Sweet: Who would like their business to grow while taking more time off than you ever have in the past? OK, that’s what I thought!

By the end of our time here with you today, you are going to know what is needed to differentiate yourself in the marketplace, to have a killer culture all while giving you the freedom to feel you can take more time off than ever before.

Imagine that you have had your best net new AUM year ever, bringing in over $100 million in a one 12-month period, all while taking 16 weeks off to do what you most enjoy. That was what I was able to experience in 2018 due to two key things:

1. Having the right people in the right seats
2. Focusing on automation and differentiations in our processes and marketing strategy

While I could stand up here and offer you the highlights of how you could experience the same type of year, I thought, What better way to provide you value than to pass it off to one of the people who made it possible?

Here with me today to present to you is Brittany Anderson, who is not only my key implementer but also a coach to many businesses who are looking to level up their teams.

Without further adieu, I’d like to bring you Brittany Anderson to kick things off.

Anderson: Before we dive in, I wanted to let you know that whenever we speak to an audience, our goal is to both overpromise and overdeliver.

Before going any further, we need to address the most important concept of the day. What do you think that is? It’s mindset.

Mindset is everything. Without the proper mindset, without the commitment to grow your business, grow within your role, grow as a person, none of the rest of this matters.

If you are attending as a business owner, would you like it if your team members, yourself included, showed up at their highest performing level, every day? And if you are attending as support staff — agent, operations, client services — would you like it if your co-workers, again yourself included, showed up at 100 percent to work as efficiently and effectively together as possible?

That might be pretty good. OK, so I’m going to share a story with you here today that will help you know how your attitude, energy and perspective can have a significant impact on your life and business so that even in the most frustrating of times in your business, career or life in general, you can come out feeling like this. [visual]

Imagine it’s your birthday, and you’re 33 years old. Do you remember waking up on your 33rd birthday? You wake up feeling pretty darn good, and, if you’ve ever seen the movie “13 Going on 30,” you might be channeling the movie’s lines thinking, Thirty and flirty and thriving. You feel fabulous, you’ve got a significant other to flirt with daily, and your business is thriving. That’s good, right?

That’s exactly how I woke up this year on February 25!

I was getting ready for my day when my 5-year-old walked in and handed me an envelope with “Mom” written in her sweet little handwriting. Imagine that was one of your kids — when a child hands you an envelope, you just never know what you’re going to find.

Now imagine opening that envelope — two dimes, a penny and a broken sequin mermaid tail. And you realize, for a 5-year-old, those are her four most valuable possessions. This is what was given to me.

Has anyone ever given you all of their worldly possessions? Probably not!

Think about a time you’ve had a morning like that only to arrive at your office to what can best be described as Murphy’s Law — anything that could go wrong did. That was exactly what I walked in to. It was like a whirlwind of chaos and crabby. Picture one of the more stressful days in your career and think about how quickly those feelings trump any sense of being “thirty and flirty and thriving.”

I barely survived the day. We are talking hanging on by a thread mentally and emotionally.

It was one of those days where the only reprieve you have is knowing that your drive home is solo, so bring on the dramatics and insert desperate search for a sappy song to crank on the radio and cry — really hard.

Despite my desire for drama, I get into my car and head home thinking, OK, I’m going to feel sorry for myself for a minute and then flip my attitude so I’m present for my kids. The hubs is working late tonight, and we are going to have fun on my birthday, gosh darn it!

Think about the pep talks you’ve given yourself in the midst of a major frustration to appear calm on the outside when you’ve got chaos on the inside.

I got home to my three wonderful children, and my 4 1/2-month-old at the time decided that “fabulous” was not a feeling I was going to have on this day. He was so crabby! And my girls were starving and needed spaghetti right now! Imagine a mini wolf pack just hanging out nipping around your ankles.

Think about how it would feel to be cooking dinner, holding a whining baby while trying to get spaghetti plates on the table and then have your phone ring. That’s exactly what was going on with me. So I looked down at my phone and saw that it was my sweet grandparents who call and sing “Happy Birthday” to me every single year, without fail.

I tried to sit down with my son to rock him while answering the phone with the biggest painted-on smile I could muster. My grandparents started in on their chorus: “Happy birthday to you….” So that was going on in my right ear, when all of a sudden I heard this sweet little baby burp in my left ear where I was hopelessly bouncing my son.

This innocent little burp turned out to be not so sweet when I realized there was a massive amount of puke coming out of my son’s mouth that totally saturated my hair. I’m sure many of you with children have been puked on. It’s not fun. It stinks, especially if it’s in your hair. What would you do?

Think about times that you’ve been so exhausted that you cannot muster the physical energy to do something as simple as washing your darn hair.

I’m going to preface this by saying that sometimes you have to save your sanity.

So that’s what I did. I shut out the lights and went to bed — puke in hair and all.

Morning came, and, while I had every intention of washing said puke-filled hair, my normally sweet, happy-go-lucky son continued to have other plans for me.

Think about times where you have hopelessly watched the clock tick on by, faced with a jam-packed day of meetings and a big prospect call. That’s what was happening with me. I was thinking of rescheduling everything. Think about how you would feel in this instance — a reschedule would be OK, right?

However, after careful overanalysis, I decided to go by the mantra: “Hair in a bun, get stuff done.”

So that’s what I did. I put my puke-filled hair in a bun, and I went to “get stuff done.”

And you know what? On that day, with baby puke saturating my hair, I not only had super productive meetings, but I closed my biggest prospect to date. That is what makes this an important lesson.

My point in sharing this embarrassing and all-too-raw story with you is to set the stage and say that if you do not fully embrace the mentality of showing up in your business, in your personal life, in all that you do, then you are wasting your time here today. What I am about to share with you requires you to embrace the fact that leadership is not a position or title; it is action and example.

So are you ready to lead by example?

Now, as Bryan mentioned, one of the attributes of some of the most successful teams out there is that they have a killer A-team, a team of people behind them to help them.

Who loves the hiring process? Who just thinks it’s so easy to find good people whom you wish you were hiring all the time? Not many. It can be a painful process. So how do you find these A-team members?

Some may tell you that the hiring process needs to be complex — full of hoops, full of obstacles. However, this is not necessarily the case if you have the right tools in place. In fact, there are essentially three simple practices to putting the right butts in the right seats. Are you ready?

Hire based on inherent strengths versus skill set. You can train on anything, but you can’t train someone to be a different person from what they naturally are.

Because, like I mentioned earlier, you can teach someone just about any skill set out there, but you can’t teach someone how to be a good person.

Since this is something I get asked all the time by advisors in our mastermind group, here is the list of some of the top strengths-based hiring tools you can use. [visual]

The second step in putting the right butts in the right seats is to require a video during the early stages of your interview process. This step right here is gold for you as it is going to eliminate the people who don’t want to go the extra mile.

Immediately, without any work on your end, you’ve just vetted the people who are not 100 percent serious about adding to your culture.

Because the bottom line is that’s what this is all about — your culture. Hire to fit your culture. If you expect excellence, then expect it from the very beginning!

Here’s the deal: The video doesn’t have to be complex — just a quick two minutes on why they’re the best fit, what they will bring to the table and why they are interested in your company. Create a Dropbox file or use Google Drive for easy upload.

You’re not looking for perfection; you’re looking for effort. You’re looking for that person, again, who’s willing to do extra.

The third step in creating the ultimate hiring process is to remember: Slow to hire, quick to fire.

Who loves wasting money? I didn’t think so. By not following the mantra of “slow to hire, quick to fire,” you are just burning through money. And if you want to do that, I’ll be taking donations in the back of the room after this.

In all seriousness, who has experienced firsthand the pain of hiring the wrong person? Whether employee or co-worker? It sucks! It’s terrible! Don’t be afraid to wait for that diamond in the rough to come along.

It’s tough covering an extra position while you’re trying to get someone in, but it’s worse to recoup the damage that a wrong fit, rushed employee, can create.

So here’s a recap to get the right people in the right seats to help your business become even more exceptional:

1. Strengths-based hiring
2. Require a video
3. Slow to hire, quick to fire

Now, once you get your talent in the door and you build your A-team, we move on to the automation and, essentially, the marketing component of your business. And I will tell you, the marketplace is a noisy place. Every individual receives thousands of messages every single day. Thousands! So how do you stand out?

We are going to talk about what singular actions can do for your business. The three singular actions we will focus on today for you to be able to take and implement are differentiation, generating more leads (on auto-pilot) and deepening relationships. How does that sound?

There are two different types of differentiation: The enhancement differentiator and the never-before-seen differentiator.

In a red ocean company, products and services become commodities, and cutthroat competition turns the ocean bloody red. Blue ocean companies, in contrast, access untapped market space and create demand, and so they have the opportunity for highly profitable growth.

Which one do you want?

Let’s look deeper at enhancement differentiators. In these situations, I can best describe it to you as monkey see, monkey do. There is no emotional hook, and you’re immediately forgotten. Doesn’t sound too sexy, huh?

Here are some compiled examples of what some enhancement differentiators look like, taken from the financial planning world.

• “Planning for your future”
• “It’s about planning for your future”
• “Business or personal — invest for your future”

It’s essentially the same exact message over and over and over again.

Now, here’s another good one. This is from an advisor with Raymond James whose ad reads “Raymond James! Losing a loved one can be emotionally draining …” yada yada.

You are addressing the death of someone close to them by boldfacing the company you work for? There is no emotional hook, no bonding opportunity. It’s cold and unemotional.

Here’s another one: “Let us help you plan for your future.”

And my personal favorite: “The economy sucks. We don’t.” We will give them a point for being funny, though.

Now let’s flip over to the never-before-seen differentiator. I’m going to use our personal example at Sweet Financial Services: “It’s your dream. We’ll help you get there.”

And then as you click further, you’ll see that we help you “create the life you can’t wait to wake up to” by working with not just a financial advisor but a dream architect.

Wow, right? That’s different! You can see and feel the difference between the planning commentary versus the emotional hook.

Now, I think all of us would like to crush this second singular action, and that is generating leads.

Out of a survey we did of approximately 2,500 advisors, we saw that 63 percent of those with over an average of $3.5 million in production had a custom website versus those around the $1 million production range where only 31 percent had a custom site — they used a template from their broker-dealer, which basically provided them with zero differentiation.

Then we looked at which sites had a way to actually contact the agent or advisor. For those in the $3.5 million production or higher, 42 percent had an opt-in or contact-us form, and only 15 percent of those with around the $1 million production range had one that was visible or accessible.

So what does all this mean, and what does it matter?

First, it means that the greater the level of success that you reach, the greater the investment people are taking into the differentiation component of their business. This matters because, by having your own customized website, you get higher search engine optimization in Google rankings. You have more control over your marketing and messaging to get out of the noise. And you have the ability to use the tools and technology out there that can let you see what’s working and what’s not working much faster.

By having your own customized website, by putting tools on the site that people can opt in to or download, by consciously differentiating yourselves, you essentially dominate the top portion of the Google search page when looking for a financial planning service in your area. This is exactly what you want — to be at the top of the search bar in a crowded marketplace!

When generating leads, your website is both your greatest asset and largest vulnerability. It’s important to note that your homepage will not generate clients, but it can cost you clients. So, when you look at your own personal website, does it create a bond, or is it simply a business card?

In the financial services world, we are faced with issues of not being trusted, of everyone saying the same thing in their messaging, of everyone looking the same. So how do you overcome this? And how do you avoid making it all about you?

Harsh reality check here — no one cares about you. They just don’t. They don’t want to hear about how great you are. They want to know how you can solve their problems. That’s what customized messaging allows you to do.

How do we do this? Well, that is part 3 of the singular actions, which is self-segmentation. This lets you focus your marketing, make the prospect feel special and create rapport.

Here is a website of one of our business partners — the guy behind the genius we’re talking about right now. [visual] On their homepage, the prospect or client selects if he or she is a lawyer, professional or broker because those are their niche markets.

Then, for example, if you click to say you’re a broker, you suddenly go deeper asking additional questions, and in the end it directs them to an item of value where they can digest information and then be offered a free consultation. The results of implementing this simple, self-segmentation was an 18 percent increase in leads. The curiosity to find out the next step, also known as the Zeigarnik effect of “what’s next,” gets them to complete the sequence.

Another example of this that we are working on at Sweet Financial is here. [visual] Two of our niches are business owners and women in transition. We are creating self-identifiers because you would never talk to a business owner the way you’d talk to a grieving widow. That sounds like a simple enough concept, but it’s missed over and over again.

To show you an example of where the final “landing spot” will be on the website — it will be something like this, where they are directed to take the assessment to determine if their business is geared up for growth, and where they will be delivered the results and a proposed solution to those results. [visual]

All of this is automated. All of this is set up to work on its own.

And to top it off, once they have been provided the value-added content that is tailored to them, you can then have an automated scheduling assistant that asks them if they’d like to schedule an appointment. And to make it even more personal, you have it lead to a video that says something like, “Hey, this is Amber, your agent/advisor. I’m so excited to get together with you. Follow the simple instructions below to get on my calendar, and I will see you soon.”

Cool, huh?

You can also use this type of sequence with the high-impact videos for things like a follow-up from an initial meeting, birthdays or guiding them through the next steps of your process.

As you can see, a lot of what we just talked about all leads to one general concept: You want to be a trailblazer in your market. While that was evident in the examples we just walked through, there’s another way that you need to focus on being a true trailblazer.

To be a true leader, to get your team to operate at a whole new level, you must commit to being a trailblazer. Like I mentioned, you want to look at what others are doing in your marketplace and do something to stand out from the crowd — be a trailblazer in your own right!

But it doesn’t stop there. Remember what we talked about before: Leadership as a whole is not a position or title. It is action and example.

Trailblazers, as leaders, are not like everyone else. Trailblazers accept nothing but excellence. But trailblazers also fail. They fail a lot, and they fail fast.

Now, you might be thinking, How do you achieve excellence and fail at the same time?

It’s because they encourage their teams to fail. What? You might be thinking, Brittany, why would I want my team to fail? That’s not excellent! Well, you have a choice. Teams that are encouraged to fail are typically highly effective. They’re problem solvers because they know they have the autonomy to make certain decisions, and that is freeing. So you can have that kind of team or you can have a team of robots who just sit waiting for your genius, waiting to take orders from the master.

So in order for us to avoid you being chained to your desk, your business, for eternity, we are going to provide you with one of my most popular tools that I use with my Ultimate Advisor clients called Enhance Your Experience. This is one of the most effective tools we use in our business, both at Sweet Financial and Dare to Dream Enterprises, to use mistakes as learning experiences and to constantly get your team in the mindset of how can all that I do be even better.

Not only do trailblazers use tools to self-correct, but they also systematize, or automate, as much as humanly possible. One example of systematization is through the use of department calendars. And I’m not just talking marketing; I’m talking operations, client services, wealth services — however your branch is segmented, this is hands down a great way to stay on track and focused throughout the year and each quarter.

Here is a quick example of one component of a marketing calendar that works well for your practice. [visual] All tasks are broken out by month, and it is categorized as to what content needs to go out, what you need to deliver to clients and what operationally needs to happen behind the scenes.

Automation and systematization lets you spend your time and energy doing the next thing that trailblazers have a habit of doing, and that is to surround themselves with the best of the best — the biggest thinkers out there who push you to be the best version of yourselves and who expose you to new ideas.

You may have heard the saying, “If you’re the brightest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.” Surround yourself with people who will help you push your expectations for yourself and your team, who sees how much more you are capable of.

And you know what the final thing is that trailblazers do? They show up. Now, remember that story I shared earlier? The one about my sweet little 5-year-old and that broken mermaid keychain? Well, on that day, instead of soaking up the appreciation I felt over that gift, instead of practicing gratitude and being the leader I claim to be, I let the whirlwind of the business impact my day, and I focused on the negative versus the positive.

Think about times in your life where you have received a gift that immediately touched your soul. Did you hold on to that feeling, or did you allow the whirlwind to get the best of you?

I believe in the power of living by example and being congruent to your values, so I try to be one of the most positive people I know. Yet, on my own birthday, I slipped.

Think about times that you have slipped. When you’ve snapped at your significant other or your kids over trivial things that didn’t matter. When you’ve been short with team members because you’re just so busy. Or, like in my case, of allowing a frustrating moment to make it a frustrating day.

My challenge to you today is to figure out how you can show up — preferably without puke in your hair because, let’s face it, it’s gross — so that you can be an even truer example of leadership.

While you all hold some pretty important titles or designations in your professional life, you also hold some other pretty important titles that maybe don’t get enough recognition. It could be “mom,” “dad,” “grandpa,” “grandma,” “son,” “daughter,” “spouse.” A couple of my other important ones besides “entrepreneur” are “mom” and “wife.”

When you run across a woman who holds those three titles, watch out because we are committed on a whole other level.

And I don’t mean this. [visual] I mean that we don’t have a choice but to show up in all that we do.

So show up so that your kids see that their mom or their dad doesn’t quit.

Show up so that your team sees and reflects your level of commitment.

Show up and deliver the God-given talent that you were blessed with because the bottom line is that if you don’t, you are doing this world a disservice.

But more important than anything else, show up for yourself. You owe it to yourself to be the best version of yourself, every single day!

Sweet: There is one additional key insight I want to share with you, and that is that I have found that the biggest breakthroughs in my business have occurred when I’ve made the conscious decision to invest in myself, my team and my practice.

There is a saying from entrepreneur Joe Polish that I completely agree with, and that is, “If you don’t pay, you don’t pay attention.”

If you want to scale your practice and do it in a way that doesn’t require you to work 24/7, then I recommend you do these three things:

1. Bring your implementer to any coaching events you attend, such as this conference.
2. Have someone sit in on your client review meetings so that you can focus on the client, not the admin side of things. There are five reasons why this makes sense.
   1. It allows you to concentrate 100 percent on what the client is saying.
   2. The notes from the appointment are done for you so you can walk out of the meeting with a fresh mind, knowing everything is being taken care of.
   3. The person in the meeting can help remind you of things you committed to during the appointment.
   4. It sets you up to effectively delegate clients to your up-and-coming team members as the relationship has already begun with the client.
   5. If you are one who likes to travel or does so as part of your business, your clients have total comfort in calling the office when you are out because they have a trusted relationship with other members of your team.
3. Embrace the “who” over the “how.” “Who” can help get you to the next level versus “how” you can do it yourself.

We’ve worked darn hard to get to the point where we are at, so pay to get top talent. Invest the energy into automating all that you can. Get help differentiating your business. All of these things are what contributed to maximizing my return on life.

How are you going to apply what we talked about today — to maximize your return on life?

Brittany Anderson is the cofounder of Dare to Dream Enterprises, which helps growth-minded individuals focus on all things positive while striving to achieve their greatest aspirations in life. Her goal is to harmonize the office so staff is focused on providing personalized service and inspiring guidance, and her true passion lies in helping people become the best version of themselves. She is also the author of two books.

Bryan J. Sweet, CLU, ChFC, has specialized in helping individuals accumulate and preserve wealth for retirement and beyond since the start of his financial services career in 1979. Sweet earned his master’s degree in financial services from The American College before embarking on what would become a lifelong career as a wealth management consultant. He established Sweet Financial Services in 1987.