Why Most Advisors Fail to Connect with Clients

Brad Johnson: Welcome back to another episode of Do Business. Do Life. I have Brendan Frazier here with us today. Welcome to the show, Brendan.

 

Brendan Frazier: Hey, Brad. Thanks for having me on. I’m actually pumped to be here for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I was at one point an avid listener of the Elite Advisor Blueprint and Brad Johnson for a long time. And we just talked about this a little bit but I felt like I still needed to mention that you are actually instrumental in launching my podcasting career in the show that I have to this day because I was sitting there going, “Hey, I know my time isn’t best spent on editing a podcast.” In fact, if I tried to edit it. I’m never going to get it out there into the world. It’s why it sat in my head as an idea for like a year and a half before anything happened.

And so, I’m pretty sure it was on Twitter. I just reached out and I was like, “Hey, Brad, I need somebody to help edit this podcast. Who do you use?” You connected me with the guys that edit your show and here we are all these years later. And I kind of like to think maybe it’s not this simple, but in my mind I kind of like to think that if it weren’t for that exchange, that one little interaction where you decided to help me out, that we may not even be here, right? That might be extreme, but it’s also possible.

 

Brad Johnson: No, I think, Brendan, I would say on my side, I’d say that’s fair. It’s weird how those little nudges in life can really impact the trajectory of where you’re headed. And how my podcast started was a guy named Michael Hyatt, who we were talking about before we hit record here. I was telling him, “Hey, I’ve got this problem. I’m trying to do this live mastermind and I’ve got really busy, really successful advisors. Tough time getting them to show up all in the same place at the same time.” And he is like, “Why don’t you just record it and turn it into a podcast?” That was the Elite Advisor Blueprint.

That was the little nudge that had me going down that path to experiment. That was, I think, late 2015 when there weren’t a lot of financial advisor podcasts or at least podcasts geared for financial advisors out there. And that completely changed the trajectory where, who knows if Triad would exist if it wasn’t for that nudge and now this new show, Do Business Do Life. So, yeah, there’s a little butterfly effect moments in life. It’s crazy how they pan out, so.

 

Brendan Frazier: It’s one of those deals where the whole pay it forward concept. Anytime somebody reaches out to me about questions on a podcast or, “What should I do? Or what do you do for this? What do you do for that?” I think, to this day, I never turn those down. And there’s probably somebody out there like a coach who’d be like, “Hey, that’s not a good use of your time.” Maybe it’s not but knowing that it was because somebody took the time from me, has me now paying it forward. So, anytime someone reaches out, I always try to make the time to help and encourage them however I can. I just found it, by the way. Our exchange was July 8th, 2020, so we must have both been sitting there in the midst of COVID.

 

Brad Johnson: July 8th, 2020. Wow.

 

Brendan Frazier: In the midst of COVID, we’re like, “Oh, we got nothing better to do. Hey, Brad, what?”

 

Brad Johnson: That was about a month before I exited my prior career. Actually, I’d already let them know I was exiting and my last day was actually August 14th, 2020, a day after my 40th birthday. So, yeah, that’s wild to go back to that season of life for me. I was closing one chapter to open another one and had no clue really what that next chapter was yet at that point in time.

 

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. And then neither did a lot of us. We were wondering, “Where did Brad go? Where did he go? I haven’t seen him in a while. What’s he up to these days?”

 

Brad Johnson: Why’d that dude fall off the face of the earth? Yeah. No, building a business is hard. And as much as podcasting had become a part of me and I really truly loved it. The first couple of years of Triad, I just did not have the bandwidth to build that with my co-founder, Shawn, and also keep the podcast running along the way. So, I’m glad I’m back at it because conversations like this light me up. This is a good Friday when I get a chance to hop behind the mic and have a fun conversation. So, I love that you pulled up, was that a Twitter message?

 

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. Or the blue X, blue sky. At the time it was Twitter, yeah. All right.

 

Brad Johnson: Yeah. So, I remember, and this maybe takes us down your path and how you became the Chief Behavioral Officer at RFG. I remember somewhere along the way you had started geeking out on behavioral finance podcast episodes and I think you did a Twitter thread and you tagged a show. I think it was actually with Daniel Crosby, the show I did with Daniel Crosby on Elite Advisor Blueprint. And you were kind of doing a best-of list and tagged me, tagged him, and kind of started, back when it was called FinTwit, a FinTwit conversation around, “Hey, I’m really geeking out on this and here are some of my favorite episodes. What do you guys think?” And it was really cool.

Number one, I always appreciate… As a fellow podcaster, you appreciate when your work is recognized to be able to help people out there. That always feels good. But I could just tell you were a student in the game. And then I think we kind of followed each other, struck up a little conversation, and here we are today. So, why don’t we go back to Brendan’s story and how did you evolve from a financial advisor to somebody that really went down the role of, I feel like an emerging role in finance, which is Chief Behavioral Officer.

 

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. So, that’s one of those stories that if you’re not careful, you ask somebody about their past and something that they’re excited about and that they like enjoy telling about. I could probably go on for like 20 minutes with that story, but here’s the gist of it or the short version is that, so as an advisor, I was working with clients day in and day out, and you start realizing pretty quickly that you’re going, “Hey, I’m good at this like technical side,” but there’s this whole human element that comes into play that I feel like I didn’t really get a whole lot of prep for.

Nobody really told me that there’s this human component and the emotions that are involved and the couple dynamics that are involved, and the fact that you can’t just tell somebody, “Here’s your financial plan. Here’s what we think you should do to accomplish your goals,” and that they don’t actually follow through and do it. You’re sitting there going like, “Hey, I just figured if I told you how to do what you want to do, you would do it.” And then the one that always really kind of got me or bothered me a little bit was the rep, the advisor was always like, “All right, just go out make connections, build rapport with people. Go out and get them to like you. Go out and build rapport. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

And I remember sitting there in one of these trainings thinking like, “Yeah, that’s right. That’s so true.” But like, how do I do that effectively, consistently, every single time? Like, you can wing it and do it sometimes, but I kept thinking like there must be proven methods, evidence-based ways to do this consistently. So, I’m still working, I’m still an advisor working with clients. And I decided at that point I had this infinite or this equal, not equal, I actually had more of a fascination for this, the human side than I did the technical side.

So, the way I always look at it is Kitces on his site, they put out these great technical articles, but also these behavioral psychological ones. And I was just consuming all of behavioral and psychological ones that I could. And when you start talking to other advisors and they all say like, “I know that this is important. I know that there’s this human element, but I don’t really know how to get better at it.” I even started asking about people like, “Hey, what do you do? If we all acknowledge it’s important, what are you doing to get better at it? What are you doing to figure out how to incorporate it?” And the most common answer, the best answer you would get was, “I read a book.”

And it’s like, well, reading the book is good. Reading a book, it’s better than nothing, but surely we can do a little bit better than that because the answers on how to understand emotions and psychology behavior, those things all exist. Now, they exist but they’re usually found in other fields and other dimensions. And so, I sort of went on this quest to say, “All right. How can we take what’s out there and bring it back to the world of financial advice in a way that’s very practical and applicable?” Because advisors don’t want to be therapists, they don’t want to be psychologists, but they do want to know what are the effective evidence-based ways that I can apply these things day in and day out. And so, that Twitter thread that you mentioned was, like you said, student of the game. I think there’s also an important lesson to be learned in there.

I’ve followed somebody on social media before who promoted this idea of building in public and learning in public. So, it was like, “Hey, as you do your learning, you learn and you also put out what you’re learning in public.” Let other people learn alongside you so it gives you good. And so, for those that aren’t familiar with that term, if you are, you know exactly what I’m talking about. But I sort of embraced this idea and went, “You know what? I want to get better at this. I’m going to try to learn in public so that I can learn these things and go back and apply it to the work that I’m doing with my clients day in and day out. And then hopefully along the way, it will also help other advisors who are on this learning journey with me.”

And so, it started off with Twitter and LinkedIn. That’s also kind of what the podcast started off as. It was just my own quest to try to learn all the things that I wanted to know. And then all of a sudden, I would get these comments or these messages or these emails from people that were like, “Hey, love that episode. I’ve been wondering that same thing myself,” or, “Hey, great episode. Thank you so much. I feel like we need more of this.” And so, that was just, I guess, I would call that like one of the signposts of the journey that was like, “Okay, keep going. See where this goes, see where this takes you.” And so, that’s the meat of the story. And then the fast-forwarded version is it’s more of a lesson in terms of optimizing your life around the things you enjoy and you’re passionate about.

And so, it came to a point eventually where I was working with clients on one side, also like doing this human side of money podcast and coaching and training and speaking. And I realized that I was doing both of them. I was giving 100% to both, which meant they were each getting about 50% of what they could be. And so, I sat down with my wife and said, “Hey, I think it may be time to make a switch. I’m enjoying this other work. Not with clients, but with advisors more.” She’s like, “Okay, yeah. Great. Let’s do that.” And she was like, “Well, I mean, anything I need to know?” It’s like, “Yeah. Well, there’s going to be a pretty significant drop in income there for a while, but we’ll be fine.” And being the amazing wife that she is, she was like, “Okay. If you think we’re going to be fine, I support you.”

So, looking back on it, it wasn’t that easy of a decision. But fast forward to today, I started doing my own thing for a while, and then I think because this whole human side is becoming more and more prevalent and we start recognizing it as an industry, that’s when RFG came along and said, “Hey, we kind of want to create a pioneer, a position in this field, pioneer focus in this element, in this area, in this realm of financial planning. We want you to join us.” And so, it was an ongoing discussion, went on for a while, weighing the pros and cons, but now it’s been a year and here we are and the rest is history.

 

Brad Johnson: Awesome. The learning in public thing, as you said that, familiar. I’ve seen a lot of startup tech founders where they kind of start blogging, and it’s kind of the learning in public thing, but I never actually thought about it but that’s really what a podcast is too. For me, a guest-style show, and I’m just sitting here learning in public and then sharing the conversation publicly. It’s really cool. It’s fascinating how it can both benefit you and benefit others, and it’s very addicting once you really start to dive into it. Who were the early influences when you were learning in public on the behavioral finance side? Who were some of your early influences that you stumbled upon?

 

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s some of the main people you think about even to this day. But the main ones were, well, I have one that I call my gateway into behavioral finance. It was the book and the person who opened up my eyes and my passion to go deeper and deeper and peel back all the different layers. That was Moira Summers. She wrote the book, Advice That Sticks, which is actually in this bookshelf behind me, right back up here. And I always frame it as that if you’re working with people and their money, you should definitely hone in, master your technical knowledge, get really, really good at that, get your CFP, get a designation if that’s the route you want to go.

But the very next thing you should do is read Advice That Sticks. It should almost be required reading in the industry because it’s the idea of, basically, like I was mentioning earlier, you can’t just give somebody advice and expect them to follow through. And she draws from examples from the medical field. In the medical field, they call it adherence and non-adherence. And it’s a big issue in the medical profession of trying to get people to follow through on the recommendations and the plans that you give them and non-adherence. And the idea that a lot of non-adherence from patients is actually a result of the doctor delivering the advice and not the patient himself.

So, it’s really convicting on one hand and on the other hand, you go, “This seems really, really important if I’m going to be working with human beings and giving them financial advice.” So, she was one kind of the gateway. Daniel Crosby, obviously, I remember sitting there in a Panera almost finishing the book, The Behavioral Investor, in one sitting and highlighting more of the book than was left blank. Brian Portnoy with Geometry of Wealth. He was a big influence. Carl Richards, obviously. And then right around the time that I was starting the podcast and this like the flame is really going, my passion’s really burning around this stuff. I find Morgan Housel and start reading Morgan Housel‘s stuff and he puts out the book The Psychology of Money.

So, I would say those were some of the main in the industry, but the more you get into it, the more you start looking at this human side, again, like I said earlier, you realize that a lot of the great information and experts are outside and we can bring these things back into the industry. So, I mean, so another really obvious one but I think obvious for a reason is James Clear and he writes Atomic Habits. That’s a lot about behavior change, right? Chris Voss, wrote the book, Never Split the Difference. It is basically a manual on elite communication skills, which generally speaking, having good communication skills is a good thing for advisors. So, anyway, now I’m just kind of rambling off a bunch of the names.

Brad Johnson: No. Hey, this is great. We’ll capture all of these book recommendations in the show notes for those that are sitting there trying to jot them all down. Just go to the website. We’ll have them all listed there. Let’s go back to Advice That Sticks. So, she was basing a lot of this study on the medical profession. Is there a story that sticks out? Because you mentioned it was about how the doctor delivered the information as opposed to the individual client or the individual patients. Was there something that when you read a book and it’s like the light bulb goes off and you’re like, “Ah, that just changed my perspective”? Were there any of those moments in that book that really stood out?

 

Brendan Frazier: The thing that stood out the most that really sticks with me and still hits hard is what I just mentioned a second ago around like, as an advisor, accepting the reality that when somebody doesn’t follow through, that there are things that we are doing that are preventing them from following. Now, it may not be conscious. We’re not consciously doing them but there are things that we might be doing that are enabling them to have the ability to follow through or there are things that we could be doing that we’re not doing that would actually improve their likelihood of following through.

And there was just this mindset shift of saying… Let me put it this way. It’s really easy when you give somebody advice or you give them a plan and you’re like, “Hey, here are your action items,” and they don’t do it, it’s really, really easy to blame not you but them and to say, “Hey, they’re just not a great client. You know if they really cared.”

 

Brad Johnson: Oh, dude. Do you know how many times I’ve heard that over the years? “Oh, they were just another plate licker. Oh, they’re another tire kicker.” It’s like we’ve actually created terms in the industry that honestly aren’t great things to say about people, but oftentimes what happens, it’s the finger-pointing at others versus actually looking in the mirror and saying, “How could I have delivered that information in a better way to make them more compelled to do what they need to do anyway?”

 

Brendan Frazier: Right. Yeah, that’s exactly right. And to your point, so first it’s a mindset shift, right? You just have to embrace this concept. It’s really hard because it’s kind of, like I said, it’s convicting. It’s really hard.

 

Brad Johnson: It’s extreme ownership. It’s accountability at the end of the day.

 

Brendan Frazier: That’s right. It is. And to sit there and reflect and go, okay, is it possible that their non-adherence, as she calls it in the book, is a result of something that I am doing? Because it’s not easy work to sit there and say, “Hey, oh shoot. I’m not doing this.” And so, another thing that sticks out from the book is how much farther along the medical profession is in accepting this reality and helping their doctors work on how to get better at it and improve it. And so, I mean, I would be doing an injustice to the book to try to summarize all of it.

But for example, when you look in the medical field, the stats, these may not be exactly right, but they’re close, but when you give a patient a prescription, it’s like 50% of people never actually follow through with the prescription and take the medicine the way they’re supposed to, and then 25% never even go get it filled. Now, this is for preventative prescription medications. If we’re talking painkillers, different story, right? Painkillers, you’re like, “Hey, I’ve got this problem. I’m in pain. I need relief.” We’ll go and we’ll act and we’ll follow through on that much differently than a preventative prescription where 25% don’t even get filled and then half of them aren’t even taken on the regimen that they’re supposed to be taking.

It’s just things like that where you go, “Man, it’s hard.” If we think it’s hard to give financial advice, if we can’t get people to follow through on their health and do the things they need to do to optimize their health, then getting them to do the things they need to do to optimize their money is certainly going to be difficult and going to be a challenge. And so, the medical profession looks at it and they go, “All right. What are the things that are standing in the way?” And so, just to touch on like, at least a couple, one of the things is how the doctor shows up and receives and like shows up in terms of their warmth with the patient.

So, if you just go in and you say, “Hey, here’s what you need to do,” and you don’t get any understanding or if the patient doesn’t get to tell the doctor what they’re thinking, feeling, and experiencing, they don’t feel heard, they’re less likely to follow through. We think people just want the answer, the solution, but they really want to feel heard and understood before they’re actually willing to follow through and do it. Anyway, so there’s a lot of other elements that go into that dynamic. But if you boil it down, what that comes back to is it’s a behavior change problem. How do we get somebody to change their behavior, to do the things that they’re supposed to do or need to do and even want to do to make them better off?

And it just so happens in this line of work, we’re talking about financially. How do we get them to do the things to put them in a better place financially? Because it’s not an information problem. It’s not enough to say, “Hey, here’s what you should do.” It’s an execution problem. And what can we take from the fields of behavioral science, behavior change that can help us, help our clients change their behavior for the better?

 

Brad Johnson: Yeah. What you’re speaking of, it made me think about the curse of knowledge that we all suffer from. I mean, you think about the first appointment you ever ran. Maybe you remember it, maybe you don’t. But then after a while and your book starts to grow, they actually start to blur together a little bit, which isn’t good. But that’s what happens. Just like a doctor, if he’s seeing appointment after appointment, it’s like, “Wait. They’re all kind of starting to blur together.” And the curse of knowledge I’ve seen when you’ve seen the same problem 50 times before, you want to just jump straight to the solution because you’re like, “Oh, let’s just solve this quicker. I don’t need to listen to a 30-minute explanation.”

But by doing that, to your point, the other person does not feel heard. They feel like you’re just slapping a Band-Aid on it. You have no bedside manner. You don’t care. And to your point, now, they’re less likely to actually follow through and do what they need to do. It would be like since we’re using the doctor’s analogy here, you walk in, you’re like, “My elbow hurts,” and they just hand you like a container of pills and say, “See you later.” And honestly, sometimes I’ve seen that happen in finance too, where it’s like, “Oh, here’s the product. Here’s the portfolio. Have a nice day.” So, how do you recommend going back? Is it a pre-appointment kind of ritual where you’re like, present in the moment? Because sometimes we all know we should do it, but it’s hard when you have seen the same thing over and over again. It starts to get repetitive. What are your thoughts around that?

 

Brendan Frazier: Well, first of all, you’re 100% right. Dead on. Like, that is one of the biggest barriers and challenges is when you hear somebody present a problem and you’ve solved it 50, 75, 100, 1,000s of times, naturally, you’re going to go, “Hey, I want to solve this. I know how to fix it. I’ll just give you the solution.” And so, I also have grace for the fact and acknowledge the fact that that’s a completely understandable response and makes sense why anybody would react that way. That’s also why this mindset shift was so important to go, “Hey, maybe there are things that I’m doing,” and so then you start going into these conversations a little bit differently, saying, “Okay, what are the things that I might be doing?”

It’s just a level of awareness, right? You go, “I need to be more aware of what I might be doing.” So, when you think about what to do about that, essentially, I think it comes down to really when you think about behavior and psychology and financial advice, there’s usually two main things advisors can do. One is develop a certain skillset or mindset, and the other is have a system. So, you’ve got skills and systems. So, in this example, I always start with the skills and the mindset piece, which is you really want to go into any conversation you have with a client or a prospect, you want to try to treat it as like with a one-client mindset.

Like, this is the first time I’ve ever had a conversation with them. This is the first time I’m hearing about this. It’s the opposite of the curse of knowledge, right? It’s the idea of different terms for it, but like a beginner’s mindset. So, go in recognizing that you might be a little bit calloused to whatever it is that they say because you’ve probably heard it before and try to reset with this one client one-time mindset and go, “I need to act as though I’ve never heard this before,” and stay curious and let them explain it in their own words. So, there’s an element of like, just injecting curiosity in your mind, trying to remain curious, act like you’ve never had this conversation before.

That’s the mindset piece. You made a really good point, which I always try to hammer home, and that is, if you wrap up a meeting at one o’clock, let’s say, and you’ve got another meeting starting at two, your odds of finishing one and just dropping into another and being in the right frame of mind and the right mindset to start over and refresh and go, “Okay, I’m starting anew. I want to be curious. I want to be present. And let them feel heard and understood,” your odds of just rolling to the next one and doing that are not very good. It takes intention. And some people, they hate hearing this. They’re like, “Surely there’s a better way.” But it’s like, usually you got to take 5, 10 minutes. Start with five. It feels like a lot.

Take five minutes to just reset yourself, your mind, your perspective. Let the other conversation go off into the background. You’re going to do a follow-up on it later. And then do what you need to do to be as present as possible and in the right mindset for the next person because they deserve it. They need your time, presence, and attention just as much as the person before. And so, if we’re being, I guess I’d say if we’re going to be realistic about it, maybe a little bit harsh, it’s our responsibility to make sure that we’re doing what it takes to make sure that that next client gets the same experience that we want to deliver. So, oftentimes, that requires creating a buffer.

So, that’s the skill mindset piece where you go, “I need to have the skill to have the conversation in a way that makes them feel like they’re the only client I’ve met with that day,” the mindset that goes into it. And then from a systems perspective, I think a lot of people go, “Okay, that’s good, but I want to know, how do I do it?” The system side is, and I’m going to go over it high level. We can go into it more if we want, but we don’t have to. But I always think through it as far as if you’re trying to get people to feel heard and understood, you always want to ask follow-up questions to the things that they say. If you ask somebody a follow-up question to something that they say, it immediately triggers in their mind that you want to know more.

It’s like they feel the permission to open up and explain more because you are engaged and you’re listening, right? So, you think about conversations that you have with somebody and you go to a party. They ask you like, “So, what are you doing this weekend?” or, “What do you do?”

or some sort of question that they ask. And you’re always wondering, in the back of your mind, you’re always kind of like, “Do they really want to know? Do they really care? Or are they just asking to be nice and polite? How much should I really divulge?” So, you say something, right? And if that person immediately takes something that you said and asks you to go further into it, it’s like it does this thing where it frees up your mind and it gets you to go, “Okay. They care. I feel like I can open up and share more now. I feel more comfortable sharing more.”

Now, on the flip side, if you’re at the party and you don’t want to have these conversations, don’t ask follow-up questions because it’s a really powerful thing. There’s a lady that wrote the book, Talk. She’s like a conversational expert. And she says that the follow-up question is the most powerful question that you can ask. And so, that’s one aspect of how do you do it as far as the system goes. And then there are other things we can get into in terms of how do you get somebody to follow through.

 

Brad Johnson: Well, let’s dive in there, Brendan, because I’ve got a few questions swirling, and it’s kind of this intersection of sales and planning. And I know depending on the school that you grew up in, in finance, sometimes sales is even a bad word, “Oh, they’re selling them.” My belief is sales done right is a transfer of belief. And so, back to sales training 101, I want to circle back to something you said earlier. Sales training 101 oftentimes will say something to the effect of, “Find the pain,” right? Make sure you find the pain. And you said something earlier referencing the book, preventative medicine, people oftentimes would delay actually following through, very different from pain meds where the pain is so severe, “I must go get a prescription.”

And back to connection, how to win friends and influence people 101, people love to talk about themselves. Who doesn’t want to be asked about themselves? And so, I’ve found like what I’ve seen when it’s done well, not gamified into some sort of like just selling people that come through the door, but actually caring about the result is when somebody says something, you’re like, “Hey Brendan, what I hear you saying is you’re really concerned that if anything happens to you, your wife’s not going to be taken care of. And you want to make sure that she is, and that’s really important to you. Did I get that right?” So, now you’re repeating what they said so they know you were listening. Active listening. And that follow-up question you’re confirming, and then you might even be able to go deeper down that rabbit hole.

But that’s a way of finding what truly would be painful to them like if something happened before they fixed it, right? But not like this, like grimy salesperson stuff that’s like, “Oh, just pour some salt in the wound,” and get them to make that decision. So, what’s your take on that? Just kind of going back to people take action when there’s pain and sometimes they delay things that don’t feel like it needs to be fixed right away because it’s not painful enough.

 

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. Okay. So, lots of thoughts. And again, first of all, an agreement 100%. And so, I’ve got two different things that kind of came from that. And number one is I’m 100% with you and think it’s really, really imperative that mentally, psychologically speaking from a sales perspective, that we recognize that if you have the ability to help somebody out, if like you know you do great financial planning work, maybe you’re the best financial planner technically in the world and the people that you work with are infinitely better off, the way I’ve come to believe, the way I’ve come to look at it and the way I believe is that you owe it to your prospective clients to do everything you can not to sleazily sale. Sleazily is not a word, but not to be sleazy.

Brad Johnson: We got you. We got you.

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. We’re not trying to be sleazy car salesmen, but it’s partially your responsibility to know how to help them get to the point where they’re comfortable working with you. You’re not employing these sales tactics that you hear in an unethical way, right? But you do need to know, how do I help guide somebody through a conversation that gets them to where they’re comfortable working with me? Because once they get to that point, then I know they’re going to be better off.

And so, one of the ways I like thinking through it is you’re not trying to sell somebody on working with you. I’ll go back to the mindset thing. So, if you’re having one of these conversations, a sales conversation, prospecting conversation, you’re not going in with the mindset of, “I’m trying to convince them and persuade them to work with me.” My goal in this conversation is not to convince and persuade them to work with me. My goal in this conversation is to help guide them through their thought process to determine what the best next step forward is. How do I guide them through a conversation that arms them with the information they need to decide, “Am I better off working with Brad or am I better off doing something else?”

Your goal isn’t to convince, persuade. Your goal is to guide them through it so they know how to make the right decision. That’s the ultimate goal. And honestly, the way when it finally hit for me is I went back and I went, “How would I take one of my best friends or family members through this process? Would I try to persuade them? No. Or how would I hope that an advisor would take them through this process? But I hope that they’d try to persuade them and sell them in a weird, sleazy way.” No. I would hope that they would be curious and go through this conversation to help them uncover what the next best step forward is.

And so, oftentimes, and here’s the cool thing about that, is In order to do that well to guide a conversation, it requires curiosity and it requires asking really good questions to help them clarify what they need. And it just so happens that when you do those things, like when you ask questions, let people talk about and process what they’re thinking, feeling, and experiencing that at the same time creates trust and connection because you’re getting them to think through the things they didn’t know to think through on their own. There’s a Ted Klontz who’s, I mean, he’s just brilliant when it comes to the psychology of things. He has research that says that when somebody comes to you like to meet for the first time, 80% of the time…

Or so I guess put it this way, 20% of the time they’re ready to actually move and do something. The other 80%, the majority of the time, they’re not sitting there saying, “Hey, I’m ready to make a move and work with an advisor.” They just got to the point where they’ve done some work on their own. They’ve tried solving a problem themselves. They had a problem that got so big that they tried to look into it and do something themselves, and then they got overwhelmed and the next best thing they knew to do was reach out to somebody. It doesn’t mean that they’re ready to work with you but it does mean that they are at a place where they need some help and they need some guidance. So, they’re not coming and saying, “Hey, when can I sign up?” They’re coming looking for somebody to help guide them to solve the problem that they have.

And so, to your point, I think number one, it’s just a mindset shift around not selling people but helping to guide them through a conversation. And that conversation almost always starts with, you mentioned the pain earlier, right? Oftentimes, if you’re having these conversations, it’s because there is a level of pain, an element of pain. And so, your goal isn’t to twist the pain, twist the knife in the back, so they feel the pain. The goal is to explore it with them so that they understand what it is that they’re thinking, feeling, and experiencing. And then they say, “Hey, Brad’s the one that really helped me uncover what it is that I need help with.” And you go through the process, you go through a conversation, and hopefully, they go, “And I also think that Brad’s the one that’s… I feel confident that Brad’s going to help me solve this problem that I have.”

 

Brad Johnson: Yeah. The word you said that I think is a key, if you want to be a great financial advisor, be curious. If somebody walks into your office, I’m hard-pressed to think they were just like, “I’m bored today. I’m going to go hang out with a financial advisor for a few hours.”

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. It’s never happened.

Brad Johnson: There is a reason that brought them in. It is now your job as a great advisor to be curious enough to ask the questions, to figure out what it is. And typically, from my experience, I’ve found oftentimes there is a pain point. There is a need. There is somewhere where they got stuck and need help. But if you’re not curious enough to ask the questions and listen to figure it out, that’s where you’re going to get stuck. And I’ve seen a lot of advisors over the years, I’ve been doing this almost two decades now, they might have every acronym, every little designation behind their name.

But if they’re missing that curious part, they’re the best-kept secret in town because they can do all the technical planning on a spreadsheet, but they can’t connect with people well enough, they can’t be a leader, a financial advisor that leads and influences enough to actually get them to where they can do the planning. So, if you’re missing that, you’re going to have crickets chirping in your office, which is why it’s so important. Or you can just go be a paraplanner and have another advisor that can do the relationship stuff, and then you just geek out on spreadsheets. That’s a great role in finance as well.

 

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. A needed role, a valuable role, for sure. And you’re exactly right. You mentioned something earlier. So, in light of what you just said, I think it comes back to this idea of if that’s the case, and we know that there’s these communication skills, this element of communication that’s important and valuable, and it sets you apart from the competition. And by the way, it’s one of the only ways to continue to set yourself apart from technology as it continues to advance and proliferate is we can do things that technology can’t do from a human perspective. Communication skills at this point still are one of those things. And so, you go, “Okay, yes, I need to get better at that.”

But that was one of the challenges that I kept running into too was like I know that, but what are those things? You gave a great example that I just want to pull back out because it’s such an effective tool for good communication and listening and building trust, and it’s really not that hard to do. But when you said a second ago, just repeating back to somebody what they said. You could take somebody that’s a great listener, I mean, just an absolute great listener. They hear everything that you’re saying but if they don’t give you some type of affirmation or sign that they’re listening, you don’t really know. They may be taking it in and processing everything that you’re saying, but until you get something back, you’re not sure.

And so, repeating and reflecting back what somebody says is one of the best ways to let them know that you are indeed listening. So, there is a study that was done a number of years ago where they took two groups of waiters and waitresses, and then the first group, they said, “Hey, go out and take orders,” but when and when you take the order, praise them for the order. So, for example, somebody says, “I want a cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato.” The waiter, the waitress takes it down and they go, “Oh, great pick. You’re going to love it. It’s a fan favorite.” They go back, they take a second group and they say, “Take the orders,” but instead of praising the order, just simply repeat back what the people said, what the person ordered, right? So, they say, “I want a cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato.” The waiter, the waitress, goes, “Cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato.”

So, they do this a number of times, run this study, and if you’ve heard it before, you already know the outcome. If you haven’t, they found that the group that just simply repeated back what was said earned 70% higher tips than the group that actually praised the order. You would think that saying like, “Hey, great pick, like well done. You’re going to love it,” would be more rewarding. But from what we know psychologically from looking at the brain, the brain loves to hear its own words repeated back because it signals to us that the other person is listening, and when we think they’re listening, we think that they care.

And in your example, again, where you repeat back what you said. So, it’s like if I heard you correctly or if I understand, or it sounds like you’re saying it’s really, really important for you to be able to walk away from your job to spend more time with your family, but you’re worried that if you did it now, you might not be able to stay retired forever. Just repeating back, and by the way, in their words, as much as possible, one of two things happens. Either one, they go, “Yes, that’s exactly right,” which is like conversational celebration. If you can get somebody to say, “Yes, that’s exactly right,” you’re like, “Okay, I’m hitting it. I’m listening. They know I’m listening. We’re ramping up trust and connection.”

That’s a key phrase or key signpost of great listening is, “Yes, that’s exactly right.” Or the other thing that happens is they hear it back, they’re processing, right? They hear it back from somebody else for the first time, they hear it, and they’re like, “You know, that’s not exactly it.” And we would think that might be a bad thing, “Oh shoot. They may think that I’m not listening,” but when you hear it repeated back and doesn’t sound right, you don’t blame the listener. You think to yourself, “Oh, I didn’t explain it right. I need to further clarify what I’m thinking.”

And so, from an advisor perspective though, not only is it building trust, not only is it letting them know you’re listening, but at the same time from an advisor perspective, you’re actually getting better information to work from. You want to work off the right information, not the wrong information. So, you’re clarifying, saying, “Okay, if that’s not right, then what is it?”

Brad Johnson: Well, so back to, you hit another word. It’s really key here. Connection. So, curiosity, connection. I remember I was a young guy in this business, probably 27, 28, and I sat down with an advisor that was managing well over a billion. So, this is like ‘08, ‘09. This was much less common back then. And I remember sitting down with him and him being fully present. And I’m thinking there a little bit, like the track going through my head is, do I deserve to be here? Kind of the imposter syndrome stuff.

And I remember the amount of influence and connection that was created sheerly by him, being eye to eye, fully focused, and asking me questions about myself. Now, I don’t remember if he repeated it back, but I will tell you that form of connection, back to the study you just referenced, the waiters and waitresses, true connection is getting rare and rare today because of these distraction devices called cell phones and Apple watches. And people can’t even have a five-minute conversation without distraction these days. So, when you give somebody that gift in a very intimate setting them, basically getting financially naked in front of you, and oftentimes spouses haven’t even done that with each other, you’ve got such a responsibility in my opinion, but you also hold this incredible power and this gift you can give them if you’ll simply just be there with them and care.

And back to repeating back, who doesn’t want that? Here’s what I hear you saying, did I get that right? And by the way, if it’s a yes, great, connection made. If it’s a, well, actually, yeah, and this, probably even deeper connection made because you just went a little deeper, right?

Brendan Frazier: Right, right.

Brad Johnson: And so, it’s just like, when you remove yourself from the world of finance, because we oftentimes, overthink things because it’s our day to day all day. But if you just step back, back to the human element that we referenced right as we dove in here, that’s just what humans want and need and crave. So, if you can incorporate that into a normal appointment process, there’s no way it can’t work. Like, it’s not that complicated when you really step back and think about human connection. Are there other things or any additional thoughts you have around that, just that concept of connection when you’re there in that moment with a couple you’re trying to help?

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. Well, we could go all day. No, don’t open the door that wide.

Brad Johnson: We were preaching the choir here. We’re like, okay, yeah– but other thoughts, because obviously, you’ve dedicated a lot of time to studying this?

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. So, to your point, again, just adding on once again, around that the key is the connection, the key is the human element, like everything else is sort of a commodity, right? We all have great software that’ll put together financial plans, right? We all have great staff that help with these services. The connection’s still the differentiator. And the crazy thing is, that it’s still a competitive– if you can do these things really, really well and create connection and build trust and accelerate trust, you’re standing out. Trust me, I’ve seen it, taught on it, coached it. You’re standing out from the vast majority of the competition that exists in the advisor world. And to me, sometimes I sit back and I go, it’s kind of crazy to me that I can learn about, teach about and train on how to be a great communicator and be present and listen and make somebody feel heard and understood. And that’s this like great differentiator. To me, it feels like it should just be like basic human skills.

And you said it, it is simple. What to do is simple, but actually doing it is really, really hard. You should see the looks that I get when we do some of these workshops around elite communication skills. And you see, it looks like when I tell people that, hey, if you want to really be present and take your meetings and conversations to the next level, put your phone on do not disturb, put it in a drawer, close all of your windows on your computer, eliminate every distraction that you could have, and take 5 to 10 minutes beforehand to get in this mindset of, I’m here to listen and be curious and help this person feel heard and understood.

And you would think that I had asked them to do the absolute worst thing. You’d think that I’d ask them to just go run a marathon tomorrow. They’re all like, whoa, whoa, wait, hang on. What? And so, yes, it’s simple, but it’s really, really hard to do. But if you can have the discipline to do it, it’s a great differentiator. That’s one thing I would say, because I always have to mention this any chance that I get, because to me, it’s so powerful and eye-opening. But the Harvard Business Review back in 2017 published a study on the power of questions.

And so, the way I like to frame it is this, is if I came to you as a human being or as a financial advisor, but since we’re talking about financial advisor, we’ll just look at it through that lens. If I came to you and you’re a financial advisor and I said, “Hey, I have this pill, and if this pill, if you take it, it will make people like you more, trust you more, and feel more comfortable and willing to open up and share with you valuable, personal, sensitive information about their life. Would you take–” by the way, there are no side effects. The FDA approved, zero side effects, would you take it? And of course, nobody says no to that, right? It’s like, like me more, trust me more, and tell me the things I need to know. Absolutely. Well, bad news, there’s no pill, if you didn’t already guess. Good news, there is a skill that’s proven to do those things that’s asking questions.

So, the Harvard Business Review and the study took two groups of people. And one group, they sat people down at a table right across from each other and said, “Hey, you get 15 minutes to have a conversation with this other person. In group one, you can ask no more than four questions of the other person.” They repeated it on the other side for group two. They said, 15 minutes, sitting down having a conversation with one other person. You have to ask at least nine questions for this experiment, right? So, they conduct thousands of these conversations. They observe them, they analyze them, they talk to the people afterwards, and they find at the end, when they crunch the numbers, when they try to pull out the results, they find that just the group that asked more questions, they had higher levels of trust, likability, and then the respondent said that they felt more willing and comfortable to open up and share valuable, sensitive information about their life.

To which I go and think, I mean, it’s not a pill, but just simply asking somebody more questions because you’re letting them know you’re interested in them and in their life creates higher levels of trust, likability, and connection. And that’s just simply asking more questions. Like, that’s half the battle. The other half of the battle is how to ask questions and do it in a way that gets people to feel comfortable opening up or what questions you can even ask. So, it’s like half the battle gets you almost all the way there. And so, if you can layer on these things of how do you ask questions in a more effective way or what are the best questions to ask, that’s just pouring gas on the fire.

But to me, it’s always funny to me to think back and go, we all want these things. We all want to be liked more and trusted more and to be able to get people to open up to us and share the things that are personal in their life and if there’s a skill that exists, but no one really teaches us how to be great question askers. And so, that’s the other thing that comes to mind as you’re talking about this, is just acknowledging and knowing the fact that’s a skill that you can hone and develop that can enhance not only your conversations, but also the relationships you have with your clients and in life.

One of my favorite pieces of feedback I’ve ever gotten from a training that I’ve done was from a lady that was like, “Brendan, I enjoyed that. That was great. It’s helpful. But my favorite part is that I went to dinner last night with my 19-year-old son and I actually got him to open up and start talking to me.” And it’s like, that was cool to hear, right? Like, prospects and clients, that’s great. But like, if you can get a teenage son to open up and start divulging what they’re thinking, feeling in their life, it’s like, okay, that’s a pretty powerful technique.

Brad Johnson: I have two teenage sons, so I can concur that is powerful. So, what you reminded me of, we mentioned it already, but one of my favorite books ever, classic, How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie. There’s a story in there and it’s Dale Carnegie himself, and he’s talking about going to a dinner party with his wife and it was like some attorney’s house or something. And at the end, I’ll get to the punchline, he’s driving home with his wife and he’s telling her how much he just loves the guy. And this is the first time he’s ever met him. He’s like, “Man, I just really enjoyed myself tonight. I had a blast.” And it was kind of like he was in the kitchen with the guy and his wife was somewhere else. She’s like, “Oh, what’d you guys talk about?” He’s like, “Well, he asked me what I did for a living, and then he asked me how I got into it, and then he asked me what interested me about it.” And so, he is unpacking it and as he’s doing it, he realizes to himself, all I did was talk about myself for two hours straight while he asked me questions about myself.

And to just echo what you’re talking about, he was asking about his favorite topic. Himself. And so, whether it’s the Harvard study, whether, I mean any conversation, if somebody is interested in you, truly interested in following up and engaged and curious, that’s the most addictive drug to just about any human. I mean, that’s how we connect in the first place. So, I just want to triple down on what you just said. And with our limited time, I would love to shift over to, what are…

Brendan Frazier: Brad, one thing, I think this is helpful.

Brad Johnson: Yeah, please.

Brendan Frazier: I think it’s really important, and I’ll make it quick, because I do think it’s right along those lines. Here’s why that’s so powerful, here’s what’s happening inside your mind is when they look at– when they do brain scans, they’ve found that when you talk about yourself, right, so when you get the chance to talk about yourself, it lights up the same area of the brain as when you’re eating chocolate and engaging in sexual activity. It’s the reward center of the brain. So, when you’re talking, getting to talk about yourself, your brain’s just lighting up, like, this feels good, this feels great.

And so, it’s funny you tell that story because whenever I present on this, I always say, all right, think back to the last conversation you had where you walked away and you thought, man, I really like that person. That person’s cool. I enjoyed that. We should hang out with them more. Let’s get together with them. Like, think back to that conversation. And be honest with yourself, if we had, like, if AI was there recording it and we went and calculated the numbers, looked at the analytics, it would say, I’m pretty confident. It would say that you talked way more than they did, right? And it’s like neuroscience. You go, hey, when you’re talking about yourself, it feels good. And so, when you walk away, you go, man, I felt really good. I really like that person.

Brad Johnson: Yeah. So, on that, you brought up AI and recording. Actually, I just recorded a podcast with a guy named Steven that’s the head of product at Zocks, which is AI transcription. I’m sure you’re familiar at this point. One of the really…

Brendan Frazier: Yeah, I just brought him on.

Brad Johnson: Oh, did you? Awesome. Big fan. Well, one of the things that the software does, which this might help your coaching if you weren’t already aware, it will break down the percentage of people talking in the meeting. And here’s a little tip for you advisors out there, number one, if you are the advisor and you’re over 50% of the talking, especially in a first visit where you’re really getting to know them, you’ve already lost the game of back to connection. So, one of the things I’m really excited about organizationally is to be able to start to look at trends of being able to study multiple advisor offices and see what is that recipe for questions asked and interaction. But I can promise you, to your point, it’s going to be very high on the prospect or the potential client talking as much as possible in that first meeting with you asking a lot of the questions. Do you have studies on like percentages by chance? Have you geeked out on that? Like, how much an advisor should talk in a first?

Brendan Frazier: No, but. When you start using this software, by the way, because I’ve done it for my meetings, both, mainly coaching meetings or when I’m working with advisors. And I’ll go in and I’ll be like– it’s a real gut check is what I was going to say, because I’ll go in and I’ll be like, all right, I’m going to aim to talk only 30% of the time. Like, I’m going to try to get them to go 70, I’m going to go 30. I’ll be in the middle of it. Like, all right, I’m on pace. I’m doing good, I’m doing great. Like this, true, like my mindset and intention is to hit this 70% number. I’ll get done. The meeting ends, I get the recap. I immediately go in and look at him, it’s like, you talked for 46% of the time. And I’m like, ah, but I tried so hard.

But it comes back to this with anything in life, right? Awareness is key. It’s just like when you’re trying to lose weight or getting in shape and you’re like, but I’m eating pretty healthy. And then you start tracking your calories, you go, oh, maybe I’m not as good as I thought I am. This does the same exact thing. It’s a real gut check though, because you’re like, I think I’m doing pretty well, not talking a lot. And it will literally highlight for you, like, hey, you need to be– you’re not as good as you think that you are.

But to your question, no studies specifically around it yet, but because for the last several years, I’ve been talking about this listen-to-talk ratio and striving for 80/20 is what I usually say. It’s like, try to strive to listen 80% and only talk 20. It’s really, really hard to do. You’ll probably land closer to 60/40 maybe, if you’re getting really good at it. But even that’s better than what you would normally do. So, it’s about having this mindset and intention going into it of just trying to be curious and listening. It puts you in a better frame of mind for the conversation.

Since I’ve been talking about, I’ve had a couple people reach out and tell me that they’re starting to do some research around it. Now that we have these tools that’ll track it, they’re going to start researching to see if they can find the right balance or how impactful is it. Can they tie these outcomes of– I mean, they’re mainly looking at it through the lens of did their prospect become a client, right, which is, I mean, that’s one way to measure it based on the amount of talk time. It’s being done, which I’m kind of pumped about, kind of see– I mean, it’s one of those things that we know is probably true, but having some data to back it up, it’ll be a good thing.

Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, AI is going to give us all kinds of data as we start to infuse that into finance. Okay, so clock is ticking. I want to shift over. We’ve talked a lot about the why and why it matters, but now, maybe we get in a bit to the how. What are some of your favorite questions to ask in a first that add to that connection and kind of draw out some of these big answers?

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. So, just to be clear, you said in a very first conversation, right?

Brad Johnson: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s where– you tell me your take, but what we coach on a lot, just overly simplistic, the first meeting, and obviously, you can name it all kinds of different things, but it’s really a fact finder where you’re asking questions, you’re trying to uncover, are there problems they have that you can help them solve? Identify those, repeat those back, everything we’ve talked about.

The second visit, how we really coach is kind of a before and after snapshot of those problems. Hey, don’t have an income plan, concerned that my wife is not going to be in a good spot if anything happens to me. Hey, we feel confident we can help you accomplish that based on everything we’ve seen. Kind of like how every infomercial works before, after picture, right? And kind of around those problems to where, at the end of that second, engaging in the services of that firm if they decide to move forward, where really the third visit is that kind of asset allocation meeting. So, to me, the first is really where you’re unpacking and uncovering a lot of the needs. So, that’s why I keep referencing back to first, not that it’s not important through the whole process, but do you have some of those first sort of appointment questions that really hit home or that you’ve kind of workshopped to get to better outcomes?

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. So, I always start by saying this, which is everybody always wants to know what are the best questions to ask, which I think is a great question, right? I understand why we start there. What I always try to throw out there or disclaim is the best question isn’t one that somebody else asks. It’s the one that you want to ask, feel comfortable asking, and you’re passionate about asking. It’s just like when you do these podcasts, you’re not asking people questions that other people are telling you to ask, right? You’re genuinely following. You’re driven by this curiosity to learn more, and that comes out in the way that you’re asking the questions, which impacts the way that I respond to the question. So, never ask a question that you don’t love, that you don’t feel comfortable with, that you don’t like, because it’s not going to create the answer that somebody else told you that it’s going to, right? So, first of all, you have to go, I– go ahead.

Brad Johnson: Well, Brendan, what I hear, the way I would phrase that, you’re kind of pulling at the thread. So, they said something, there’s something behind it. You’re curious. So, you’re kind of following that curiosity is how I would put that into words.

Brendan Frazier: That’s right. Now, I’ll give you another example that’s just like, basically, one that I lived out on a regular basis, which was everybody always kept saying like, “Hey, you should ask them of their first memory about money.” Asking about money was like growing up. And I remember thinking like that, yeah, okay, I guess I should, but I never really liked that question. Like, I was always kind of like, why am I asking this the first time I met you? I get why…

Brad Johnson: It felt too personal to you, like you were going in a little too hard or what, specifically?

Brendan Frazier: I think that was an element of it. I think it was kind of like, I think I need to earn the right to ask this question. But more than that, as I was reflecting on it, it was like, what’s the purpose of this? Am I asking this for me or for them? And if I was honest with myself, my whole purpose for trying to ask it was just to try to create more connection and trust. When they come into this very first conversation, they’re like, hey, I’ve got this problem on my mind, this thing that prompted me to reach out. The thing that made me say, hey I probably wouldn’t call an advisor if I had a blank slate, nothing to do today, but it’s gotten to the point where I need to actually reach out.

And so, it’s kind of like when I went to the doctor, I had this back pain and if I went to the doctor with this back pain and the very first thing he said was like, tell me what your history with doctors is like. Yeah, tell me what do you think about medicine? I’d be like, is this relevant because I’ve got this back pain and I just want you to thoroughly diagnose so I can feel better, right?

Brad Johnson: Sorry, this is a complete aside, but you just made me think of something. You know the comedian, Mitch Hedberg? Have you ever seen some of his YouTube stuff? He’s one of the most unique comedians. Go YouTube, and maybe we’ll throw it in the show notes. But he said he went into a radio interview and the guy said, his opening question was, who is Mitch Hedberg? And he looked at him. And he goes, so I had a moment of, did I take a wrong turn and I ended up in the wrong place? Or is this guy just trying to go really deep with me right now? And it’s just like he’s got this dry, weird sense of humor. But to your point, if you’re asking these really deep, soul-searching questions and you haven’t earned the right to them, my gut tells me it’s actually going to do the opposite and it’s going to disconnect versus actually create that connection.

Brendan Frazier: Right. And the other thing you want to try to avoid right out of the gate too is asking someone a question that they don’t know the answer to or they might stumble over. So, like, if you ask somebody something, because there’s such thing as conversational momentum and you want to create this conversational flow. And if the very first thing you do is ask a question they don’t know the answer, that they get in their head and think about, you have to come back from that, right? It’s not creating flow. You’ll appreciate this from a podcast perspective.

But Terry Gross hosts a podcast, I think it’s called Fresh Air. She’s like widely regarded as one of the better hosts of a show around, and she has this thing that she says I thought was great, which is she says that when I have these guests come in, the very first thing I try to do is get them out of their head and into their heart. I don’t want them talking logically from their head. I want them talking emotionally.

And I think we have to take that same approach to working in a first conversation. Not that you want to get them to open up and tell you about their deepest, darkest, or their money memories, but there are things you can do that create conversational flow that get them in an emotional connection state rather than logical things, like– I always love asking business owners, like, hey, or if you and I were sitting down, I know you’ve got Triad, you and Shawn have Triad, one of the things I would want to know that would tap into that and I would go, hey, where were you and Shawn when this idea came to your head?

Like, I see it now, Brad, you guys are doing awesome things. Like, I admire everything you’re doing. I just want to know, where did this idea come from? Where did you and Shawn birth it from? How does this align with what you first envisioned, right? And now, I’m giving you a question that you’ve probably answered before, you’ve thought about before. I’m sure, tell me if I’m wrong, but I’m sure you probably don’t mind going back and running through that story because it’s something that you’re proud of and it kind of taps into an emotional thought of it.

Brad Johnson: I mean, just sharing my thoughts because you asked the question, you just took me back to four and a half-ish years ago, a road trip with a lifelong buddy that I met in college that we were both in a season of, we just left the business that we grew up in and we were road tripping to Colorado, to Denver for a guy’s weekend to celebrate a hell of a run in a Tesla, by the way, which takes extra-long time because you’re stopping every three hours or so. And it was quite a car ride car. It was kind of reminiscing, but also, thinking about what’s next and what really lit us up. And the cool thing about a long road trip is you’ve got plenty of hours to talk through that, so yeah. And what’s wild is we didn’t talk about this before, but you just took me back to that part and back to getting out of your head and into your heart. That’s definitely a moment in my life that’s special to me, for sure, and impacted my future.

Brendan Frazier: And in that answer that you just gave, that short snippet of the story you just told, there were like three different follow-up questions that I would want to ask that I know would continue to get you going down this path of reliving it. And then as we’re doing that, if we had three hours, if we had a Joe Rogan show, we would keep going. But as you’re doing that, you’re talking about yourself. It’s lining up the reward center of the brain. You’re thinking, maybe you’re not, maybe you don’t like me at this point. The odds are…

Brad Johnson: So, let’s just pretend real quick in our time we have left here that this is like a first appointment with the business owner. What would be some follow-up questions that you would be thinking about based on what I just shared with you?

Brendan Frazier: Well, one of the– so this is where you also get into having a calibrated curiosity. My curiosity on one hand wants to ask things that I know probably aren’t relevant in driving towards where we need to go, especially if we’ve only got 30 minutes, 60 minutes, you’ve got to be really intentional about the follow-up questions that you ask. But one of the things that came to mind was like, why the Tesla? Like, how did that come about? And the other question I was going to ask was, how did you guys celebrate, right? You were celebrating this, you got to this point in your life. And then I would also– the thing I wasn’t clear about, was it Shawn that was with you?

Brad Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, just the two of us. Just a guy’s trip, yep.

Brendan Frazier: And then I would say, all right, so at the end of the trip, was the Triad vision born at that point?

Brad Johnson: Pieces of it. I think we actually came up with the name Triad Partners on that trip to and from Denver.

Brendan Frazier: I’m guessing there’s significance with the name Triad, right? So, there’s another one.

Brad Johnson: There is, yeah. And yeah, I don’t want to take us too far off track, but I think what’s kind of fun is…

Brendan Frazier: I’ll just give you an example, right?

Brad Johnson: For those listening in and watching, I think what’s interesting is it started with a well-thought-out question, which, if you’re an advisor on here, you’re definitely meeting with a lot of business owners. Most are, I should say. That’s a really simple question for a business owner. Hey, how’d this idea come to be? What was the genesis of your business? That’s like the business version of tell me about your child, right?

Brendan Frazier: Yeah, it’s exactly right. Yeah, it’s exactly right.

Brad Johnson: It’s super deep. And then there’s going to be little threads to reference what we said earlier that, oh, okay, don’t want to pull on that one. Pull on that one. The one thing I want to share that’s just like going back to not turning every appointment into a four-hour marathon, one of the best sales processes I’ve ever heard, it was actually the guy that the movie The Wolf of Wall Street was based on, Jordan, what’s his last name?

Brendan Frazier: Belfort.

Brad Johnson: Belfort. Now, he used it for bad purposes. So, disclaimer, he was not ethical with his approach, but he called it straight-line sales. And when you start to go off track, if 1 is I just met this person and 10 is I want to set a second appointment with them, if it makes sense, to your point is you’ve got to ask those questions, but you’ve got to make sure they’re going back and staying on the line that you’re trying to go to versus just veering off into some random conversation that lasts three hours, but actually doesn’t take you to the end line. And that’s one of the best ways I’ve seen of just framing an appointment to make sure you’re curious, but yet, you’re staying on track and getting to the end goal. Do you have other ways of framing it? You mentioned, what’d you call it? You said…

Brendan Frazier: Calibrated curiosity.

Brad Johnson: Calibrated curiosity, I like that.

Brendan Frazier: But I like the visual though, having a line, and it’s like, you have this thread you could pull on, or I also like the terminology. I could double click on what they just said, or I pull this thread. And then you have to get really good at knowing, hey, what’s the purpose of this meeting? What is it that I want them to accomplish and want them to walk out and say, and then you start filtering these questions through, does asking this question get me to that I go, or is it going to take us on too far of a tangent?

So, if I’ve got a 30-minute first meeting with somebody, it’s like, hey, I probably can’t pull on too many threads. I want to get them going. I want them to feel– I want the conversational flow to start and jumpstart. But I always joke and say, “You know you’re doing it right when your problem isn’t how do I get them to open up? Your problem becomes, it shifts to, how do I get them to stop talking?” Because otherwise, we’re going to have that marathon meeting. But you want to get to that point where it feels that way, and then you’ve got to transition into, like, what they’re there for.

And so, I’ll mention this real quick because you’re asking about questions for this conversation. And I can make this part quick, but I would say, there are two questions I’ve– there’s probably more, but there’s two that always come to mind that should be almost inevitable. I’m going to ask, this every time, the first time I’m talking with somebody, questions, and the first one’s not– you’ve heard this before. It’s not new, it’s not shocking, but it’s some version of what prompted this, right? Or like, what brought you in? What led you to this? I was like, I enjoy joking with people and being like– I mean, I’m okay with the fact that you probably didn’t wake up and think, I have a blank slate. The very number one thing I want to do today is talk to a financial advisor. I know it doesn’t work that way. I’m okay with it. So, I’m just curious, like, what prompted you to reach out? What led you to do that? That’s always number one. It’ll give you a good answer, but it’s always like a surface-level answer.

The second question that you follow up with is where you really dive deeper, make a connection, and get important insights that you want to know, and that’s asking some version of why now. So, I would always say, I would always frame it as, okay, good to know. This could have been two months ago, right? Or you could have reached out two years from now. I’m just curious, why now? And so, real example, I had a guy call, I said, what prompted? I mean, I went through my whole thing, the what prompted question. And he was like, “Well, I need to figure out my getting me set up to be able to retire.” Okay, good. That’s helpful. That’s insightful. I would normally just stop there. Decided to take it a level deeper and said, “Okay, well, why now?” And he was like, “Well, to be honest, I was out.”

I mean, he’s in concert management, he’s like, we are out on a tour. And there’s a guy that I work with, a coworker who’s 73 years old, and I saw him lugging this equipment up the stairs to put it on the stage. He stopped and bent over, put his hand on his back, like he was miserable. And I walked up, I said, “Hey, are you okay?” And he is like, “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” He was like, “Whatever you do, don’t be me.” And so, I said, “What do you mean?” He goes, “Make sure you start saving now. I would do anything to retire if I could, but I waited too long.”

And so, this guy that I was talking to goes, “So why now?” Because I don’t want to be the 73-year-old who hates his life. And so, in that moment, it’s like, oh, this wasn’t just about retirement, right? This was about a story that you experienced and you’re trying to avoid becoming the 73-year-old that hates his life. And so, then it’s like, okay, well, tell me what have you looked at? What have you done up to this point to avoid being that person? Well, I’ve done a little bit of research, but I can’t figure out what accounts that I need to use. There’s so many options and honestly, I don’t know if I’m putting in enough at this point. right?

And so, there was no selling, there was no persuading going on. It’s this guy saying, hey, here’s my problem at an emotional level, and by the way, here’s where I need help. So, then at that point, we do what you did, which is repeat back what you heard, right? So, you kind of repeat back and go, okay, so it sounds like you want to make sure that you’re not 73, hating your life. And it would be helpful if you figured out what accounts that you could invest, what accounts you could put your money into the best ones. And then you want to make sure you’ve got the right amount going in so you don’t get to that point and not have enough. And he’s like, “Yeah, that’s exactly right.” And I’m fast forwarding through a lot of it, right, but just trying to tie this…

Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, I mean, the cool thing is it’s really hard to plan for a destination you don’t know where it is. And in that story, the destination you know he doesn’t want to go is be a 73-year-old still working. So, now, it’s like, well, what age would you like to retire at? We want to make sure I’m set by 60, 65. Cool. Now, I’ve got an in-destination. Now I can back into the math. And that’s where you’re kind of bridging the human side with the technical side of financial advising, which is just, it’s a beautiful thing once you get there. But now, back to what makes humans make decisions, I can tell you, rarely have I ever seen a spreadsheet compel a human to be like, oh, let’s go. But what will compel them is I don’t want to be the 73-year-old. And this is the spreadsheet of how I get there, right?

Brendan Frazier: Yeah. Regret is one of the most powerful motivators that there is, right? I mean, we all want to help people paint this vision of hope and who they want to become. We go, okay, tell me about your goals and where you want to go, what you want to do. And that’s a whole ‘nother conversation around. People don’t actually really even know what their goals are, right? So, you’re like, “Hey, what are your goals?” They’re like, “I don’t know. I’m with a financial advisor.” I guess you’re retired at 65, you’re like, “Well, why 65?” “I don’t know. That’s what everybody else does.”

Brad Johnson: When I was supposed to, right?

Brendan Frazier: Yeah, right. We won’t go there now, but I would also frame that as like, that’s an opportunity, right? It’s an opportunity to dive deeper, to say, well, why 65? Tell me where that came from.

Brad Johnson: One of my favorite things that I’ve seen really good advisors do, they say, “Hey, I think I want to retire at 65.” Well, would you be open to, exploring what’s possible if we could do it before? Who’s going to say no to that one, right?

Brendan Frazier: Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. That’s exactly right. Imagine somebody being like, you know what?

Brad Johnson: No, I’m good.

Brendan Frazier: I’m good. Actually, can we explore what it would look like to go longer? Like, that’s file under things nobody’s ever said.

Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, my man, we’re over an hour here. I know you’ve got– it is Friday and I’m sure you’ve got a family to go hang out with. So, on that note, this is the Do Business, Do Life podcast, different from the one that you started listening to back in the day. But one of the things at Triad that we’re committed to in the mission we’re on is helping financial advisors and our members out there build a business that really blesses their life, doesn’t become their life, and it’s kind of that integration of business and life. So, I would love to hear what Brendan’s definition of DBDL or Do Business, Do Life is for you.

Brendan Frazier: I struggled a little bit on this because, back to the curse of knowledge, I think like having read the advisor transformation and been exposed to DBDL through that, having listened to the show and just following you guys and what you’re doing, I feel like I’ve already been, my mind’s already been infiltrated a little bit around what, so I tried to go back and think through it from, like, okay, imagine you don’t know anything, what does Do Business, Do Life mean? And so, I think for me, what it came down to was intention and being really clear and intentional on what it looks like to live a great life, to like family-wise, friendship-wise, health-wise, socially– I guess that’s friendship, right? And not just saying those are important, but being intentional about spending my resources in that way – time, effort, energy, money, right?

But then, at the same time, doing that from a business perspective because I kind of subscribe to the theory that creating work-life balance is, it’s kind of an exercise in futility. I think if you try to aim for that, you’re just going to end up frustrated more often than not. And so, just being intentional and saying, “Hey, what does it look like? What does my ideal business life look like? What does my ideal life look like?” And then building it out intentionally that way. And the example that I always come back to that I’ll post about every now and then whenever it comes up is, every now and then, like on a Friday, I’ll be sitting here. Whenever we get done, I’ll pull up my computer, I’ll have several unread emails. I’ll have emails that are flagged that I need to respond to that have action items associated with them.

Now, assuming that they’re not urgent, right, or need to be done like today, it’s really easy for me to sit here and feel productive and go, all right, I’m working hard. I’m providing for my family. I’m going to respond to all these emails, do this great work. But guess what? When I’m 85 years old, guess what I’m never going to say? I’m never going to say, you know what? I wish that I would’ve spent more time replying to emails when my kids were six, four, and a newborn. I’m going to say, I wish that I would’ve spent more time enjoying those years while they were here.

And so, I kind of let that guide my intentions, right? It’s like, what would the 85-year-old Brendan, Alex Hormozi calls it The Frame of the Veteran. What would the 85-year-old Brendan’s perspective be on this situation? I’m being intentional in a situation like this. Now, I’m not saying you have permission not to reply to emails or not do your work, like get it done, right? But if it’s just like– but why are you doing it? Or is that how you want to be spending your time? So, instead of just letting the decisions be made for you subconsciously, intentionally, live your life by design the way you want to live it.

Brad Johnson: I think that’s a great way to wrap. I had a friend say one time, kids were sent to us to teach us lessons as adults. And I have found that the older I get to be true, because if you will let them, they will teach you lessons where they run in your office, “Hey dad, can we play?” And then when you look at it through that lens, you can’t ever buy that time back. You can always answer that email later on, right? And so, I just love the intention behind that answer, Brendan. So, well, my man, I was looking forward to this one. It did not disappoint. So, so glad you did that Twitter post back in the day that got us connected. And in the future, look forward to when we get to actually hang out in person. So, until that day happens, this was a fun one.

Brendan Frazier: Well, I hear that Triad puts on some great events, so maybe we’ll meet. Well, either there or somewhere else, but I’m looking forward to it. And yeah, thanks for having me. This has been something that I’ve been looking forward to for a while. I love the work that you do and just happy to support it.

Brad Johnson: Well, thank you. Till next time. We’ll see ya.