#236 transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, clients, advisors, business, questions, conversation, hear, bit, podcast, advice, listening, talk, money, life, meeting, prospective client, financial planning, vision, understand, industry

SPEAKERS

Brendan Frazer, Fraser Jack

Fraser Jack 

Welcome to the x y advisor podcast. A global community of financial advisors sharing and learning with one another to drive the positive evolution of financial advice. To get involved, go to x y advisor.com. Or simply download the x y advisor.

This episode is proudly sponsored by integrity your partner for life integrity recently launched an exclusive research paper to help advisors understand how to attract and retain new clients. They believe their role in the industry is bigger than just providing products they want to help create a sustainable industry. Educate clients and support advisors personally in their business. You can get a copy of the report and learn more about integrity. If you visit integrity live.com.au forward slash x y.

Fraser Jack 

Welcome back to the x y advisor podcast. I’m Fraser Jack and I’m joined from the other side of the world by another Frasier or Frasier. I said, Hey, Brendan Fraser, welcome.

Brendan Frazer 

Thanks for having me. It’s good to be here. I gotta say, if at all people that I’ve talked to you today, you have the best name of anybody that’s been on that list. Thank you. Maybe a little bit biased, if you will, but

Fraser Jack 

we definitely bond over our amazing names. Yeah, we do. There’s no doubt. It’s the little things in life that get us. Now what I’m showing to you today, because you’re doing a couple of amazing things. Well, firstly, you’re running a financial planning business. And you focus very much on clients, hopes, dreams, goals, aspirations, values, emotional decision making factors, which I love, and I can talk about that all day. But not only that, you’re also doing some work with financial advisors and financial planners starting with and we’ll get to this probably towards the end, but starting with, you know, an amazing podcast that you do called the human side of money, and also some speaking and courses and things that you do. So we’ll get to that, I guess in the in the in the end, but tell us, tell us a little bit about you, where you’re living and what your financial planning business is at the moment.

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah, and thanks for having me on and saying thanks for calling my work amazing. Sometimes I don’t necessarily look at it that way when it’s a day to day grind, but I also want to be sure and say until you thanks and say thanks for the work that you do for the community and for advisors and putting out two cod podcasts a week is certainly no easy task. And so anyway, so it doesn’t go unnoticed. I think it’s cool. And just wanted to say thanks. And thanks for having me on. So I’m in Nashville, Tennessee, or I’ve got two businesses, like you said, I’ve got my financial planning, business and practice that I run. And then a separate business where I work with and coach advisors on what we call the human side of money or the human side of advice. And then I’m just crazy enough that because two businesses isn’t enough that I’m married and have two kids that I’m raising as well that are both under three. So not only my my growing and raising two kids and growing and raising two businesses, and there are times where I go to bed at night. And I’m wondering like, Am I crazy? Is this really worth it. But the one thing that keeps you going is when you’re truly passionate about something, and I really am passionate, probably oddly so about raising the bar of advice, not just here in the US but but quite frankly, around the world. Because I think I think most of us would agree that historically, maybe hasn’t had the best perception, I guess studies show that the industry hasn’t had the best perception. And so the whatever we can do to raise up because what we do is, I mean, how many other jobs how many other professions in Kenny’s in the world can you say can increase somebody’s time, money and peace of mind. And there’s not many things, many ways that you can influence all three factors in somebody’s life like that. And we have the ability to do that each and every day with our clients. And so we deliver an amazing service, we deliver amazing value to our clients when done right. And so the more we can raise the level of advising the better off, everybody’s going to be

Fraser Jack 

fantastic. I think it was very, very well put, by the way. Tell us about your past in history. How did you get into becoming a financial planner?

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah, so I spent the first about seven years of my career on what we call the wholesaling side of the business. I don’t know you guys may have a different terminology for it. But essentially, I was on the product distribution side. So I was consulting with financial advisors are scattered around the states on retirement income products and helping kind of consult with them to say, hey, I’ve got a client, this is their situation, what what’s the best product, what’s the best thing that I should put into this portfolio to generate the income that they need? So the cool thing about that is you get to it really accelerates your experience because at night instead of working with 100 to 200 clients, 300 clients, I was working with 1000s of advisors who all who had their clients, so it’s You know, it was a lot of repetition as far as getting to see what clients face what they say what advisors say how they run their practices. So it’s really a crash course and understanding technical strategies, how clients think and act, and then also how to run a successful advisory business. At the same time, you get a lot of insights into how to not run a successful advisory business, the things not to do when you’re working with and talking to clients. And so you see, you see the good and the bad. So I spent first seven years of my life, not my life, but my career doing that. And then ultimately, just my, I think I, a, I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to travel anymore, because we were having our son. And it’d be, I always wanted to kind of embrace my entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial spirit and kind of do my own thing and my own practice and firm. So I eventually made the move over and started doing my own thing and getting into financial planning and advice and doing it the way that a combination of what I saw that worked well, that I thought was the way it should be done. And then making sure I wasn’t doing the things that are kind of that turned me off, they obviously were the things that gave the industry a little bit of a black eye, and did that. So that’s when I decided to make that jump, it was right, for it was right while my wife was pregnant, it required a little bit of a pay cut. So that’s what I call the right time fallacy. If you wait for the right time, it’ll never happen. There’s no such thing. So if you can go to your wife and convince her to change jobs, take a pay cut, right before you bring a life into the world. You know what, you’re probably a little bit crazy. But so once I got my the financial planning business kind of at least up and running a little bit on my feet underneath me, I’d always had a passion for not just financial planning, not just the the financial aspect, financial strategies and technical knowledge, but have a weird obsession with sort of the psychology and the behavioral components of why people do, what they do and the things they do. And even when they don’t make sense. So that the whole idea that you can know exactly what to do in order to get the outcome you want. Or you can you can literally see step by step what to do in order to achieve the goals that you want. And by and large, we’re still not able to do them. So you look at I’ll give some, I don’t know the statistics for Australia. But you look in the US you’ve got obesity rates that are higher than they’ve ever been marriage failure rates that are hovering around 50%. For as long as we can remember, about 90% of our score 80 90% of businesses that start up eventually fail. And it’s not because we don’t we have a lack of information on how to build a successful business have a marriage that thrives on how to lose weight and not be obese. It’s not an information problem. It’s an execution problem. And so I don’t have the numbers for finances, but it probably stands to reason that if it if it stays true in those realms, that that people’s finances probably aren’t a whole lot different. So we’re sitting here giving them a financial plan, right to tell step by step, or an investment approach that tells you exactly what to do to get the outcome you want. Odds are if you can, you can have the perfect plan. But in the absence of execution, it’s not really it’s not really gonna matter. So there’s a quote that I heard that’s just kind of shaped the way I look at it, and was sort of the spark for the business where we focus on that that aspect of the relationship, the human side of money, and it’s a guy named Derek seavers. And he says, if all we needed was information, we’d be billionaires with six packs. Because the reality is we don’t just need information, we have all the information that we need, we need the execution, we need to understand what are the things that are getting in our way? What are the psychological and behavioral obstacles that we need to overcome, to get to where we want to go? And that’s when I decided, you know, what, there’s this there’s a gap out there. We know there’s a lot of information and research on behavioral finance and behaviors even outside of the field of finance, that talks about how people behave, the weird ways that they behave, it talks about why they behave that way. So we know Okay, so this lady that’s about to retire, she’s when the market drops, she sold out. We know that how she behaved she did that because it didn’t make a lot. She didn’t make a lot of sense. But But we know that she did. We know why she did it because she suffers from loss aversion, recency bias, the availability bias, what we need to know is what to do about it. And that’s where you kind of start he I would hear from these advisors I was working with, I would ask, you know, what, what is it that you do to know not your technical knowledge, but your knowledge around how to better understand people and then how to actually get them to follow through on your advice. And they’d all say like, Well, I mean, I don’t really do anything, rely on my skill set, rely on my, you know, my skills or maybe pick up a thing here there but there’s never been, I shouldn’t say never but but there’s not a lot of high quality, top notch resources in the industry that exists. To help develop the skill set, not on technical knowledge, but on the ability to understand an emotionally charged topic, like money and get somebody to change their behavior for the better. So that’s when that’s when I decided, you know, what I’m gonna I want to help solve this problem and bridge the gap between education and application hat like not just knowing why this is happening, but what we as advisors can do about it to improve our clients outcomes and get them to the goals that they want to achieve, then that’s kind of wired planning. And then the podcast was born in pursuit of helping others, I figured if I felt this way, and all these advisors were telling me, they didn’t have a way to do it, I thought, you know, I’m gonna try to help solve the problem. And let’s all learn this together, and figure out how to raise the bar of advise doing it that way.

Fraser Jack 

It’s very, very interesting is that because I think a lot of you when the younger advisors tab, when I first started as an advisor, it was very much around, I knew every, you know, what we call a product disclosure statement, you know, which is the document that explains the product. And I knew I knew the wording, I knew how it worked. I knew all these things, and I was very technically, you know, minded, and I could I could spit that information out to all of their clients who are bored out of their brain about it. Right, but yeah, the rest of that sort of stuff that you mentioned that the emotional side of me that tends to come with a lot of experience for a lot of planners and, and, you know, how do you get 30 years experience overnight? It’s not that easy. I guess the answer to that, as you focus on it, and fast track it, what exactly what the sort of thing that you’re talking about?

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah. And I think it’s important to say this, too, I always try to, it’s easy for me to forget, sometimes I want to clarify, while I’m saying this and talking about the importance of the human side of money, the emotional side and being able to master that, that comes with the assumption that you’re delivering and giving sound fundamental technical advice. So bad advice paired with great human abilities is not good advice. We’re talking about kind of taking it to the next level. And assuming that there’s a foundation and a baseline of great advice, sound advice, advice that helps people helps put them in a better position financially. I know some people I’ve had some people say like, what do you just disregard the that aspect of and it’s like, No, no, hang on, that’s still very much necessary. It’s just not sufficient. So I think it’s, I wanted to kind of, you know, Pat out. And so that’s important. That’s

Fraser Jack 

absolutely fair enough. Now, before we get too far into this, tell me about starting your practice, you said starting from scratch by yourself that does that mean, you basically had zero clients, you got you, you got your licensing and registrations and all those sorts of things. qualifications all sorted out. And then you just opened the door and tried to bring a couple of new clients in, or how did you start the first few clients?

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah, so I was already I already had all the licensing and qualifications and training and stuff, just to be in the role where I was consulting with advisors on the wholesaling side for all those years. So I had all that it was basically Yeah, just going out and trying to figure out how to start how to start my practice. And yeah, that’s what I did. I went out and basically started from scratch with with no clients and had to essentially look there look at it wondering, okay, I’ve got nothing here. And how do I create something from nothing. And I’ll say this, because I know there’s probably people listening from all different ranges in their career, I like maybe some people that are newer, a little later on, but for those that are newer, here’s one thing that I heard. Again, this is one of those cool things about getting to work with so many advisors and see so many different viewpoints, you hear pretty much everything. So I heard so many times these guys and gals, these guys and girls, I would say the first three to five years, sometimes longer is really, really, really hard, right? So you hear about how hard it is to start from scratch how difficult it is. And you hear it enough to where you truly believe it you know that it’s true, right? Like, well, no, they wouldn’t keep saying that if it wasn’t true. Kind of like everybody says, with kids like, man, time just flies by it’s like nobody disagrees with that everybody says it. Therefore, it has to be true. Well, not only is it true, it’s harder than I think any than I even imagined. So it’s one thing to know, it’s another thing to get it and experience it. I just kind of wanted it. I think sometimes you listen to people talk about their businesses and their practices and how they did X amount in so many years. And those people I think you tend to hear about because they’ve been so successful. And like I’ve been fortunate Don’t get me wrong, but I sometimes wonder like, are we making it sound a little bit too easy? And glossing over the fact that people say it’s some of the hardest, toughest years of your life because it actually is some of the hardest stuff is years of your life. And it’s just a matter of basically I mean, being persistent and surviving and coming out the other side to reap the rewards later.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, absolutely. It’s like It’s like a long distance race or whatever it might be. It hurts. If you feel like giving up at times, but if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other, you end up getting towards the finish line. So yeah, absolutely. So it’s not at all an easy task, how did you physically go about? How did you pick up your first couple of clients? Was it just, you know, you people You knew? or friends or friends? or How did you sort of market yourself as a new financial planner.

Brendan Frazer 

So believe it or not, I started with the firm here for a variety of reasons that were, the initial firm that I started with it was it’s called Edward Jones. And it basically is the easiest bridge financially to get where I was where I wanted to be like to be able to open a practice. But essentially, they have this model where they built it out to where you go door to door to people’s houses, to introduce yourself, get to know people in the community, and kind of go about it that way. Now, naturally, yeah, I definitely had my friends and family that I reached out to, but I also kind of had this mindset of, if I just focus on friends and family, I’m never gonna make it, I don’t have enough friends and family to truly survive like me, or to truly thrive, like maybe they can help me get by. But if that’s what I focus on, like, I’m not gonna make it. So. Not only that, but I also kind of have this this working theory that I’ve come to believe where I don’t know that people should be worried serving their families in certain scenarios. Yes, a lot of scenarios, no, but that’s another topic for another time. So that’s how I kind of started, that was a grind, he can’t scale very well that way. So I switched to a firm where I had more capabilities to more, I wasn’t as restricted as far as what we could do from a compliance standpoint, it allowed me to niche down a little bit further, it allowed me to broadcast my message into certain markets. So anyway, so I decided to pivot it into working with financial or shy working with parents, they’re entrepreneurs and business owners. So now I do the planning for entrepreneurial parents and business owners. And yeah, and that’s where you really start seeing the value. And I think this has become a popular topic moreso. Lately, too, you’ll hear across the industry, but it’s become a little bit more common, or SB, you’re starting to see the value of niching. And honing in the industry shifting to where a lot of this advice is commoditized, there’s a lot of value in niching, and going deep. And so that’s I went from literally going from one person’s door to the next introduce myself. And that was fine, but it wasn’t gonna get me where I wanted to go. To realize, hey, this isn’t the way to do it, the way to do it is to just truly specialize and serve people that you enjoy working with. And then everything happens a lot faster that way.

Fraser Jack 

Exactly. And we went through a lot of conversations over the years, and on recent podcasts, actually, around the conversation around niching, niche niching, or we call a nation here. But using the word specializing, because, you know, as as we move towards it, you know, calling ourselves a profession. There’s always been specialists in other professions. And those specialists have often been around a particular topic or subject or, you know, you’ve got your brain surgeons which specialize in brain surgery. But instead of specializing in different product sets, we thought, Well, actually, you know, what specializing in different client types is also a specialization. And I guess you went from specializing in people who live in this local neighborhood, to people that are very much like you when it comes to, you know, entrepreneurial, and, you know, family, young families or juggling the two. So you get an understand what all those different pain points around that are. So yeah, that was a pretty good part. And so then you started that business up, you you then were able to then find those businesses, I guess, not necessarily in the same neighborhood, but anywhere around around the local area.

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah, and one of the things that’s been eye opening twos, there’s been much, at least especially as I’ve been ramping up, I’ve had a lot more interest locally, right. So like, you know, there’s still something to be said, for knowing that somebody is nearby, or you have this common connection of, he’s in Nashville, okay, well, I’m down the street. So there’s a natural inherent connection and level of trust, just simply by living in the same area of the country. Whereas if I could have, you could have one, you can have a business here in Nashville that’s run by a parent that it that they’re my, let’s say, ideal perfect client, you could have that same identical business in San Francisco, California, which is for literally, a couple days trip from here should not close at all. And there’s no reason why one would maybe be a little bit more willing to work with me than another like as far as the service provided the way we can help the value we add, it’s literally identical there. But there’s still something to be said probably just based on human nature and how we’ve evolved and there’s something to be said for proximity and local proximity and just feeling a little bit more of a connection. So I’ve tried to leverage that to to say like, Alright, it doesn’t there’s nothing stopping me from going outside of Nashville, I think, ultimately long term and we’ve seen recently a little bit more interest from businesses nationwide, mainly from referrals. But Ultimately, I think what we’re going to see is, if you’re truly, truly great at what you do, and the market that you serve market you specialize in. And actually, I’ll say this, we’ve already seen this, if you’re truly great at what you do in the market, you specialize in geography, the boundary of geography is going to start the walls are going to be they’re going to be broken down, right, you’re going to see the barriers, reduce, and a lot more that’s going to go on, we’ve already seen it, some are shelves, but there will always be so I still think there’s always going to be something to be said for proximity. And how we naturally feel emotionally closer to somebody that’s still physically closer.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, I 100% a grade sort of the the difference between online meetings and meetings in in the same room, or, you know, we you can physically shake hands at that distance, that proximity. I think we I think we as humans developed trust faster in that zone, because somebody is inside you, well, it can get inside your personal space, and they’re still not going to kill you, therefore, you they automatically they’ve got one tick of trust. But I think I think definitely, as you mentioned online, or like we’re talking now is is a possibility for a little while. It’s definitely something that a lot of businesses do. But it’s also something that just takes a little bit longer without without that proximity.

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah, no, I think you’re right. And I think once the compliance walls start coming down to and you can start doing more things digitally, through social media through your website, like, that’s where it really becomes an opportunity, and then things can kind of you can unleash your business without the geography at that point. But um, yeah, I think it’s certainly the direction we’re headed. Now, that being said, I just want everybody to know that I certainly feel despite the fact we’re in separate countries, I still feel close to you. Thank you.

Fraser Jack 

Thank you. Thank you. And for everybody listening, we’re in the A’s, so we’re definitely close to them as well. Now, tell us about tell us about the inside your business, because obviously, you know, we’re talking, you know, sound financial planning strategies and those sorts of things. But with then you also do a lot of work with the clients or around the concept of, as you said, before, implementing and actually going forth and having ownership and in the plans and taking them on board and having that emotional. The bit that’s between there is I guess, being emotionally involved in in the plan. How do you work practically work with the clients on that?

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah, I mean, there’s that’s probably a whole conversation in and of itself, just the different ways in which we can implement that the different things that we do or make sure that we do in conversations, both, both with clients, but also systematically in processes. Yeah, I guess I’ll maybe I’ll answer it this way. Instead of saying like, these are all the things that we do. The things that you hear most often, the questions I get most often from advisors are around like, hey, how do I remove friction in certain parts of the process? or How can I create a client that’s more emotionally connected, because emotionally connected clients not satisfied, but emotionally connected? clients are shown to buy more often refer more, they follow through on your advice. And they’re more willing to consolidate assets? So the question becomes how can we create these emotionally connected clients that don’t have as much friction in the process? When I asked him to give me documents, maybe there’s not as much, it doesn’t take two months instead of takes a couple weeks? or How can I? How do I go about establishing a level of trust and credibility in a first meeting, and one of the best ways to do that, because I said this the other day to somebody that and truly believe this, that the first meeting with a prospective client has more impact on their financial success and the success of your business than any other meeting you’ll ever have with them, because that’s the meeting where you’re truly giving them. They’re the kind of they’re walking into that meeting and prospective clients walking into that meeting, thinking, I want to know the answer to questions Do I can I like do I like and can I trust this person? That’s all actually one question. And then do I feel the certainty that they will give me the peace of mind I need to get to where I want to go so that I like and trust them? And do I feel certain that they’re going to give me the peace of mind that I need. And so if you if you miss on that you miss on either one of those things, not only are they going to be setback, but you’re not, you’re missing the chance to convert that person into into a lifelong client. So when we’re talking about this is I guess this is one where we usually start as far as in our business, but then also when we’re working with advisors is in that first meeting, because that’s a lot of times where things really get going. And one of the most important things you can do one of the best things you can do and you know you can talk to people that are experts in this field, you can talk to advisors that have done this, you can do it yourself and you’ll instantly see the results. It’s not groundbreaking, it’s just hard to do and that is ask great questions and listen really, really well with empathy and curiosity. So, as far as the listening part goes, there’s studies out there that show that if you wouldn’t when you’re listening and letting somebody else talk about themselves at life, same areas of the brain, as when you’re eating chocolate and engaging in sexual activity. So assuming that you like both of those things that you wrote, you know that that’s a good thing. So that instantly creates a level of likability, you can’t get otherwise. And then Moira summers Dr. Moyer summers, who we’ve had on the show does great work around how to deliver advice that sticks as she calls it, or that people follow through on she’s, she’s found the research that shows that the the amount of airtime that a prospective client gets in a first meeting is directly related to the satisfaction they feel after that meeting. So the amount of airtime, they get directly related to the amount of satisfaction they get. And so we always tell, we have a rule. And we work with advisors on this rule that says, strive for a 9010 talk ratio. Sure, listen, talk listen ratio, so let them talk 90% of the time you talk 10% of the time, because what’s probably naturally going to happen is if you strive for 9010, you’re gonna win closer to 8020 or 7030, which is actually a good ratio like you, you can’t just let them talk the whole time. And then they’re sitting there going, Okay, who was that again? And why do I trust him. So you have to incorporate you, your brand, your personality, what you do. But if you strive for 9010, you’re likely because it’s so unnatural, you’re likely going to land closer to 8020, and 7030, which is almost an ideal range. So that’s number one, just getting really, really good, really, really great at listening, listening with curiosity limit, listening with empathy. The second thing is that questions that you ask might be the most influential thing that you can do. So there’s, there’s a Harvard Business Review article that cited a study where they went out and they had two groups of people basically engaged in a first conversation. They each are given 15 minutes. And in that 15 minutes, one group was instructed to ask at least nine questions to the person they were talking to. The other person was instructed to ask no more than four questions. So you got 15 minutes, nine questions for one group four questions for the other group. And at the end of that time, when they compiled all the results, not surprisingly, the group that was had to ask nine questions was reported as being more well liked, more well heard, and then that they, the partner felt like that person knew a lot more about them. So if you’re thinking about sitting there in a meeting with the first in a meeting with a prospective client, they want to be liked, they want to be heard, and they want to know that you care about them. And one of the best ways to do that is to ask questions, but not just any questions, right, not just saying like, so what’s your weekend plan look like? Or what do you think about our investment strategy, but questions that they’ve likely never been asked before? Right, or, or questions that get them to start thinking about things that they’ve never thought about before when it comes to money? In fact, I think one of the biggest compliments you can get when it comes to how well you’ve done with listening and asking questions is hearing one of two things one would be? That’s a great question. I’ve never heard that before. That’s an immediate, like, an immediate signal, immediate sign that hey, that’s a good question. If they’ve never asked had been asked before, that’s a good question. And then two is that this is maybe the ultimate compliment. And that is somebody finishes a conversation with you. And they say, Man, I feel so bad, I feel like I just talked your ear off, I feel like I didn’t even let you say anything. And that if you can get one of those two things, you basically there, you know that they’re gonna end up signing on the dotted line, because you’ve got a you’ve done something that 99% of your competition and other advisors simply don’t do. And that’s given the time and the space to think about money in a way they’ve never thought about it and guiding them with the questions that they’ve never thought about before.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, very, very good. Thank you. And so with these questions, are you encouraging people to sort of really get deep into the emotional side of things as well, at that point? Are you saying, you know, how you feel about this as a dump? What, you know, have you ever thought of this? Or is it like, how deep are we going?

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah, good question. That’s a good question. Yeah, it’s kind of a fine balance. Because obviously the end of the day you need to know about their money situation, or you need to know what their income looks like, what money they have, what their investments look like. You have to know all those things in order to help get them to where they go. It’s kind of like before you can lose weight or before you can get in peak shape. You need to first take inventory of where you’re at today. Know like somebody a personal trainer need to know like, Okay, what, how much do you weigh today? What does your diet look like? What are you eating? How often are you working, you still have to get to those things. But ultimately where the bulk of that the first conversation sits or focuses is on helping them clearly define and vividly describe their values, their visions, and their goals, because because, first of all, that’s what people want to talk about. And a lot of them, you’re pushing them to a place where they’ve never been before. But it’s once you crystallize, and you really get vivid with your vision and your values, that you start getting the motivation that you need to push forward and to do this planning, or this investment, isn’t these this investment plan that you need to do in the portfolio you need to get to put together it helps prompt behavior, it helps move them and motivate them in that direction, when they’ve got this vision of being able to retire and spend two vacations a year with their grandkids at their at their favorite theme park, whether it’s here to be Disney World, for example, staying in these specific hotels, going out to eat at the restaurants eat, the more vivid you get, the more fire, the more fuel is put on the fire, if you will. So yeah, that I mean, that’s where a lot of this time is spent is asking the questions to get them there. Now, that being said, that it’s also important, a lot of times when when we’re meeting with clients, or having a version meeting with a prospective client, it likely didn’t wake up that morning or go to bed the night before thinking before they reached out to you thinking, you know what I really need to talk to somebody more about getting a holistic, comprehensive financial planning, right. Like a lot of times there’s some sort of issue, there’s some moment there’s an event that’s prompted this, you obviously want to ask a question to kind of identify or diagnose their situation as it stands. So that their question there that, that I like that I’ve seen work well, you’ll hear other experts talk about is asking something along the lines of if if we were to look out three years from today, so let’s call it may 11 2024. And using a specific dates powerful, by the way. So let’s say it’s three years from today, it’s may 11 2024. What would need to happen between now and then for you to accomplish, what you want to do accomplish for you to felt like this was well worth it, and a valuable use of your time. And you can ask instead, you could say what brings you in today? I mean, I think that ultimately gets to the bottom of it too. But I think that that identify and help somebody clarify their values and their vision, like the kinders. Three questions, if you’re familiar with those. A question sort of that goes to the point of, hey, let’s assume that you got $20 million in the bank in your bank account tomorrow, how would you spend it? What would you do with it two questions that get people to unlimite or to to take off the shackles to unhinge themselves to think in a way they’ve never thought that doesn’t mean that you know that you’re going to be able to go and provide them the ability to fly around the world on a private jet. But most people can’t think past anything other than Oh, if I had $21, I’d pay off my debt, my mortgage, I’d probably like get a new car and maybe pay off my student loans or pay off my kids student loans. Like I get that those are all well and good. But let’s get to what’s really important to you, what would you actually do? And then you throw on top of that, what have you had $20 million, but only 10 years to live? Well, how would that change things now all of a sudden, you’re forcing, you’re basically you’re battling against this idea that we have forever, we have time on our side, we can discount the future and thrusting them into the present and really start prioritizing the things that are important in their lives and aligning the money with what’s important to them. And the more you can do that and have those conversations you’re gonna have establish a level of trust, you’re gonna establish likability, you’re going to you’re going to create the vision that that person wants in a way that most other peoples just simply won’t do. I will say this, the order in which you structure your questions, pretty crucial, because what you don’t want to do is have somebody walk in, say, Hey, good, great to meet you. Glad we’re finally here. Now tell me, the only 10 years left to live? What would you do? How would your life look there? I mean, there, you got to be you got to be intentional with how getting there and getting to the point where you can ask that type of question, right? But once you do that, once you’ve once you’ve done it a few times that you’ll start seeing your conversations take shape, take a form and rise to a level that they usually that they probably never been before. And then I’ll just I’m gonna add this last piece, because I think it’s crucial to and we’re talking to advisors who want to know, okay, how do I do this? How do I get better at it? It’s important to know that just like anything, this is not going to be groundbreaking, novel information. And it’s not what people want to hear. But it’s important, and that is you have to practice, the only way you’re going to get better is if you practice so it could be with somebody on your staff, it could be with your spouse, it could be with a good friend. But if you’re just truly listen, if you think of a question that you like, and you truly just go into your next meeting with a client and say it for the first time, I can promise you, I can assure you It’s not going to go the way that you want it to go in that respect goes especially for the listening piece. I mean, to truly get good at listening to truly be able to sit in an awkward silence and pause and not interrupt. It’s truly a skill set that has to be honed. So George kinders also famous for saying that they’ve found that to interruptions pretty much loses the person that person’s interest. If you interrupt twice in one meet in one conversation, you’ve pretty much lost them. And it’s, it’s if you if you go back and watch yourself on video, if you record your conversations, or have a third party sit in, I’m I imagine what you’ll find is you’re not near as good at listening. As you think you are, you probably interrupt a lot more. Don’t listen, you’ll if you go back and listen to conversations, you’ll hear things that you missed, because you’re not thinking about what they’re saying. You’re thinking about what you’re gonna say next. And so it’s not fun. It’s not easy advice, but the only thing you can do to actually get better at it is to work on it in practice. Yeah, I

Fraser Jack 

actually agree. And I think I think you nailed it before we talked about the idea of random questions, empathy, and curiosity. And just asking, maybe just having the first question, and then listening to that, listen to the answer, pausing, showing some empathy, then being curious with the next question, rather than having too many structured questions. Now, for people that are thinking about doing this, and obviously there is a there’s kind of like, some sometimes there’s mental barriers in people’s heads where they go, Yeah, but there’s another reason why I’m that may not work for me, blah, blah, how’s it worked for you and your clients? How have your clients reacted to?

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah, I want to, I’ll add on to something you said a second ago, too, which is to fuel the Curiosity part or to fulfill the Curiosity part. And that same article research study I mentioned earlier, where they did the two groups and asked nine questions and four questions. There’s another study that was a part of that, where they, they looked at follow up questions, or in other words, like asking questions about something that the person had said. So they may say something like, yeah, I think for us, it’s important to retire and spend some time at the beach. And instead of just leaving it at that saying something along the lines of Okay, I really, that’s really interesting. That’s, that’s pretty cool. Here, what would you do at the beach? Oh, really? Okay, wait, so I’m kind of curious who would be there with you? And then at what follow up questions do is they signal to the other person that you genuinely care about what they have to say? And we’ve all been there in a conversation ourselves. So if you say something, and there’s no follow up question to it, you’re kind of wondering like, did they? Did they care did they do that mattered to him, but if somebody, you tell somebody something, and the first thing they do is ask for clarification on it, it’s an immediate signal that Wait a minute, that person cares about me. And it gives me the freedom now to talk more openly from that point moving forward. So I’d say that that’s an important piece of it, too. But yeah, I mean, so for me, that I’ve seen really the biggest difference with client conversations and doing this intentionally. I used to be kind of unstructured about it just thought, Oh, good questions, a good way to go, I’ll just have an arsenal questions that I’ll pull when I want to when I need to. And it took, I didn’t go. So while I’m preaching practices. That’s not what I did. At first, I kind of just winged it. And the what I’ve found is that as I’ve gotten more comfortable asking the questions, and knowing the questions I was going to ask, it frees me up mentally to listen better. And what it does, what it’s allowed me to do is spend more time getting getting that person to tell me the emotional things that they don’t really tell anybody else in their life, right? Like, how often are somebody laying out their hopes and dreams to somebody and talking about their fears on a regular basis? That doesn’t happen very often. I mean, most people won’t do that with their best friend and a bottle of wine. Right? So if you can do that in your conversation, and get them to open up that way. Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing is you start seeing people tell you things that you’re kind of going, can’t believe they’re really telling me that but that’s a good sign number one, but more than anything, the biggest difference I’ve seen it make is everything else after that, as far as like the sales cycle or the process goes becomes a lot easier. Because when you go and start presenting or proposing how you can work with them and your services and what you’re going to do if you say hey, I’ve got this great strategy, this great financial plan, that’s great investment that’s going to grow your money that’s going to help you protect your wealth. So that’s one thing but if you can say if you can tie their values and their vision to what you’re doing, if you can bring that your financial plan to life by saying, here’s this plan, here are the things we recommend that you do because this is how you’ll be able to travel to Disney World and stay in the swan dolphin and eat these restaurants with your grandkids twice a year like you always wanted to do well, you’re you don’t get a whole lot of pushback as far as wanting somebody wanting to work with you when you’ve aligned their their the strategies and the service you provide with the life that they want.

Fraser Jack 

And as you mentioned earlier, the the best fun replying to the ones that have implemented and followed and actioned. And this is the motivation, isn’t it? That’s it. That’s the key to the motivation to get the clients to to, to do what they were going to do and to, like you said, become emotionally connected with the plan.

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah, no, that’s exactly right. That’s a great point. As far as like thinking about the different parts of the process, where there’s friction, and there’s barriers and getting people to actually follow through, there’s nothing, there’s nothing that increases motivation, and decreases barriers, like giving somebody a clear path to the, to the vision that they’ve vividly described for you. I mean, there’s really no better way to do it, that you can, you can try to design your systems in a way that are less that have less friction, you can try to like, you know, implement these psychological principles to try to reduce friction. But that’s what we found, what I’ve heard other people say to is, is probably the single most influential thing you can do to spur action or ignite behavior change in the direction that not only do you want them to go, but they need to go for their own well being.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, fantastic. No one. So that’s, so that’s the financial planning business side of it. Now the I wanted to talk a little bit more about the, you know, the human side of money, the podcast side of it, of the entrepreneurial work that you do. So let’s start there. And then we’ll sort of talk a little bit about what you’re doing in that space as well with financial planners.

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah, just about you wanna hear about what we’re kind of what we’re doing, what the vision is,

Fraser Jack 

yeah, let’s start with the podcast. Tell me about the podcast. Why don’t you start that let’s talk about obviously, that people are listening to this, they might also want to jump over and have a listen to the human side of money podcast,

Brendan Frazer 

yeah, really started from what I mentioned earlier, which is this desire to help bridge the gap between the knowledge that existed around behavior and behavioral finance and psychology and communication, and then how to help advisors understand it, but not just understand it, actually apply it, in conversations in their processes in their systems. And so what I realized is a, I was always driving around or walking around with an air pod in my ear and a podcast on that’s how I, I come to digest and learn a lot of my information. So I thought, you know, what, there’s people out there that have this knowledge that know the words to say the questions to ask the behavioral strategies to get people to move in the right direction. I don’t have all of those answers, right. But there’s people out there that do, I could, I could, you know, go to them and ask have a personal conversation with them to try to draw this information from them, or I could just have the conversation with them and put it out there for everybody to hear. And you’ll hear people talk and this and you know, and you know, this T shirt too, but you’ll hear people say like, I basically just tried to do what I tried to build what I wanted that didn’t already exist. So I kept thinking like, I wish somebody would have a guest on that would tell me how to actually get information out of somebody when they’re kind of closed off? Or what nonverbal communication to look for, or how can I apply psychological and behavioral principles to get more referrals, you know, just not just this I the the information itself, but like, the direct application of it’s how so I can go back into the office the next day and use it when I’m talking with with people. So that’s pretty much what I did is just thought, you know what, there’s a lot of really cool, really smart, really bright people out there that have the knowledge. So let’s just we’ll have them on, we’ll have conversations with them and have them teach us what we need to do with it to get better outcomes for clients. So they change their behavior for the better. But then also how to change the trajectory of your business from a growth standpoint, for the better.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, one of the things I love about hosting a podcast is you get to get all the information as well. It’s not just Yeah, right. You get to be part of these and asking really great questions. And then and then learning and growing yourself more than more than more than anyone really, I guess. So yeah, the conversations are amazing. And you’re right, you reach out to some pretty amazing people that you, you know, you may not have thought to reach out to before and sort of pushes you a little bit harder to find, or to start conversations with these great people. And it turns out that, you know, they’re great humans, and they want to be part of it. And, and they they’re the ones that are willing to give you all this information. So that’s sort of really a bonus of being a podcast host.

Brendan Frazer 

No doubt about it. I joke with people all the time and say, like these people that I’ve had on the show, first of all, like it’s kind of unbelievable to me that I’ve had conversations with the people that I have, and, and bought. What I joked about from the beginning was at the very least if I was to reach out to a number of these people, you know, George kender, Brian Portnoy and Sarah Newcomb and pretty much almost everybody I’ve had on at this point, it’s kind of been like a while. If I was to reach out to him and say, Hey, do you want to have like an hour conversation just talking about the industry and behavior and psychology and kind of helped me get better at my practice? Like, yeah, they they’re all really great people, really nice people. And they probably say, Brendan, no offense to you, but you know, I can’t do that. But if you have them give you have them, come on onto a podcast. They’ll give you their time. And then the cool thing is not only do I get to talk to him and learn from him, but people around the world are getting to learn from them.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, so definitely, definitely check out that podcast if you’re if if for anyone out there that wants to have a listen to some really amazing speakers, speaking of speakers will tell us about what you’re doing as well. Or after on from this, what’s the next thing for you?

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah, so I’m continuing to hone in and really grow, I lean and mean, as far as my financial planning practice goes and plan on always having, that’d be, that’ll always be an element of what I do. Because it allows me to stay in tune and in touch with what it’s like to be with somebody to it’s one thing to, again, kind of like knowing and doing thing, it’s one thing to know that the first five years is really, really hard. It’s another thing to actually do it. It’s one thing to kind of know conceptually what probably resonates with clients. And it’s another thing to actually do it. So I always want to have that foot in the toe in the water, if you will. But at the same time where I really find I get the most passion and the most energy is working with advisors just simply from the fact that like I can work with, you know, probably 100 people and not feel stretched too thin. But I can work with 100 people and impact 100 lives and families. But it’s what I enjoyed the thought of is thinking about the fact that and getting a message from somebody on the other side of the world saying, Hey, thanks for thanks for what you’re doing, you’re impacting somebody’s life and career over here. And then not just that person’s life, but then if they have 100 clients, or 200 or 300 clients, the reach and the ability to impact is having Well, it’s exponential, right. So that that’s where the my efforts are starting to focus a little bit more. So now now that the podcast is started gaining traction and taking off like, like I kind of hoped that it would be you know, you never know. And then so there’s been some, I’m starting to do some speaking engagements on the human side of money in the human side of advice and how to apply behavior in psychology and that sort of thing. And then we’ve got some more in the works of beta testing and building out a coaching program, both one it’s a little bit more hands on more coaching oriented. And another one that’s more of a course oriented program where it’s a little bit, it’s self paced, you can go through the courses, there are videos with a handheld, hand holding component to it to but or a coaching phone at two, two, but it’s a little bit less time intensive and self paced. So that’s kind of the that’s the future as it stands. And then the last leg of that, that we were talking a little bit about pre show is I do have a vision of you and I both like the idea of community. And I think the honestly I think communities where real change real progress is ignited and happens. And so I know I whenever I set out, to launch the show to start the business. And I figured there were probably other people out there around the world who, who also thought or felt, you know, it’s really important for me to understand what goes on in my client’s mind when it comes to money to be able to understand their psychology behavior to change their behavior for the better to help them on Earth, their values around money. I figured there probably other people out there that felt that way that wanted more information around it, what I didn’t realize was how many people were out there thinking, I do think this is valuable, I do want this information, I’ve just never really known where to go to get it. And so it’s been really cool to see that come to life and to know that there is people around the world that want that. So I have a vision as well as putting together a community based event and maybe even a community based platform where those of us who are passionate about that who are like minded in that regard, who see the value in it can collaborate with others that feel that way. And think that same way. Because I mean, you know, that’s that’s where like I said real change happens. real progress happens is when you’re able to have the synergy to share ideas to talk to other people about what they’re doing, to ask other people what questions they’re asking how they’re what they’re doing to get people to go through the process with the least amount of friction and the most motivation and the stories that they’re telling somebody that most resume anyways, that’s kind of the that’s the next evolution at some point in the future as well. But I the one thing I’ve learned over the course of time that I’ve learned, especially since starting two businesses is that everything takes longer than you want it to. That’s really what it boils down to is the I wish I could snap my fingers don’t happen tomorrow. Unfortunately, do it well and do it right. Just take a little bit longer. And Matt if fantastic. I’m looking forward to seeing how that event style or groups might take place whether it’s online or local areas. I guess it’s difficult with people all around the world and travel a little bit difficult at the moment but

Fraser Jack 

yeah, that’s right. But yeah, be interesting to see how that takes form. But I definitely agree that um, you know, we can all sort of find people around the world that can bond over a certain thing or topic or outcome and then you can know Just work together to help each other, you know, participate and get involved and share what you know and be involved in that sort of way. And in the end up creating these, as I’ve spoken about before, like these lifelong relationships. Oh, yeah, it’s a it’s a powerful thing. There’s, there’s no doubt about it. Until now, Brendan, if somebody wants to continue the conversation with you, what’s the best way for them to find your or get hold of you have a chat? Yeah.

Brendan Frazer 

Yeah. I mean, I’m pretty active on social media. I don’t respond immediately. I’ve told somebody the other day, my responses are immediate, but my response rate is pretty good. So you can reach out on Twitter on LinkedIn, just go look up Brendan Frasier on one of those two or you can I like I I like getting emails I read every email that I get, it may take me a little while. But I’ll read all the emails cuz I think that’s where I get the best feedback and learn the most is hearing from advisors and what they’re saying what they want to know. So you can email me too. It’s Brendan Frasier, br e n da n FZI. Er spelled incorrectly. spelt right. And you just different, right? That’s right. At wire planning Comm. You can go to the website, wire playing comm it’s on there, too. Yeah, then if you if you’re interested in listening to the show, it’s called the human side of money. There’s also a link to it on the website. So yeah, feel free to reach out, follow us in whatever way you want. Or that’s like I said, that’s where I learned the most. And that’s how we really create, develop and put out the content is based on what we think is most beneficial, what we think people want to know that will benefit them the most fantastic. Brendon, thanks

Fraser Jack 

for coming on the show and chatting to us today and sharing some of your wisdom obviously he goes away deeper and we could as we sort of said we could we could speak for days on this in this topic. So probably basically don’t on one podcast episode. But look, thanks so much for coming and sharing it really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. It was a it was a blast. I really enjoyed it. Well, there you have it a nother episode of The X five advisor podcast. I’m Fraser Jack, and I’m joined by Emily. Blanche. Good, Emily. Hey, Fraser. How’s it going? tremendous. Thank you appreciate you asking. It’s still a favorite time of the week and we get to do some shout outs. So who should we share that to today? Yes,

I want to give a shout out to x y advisor Jaden post. So had to Borden Messiah on this week’s x y plus web event talking about purpose driven advice. And we got discussing deep questions like when you go really deep in unpacking your client’s values and purpose in life. And there was plenty of questions, plenty of great commentary coming through in the chat box. And Jaden actually shared a PDF full of questions that he uses as a bit of a Bible maybe and plucks out the ones that are most relevant when he is having discovery meetings with new clients. So massive shout out to Jaden for sharing that I have a read through this and fabulous questions in there. We are going to make sure it’s available in the Resources Center in the pre and discovery meeting section. So you can jump in there on the platform, download it, use it and draw some inspiration from it. So thanks Jaden legend.