Brad Johnson: Welcome back to another episode of Do Business. Do Life. This one is a special one. We have Triad team member Nick Whitaker here with us today. Welcome to the show, Nick.
Nick Whitaker: Hey, Brad.
Brad Johnson: Well, man, we were talking kind of game planning internally, and I know you’ve been super instrumental in helping a number of our members level up their presentation skills, and I mean to the level like student geeking out on all of the different concepts, and there’s plenty of speaker trainers out there. And what I love is you’ve taken really the best of, and you’ve kind of packaged it together based on your experience as an advisor. So, today we’re just going to dive in super deep. It’s only one-sixth of the equation because we don’t have hours and hours and hours. But we’re going to drill down into the actual art of the presentation. And not only that, but a presentation that inspires, but also converts to appointments.
So, with that, maybe it could be helpful because you haven’t always been an advisor coach. At one point, you were an advisor out in the trenches, just like many of our viewers and listeners. So, tell us how this whole story all started, and then we’ll dive into where it’s taken you on the presentation side.
Nick Whitaker: Yeah. So, it’s been fun for me over the past four and a half years to take some of the things that I’ve learned and be able to help other firms. And I would say that, number one, I’m like just always been a student of this in particular. And even today, I find myself when I have free time just kind of trying to consume content around speaking, or it’s like one of those things that when you really begin to know it, you pay attention in a different way. You talk to people that played football, and they watch a football game differently than the average person would. It’s a blessing and a curse because anytime that I see somebody speak, whether it’s an award ceremony or a stand-up comedian, or you go to church on Sunday, a lot of times I’m paying attention to the cues and the speaking.
That came from me, younger in life. I was really afraid of speaking to the point that I avoided it at all costs. And when I got into the industry, I was in a family business, and this was a necessary part of the business. When we got into seminars, one of the very first things that I did was introduce the speaker, who was my dad. And he handed me a sheet of paper, Brad, and he said, “Just take the sheet of paper up there and read it.” And I had a microphone with me. About halfway through the introduction, I had to put the sheet down because it was shaking so bad that it was making noise into the microphone. And somehow I went from that deathly afraid to it becoming my favorite thing–all things live events being my favorite thing that I did in the advisory business.
So, it’s been a cool journey. I’ve seen a little of everything. I mean, people talk about projectors going out in the middle, people shutting off the lights in the room, unknowingly, the chef’s kitchen going down at a dinner seminar, and you don’t have food. All of the things that you hear from advisors like I had a chance to deal with and, man, it is challenging, but it’s also like a huge rush for me.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. It’s almost you made the analogy to sports and how you watch the game differently when you’ve played it, and you’ve played the sport of public seminars, I think. When you were an advisor, what’d you do? A hundred-plus seminars in your career?
Nick Whitaker: Well, in different ways, I was involved in probably 250 different ones. And these would be anything from educational workshops, at libraries, community centers, college campuses, to dinner seminars at the local steakhouse. So, I got to see a little bit of all the environments, got to play different parts all along the way, but really just found a passion for all of them.
Brad Johnson: Well, what’s cool is I’ve seen the massive impact you’ve had on a number of Triad members, and I know most of your coaching happens behind closed doors on private coaching sessions, but I said, “You know, I would love to just share this gift that you have with the world.” And I also know from past podcasts I’ve done with speaking coaches, a lot of our members, and probably a lot of advisors out there, they kind of will take an episode like this that we’re about ready to dive into. And this is almost like pre-game before they go present, just so they’re kind of refreshing the key points they need to hit kind of the frameworks in their head before they actually go on stage.
So, that’s the goal of this conversation. It’s going to be super rapid fire. So, if you’re listening in or watching in, I’m going to have Nick deconstruct the model and also know this is just really the tip of the iceberg, but we hope this serves you all. So, Nick, if you were to say, “Here’s the first thing I think about when coaching an advisor that’s going into a presentation,” how would you start to break that down?
Nick Whitaker: Yeah, it’s really three parts, Brad. It’s about creating connection in the beginning, delivering content that creates micro commitments and a conversion that helps people say, “Well, why wouldn’t I do that?” And I think one of the biggest things here is that when you have a clear framework in your mind, you’re able to stick to that framework that you know converts. Many times, what advisors do is they come out and they go, “I think I’m going to try something totally different tonight.” And it’s because they get bored, and that’s human nature. That is the type of person that gives a presentation. But when you have the framework, you can operate within the framework and be able to tweak things in a small way to get the results you desire.
Brad Johnson: I almost think about structure. The structure creates the ability to have a little bit of micro flexibility and creativity within the structure. But it’s not like you’re rewriting a different book every time you go up, right? These are kind of the main chapters you need to hit.
Nick Whitaker: Yeah. Exactly, right.
Brad Johnson: So, let’s kind of break it down. So, okay, here’s Brad, never done a seminar before, or maybe I’ve done a few, and the results have kind of been iffy. Where would we dive in?
Nick Whitaker: There’s two different types of live events that people do. One, if they’re trying to bring new prospects through the door. One is dinner seminars, and dinner seminars is still a big part of what we see many advisors do. I actually went to ChatGPT, everybody’s favorite resource today, and I said, “How do most advisors get new clients?” And the funny thing was that this is number one the thing that came up. So, whether ChatGPT is right or not, I think it’s interesting that there’s a lot of data out there that says those things still work. Second is educational workshops, and educational workshops can come through a nonprofit organization. It can come through your organization. Some firms set up their own nonprofit organization, and those are a lot of times at libraries, community centers, college campuses, and things like that.
As you kick off your presentation, here’s the biggest thing. You have to match the expectation of the audience. And what we found is that the expectation of the audience is different at a dinner seminar than it is at an educational workshop. So, when you go to a dinner seminar, Brad, you probably have gotten a mailer before for someone’s dinner seminar. When you’ve gotten that mailer, what is most of the time there a picture of on the front?
Brad Johnson: The food.
Nick Whitaker: The food, the steak.
Brad Johnson: Normally a steak, right.
Nick Whitaker: It’s almost always a nice juicy filet. And I will tell you that that’s not a good or a bad thing. It gets people there, and sometimes people will have great intentions. Sometimes people are really excited to have that free steak. So, the one thing that we know about that type of event is people are expecting a little bit of a performance. And honestly, as law of reciprocity, because you gave them a steak, they’re expecting you to ask them to come into the office or take the next step or whatever that looks like. So, as a result, the introduction here is a lot different than a library or a college campus to where they’re coming with the premise of education first.
So, when you open up in these two places, the way that I would describe this, Brad, is if we start with the educational side, imagine you’re going to a really great college. Let’s imagine you’re walking into Yale, Harvard, whatever that is, and you think about walking in and hearing from the professor. There’s instant credibility that’s associated with that establishment, right? Well, many times, for the individual that’s speaking, they don’t have that same level of credibility. So, one of the things that you have to do there is open to prove that you are a worthy instructor and educator for the evening that you’ve helped instruct, educate, and lead a lot of people. And that a lot of times, you have alignment with the organization that you’re representing because you’re on the same mission as they are.
Now, this is much different than a dinner seminar, and many times what you find with a dinner seminar is you create. Remember, that first step is creating connection. We’re creating connection through instructor on this site. Over here, we’re creating a little bit more of a connection as a human being. And this comes through the best way of telling it is as a storyteller. And the way that I would think about this is that your story needs to tell something about you, and some of the best things that it can tell is to relate to the people in the room. So, this could be an example of how you grew up or whatever that looks like. Also, it should reinforce that you’ve figured out something they haven’t.
One of my favorite marketing books is by Seth Godin. He calls it the Purple Cow. He says he went on a vacation. He saw a cow in Scotland. His whole family’s like, “Oh, my gosh, there’s a cow.” They drive another mile, there are more cows, and then they’re driving for another hour. Then all of a sudden, they don’t even see the cows. And a lot of times, what dinner seminars become is just like the cows. And what he says is a purple cow is remarkable. And so, at the beginning of the dinner seminar, one of the things that we want to create is connection, but we also want to create something that is remarkable that draws them to us.
Now, we’ve helped a lot of people on this end, Brad, develop stories. A great firm down in North Carolina, he went through this speaker, went through something pretty crazy to where he had a life journey. And he developed this story. We helped him develop this amazing story that, in the first five minutes, everybody in the audience, every single night, gives him a round of applause because of what he accomplished in his life. And it’s like, “Do you think those people are plugged into him?” They’re emotionally connected to that speaker, and as they go in to educate and inform, they go, “Oh. I want to hear. This is the type of person for me.”
Brad Johnson: Okay. So, it sounds like kind of a fork in the road. We’ve got dinner seminars, we’ve got educational events, both public one-to-many sort of setups. Obviously, different expectations, to your point. If we focus more on the dinner side, because I’d say those are probably, maybe as we go through, you can say kind of what’s the same, what’s different because I know kind of the framework’s probably not too different.
Nick Whitaker: Not too different from here.
Brad Johnson: So, you have that connection.
Nick Whitaker: Yeah.
Brad Johnson: Now, it’s the old Steve Jobs rules of three. I think sometimes, historically, I’ve seen the advisor with the slide deck, the PowerPoint slide deck that started as maybe 20, and they’re like, “Oh, let’s throw a couple more in.” And it’s like this, it’s like a hoarder’s version of a PowerPoint slide where they’ve just gathered stuff over the last 10 years, and it’s like 120 deep, and half of it doesn’t even make sense. So, I know you’ve probably seen some of those. So, as we start to get into the body of the structure, the content that’s sharing, what are some good rules of thumb so it’s not the slide deck from hell that never ends?
Nick Whitaker: I want to give you a couple of things because that is what most people do, Brad, is they jump straight to that, and they wonder why the presenter is always the person that they go, “Can I see you when I come into the office?” And yet there’s this team of advisors, and if you don’t address this on the front end, you’re going to get that every single day. The second thing is that if you don’t give people the agenda for what’s going to happen, some people might tune out at the wrong time. So, two things that come after you connect in the story. Number one is to reinforce your purpose and your team.
And if you do not let people know the purpose of why you’re here and why you do what you do, and the team that you’ve built to be able to deliver on that, you’ll always be faced with a challenge of your audience viewing you the same as every other financial advisor and that you, the speaker, are the only person that can deliver for them. So, establishing this right out of the gates is really important. The second part is you have to give people the agenda. You have to give people almost like chapters in a book. They need to know how many chapters they are and they need to know how far along the presentation is. So, Brad, I grew up in a small town, Illinois, and I went to this Baptist church. We had this pastor, Dr. Bob. And every single week he had an acronym.
And I tell you what, as a young kid, it drove me insane because he’d be like one week, he’d be like, “Heal, help those in need.” And so, it was a small church, Brad. They didn’t have three, four services. If Dr. Bob wanted to go for 30 minutes, he’d go for 30 minutes, but if Dr. Bob wanted to go for two hours, he would go for two hours. And so, some weeks you’d be like, “Oh my gosh, we’re on A. We only got two letters left, and we’re only 15, 20 minutes in. Yes, it’s going to be a short service today.” Some weeks, you’d kind of go like, “I need to settle in.” Right? Many presenters, when they get to their seminar, they do not let people know how much they’re going to cover, how long to pay attention, what they should be looking for.
And if you don’t set up the chapters in the book, what you will see many times is you get 30, 40 minutes through your presentation and, Brad, people start standing up, people start going to the bathroom, people start to get antsy. And so, setting the agenda before you get into the content is one of those things that if you’re listening right now and you’re not doing this and you’re going to a seminar, like drop that in. “Hey, we’re going to cover three things here tonight. Here’s what we’re hoping to accomplish by the end of the evening.”
Brad Johnson: What are your thoughts? I love that. And back to the point you just made on team, I think what we see a lot at Triad and we see a lot of great founders that also are typically the lead advisor, and we’re on a mission to help them build a business bigger than them. And I think a lot of advisors immediately think, “Okay, I need more advisors to sell, more sales advisors, more cash registers to set up, so more people can see us.” But they don’t ever apply that to the marketing side, the seminar side. The truth is, to your point, we’ve seen a lot of firms where the guys running the appointments are not even at the seminar.
And in fact, we’ve seen people that don’t even run appointments run the seminar. Obviously, there’s licensing and all of that stuff that has to be covered, but those two, they do not have to be connected. And I love that you made the point on the team of you can literally have the best speakers manufacture appointments for the best advisors, and they might not be the same group of people. So, do you want to hit on that? Is there anything else, just like advisor kind of misconceptions that might from the seminar to the appointment and team?
Nick Whitaker: This, a lot of times, is a limiting belief of that advisor, that founder, and what you find is that you can unlock all kinds of potential. We have founders that have first replaced them out of the prospecting and sales process appointments, and they only did seminars. Then, a little bit down the road, we helped them hire, attract, and find the right seminar speaker. They were able to work themselves out of that. Everybody talks about being a “CEO” in their business today, but a lot of times they’re the chief marketing officer, or a lot of times they are the rainmaker. And if you truly want to get to that, what you have to have is a strategy to do this yourself, reinforce the team first, and then strategically replace yourself along the way.
And the cool thing is that there are a lot of great advisors out there. There are fantastic advisors. They don’t have the same passion as me. Their favorite thing was not going to the seminar at night. Their favorite thing was sitting face-to-face with people. And the good news is when you build the business the right way, a lot of times what you find is you may still want to sit down with the right people, but you can find ways to replace yourself in giving those seminars that create the leads and the growth for the company, the jet fuel for the company.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. And hence, having a trainable, repeatable framework and process for the actual seminar presentation, right? So, let’s go to that. So, we’re getting, I think, now into the body of the content.
Nick Whitaker: Yeah, that’s exactly right.
Brad Johnson: Let’s unpack that.
Nick Whitaker: So, the content here, once again, we got to have chapters in the book, and there’s a reason we have to have chapters in the book because we have to let people know where we’re at in the book, but also we have to be able to organize our content, a three-part structure. So, when you get into a piece of content, let’s imagine that we’re going to talk about taxes, income, investments, whatever those things are, right? Maybe estate planning is one of those blocks, but we get into taxes. You have to set up this in such a way that your audience can easily digest it. And so, no matter where you are in your presentation, if you’re going into a new topic, Brad, there are going to be people that if you just start educating and peppering them with information, sometimes they’ll say, “Brad, this is exactly why I came.”
But more times than not, there are people that go, “I’m not even sure if I need this. That’s not why I came here. I’m not sure that I even need to pay attention to this portion.” So, what the audience is asking themselves is, “Why should I know this?” We have to answer for the audience before we get in and start teaching, “When it comes to taxes, this is why everybody in the room should pay attention and not miss this part.” Most presentations, Brad, as many presentations as I’ve given, I’ve reviewed a lot more than that in the past four and a half years. The number one piece of feedback I give in this situation is you lost your audience in that tax section before you even got going, so creating a hook at the beginning.
Brad Johnson: I love that. On that, Nick, because you’ve actually watched videos, and I know sometimes you actually have, I know there’s pointing the video at the presenter. There’s also the pointing the video at the audience and watching the audience’s reaction. What would be some tips if I’m an advisor that’s speaking that I lost the audience? Like, what are some red flags the audience has lost?
Nick Whitaker: Well, I don’t know that you’ll get direct audience participation that you’re going to lose it because this is at the beginning of that content portion. But you can get cues if they are paying attention. And so, a good example of this, if you got into the tax section is, “How many of you believe taxes are going up?” And then support that with information. “How many of you believe taxes are going down? How many of you won’t raise your hands no matter what I’m saying?” So, keep it light. Keep it fun, right? I hear a lot of people do that, and it engages people.
Brad Johnson: Isn’t it wild, too? Like, those listening on audio, Nick’s raising his hand as a cue, right, non-verbal. It is wild. I’ve sat through so many as well. Every time an advisor speaker raises their hand, you don’t say, “Hey, raise your hand,” the audience literally, naturally follows.
Nick Whitaker: Yes.
Brad Johnson: So, some of those, you’ve got what you say. You also have your nonverbals that are creating that connection, that interaction. Anything else in the hook, whether it’s something you say, something you do, emotion, where you’re standing, how you’re addressing the audience, that’s going to help with that connection?
Nick Whitaker: The goal is that your hook speaks to every single person in the audience. Brad, one of the things that we believe is there are essential parts of a plan for retirement, and when you get into educating this part, it should be something that is essential for every single person in the room. So, if you speak to this little thing that’s only for people that have $200,000 or $2 million, it’s like our goal is not to weed them out here. Our goal is to loop everybody in. So, it should be almost like an inclusive way of drawing people in so that the people sitting on the fence are not un-enrolling themselves as you get into teaching in this one area.
Brad Johnson: I’ve seen, and I think I got this from you, where you’re basically layering it. Whether you don’t have a financial plan, you’re approaching retirement, you just haven’t got there yet. You have a plan. It’s got some dust on it. Or literally, you’ve got a plan and you’re checking it every day because you’re a market person.
Nick Whitaker: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Brad Johnson: But basically, you’re layering it so everybody in the room is included, right? Is there a term you use for that? Or how do you think about that?
Nick Whitaker: No. I think you’re just describing the range. And you should describe the range a bunch of times. One of the most important times that you’re going to describe the range is when you get to the end, because there will be people at the end that they may think that they already have a financial plan. So, whether you’ve done no research on this before, you have what you think is the beginning of a plan, or you feel like this is rock solid, this content here, you’re going to be able to take some information from this and strengthen the plan that you already have.
Brad Johnson: Okay. So, we don’t have time, obviously, to hit three big pieces of content.
Nick Whitaker: Yeah. So, if we just go section by section, it does not matter what you talk about, Brad. What you have to have is a three-part framework. The first part is people have to answer for themselves, “Why should I pay attention? Why should I know this?” The second part is, “What should I know about this?” And so, “What should I know about this?” is it’s actually you delivering the content and the information. And the way that you want to break this down is a way that most people digest this. One, the first part is through a philosophy or a framework that is high enough level that people understand. A lot of times, people just pop up charts and graphs and things like that. And what we see, the people that are most effective here, they typically go to the whiteboard.
And when they talk about their philosophy, they have framework, and they have story around it. This is a high enough level that whether it is the husband that is the engineer or the wife that’s the engineer, or the person that works the 9-to-5 blue-collar job and says, “I just need help with this.” That philosophy and framework can be helpful for either one. So, once you have the philosophy and framework, the second part is you support that with an example. And so, this is where case studies and validation of that come up. And so, if you have this one-two combo every single time, something, your philosophy and your stories, that separates you from everybody else, that also is like very valuable in terms of content. And then it’s supported with data and case study, that for a lot of people is they go, “Oh, I’m just like that person that he described.”
Brad Johnson: Let’s go back to psychology here a bit. You mentioned whiteboard or flip chart, which kind of takes me back to being a student where you’re sitting there in class, you’re sitting down, and the teacher’s up on, back in my day, way back in my day, it was the chalkboard. So, you kind of are back in that student mindset again, and I also know our industry has kind of manufactured some of these seminars like pre-can, like, “Oh, here’s the slide deck that everybody copies and swaps out the front logo for their company and the back logo for the directions to their office.” What’s the difference from just a straight-up sheer psychology, which then goes into conversion between that where you’re kind of organically creating the content, versus flipping through a deck? What are your thoughts there?
Nick Whitaker: Well, I think the quote is when you draw, you draw people in, and one of the things that we talk about here is dramatic demonstration. So, it’s almost like you’re pulling back the curtain or you’re revealing the story as you tell it. And so, people are a lot more captive than, as opposed to if you put a slide up. And even if the slide builds like the numbers slide in or something like that, what we see is like a total different level of engagement. It’s almost like people’s brains are wired differently that when you are telling that story and working through on the whiteboard, they hang on to that a lot more. In fact, Brad, we just had somebody in to our home office here, and I did a big whiteboard for them yesterday. It was about an hour and a half long, and it was very in-depth.
They came back and we asked them what their biggest takeaways were yesterday. And, Brad, they kept going like this. And if you can’t see, they were drawing a triangle in the air. And I could have talked about the details of all of this without it. I could have put it up on a slide. They would not have drawn the triangle. So, you have to give people the things and the way that they describe it. By the way, the mark, if you know your philosophy and framework is working, is when they come in and they say to you, Brad, “That triangle thing you did at the workshop, that’s what brought us in.” And so, what we find is a lot of the speakers that we work with, that is their gauge, and they’re seeing a lot more people come in saying, “That thing that you drew,” that was the thing.
In fact, a lot of times they bring in their papers. They show their notes. And this is another thing, Brad. Are their notes the slides and the information? No. Like, 99% of the time, it’s the drawing that the speaker did. So, this is a good gauge to see if people are paying attention and if they’re seeing this as the most valuable thing in your presentation.
Brad Johnson: The other thing you just spurred as I was thinking, I’m just picturing I’ve seen you coach to this. I’ve also seen a lot of our members actually do it live, and we just had a scale summit where Dana presented his, and it was a packed room. It was really cool to see that. And he gave you a lot of credit and it was really fun. But basically, as I think about, as you’re engaging an audience, you’re sitting there drawing, and then you’ve got an audience that can, “Oh, hey. Yeah.” And you can take questions. You can almost like co-create it together when you’re drawing, “Oh yeah, that’s a good point. Let me add that up here,” versus a slide. It’s static. I mean, it’s like, “Well, yeah, we can talk about it, but we’re flipping to the next one.” So, I think there’s that really cool interactive feature when you’re drawing that’s awesome too.
Nick Whitaker: Yeah. That’s where you want to speak. If you can develop frameworks that people speak into, our friend Michael Hyatt says, “People own what they help create.” And I think that’s a really big thing because if you notice, for those of you that speak, who is setting appointments? A lot of the time, it is the people that are interacting in your audience, they feel like they’re a part of it.
Brad Johnson: Okay. So, let’s go back to kind of, we’re at the body of the content here.
Nick Whitaker: Yeah. So, let’s go back to this, Brad. Why should I know this? What should I know about this? Third part, cannot skip this and just pour through content. What should I do about this? That’s what the audience should be asking themselves. You get at the end of the tax section, “What should I do about this?” Brad, there’s no point in doing a seminar if your hope is that people’s behaviors stay the same. So, what we’re looking for is them to make a small commitment and taking a step towards a better retirement or a better financial plan, whatever that thing looks like. So, this really comes in three ways as you let people know what they should do about this.
Like a tax plan, how many of you see the power in having a proactive tax strategy for your retirement? And once again, I’m raising my hand, I’m nodding my head, I’m getting people say, “Yeah, that’s me. That’s me.” And that should almost be rhetorical at this point. This is where you want to engage people in what some people call a response sheet. I don’t call it a response sheet, Brad. I call it a worksheet because response sheet is internal. We don’t want people to think that we’re shooting for responses. We want people to think that they should be working along with us. So, a worksheet, this is where you want to engage that and say, “Hey, if you’re one of those people, just raise your hand saying, ‘Yeah, I need to have a proactive tax strategy. I’m looking the third box down here. Develop a proactive tax strategy.’”
So, these boxes on your worksheet, getting them to check those small boxes, there is power in psychology behind them, picking up the pen. And once again, Brad, the use of nonverbals, I am holding up my hand like I’m holding a pen in the air. If I’m the presenter, I am going to have a pen sitting on the podium or one of the front tables. Every time I ask somebody to pick up a pen, I am going to pick up the pen. I’m going to hold it in the air. I am going to wait until everyone else picks up the pen. Most people, when they get through asking for action, as they go through asking for action, their pace picks up. When you ask people for action, your pace should slow down.
And if everybody else is picking up the pen, I’ve seen some people that are really graceful with this, there’s one person at the front of the room, he raised his hand, but he didn’t pick up the pen. I just walk over with a pen and stand by him for a second and see if he picks up his pen with everybody else. The people that are very comfortable with slowing down at this point get more of the commitments along the way.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. As I listen to this, because there’s a lot of advisors out there, you and I have been doing this a while, that’s like, oh, I’m going to go sell some people tonight at the seminar, right? I’m going to close some appointments and actually, what it feels a lot more like you’re explaining is, yes, it is sales, but it’s almost like I’m walking you through an educational process, almost like tutoring them, like the teacher in the room where it’s like, hey, if you’re not sure you have a proactive tax strategy, and by the way, here was one thing we talked about tonight, this one thing is the difference between hundreds of thousands of potential dollars, either in your pocket or Uncle Sam’s pocket. Your choice. If you think you might want to, make sure you’re covered there, pick up your pen, and it’s like a tutor saying, “Hey, here, I’m working through the homework with you.” I love that you call it a worksheet. That’s awesome. So, what other thoughts do you have there?
Nick Whitaker: Yeah, and the whole psychology, Brad, is we’ve got to get these commitments because at the end, we don’t want to convince people. We want them to acknowledge that they want help in these areas. When we work on sales process training, one of the things that we talk about is people can argue with your words, but they won’t argue with their own. So, if it’s, you shared this with me, you told me by checking this box, then you’re not saying, oh, I’m going to try to convince you. You’re saying no, this is what you told me. Let me tell you the next step if you are one of these people.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. This is where you’ve identified you need help and you’re not sure. So, hey, love to dive in there. The other thing that you’re doing because I’ve seen this as well, the big close, and where people don’t get these micro-commitments, and then it’s almost like they’re like, take a deep breath and like, oh, here we go. Better dive in and see if anybody takes me up on it. And they save it till the very end and they close and then they’re like hoping the fish jump in the boat. What I hear you saying is there should be micro-commitments all the way through to where by the time you get at the end, it’s super obvious. It’s like, hey, here, here, and here, if you wrote down, you need help, we can help. Here’s the next step. So, give me the difference because I’ve seen historically, in finance, almost like these bad habits that were trained into people that you almost have to untrain.
Nick Whitaker: Well, I think a couple things, here’s what we find, Brad, there’s three types of people in your room. There are people that are desperate for help. You could say whatever you want. They’re just like, help me. I need help. It’s not very hard to get those appointments. There are people in your room that are the exact opposite of that. They go, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, bingo. I got Ruth’s Chris this week. I got Seasons 23 next week. Oh, yeah. Perry’s a week after that. They have no hope or no desire to become a client. They just want a free meal.
The interesting thing, Brad, is there is the third in the middle, and the middle is the most important part. I almost think of this as an election. You have what are called swing states, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, Florida. Some people call them the battleground states. And the reason for that is a lot of the other things are, if you just do what you do always, the election will turn out a particular way. And the success of the election all hinges on the people that are in the middle. And so, as you think about this, how do you cater to those people that are uncertain, uncertain if they should take the next step? A lot of times what people do is they almost disqualify some of the uncertain people. And I got to be honest with you, Brad, I’m not somebody myself that would step into a dinner seminar without a little trepidation of, I’m not really sure if I need your help or I need help at all. And so, I can really relate to that.
So, what you end up seeing a lot of times is because people are so strong to disqualify others, they only end up with one third of the room. And so, many times what it looks like is, Brad, the room’s evenly distributed. One third is yes, one third is no, one third is maybes. And so, as you get into your presentation, are you enrolling as many people as possible so that you get the yeses and the maybes? And if you numbers look something like this to where you look at your numbers over the last year and you’re only getting 30%, this tells you where your biggest opportunity is.
Brad Johnson: What are some of those benchmarks where you would say, hey, if you’re below this level, that might be a symptom of something’s broken in the seminar? Like, if you went kind of top to bottom once, yeah.
Nick Whitaker: Well, when you see people that are 20%, 30%, sometimes 40%, you typically find that they have left opportunity on the table. They aren’t helping those people that are uncertain. That’s number one. Number two is, Brad…
Brad Johnson: 20, 30, 40 of the families, they need set appointments, okay?
Nick Whitaker: Yeah, that’s right.
Brad Johnson: Where would you like to see that? What is like, hey, some of our members that have been students that have really implemented a ton of the stuff, where are they coming in at?
Nick Whitaker: Okay, you were talking about Dana earlier. Dana, awesome guy, awesome student. He’s done all the work. And Dana has been doing seminars for 15 years. He’s done tons of them. And he did it a different way to where it was almost like unenroll everybody that is not going to be shooting fish in a barrel. And here’s what he found from those people over the past 14 years, was those people came in and they were highly transactional. They were smaller case sizes. We changed how he delivers this seminar. He goes, “Nick, the exact same audience is coming, but I’m setting appointments with a different part of the audience.” He goes, “Those people had $2 million, $3 million, $4 million, $5 million.” He goes, “They never came in before. They never had any interest before.” He said, “How I’ve changed this, look, those same people that were ‘the ideal customer’ before, they’re still coming, but I’m setting the appointments with these people over here.”
So, Brad, everybody talks about conversion numbers, and I think conversion numbers are important, but ultimately, we want to make sure that we’re getting the right people into the office with the right intention. We’re not trying to convince them. We’re not trying to, here’s what I see all the time. Hey, come in and we’ll give you a Social Security maximization report, or come in and we’ll give you this tax minimization strategy report that we can run for you in 30 minutes or less. And what we find is that if you’re trying to work your way upstream, and Brad, I think you know this, but tons of firms that have brought on $10 million plus clients this year, and they’ve never done that before in their practice.
For them, they have found it’s just a different approach and they need to speak directly to those people and it’s more important for them to get those people in as opposed to trying to get as many of the transactional customers. So, what they lead with, we talk about this, what brings them to you is what they expect from you. If you say Social Security maximization report is what you want to come in for, people are going to come in looking for that. But if you say, hey, what we’re going to help you do is strengthen these areas of your plan for retirement, and we believe in a holistic plan. It’s not this language that is like way too generalized. Then at least people are coming in for that intention instead of some free report.
Brad Johnson: The other thing I want to go back, you hit this at the beginning with kind of the opening and referencing the team. The other thing is when you’re saying, hey, when you come in, we’re deleting the word I. So, can you share the why behind that, and then how that obviously flows into the appointments?
Nick Whitaker: Yeah. There’s no more I, there’s only we. And the best reason for that is that when you have a great big, specialized team, there’s power in that team and you want to help people paint a picture of what it’s going to be like. It’s almost like if you are telling people to come into the office, Brad, they, 100% of the time, have a movie rolling in their mind. They’re picturing themselves, oh, yeah, I’m driving to the office this way. I picture walking through the doors. For some people, if you do not help them play the movie in their mind, for some people, it would be the most exciting thing that they’ve done for their retirement. For some people, they picture it as a nightmare. They picture it as pressure. They picture it as, oh, my gosh, that person’s going to tell me I did everything wrong. So, you have to help people paint the picture along the way.
Brad Johnson: Perfect. Okay, anything else on kind of the content where you’re getting the micro-commitments before we get to the next phase?
Nick Whitaker: No, Brad, I think as we get beyond the content, here’s one of the things that I’ve learned along the way, which is, man, if people don’t pay attention to different forms of content, they’re really missing out. A good example of this would be standup comedy. Standup comedy has a beginning, has a middle, has an end. You get live feedback on the spot. I mentioned like going to church, there’s only one person on the planet that has to give 52 different seminars every single year. It’s a pastor. And the best, like they’re exceptional at what they do.
The third one is YouTube. Like, how in the world does MrBeast have a multi-billion-dollar company today because he creates content that people hang on to every word and they watch every single time? There’s a lot that you can learn from those. And one of the biggest things with YouTube that I have seen is that in YouTube, transitions are everything. When you transition, you will either keep people and draw them closer, or you will lose them. And when you do have unclear transitions, in other words, you’re going from content to closing, a lot of times this all of a sudden becomes uncomfortable for the presenter. He goes, “Oh, I felt really good educating.” And then they feel the pressure of sales. And they end up, like their body language changes, their pace changes, and how they come off totally changes as well. And this is really critical. If you are not converting, one of the biggest things that you can do, Brad, is record yourself. Like, how many professional sports do teams not watch game film?
Brad Johnson: Not many that I know of.
Nick Whitaker: Every single one. Every single one.
Brad Johnson: And think what’s on the line. I mean, you’re talking probably $6,000, $8,000, $10,000 mailer, the meal cost, the revenue that’s driving your business. And it’s like, but you’re not practicing. It’s like the Allen Iverson practice. It’s like, we got to practice here.
Nick Whitaker: Okay, so Brad, here’s what, I get it. You can’t watch every single one. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of time. So, I want to give you, if you do record, what is the number one spot you should go back and watch? Your transition from the content to the close, because if you start to get more comfortable and fluid and confident in this one area, you will take people from creating these small commitments to turning those small commitments into what they want to come in and solve as they sit down with you in a first visit in the next 10 days.
So, as you get into this, Brad, what we have to do is once again, reengage people, have them pick up their pen. We’re going to do this as a group together and go through the worksheet. And one of the things that you want to help them do is if we have those small check boxes along the way, which creates those micro-commitments, we want to let them know this is what we’re going to be able to help them with when they come into the office. And the principle here, as you describe your offer, Brad, should become with a little and leave with a lot. That’s just the easiest way to think about that. It almost becomes like, why wouldn’t I? What some people do is they raise the bar so high, like, hey, you’re going to have to bring in your last 30 years tax reports. You might as well bring in a blood sample while you’re at it. And people are like, yeah, I’m– and here’s what you’ll hear from those people. Well, I got a vacation coming up, right? So, what we need to do is lower the bar, lower the bar, lower the bar, lower the bar at the point of asking for the appointment so that it’s very little that we’re asking for, but the reward for them coming in and taking the next step is very high.
Brad Johnson: That’s a common problem where, I get it, as an advisor, you want to make stuff easy on your side. It’s a lot easier if they bring in 20 years’ worth of statements. And also, we just moved. I’m like, where the hell are the statements at? I got to find them. So, I think not creating hurdles in front of the next step that you want is, it’s like basic human psychology. But I see it to your point, so often where it’s like, here’s all the 17 things you need to do to come in and see us. I want to go back to the worksheet. Now, obviously, at Triad, we’ve got really a refined worksheet that we help build for our members, but if someone’s out there listening or watching and they’re not a Triad member, what would be some core non-negotiables on that worksheet that you keep referencing They should be walking through?
Nick Whitaker: Here’s the easiest way to think about it, Brad. I’m sure that as you look back on your podcast and people have had success or people coach to this, and they say like, you should have a specific way you do things that differentiates you from everybody else. As you look at those check boxes, they shouldn’t be like real odd things. They should be core components of your proprietary process, your unique way of doing things. Because when you engage people with that and they say, that’s what I want, it’s very easy to say, well, that’s the product that we have. So, we didn’t get into this during the content, but one of the things that I would reference is, like, if you’re in the tax section, hey, when we build proactive plans for our clients, what we find is this is 20% of a comprehensive plan, and without that, it’s fine. It just many times what we see is the plan is incomplete. So, this is exactly why we build it in the plans that we do. The reason you do this is because your ideas become tangible. Brad, it’s really hard to sell ideas. If anybody’s ever watched Shark Tank, how many people have ever come without a sample?
Brad Johnson: Right. Well, they’d kick them out of the room if they did.
Nick Whitaker: Yeah, I’ve seen it happen, and I will tell you that those people almost get, like scoff that? Like, what do you mean you came without a sample? Why do we think that financial advisors, because we have knowledge that we shouldn’t turn that into a product, it shouldn’t be tangible. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Shark Tank investor or you’re a person preparing for retirement. What you want to see is all of these ideas are turned into a tangible product.
Brad Johnson: Well, on that note, I would say, I know the Triad membership, obviously, we coach to this, so obviously, we have essentially, everybody in our crew has a sample, but I will say industry wide, I would say 90% of the seminars I’ve watched have no sample. It’s almost like they’re describing the product. Imagine how amazing this could be, and you’re like, well, what is it? And so, I know we basically, not only will we have a physical sample that you’re referencing, holding up, opening, oh, here in this section where we talk about tax opportunities and you’re opening it just like the book we talked about. But also, we haven’t really talked about this. We’re helping also name, trademark, create their proprietary version of what their financial plan is, because also, if you’re up there and you’re an advisor, just saying, hey, when you come in and we build a financial plan, guess what? So, does every other advisor in America, they build a financial plan too. What’s the difference?
Nick Whitaker: Every other seminar that they’ve been to.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. So, I know that’s something we haven’t hit on a lot, but they’re weaving in the name of, all the time, as we call it, their Big Mac, their proprietary product. I wanted to make sure we point that out because that’s so important.
Nick Whitaker: Yeah. Hey, can I give you one other little nugget here?
Brad Johnson: Yeah, please.
Nick Whitaker: The speaker, as they get to the end, one of the things that they should do is not just disappear afterwards. If you’re disappearing, you’re missing a big opportunity because sometimes people will be on the fence. You just going around and saying a few quick words to them. We have found time and time again, has helped capture maybe one more appointment per night, but I tell you what, you do 30 nights, that it turns into a really big number of total extra appointments. So, setting the frame of like, hey, I’m going to come around real quick, answer any lingering questions. I need to get home, tuck my kids into bed. Really appreciate all you guys coming here tonight. Go table by table. Anybody starts peppering you. You get the engineer. I was watching a presentation recently and the speaker did an amazing job. He’s like, yeah, these are the kinds of questions we answer when you come in the office. When are you coming in? And the guy goes, oh, I don’t think I’ve come in. He goes, well, great. Sounds like you need to.
Brad Johnson: That’s awesome.
Nick Whitaker: And so, the guy checked the box and came in. And look, like, don’t be embarrassed to be proud of how you can help people. People sense conviction. They sense commitment. People also smell sales breath. And there’s a big difference between the two, Brad. So, as we’re talking about this proprietary planning thing, like you built this great team, you’ve invested all this effort, have some belief that this is the thing that could help those people that you’re talking to. So, as you’re going around and you’re talking to the audience, the best thing that you can do is hold your product as you walk around. And if this is a binder or whatever that thing is, just carry it with you.
And we’ve helped a lot of others do this. And inevitably, what they come back and say is the people said, “Hey, can I take a look at that?” And the answer is yes, but you need to become Vanna White. In other words, the engineer person is going to want to scrutinize every number on every single page. He is going to have it for 35 minutes. Just hold it out to the side, demonstrate it, and say, “Hey, these are the kinds of things that we’re going to go through.” So, I just want to make sure people get that because it has made a difference for a lot of presenters as they go.
Brad Johnson: You hit two things, I want to really hone in on there. You said the word belief. And you know what’s interesting about that? One of the things we talk about at Triad is sales is a transfer of belief. That’s essentially what it is. And if you think about it, whether it’s that pair of shoes you believe they’re either going to make you look good, you’re going to be more comfortable when you walk, there’s some belief that you have to purchase them. And it’s amazing how many advisors I’ve seen, they’re selling something they don’t believe in because there isn’t that belief. And so, that’s where it all starts. If there is no belief, if you don’t believe in what you’ve got, you sure can’t transfer it to somebody else. So, I just think that that was such a simple statement, but profound because that is where it all starts. Like, none of the rest of everything you just talked about matters if you don’t believe in what you have to offer in the first place. So, I wanted to call that out.
Second thing I want to ask you, I have seen these schools of thought, the speakers, where it’s like as soon as you’re done speaking, Elvis has left the building, because it’s this idea of like, here’s this image we want to portray where this is like Tony Robbins and he’s inaccessible or whatever. Play the other side of that coin why that hurts them, if you don’t mind.
Nick Whitaker: People are human and they want connection. I think that it’s as simple as that. Look, like the best person that you could possibly be here would be somebody that is truly helpful, has figured out things that the audience hasn’t, and you’re helping guide those people towards that. By the way, you’re genuinely like a person that they would want to spend time with as well. I’m not saying, Brad, that you have to spend tons of time with them. I don’t think that you should give people inordinate amount of time. But I do think that if you show up as somebody that’s really smart, really helpful, but also genuinely cares for people, that’s probably the best combination. So, what this means is instead of disappearing like Houdini, as soon as your presentation gets done, is literally 10 more minutes for your night.
Brad Johnson: Which could be one appointment, think about the revenue that drives for any advisor out there, that’s a well spent 10 minutes if you’re generating one more appointment. The other thing where my head goes, because I get it, the rockstar, there’s a reason that they walk off stage and they’re inaccessible, but they’re not in the financial services business. They don’t have the next day where they’re trying to meet people for appointments to drive revenue. It’s like they’re onto the next gig.
Nick Whitaker: Right.
Brad Johnson: And so, that form of connection and relationship, which is so important in our space, I just think about what that shows like back to like a teacher, we’ve talked, hey, this is kind of like a tutoring session. A great teacher’s going to come around and check on your homework and say, “Hey, yeah, how’d it go? Oh, looks like you need some help there.” They ask a question. Hey, that’s exactly what I was talking about. That would make a lot of sense to come in and talk about your individual scenario there, and I’d be happy to spend some time there with you. Just it naturally makes sense when you unpack it.
Nick Whitaker: Hey, Brad, here’s the perspective here is, how would a leader show up? That’s just the bottom line. Like, if people could have view you as a leader, what could you do to show up in a way that they would view you as that? And I think that means that you do have some authority, but it also means that there’s like just this respect, not arrogance.
Brad Johnson: Yeah, and it’s like how would you want your grandma treated? I think that’s always a good rule in this business. It’s like, if your grandma went to a dinner seminar, you’d hope the person cares at the front of the stage. Obviously, you’d hope they are good at building financial plans, but you would want them to walk over to a table and say, “Hey, how’d it go? Need help with anything? Oh, okay. Cool, yeah, absolutely. Come on in.”
Nick Whitaker: Yeah, 100%.
Brad Johnson: And by the way, this also works in the real world. I know Anthony Pellegrino, who’s been a past podcast guest a couple of times. One of the things that he recommended is exactly what you’re talking about. And he does this masterfully. Do you have any idea how many additional appointments he typically picks up when he is doing this? Because I know it’s at least one presentation.
Nick Whitaker: He’s got a little bit of cheat code, Brad. He’s Italian. And like, if you’re not Italian, I’m sorry, you got an uphill battle compared to Anthony because he’s got that wink, wink kind of charm.
Brad Johnson: Wink, wink elbow grab. That’s the…
Nick Whitaker: Yeah. And I tell you what, a couple of years ago, I did get a chance to watch one of the seminars. He had somebody walked out and gives him a great big hug at the end of the presentation. I go, “Anthony, is that one of your clients?” He goes, “No.” He goes, “She’s got two and a half million dollars and she wants to bring it in, talk with one of our advisors next week.” I tell you what, like that was the kind of connection that he was making with those people, anchoring all the way back to the story that he opened with as he carried it through, delivered and connected with people as he delivered the content, but also as he closed, the people go, “Yes, he believes in this for me.”
Brad Johnson: 100%. I’ve had the joy of watching Anthony present live, and it’s intoxicating because his level of connection with the audience, back to like a great standup comedian, like you referenced before, he has tested his content. He has refined his content. And it is there to serve the audience. And by the way, actually, now you reminded me of one other thing that Anthony does. He’s got this little voice memo game that he plays before and after the seminars. Do you want to share that hack with everybody?
Nick Whitaker: I think it’s a smart one. All he does is as soon as he walks out, his hand hits the door in the car. He pulls out his phone, pulls up a voice note, and he says back to himself, all the things that went well, all of the things that he needed to improve because a lot of times, people do Tuesday, Thursday, or they do consecutive nights. Then as he drives the next night, he pulls up the most recent one, or maybe he’s had a month break. He’ll go back and listen to the most recent couple, and it’s almost just like a reminder of how to get back in form. I grew up playing golf. You always tried to have one or two swing thoughts as you went into a round. And what Anthony is doing with those voice memos is he is trying to create the swing thoughts for his presentation.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. He is literally downloading instantaneous while it’s still fresh in his mind, and then he’s listening to it on the way to his next one. Oh, don’t forget to throw that story in. Oh, when I hit this, it really went well. And so, he’s priming the pump basically for the presentation. All right, my man, as far as the actual, any other mechanics, frameworks before we wrap here that you want to make sure to include for the audience?
Nick Whitaker: The only last thing I’d say, Brad, is sometimes you get to the end. You’ve got people that you’ve given them enough data to make a decision, and they make decisions based off of data. And that’s great. But you got to remember, I would almost argue that more people don’t make a decision that way. More people make a decision with their gut. And so, as you get to the end, you can go through all the check boxes, you can tell them all the analytical reasons, but you probably should close with some type of way of connecting, and a lot of times the best way to do that is to connect the story that you began with.
So, we were talking about standup comedy, Dave Chappelle probably one of the best standup comedians of all time. He had a Netflix special to where, I believe it was the four times that he met OJ Simpson. So, he opens up his bid, he comes out on stage, he’s like, “Let me tell you about the four times I met OJ Simpson.” And he tells about the first time and then he moves on to some other bits and then it pops up in the middle. And you get to the very end, he goes, “And that was the fourth time I met OJ Simpson.” And the whole audience is like, “Oh, my gosh, he just brought it full circle.”
So, as you get to the end, whether you complete the story like Dave Chappelle did, or you just go back in a way to connect to the audience, don’t forget how and why people make decisions, and many times, they’ll make a decision based off of this feels right for me.
Brad Johnson: Love it, my man. Well, I have to say on a personal front, I know you and Shawn knew each other because you worked together. You were the advisor client of Shawn’s, and I really got to know you just as I was leaving the prior gig, and Shawn, I remember he came in one day, he’s like, “Man, I think I got our first hire on the coaching side.” I’m like, “Who is it?” He’s like, “Well, he used to be an advisor, but he wants to be a coach now.” And so, he kind of told the Nick Whitaker story, and you had actually done a little livestream with me during COVID, where you were really walking through a call campaign that you and Shawn had worked on and the success you’d had as an advisor. And man, it’s just been so freaking cool to grow this thing together with you. It’s been a wild ride so far. But I just want to thank you for all that you’ve poured in, not only to Triad, but our members, like our members love you. You go above and beyond for them and it’s easy to see the passion on here, man. This isn’t a job to you, man. You live it, you breathe it, and just want to say thanks because it’s been an awesome ride and I don’t know what I’d do without you.
Nick Whitaker: Well, I appreciate it too, man. It’s been great for us to get to know each other better. And honestly, for me, it’s been probably like one of my biggest blessings in life. I had a chance to become successful as an advisor, had a ton of fun in that chapter. But honestly, it was not something that when I did it every day, it didn’t feel as fulfilling as possible. And I think this relates to people that are giving presentations because Brad, a lot of times people go, well, I don’t understand why I’m not successful. It’s like, you hate doing this.
So, I think there’s two ways to approach that. Number one is to find a way to make it fun, enjoyable. Like, I believe there is a way to develop passion, but a lot of times when you’re doing very difficult things, the best place to start is something that you’re already passionate about. And what I find is in the last four years, like my biggest blessing is that I was able to step into something that I wasn’t trying to develop passion. I already had it. And so, it’s been really cool just to get here, come grow, learn, work around amazing team. Like, a lot of my closest friends today are people on our team and members in the Triad community. I consider that just to be a huge blessing.
Brad Johnson: Yeah, it’s fun, man. That’s why I fell in love with this business. It’s the people at the end of the day. The ones beside you on the team and the ones externally that we’re trying to help and grow and get where they want to go. So, well, my man, this has been a fun, quick download. I hope it’s served the advisor audience out there. Put this thing on repeat before your next live event. I promise it’ll help you tune it up. And Nick, until next time, my man. All right?
Nick Whitaker: Thanks, Brad.
Brad Johnson: All right, we’ll see ya.
