The Influential Advisor

024: Inside the $8 Billion Empire: A Conversation with Barron's Hall of Fame Advisor Jon Kuttin

• Paul G. McManus

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In today's episode, I had the privilege of sitting down with Jon Kuttin, the mastermind behind Kuttin Wealth Management. Managing a staggering $8 billion in assets and earning a spot in Barron's Hall of Fame, Jon's influence in the industry is undeniable.

Key Takeaways:

- Jon's new book, "Unshakable Planning for the Certainty of Uncertainty in Retirement," aims to provide clients with valuable insights about wealth management and serve as a "salesperson in print" assisting Jon in growing his firm from the current $8 billion in AUM to the next milestone.
- How the return on investment of writing a book goes beyond acquiring new clients. It includes shorter sales cycles, better positioning, and the ability to leverage it in various marketing initiatives, such as sending books to clients, prospective clients, and centers of influence.
- The power of referrals, authorship, and speaking in creating a snowball effect and attracting ideal clients.
- Jon's next book, "Quantum Growth for Financial Advisors,"  focuses on helping financial advisors achieve quantum growth in their practices. It will be followed by additional books addressing specific areas of business growth and development.
- Insights and details into Jon's latest mastermind group: The Financial Advisor Success Syndicate . It features a group of industry experts who provide guidance, coaching, and valuable insights to participating advisors.

About Our Guest: Jon Kuttin
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonkuttin/
Website: https://www.kuttinconsultinggroup.com/
Financial Advisor Success Syndicate (FASS): https://joinfass.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.

As the author of three books, including The Short Book Formula: A Financial Professional's Guide To Writing A Book In Six Weeks To Attract Ideal Clients, and Million Dollar Producer: The Secret Playbook For Financial Professional's To Land High-Value Clients Using LinkedIn, Paul has become a leading authority for financial professionals on using writing and LinkedIn to attract high-value clients

You can get a complimentary copy of Paul's book at: www.theshortbookformula.com



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

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to another episode of the Million Dollar Producer Show. I'm your host, paul G McManus. Today we have a very special guest, john Cutten, as the visionary behind Cutten Wealth Management. John's firm manages an impressive $8 billion in assets under management. He's a Barron's Hall of Fame advisor and has also earned the distinction of being a top-ranked Forbes advisor for high net worth clients in New York. Over the past year, I've had the privilege of working closely with John, as we are collaborating on a series of five books. Today, we're diving into the first two of these books, discussing John's passion for leadership and mentorship, as well as shedding light on an innovative initiative he spearheading the financial advisor success syndicate. John, I know how busy you are. I truly appreciate you taking the time to be with us here today. I'm excited for our audience to get to know you better. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, paul, excited to be here, and thanks for the kind words. I'd tell you what I think I've been talking to you more lately than my wife. Right, we work on these books. Man. Five books is a lot but you make it easy and I'm excited to talk to you on your show today and to talk to your audience. I hope I could share a couple of good ideas or thoughts that your listeners are able to take away and improve their business and improve their life 100%.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much. So let's dive right into it. So the first question I have for you, john, let's start with your first book, soon to be published, which we have titled Unshakable Planning for the Certainty of Uncertainty in Retirement. Now, what was the inspiration behind it, and how does it tie in with your overall philosophy at cut and wealth management?

Speaker 2:

I love the title and thank you for helping me pick it. So, for your listeners, just to frame things out and, paul, you'll probably smile when I say frame things out, because I always like to frame things out I think of myself and I know a lot of your listeners are financial advisors and accountants and financial professionals in general the first book that I wrote you helped me write was for my clients and prospective clients on the wealth management side. Then I know the next couple of books that we've already started to work on together are really for financial advisors and how they can think about creating quantum growth in their own financial planning practices. When I think about our client-facing book, to be completely transparent, it is something I've been thinking about for a decade, I think. To the advisors and financial professionals out there listening, we all think about things like this.

Speaker 2:

Right, you see some other financial advisor write a book and you're like man, I've got good things to say as well.

Speaker 2:

How will I ever find the time and I'm not a great writer and all of the things that keep us from doing it and meeting you to just real briefly.

Speaker 2:

I know this is not a thank you to Paul, but I do want to sincerely thank you. You actually gave me the confidence and I trusted you in it to help me have the courage to go. I can write a book and it doesn't need to be 500 pages and this detailed book that is going to be a national bestseller one day, but more something that I can be proud of, that my clients and prospective clients, as you like to call it right. Building a sales letter in disguise to really let people know about my story, what I believe in, how we conduct business as an organization and ultimately help folks A read the book to learn more and get some great ideas and thoughts that can help them in their financial life. But B make a decision. If I'm the kind of guy and my firm is the kind of business that they might consider hiring and engaging to help them with their own financial affairs, no, 100%.

Speaker 1:

And what's interesting about your book and just where you are in your business and your life, especially for this first one that's geared towards your retail clients, is that, from my understanding, you're not involved day to day at this point in financial advising per se.

Speaker 1:

Instead, you have a very successful company. You have somewhere around 60 employee advisors, and what I find fascinating about the approach that you and I are taking with your book, geared towards those retail clients, is that it really becomes, I guess in my mind, a tool for you to consistently get your message out to all of your existing clients, potential new clients, in a way that I think is consistent with exactly who you are the brand, the message without you having to be day to day into the trenches. And, by extension, we have some things that we're talking about in terms of how to really give each advisor ownership of that process, so that it's something that they're very proud of as a tool to use. I'd love to have you just expand upon that. How are you envisioning using this first book as part of your overall growth strategy?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, great question. I think you're right. We have a that's a little over 60 advisors in the organization and, like a lot of advisors, we have a way that we deliver advice. So we've created a systematic process driven client experience right on how we onboard new clients and then how we ultimately serve our clients existing clients and new clients that come on board. For me, the book was an amazing opportunity for me to be able to espouse the core values of our organization, the type of work that we do.

Speaker 2:

As you mentioned the name of our book, our tagline for years has been helping the clients to plan for the certainty of uncertainty, and we thought about the name of the book. It really tied in who we are and our differentiator is. We really do focus on a retirement minded client or prospective client and ultimately, I view the financial advisor's job primarily to be a leader of our clients, to help our clients make good decisions, to rely on behavioral financial advice and just to stack the odds in their favor to ultimately be successful in their retirement. And one of the things that we've all heard but was very true to your process was we were able to use storytelling and my experience as well as, in my case, stories about advisors on my team. But one of the most compelling parts about the book, in my opinion, is that we're able to take our real life experience I've been doing this since 1994, and tell stories with fictitious clients' names, but real data about their situation, to be able to help be more relatable, because there are Americans out there that quite frankly need more advice. And what we believe and I think most advisors these days believe it is the secret sauce or the differentiation Isn't all of the financial jargon and talking about what the right stock or bond or asset allocation or these advanced strategies all that's important.

Speaker 2:

But what clients or prospective clients want to know is that you get it, that you've helped people just like them and ultimately you have a way in which you conduct business that resonates, hopefully, with your avatar, with your ideal client.

Speaker 2:

So, to get to your question, to be able to succinctly and I know you're listeners because I listen to your podcast now and I think it's great, by the way, but you're listeners know you help advisors do that in six weeks, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more, I'm sure. But to be able to get all of what's in my brain out of my brain and onto paper in an eloquent way that blew away what I thought I'd be capable of writing. With your help and your ability to edit and extract the stories and the ultimate kind of, you know, the thesis that I was trying to get out to our readers was amazing and I'm super proud of what we put out. Ultimately, I think my advisors also, because we've been able to include them in many ways will be able to have the credibility to say hey, my firm, I wrote a book and I was part of that process and I can't wait to share it with you as an existing client or perspective introduction or referral into your business 100%.

Speaker 1:

One of the things that I heard you say and I totally agree with is that I think, at the end of the day, it's really about knowing who your audience is and instilling confidence in them, because they're not looking for. They have problems and they want solutions. They have desires and aspirations and they want to achieve those. I think the fundamental mistake that a lot of advisors make when it comes to writing a book is that they think that they're gonna wow them through advanced strategies, their knowledge, all of these things that might seem impressive, at the end of the day, it's too high-level or too technical for your average reader to really get and understand.

Speaker 1:

What I love about the book that we helped you with is that it's really as you said. It's your philosophy, it's who you are as a firm, it's your journey and, in a way, it's not even about you. It's about building up your team and the leadership qualities that they have, and so a person reading through that then the day it's not that there's this one or two or even three strategies that you need someone who can help you with all of these things that you have that confidence in, that can help you get to where you want to go, and so I think your overall approach to it's fantastic. I want to ask what is a Barron's Hall of Fame advisor and why is that important? Potentially to communicate to your reader in terms of that building of confidence.

Speaker 2:

Sure. So to be a Barron's Hall of Fame advisor, I believe and don't quote me on all these there's probably a disclaimer that we could put out there and probably should and will but to be a Barron's Hall of Fame advisor, you had to be on the Barron's list, recognized on one of their recognition lists and they have several at least 10 years. I don't think it had to be consecutive, I think it's just 10 years of recognition. I forget exactly how many years, but we've been on the list for quite some time, we've made many of their lists, we've been ranked very high on some of their list as well, and really what that's based on is a multitude of factors. It's not just the size of your business, but it's the compliance record that you have, having a clean compliance record and based on the growth of your business and the overall kind of experience that you provide to a client. So they have a whole proprietary method that, quite frankly, it's like the secret sauce. You don't know exactly what it is, but my understanding is it has a lot to do with growth, quality, size, all of those things together. So it's something we're very proud of and ultimately, I think from our listeners' perspective or our readers' perspective. It helps them understand that there's some credibility around the firm. Now what's interesting is, if I'm a listener listening to that right now, I'm going, yeah, maybe you're not a Barron's Hall of Fame advisor or maybe you don't have that level of recognition. So I think about that and I go that's exactly why you should probably write a book For me. We have a lot of credibility.

Speaker 2:

The reason when I met you, Paul, I had been thinking for years about potentially writing a book and then learned about your process and how easy it was. My first reaction was can't be that easy. My second reaction is going to be very expensive. It was that easy. In my opinion, it wasn't very expensive. Credibility is such a big thing and what I've learned is for years we've been getting unsolicited call-in referrals not as many as you think or as many as I'd like, but more than the typical bear and that's because prospective clients have been able to do their research and say John and his team have gotten a lot of industry recognition. So my thought was twofold. I'll give you two thoughts. One I look at it and say, because we have industry recognition, writing a book will be even more credible and therefore will add to that recognition and reinforce it, which I'm happy to talk about. Some of that has already begun to work and, by the way, as we record this, we haven't really even officially launched the book.

Speaker 2:

I can talk about the soft launch that you suggested that I do, but if I were a non-highly recognized advisor, I would think that if I were to write a book, it would instantly raise my credibility level, because how many people in the world have written the book?

Speaker 2:

I don't know how many, but I know it's got to be less than 1% of the free world. Who've ever authored their own book probably .000% of the free world, or something like that To be able to meet a prospective client or even share with an existing client of yours. Take a look at what I wrote. I've shared my five or 10 or 30 or 40 years of experience in this industry and I'm someone worthy of putting that on paper to live forever. My belief is that, whether you have the credibility from the industry or not, that will immediately increase your level of credibility and people in the professional services world. They buy from people that they can trust, and trust many times is a hard thing to come by, especially in the financial services industry and having that level of credibility by being an author and being able to tangibly give your book to someone, in my opinion, has long lasting impacts on your credibility and immediate impact on your credibility.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I have to say from my own experience I've been working with advisors since 2016 and I've seen A range of success stories that I've coached and worked with is that ultimately, success comes down to three things. Referrals nothing new there. Problem with referrals is that they're great. We just don't get enough of them typically. Second is authorship, and it's for the reasons that you stated. It builds up your authority and gives confidence to people. And the third is speaking, and speaking can be in front of a group of people, it can be in podcasts like this, it can be some combination, but it's the synergy between those three that really start to create what I would describe as that snowball effect.

Speaker 1:

Case in point myself and how we got to know each other was that I published my book, the Short Book Formula and immediately I said, hey, I need to go market this, and I need to go market this since I want to get on some podcasts. So I discovered your podcast, which is fantastic and we'll get into a little bit as we talk, but I've been on your podcast now over the past year. I think one episode has been published and the second one's in the pipeline. It's amazing how many extremely high qualified advisors are showing up my calendar on a weekly basis, but if you just peel unwrap that a little bit, what happened?

Speaker 1:

Authorship speaking, essentially a transfer of trust or referrals, and to me that's really the sweet spot. That's what everybody should be going for. And so that leads me to, I guess, my next question, which is one of the questions I get from a lot of advisors who I talk to and have the idea of writing a book and they're interested. It's always processes one thing, but then the second question they have, and rightfully, is what's the return on investment? I know I have my thoughts and opinions on that, but I'd love to get from your perspective and we haven't even technically published the first book yet, we're on the verge of it. We have the second one that we're starting to write together and we have three more in the queue but from your perspective, what is the return on investment from writing a book?

Speaker 2:

Sure, I would first comment, paul, what you described before when you were talking. I'm like it's the trifecta, right? So it's having the three different pieces it's client referrals, it's writing a book and then it's, as you call it, speaking, whether it be podcasts, seminars, live presentations, getting in front of a big audience. That, to me, is how you create quantum growth. So you reference my podcast. The name of my podcast happens to be Quantum Growth for Financial Advisors, and the way I've been able to scale my business has been through one to many, right? As opposed to trying to get one client at a time, you try to get many In order to do that. The different ways that you can hold yourself out to the world. There is ways to create leverage in ultimately doing that. What's interesting is when you're talking about referrals the number one way that financial advisors grow their books and businesses by referrals from satisfied clients. Forever it's been that way and forever it likely will. If you do good work, it'll ultimately come back to you.

Speaker 2:

Now the problem is, for the majority of advisors, that equates to about three or four solid clients a year, right? Maybe 10 if you're really good, maybe 20 if you're amazing. That, to me, isn't necessarily quantum growth, right? So I'll just give you a great example. You asked the ROI. So we've already acquired, I think, two or three new clients from writing a book that we've yet to publish. You probably have two or three other prospective clients out there that we don't even have a bound book just yet. We've already made significantly more money. Please don't raise your prices for real.

Speaker 1:

But then we've paid, as I tell people. Prices are always going up, I just don't know quite when.

Speaker 2:

Yet yeah, one of the things that I thought was a brilliant idea and what I like about working with you, paul, is this is what you do. So all you do all day is think about how do I help advisors Write books, get the word out and monetize that opportunity. That's not what the typical financial advisor is thinking about. So one of the things you suggested that I do is to send a draft of my book to as many people as I can think of to get their opinion, which I thought was a brilliant idea. It's what I did. So we sent it to some CPAs that we work with. We sent it to some prospects that we work with. I sent it to some natural market people that I knew, whose opinions I respected, that I never really wanted to approach about becoming a client of my firm because I knew they knew what I did and if they wanted to, they could ask. But it was like they're more of a friend or someone I know than someone I would be comfortable prospecting and saying, hey, I'm a financial advisor, we should work together. And, sure enough, we probably asked 40-ish people to proofread our book. We asked them as someone that we respected their opinion and would you do me a favor.

Speaker 2:

I've got a leadership coach, ray Kelly, who I talk a lot about, who has the saying would you rather ask for help or give help? 99% of people would rather give help than ask. So when you ask someone, could you do me a favor? I respect your opinion, paul. Would you mind reading this book? I spent a ton of time and energy on it. I'm really proud of it. I want to get it right before I publish it and you're somebody whose opinion I greatly respect. Would you do me that favor type thing? People are happy to do it, but they feel special. Now, what you've just done is you've had someone right. Paul recommends 100-page book or less generally right. It's a 60 to 90-minute read. So someone gives you 60 to 90 minutes and what you've done is one. You've gotten valuable feedback, and I did get really valuable feedback and, as Paul, we made a couple of tweaks to the book based on the feedback.

Speaker 2:

Equally as importantly, we've got some people who were like I always wanted to talk to you about this, but I thought I was too small. Or I always wanted to talk to you about this, but I didn't want to strain our relationship, or it was weird, or I always wonder what you did. I had people say I thought you were like a private equity guy and meanwhile I thought they knew exactly what I did. Like I said, there's a handful that are done, deals that will be fairly significant clients and a couple other out there and that was just from ultimately doing that, you start to think about it. One of the things that we do a lot of is we partner with COIs, centers of Influence right, I want to just help the audience with this. So you now go out and every single person that you connect with you now have the ability to give them a book, a value that you put your blood, sweat and tears into, as a gift.

Speaker 2:

Who doesn't? I wrote a book. I think you were. People you know might value from it. Can I send it to you, type things? So our CPA firms guess what we have? Our CPA firms, or we plan to have our CPA firms do Send all their clients a free copy of their book from their wealth management partner, right?

Speaker 2:

Or alliance member Guess what we plan to do for the holidays this year? Every one of our clients is getting a book and guess what we're going to send to their adult children A book, right, and I meet someone at a barbecue and they say what do you do for a living? I'll tell them a little bit and I'll say here's a copy of my book. Or, if I can get your email address, I'd love to send you an audio copy. How do you like to read? You like a physical book, or do you prefer to listen? Or do you prefer to read it online on your book? Reading Thingamajig, whatever the heck it's called? Thingamajig is a real thing, by the way.

Speaker 2:

So the point that I'm trying to get at is, once you have it, it's a tangible piece of credibility. It is your walking talking. However, you want it to be ability to share with people what you do in a non-threatening way, without having sales breadth and genuinely coming across to somebody who cares. And I believe we're going to bring in dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds, with our size and scale of clients very quickly. And you just again I know I'm babbling here, paul, but this is who I am to the audience I like to brainstorm.

Speaker 2:

If you're in the seminar business, guess what everybody's getting as a takeaway gift. It's not a folder, it's a book. Maybe it's a folder and a book, so there's so many different uses for it. And I don't know, paul, from a pricing perspective, the way that we did it and how you structured it. Quite frankly, just to have a book on my desk, so like the prospect, you came in and go, oh, you authored a book just for that. I think I get a return on investment, let alone all of the other things that we talked about here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I totally agree If anything, it's so, in my mind, overwhelming that how it can transform everything that you do, from both marketing and sales, including just rapidly shortening the sales cycle. One of the biggest challenges I see many advisors have is that they get, they invest all this money in marketing but they tend to have these conversations that are just take too long. Right, it's three, four, five, six calls and now they're chasing and they're trying to follow up and a person goes to them and now they're not sure what to do. Just put some in a very bad positioning. Ultimately, you want people coming to you and schedule on your calendar, not you chasing them. One of the key things I love about a book is just its ability to really build what I would call that authority brand, where people see you as the authority and they're lining up to work with you and when you say, hey, this is our process and this is how we do things, they say great, what's the next step?

Speaker 2:

Even better. I'm sorry to interrupt you there. So I've had two podcasts for quite some time, right? One is for financial advisors, which we talked about. Another is actually called the certainty of uncertainty, which is for my wealth management firm and its client-facing.

Speaker 2:

In both instances, what I can tell our listeners and I believe the exact same thing is going to happen from the book as what has happened from my podcast is when the client or the prospective client or in my case, sometimes it's the financial advisor comes to meet me and I start off, sometimes going like a typical meeting If you wouldn't mind take a minute, tell me a little bit about yourself. Then they tell you about themselves and then you say fantastic, it's okay, I'll take a minute to tell you about me. I can't tell you how many times I just get interrupted and they're like hey, john, just so you know, I've listened to 10 hours of your podcast. I know everything about you. I love your story and I'm here because I want to work with you Literally, and I know that sounds like BS, but it's legit.

Speaker 1:

It's 100% true. You experience it over and over again. I experience it over and over again, and it's just people. Sorry to jump in there. People want confidence, people want to work with people that they have an affinity with, and, whether it's a book or a podcast or, I think, ideally some form of both, when someone shows up, they might be the first time that you ever have talked to them and you even know who they are. You might be checking them out just before the meeting and saying, oh, this person, but they have the very best prospects and, ultimately, very best clients. They've been following you for a little bit. They know enough about you so that they're making a very informed decision. That you're the person or your firm is the company that they want to work with. And that's where sales cycles go, from six calls down to one, maybe two, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And again, you just keep thinking about it. I'm a prospective client, I'm interviewing three advisors as advisors. We hear that a lot. You'll get someone. I'm retiring in a year and I read a magazine article and it said go visit three advisors. What do you think they're doing? They're on your website, they have a podcast, they're on your podcast and then they're going to meet you and need to like you.

Speaker 2:

But man, if you've got three people and a prospective client reaches out to three advisors and they're like the one advisor says great, we'll set up an appointment next Tuesday at three o'clock in my office. The next advisor says how about we meet Wednesday at two o'clock in my office? And that one sends a confirmation letter, right, you get the call and you say fantastic, how's next Monday at one o'clock? And then two days later in their mailbox at their home becomes your face on a book that explains who you are and what you do, and the client is going to make a decision as to which of those three advisors to choose. Let's assume everything else is equal. All three of you have nice offices, you make a nice presentation, you have a great process, everything goes well.

Speaker 2:

I don't know as the couple, mr and Mrs Smith are driving home going. I like them all. What do you think, honey, one of them is going to go? Yeah, but John wrote a book and it was amazing and I feel like I got to know him not only for the hour in his office, but we spend 60 to 90 minutes reading his book and man only really smart people write books and it was eloquently written and he might just be a little step above the other two advisors that we met.

Speaker 2:

I think in today's day and age, all of those little things, right, and let alone if you're able to put your book on your website and when you have a landing page for it, and all of the things that I know you help advisors with, paul, I really do think it's just an unbelievably differentiating opportunity. If I can continue to go on here, I would also say one of the things that I'm excited to do with you, paul, is then think about how to promote the book through social media, which maybe for another conversation we can go deeper on, but, man, to be able to build your brand on social media, which we're all trying to do. I don't know about our listeners, but it would be great to have that kind of what did the marketing world call it? Is it not a hook but a? What is a word for it? What does that word Lead magnet, lead magnet right To actually have something to then send to somebody that's valuable and worthy.

Speaker 2:

It builds those laws of reciprocity right. You send someone something of value, the likelihood of them understanding what you do and maybe wanting to help you or work with you, I think, is that much greater if you have that level of a lead magnet to actually send 100%.

Speaker 1:

Let's shift gears now, and I want to talk about two things in the time that we have.

Speaker 1:

One is the new book that we're working on together, based around the idea of quantum growth for financial advisors, and then secondly, by extension of that, your new initiative, the Financial Advisor Success Syndicate, and whichever one you want to jump into.

Speaker 1:

First, and just even before we do that, I just want to say one of the things that I'm so excited about working with you on not just one, but a multitude of books is that, obviously, what we've been talking about so far is leveraging a book to attract more clients to your firm, and, at the same time, what a lot of people I come across with is that they have multiple things that they do. It might be also coaching and mentoring other advisors, it might be some other aspect of their business, maybe they have different divisions of their business, and so this comes back to our idea of the short book formula, which is, instead of writing 140,000 word books that no one reads, is that you have potentially multiple short books, each that address a different audience and different problem or desires. With that, leighden, I'll talk to us about now switching gears and talking about your role as a mentor and coach for financial advisors.

Speaker 2:

One of the things that I would share and then I'll hit with you ask me to as well is that's part of my plan is in writing the first book together. What I realized is I'll likely want to author a book or two a year. That is financial planning, client facing, because I want to continue to be a thought leader, I want to continue to engage in kind of a more nichey fashion, right, the type of clients that all of my advisors want to actually work with. So we've got a big plan there. Separately and distinctly, you talked about two things, so the financial advisor success syndicate and the book that you and I have started writing, already called Quantum Growth for Financial Advisors. So, put simply, one of the things that I become very clear on as I have matured, I found what I will call my calling.

Speaker 2:

So I went through an exercise with my coach and we went through he calls it a calling card exercise and genuinely I'm at a stage of my life. I'm 50 years old, I've been blessed, I've worked very hard, I've had a little luck, I've surrounded myself with great people whose shoulders I've been able to stand on in many ways, but I want to get back. I pinch myself. All right when you say 8 billion, where you know over nine at the moment, never did I think. I knew I would do well, but I didn't think I could build what we've actually built right and I've got this kind of thought process, which is that there's a saying that it's called simple, complex, simple. Really, what's simple, complex, simple is ultimately simplicity on the near side of complexity is worthless. Simplicity on the far side of complexity. People refer to it as profound simplicity, which is when you really just get it. I sometimes look at that as connecting the dots backwards, being able to go back and go. I started this business in 1994, and I knew what it took to become a million dollar producer. I knew what it took to go from a million to two, two to four, four to 10, 10 to 20, 20 to 40. This year, god willing, we'll end this year at over 70 million of total annualized revenue. It's a lot of revenue. There were a lot of learnings along the way and what I genuinely love doing is teaching.

Speaker 2:

I was listening to a podcast this morning and, for your listeners, I consume 15 to 20 hours of podcasts, audio books, on a weekly basis, legitimately, probably more than that. I'm truly a lifetime learner. The individual speaking I don't remember her name, but it was actually on 15 Graziosi's podcast. What she was saying is when you actually do something that you could go talk about for a thousand hours because you just love talking about that thing and you're good at it and you're expert at it, that's when you're going to win. At that thing, a year might take 10, might take 30.

Speaker 2:

There's nothing that I like to talk about more other than maybe my kids and brag about my kids, but nothing I like to actually talk about more than talking shop with financial advisors who want to grow, who want to go from a million to two or two to 10, or 10 to 40, or whatever it may be. I feel like I have a unfair advantage and I just have these experiences because you don't know what you don't know. I could go back and connect the dots and go. I know what it's like to be a million dollar producer or a half million dollar producer and want to be a million dollar producer. I know what the million dollar person needs to get through and what they need to learn and where they need to be to go from a million to two and so on, etc. And I selfishly get a ton of personal satisfaction. It makes me feel great to help financial advisors become better Business people have a different approach to how they grow their business, how they become leaders, how they get involved in mergers and acquisitions, how they market themselves better and do business development, do things like we're talking about today, write a book and get that out to the world, so on, etc.

Speaker 2:

There's nothing in it for me. I don't think anyone's going to buy my book. To be honest with you, paul, I don't know. I will give away a lot more than people will buy them. I'm sure and I'm really doing it because I believe I have a lot of really good things to share and experiences that I believe in an abundant mentality philosophy. There's lots of good ideas. There's plenty of clients out there. There's plenty of ways to win. I think our industry guards their secrets right and thanks, man, if I tell you something, you're going to go steal all my clients.

Speaker 2:

What I know almost 30 years in this business is 99.9% of advisors will do nothing, sadly, with the best idea. I wish they all did right, and that's a lot of what I coach on and teach right, and what I give away is how to actually go through behavioral change, how to think differently, how to act differently, how to stack habits, how to change who you ultimately all are, because it's very cool when you learn how to do that. It's such a transferable skill set that you can not only do it in your business life, you can do it in your personal life. You could do it at your church, your synagogue, whatever it is that you might believe in and worship. It's about just becoming a better leader, right, and if you can become a better leader, you can just have a better impact.

Speaker 2:

Quantum Growth for Financial Advisers the book is all about that. And then, to your point, it'll be a series of then going deeper, right Into all of the different kind of verticals, if you will, or the different places that I had to focus on in order to get to the next level and the next level and the next level. I really can't be more excited about it. It's like my passion has been more about being a business owner and a CEO and an entrepreneur than it has been about helping my clients achieve their financial goals. I love that. For the first 10 or 15 years of my life, right, and that's all I focused on for the last 10 or 15 years, I should say, of my business career, not my life. Really, what I focused on is growing a business, growing people thinking differently and self-development. And it's worked, and it's worked and it's continuing to work, and the best investment that I've made is in self-development.

Speaker 2:

So quickly, what the Financial Advisers, success, syndicate is, these kind of things meld together is, again, I've worked hard, I've gone deep. I've been blessed to have people who've been in my organization that are partners of mine or employees of mine, depending on who they are. I've got people who've been with me for 27 years. I've got people who've been with me for 25, 20, 15, obviously shorter than that. So I've been able to have a great group of people who've helped me get to the level of success that I get all the accolades. I'm the baron's hall of fame advisor, as you said, and baron's eyes, but there's 150 people in my organization that are equally as involved and important in ultimately getting there. But, interestingly, I've also built relationships with what I call who's. So who's?

Speaker 2:

There's a great book called who, not how, that Dan Sullivan and Dr Benjamin Hardy wrote together and who's are really. It's like a saying like you don't need to know how to do everything in your business. You need who's who can do that. So perfect case in point, paul, I don't know how to write a book. I don't really want to know how to write a book. I was able to speak to you, spill my guts, we could record that. You could then go take it, work your magic and articulate my thoughts better than I can on my own, and we wrote a really great book together. You're my who. I don't want to write, I don't. I'm not good at it. I'm a terrible speller for our audience. Grammar is not my thing and being able to make analogous statements and metaphors and all that not my thing. But you are really good at that, paul. So how about you do that? Interesting Elaine up Dan Sullivan, right, that's how he writes books. Ben Hardy writes his books and Dan Sullivan it's his ideas. That's what you were able to do for me.

Speaker 2:

But on the financial advisor success syndicate, I've partnered with people who've been unbelievably effective Hoos that I believe financial advisors should have in their lives as Hoos as well. So people like David Groud Jr from Succession Resource Group, which, in my opinion, is the foremost expert in succession planning in the financial services industry. Also contracts, agreements, compensation models, so on, et cetera. Frank LaRosa, who runs Elite Consulting Partners, which I believe is the biggest, or if not one of the biggest, one or two or three recruiting firms in the industry, helping financial advisors find the right home, helping financial advisors are looking to grow through recruiting, emerges and acquisitions, attract people. He understands everything you could ever understand about any RIA, broker dealer, independent firm, wire house, regional, et cetera. Just tons and tons of knowledge.

Speaker 2:

Anton Anderson, who I know you had on one of your episodes recently as well, the guru of partnering with CPAs had a leverage of virtual family office to help hire net worth people, business owners, specifically with very sophisticated problems. Tina Beck Tina's an amazing marketing professional and business development professional from Elite Marketing Concepts. She had her own marketing agency. All she does is help financial advisors. She's like an outsourced chief marketing officer. So she helps financial advisors actually tell their story, bring in their avatar right, seo, all of the things that we all get confused about at financial advisors Tina actually helps with.

Speaker 2:

John Randall from Extraordinary Advisors is a growth coach really. He helps advisors grow their business in all different facets, anything from leadership to M&A to integrating financial planning, to service models to properly segmenting a business. John has been coaching advisors in my organization for many years and is a big catalyst to the growth that we've been able to have in the business. And then Ray Kelly, who I've referenced and stole his material today. Right Ray Is a leadership guru who helps advisors become better leaders and become CEOs of their business so that they could build a leadership culture which, as I look out in the future, paul advises who will be most successful in our industry will lead larger teams and have more human capital, and in order to take best advantage of building a larger team, you actually have to be able to lead the human capital that you employ inside of your business.

Speaker 2:

In the financial advisor, success indicates myself and the six folks that I just mentioned. Those are our founding partners or founding members, and they'll be additions. Paul, I haven't asked you yet, but one of the things that I'm gonna ask you shortly is will you live inside of this community and the community to our listeners? You can tell I'm passionate about it. Once I get going, it's hard to stop me, but the community is all just about living inside the internet, right, where there's a community, where myself and the six folks I mentioned are gonna make all of our information available for free. We're gonna appear in there and speak in live sessions to the group for free.

Speaker 2:

There'll be a community for advisors to ask questions, get an answer from us and other advisors around the country for free, and it is simply to help advisors create quantum growth in their business and to get them connected to some of the people, as well as myself, that have had a tremendous impact on my own business. That I believe it's almost like Paul. I've been describing it it's. Most advisors understand what a family office is for a high net worth client. The cast of experts and thought leaders that are basically founding the financial advisor success syndicate are really like a family office for any financial advisor who wants to grow and have like-minded people around them that can give them the solutions to actually grow a business beyond their wildest dreams. So, if you can't tell, I'm just a little excited about that endeavor.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I love that analogy. It's really, as I've gotten to know you, you really are. It's like the old analogy it's you are the five people that you spend the most time with, exactly, and I can tell the people that you've surrounded yourself with, while your success is yours, it's also built off of the shoulders and the collaboration of amazing people and what you're bringing to other advisors outside of your firm. You've obviously brought this leadership to your firm and have created this quantum growth inside of your own business. Now, in this additional way, you're bringing this opportunity for advisors to benefit from everything that you've done and learned over time, as well as, essentially, your inner circle of people that have helped you make this possible. So I think that's amazing. Thank you, I know your time is valuable. I really appreciate all the insights that you've shared. In a second, I'm gonna ask you where people can find you, but before I do that, I'd just love to ask is there anything that we haven't covered that you'd like to share?

Speaker 2:

I think I shared probably more than we planned to, so I go pretty deep on things. I would close with this, Paul, to go back to Ray Kelly, one of the founding members right in the financial advisor success syndicate. Ray asked this question. I'll ask you this question. I don't know if I've ever asked you this one, Paul. Okay, there are five frogs on a log and one decides the jump. How many frogs are on the log?

Speaker 1:

Now, in fairness, I think I've heard this before and I might get the answer wrong, but I think it's still five. Why is?

Speaker 2:

it still five Because deciding and doing are two different things.

Speaker 1:

You got it Exactly right.

Speaker 2:

So I think I might have used that one on you myself before. I'm not sure, but most people will say this for one, one of the frogs jumped off the log right. And the reason I share that story is most of us spend all of our time thinking right, we consume. You all just listen to this story, listen to this podcast. Hopefully you made it to the end, right? You listen to this 50 minute, 55 minute podcast. By the time we're done, and if all you do is listen and you don't jump off of the log, then I won't say you wasted an hour of your life, but you consumed data, right. So if what you heard you liked, write a book, you'll figure out how to make it work. Jump in right. Jump off of the log. Join the financial advisor success syndicate. See what the community's about.

Speaker 2:

I expect you to doubt it. Why would this guy do it for free? And I don't understand it. How much value could that be? Nothing free is a value. Let me prove myself wrong. So it's easy to consume data. It's hard to actually execute and try and go through the process of getting uncomfortable, and that would be what I would leave everybody with Paul. Do something as a result of what you learned today and then make a decision and then just go figure it out. That's what I've done my whole career and I feel if you just two ways to build a business, people think life is field of your aims. Build it and they will come right. Sometimes you have to just make them come and then build it. You just gotta go figure it out and then figure out how to make it pretty and make it all work later. But just jumping off that log is where most people get stuck.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, 100%. So, in terms of learning more about what you do and we'll link this in the show notes, whether it's the podcast, the financial advisor success syndicate or anything else where's the best place for advisors to reach out to learn more about anything that we discussed today?

Speaker 2:

Sure, best way to get in touch with me is just on LinkedIn. You could just go to LinkedIn Jonathan Cutten, k-u-t-i-n, and then you can Google me. I'll come up in lots and lots of places. So I'm pretty easy to find out on the Wide World Web and then from the financial advisor success syndicate. I don't know when this will launch, but we are launching on September the 7th and it is not quite September the 7th as we record this today. So if you go to joinfascom that's joinfascom you could be put on a waiting list I will share. It's a waiting list. There's an application process. We're looking most importantly for advisors who genuinely wanna grow better, nice people. So the best part about the syndicate and our community is there will be a no-jerk rule. Only nice people will be allowed.

Speaker 1:

So that's my favorite rule.

Speaker 2:

That's what you find me, paul.

Speaker 1:

That's my favorite rule. I think if you could probably simplify a lot of rule books if you just made that rule number one and then, in the spirit of the cruddy kid, what's rule number two? First learn rule number one Exactly.

Speaker 1:

I guess Daniel Sun yes, mr Miyagi, very cool. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. I'm excited for what we're doing together. I'm excited to launch the first book, which is now just, I believe, waiting Compliance Approval. I'm excited as we're writing the second book. I know we have three more books queued up and my guess is we're gonna probably end up writing many more books over the years to come. And so thank you for allowing me to be part of your journey, which, to me, just is amazing, and what you've achieved in your life and what you're and you're still young. It's not like you're looking back and saying, hey, this is what I've achieved, and now I'm done, it's. I think you probably are gonna double, triple, quadruple, if not more, what you've already achieved, and so just having an inside view of that is exciting for me to do, and hopefully our listeners on today's podcast got just a glimpse of what's possible and as well as some specific ways that they can join you on this road to quantum growth. So thank you very much.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate the kind words, thankful and grateful that you came into my life. I think we are, we're gonna do some fun things together and I think we'll help a lot of people on the way. So thanks for having me today and appreciate you.

Speaker 1:

My pleasure. Thank you so much, Thank you.