[INTERVIEW]
Brad Johnson: Nico, welcome back.
Nico Pesci: Thanks for having me again.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. I’m not sure if we should have recorded or not recorded 10 minutes prior to this, but we just went down.
Nico Pesci: I think it was great. It was great.
Brad Johnson: 90s alt music slash… What would you…?
Nico Pesci: Heavy metal.
Brad Johnson: Heavy metal. So, we may get into that, because a lot of people don’t know this. You were actually in a legit band before you got into finance.
Nico Pesci: I had a record deal at 15.
Brad Johnson: A record deal?
Nico Pesci: Full record deal. Yep.
Brad Johnson: You got paid to be a musician.
Nico Pesci: I started my first band when I was 12, played my first show when I was 12. No covers, all originals, and around 15, joined forces with my brother who was in a different band. Our bands kind of combined, and we had a small independent label that signed us at 15, and then we did that all throughout high school. I moved to LA right after high school and pursued a larger deal.
Brad Johnson: High school in Utah to LA.
Nico Pesci: Yeah. We technically moved…
Brad Johnson: At 18, LA?
Nico Pesci: Yeah. So, we technically moved to North County, San Diego. Our guitarist, his mom, lived in Vista, and we didn’t want to move to Hollywood and LA, because it was awful. So, I graduated, and I think three weeks later we packed up and moved.
Brad Johnson: What instrument?
Nico Pesci: Bass. Bass guitar.
Brad Johnson: And what’d your brother play?
Nico Pesci: He was the singer.
Brad Johnson: Okay. So, we needed a lead guitar in there.
Nico Pesci: So, our guitarist, one of the best musicians I ever met, hand him an instrument, he’ll figure it out, he’ll play it, he’ll master it. He’s amazing. His name is Aaron. Great guy. There were four of us. There’s a drummer named Derek. So, I wanted to play drums, and I wanted to play guitar. My brother played guitar, and he’s like, “I play guitar. You don’t get to play guitar.” So, I played bass, and we did that for…
Brad Johnson: Typical older brother.
Nico Pesci: 100%. And then he stopped playing guitar, by the way.
Brad Johnson: Oh. Nice.
Nico Pesci: Yeah. So, did that for a long time.
Brad Johnson: So, I think a lot of people say, “I was in a band,” but those from our era will notice, opened for 311.
Nico Pesci: Yeah.
Brad Johnson: Toured with those guys a lot. Opened for Hoobastank. Was there another one?
Nico Pesci: Trapt.
Brad Johnson: Trapt. Headstrong.
Nico Pesci: Yeah. I’m not going to do that. This is not a musical podcast.
Brad Johnson: That needs to make the cut. Yeah. That needs to make the cut, by the way. All right. So, here’s what’s wild, and this is what I love about finance: the diverse skill sets that this industry attracts which is wild. But you shared a lesson, I don’t know if your manager shared this with you from your touring days that directly applies and this incredible advice for financial advisors that ever are given a public event, seminar, educational. You remember the advice you were talking about?
Nico Pesci: So, you perform the same way no matter who’s in the room. So, what most people don’t realize about music, every movement on stage is rehearsed. When they say, “Hey, it’s so great to be in this city, and I was just thinking last night about a story that reminds me,” that’s all rehearsed. Every word on stage is rehearsed. When the guitarists trade sides, you know your cues. But what they teach you is that whether you’re playing in front of 10,000 people or two people, you perform the same way, full intensity, energy. You pretend like there might be a huge record label executive in the back of the room hiding. So, you perform the same way every time, no matter what.
Brad Johnson: And I think even the biggest of bands these days, they all started somewhere. I remember I saw Linkin Park. They weren’t just the opener for another band, they were the opener for the opener. And then they were filling arenas, you know?
Nico Pesci: You earn your keep.
Brad Johnson: So, when you’re kind of coming up and making it, what sort of like, obviously, your manager’s like, “Hey, no matter what, full energy. You never know who’s going to be out there.” But that’s different when you’re on stage, and there’s a bartender and two people over in the corner. So, it’s one thing to say it. It’s another thing to do it. What’d you learn during that time?
Nico Pesci: I think you learn just when it’s time to perform, you flip that switch, and you perform. But I mean, we had shows I remember where you show up at the club, and you find out that the club manager did zero promotion. So, there’s no one there, literally. I mean, we played shows like you described, where it was our band, maybe a buddy of ours who came with us to kind of help as a roadie, our manager, a bartender, and the one guy in the corner who never leaves the bar, but his back’s turned towards you the whole time.
Brad Johnson: He’s not there for the music.
Nico Pesci: Yeah, no, he’s not there for you. But you get on stage, and you act like it’s a full crowd, and, “How’s everyone doing?” There’s no everyone, but you still perform like that. But you just kind of learn to get in this groove that once you start playing, it’s a lot easier to just kind of stay with it. But it’s awkward. But what happens is that if you can play well in those situations, and you can play full capacity and full energy, it’s just you use it as a chance to practice. But then when you transition to where you’re in an arena, you’re opening up for 311, there’s 5,000 people there. Well, that’s a really different environment, too. And so, the nerves of the 5,000 don’t show up because the awkward one wasn’t the 5,000. It was the two people at some bar in Carlsbad, California.
Brad Johnson: Right. Well, let’s apply this to finance because I think any advisor that’s ever done any sort of seminar or public event, unfortunately, and the room hasn’t always been a wait, a line out the door waiting to get in. I’ve heard “Oh, there was just a bunch of plate lickers in there.” I’ve also heard it rephrased, “Well, not everybody there is to buy. There are some Hollywood extras in there.” We all know you probably don’t want to close 100% of the room for appointments because probably not all of them are there that have the intent to move forward.
Nico Pesci: Qualified, yeah.
Brad Johnson: So, how do you apply the lessons from music to now presenting as a financial advisor? What crosses over? What connects there?
Nico Pesci: I think it really comes down to you don’t know who’s there. Like, you don’t really know who or why they’re there. And so, the outcome of your performance shouldn’t be dictated by how full is the room or are they most qualified? The message is the same, the intent’s the same, the opportunity is the same. You just you don’t know. And I think in my experience with talking to other advisors and trying to help coach and stuff like that, the predetermined assumptions we have about the audience before we start really kind of sets the tone. I mean, you’ve heard plenty of these stories, right, where the advisor gets to the seminar. There are four people there, and they’re texting their buddies like, “I’m going to get this done in 15 minutes.”
Well, you made an assumption of who the audience is. And the reality is you don’t know. So, the lesson from music was just give it your all. If it ends up being practice, cool, it’s just practice. But maybe there is someone that’s hiding in the back corner you didn’t know about. I mean, there are so many stories of bands playing shows where they thought it was empty, and literally, there was an executive somewhere in the corner talking to the owner of the club, heard the song, and now he wants their attention. It’s the same thing with our prospects and our events. You don’t want to judge a book by its cover. I guess that’s an easy way of saying it, right? But every performance should be your best, even if it’s awkward.
And I think learning to push past that, when you have a full audience, the chance of you messing up or saying the wrong thing or not covering the right topic, it’s going to come down because you’ve already been there. You’ve already done the reps. You’ve already done the practice. It’s just another performance, so to speak.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, I mean, you hear the term limiting belief? If it’s already over before you stepped on stage whether you’re performing musically or for a room of people, you may be able to help, like it’s game over there already. You’ve already clicked off in your head.
Nico Pesci: You gave up. You already gave up.
Brad Johnson: So, the other thing is the example of the record exec. Guess what? There might be five people in the room. One of them might have $15 million. I’ve also seen that play out a few times. So, when you were performing as an artist, I’m sure you had some sort of pre-performance ritual to like get in the mood, get the vibe going, get the energy right. Did you? And then do you have something like that on your event nights?
Nico Pesci: So, what’s really funny, my pre-performance was a lot like athletics. You played sports in high school, college, right? Like, you get yourself in the zone for it. I had a VHS tape, which most people today don’t even know what VHS is. I asked my daughter, and she’s like, “Is that like a boring iPad?” “No, you rewind it. It’s fine.” But it was the Family Values Tour, which had Korn, Limp Bizkit.
Brad Johnson: Limp Bizkit. Oh, who else?
Nico Pesci: Rammstein.
Brad Johnson: Wow.
Nico Pesci: But I loved the way…
Brad Johnson: Offspring?
Nico Pesci: No. It was someone else, but we don’t have to name them.
Brad Johnson: Hed PE?
Nico Pesci: No. Great band, though. Seen them live lots. I saw them. Yeah. Great band.
Brad Johnson: Actually, the Linkin Park open, Hed PE was after them. P.O.D was the headliner.
Nico Pesci: Great show, man. That’d be a great show.
Brad Johnson: Yes.
Nico Pesci: No, the guitarist for Limp Bizkit, Wes Borland was just fun to watch.
Brad Johnson: Talking about the face.
Nico Pesci: So much fun to watch, the way he moved, his face, the way he painted everything, and so I’d watch that VHS the night before our shows. And literally I’d get on stage, and if there were 10 people or, again, 5,000 people, in my head I’m like, “I just want to move like Wes Borland, man.” He was so fun to watch.
Brad Johnson: He brought the energy.
Nico Pesci: He was so much fun to watch.
Brad Johnson: Was he lead guitar or was he bass?
Nico Pesci: No, he was guitar.
Brad Johnson: Lead guitar.
Nico Pesci: So, I think it’s just putting yourself in the mindset that you’re going to perform. That’s what it is. It’s a performance. And you’re going to get out there, and you’re going to perform. On the work side for our world, my father gets all the credit for it. I remember calling him once on my way to a seminar, and I just had a really bad day. Like, all the appointments didn’t go well. They weren’t nice people like just a terrible day. I’m driving, talking to him. I’m just complaining to my dad, right? And all of a sudden I hear the phone. Click. I’m like, “Oh.” So, I call him back. I’m like, “Hey, Pop, like we disconnected.” And I go right back into my complaints. Click. Phone hangs up again. So, finally I get the message, right? And my dad…
Brad Johnson: It wasn’t accidental.
Nico Pesci: Yeah. And my dad, he was a regional vice president for Prudential Life way back in like the ’80s. And so, he still to this day, like he’ll call me for the sales manager recap of how’d the week go. But so, I figure after the second hang up, like this is not an accident. This is intentional. And I said, “Pop, are you hanging up on me?” And he goes, “Are you done complaining?” I was like, “I was just venting to my dad.” He’s like, “Are you done complaining?” I said, “Yeah, Pop, what’s the lesson here?” He goes, “It’s not about you. It’s about them, right? So, you’re making it all about you. You’re complaining because it wasn’t a good day for you.” He’s like, “It’s not about you.” Because he knew I was on my way to a seminar.
And he’s like, “So all I want you to do is, before you get to the seminar, I want you to stop before you walk on stage and you start your performance,” because that’s how he’d call it, too. He’d say, “Ask yourself, how can I help and serve these people?” And the first, I bet the first three or four years I was doing dinner events, every single time before I’d walk to the front of the room and start the presentation, in my head, close my eyes, “How can I help and serve these people?” And I remember even using that walking into my appointments, right? I’d get in the lobby, shake their hand. I’d walk behind them on purpose so I could guide them to my office. How can I help and serve these people?
So, whatever it is for you, everyone’s going to have some sort of different pre-performance ritual. But it’s the mindset. How do you go into this? Regardless of how it goes, I don’t know. You know, one of our wealthiest clients, if you took 100 people and said, “Line these guys up from wealthiest to the least amount of wealth,” no one would pick him in the top five, because he doesn’t dress the part, doesn’t look the part, doesn’t act the part. He’s just a super down-to-earth awesome guy who is good at what he did. He made a lot of money doing it, and he shows up at our office to get free sodas. Like, literally he’ll stop by my office to get a soda, because it’s free compared to going to the gas station, right?
Brad Johnson: This is like a Sam Walton mindset guy.
Nico Pesci: It’s 100%. And he’s like, “Oh, I know the gas station, it’s like $1.50. I know you guys will let me just have a Pepsi.”
Brad Johnson: “How do you think I made my millions?”
Nico Pesci: So, it’s one of those things. Never paid for a soda in my life. But if I would’ve seen him before the event started and treated him any differently, which you should never do, because he didn’t look the part, I would’ve missed out on one of our biggest clients, right? So, it’s just a mindset. Like, you don’t know.
Brad Johnson: That little tip from your dad, that is such wisdom, and such a bite-size, simple…
Nico Pesci: Well, hanging up on me.
Brad Johnson: Well, hey, I’m glad you called him back the third time. Great deliverable. Hey, that was good resilience to keep calling until you got the…
Nico Pesci: He was probably teaching me some sales skills there as well, right?
Brad Johnson: Yeah. I think it’s really easy in this business because all of the top firms do a lot of reps, right? Lots of public events, lots of appointments, and it can get really easy. I’ve got a family member that’s a doctor, and a doctor sees a lot of trauma. You see a lot of financial trauma or disconnect, or not sure where they want to go. And it’s really easy to almost get desensitized to it. And so, having some sort of a mental hack of like… Somebody else shared this years ago with me like, “I treat every client like it’s my grandma and grandpa.”
Nico Pesci: Yeah. 100%.
Brad Johnson: And when you have just that little lock-in, “Okay, I got to treat this like it’s the first time for me because it’s the first time for them.” So, anything else? Because I want to… You’ve been here for a day and a half with Sales Lab. It was awesome. Like, 40 people, massive breakthroughs. You helped lead it. Back to how can I help and serve these people? You just did that at the TRIAD community, so super grateful for that. We talk a lot about congruency on what you say at the public event and then how that leads into the first visit. Any big takeaways or ahas from the last two, three years as you’ve kind of retooled everything that you guys do?
Nico Pesci: Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head. I mean, one of the things we talk about in our office all the time is that what makes us unique is that we don’t forget behind every account’s a real person. And having that conversation of, “Hey, this is someone with 20 or 30 or 40 years.” And again, I’m going to shout out to my dad’s constant conversation, but my dad always talked about, because of his background with Prudential, he’s like, “Someone’s not handing you $500,000 or $5 million. They’re handing you 40 years of their life. They’re handing you 40 years of sacrifice, maybe missing a kid’s performance or a recital or staying at the office later, working weekends.
We have an obligation to show up for that, right? Whether it’s a big event or a small event, you show up for that, for the person. And what’s been fun, as kind of a, to your word, congruency, I think that when advisors can really get clear on, okay, when I have an event, a seminar, a workshop, whatever it is, but if I can focus on the person behind that, and then I can take that same conversation and transition it to that first meeting and still have that same focus, and then I can take it to the second meeting and have that same focus, it changes the perspective of how you show up.
But I also think that’s been what’s so fun about watching the Triad community is that if you have that perspective, I think you also have an obligation. Yeah, I use that word very intentionally. You have an obligation to make sure that you’re getting better at what you do so that when you meet the next person who really does need your help, you’re not winging it. You’re not practicing on a real person with 40 years of sacrifice. You’re prepared for that. And that comes through the sales labs or the coaching calls or just talking with your team, but the time to get better is not in an actual appointment. That’s the time to take away ideas and concepts and bring them back to sales lab or coaching calls or train with your buddies, but the time to get better is when the stakes are the lowest.
So, when you do inevitably make a mistake, well, there are no stakes that are going to be really kind of consequential for the client, right? The consequence is like, “Oh, I kind of feel like an idiot because my buddy made fun of me because I didn’t say the right words.” That’s the idea, going back to music, of why you practice regardless of the audience, as if you had a full audience. Because when you do have a full audience, they paid money to be there. They sacrificed their time to get a ticket. Maybe they sacrificed their time to travel. You owe them a good show. You owe them a full performance. It’s the exact same thing with our work.
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]
Brad Johnson: Why does Chick-fil-A have more than one cash register? It’s so their revenue never just depends on one person. And most founders I’ve met in finance have the exact same problem. When they leave for vacation, so does their revenue. Nobody else is there to work the register. Well, Chick-fil-A solved this problem. They have a campus in Atlanta, and franchise owners and their teams fly in, and they run a mock restaurant before they ever run the real thing. Triad’s Sales Lab is our version of that. Founders fly out with their advisor teams, where they get coached as they run first and second appointment role-plays based on case studies that solve real-world financial planning problems.
And here’s the added benefit: They’re not wasting their marketing dollars as their teams learn the conversations required to do their job. The end result: we now have past attendees who have 3X and 4X’d revenue over the last year. Their revenue and appointments, they keep flowing whether the founder’s there or not. If any of that sounds familiar and you’re looking for a proven track to run on, click below and see if Triad’s next Sales Lab is a fit for you.
[INTERVIEW]
Nico Pesci: Nobody enjoys a bait and switch.
Brad Johnson: The people in the audience don’t enjoy it. And actually, what I’ve come to find like a lot of advisors fall into it accidentally because they’re like, “I don’t know how to get people on my calendar,” so here’s the marketing gimmick of the day that I signed up for. It’s this pitch, that pitch. And then when they come in, I’ve got to switch it over to, “Oh, I actually do financial advice,” you know? And congruency, it feels good for the audience, and it feels good for you, the advisor. And I want to hit something home, because I’ve unfortunately seen this over the years. Our industry tends to be an industry of rip-offs and duplicate, “Oh, that guy’s doing it, so I’ll do it too. It’s working for him.” And you kind of have this Frankenstein model that comes together over the years.
And one of the things I’ve seen a lot, we do holistic financial planning. Unfortunately, that means a lot of different things at a lot of different firms. But what I also see a ton of and you’ll have people that do insurance for income-based stuff, fee-based for wealth management, some tax planning, some estate planning, some legacy. But in reality, it’s what’s on the website, but it’s not in reality what is delivered. So, how have you all seen… It’s one thing to say you do it. It’s another thing to deliver on it. How has that dedication to actually doing the build-out on the back end changed the sort of clients you’re serving and how you all deliver true financial plans and retirement?
Nico Pesci: How much time do you have?
Brad Johnson: As much as you got.
Nico Pesci: So, it’s funny, because the thing you’re describing, I mean, November will mark 17 years I’ve been in this business. And I stayed away from a lot of the “planning” for probably the first, I don’t know, too many years. And part of it came from, I remember being at a symposium, and there was a, one of the keynote speakers was there, and he was talking about how he keeps sample financial plans in the trunk of his car. So, when he’s at his kid’s soccer game and he’s talking about the importance of having a plan, he can show them this deliverable of what it looks like, and then he gets them in the office, you know, he does whatever. And it was really clear that it was a gimmick.
It was an upfront marketing thing with no deliverables, because this was, I remember it was a symposium that was about life insurance. Nothing wrong with life insurance as a part of a financial plan. But it by itself is not a financial plan. So, to give a keynote about how you use this plan concept to then just go sell life insurance sat super wrong with me. And so, I stayed away from that for a long time, because in my head it was gimmicky, it was marketing, it was the bait and switch to the Social Security seminar, right? And over the last few years is we’ve kind of said, “Okay, we’re not going to market about financial planning. We’re going to do it. We’re going to show it.”
And then the conversation’s evolved to what it means to do planning versus transactional work or product work. And again, nothing wrong with life insurance, nothing wrong with annuities, nothing wrong with wealth management, nothing wrong with long-term care. They all serve a really important part. But to have a conversation about one without the other, really, you’re missing a lot, right? So, embracing that, I mean, we’ve seen our average client has almost 10X’d. So, our approach before, and I loved it, I love the people who were there, nothing bad to say at all, but an average case size of about $200,000. And that was our average client. Again, we’d go get more assets over time. You kind of go with the low-hanging fruit.
Brad Johnson: But leading with product, not planning.
Nico Pesci: Correct. Leading with product, and then trying to bring in additional planning, the wealth management, the life insurance, the tax stuff, everything. But our average case size was in that 150 to 250 range, and our average new client now is between 1 million to 2 million. And so, it’s just a very different client. And what I learned was that the clients with the highest net worth, they don’t want to have a product conversation. They want to have a planning conversation. If they have a tax problem, the reality is that a product, whether it be wealth management, annuities, whatever, it doesn’t solve the tax problem. If they have real concerns about, “Hey, my wealth is going to be $15 million, $25 million when I pass,” their concern’s about, “How do I make sure that I pass on something valuable to my kids with guardrails that protect my family from just inheriting these millions of dollars?”
You don’t solve that problem with an annuity conversation or an AUM conversation, right? You have to have a planning conversation. So, shifting that has dramatically changed. I’ve just seen a huge change in who we are attracting, and also who we’re not. And that’s okay. Like, we don’t try and believe that we’re the same, like the right fit for everyone. But the clients who I think most advisors want to go out and pursue or attract, those clients want to have a planning conversation. They want to know that each piece is a part of the puzzle. It’s been talked about. It’s been thought through. The pieces fit together. They’ve been pitching products forever. They don’t want any more of those conversations.
Brad Johnson: I believe it’s a really good business model. I’ll get your take. If you have a business model or a product, because your financial plan is your product that you’re offering, if your product allows somebody to be lazier, check yes, that’s beneficial, and if it solves tougher problems to solve, and here’s what I mean by that. Look at Amazon, now known as the A to Z company, which you know now Amazon A to Z was part of the original vision. But back in the day, it was buy books online. Okay. It’s easier than driving across town, much bigger SKU to choose from. But why did they take over the world? You, I promise, have had an Amazon box show up at your house within the last week, probably last 48 hours.
Nico Pesci: Every day. Yeah, no, every day. That’s fine.
Brad Johnson: I came home last night. There was one on my counter that I did not order. So, why is that? They made it so easy. No typing in the credit card every time, address is saved. Now it shows up the next day, probably in your market, like that afternoon. And they made it so easy, like I’ll actually pay more for the convenience. Because back in the day it used to be cheaper. It’s not anymore. So, back to your holistic financial planning. So, now I’ve got the financial planning. Now, I’ve got proactive tax planning. Now I’ve got estate planning baked in. Is it easier to do that one-stop shopping with you, or CPA drive across town, financial advisor drive across town, or insurance guy drive across town, wealth management guy drive across town. And by the way…
Nico Pesci: I hope they’re all, without even talking, not canceling each other’s work out.
Brad Johnson: Yes.
Nico Pesci: Right?
Brad Johnson: Well, and by the way, let’s talk reality. Most of the time, they don’t even know each other’s names.
Nico Pesci: No, no.
Brad Johnson: So, it’s no secret when you start to deliver on the back end why the net worth goes up. How’d they get a net worth? Most of them figured out how to delegate stuff in whatever business they were in, and so it just makes sense.
Nico Pesci: Well, and it’s interesting too, because not only did they experience the delegation side of it, but a lot of these clients they put in, like I was saying, the 30 or 40 years, and they’re ready for a break, man.
Brad Johnson: Yes.
Nico Pesci: They’re ready. The number of times someone comes in, I’ll give you an example. We have a client who was an auditor for the IRS for 10 years. He was a CFO for Fortune 500 companies. And so, he comes in to this first meeting, and I’m kind of getting to know him a little bit. And he gives me his credentials, and I started giggling. I’m like, “Why are you in my office? What are you doing here?”
Brad Johnson: Or, “Did you come here to coach me?”
Nico Pesci: And he said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Brad Johnson: Ah.
Nico Pesci: He said, “I’ve studied the tax code for 30 years.” He goes, “It’s not my job anymore. It’s yours.” And so, for him, he wanted a partnership. He wanted someone who could say, “Hey, we’ll take care of everything.” And he’s involved. Like, he’s not handing everything off in the sense that he’s just unplugged. But yeah, the simplicity side of like, “I want to know I have one group who I know, who I trust.” He comes in. There’s 17 of us in the office. He knows who everyone is. He knows everyone knows him. And at any point he’d just get an answer on any part of his plan. And so, he can go off, and he even said to me, he’s like, “When I’m in Mexico, I’m not reading the tax code. You get to.” I was like, “Great. Our CFP will do that.” Right?
But the simplicity side is what a lot of these higher net worth clients, they want to be able to take their foot off the gas for the first time in 40 years. Or at least know that they don’t have to press on the gas if they don’t want to. It’s a different conversation.
Brad Johnson: You said something. I sat in on quite a bit of the training, because I’m always trying to level up. I pick something up every time. I believe the word you used was the higher the net worth of the clients you’re sitting, potential clients you’re sitting across from, typically the more partnership. Not like they’re used to that. So, how does that compare, the word partnership and how you’re coming alongside them versus I’m selling you something? Like, how does that dynamic shift?
Nico Pesci: What a cool question. And I think, I mean, we’ve probably both seen it. This industry sometimes, I won’t say always, but sometimes likes to create a relationship out of necessity. I know so much. I can help so much. You don’t know as much. You need my help. So, therefore, the value is that you can’t do this without me, right? And the challenge with that, though, is that the moment they meet someone else who maybe can do it slightly better, you’ve trained them to say, “Well, the measuring stick of what makes a good financial partner is they know how to do all the things that I don’t.” And what I’ve seen with high net worth people is that’s not their mindset.
The $5 million clients we have, the $10 million, $15 million, $25 million clients we have, what they see is, “Hey, I’m a smart person. I didn’t get $25 million on accident. But I am also intellectually honest enough to say, ‘Hey, there are some things I don’t know or don’t understand or maybe don’t want to do. Can you be a partner in this with me?’” They’re not looking for someone to demand the relationship because they’re so much smarter than them, and talk down to them and be condescending and, “This is really advanced stock stuff. You don’t understand that.”
Brad Johnson: “I’m smarter than you. You should work with me.”
Nico Pesci: Yeah. And that’s not what I think most people, regardless of net worth, but I really genuinely believe most people don’t want that type of relationship. But the higher net worth people, they want to know that they have a partner who knows them, their family, their values, their goals, their fears, and can talk through… I mean, we have clients who call us and say, “I don’t need anything specifically, but I’m thinking about doing this. Can we just talk through it?” Can we just kind of chat through it, right?
Brad Johnson: I want to hit something. You shared this from stage. This was a full team training. So, Scale Summit, where it’s for founders and their teams so they can all be aligned and grow together. There was a $17 million prospect, I think approximately, that they brought on board with y’all when you were building their plan, and you were walking through a little bit of what you just shared and expanded on that. And then there was a question from the audience that I loved. They said, “Hey, Nico, what do you change about your sales process when they have $17 million?” So, for those that weren’t there, what’d you say?
Nico Pesci: Nothing. Nothing. So, I’d go full circle back to music. If the process works, and it’s built for the client’s best interests and functions well, why would you alter that and then ad lib, especially with your largest potential prospect, right? Nothing changes because the process was built off of here’s what 17 years of experience shows and tells us we need to do to make sure everyone’s plan has each five pillars dialed in and has each part of the process dialed in. That should never change. And it’s a mind shift because I think all of us we get excited, and it’s like, “Oh, my gosh, that’s a large client.” Nothing changes.
Brad Johnson: Well, it’s funny, I remember young Brad cold calling, trying to find guys like you, and the number back in the day was once they did at least $10 million a year, an extra comma, all of a sudden freakout mode. And I remember young, showing up differently on those calls, and then I realized, “Wait, this is a proven track,” and it’s actually, in my opinion, more important to stay structured the bigger, not less. I think this was the same prospect that you shared, which is, I think, another lesson. There was maybe some… He was kind of a deal guy. Maybe it was some real estate stuff. I don’t remember. But he was kind of running a potential deal as they were onboarding with you, and you kind of said, “Wait, hold up. Based on what you said you want and your wife said she wanted, doing that is going to distract you from going out and actually doing the fun stuff you said you want to do in retirement.”
And so, what I saw there, as you step into truly being a great, not just financial advisor building a plan, but almost like stepping into leadership and coaching them in their financial life, you’re willing to say, “Hey, hold up. That action does not align with the outcome you told me you wanted.” Will you kind of unpack that a little bit? Because I think it does take something to have a belief behind what you’re actually building as well.
Nico Pesci: So, I think it goes back almost full circle to the part of the conversation of, well, what did they hand over to us? They handed over 30 years of sacrifice, and these guys, some of my favorite clients, they’re great to work with, but they went through the wringer to get what they have. They really went through the wringer to get what they have. And so, if we go back to the idea of there’s a real person behind the account, it’s not a dollar amount, it’s not an account number, it’s a real person who sacrificed a lot to get there. It goes back to that conversation of obligation or duty. And so, if they sit down with us and they say, “Hey, here are our goals, our concerns, here’s what matters most. Now, here’s what we never want to experience ever again,” I feel strongly that we have an obligation to speak truth to them if a short-term decision or idea pops up that could derail from that.
Now, they have full control. If they say, “Thank you for the advice, Nico, I hear you, but pound sand, we don’t want to do it,” great. But from an ethical standpoint, I think we have that obligation to just be the holder of truth, say it with love, respect, and everything else we’re supposed to do. But that’s what they hired us for. Again, it’s the partnership concept, right? And we talked about this in the Sales Lab training, but a surgeon is not going to alter their process because the surgery might be more complicated. They have a process for that complicated surgery, and they’re going to follow it. They’re not going to say, “Well, this guy walked in, and I didn’t have to convince him about the need for the surgery. He was just ready to go. So, I’m not going to explain what we’re doing or how much it costs or the recovery time.”
They’re going to very carefully articulate, “Hey, here’s what you have to do to get ready for the surgery. Here’s how long it’s going to take. Your recovery time is going to take this long. We’re going to be checking every two weeks afterwards.” That process isn’t going to change just because someone’s really excited to get the surgery done, right? There’s an ethical reason, there’s a professional reason, but you follow that process. And that’s hard for, I think, a lot of advisors because we just get excited and we want to do what we’re going to do. But if anything, the more there is at stake, the more they deserve to have a solidified process as guardrails to make sure that everything works out.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, let’s go to where I think… Well, it’s why a lot of potential Triad members check us out in the first place. It’s one thing to do that as a founder, and you’ve done a ton of work there. One of the things we talked about in the Sales Lab, this is not an outsourced job. No. This is not, “Hey, I’m the founder. I’ll kind of do it the way I’ve always been doing it, freestyling, whatever.” And then, “But hey, team, you guys do it this new way.” And so, what I’ve seen, the behavior I’ve seen in the top growth firms is the leader leads by example. They step into the middle of the arena. They get uncomfortable. We did live role-playing here. You were a part of it, just as a trainer, just like everybody else was, the guy that got hired six months ago.
As you have continued to test your material, like a stand-up comedian, I’m testing it. Does it work? What do I need to change? What do I need to evolve? How has that applied to now the ability for you as a leader to infuse that into your next advisor and next advisor, and have a system that’s duplicatable, trainable, scalable? How has that played out?
Nico Pesci: I think that as the founder, the more you can… Let me back up. The shift from solo advisor to founder was definitely not like a, “Oh, cool, my schedule’s more free now.” By all means, maybe there’s a little bit more flexibility, but you’re actually diving deeper into operations, you’re diving deeper into the marketing, you’re diving deeper into the sales process because you have to remove yourself from it. So, you have to make sure it’s all dialed in correctly, right? So, the workload, I think, has shifted, but it’s become a lot more fun. But to go back to your question about, well, how does that show up for the client or for the advisor, right? If you’re training these other advisors, what they’re counting on is that if they’re handing you, just like how the client is handing us 30 years of their hard work, you bring on a selling advisor or a new lead advisor, or whatever you want to call them, but they’re handing you their career.
They’re handing you, okay, they have a family, just like I do. They got a wife and kids, just like I do. So, the same obligation that we have to our clients to say, “We built a process that has guardrails around your finances to make sure all five pillars are covered, they’re taken care of,” that same thing is what gets built out for the advisors, right? So, if you’re going to hand me your career and put your livelihood in my hands, well, here’s how we do events. Here’s how we do meetings. Here’s how we do reviews. Here’s how we do planning. Here’s how we do follow-up. Because otherwise, they’re going to wing it, right? And just like we wouldn’t wing it for a client, we’re not going to wing it for an advisor.
But it’s put a larger obligation to make sure, okay, how sharp am I on my sales process? How sharp am I on my operational processes? How sharp am I on my marketing? Because the stakes are higher, right? There have been times, and I’ve been very vocal about this, where the stress of it has been higher than maybe I experienced 10 years ago. But the satisfaction, the fun that came from it, because now I get to see someone else’s career take off. I get to see that, hey, I’m one guy. I can host X number of meetings in a week before I run out of daylight, right? But if I can train three people to then they go have a full schedule. Now our firm gets to help 50 people in a week versus 10, or whatever the number might be. Doesn’t matter. But the concept is you actually get to exponentially increase your touch and your impact, and what that does outside of just yourself, that’s where it gets really fun, man.
Brad Johnson: You hit a couple of things I want to unpack there. The obligation to the team, back to the mindset thing, whether you’re performing for two people or 5,000 people, it’s the same for your team. I’ve seen advisors and founders build their team with the wrong intentions, where they built their team about I. “I want a team so I don’t have to do. I do less, they do more. I make more, they make less.” I’ll never forget, I was in a sales training probably 10 years ago now. Okay, we grew up in the same era. I know you also like nice cars. Do you remember there was this famous poster, the big mansion on the hill? Maybe we even do a little, in the post-edit, we’ll find it on the internet and throw it up here. We can throw it up right in this area.
So, it was a big mansion on a hill with a long driveway, and then there was like a seven-car garage, and it was Lamborghini. This was like a late ’80s, ’90s commercial or poster, sorry. And the sales trainer, he goes, he does this spiel, he’s like, “If you come work at our firm, and you do what I coach you to, and you work hard, and you put in the hours, you put in the dials, all of this can be mine.” And unfortunately, I’ve seen that where the team feels that. But when you flip that servant mindset, I’m now at the bottom, and it’s my job to support you, pour into you, train you, like your team wants to run through a brick wall for you. Because they know it’s about the team, not about me and I.
Nico Pesci: Well, I think, and this goes to what Triad talked about all the time, but the culture. The culture of an organization, if you build the culture right, and people really are bought in, you’re going to figure out most things, right? That goes back to that old saying of, “Show me a large enough why and you can make through anyhow.” It’s the same thing with the culture. If we can have the team where they are emotionally invested in this, they understand the impact they get to make. We had this conversation two weeks ago with our team, but just kind of a refresher course. Every now and then we do these where we talk about, “Hey, why do we even exist? What is it that momentum brings to the table?” It’s not about annuities, it’s not about wealth management, it’s not about life insurance.
These are just tools that we use to deliver a meaningful life where clients get to enjoy the retirement they’ve earned, right? Where they can worry less, wonder less, and they can go out and enjoy more, give more, do more, enjoy more, all the reasons they sacrificed 30 or 40 years. So, we had this conversation of how our team understand, okay, we have six rings of people. We have the client, then you have the spouse, the kids, the grandkids, the communities, maybe it’s charities. One of those people hires us. It’s the client. The impact of the work, though, stretches to the spouse if the client, heaven forbid, passes away early. And the spouse is left figuring things out at 73, and now they got to get through retirement by themselves.
The kids feel the impact of our work because maybe they inherit things in a more tax-qualified status, or it’s done correctly with trusts and wills so they understand it better. The grandkids who haven’t been born yet will benefit from the work the parents did. And the conversation from the team was, “Don’t forget what you do here. You change lives.” And finance, we can trickle it down to its most basic stuff, where it’s stocks, bonds, life insurance, mutual funds, annuities. But the impact of those pieces is someone gets to spend more time with their grandkids in retirement. We have a client who his grandson’s a pitcher for, I think, he’s an 11U baseball player. He’s a great pitcher. Like, I bump into him at the ballpark all the time when Nicholas is playing, and he goes to every game.
Like, how cool for that grandkid to know that Grandpa’s at every single game he has, and he’ll remember that. He’ll be 30 years old, and he’ll remember that his grandfather went to every baseball game.
Brad Johnson: You’re damn right he will.
Nico Pesci: No matter where it is, right? Well, he can do that because he has a retirement that he doesn’t worry about. That’s not an annuity. That’s not life insurance. That’s not a mutual fund. That’s not a stock account. This client knows, “My money’s taken care of, my income’s secure. I don’t have to worry about these things. I can go travel more, do more, enjoy more.” And that impact is greater than anyone I really think pays attention to. The client hires us. The grandson benefits from it, right? And helping the team understand that and really dive into, like, don’t forget the impact we have on people. And the people, somewhere out there is a family member who will benefit from the work that we did, and you’ll never meet them.
Be the someone who makes that difference, right? And that mentality leads to a culture where it’s not filing paperwork. All right? We dove into this, and I said, “Hey, a transfer of an account is not a transfer. That’s someone starting their retirement.” Updating beneficiaries isn’t just paperwork to update beneficiaries. That’s making sure that a spouse, in the worst time, is going to be just fine financially. They don’t have to think about these things. And to your point, we get so desensitized to what it is the work we do actually does for people, or we forget the meaning behind it, which is the why. And if we remember the why, then the how of, “Okay, well, I feel really uncomfortable getting in front of my peers and practicing and doing a role play,” good.
Be uncomfortable, because there’s someone who’s counting on you to be good at what you do when the time comes that they need you. “I’m really nervous doing this seminar. I’ve never done one.” Good. Get uncomfortable, because you’re counting on people who are going to show up, who have questions they’ve been carrying around for a decade are counting on someone to show up and saying, “Hey, we have answers. You’re going to be okay.”
Brad Johnson: And that’s the first time they have the courage to actually attend something.
Nico Pesci: So, we lose sight of what we do a lot. And it’s easy, and I think it’s this way in any career, in any industry, because again, you get a little bit desensitized to it. But if you can remember the why behind the work we do, role-playing with your peers isn’t uncomfortable. It’s a duty. And it’s pretty cool that we can practice with friends and not feel bad and not feel awkward, and how cool is it that we can say, “Okay, well, hey, I had a seminar that just… It was awful. I had a first appointment, and it was awful,” and we can talk as friends and say, “Okay, cool. Let’s role play. Let’s talk about it.”
Brad Johnson: And I’ve seen this in your life, and I’ve seen it in my life. You know what bonds people? Shared suffering.
Nico Pesci: 100%.
Brad Johnson: And so, when you crack on somebody because they completely lost their train of thought or went off track, I remember my cold-calling days, scripts. Everything’s new to somebody at one point in their life, just like it was new to you at one point, and you put in the reps, you got better, you got real feedback. But those are it’s why Army buddies hang out with old Army buddies, football players. I’m sure you still get together with the old band every once in a while. Some shared suffering there. But that’s like, when you look back, those hard times are the times you go back and talk about. It’s not the, “Oh, things were so easy.” Like, that’s not the stuff you talk about later.
Nico Pesci: And I think too, the part that makes it fun, kind of going full circle to why do we practice and why do we show up the way we show up, how cool is it to know you can embrace the suck? Right? Because it’s only going to get better, and we had some really awesome breakouts over the last day and a half, and we’re role-playing. And super candidly, I get to see people who were super nervous. And we’re talking high-level uncomfortable with the idea of role-playing in front of peers. And in the nicest way, I’m sure that me being in the room, having just done the first role-play, probably was a little bit intimidating, because I don’t mind doing it. And we had this conversation because they kind of froze up a little bit. And the conversation was, “Hey, it’s okay. Like, how cool is it to know that this was the most uncomfortable this process will ever be? How cool is it to know that you’ll never be worse than you are right now?”
Brad Johnson: That’s a good reframe.
Nico Pesci: Really. Because what it means is that we get to get better. And you just got the worst out of the way. One of my dear friends, he’s my trainer. I work out with him three or four times a week, but one of the things he always talks about, he said, “The secret to life is learning to suffer well.” And it’s like, okay, yeah, get uncomfortable. If it sucks, okay, cool. But again, if you go back to the why, well, it’s really uncomfortable to role-play in front of your peers, and if they tease you, whatever, it’s not comfortable, but when you sit down with someone who really needs your help, that’s a fun why, man.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. And we’ll kind of close it here. You talked about how it’s started to be really enjoyable. Now, it’s a big leap to go from an individual solo player game advisor to now leading a team, stepping into business owner, CEO, founder role. On the other side of that uncomfortable, you’re going from a player on the field to team captain to coach. And now, when you start to take all of your learnings over the years and be like, “Dude, don’t do it that way. I literally did it the wrong way for three years. Here are all the mistakes I made. Avoid that way. Go this way.” I have found that to be one of the most rewarding things. We’re now in our 40s. We’re becoming the older guys. There is nothing that lights me up more. We just had some young bucks that were in for the Sales Lab.
They came in, they’re like, “Dude, that was awesome.” And I’m like, “You just accelerated your growth a decade in two days.” And I’m like, “That is fun for me. That lights me up.” And so, I know you’ve got a lot of that in you too.
Nico Pesci: 100%. And what a cool opportunity. I mean, we talk about culture, we talk about legacy, we talk about impact. To be able to be a part of something where the impact is not just you, and you get to exponentially grow that, just like how shared suffering bonds people, but purpose really is what drives people over time. And if you can find a way to kind of say, “Hey, my purpose now, it’s not about like…” If I wanted to go out and be a solo advisor and do a whole bunch of business, cool, I did it for a decade, and it was a lot of fun. It was rewarding. But it’s kind of fun to have a new challenge. It’s kind of fun to say, “Hey, you know what? I don’t have all the answers, and I get to go and role-play, and I get to brainstorm and pick brains and understand what’s going on.” That’s a different level of purpose.
And the advisory space, our industry in general, can be a very, very lonely industry. Because a lot of people don’t want to talk. They don’t want to share, because it’s competitors and yada, yada, yada. But to have a community where you can say, “Hey, I see your struggles. Good news. Welcome to the club. I saved you a seat. I’ve been doing that. You know, I’ve been doing it wrong for a while too,” it’s great. It just brings a different level of excitement back into the game of, “Okay, well, this is bigger than me. This is bigger than just my team now. It’s bigger than just my clients.” Like, that level of opportunity, that’s fun. Yeah. And the industry, I think, is not always… They don’t see that that’s the opportunity that’s in front of them, right?
Because we’re so focused on like, “Okay, I’ve got these meetings this day. I have these clients I got to help. I have this production I need to do,” whatever it might be. And it’s hard sometimes to pause long enough and say, “Okay, what would this look like if this was bigger than me?” “What would it look like in five years if this was bigger than me? What would it look like for my team and their families?” And just like with our clients, we get to help the client today, and the end result is we help the grandkid. If we can grow the team bigger than us, scale, and really have that impact, maybe there’s someone who gets to join my team five years from now and has this breakout career, and then their kid gets into the business, and they get a share.
You know what I mean? Like, there’s just so much cool opportunity if you can pause long enough and say, “What would this look like if it was bigger than me?” For my clients, for my staff, for my family, for my community, that’s a fun question to ask.
Brad Johnson: Well, I’ll end it with this, because you just took me back with that statement. I was at a dad’s retreat years ago, and I know being a dad, being a good husband’s really important to you as well. And this dad got up, and he was like, “You know, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, like what legacy do I want to leave?” And in our business, a lot of people think legacy is how much money did I leave in the bank account. But okay, that’s there, and then it’s spent on something, and it disappears. And he said, “I’ve realized the only true legacy that I’m going to leave is how do people show up based on my impact on them after I’m gone?” And he was talking about his kids, like leaving a legacy in your kids. What do you instill in them that lives on past you?
But I also think you unlock a piece of that with the legacy you leave in your wake, how you pour into your team, how you pour into your peers. Because someday, unfortunately, unless we can download something into AI, I don’t know. There’s maybe a little hope. We’ll see. But someday we’ll be gone, and it’s like, who’d you pour into while you were here? Who did you impact for the better? Who left the room a better person because of you? And it’s just really cool. I want to say thank you for all you’ve poured into the community. I saw a day and a half of it. But it’s really cool to watch.
Nico Pesci: I appreciate it.
Brad Johnson: And I’m just grateful that you’re a part of Triad.
Nico Pesci: I’ll close it out, just going full circle. I mean, there’s a reason our company motto is always forward. That’s my family motto. And if I go full circle, my dad, his belief was, “Hey, you have an obligation to carry the family name forward. You meet someone on the streets. How can you help their life move forward?” It’s cool to be in a position after doing this for 17 years where the impact is not just, “Well, how big can my production be this year?” Can I really leave an impact? And I think that’s what matters. And I think if you talk to anyone who’s been ultra successful and they’re 75, 85 years old, they’re looking backwards, they’re not talking about how much money they made.
They’re not talking about how many houses they had. They’re not even talking about how big their business was. If they’re really in their most vulnerable moments, being honest about, “What was the relationship with my kids like, my grandkids, my friends, my community?” What kind of impact did I have on my community? When you start to think past yourself, life gets really, really fun. And I also think not just is it more fun, but it gets more fulfilling, right? Which then leads to purpose, and guess what happens there? That snowball just keeps kind of going. It’s a lot of fun, man. And I’ve been very… I mean, we’re coming up on three years of only Triad, and it’s been an absolutely insane rollercoaster in the best possible way.
I’ve said, “Hey, there’s been stressful moments,” but all of it has led to it’s like this is fun again, man. And I’m seeing something that’s bigger than myself. I’m just super grateful. So, the feeling is mutual, so thank you.
Brad Johnson: All right, my man. Well, that’s a wrap. It’s fantastic. Until next time.
Nico Pesci: Until next time.
Brad Johnson: Oh, that was good. Our kids would be proud of that one.
Nico Pesci: My son would be very proud.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. All right. Until next time.
[END]
