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Top Advisor Podcast
#87 Building Your Financial Advisory Team with Top Talent – Insights from Steve Perry
00:43:24
What does it mean to truly scale your advisory team without sacrificing quality or culture? In this episode, Referral Coach Bill Cates interviews Steve Perry, founder and president of Well Recruiting Solutions,
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- [00:04]
A
Welcome to the Top Advisor podcast, brought to you by Proudmouth's Podrocket Academy. I'm your host, Bill Cates, creator of the Cates Academy for Relationship Marketing. In each episode, I interview one of our industry's top performers, getting them to pass on their secrets to success to you so that you can impact more lives and generate more income. Now onto the show.
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B
Foreign.
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A
Welcome. While you may be the driving force for your business, and ultimately the success of your business is your responsibility, the team you surround yourself with will certainly make a huge difference in the level of success you're able to achieve and sustain. So the topic of my interview with today's featured guest is building your team with top talent. But before we dive into this important topic, I want to let you know about some free resources that I invite you to retrieve. After you've listened to today's interview, you'll find checklists, guides, videos and other tools. Simply go to referralcoach.com resources now. Write that down unless you're driving referralcoach.com resources and it's also in the show notes. While you're there, make sure you sign up for our free weekly tips. We're always sharing best practices and we'll notify our newest podcast interviews as they go live. And while these are free to you, I think you'll find them quite valuable. The Top Advisor podcast is sponsored by the folks at Proudmouth who help advisors increase client engagement and attract more ideal clients. And this episode is sponsored by Ironclad Family, who brings you Ivault X, a financial advisor enablement tool focused on upping your game as a holistic advisor, as well as Harbor Capital, an asset manager known for curating an intentionally selected suite of active ETFs from boutique managers. And now on with our show. Our guest for today's show is Steve Perry. Let me tell you a bit about Steve and then we'll tap into his experience and wisdom. Steve has had a fascinating path into this business. Though he was born in San Diego, Steve spent 21 years living in Alaska, which is the one state of this great union that I haven't visited. I've been to every single one except for Alaska. His first job was as a commercial salmon fisherman and at just 15, he started Perry Pavement Services, funding his way through high school and college. Steve earned a full ride Naval ROTC scholarship from the University of Alaska Anchorage, where he competed in basketball and track and fast tracked his education, graduating in three and a half years with a degree in finance. At 20. He began his career as A financial advisor and then a leader of advisors. Managing an office in Lubbock, Texas, Steve doubled the size of his office in two and a half years. And he then took over an office of 120 advisors, leaders and staff in Minnesota. In January 2024, Steve launched the well Recruiting Solutions. His firm helps insurance and wealth management firms build build talent pipelines to achieve their growth goals. Zooming in from Chaska, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, Steve Perry. Welcome to Top Advisor podcast.
- [03:20]
B
Hey, thanks Bill. It is an honor to be here. I mean it's just like years and years and years I learned from you and you taught me so many things about how to build my practice as an advisor and get new clients and then as a recruiter. And so it's just know, just so cool. Full circle to be here with you today.
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A
Thank you, I appreciate that. By the way, folks, I do not pay Steve to say that. Anyway, Steve, look, you left a highly lucrative, rewarding, and probably a little stressful role as the managing partner of a large firm of advisors. What drove you to start your business? The well recruiting solutions.
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B
Yeah, so you know, in that role, right. My job, a lot of the time I spent was, was recruiting and developing new advisors. Many of them were care changers, you know, individuals in their 30s and 40s that had successful careers in other industries and wanted to take an entrepreneurial route. And so over and over and over again I'm having these conversations about why someone should give up the safety and security of a, you know, good, good paying salary job to build something for themselves. Which, you know, was just what I had done 17 years prior to, um, but then I kind of looked in the mirror and I'm like, man, I don't own this practice, I don't own this firm. I'm a very well paid employee, leader, executive, but I don't own it. And I get to talk to people about owning all day long, but I don't have that. And so like I really felt, you know, through a time of prayer and just visiting with my wife about it. It's like I was 37 years old. I look back and at 60, I would have been disappointed I hadn't take the chance. So I left with that mission of building my own business.
- [05:07]
A
Love it. I've built a few myself. I appreciate the, the sentiment and the emotion. So how did you come up with the name of your firm? What does the well. The well recruiting solutions. What does the well represent to you?
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B
Yeah, thanks for asking. So the well, it has a few different meanings actually, which which again, the vision is to build a firm that's a billion dollar firm. So I knew someday like this there's got to be meaning. It can't just be a random name. And so I spent a lot of time thinking through, praying, talking, all kinds of different stuff and, and so first and foremost, we were founded as a firm that helps advisory firms recruit new advisors. And I look at my upbringing and I had amazing parents. My mom stayed at home, raised us, my dad worked mid level jobs, we were middle class, lower middle class. Getting into the financial services industry and me building my own practice really set my family up, allowed for an incredible lifestyle of opportunities for myself, my wife, my kids, and frankly my future grandkids. And I look at that career as a well, because it was hard. There are many years that didn't do that. There are many years I was there digging late at night, early in the morning, digging that hole. But eventually, finally we got down to the water and, and that water of the well provides for a lifetime a generational blessing for, for my family. So I look at that as, as, you know, kind of a well that was built and we help people do that. Building a well of talent, right? So for a firm to be successful, the first thing they have to figure out is how do I get and attract new clients, which is an amazing thing that you teach. And then once they've figured out how to get a sustainable flow of clients, then they have to figure out how to get a sustainable flow of talent if they're truly going to be a business, not a solopreneur, but if they're going to be a business, how do they get a steady stream of talent? And that can be really difficult. And so we come in and we fill that gap for them because we spend all day, every day doing that in four different companies all over the United States and different industries. Although heavily focused in the advisory business, we are that well. You can tap, tap into our well, which will provide a steady flow of talent for your organization so that you know you can find the right people. And so that, that's the second imagery, the last one. I'll say, Bill, whole purpose of this company is not about us. Obviously we're a for profit business. We want to make money. But the whole goal of this business is to be able to generate a sustainable income stream that pays for philanthropic work all across the world. We, we from day one have given a decent proportion of our revenues to different organizations and different people doing incredible work all around the world that don't have the opportunity that we do in America to, to build a business to the scale that we have and the access and everything, the privilege we have to do that here, I feel like I have to pay that forward. And that's really the calling that God's put on my life. And so we're building a well, a sustainable source of, of water, life sustaining support for people all around the world that don't have access to that.
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A
Nice, nice. Love the mission. Boy, it's when you have a clear mission like that, it, it's easier to maintain your energy even during tough times, I think. So let's, let's jump into today's topic, which is recruiting top talent. What are some of the biggest challenges that you see? Financial professionals, advisors, insurance professionals, independent, semi independent, captive. I know you work with all. What are some of the biggest challenges you see that they face when it comes to recruiting top talent?
- [08:56]
B
Yeah, like, like business development. It's name flow, right. It's, it's having enough names to be selective. Right. You know, we talk about getting to a point in your business where, you know, you only work with certain clients that, that match your ideal client. Right. But at the beginning you got to kind of take everything. Well, you can go out of business real quick if that's your approach to hiring people. Right. If you just let anyone in the door, like that can go bad really quickly. And so name flow is the biggest one. But then one of the things, Bill, that we're seeing is actually the opposite problem now. So with technology, it used to be that people used recruiting firms to access talent. Well, that's not necessarily what they do best anymore because with the proliferation of first the Internet and then all the job boards and LinkedIn and all the networking sites, and now the fact that there's the easy apply button on any job posting, that allows anybody to click that button and upload a resume. Well, there's AI software now that customizes your resume for that job posting to make you stand out and look. But it may or may not be right. And so what's happening? We're seeing our clients, if they're using this technology and posting jobs out there, they're getting flooded with hundreds of applications. They have no idea who's good or who's not. Because, you know, most firms are only going to make one or two hires a year. You know, a big firm, maybe five or ten. Well, that's not like, that's not enough reps to really have the ability to build a robust system around. How do we keep the Right people or the wrong people out and attract the right people in. And so I would say just the overabundance of data and information is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to getting the right name flow into finding people for your firm.
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A
Yeah. So it's not just the quantity, it's the quality. All right, so next step obviously is how do firms, how do advisors of different types overcome this challenge? Getting enough and getting enough of the right type and then I suppose, weeding through them a little bit as efficiently as possible so that they're only spending time on phone zoom in person with folks that really stand a good chance of fitting.
- [11:25]
B
Yeah, yeah. So there's, there's definitely some systems that can be put in place and human capital. You know, first off, I, I again would, would echo what you teach so much. The best candidates are going to be personal introductions from, from our team or from the people that we know. And you should start there. Oftentimes we come in after that's been exhausted. You know, the first couple hires for firms are typically that. And you want that, right? You want it to come from your clients who understand what you do. You want it to come from your team members that come from what you do. But, but that should be formalized, right? That, that they should read a couple Bill Kate's books. And how does this apply to recruiting? Because it really does. But that's only going to be so big, and then you need someone on your team that owns it. And what I would say, you know, putting on my business, taking off my recruiting agency owner hat and just putting on my business owner hat, I do the same thing. We've grown in the last year and a couple months to almost 40 people on our team. So I am constantly networking, constantly out there having conversation with talent, because if, if you now have a job position available and you don't know who's going to go into that, like you're way, way, way behind the ball. So. So my biggest recommendation is that you start building that network before you even know what you need. That what you need inside of your firm. Yeah. Yeah.
- [12:55]
A
I often liken this to, you know, in athletics, when you see a coach either get promoted to head coach or move from one school to another, and then they assemble their team, sometimes fairly quickly. It's because they've been doing that all along, haven't they? They've been working with people, they've been identifying people, and they say maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but sooner or later we're going to be able to work together. So it's just always have an eye open for. Even if you don't have a spot. Right. The recruiters often say even if you don't have a place right now, you still want to have that bench of possibilities. Is that making sense?
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B
Yeah, totally, totally. And, and what's, what's really interesting, a lot of the reasons people come to us initially are to fill a junior advisor role, a business development role, an account executive, you know, whatever they're calling it, however they have their firm set up, it's a revenue producing role. And, and so my, you know, I may be a little jaded, but I also practice what I preach. Like we're a recruiting agency. I've paid a recruiting agency for someone they introduced us to hire them because it was a revenue producing thing. And so I know I'm a business owner. I can figure out like they need to do this much in production. I think that person can do it and that pays for itself. So that's typically where we, where we initially engage with a client is you, you have an opportunity in your firm to drive more revenue. And because you're missing this person, you're missing out on that revenue. That's pretty easy to quantify and say, okay, I'm happy to pay the well or whatever firm X amount of dollars to help fill that role.
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A
Right. I'm wondering about something. You know, generally in marketing, client acquisition, talent acquisition, one of the tenants is how you describe the position or how, and if it's, if it's client acquisition, how you describe your firm, your value, propos, you do it in a way that hopefully will attract the right people, they'll resonate with the message and not attract the wrong people. I suppose that's also true in recruiting. And with that said, with this, like you say, proliferation of how AI and different apps make it so easy for people to apply, I suspect a lot of people probably even ignore what you've said and what you want. Yeah. I mean, talk about the messaging a little bit and how that can help or how that doesn't help as much as it used to.
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B
Yeah, yeah, so, so that's a good point. Right. So if you're, if your strategy is to do a job posting and just like hope people apply and then reach out to those ones, you're. You're gonna waste a lot of time, money, energy. It's not gonna work because of that just instant apply button that, that can go there and, and they're not reading it because, because the public is, is jaded right? I mean you see it all over the Internet, right? Like I applied for 127 jobs this week and heard back from no hiring managers. Well, there's a reason for that. So they don't have time, you know, week one of their search, they have time to read it, but pretty quickly they stop reading that. So there's a couple things and again like not, not meant to be a commercial, but just the mere fact of you as a firm not, not doing the job posting yourself, where it's your firm's brand on that, but it's a third party recruiting agency, puts you in a position of strength. We always tell our clients this right when we communicate with candidates. It's hey, ABC advisory firm has hired us to find them the top candidate are like your job is to get through us to maybe get to them kind of thing. And that puts, that puts the firm in a position of strength to now be selective as opposed to have to sell people on why they should come work for their firm.
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A
But, and if, if those people aren't hearing from the firm, they don't blame the firm, right? They blame, you know, the recruiter, the intermediary, if you will.
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B
You nailed it. Reputational risk from that. But I do want to touch bill on your, on your point of values. So like when we're evaluating, should we take someone on as a client? I gotta, I gotta think, how do we market their value proposition, right? Cause we've only got limited resources. We only get paid if we place that person inside of their firm. And so we wanna make sure that they're placeable inside of that firm. And so this would be my advice, right? As you were evaluating, how do you get the right people into your firm? As an owner, what is your value proposition? So one thing I would say, if you're paying a base salary, that's, that is actually still a very attractive thing in the advisory space because there's, there's a lot of people that entered in a performance only contract getting into this business that they're not the right person to do all of the things building their own practice. And so having a base salary even for a production role is, is a great value proposition. But then in addition to that, you know, you got to look at your firm. How big are you? What are the resources that you're offering? Because now you're competing against bigger firms that offer base salaries. I just had a conversation with a client two days ago and that guy talked for 13 minutes straight about the values of his firm and he like it was memorized. Like, I could tell this guy said that every day of his life. And they were different values. They were specifically focused on certain things. And I told him, I go, like, that's your. Like that's what you need to lean on in the recruiting process. That's not going to attract everybody, but the right person is going to work nowhere else but for you because of those values that you guys stand for. And they're going to see that you believe them and you know them too. So to your point, Bill, that is super important to have that identified.
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A
Yeah, great. You know, you were talking about resume and adjusting resumes, and now that there's apps that can adjust the resume, it's kind of scary in a way because you never know who you're talking to. And there's an old adage, you know, no one's ever as good as their resume. Right. You know, in a minute I want to talk about have you talk about scaling a business with with top talent. But first, let's take a quick break for a couple sponsors of Top Advisor Podcast.
- [19:17]
C
This ad is brought to you by Harbor Capital Advisors. Let's Talk about Harbor's LinkedIn page for a second because they're giving you direct access to some of the top minds from across the industry. Here are some facts about their team. Their CIO brings deep experience from his days at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Their head of ETFs has worked on the launch of many ETFs around the world. One of their portfolio managers leverages his prior experience at the Fed to color his opinion on monetary policy and the macroeconomic environment. And their capital markets Expert breaks down complex market structures and offers ETF101 insights with a side of unexpected musical references. He also just happened to interview me for Harbor's podcast the Active Advisor. You'll see my episode on their LinkedIn feed. Check out Harbor Capital Advisors on LinkedIn and listen to my episode of their.
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A
Podcast while you're there.
- [20:10]
C
The views expressed herein are those of Bill Cates at the time the comments were made. They may not be reflective of their current opinions, are subject to change without prior notice, and should not be considered investment advice. All investing involves risk, including loss of principal. Harbor Capital Advisors, Inc. Is not affiliated with Referral Coach or Top Advisor podcast. Foresight Fund Services, LLC is a distributor of the Harbor Incident ETFs 3880661.
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A
I want to take about a minute.
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C
To talk about one of the big trends in our industry that is holistic financial planning. As you may know holistic planning is not just about investments or insurance. Holistic planning is about creating a master plan where everything works together. Investments, insurance, taxes, estate planning, even your clients personal goals and values come into play. Many clients are loving this approach where their advisor connects all the dots for them. This more comprehensive approach leads to clients gaining greater clarity, confidence and peace of mind. Now there's a platform that makes it easier for advisors to engage in true holistic planning. It's called the ivault X from the folks at Ironclad Family. Ivault X is a one stop digital vault for all your clients financial documents, personal records and even legacy plans. You help your clients get organized and secure for which they will love you. Your next step is to grab your free guide on how to make becoming a more holistic advisor easier for you and your team. Simply go to holisticadvisorguide.com to access this free guide. That's holisticadvisorguide.Com this link is also in the show notes. IVAultX may just be your key to bringing integrated financial guidance and and the resulting peace of mind to your clients and their families.
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A
So Steve, we've used the phrase top talent a few times. How would you define top talent? What should leaders look for when building their teams?
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B
Yeah, I've always liked the Pareto principle for this, right? So 20% of the people are going to do 80% of the production. So like I want to find a 20 percenter, you know, and that's a math problem, right? That means that it's going to be the top two out of 10 people that you interview and you're probably not going to get both of them. So you probably need to interview 20 or 30 people to get two of the top six for your firm. Now the question is, you know, do you have the time and the ability to find that much talent? But that's truly, you know, what we would identify as top talent. I'll speak to like again, put my business owner hat on again. So we have a call center. We have nine people in our call center. We have over the last year hired probably 50 people for that call center. To do that we have interviewed about 150 people. And so we know now that we have the nine best of that 150 sample size that we've spent a lot of time, money, energy and, and in right now we're shifting some of the things that we do. But that's something that we look at and say we know we have like the top 6% of the calling like outbound calling industry on our team that we filtered through. That's an asset that we have to keep. That's an asset that like we know we've got the best. That's what I mean by top talent. So it's frankly just a lot of hard work of digging through the numbers to find the best people.
- [23:47]
A
Are there a couple of. Whether you're looking for someone who's going to be in production or more of a support role, are there a couple of key characteristics, let's call them psychographics of what you're looking for in talent? The way they talk about themselves, the questions they ask. Any, any things you, you always look for in someone when you're interviewing them?
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B
Yeah. So the ideal team player. Phenomenal book, right? So humble, hungry and smart. Those are, those are three character traits that.
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A
Humble, hungry and smart. Okay.
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B
So you, can you quantify that? That'll get you, you know, that'll, that'll easily get you the top 30%. A question I really like to ask a lot is for someone to describe for me what their best life looks like. And that that was a play off of a book I wrote a number of years ago. But the idea behind that, Bill, is that if they can quantify that, then two things are going to happen. Number one, you know that they're goal oriented so they're thinking about where they're going. They're figuring out like how are they going to get there. But then you can also identify do. Are they going to be able to get to that with this position that I have for them. And, and if they're not able to get to whatever their version of their best life is, then you're doing nobody any favors by hiring them. But if they are now you're able to coach and develop them to getting to their best life within the parameters of that seat that you're putting them in. And again, people do things because they want to do them, not because someone else wants them to do them. And so being able to coach them to their goals that align with the position you have on your firm, you're. You're going to get a phenomenal performer every single time.
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A
I like your would love your feedback on this concept. I've heard from time to time. Would you rather have someone hungry, humble and you know, talented or whatever you. And eventually grows out of the role? In other words, you keep them for, let's say five, six years and they do a tremendous job for your firm and then eventually graduate out to something else. Is that better or Is it better to have someone that's not quite going to graduate out but can still do very well over a long period of time in your firm, or is there even a right answer to that?
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B
Yeah. So here, here's a framework that I, that I use around that. So there's. And I gotta make sure I get this right. So there's three different types of talent, right? There's potential talent, there's emerging talent, and then there's proven talent. So potential talent is somebody who's, who's never done it before, but they've been successful in other areas. That's gonna be your least cost, but take the most development. And, and then there's emerging talent, which has done that specific role a little bit. They've been successful in other things and they have a little bit of experience. That's going to be a moderate cost and moderate amount of development. And then you've got proven talent. And proven talent is going to be the most expensive talent to get, but it's going to require the least amount of development. And then to the point of what you're saying, you, there needs to be a growth plan for them as well, otherwise they're going to get bored and then they're going to move on. And so that's a framework that we talk with our clients about in, you know, what, what do you want for this position? Because that's going to give us, you know, understanding who you're looking for, the salary requirements, you know, where are you at? Right. So like at the beginning of our company, I had more time and less money. And so, like, I was okay in this arena here. To help grow people right now in some of our positions, I need people who know things that I don't. I don't know. I have no clue and I can't figure it out and I don't have time to go do it. And so that's, that's a framework that I think along the lines of what you were saying. But the last point I would make is you got to, you got to be able to create as a leader. You got to be able to create vision for how this person can see themselves. You know, 10 years out is too long, but several years in the future, otherwise they are going to start looking for something else.
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A
Yeah, yeah. And you definitely don't want to underpay what they're looking for because if they, some people may take it and just keep looking. I know that. So for firms looking to scale, which means different things to different people, I know it's in fact, it's a, it's a. I think it's an overused word lately. Anyway, with that said, how can they strategically grow their teams without sacrificing the quality or the culture? I guess that's what I want to get to is as you grow, as you quote, unquote, scale with support with, with producers, talk about culture and maintaining culture.
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B
Well, so you gotta identify it first.
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A
Okay.
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B
And I always think that it's, it's identified through your mission, vision and values. So you know, something we do in our company and prior organizations I've left led is every single organization meeting that we have, we're going around and people in the group I'm calling on, like, what's our mission? What's our vision? What are our values? What does that mean to you? Each one of those things individually and then we have story time. How have you seen that lived out in our company in the past? You know, since we last got together last week, last day, last month. And that I find defines the culture of your organization. So we gotta have that first before you have anything to water down. And so then how do we not water that now? Well, if like in my interview, I go first, I go through what that means and I tell very explicitly that this is what each of these things means to me and to this organization. Tell me how you align with that. And if they can't, it's a short interview. If they can, oh, that doesn't mean they're hired. That just means we can go to the next step and, and then they get, I don't want, you know, indoctrinated is the wrong word. But, but they're, they jump into that system right away and right away the first week they're getting called on, you'll see on our website, like each of the people that are on our website, part of their bio is why they joined our company and how, how they align with the mission, vision and values. And so those are just some practical examples, Bill, in hiring and really just leading the company on how you make sure you got the right people in there and you carry the culture forward.
- [30:46]
A
It seems to me that if you're going to be talking about your culture and identifying it and what it means to you, not everyone's going to have the awareness and the wherewithal, if you will, even the experience or wisdom to respond to, to that. And, and so you're looking for people that are somewhat thoughtful and, and self aware and self reflective so they can know how they might fit in the culture. Does that make sense?
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If they can't. If they can't, then, you know you got your answer right there.
- [31:18]
A
Right? We talked a little bit about how technology can hinder and is a challenge in recruiting. In a minute, I want to ask you about how technology can actually aid the recruiting process and also some trends shaping the future. But first, I want to stop for a quick break for a word from Proudmouth, who makes this podcast possible.
- [31:41]
C
I have coached and interviewed many advisors who report significant success with their podcast. A podcast can create deeper engagement with your clients and attract more right fit clients to your practice. I've been working with the folks at Proudmouth since the inception of this show. Not only do they take care of the nuts and bolts of producing and hosting the episodes, but they've shown me how to increase my influence and attract more business. Proudmouth has a tool they call the Managed Influence Accelerator that creates a powerful content ecosystem that amplifies your voice, builds your influence, and drives real growth. And their sonic boom coaching program with podcast pro Matt Halloran will guide you through the entire process. They'll make sure you have the right strategies in place and then employ the exact right tactics for you. Podcasting isn't for everyone. And with that said, I think you owe yourself a look at how having a podcast can help you play bigger and build a better business. To book your free strategy session, go to proudmouth.com cates that's proudmouth.com cates Steve.
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A
Before we go any further, tell our listeners how they can learn more about your services you've mentioned a couple times. I don't mind a little bit of confident self promotion. It's all good. But I think you have a gift for our listeners, something they can go get.
- [33:03]
B
Yeah. So I did a study or had a study done where we went and found what are the top 10 roles that advisory firms are hiring for all across the United United States. And then we put that into a playbook, top 10 roles. And then we did buy firm size, small, medium and large. And I think we did eight different geographic regions all across the United States. So pretty in depth. You know, a couple hundred pieces of data that you can, if you're looking to grow and scale your firm, you can do the research. It's got all the job descriptions of what that should look like. It's got what the salary ranges are, are based on salary surveys. And then what, what are those top 10 roles maybe you should be looking for again, broken down regionally and firm size. And so that is@riajob.com you can download that and that, that can help you kind of start to build your road map there. And obviously it's got our information on there as well.
- [33:58]
A
Ria job.com and you don't have to be an RIA to get it and benefit from it. Nope. Isn't it expensive to use a third party recruiting company? I mean how, how does one justify the cost? Because I mean obviously you want to hire the right person. You don't want to make mistakes, you don't want to waste time. Maybe that's the answer to the question. But talk about that.
- [34:22]
B
Two quick answers for this one. Again I go back to are you hiring a revenue based role? So Charles Schwab did a study. Any professional, whether it's revenue bringing in or professional services, average salary or total comp for somebody inside an independent wealth management firm, $150,000 a year. And the average revenue that is brought in from that is $600,000 a year. So that breaks down to about $1,700 a day. So if someone goes 30 days without placing that person inside of that firm, that means they're missing out on 40 to $50,000 in revenue. I have clients that take 30 days to give us just enough information so we can build the job description for them. So right there we pay for ourselves. It's very, very common that within the first week we've got candidates that our clients end up hiring for the roles. And so we can, we can save that in lost revenue. But literally yesterday we ended up placing a candidate and I don't, I don't want to tell it doesn't always work out this, this way. But they, we're looking for somebody to help them maximize the results from their CRM. So they're looking for either a director of data or maybe a, an analyst position. They had a few different things. They told us what they wanted. We put together three job descriptions. They, they picked one and said we have, you know, roughly 180,000 in, in compensation and everything, your fee to be able to place to hire this person in the first year. So we went to work and we ended up because we went through dozens and dozens and dozens of candidates, interviewed many of them and then sent them the best few. We were able to not only save them lots of hours, they only had to spend a few hours on the top candidates. But we were into, they were able to get a candidate for significantly less than they were originally going to spend. Like our fee was basically negligible by ultimately guiding them down the right path and less than they were going to spend in the first place without us. So there's a lot of things we can do, Bill. Yes, we're expensive. The number you pay us is five figures and it starts with at least a two. And, and yet, you know, the missed revenue from not hiring us, is it six figures and costs, you know, starts with a one.
- [36:49]
A
Yeah, There you go. How can technology and automation improve the process where we talked about how it disrupts the process, but for RIAs, for financial advisors, what, what are some ideas around technology?
- [37:05]
B
Yeah, so there are, there are different technology tools that will, you know, allow you to sync your career site, your careers page on your, on your company website, which I think is super important and looks super professional. Your clients want to see that. And then it'll distribute to the. Indeed. And the LinkedIn recruiters and things like that. That's, that's super helpful because again, it's all about getting, getting it out there, marketing it out there. But I think, I think some of my favorite things are around promoting your company as a whole before you go to hire. So LinkedIn automation tools are really some of my favorite things where again, you're scheduling, you're coming up with content that you're distributing out there, you're automatically connecting and growing your network, you're sending people relevant messages, your following pages, and then spending time engaging. I have a technology that I use that highlights all the people that I want to be connected with and it just feeds me that. And then I can look at their stuff and comment on it and see what's going on. That type of technology aided engagement. If you abdicate and just have technology do all of that, it's super obvious, it looks super body. You don't want to be that. But aiding some of the human techniques I think is super powerful. And then if you're really going to be in the recruiting game, you need an ats, an Applicant Tracking System that automates the communications between and keeps track of all of your candidates, where they're at in the hiring process, sharing that data with all the members of your hiring team. And then the big thing is being able to go back to candidates that you've interviewed before that liked your company, you liked them, it just wasn't the right role and, and being able to re. Engage with them in the future.
- [38:57]
A
You said ATS Applicant Tracking System. Is that what you said? Good.
- [39:01]
B
And there's a lot of those.
- [39:04]
A
Yeah, no, I'm sure. Last thing I want to ask you is about trends. What do you see kind of coming or trends shaping the future for recruiting and financial services?
- [39:15]
B
Yeah, I see a lot of firms. What they're doing is they are getting rid of the kind of all in one advisor where the advisor is responsible for business development. They're responsible for onboarding new clients, putting the plan together, servicing the client on a regular basis and owning that relationship. I see firms segmenting all the rules. They're building teams of marketing teams to create inbound leads. They're creating SDR sales development reps or business development reps that warm up the potential new clients. They have lead advisors that are doing the opening engagement, building the relationship, bringing on and onboarding the new account. Then they have service advisors that are doing the ongoing service. They have their para planning team and then they have, you know, all of the ancillary support roles that go across that. I love that Bill, coming from the world where you know, it was the all in one advisor, the solo advisor. I love that because that's, you know, that's how basically every other company operates in other industries. And it really allows, this is what I'm a big believer of. It allows people to work within their gifting and spend the majority of their time at what they're really good at and less of their time doing the things that they have to do so they can do the things they like to do. And it just creates a better environment for everybody.
- [40:41]
A
It's interesting. I did an in person workshop with a group out of the Dallas Fort Worth area in, in January of this year and they had just done that. They had some of their quote unquote advisors were more the, the initial people. They, they, they would kind of. The leader had a radio show so that attracted a lot of clients, but they had advisors. Their, their role was to bring them in as clients. Right. To I guess you could say they were more of a sales position, but they're financial advisors and then they would be turned over to an advisor who would take the relationship and build her from there. And so we're working with them to, you know, who's asking for referrals, when are you doing it? How are you becoming referable in that process? The jury's still out on that model for them. But it's interesting but like you said, it's putting people in a position where they can be most successful based on their own talents and proclivities, right?
- [41:44]
B
Yep. And I know who you're talking about and they're clients of ours and we've actually helped fill some of those Advisor positions. It's been a blast to see them grow.
- [41:52]
A
Well, I've got a call with them coming up next week and I'm reviewing their value props. Right now. I'm going through every one of them and seeing how they're thinking and talking about their value. Some. Some great first starts and a lot of work to be done. My featured guest today has been Steve Perry, founder and the president of V well, Recruiting Solutions. Steve, thank you for all the value provided to our listeners as a. As a featured guest on Top Advisor Podcast.
- [42:19]
B
Thank you, Bill. It's been an honor to you.
- [42:22]
A
The listener of this podcast may ask you a small favor. If you like this episode or like the podcast in general, please leave a five star review on the platform you're listening to the show. Not all platforms have a place for reviews, but if yours does, I'd be grateful. I invite you to come Visit me@coach Kate.com and if you or any organization with which you're affiliated brings in speakers, I'd love to see if I can be a resource for you. Delivering a speech, a workshop, you name it, I love doing it. This is Bill Cates reminding you that ideas do not make you more successful. Only acting on those ideas will bring you the success you desire. Thanks for stopping by. Thank you for listening to the Top Advisor podcast brought to you by Proud Mouse Pod Rocket Academy. I encourage you to Visit my website, referralcoach.com for links to my books, online courses, and to register for the Katz Academy.