is, meetings or Zooms or calls or presentations, whatever that is. I'm going to reward myself with whatever. So knowing yourself, observing how you are personally motivated will help that, you know, that aspect to pull you to that goal. And then that is going to help, you know, achieve that competent mindset. Yeah, totally. And when you delve into Angela Duckworth's,

work on grit. You know, she says first, right off the bat, you have to have interest. And whatever you're trying to do, you have to have interest. Without interest, it's going nowhere. You have to have purpose. In other words, you have to believe what you're doing is so important that it doesn't just impact you. It impacts others.

And of course, in the financial services industry, that's what we do. We impact other people's lives. You have to practice. You have to practice, practice, practice. And most people are familiar with the TEDx's, thousand hour concept of practice. But Anders Erickson, the psychologist that that created that said, you know, you don't need 10,000 hours. In reality, you need 5,000 hours of practice, a purposeful, as he calls a purposeful practice, will allow you to become an expert in anything that you do.

And then finally, as Duckworth says, you have to have hope, you have to have belief that you can do this, just like you have to train your clients in terms. having belief and hope that they will achieve their financial goals, you have to have belief and faith that you will achieve your own personal and business goals as well. So having those four aspects within her concept of grit is critical to really, really focusing the mindset so that you can start moving forward. I love it. I think that is so important. Well, Dan, I think this is this first pillar of the book, having that competent mindset is just so foundational like we've been saying over and over. I love your approach to that.

What's the best way that someone can reach out and connect with you, learn more about what you do, and also pick up a copy of your book? Sure. You can just go to our website, which is Advice to Advisors. So 2 is the number two, advice to advisors.com. You can get a hold of us through that. You can get a hold of me at Daniel.collison at advice toadvisors.ca. If you want to to email me. And you can pick up my book, just go online. You can get that through Amazon.

So lots of ways to connect. Love to talk to advisors. It's what we do. Excellent. Well, Dan, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. Thanks very much, Mike. You've been listening to influential entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders.

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