060: From Recruitment to Marketing: Frank LaRosa's Holistic Approach to Advisor Success

In this episode of The Million Dollar Producer Show, I welcome Frank LaRosa, CEO of Elite Consulting Partners and one of the founding members of the Financial Advisor Success Syndicate, to discuss his journey from financial services to founding a successful consulting firm.

Frank's Journey: From Financial Services to Consulting

• Career Beginnings: He started his career in the financial services industry at Prudential Securities, moving on to become a producer and manager at Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley. His passion for helping financial advisors grow their businesses led him to management roles.
• Founding Elite Consulting Partners: After being shown the door at Morgan Stanley, Frank decided to start his own recruiting and consulting firm, initially named Elite Recruiting and Consulting. Recognizing the importance of viewing clients as partners, he rebranded to Elite Consulting Partners in 2014.

Elite Consulting Partners: A Unique Approach to Financial Advisory Recruitment

• Focus on Financial Advisors: Elite Consulting Partners works with financial advisors and wealth managers, offering a unique consulting approach. They prioritize finding the right fit for both the advisor and the firm, ensuring long-term satisfaction and success.
• Growth and Expansion: Starting from his home, he grew the business into one of the largest firms of its kind, with a team of approximately 65 people. The firm's success is driven by its commitment to doing what's right for the financial advisor, with a strong emphasis on collaboration and long-term relationships.

Elite Marketing Concepts: Enhancing Financial Advisors' Personal Brands

• The Importance of Personal Branding: He emphasizes the significance of personal branding for financial advisors. He shares his experience in leveraging social media, podcasts, and videos to build a genuine and relatable brand.
• Launching Elite Marketing Concepts: Recognizing the need for customized marketing solutions, Frank launched Elite Marketing Concepts. This division offers tailored branding and marketing services, helping advisors create unique and impactful online presences.

Key Takeaways and Future Directions

• The Power of Collaboration: He highlights the importance of working closely with financial advisors to understand their goals and provide comprehensive support. This collaborative approach ensures that advisors receive the guidance and resources they need to succeed.
• Embracing Technology: The pandemic accelerated the adoption of technology in the financial services industry. Frank discusses how Elite Consulting Partners leveraged tools like Zoom and podcasts to maintain and grow client relationships during challenging times.
• Long-Term Vision: Looking ahead, Frank is excited about the future of Elite Consulting Partners and Elite Marketing Concepts. He remains committed to helping financial advisors achieve their goals and adapt to the evolving landscape of the industry.

About our Guest: Frank LaRosa, CEO of Elite Consulting Partners and one of the founding members of the Financial Advisor Success Syndicate

You can learn more about his work at: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/meet-our-founder/ 

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 everyone to another episode of the Million Dollar Producer Show. My name is Paul G McManus. Today, my guest is Frank LaRosa. Frank is the CEO of Elite Consulting Partners. I was recently on his podcast Advisor Talk with Frank LaRosa, so we had such a good conversation I decided to invite him to be on my podcast today, and so I'm excited to have you on the show, frank Welcome.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be on as well.

Speaker 1: 0:59

We've obviously had the podcast, but we also, I think, have some similar associations and colleagues. I know that you and John Cutton are both founding members of the Financial Advisor Success Syndicate and I've gotten to know John very well. I also know your CMO Chief Marketing Officer, tina Beck, fairly well. She was a guest on the podcast. I'd like to start. Who is Frank LaRosa? What is your story? What do you do at Elite Consulting Partners and what's that background that led you from where you started to where you are today?

Speaker 2: 1:31

just so our audience can get a sense of who you are, I appreciate that I'll say out of college and I don't want people to roll their eyes I'm not going to go that far back but this is really the only business I've ever been in From my wife. Then girlfriend graduated, was at Lehman Brothers and she used to go into finance and so I was like I didn't know anything about it. So I was like, fine, great, I got a job as an intern with Prudential Securities and went off from there. So I've only known the financial services business. Right, I'm 52. I got into that business when I was 22, 23, just about 30 years, it's all I know and I was in a producer and I was a manager at Smith Barney. So I was in financial security.

Speaker 2: 2:11

So I built a practice, moved to Smith Barney because I didn't know when I got there as an intern but it wasn't the best firm to be at, became a manager because I enjoyed the financial advisor side. But I really love what was my real passion was working with the advisors in the office and the branch and helping them on their businesses and helping them grow their businesses. Right, okay, great, open up a million dollar managed account. That's great. That didn't fulfill me like helping an advisor in the office open up a million dollar managed account.

Speaker 2: 2:41

To me that was more rewarding, and maybe it's because I was with them all the time, so I got to see it right. It was maybe more tangible and so I went into management and then fast forward. I was moved all around the complex director for Smith Barney, then Morgan Stanley, then summarily shown the door, as many of us were in 2000. And as a manager, and even today, your primary role there is just to recruit. And so when I decided what I was going to be when I grow up which is a line that I use with advisors when I'm talking to them about what they want to do- I use that line as well.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 3:16

I didn't want to go back to another institution and work for a corporate entity and then at the time I was 40 years old or so. I didn't want to wake up anymore when I was 50 something years old and have to start thinking about doing it over again. So I got some great advice. They're like you should just start your own recruiting firm and went from there. So I started. This firm at the time was called Elite Recruiting and Consulting because I thought it was good. Elite was a higher end type of analogy.

Speaker 2: 3:43

But a few years later I ended up changing the name to Elite Consulting Partners. So I think that's important to talk about, because what I recognized, what I was really doing and how I was functioning, how we work with financial advisors is we work with them as a consultant and we view them as our partners and the firms that we work with, meaning that the firms we might bring an advisor to we also view as partners, because we want to make the right fit both for the financial advisor as our client and the firm right. We don't want to put a round peg in a square hole and then the advisor's unhappy with us and the firm's unhappy with us because we didn't bring the right candidate, and so I changed the name of the firm in 2014 to Consulting Partners, which more aligned with what we do. Right, I stopped worrying about how much money I was going to get paid on each trade. Right To really let's do what's right for the advisor and then the money will follow right.

Speaker 2: 4:36

So, first and foremost, what's right for the financial advisor. The money will follow. And that's where my business took off. I started the business out of my house, literally in my house, and I had some people. I had some callers coming into the house and parking in the driveway, and at some point, my wife said get out, I can't have these strangers in my house and you need to go find a place to work. And so the office I'm in today is where I started. So I've been here for almost 13 years, which has been great.

Speaker 1: 5:03

And just to help me understand as well as, of course, our listeners is what you do primarily driven by a financial firm looking to recruit new advisors, or is it the advisor that comes to you and says I want to be placed somewhere, or is it both?

Speaker 2: 5:19

It's a little of both. What I don't call us is a search firm right. We're not a search firm in that sense, meaning that we're not filling one role, one position at a firm right. We're not filling a chief operating officer role or an executive VP role. We work with financial advisors, wealth management professionals, wealth managers and it's a little bit of both. So primarily it's outbound. So I have a team. So our firm today stands at roughly 65 people. I think we're the largest in the industry.

Speaker 2: 5:52

I don't know of any firm that has more people than we do and they're primarily reaching out to financial advisors all over the country and just finding out if they have any interest in making a move. For what is a common thing is that every single day, anywhere in the country, financial advisors are moving firms for one reason or another One. They're unhappy, or maybe the firm that's right is a good firm, like they're at a W-2 firm, but they want more ownership of their practice. So they want to go independent. Or they're independent but they still are underneath an independent broker-dealer and having to follow their rules and policies and they want to go and open up their own RIA. I say open up their own RIA because I think people say, oh, I want to be an RIA that's not really the right terminology because RIA is an actual corporate entity. So we help them solve for that. But we also have firms that will reach out to us and say hey, we have a book for sale.

Speaker 2: 6:46

One of the businesses that I own with another gentleman how I met you was John Cutton, who's the largest producer at Ameriprise. So we are partners on a firm called the Lead Advisor Successions and so we do get calls from people that want to be serial acquirers. They're coming to us because throughout the calls that my team makes, we'll make a million and a half dials this year, or a million, maybe more than that. We're making over 150,000 dials or so 130,000 depending on the month dials talking to financial advisors all over the country and inevitably we come across advisors that aren't really looking to make a move because they want to sell or they're done. They want to sell.

Speaker 2: 7:27

So we are at the center of all of that and the reason why I'm excited about this is because all of the firms, the one thing that they have in common is they all need client assets. They all need client assets and it's gotten even more competitive since interest rates have come up, because now they're making more money, especially the ones that are self-clearing. They're making more money on all the cash balances of all those hundreds of millions and billions of dollars in assets that their advisors control. And, just like when I was a branch manager, your best advisors in the branch were only growing by 5% net new assets on their book.

Speaker 1: 8:06

And that was only about 20% of your branch.

Speaker 2: 8:09

So if you're trying to drive new AUM assets under management, you can't really achieve the goals you want by having one individual advisor in your office doing it. You have to do it in mass or in scale, and that means go out and recruit an advisor or team with a billion dollars in assets or buy a business, right. I'm excited because I see this a long runway ahead of us in this space, but it really comes down to building a business, which is what we have done. You'll see on the backside here. I have this ecosystem here and you see the FA in the middle. Financial advisor is at the center of my world. So everything that I do is focused on how do I help a financial advisor achieve whatever goal it is they're trying to achieve. If they want to retire, okay, we have a solution for that. If they want to grow through acquisition, we have a solution for that. It's been great and I'm excited for the future. And we have a marketing team, something we'll talk about maybe a little bit later, but that's just another piece of the pie that I think advisors need to focus on.

Speaker 2: 9:13

When I talk to advisors, I talk to them like I was their manager, let me help you with whatever it is. What are you struggling with? We're going to help you move firms, but what are the other things that we can help you with? When you make the move, you're setting the stage the right way for the next level of success that you want to have Versus some recruiters. You notice I don't use the word recruiters right, we're consultants. But there are some competitors out there and some firms out there that, since they don't have the experience that I have as being a manager, being a director, being a producer, they can't really have the same deep dive conversation. So all they're looking to do is move them from firm A to firm B, and they can't really go deeper than that because they don't know. They don't know what it's like to call a book of clients and tell them that you're leading firms. I know what it's like, and so I just try to bring that extra special service to them beyond just moving them from firm A to firm B.

Speaker 1: 10:09

Let me jump in with a couple of questions I was writing down as you were speaking. One it sounds like you started Elite Consulting Partners about 12, 13 years ago and you've grown it into one of the largest firms of its kinds. And so, just as entrepreneur to entrepreneur, I'd love just to hear a little bit more about that. That's impressive. I know I look at you and talking to you, I know I look at your website and you have what seems like a lot of people that are associated with you and your team. And so, just as a entrepreneur, what are some of the nuggets or keys that you've done over that time that have allowed you to get to where?

Speaker 2: 10:47

you are today, you may be surprised, but the growth of our business came out of 2020. Having been through the tech crisis and having been through the mortgage crisis and being in branches and being in leadership, I knew that the right approach for us during 2020 was to become the leader for those financial advisors, Like we used to be the leader in the office right when the market shut down on September 11th and the advisors were panicking and they just needed someone to talk to provide some information. So my goal during that time was to become that resource. Let's make phone calls, let's talk to advisors, but not about moving firms. Let's be the center of their resource universe, be the contact that they want when they want to hear what other firms are telling their advisors to tell their clients, because they're not getting that information from their clients. Then I saw what was happening with advisors being more and more comfortable working from home, not working in the office, realizing that their clients don't care. So Zoom really propelled the business. I'm sorry that their clients don't care, so Zoom really propelled the business. I'm sorry, Zoom, but COVID propelled Zoom got clients more used to doing this, which allowed advisors to be more efficient. And think about this idea of being independent because you fast forward into the end of 2020, 21,.

Speaker 2: 12:05

Most advisors probably hadn't been in their office for a year and a half. They were having record years of asset growth. So I decided that I was going to double down on this whole idea and basically went out and my whole business was built through my cash flow at the time, Went out and got an SBA loan and used that capital to hire people. We have a process in place. I had set up the right compensation plan. When I was at Smith Barney, I used to be on some of the compensation committees, so I knew how to set up the right kind of model that worked for us. It was profitable for the firm and it was lucrative for the advisors and the consultants that were at my firm and then just had faith that it was going to work.

Speaker 2: 12:50

One of our core values is faith, and it's not necessarily a religious faith, but it's faith in do the right thing, have the right process and things will work the way that you want them to work. We doubled down. I had a team in place that believed in the vision of where we want this thing to go. We're still on track with that vision a 10-year target. We track our KPIs, we track our volume. We make sure that we're always doing the right thing for the financial advisor. We're making sure that we're giving them options where we're hiring the right people. We have a set of seven core values. We've built a brand, I think, that attracts people, that they want to come here. We've attracted some folks that are internal recruiters at other firms.

Speaker 1: 13:31

One of the new companies or initiatives that you've launched in, I want to say, the last year or so, has been a marketing company, and I believe it's called Elite Marketing Concepts. What led you to decide to launch this new marketing company or division from what you're already doing?

Speaker 2: 13:52

Again, if the advisor is at the center of my universe, because of the way we consult with an advisor, when we move them, because we're trying to find out what do they want to be when they grow up. That's my question what do you want to make them grow up? If you're doing $2 million today? Do you want to be a $20 million practice? Do you want to be a $50 million practice or do you want to be a $3?

Speaker 1: 14:10

million practice, whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 14:12

And inevitably we get into business development, because, going back to my roots, that's what I loved doing. I'm always talking to them about the firm options, but then also let's talk about your practice and what are you doing to develop your business. I have a pretty good following and I do videos and podcasts and I have a pretty big Instagram account, and so I'm a believer in that. You have to be out there on social media telling your story, putting your image out there, who you are as a practice. Advisors need to understand where the puck is going, and we started getting asked by a couple of our clients. They would say can you help us? You're doing it. Can Tina be our CMO? And we started thinking about that and she used to run her own fractional CMO company, which is how I met her, because she was my fractional CMO.

Speaker 2: 14:59

And then I attended a. I was speaking at a market council event in Las Vegas in 2022. All the RIAs, all the owners they weren't talking about like portfolio management strategies and different things like that. They were. They're really just talking about social media and branding. And I came back from that conference and I called Tina and I said we have to do this because this is all they're talking about, and so we started that company. It was really a service within my main company called Elite Marketing Concepts, and then in September of last year, we separated it out, so Tina's now the president of that organization. It's one of the fastest growing businesses that we have and we get in and we can fully customize all of the branding that the advisor's looking to do their websites, their missions, their LinkedIn profiles, all the SEO behind the scenes.

Speaker 2: 15:46

Because the other thing that we're finding out is a lot of firms say they do that for their advisors, but they don't really In what way. They say they help them with marketing, but they don't really. They just give them like a boilerplate website that they can go and take down pre-approved custom posts that have no SEO behind them, right, and that the other 3,000 advisors at the firm are using, and so, right, that's not really social media, or they're just calling their social media LinkedIn. And, yeah, linkedin needs to be a piece of it, but there's way more than that. There's a practice, there's a business that, like where we differentiate ourselves is and I don't want to again I'm not here to throw companies under the bus but there's a provider that does this stuff that a lot of firms use, and what we have found is that their content is not customized at all. It's very generic. We went and did some Google searches of some paragraphs that advisors can use on their website and those same exact paragraphs, verbatim, are used on 5,000 other advisor websites.

Speaker 1: 16:53

My guess is that's probably where, when they were creating the website, they Googled websites and started swiping all this stuff. Right they're using.

Speaker 2: 17:00

They're trying to be generic so that an advisor can take down different paragraphs and build their website.

Speaker 1: 17:04

But what?

Speaker 2: 17:04

they're doing is they're not making. So an advisor has now a website that is not unique at all. What we go in and we try to make that unique, we go in and edit it, we make sure that it's compliance approved, but we make sure that it's really customized to them and that it doesn't look like anybody else's.

Speaker 1: 17:20

When you talk about branding, I think a big part of it is what I would call a personal brand. It's how are you as an individual known in the world and just from what I've observed from you, I know you've written a book and it's really about your background as a boxer and, I think, very motivational things, which is a big part of your personal brand. You have your podcast, which is what I can tell. It's a very popular podcast and you've been doing it for some time. I know.

Speaker 1: 17:46

I see that you post on platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram and you've grown this great following. I guess the through line there is that when you're actually living by example, which I always appreciate you're putting out really genuine stuff about who you are right. I see videos that you do when you're in your car and you're driving and you're giving advice and all these different things. It's all very authentic. I think many advisors are scared or not sure about what they can do in branding and how much they can put themselves out there. What would your advice be to an advisor when it comes to personal branding, as well as just being that authentic version of yourself, which I would argue is what you want to do, because that attracts the people that are going to most naturally resonate with you, to you.

Speaker 2: 18:34

We talked to. I think that I was thinking about the call and some of the things that I look at when I'm talking to an advisor and helping them with their strategy, and part of my questioning is how receptive are they going to be for some creativity? How uncomfortable are they going to be? Willing to get right, be comfortable with being uncomfortable? Even today for me, like when I do a video, it might have to think about it for a second and think about what I'm going to say, and or if I'm at the gym right, or if I'm walking through the airport right, I don't just pick up my phone and do it. I usually have to think about in my mind what I'm going to say, and then I try to go to an area with as many people because it's a little uncomfortable. But the truth is, you want clients that resonate with you, and so if you're not yourself, then you're misleading the audience. You might get people that think you're something that you're really not, and you can still do all of these things and be authentic with who you are, because you talk about that in your podcast, about being authentic and being an industry expert and all that good stuff, and you want to create this brand. So I used to do seminars when I was a producer, right, that's how I built my book of business. What is the one thing that a seminar gets you to do with your audience? They get to meet you and they decide whether they like you or not, because they got to meet you and talk to you and all that stuff. So I look at social media as the same thing. It's a way for them to meet you.

Speaker 2: 19:57

All clients assume that if you're in financial services and you work for just Morgan Stanley or LPL or Raymond James or Merrill Price, merrill Lynch, that you're a smart individual. They make that assumption right, because none of those firms wouldn't have idiots working for them, right? So the next thing that they're looking for is do I like that person? Is he or she trustworthy, and would I trust them with my finances? That's the messaging that you're supposed to be getting out with your social media. Your thing is all about books, and what do books do? Books give them credibility. So when you have a book and you write about whatever it is you're going to write about and people look at that, it automatically gives you credibility in your space. It's just one more piece, but all of those things together, a prospect should be able to look you up, look up your website, because they're going to do it. Look at your website, look you up on LinkedIn and understand who you are and what you're about without even talking to you.

Speaker 1: 20:54

I would add is that they're going to Google you and whatever that first page of Google says about you tends to inform their impression, and what ends up on Google it's it's a amalgamation of all these different things. It's your LinkedIn, it's, if you're on Amazon, it's your other social media accounts. I think a lot of advisors who don't have that personal brand, especially online, is that you Google their name and you may or may not even find it, and if you do find it, it's in some very generic thing that doesn't really say a whole lot about them. I'd love to add, just while we're talking I'm also a big fan of podcasts, both hosting a podcast, as I'm doing now, as well as being a guest on podcasts, and again, from what I can tell, you have a very popular podcast that you've developed, I don't know over how many years. What is just at a high level for an advisor in building that personal brand? Is there a value to podcasts for them, or what are your thoughts when it comes to that type of media?

Speaker 2: 21:49

Yeah, I think that it's a huge opportunity. I actually can speak to one particular client of ours that we were working with during right before 2019. They used to do a radio show, right, so that was what they used to do. I convinced them to turn that same type of content into a podcast, because that's what it is today, and they did and it worked out really well.

Speaker 2: 22:12

And then COVID hit and then they were using that platform to distribute their message to their clients about what was going on in the space and with what was going on during 2020, right, and they started to train their advisors to tune into their website because they were going to put up one of their podcasts like this, a video where they were going to have their weekly market commentary, or they were going to have a pharmaceutical portfolio manager on to talk about the latest changes that were going on with the vaccines, or something like that.

Speaker 2: 22:44

They were using that platform to create efficiencies in their space. They were also using it to create content then send out to centers of influence, who then use that for their clients, and they were getting referrals from those centers of influence for their clients and they were getting referrals from those centers of influence and in the second quarter of 2020, they had their largest AUM inflows in history at the peak of 2020 COVID, because they leaned into the situation, use technology to their advantage, and so I try to get advisors to do podcasts, and it is a little bit uncomfortable. You have to get over looking at yourself on the video whatever, it doesn't really matter. You don't have to have a fancy background. When we first did my podcast, I did it right here. I moved the chairs and I put a table up, and that was it what people are looking for, which is again what Kevin O'Leary said.

Speaker 2: 23:36

What they're really looking for is the content yeah and so if you're a financial advisor and you're thinking about this, the content that you should be creating could be stories without using client names, but success stories about how you're helping clients, warnings like dangers to be aware of with different things. If you're in a specialty, you don't want to talk about different stocks and stuff like that, but it's really about giving advice away for free. Alex Hermosi, who's another Instagram guy, and so does John Cutton, talks about giving away the content and charging for execution. It's okay to give away your ideas on a podcast, right, because eventually they're going to come to you to want to X shoot on those ideas. That's exactly right, because eventually they're going to come to you to want to X shoot on those ideas. That's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 24:20

I think that more and more firms are getting comfortable with advisors doing podcasting. I know a couple Raymond James, for instance, actually has a podcast studio in St Pete where advisor can go down. Okay, and if they want a big, fancy podcast studio, they can do it there. My advice is you don't even need to do that. You can just use your cell phone, set it up, talk about whatever you're going to talk about, because that's all that people care about, if anything, they're going to tune into that a little bit more. And when we talk about podcasts, so we're on video right now. Right, there's podcasts with no video and podcasts with video, creating videos. You can develop so many more opportunities for content. Snippets right, a small piece of a snippet can go on Instagram or Twitter or LinkedIn and then drives your audience to your website.

Speaker 1: 25:07

And that's the thing, is that, like right now, just for someone that's listening or watching this, ultimately, the way that I do it is I do it on Zoom, we're meeting on Zoom and, of course, there's audio version, there's visual version and but, to your point, we just do all of the above. We're going to syndicate this to all the standard audio channels, we're going to put it on youtube, we're going to take snippets, we're going to do all those things and it really becomes the foundation for a lot of content. It's one of the reasons I like doing podcasts, and there's multiple reasons, but one is that it creates a lot of content for you. That is very organically and natural.

Speaker 2: 25:39

I'm just telling the audience by having video on your website. But you have video content. It actually helps your point. Before with the first page of Google. Yes, it does. Google drives that stuff to the top and every time you put a new video on your website it helps the algorithm and puts your stuff at the top of the page.

Speaker 1: 25:58

Just in wrapping up. Is there any question that I haven't asked you that you think is important to this conversation?

Speaker 2: 26:04

I think when we're talking about maybe just talking about marketing, we go back to recruiting. One of the things that I think that advisors, but a cautionary tale is, when you start to do marketing and branding, it's like with your book. Right, you write a book and they get it published and maybe they become a bestseller. It's not like the phone's going to start ringing an hour after they publish their book.

Speaker 1: 26:27

Right, you got to set expectations appropriately. Right, exactly, we're trying to set exactly.

Speaker 2: 26:32

I think branding and marketing was. I don't call marketing like the dialing and make it setting up phone appointments. It's really marketing social media and branding online. It takes time and it's really about becoming authenticating who you are in the circles that you want to be in, so that when you go to an event if you're at a charity golf outing you need to take photos and then you post them online and then clients might see that and then you're going to go to another event and someone at that event saw you at the other event. Maybe because you sponsor a charity that's near and dear to their heart, they're willing to have a conversation with you that maybe they wouldn't have had before. And that's how you start to quantify whether or not your social media branding is working. It's when people, when you speak to somebody, they're like, oh yeah, I saw that you were at a charity golf event for children's cancer that they're like, oh yeah, I saw that you were at a charity golf event for children's cancer. That's the point.

Speaker 1: 27:20

I would call it strategic relationships center of influence relationships and I just attended an event this past week for Anton Anderson, who I know. He had the event for what he calls the Elite Growth Academy and I was a speaker there and a vendor and intentionally I asked him and his team, about three to six months out from the event, to introduce me to the other speakers who at that time I didn't know. But I said, hey, I'd like to. If you can make an introduction, I'd like to invite them to be on my podcast. This is long ball right. So this started three to six months prior to the event. Over the course of several months, I ended up interviewing, I want to say, six to 10 of the other speakers at the event. Guess what happens? I go to the event and suddenly, instead of being I know one person or two people, suddenly it's oh, I know you. And that was one factor. But the event itself outpaced my expectations. I was expecting a really good response, but it was a good response plus, and it wasn't only because of that. It just goes to say that when pick your tool right and maybe you use multiple tools, whether it's a video, podcast, books, etc. You don't need to do all at one time, but as you build out that brand and you find creative ways to use it, it's amazing how much leverage it can give you down the road.

Speaker 1: 28:37

I think I started saying this just because I wanted to reinforce your point. It's not about hey, tomorrow I got 10 new calls on my schedule as a result of that one podcast. That can happen, but really it's about what is that brand that you're building so that when people do call you, you don't have to sell them very much. It's oh yeah, I've been following you in this podcast. I watch your videos. I get a sense of Whether they say it or not, it's already like you.

Speaker 1: 29:03

I'm here, I know enough about you and now it's really. I want you to help me solve my problem and I have some questions. But really it becomes a very easy quote unquote sale to move forward from that point. But it takes that investment and that strategic forethought to really lay that groundwork so that people naturally come into your orbit and then, as you start engaging them, it's just a very natural fit for them. Final question so for someone who's listening or watching and they're interested, whether it's in the consulting or the marketing or anything else that we've talked about. What's the best place to learn more, follow up and do all those good things?

Speaker 2: 29:34

Yeah, sure, so you can email me at frank at eliteconsultingpartnerscom. You can check out our website, which is eliteconsultingpartnerscom. You can check out our website, which is eliteconsultingpartnerscom. If you're looking at the marketing side, it's elitemarketingconceptscom. Obviously, LinkedIn you can email me If you want to also, which is really some interesting content. Just follow me on Instagram, which is franklarosaelite. You can DM me there, but there's a lot of great content there. Some of it is just fun stuff. Some of it's motivational stuff. I believe in really doing that and paying that forward.

Speaker 1: 30:04

I'll validate what you said earlier, whereas the videos that I remember watching of you, you're typically in your car and I'm always thinking, okay, how is he doing this? Is he watching the road? Is this safe? Is this all these good things?

Speaker 2: 30:15

I have it on the front of my dashboard, so I'm really looking out the window.

Speaker 1: 30:18

Thank you so much, Frank, for being a guest on today's podcast. I enjoy the conversation.

Speaker 2: 30:22

Thanks, paul, it was awesome, I appreciate it.