managing that success, that I didn’t really have enough time to prospect.
In the Wirehouse model, it doesn’t matter how successful you are, you must consistently find and acquire new clients. I tried the “sit and swivel” method, where you wait for your clients to send you referral — and hated it. It wasn’t in my nature. I tried to proactively solicit referrals, or creatively approach my clients about “those they may know who might benefit from a similar experience.” That, also, wasn’t in my nature. I had a hard time balancing the “pick me as your advisor, because I am so successful,” and “I need more clients.” Furthermore, my particular client base was largely the “Millionnaire Next Door” crowd that didn’t have infinite referral capability. Generally speaking, once I got them, and one or two other people they knew, that was about it. Lastly, I tried to spend more time at the office doing what I always did: banging it out on the phone. That didn’t work either. I spent some 70-80 hours a week at the office for the last 6 years, and my wife and I wanted to start a family. It turns out you have to be in “attendance” for such a task. The following method is the best way to have fast success, but, once you have that success, you have to adapt. The truly great people find ways to change, adapt, and evolve, to fit their current circumstance.
At about the same time, I started working with a very successful entrepreneur named Brett Hurt. Brett was about 36 years old at the time, and on his third — and most successful — startup, Bazaarvoice. I actually cold called Brett initially, and I wouldn’t be doing it justice if I just told you the story was funny, but rather take this opportunity to share it. I do this partly because it is very amusing and partly to show you how cold calling can work.
As I mentioned the techniques described in this book had brought me some early success and garnered the attention of the younger (years in the business) financial advisors. One in particular approached me and asked if I would work with him above and beyond the standard training that we were doing. As I had this request from time to time, I would often start out with a task that would test the level of dedication that particular trainee had to see if they were willing to commit to what I was offering so I was not wasting my time. The first task I gave to this individual, who was a graduate of Oklahoma University (OU) was to call a list of executives that I provided to him. Before I tell you about that list I have give those of you that aren’t in the Big 12 conference some background information. OU has an arch nemisis in The University of Texas at Austin (UT). This particular rivalry, is a football game played between the two schools held at the Cotton Bowl. To give you some perspective this game has been played since 1900. UT, as it turns out, is where I attended and graduated from. Back to the list. I handed said list to this trainee (OU grad) and explained that it was a list of alumni from UT. I further explained that I wanted him to call and say the following:
“Hi Mr./Mrs. Prospect, This is Johnny Trainee and I am a financial advisor with XYZ Financial. This is a cold call and the reason I am calling you is because my boss thought I needed help. You see, previously I was calling a list of OU alumni as I attended OU myself, but he argues that UT grads are way more successful and have lots more money. That said, would you be open for me setting up a phone call with him?
I still laugh when I think about how I tortured this guy. Beyond it being funny it was effective and got a laugh almost every time and a higher than normal response rate for phone appointments. One of those phone appointments was Brett Hurt, and the trainee had it on the calendar. As it turned out I was scheduled to be in Austin at that day and told the trainee to give me Brett’s number so I could see if I could meet him in person. I called and was successful at scheduling the appointment to be face to face by working with his assistant.
My partner and I drove to Austin, conducted several other meeting and after getting stuck in the elevator, eventually getting out and taking the stairs, and walking through a competitors office, we arrived at Brett’s. We were greeted by Brett’s assistant and shortly after Brett came and lead us to a conference room where we would be doing the meeting. We were surprised at how nice both of them were. We had been on lots of sales calls but this was Brett was unusually excited to see us. As we sat down Brett kicked off the meeting with the phrase, “Now, can you guys remind me as to the context of this meeting, I am a little unclear from the message.” Not exactly what you want to hear. I quickly gave the broadest definition as to what we did as to not “pigeon hole” us too early because I didn’t know that much about him, and his potential needs, yet. Brett’s face drew surprised and frustrated as I concluded that 15 seconds and his response to my well polished “elevator speech” was as follows. “Ok…than you need to work on your trainees ‘script’ as I was under the impression you were with the UT Alumni Association and you were here to interview me about our company.” Definitely not how you want to start a meeting.
I quickly fumbled to come up with an explanation about how the lines could have been crossed, how we were sorry, etc. but Brett cut me off quickly by saying “…listen, I have talked to Piper Jaffrey, Morgan Stanley, Smith Barney, Bank of America…we have all the guidance we need right now.” Most people might pick up there notebooks and head out at that point but I saw it as an opportunity so I quickly replied with, “talking to them about what?” That was the right question to ask. Brett gave a quick explanation of the needs he had and I was able to get in a few “well this is what we do” jabs. It turned out to be a battle of me trying to find an opportunity and him trying to get me out of the office. About 10 minutes in, when I had about lost, my partner spoke up. My partner is kind of the “inside” guy and answered all the hard question. He is very intelligent, very calm, very nice etc. I was the guy, usually, trying to stir the pot, getting defensive, getting salesy, etc. That said, in this particular instance, my partner had had enough. Mid-way through what was probably Brett’s closing sentence, my partner spoke up. “Brett…can I just ask ya…are we wasting your time?” Silence. “I mean seriously, I am watching branded work his ass off over hear to overcome what was an obvious misunderstanding, but I am watching you answer his questions, if you have a need, lets talk about it. If not were just gonna get out of here.” Brett’s shoulders sank, his eyes turned to the table and he answered by saying. “Look it is just that I hate this stuff and honestly my wife is handling it all. Just call her and tell her I said to set up an appointment and if she likes you guys we can talk further.”
So to wrap up this story, we called his wife, scheduled the appointment, and got the account. We beet out teams with 4 times our experience, 10 times the assets under management, and people who didn’t start their meetings disguising themselves as interviewers for some more attractive cause. For those of you wondering, we never really resolved if the trainee had said something crazy in the voicemail or not. Both parties hold to their version of the story.
This in and of itself was very cool and Brett was a great client while I was an FA, but that is not how he proved to be most valuable. You see Bazaarvoice (his company) is a, now four year old, startup from Austin, TX. Their product are rating and reviews, and other forms of user-generated content delivered via a Software as a Service (Saas) platform. They help companies like Home Depot, Walmart, Best Buy and QVC empower their customers to share their thought and opinions about the products and services they use from these respective companies. This is important as you are reading the summary of the Social Media update that I have added to this book. The reason that Bazaarvoice has been so successful is they are tapping into the oldest form of advertising and marketing that exists. Word of Mouth. With the advancement of social tools accelerating rapidly over the last three years, there has been a natural progression to digital word of mouth. The idea that ratings, reviews, opinions, questions and answers can be harnessed via the internet and leveraged for the benefit of companies and customers, results in higher quality products and service for everyone.
Over the balance of Brett and I’s relationship I got to listen to their value proposition multiple times as I introduced him to prospects and brought representatives from my firms to talk with Bazaarvoice. I was introduced to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn because of this relationship and ultimately found that these tools could address the very problem I was having in my practice. The problem that
