034: Ray Kelly on Transformative Leadership for Building Billion-Dollar Wealth Management Firms

In this episode, I'm excited to welcome leadership expert Ray Kelly to the show. As a leadership coach and a pivotal figure in the financial advisory world, Ray has dedicated his career to empowering financial advisors and executives with unparalleled leadership skills. His unique approach has transformed countless careers and companies, making him an authority in fostering leadership cultures within organizations.

Ray is not only adept at nurturing individual talent but also excels in creating an environment where leadership thrives collectively. As a founding member of the Financial Advisor Success Syndicate (FASS), he has a wealth of experience in guiding professionals to achieve extraordinary success through visionary leadership.


The Importance of Leadership Skills for Financial Advisors
- Ray emphasizes the importance of honing leadership skills for financial advisors who want to grow their practices.
- By becoming better leaders, financial advisors can develop the next generation of leaders within their organizations, allowing them to take on more responsibility and grow their skill sets.
- Leadership skills help advisors mobilize a group of people around a common cause and drive consistent results.
- Ray shares the five levels of leadership, developed by John Maxwell, which discuss the attributes and competencies necessary for effective leadership.

Case Study: Jon Kuttin
- Jon had a big vision for growing his firm but was feeling stuck and frustrated.
- Ray helped Jon realize that he needed to develop leaders within his organization to achieve his vision.
- By implementing a level five leadership development program, Jon has been able to consistently drive results and grow his firm.

Leadership and Vision for Financial Advisors
- Ray and I delve into the crucial aspects of leadership and vision for financial advisors.
- Ray recounts his journey from being a solo contributor to becoming a leader, highlighting the pivotal challenges in shaping a clear vision for his team.
- They discuss the indispensable need for financial advisors to establish a guiding vision, mission, and set of values, which are essential in decision-making and providing direction to their teams.
-Ray puts a spotlight on the evolving nature of the financial services industry, emphasizing the shift towards high-touch, relationship-based services and the significance of client segmentation.


The Financial Advisor Success Syndicate
- Ray details the collaborative effort behind FASS, founded by seven experts each with distinct specializations, aiming to foster a space for sharing growth strategies and ideas among financial advisors.
- He points out that participating in FASS is a crucial 10% activity in adult learning, underscoring the importance of not just learning but also implementing these insights into practice.
- Ray shares three pivotal questions that drive effective learning and action: "How can I use this?", "Why must I use it?", and "When will I use it?", encouraging listeners to adopt a proactive approach to their professional development and growth.

About Our Guest:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ray-kelly-2978114/
Website: https://www.think2perform.com/

About Your Host:  Paul G. McManus is an accomplished author and expert in helping financial professionals grow their businesses. With over eight years of experience working exclusively with financial professionals, Paul has helped his clients generate tens of millions of dollars in fees and commissions.

Claim your free audiobook copy at: www.theshortbookformula.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

Welcome to another episode of the Million Dollar Producers show. I'm your host, Paul G McManus. Today. I'm honored to welcome Ray Kelly to the show. I first discovered Ray through a mutual client and colleague of ours, John Cutt, and I've been hearing about the work Ray does when it comes to leadership from a number of my current clients. I'm very interested to dive into his background and his approach to helping financial advisors grow their practices by honing their leadership skills. Finally, Ray is a founding member of the Financial Advisor Success in the Kit, which we'll be diving into more during the course of today's episode. Welcome.

Speaker 2: 1:03

Ray Paul, thanks, I told you you said your introduction. I had no idea your middle initials, gee, what does it stand for?

Speaker 1: 1:10

A great question. It stands for Gideon, and I have a whole story and a reason, which I'll share with you, just very briefly, why I use it. I learned a lesson in personal branding some years ago when someone Googled me Paul McManus, without the middle initial and all the results that came up were this axe murderer out of Ireland featured on murderpedia and these different things. I'm like that's not really good for an online brand. So my lesson in personal branding was well, if you add the middle initial and now when you Google me, you'll get all the things that I want people to see, all right.

Speaker 2: 1:39

I will not forget that story.

Speaker 1: 1:41

Again, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. This is really our first time to talk one-on-one. I've listened to you on other podcasts and the trainings you've done, so I feel like I know you. But for audience specifically, who's probably never had a chance to learn about your story, just a big picture who is Ray Kelly and what got you from there to where you are today?

Speaker 2: 1:59

Sure, I'm from Detroit, originally from Michigan. My father was an electrical engineer for Ford. He was frustrated in the early 70s with the garbage they were putting out. He basically quit his job and I call it went into the family business, and the family business was he's a policeman. He became a state policeman and moved us to Central Michigan, did a lot of work on the farm for little and stuff like that, and one of the things I realized on a hot August day when I was bailing A making two bucks an hour. That was one thing I didn't want to do the rest of my life. So I made a decision I was going to go to college, hopefully get a job in an air conditioned building Didn't make people work for slave labor, and that's what I did.

Speaker 2: 2:39

I went to end up going to the University of Michigan. I was a finance major there. A little company came to campus Remember those days when they're interviewing for jobs and a company called IDS financial services came to campus and I had finance in my name. They had financed their name. I thought we had a match. I had no idea what they did. This is before the internet, where you could Google stuff. You would have gone to the library and look up deep to try to find that out. I found out later that they're located in Minneapolis and they were owned by American Express. I had heard of American Express I didn't have one of those cards but I've heard of it at the time when I was 21. But I moved there and I ended up starting in their corporate office in the accounting and finance pool and my first permanent job, paul, and if there are any auditors out there, if you have cover years. But what I learned there as an auditor is what I never, ever wanted to do again. Spent 15 months, three weeks, four days and approximately six hours in audit. I hated it. The cool thing is I found out what the company did. Okay, we helped clients achieve their financial goals and dreams. We sold them different products and services and I knew I needed to get on the client facing side of the business and that's what I did.

Speaker 2: 3:42

To make a long story short, I ended up spending 13 years down in Texas. I ran that part of the country for the campaign of American Express. My advisor is an American Air Prize. I did such a bang up job. I said, hey, come back to Minneapolis, we'd like you to run the employee side of the business. I ran the employee side for a number of years and then I quit. The reason why I quit was my values were out of whack.

Speaker 2: 4:02

A little bit later I talked about behavioral financial advice and one of the base questions the BFA is based on is it possible your real self be aligned with your ideal self more often? Is it possible your real self be aligned with your ideal self? My ideal self is saying that the most important thing in my life was family. I had four kids between the ages of seven and 14 and I wasn't spending very much time with it okay, which did not make me very happy. I was out of alignment. So I quit and I stopped and became a dad, got involved in school, coached their teams, did all those things.

Speaker 2: 4:35

One of the things I realized Paul was from eight o'clock in the morning to about three o'clock in the afternoon they went to school. So I said what the heck am I going to do? What I was good at in my days at the American Air Prize was track record of developing really good leaders leadership team. I said you know what I'm going to build a business, part-time business, coaching business, where I can help people mainly in the industry that I grew up in, which is the financial services industry, where I spent over 20-something years there and I started building a coaching business in that spare time. So that's what I do now as an executive coach, and I spend most of my time focused on building leadership cultures how to develop the next generation of leaders within your group so you don't kill yourself or try to continue to take advantage of the greatest periods of time in terms of boomers retiring and also one of our greatest obligations in terms of people needing our services.

Speaker 1: 5:23

Amazing story. I appreciate you sharing that with us. Given your backgrounds with the American Air Prize and I know all the clients we have in common are financial advisors. So is it safe to say that your client base that you work with are primarily financial advisors or exclusively financial advisors?

Speaker 2: 5:38

It's probably about 90% financial advisors Whether it's financial advisors or the executives at their firms, I got to a pretty high level. An analogy I like to share with people is a military analogy. You know from privates all the way up to generals. When I left there I was at a general position, but one of the things I realized is generals usually get to become generals because they've had a success track record and have a way of doing things that works for them. They're not always interested in getting coaching or have a coach. So what I've targeted is helping generals and colonels who develop the mid-level officers how to develop your lieutenants and captains to become colonels and generals.

Speaker 2: 6:17

That's my sweet spot. I know how to fire a gun. I can actually go down and do the sergeant job teaching the private how to do their role, but it's not a long time since I've done that. But what I do know how to do is how to help make young leaders better so that they can be positioned to take over the firm, to take out more responsibility, grow their skill sets in terms of how to mobilize a group of people around a common cause to drive a result consistent.

Speaker 1: 6:41

I was recently listening to one of the trainings that you did in the financial advisor success indicate, which we'll get into more detail later. But the point and the story and the point that you made which resonated with me was that something along the lines of when you're talking to the audience and you ask them how many of you want to increase your revenue, for example, every hand goes up and the next follow up question is how many of you want to work more hours to make that happen? And not many hands go up. And I think the point that you made is so useful and just that really captures it is that at some point the only way or the primary way to grow your business or practice beyond a certain level is through honing in on those leadership skills and to really give a kind of a concrete example and framing to the conversation. So the person that we both know in common, john Cutton I'll share briefly about him.

Speaker 1: 7:30

I believe you have a much longer history with him, john Cutton. He's a client of mine currently helping him write five books. He's ambitious, just at a very high level. He's a baron's hall of fame financial advisor. He currently runs CUN wealth management, which does, I want to say eight billion plus of AUM, and I know his vision, which I'm sure he's going to hit even sooner than he predicts, is something along the lines of 30 billion or even more AUM.

Speaker 1: 7:56

I just want to share all that because that's the level of person, someone who's at the pinnacle of their success and still growing right. So it's not like he stopped. He's already at the top and he has even bigger vision and dreams to expand. But that's the kind of person that you help. And then, just before I turn to Tio, I think to underscore the point that you're making is ultimately and I know from him and working with him closely is that he's not hands on in his practice from the perspective of he doesn't do any advising. He has a team and I believe part of the biggest thing that you help them with, which I want to get into, is you help them build out those I think it's called level five leaders, or you help them build their leadership skills so that he can effectively grow that firm without him having to be hands on in the process. So with that setup, I just love to have you go as big picture as you want or narrow, and hear your thoughts on that.

Speaker 2: 8:42

Yeah, I'll do a little bit of both. You got it right on Paul John's a great example of what a lot of my clients look like. John, to your point, is very ambitious as a big vision, which I love. I love that big vision. But John hired me probably oh, 2016, 17,.

Speaker 2: 8:57

We started working together. He was stuck, and he was stuck in a pretty good place. Okay, he was doing 10, 12 million in revenue, but he was frustrated. His back was tired. I eventually just held up the mirror and said John, you're the problem. He said what I'm the problem. I do everything around here. And I say exactly you do everything around here and that's the problem. You haven't developed leaders. You haven't developed a next generation.

Speaker 2: 9:19

Okay, so that became the working point is how to create what I call a level five, a supercharged leadership development. Fact. We develop level five as part of their vision statement and it pretty much differentiates them from almost everyone else in the industry Is their focus of not only being barons doing all the great client service and investment work and all the things you do is take planning with your clients, but also Developing all the people within the firm to become better leaders, because everybody wins when the leader gets better. Everyone Individual ones, the people around them, including the family, people that lead Clients win when the leader gets better. And John bought into that vision and is really attacked it. Now I'll go in a little specifics. Just for the group that hasn't heard the five levels of leadership, I'm gonna share it with you because there's a couple other five levels of leadership that are out there that were Developed maybe at the same time. But I heard this once from my lead, one of my go-to leaders, in the early 90s. But the first time I heard the five levels leadership is in Jim Collins book Good to great. Okay, good to great. He talks about the different levels of leader, from the person who's at the lowest level all the way up to the executive, and he's talking about the different characteristics of these leaders and what's necessary. But John Maxwell, who's probably the biggest name in leadership development today, paul written over 25 books on leadership, including one called the five levels leadership and his five levels of leadership is all about the attributes, are all about the Relationship between the leader and the follow. So basically, you become a different level leader depending on where your follower in your Relationship. Stance is all about the core competencies necessary to become a better lead.

Speaker 2: 10:55

Let me start. A level one leader is a person. One told what to do, gets the job. Okay, I'm told what to do, gets the job done. That doesn't sound like a leader, but there's no adage. All this is leading by examples, one way of leading, but without it, all the rest don't work. A level one Leader leads by example.

Speaker 2: 11:10

This is the person you say hey, I need you to deal with the Smiths and they can go deal with it's all of the. Do they get the job done? A level two leaders. A Person could do level one plus. They can identify problems. Not a big difference between a one and a two. I think it's human nature that we start to identify problems around us. This is a person one.

Speaker 2: 11:26

Deal with the Smiths. They run into a problem. They can bring it back. Yeah, hey, paul, they're doing this mess, they have this problem and they expect you to solve it. That's a level two. Now a level three does level two consistently, but they come up with solutions, those problems. We like this. Okay. When they're dealing with the Smiths, not only do they bring back the problem, they bring back how they solve it. Big difference between the two of them.

Speaker 2: 11:46

Let's get to a level four. Level four does level three plus and I'll say this twice because it's a multiple they can mobilize a group of people around a common cause to drive a result consistent. Again, the level four does level three plus. They can mobilize a group of people around a common cause, any cause, drive revenue, drive the new benefit package, whatever it may be. They can drive it all the way to its conclusion, so successful. That's a huge difference between the three. They don't just do it once, they do it consistently. Hey, can you go deal with the Smiths? When dealing with Smiths, we run into a problem. Now do they identify the problem and solve the problem. They put systems and processes in place so we never have to deal with that problem again. We train everyone in the organization on that problem. Holy smokes, they don't do it once, they do it system. Big difference between we love.

Speaker 2: 12:31

Now let's talk about level five. Level five does level four Plus. They tie everything back to the bigger vision, mission and values of either of the individual or the organization. And, most importantly, what a five does, paul, as they develop other level four pluses now freeze. I want you, the whole audience, to do the same thing. Just think about Right now what you're thinking, what you're feeling. Okay, as I say, freeze, okay, typically, paul, what are you thinking, feeling, just so I'm clear thinking and feeling in terms of, as I just described, the five levels of leadership. You're just hearing that. What's going through your mind?

Speaker 1: 13:04

I think I'm self evaluating a little bit. I would say I'm at least level three consistently, and I'll share a quick aside there. I was on a call with John and, I think, a few others the other day this is before I knew what the five levels. We were discussing a problem. I said, hey, I got a solution for you, we got this in this. He's here at level three. I'm like, wait a minute. I know that there's five levels here. So I don't know if I'm being like complimented or insulted. My reaction from what I'm hearing is I think I'm probably Consistently level three and I get the difference in levels. And so just to maybe add to that, I would imagine that John, who we're talking about as an example, I think he's probably level five, from at least my experience with him, where that's the predominant characteristics. And I say that because ever since I've gotten to know him, really just over the past year or so, he always starts with vision, mission, values, and that was not how I was operating when we met.

Speaker 2: 13:54

Yes, you're all over it. So John was using that now. When I first met him, he wasn't. He's a great level four. He could mobilize a group of people but he wasn't developing the next generation of leaders and that's why he was so tired and frustrated. And what I do is help these people because here's the thing, most of the people Listen here are financial advisors. It's a profession. You've had ten thousand plus hours developing the professional skills and being a great financial advisor, being a leader, is another profession. It's possible to do both, but it's hard. You have to do be very intentional on what John wasn't at the time was being intentional on leadership, because he between the eyes and so one.

Speaker 2: 14:33

Here's the thing about what you said 90% of the time, 90% of the people, when I say, freeze, what are you thinking, feeling, doing right at this moment, 90% of the time 90% of the people say number one, what number of mine? They're self-evaluate, they're self-assessing. Number two they're often looking at their organization. My guess is you were thinking about your team to go Wonder what Sarah is. I wonder what Bill is. They just bring me problems. Sarah brings me solution. Right, more of three. You're evaluating your team. And number three, which is the most powerful part of it. People are often thinking to themselves how do I move myself and the people around me up? Because what would happen to the growth of your organization If you had a bunch of level four pluses running around?

Speaker 2: 15:12

And that's where John's part of his vision first firm is to be Unknown industry-wide is a supercharged leadership development factory. We develop, okay, and that's what's happened over the last several years. He's gone from 10 12 million to 73 million this year. Okay, you'll go from 73 million, probably the 85 90 million. Next year It'll be over a hundred million in two years. He's basically doubled it multiple times in seven, eight years. Stuff like that, holy cow. And he could not do it. He was frustrated. He couldn't actually achieve his vision. Now he's got this great vision and now he's got who's.

Speaker 2: 15:47

This is the unsolvable Conversation talk got a bunch of who's helping them? Leaders, are they perfect? No, but they're all tying everything back. Because here's part of the secret, the secret of being a consistent level four the ability to Mobilize a group of people around a common cause to drive results consistently. The secret and if I were taking notes out there, I write this down the secret of being a consistent four is tie everything back to vision, mission, values, do, level five, behavior. So when you're trying to get people to revamp the new benefits plan, tie it back to the bigger why our values, our vision, okay, why do we want to grow our business? Tie it back to the bigger wire. They're personal values, vision, stuff, like that. It's amazing. That's how you get consistent and get people to do stuff. It's connected back to why personal, why or pro organizational one, and that's what you have to become Consciously competent about. How to do it. And this is where I start to lead the people all through organizations. How to do that. Okay, so my primary group.

Speaker 2: 16:42

Back to the first question you asked Do I work primarily in the financial services industry? And the answer is yes, and partly because of the fact that when you're coaching people, it's based on trust, okay, and it's amazing. I could go work for the New York Yankees, as an example. I could go work in the biomedical field, because people are people. It's the same thing for both groups. But usually the New York Yankees won't hire me because what do you know about baseball, right? What do you know about biomedical? I've been an executive in financial services. I can talk to your language all day long. I know the industry. I deal with 20 different companies within the industry. I know what's going on but at the same time, leadership it's the same stuff. They're important to the baseball or biomedical field or a group of kindergartners it's not that different.

Speaker 1: 17:30

To expand upon I commit that from a different lens slightly is that I'm primarily a marketer and when I work with people, one of the things I want them to do is to ideally focus on a group. Just as an example I work with similar to you, I work with financial advisors. And why is that useful and helpful to your point, that I speak their language, I understand their point of view, their personalities, common challenges? Can I take the same skill set and apply it to a different group? Sure, but there's an assumption that do you understand me? Marking is marketing. But so I guess I just want to say that in my own words, in my own lens, and I can definitely appreciate and agree with that.

Speaker 1: 18:08

So, you have me thinking now, right, I guess I'm just going to have to hijack this and make this all about me.

Speaker 2: 18:12

We know coaching lesson here.

Speaker 1: 18:13

The real reason to do podcasts is you get all kinds of amazing insights that would probably cost you a fortune otherwise. Yeah, so level three I think I have pretty well on my belt. I think I'm level four-ish I don't know that I'm consistently level four, but I think that's my focus right now and I've been spending enough time with John and just without necessarily understanding it, the way that you described it in terms of the five levels I can see what he's doing and I'm paying attention and again it goes back to that mission, values and core values, and so I can see that seeping into just organically, almost the way that I'm starting to operate myself. For example, I'm currently expanding my team and I think an advisor can relate to this, and I'm sure you obviously work with advisors and so maybe you can add to this.

Speaker 1: 18:56

But when you go from the primary person doing the work, even if you have a team of support right so you're not by yourself. You have staff, maybe operations, et cetera, but you're the rainmaker, you're the key person that people look at and you realize that you've hit a wall and you need to expand beyond that. But there's also this fear, right, it's that you can consistently drive a certain result for your customers that you're accustomed to, and you don't want to drop the ball and all these different things Literally in the process right now, bringing someone on to take over a key role. For me, and again because of this influence from John, it's like I came up with the core values. Ok, what are the values that need to guide you while you're on this call and I'm not there to be there? I need to set up values that they can operate off of, and so I'm just going to turn it over to you, but what would you add to that conversation from your?

Speaker 2: 19:44

perspective. You're going through exactly the process that people go from solo contributors and all of a sudden you need to start getting it done Because to achieve your vision, your goals for yourself, you realize my back is getting sore and I need to get other people to do this stuff. And that was my hardest leadership job, besides leading one's self myself my first leadership job when the first time I had direct reports when to even start, and it's helping people start with. Let's develop hey, where we're going, our vision, how do you do that? It sounds like a buzzword, but when you learn how to use it, the vision gives them a direction and a why and where we're going when you're not there, so you can articulate and say, hey, we're going to hear, this is what we want to do. So if we're ever in doubt, remember this is where we're going. We're taking the hill as we're going between our current reality and where we're going. There's thousands of decisions that are thousands. Let me give you five or six guiding principles that, as long as you're in alignment with these guiding principles and you're heading northeast towards that vision, we're OK. That means I don't have to be there to make all those decisions.

Speaker 2: 20:53

That was part of John's frustration that John was so getting to the micromanaging, controlling this business was getting bigger and he didn't want to make a mistake. All these different things and then, just like you're squeezing it too tight versus directionally giving them a vision and values that guide their decision making, like, the client comes first. Hey, excellence in everything we do. Hey, integrity in everything we're going to admit if we made a mistake. Hey, we're going to use transparency wherever possible. Whatever the four things for your business, let's make sure that those people working for you know that these will always be praise or always be high five, as long as we're heading towards that vision. If we're not in alignment with those values or going in a different direction of vision, that leads to conflict. Not that conflict is a bad thing, paul, I grew up with a family of six. I have four kids. Right now they're not kids anymore, but 21 to 27. We can't agree what we're going to watch on TV together, what we're going to have to get out together, but we can actually have a common vision and actually values in terms of how to treat each other within the household. Same thing works in the household as it does in a big company and in the practice, and as you achieve this big vision, this opportunity that I talked about in that last podcast you talked about. It's just amazing. It's out there but none of us want to work more hours and the key jingle block.

Speaker 2: 22:15

There's two big ones that are happening in the industry. I've talked about the future of the financial services industry. It's high tech, high touch, high tech, high touch. One of them, you control, the other one you don't. Technology, you don't control. It's happening, folks. It's happening fast and it's going to accelerate. The artificial intelligence on this industry is zooming. The people who believe that their value proposition is I'm in portfolio management hate to tell you you better get a new business, because artificial intelligence is going to blow you away and it's already started. What the client wants from you is relationship, the emotional connection which is back to that BFA to be a real financial advice designation, teaching you how to connect with your clients. Many of you do this, but I want you to become consciously competent so you can develop everyone on your team to do this, because it's going to be all about high touch, what you embrace, the technology boy, you better go out and relationship longer and emotional intelligence.

Speaker 1: 23:11

Before we get into the behavioral, there was two specific questions I wanted to ask you about on the Mission and values.

Speaker 1: 23:17

Question number one is, as you are, that smaller solopreneur we'll call it expanding and you have the direction that you want to go and this is maybe in my case. I want to dictate what the vision, mission and values are right Versus maybe a bigger company where we get our team involved in the process. What are values, et cetera, and maybe, depending on the size of the organization, both might have its place. But at this point I want to say these are the values and really it's my values and my extension. I want to attract those people and foster them inside my team. So that's one question. The second question is I think for some people there's. So I'll give you a concrete example.

Speaker 1: 23:53

Maybe 10 to 20 years ago I forgot how long at this point I was in a different role, doing a different thing, and I was doing a sales call to the president of a credit union named Harold. When I was in the lobby I saw up on the wall they're like our mission at this credit union is to X, y and Z. I'm like oh, that's pretty cool. So I'm thinking I'm studying leadership books and different things and influence. So I march on up to the president's office for the sales call and I wanted to engage him at that higher level versus just a regular sales person.

Speaker 1: 24:21

So I'm like oh, I noticed on the wall, your mission is blah, blah, blah. I just love to hear more about that. And his response was like huh, what Mission? Huh, just. I just use it as a story because I think there is some resistance until someone really gets it and is inspired. I think there's some resistance because I think too many of us have had an experience of this is just corporate speaker, but it's something that you do, an exercise, you check the box, you're done and it goes in the folder and you don't really the organization doesn't really breathe those values. So just those two questions. I'd love to get your feedback and then we'll move on to behavioral finance.

Speaker 2: 24:54

Perfect One of the things that part of the coaching that we do at my company think to perform and is we learned over the last 15, 20 years is advisors.

Speaker 2: 25:03

I'll call graduate from advisor to CEO and go from advisor to practice to CEO of this small firm. Maybe you've become a bigger, larger firm. Okay, there's six key things. I won't go through all six of them. I'm just gonna go to the top two things that help a person go from advisor to CEO. First one is vision clarity around this. So these aren't buzzwords. They are buzzwords for the level one leader.

Speaker 2: 25:25

This is one that challenges about a level one versus a level five. A level one doesn't see what a five does. A two often doesn't see what a three does. You may have two people working your organization fall and they both come performance review time and they think they're gonna get the same amount of money because one of them hey, I do the same thing as Jim. You bring me a lot of problems. Jim brings me solutions. This is why Jim's getting the bigger bonus, the bigger raise, what we got, the same title. It's not about titles, it's about core competencies. Okay, and a two often doesn't see what a three doesn't often see what a four does and a one definitely doesn't see what a five does.

Speaker 2: 26:02

When I first started with that company IDS back in 1988, I was a great level one leader. When told what to do, I got the job done. I worked hard, put my nose down, but we had a CEO at the time. His name was Harvey Gallup. Harvey led the entire industry into financial planning. He was the one let's do a financial plan. It was his noodle that actually mobilized a group of people around his vision. The further step Every time they did the town hall meeting with Harvey, he talked about vision, mission and values. Blah, blah, blah, blah Me. I was sitting there thinking he needs a new speechwriter. This is terrible. If I hear that one more time I'm going to put a bullet in my head. This is so bad. I was a level one. When told what to do, got the job done. I couldn't even see what he was doing.

Speaker 2: 26:47

One of my colleagues at Tick To Perform reported to him for a number of years and he said, ray, what you don't know is this and, harvey, if you ever attended one of your meetings and you're talking about your strategy, your goals, your tactics, whatever with your team and you did not connect it back to the bigger why vision, mission and values you were fired. I was like, really, he goes. He gave you one mulligan. He pulled you aside. I didn't see the connection back to the bigger why you do that. Again, you're done. If you can't connect what you're doing back to the bigger, why you shouldn't be doing it. So back to a lot of people do use it as buzzwords because they don't understand it. They don't know how to use it. I see this all of the time. So back to number one and two for advisors to go from becoming an advisor to becoming a CEO, learn first, have vision, mission and values, but then learn how to use them, how to lead a group of people with these things.

Speaker 2: 27:42

And the second thing is client segmentation. All of a sudden, john Cutton hasn't seen a client in a decade, plus been over 12 years since he's seen a client and for a lot of the people listening that's scary as hell. I'm sure it was for John. He built something really successful, but all of a sudden it's the only way to get to the next thing. There's so many things, paul, you're working on in your business out here. Who's gonna do that thinking? Would any of you out there listening recommend a company where the leaders don't have a clear vision and values that guide their decision making. You went to visit that little credit union. You heard that Yahoo Go. What are you talking about? I wouldn't invest in that company right there. Off the get go, holy smokes. A lot of you invest in your practices and you don't have a clear direction. You wonder why your people don't really get excited and it's fired up. You haven't given them the reason why to work that hard. So it's back to the difference. Here's one for you, paul.

Speaker 2: 28:39

For people listening, a good friend of mine owned a company called Modern Surveys. It's one of those companies that does specializes in employee engagement, how to get your people more engaged, and they do a survey of 1200 companies around the world. All different types of companies, profit, nonprofit financial services outside. Every year, they survey all of the employees at these companies and one of the questions they ask these people is how engaged are you at work? Okay, one of the things that's so shocking this was last year. You owned a company. It was 2015, 16, then he sold it to Aon, so I used to get this information from them every year. It's great to find out where the world was and how they thought about engagement.

Speaker 2: 29:19

What they found is, when asked the question how much effort do you give at work? Only 16% of the people answered I give it my all. I give it my best. That was owed, by the way, a 10 year high. 16%, 27 of your people are actually giving it their all. 28% of the people were given as little as necessary to get by. Okay, that was a 10 year low. Okay, I had seen above. 30% of the people was given as little as necessary to get by.

Speaker 2: 29:43

Now, one of the questions I asked all of my clients is this one Paul, if you want those 84% of the people who are not giving them their all to give it their all, what must you do? And the big answer is you have to give them a purpose worthy of their best effort. That is part of the vision, mission and values. Okay, give them a purpose worthy of their best efforts. Here's a safety tip for all of you. They have found that people in their organization who could state the vision, mission and values just know what they are to state them Are 51 times not 51% 51 times more likely to be fully engaged than people who do not know what the vision, mission and values. I don't know any technology that makes you 51 times more productive. This is huge, folks, if you don't have a vision, mission and values and are articulating them. So this is one of the things I saw John do. Almost immediately, he got the vision, mission and values nailed down and he started to get into one of his meetings on Monday morning.

Speaker 2: 30:35

It's the first thing. They cover 100 and something people on the line. They bounce around the room. Paul share with us our top five values. Jenny share with us our vision. Jim our tagline. Bill permission statement. Everyone in there knows at any point in time, they can call on vision, mission and values. Does it make them more? Datus is yes, but we also could be level one leaders, though, and I can back my Harvey Gallup days. If they talk about this. One more time, I'm going to shoot someone, but John knows that people who can state it are 51 times more likely to be fully engaged, and the people cannot. That's why it's the number one on the list of helping an advisor go from advisor to truly becoming a CEO. Make sure you can articulate the vision, mission and values, and make sure all your people can. You'll see a productivity increase right away.

Speaker 1: 31:23

That's amazing and I love the context that you gave around that, which is if you really see yourself on that spectrum of leadership, level one to level five. There's a reason why that level one, but it just goes in one ear and out the others because their mindset and their goals and the reality that they've constructed for themselves, it's not as meaningful to them at that point. I guess for me it's so much more meaningful at this point because it really it's not this nice to have thing, it's not this luxury, it's actually a critical tool. So what I'm getting away, or what I'm taking away from this conversation I think too many of us think of this as it'd be nice to have this If we had a vision, mission and values.

Speaker 1: 32:01

That would be great. We check a box and then we look good. But what I'm hearing you say is if you're a carpenter, you need a hammer or a screwdriver or a drill in your tool kit, otherwise you're just like not going to be effective. And if you're at that point where you're essentially maxed out or you're looking to grow significantly bigger without this tool in your tool kit, you're going to be stuck in many ways.

Speaker 2: 32:22

I've unstuck enough people to know how critical this is. You heard me say key jenga block. It is the key block and it's everything. Home is leadership. It truly is, and I would encourage folks to become a student of it, and one of the opportunities for people is the financial advisor success syndicate that we talked about earlier.

Speaker 1: 32:42

So the financial advisor success syndicate, just from my point of view, I'll turn it over to you. So this is fairly new. It's been around for, I want to say, just a couple months now, and it's a collaboration between you, john Cutten, and I believe it's five or six other founding members, each that have their particular discipline and skill set, and I know that your primary role there is one of the founding members is that leadership track. And before I turn it over, just if someone's listening to this, wow, I'm really motivated, inspired, et cetera, by what I've learned from Ray. And here's the key thing, without necessarily making a substantial investment at this point, although that's always welcome, I'm sure To me this is like the vehicle to get more wisdom and insights from you. So just go with that framing, I'll turn it to you.

Speaker 2: 33:31

Yeah, your spot on all that stuff. So what I would tell people is just write this down join j-o-i-m-f-a-scom. You can join the community. It's a group of like-minded. They're all financial advisor professionals, okay, and it's all about creating this community who are interested in growing their businesses. It's actually one of our guiding principles knowing jerk's allowed, where we share ideas and learnings.

Speaker 2: 33:56

But, to your point, we have seven founders. You have John, who's running one of the most successful businesses and independent space out there. You have Anton Anderson I know he's in San Diego with you. Paul Anton is how to put CPAs together with financial advisors in a family practice type situation. You have Frank LaRosa, who's a recruiting expert one of the biggest, maybe the largest recruiting firm in the country. David Groud Jr, who runs a group called Success and Resource Group mergers and acquisitions and legal ease and how to set up your company properly. Tina Beck you mentioned earlier media expert how to actually use this marketing stuff effectively. John Randall, ideas in terms of increasing the revenue in your business.

Speaker 2: 34:38

Client service models all these different things. I think I got everyone. But here it is. How adults learn okay, fas, how adults learning grow. 70% of adult learning is you have to go do it practicing. 10% of adult learning is through a coach or a mentor, and 10% of adult learning is from books, classes, podcasts. This is a 10%er. I'm glad you're all doing it, but this is not how you become a better financial advisor. This isn't how you become a better golfer. It can help, but you have to go apply it.

Speaker 1: 35:06

To be clear, that's listening to this podcast is a 10% activity. You got it 10% activity.

Speaker 2: 35:13

I called the multiplier, the coach or the mentor. What you get exposed through FAS is a bunch of people who act as coaches. Okay, I happen to be in the leadership space. All these other people have their own spaces. We have different communities. We're asking questions, but we're learning from each other. We're facilitating that and, to your point, no cost to you. If you choose, some of you will actually go. I need more of that Ray Kelly's time. Then we can talk, okay, and then we could actually hire me as a full-time coach. That's a possibility. That's not why I'm doing this. It's not why any of them are doing this. We're going to help you give back because we want to make a meaningful difference in the space. Why not get a like-minded people together sharing ideas? I think just the seven of us, the founders. That was John's idea. He's got one of those brains, okay, so would you be interested? I said love the help.

Speaker 1: 36:03

I'm going to do one of those freeze things on you now, so I'm going to flip the script on you. I just want to underscore that's really the ethos behind it is giving back and creating this, taking the top thoughts and ideas and strategies from the array of all of you, the types of content that you're giving out essentially for free. Typically, you'd have to spend quite a bit of money to get access to one of you, let alone all 70 of you, but I'm going to just for the fun of it. I'm going to say, okay, so what is the vision, mission and core values guiding the financial advisor?

Speaker 2: 36:40

success John's vision is to revolutionize and disrupt the financial advice industry. Okay, Disrupt it In a good way, not in a bad way, but let's disrupt it to give each other, help each other out, provide so much value that all of us are growing from each other. Just how do you create that space? Okay, and back to the guiding principles of like-minded advisors. A community we want to be, its positivity is a requirement We've already had to have at least one person talk to because they're negativity. It's not a selling platform. We don't want people getting on there selling their wares. It's not the purpose. It's to share ideas and help each other grow and develop. So that's a big part of it. Do we have a written word by word, One of the things about a vision, mission and values that often takes an organization, individual, 12 to 18 months to. Really it's like a fine line.

Speaker 2: 37:32

You want to start working on it. Put it on the shelf for a while, take a look at it, have other people react to it. Hey, it's missing this. It's basically developing a fine line. Vision, by the way, changes with time, eventually. I think about John's group. They're almost two of the vision he set five years ago. Okay, it's 100 million revenue practice and they're like that's too small. They'll go to 500 million.

Speaker 1: 37:59

Okay.

Speaker 2: 37:59

We're going to do that the next 10 years. Okay, and they actually had a meeting on it a couple of weeks ago. What would it take to do that? When you start doing the math, you're going holy, this is monstrous. And buddy, we have a plan, we've got a strategy to make this happen, and let's talk about our 10x. Way of thinking is an example. So thanks for asking.

Speaker 1: 38:18

The final question is where can people go to either learn more about you or to reach out to you?

Speaker 2: 38:24

Because I want to reach out to me. I think the easiest way to get exposed to me by joining fsscom. Great way to get exposed to me. I taught a class on FASS last Friday and a big part of it was one of the things I learned on a podcast. Okay, I listened to Ed Mylett talking to a guy named Jim Quick. Jim Quick is one of these guys who studies the brain optimal brain performance and one of the things he talked about is adult learning.

Speaker 2: 38:50

Okay, we all have a learning curve. We also have a forgetting curve. One of the things he described is the majority of us will forget nearly everything we learn in the next two days. Okay, up to 80% of what you hear today will be completely forgotten within 48 hours. You go out a week or two weeks. Forget about that's why there's books all over my bookshelves that I read that book but I don't remember anything from it. He's trying to help you with optimal performance.

Speaker 2: 39:16

We spend, on average, four hours a day processing information, most of it through reading, okay, and we don't do it very effective. What if we could become more effective in our learning? He says it's probably the greatest skill you can get. Okay, we just think of a genie and you rub the whole thing and genie pops out. So you get one wish. Of course, the smart answer is I'd like to have 10 more wishes. Okay, but let's just say. They said you can have one skill, one skill only. What would it be? I want a dump of basketball. I want to be a golfer like Tyler Woods. Whatever it is, you may jump all this.

Speaker 1: 39:47

I used to have to jump in before you continue. Have you ever watched the movie bedazzled before?

Speaker 2: 39:51

I remember it, but I don't remember it.

Speaker 1: 39:53

Yeah, so that to go off topic. But yeah, that's like a lesson in asking for what you think you want and then it going terribly wrong.

Speaker 2: 40:00

So his point is what, if you ask for the one skill is how to learn more effective, how to learn faster, you can learn anything now. Okay, and he was given this concept. He's talking to Microsoft years and years at the end of his speech. First person in the line there to ask him questions with Bill Gates Could you help me read faster? Yeah, that's what I could help you read faster, because I want to do that. Just think, if it takes me four hours, I can do it two hours. How much more I can learn. And Bill was so excited.

Speaker 2: 40:28

The thing that I took away from his broadcast was how he takes notes. There's a right way and a wrong way, or a more effective way, okay. And then the way that a lot of us take notes. The worst way to take notes, paul is verbatim. I'm just writing down everything that Paul raised and quickly. It's just too much information. He said draw the line in through the middle of your paper, your screen, whatever you're using, on the left side. That's where the general ideas are. Don't try to write it all down, just the general themes of what you're hearing. That's the left side, it's like the right side of your brain, it's the logic center, right Down, the logical things that you're hearing On the right side of the paper. This is the creative side, and on the creative side he says I'd write this down. Write down three questions that you're asking yourself while you're listening. So think about you.

Speaker 2: 41:10

Just heard Ray and Paul do a podcast. Ask yourself the question, these three questions how can I use this? How can I use whatever circle, certain things on the left hand side? Hey, ray talked about the 70, 2010. He talked about joint FAS. He talked about the five levels of leadership. How can I use this?

Speaker 2: 41:29

Ask yourself the second question. Ask yourself why must I use it? The reason why learning doesn't stick with us? Because we get the information, but that's multiplied times emotion. You have to get the emotional, the why behind it. You multiply it. Zero to 10. Information times zero to 10. Motivation gives you overall learning zero to 100. Make sure you lock into the why. Okay, this will help my clients. This will help me become a better dad. This will help me, whatever it may be. What's the why? Connect it back to secret vision, mission values, personal or organizational. Tie it back to those things.

Speaker 2: 42:04

Third question is when will I use it? Okay, target it. When will I use this? Make a commitment I always want to teach my clients studies of shown.

Speaker 2: 42:15

If you take action within 24 hours of learning that, use it someplace. You don't have to master it. Go, use it as fast as you can. 90% shot you're going to successfully integrate it. However, if you wait over 48 hours, that forgetting curve, it drops to 5%. 5% successful integration. That's a big difference, paul.

Speaker 2: 42:35

So that question of when you don't have to get it down immediately, but I'm going to actually share it with my wife, my business partner, my team, about the three questions so that you improve. What would happen to your organization if everyone in your organization became a better learner? We went from four hours to two hours in terms of integration. We're integrating a lot more of this stuff faster. What would happen to benefit the client personally, your children? That's my one takeaway. I'm excited about it because I just heard it.

Speaker 2: 43:04

So guess what I said? How can I use this? I'm going to start using it in all my classes, podcasts, all my clients. Why must I use it? Are you kidding me? The value to all of my clients, value to my family if they learn how to learn more effectively and faster. And when will I use it? As soon as possible, on every chance I get. That's an example of how you can apply this. So I think for all of the people that are professional podcast listeners, the brain does not learn by consumption. The brain learns and integrates through creation. You have to go use it. That's the 70 ask of every one, or a challenge. If you ever attend any of my classes, paul, there's usually homework. The homework is go use it, as is possible. I'll pull it there.

Speaker 1: 43:48

Fantastic. Just final net question, but just the feedbacks Overall. Just thank you so much for your time. This has been both interesting and educational. I took notes myself on those three questions, so I wrote them down. I'm already thinking about myself. Really, just that is the level four leadership. Level five leadership. Being clear on that. I guess specifically it's what we talked about in terms of tie everything back to mission, vision and values. That's something I'm starting to do, but I haven't just said hey, I need and I want to do this consistently. But because of this conversation I now see the value in doing that, both myself and then with my team. So thank you very much for sharing your wisdom today.

Speaker 2: 44:34

I really appreciate it, paul what you just did for the listeners to understand by Paul saying it out loud. He just said it to everyone in the community who are listening. If you write it down, you're twice as likely to do it, versus just keep it in your head. Hey, I'm gonna try. You. Vision, mission, values of my organization when you set it out loud to everyone. We just tapped into accountability and another great principle or value called integrity. I set it out loud holy smokes. Now I gotta do it. This is what I do for anything that's really gonna be big or beneficial, I'll tell people hey.

Speaker 2: 45:07

I'm gonna try running a marathon. Well, I'm gonna run out of my lids. Now I have to actually go train. People are gonna ask me about it. Okay, you just said it out loud. My guess is cotton's gonna listen to it next time.

Speaker 1: 45:18

Hundreds of others are gonna listen to it. I just have to move forward now. I don't have a choice.

Speaker 2: 45:23

Times more likely to do it Doesn't guarantee you're gonna do it, but 10 times more likely you're gonna do it because you've set it out loud for all of your listeners.

Speaker 1: 45:30

One of the best things that I've gotten out of working closely with John Cotton in helping him write these books. It's just this bird's eye view on what someone at his level already, but also aspiring to even a much bigger level and I'm just absorbing and even before this conversation I absorbed how he does that the vision, mission and value. So I'm already paying attention to that. This just really underscores and provides maybe a little bit of analytical framework around that. So now I'm that much more committed to turning this into from just conversation and concept to consistent reality. So thank you very much, thanks for having me. I'll see you next time.