[INTRODUCTION]
Brad Johnson: If you had to start your practice completely from scratch, no clients, no team, just you and $100,000, do you know what you’d do with it? This week, we’re breaking down exactly how I would spend my first $100,000 as a financial advisor. I’ve spent years coaching advisors, some just getting started, some managing hundreds and hundreds of millions. And one of the most common things I see is advisors who built their businesses on momentum instead of intention. They figured it out as they went, kind of duct taped it together over time, and now they’re grinding harder than they should, and they’re wondering why it feels so tough. And a lot of times it just goes back to the foundation, the early decisions, the stuff that if you’d just done it on purpose from day one, it would have changed everything.
So, today, I’m giving you my answer, three investments in order that I’d make if I was handing $100,000 to a brand new advisor and saying, “Go build something that matters.” They aren’t complicated, they aren’t industry secrets, but the advisors I’ve seen grow the fastest they did all three on purpose and early. Alright, let’s dive in.
[EPISODE]
Brad Johnson: Number one, I would protect my time. The first thing I’d spend money on: an executive assistant whose job is to own everything that isn’t client-facing. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Brad, but I’m just getting started. I can’t afford to hire someone,” and I want to flip that completely. You can’t afford not to. Let me explain. The advisor in charge trap. Most advisors I see when they come to us are what I call the advisor in charge, which really just means they’re in charge of everything. They’re the rainmaker, the financial advisor, the scheduler, the paper pusher, the money mover, on and on. They’re doing it all. And here’s the cost of that. Every hour you spend scheduling your own meetings, chasing paperwork, handling admin, that’s an hour you’re not sitting across from a client or prospect.
And for most advisors, that is the only thing that actually grows your revenue. Everything else is overhead in disguise. Think about your own week. How many hours did you spend last week on stuff that, if you’re honest, could have been handled by a well-trained assistant? If the answer is more than zero, you’ve just identified a growth constraint because your time is worth more than you think, and until you protect it, you’ll stay stuck at your current ceiling. The right EA doesn’t just take things off your plate. They create leverage. They make you more productive, more present with your clients, and honestly, more sane. Who doesn’t want that?
So, if you are booking your own appointments or scheduling your flights and hotels, managing your own inbox, doing your own bookkeeping and expense reports, this means you’ve identified the opportunity for an assistant. If you want to dig deeper here, check out Episode 66. I did it with my own executive assistant, Brooke, to get more details on how this role works in real life. And lastly, I heard it said once, if you can write a check and never do something you hate and most likely aren’t that good at anyway, that is the beauty of being an entrepreneur. So, that’s my challenge to you.
Okay. Let’s get to point number two. I would fire up my first one-to-many marketing event. You can’t advise people who don’t know you exist. Obvious, right? Well, investment number two is marketing. And I want to be specific here because I’m not talking about paying for leads and calling it a day. I mean an actual system for getting in front of the right people that you have full control over and own the outcome. Here’s the thing. You can be the best financial advisor on the planet, but if nobody knows you exist, it doesn’t matter. You need a pipeline. Prospects have to come from somewhere, and hoping and waiting is not a strategy.
Here’s what this looks like. For advisors building from scratch, this probably means exploring something like some version of a live event or dinner seminar to get in front of pre-retirees, as this is one of the most proven and consistent ways to maximize your time in a one-to-many format that exponentially increases your results. Now, I’ve done a whole episode, Episode 131, with Triad’s Nick Whitaker that specifically focuses on seminars, how to run them, how to fill the room, how to walk out with appointments, and if seminars are part of your model, go listen to that one. But whatever your marketing channel is, the point is the same. You need consistent, intentional spend to create consistent, intentional growth.
Okay. Let’s talk about the ROI mindset. This is where you shift your mindset from marketing is an expense to marketing is an investment. I dive deep on this in Episode 155, the first marketing I do as a financial advisor. And if I was to spend $10,000 on a well-run seminar series and pick up $50,000 of revenue from appointments that convert, that is the equivalent of sitting down at a slot machine that pays 5X every time I pull the handle. Who wouldn’t want that? The math is obvious, but most advisors aren’t thinking about it that way. They’re just scared to spend the money. The advisors I’ve seen build the fastest are the ones who have committed early to figuring out their marketing model and actually funding it consistently. Math over emotions. Never forget that.
Okay. Number three, where the meeting happens matters. I would lease an A-class office. That’s the third investment, your environment, specifically an office that matches the caliber of client you’re trying to serve. I’ll just say it plainly. If you want to work with people who have seven figures or more of investible assets, you cannot be meeting them at a folding table in your basement or pulling up in your car and doing an appointment at their house. The mindset of you get what you pay for still applies to help people select financial advisors as well, and the environment you create is a direct signal about the experience they can expect from you.
Okay. So, here’s what grade A actually means. Wherever you meet your clients, it needs to feel intentional, professional, and premium. It could be, for example, a leased office in a nice professional building. It has to be beautifully designed, ideally a great conference room, but whatever the option is, it has to be the kind of place that a prospective client walks in and immediately thinks, okay, this is the right spot for me, and here’s something nobody talks about. The right environment doesn’t just affect your clients. It affects you. When you walk into a space that looks and feels like you’re running a real business, you show up differently. You’re more confident, you’re more credible, and that energy comes across in the room. The environment tells a story. Make sure yours is the right one. And if you want to go deeper on this topic specifically, check out Episode 143: Your Office Space Might Be Costing You Million-Dollar Clients.
So, there it is, the first three places I’d invest $100,000 if I was starting out as a financial advisor. In fact, even if I had hundreds and hundreds of millions under management, I’d do the same. So, number one, hire an EA or assistant to protect your time and create leverage. Number two, invest in marketing, a real system that consistently puts you in front of the right prospects, and most importantly that you control and not some paid lead company. And number three, lease an A-class office space that signals to high-net-worth clients that they’re in the right place. And here’s the honest truth. Most advisors are underinvesting in all three of these, even top-performing firms. And then they wonder why growth has stalled. These aren’t secrets but doing them on purpose with intention and real dollars behind them, that’s what separates the advisors who build a business bigger than themselves from the ones who stay stuck.
So, if you want to go deeper on any of these, we’ve got full episodes on all three topics we covered today. I’ll link them below in the description, so make sure to check them out. And by the way, leave a comment. Which of those three would you actually spend on first? I’m curious to see what you all think. So, with that, thanks for checking out today’s episode. Be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend who you think this could help. I’ll catch you on the next one.
[END]
