Ep60 - Rethink: Do You Have Partners or Vendors? – Featuring Brad Johnson

Adam Holt and Derek Notman sit down with Brad Johnson, CEO of Triad Partners, to challenge how financial advisors think about the vendors and technology partners supporting their practices. The conversation explores what separates a true strategic partner from a transactional vendor relationship, and why that distinction matters as advisory firms scale. Brad shares lessons from building infrastructure that supports growth rather than just servicing day-to-day needs.

• Distinguishing true partners from transactional vendors
• Building the infrastructure behind an advice practice
• What advisors should expect from the companies they hire
• Balancing growth ambitions with sustainable support systems
• Lessons from scaling advisory firms
• How to evaluate vendor relationships critically

Full timestamped transcript.

[00:00:35] Derek Notman: Adam should advisors expect more from the vendors they partner with? Yeah.

[00:00:42] Adam Holt: Well, that's a new one.

[00:00:43] Derek Notman: Yeah.

[00:00:44] Adam Holt: We haven't talked a lot about. The infrastructure of an advice practice. We've always been talking about the front end marketing, perception, decisions, tech that the client sees. Not so much about the vendors that support our practice. What are you thinking there? What prompts this one?

[00:01:03] Derek Notman: Well, , we've been talking a lot about , this transformation or shift from advice 1. 0 to 3. 0 and , the changing expectations of the consumer. Is there something similar going on with advisors and the vendors that they work with as far as what kind of support they're looking for guidance? You know, like I'm an advisor and I provide my client with X products and I use this tech.

What else am I doing? What's the deeper engagement? What's the 2. 0, 3. 0 experience like? I'm an advisor. I buy tech XYZ to do things in my practice. That's great. That's vendor partnership 1. 0 or whatever you want to call it. What's 2. 0 3. 0 look like?

[00:01:48] Adam Holt: You know, it's interesting because our whole model for advice 3. 0. with this concept of empathy of the customer, right? Are you delivering what the customer really wants? All your products and services are ancillary. They're just what you need to do to provide the commodity that is, let's say, product placement, execution, money management, all these things that are becoming institutionally commoditized.

And the only thing that really matters is the differentiation, the relationship. Did you solve my core needs emotionally financially? And that's what advice is really thinking. I think it's interesting because. We're starting to see vendors that support advisors actually recognize that their own products are being commoditized there and they need to be empathetic to us, the advisor, their customer, as to what really pains us and how they can support us so that they can earn the loyalty so that when it comes time to placing business, we place it with them. And I think that is an interesting shift. We're starting to see trickle down through the entire value chain of the system.

[00:02:52] Derek Notman: You know, I'm just having a thought. You've seen how the Kitsis tech map has grown so much, right? And we've seen how many financial services firms are out there that an advisor can choose to use. So as you said, , we have a lot bigger menu of choices now as an advisor.

So what else are you giving me? What's the 2. and experience you're giving me? How are you empathizing with me past your, , basic service offering?

[00:03:17] Adam Holt: Yeah.

[00:03:18] Derek Notman: And I don't like it. Do it an asset map. You guys do that. You got your bootcamp, you got Advice Tech Live, you got all this stuff you guys do that goes way beyond just the product that you have.

[00:03:28] Adam Holt: Well, we do one on one coaching on case design. Because we know what the real problem is, but that's, that's an interesting aspect. Most companies today, especially in the tech, they can't even do this. And if your customer number 4, 623. You know, you're going to, you can get some automated help and a support line and go find the answer to yourself by chatting into AI.

But, but that doesn't mean you're getting bespoke guidance when you really need it. Like, if you can show somebody really solve their problem, I have enormous loyalty to an insurance company. I've had them my whole life. It's actually, I'll say it. It's USAA because dad was in military. They're not the cheapest, but I'd tell you what, every problem I've ever had, they handled it just.

Gloriously without a lot of pain and suffering.

[00:04:10] Derek Notman: We're going beyond the product.

[00:04:11] Adam Holt: they go way beyond the product, the products, what insurance blah,

[00:04:16] Derek Notman: Yeah. Boring.

[00:04:17] Adam Holt: Right. It's, it's a necessity commodity, but they are, I mean, that's, that's a really interesting idea. Well, let's talk about our guests because our guests, Brad Johnson comes from the business just like us.

You know, he started in insurance on the annuity side, started in FMOs and the kind of typical space where they were helping advisors understand the products. And then of course, participating on the backend. When that business got placed, but he just saw the business being broken. And one of the things that's been interesting about Brad, why we chose him to be on the podcast is because he took actually a hiatus.

He took a sabbatical to spend a year or so finding himself reevaluating his life, his spending time with his kids and saying, well, what was the practice I really want to build? Where can I really add value and make a difference? And he came up with this really unique model. For what we would have typically called a vendor, uh, field marketing organization, where he's supporting at a whole nother level beyond marketing, but actually going down to vision mission and aligning values with the practice and then supporting that on the back end.

So I think everybody can find some really interesting insights here. He drops a bunch of mics on this one and very worthy of rethinking.

[00:05:31] Derek Notman: Well, let's, let's hear what he had to say, man. It's going to be a great conversation.,

[00:05:34] Adam Holt Tank: Brad, given your history in the business, what's your unique perspective of the advice market today?

[00:05:41] Brand Johnson Tank: my short answer to that. Adam is I think still today, although there's softwares like asset map and things that help here. I think our industry is still very much in, it would be like a hamburger stand selling their ingredients versus their actual product. And so I think a huge opportunity in the space of advice right now is to simplify the complex to productize the value proposition that great financial advisors, great holistic planners do and deliver and actually package it.

Communicate it, message it better instead of like most financial services firms that I still see today, even incredibly successful ones north of 500, a billion dollars under management where you go to a services tab on their website, you click it and it says income planning, risk and fee analysis.

Healthcare life insurance, and it's it's like it would be like a hamburger stand that says we have sesame seed buns. We have lettuce. You know, we have ketchup tomato pickles like no hamburger stand that doesn't want to be a commodity would ever market themselves that way. Unfortunately, still some of the most successful firms in the country.

They're selling ingredients versus packaging what they actually do

[00:06:55] Derek Notman Tank: So, so drilling down on this, this opportunity or missing opportunity that you're seeing, you know, even with really successful firms, what are action steps, what are the things that these firms can do?

You know, I know you're doing some stuff at triad, what's like a top three, like, Hey, you guys got to do this, what can our listeners walk away with that might be, they might be able to nudge the needle the right way a little bit.

[00:07:18] Brand Johnson Tank: so many different ways. You can go with this one, Derek, but I'll I'll try to summarize what's a longer conversation. So I think the first thing is really figure out who you want to be and who you want to serve. Most firms, even the most successful ones have no vision, uh, no clarity. , if you ask the founder or you ask the team, where are you guys going three years from now? No clue, blank slate, um, or just random all over the place answers. And so. In order to figure out where you want to go, you have to actually figure out where that is and communicate it across the team. A lot of founders, it's up here. Actually, a lot of founders have it up here. They just haven't gotten it down on a piece of paper.

Uh, and it would be like a football team going into a game with no game plan. So of course they're just running plays all over the place. It's a mess, right? So I think that's where it starts. A subset of vision is how do you deliver value? Not only to your clients, but to the right clients, because if you're going to build a product, I think most people build a product and then they hope people buy it versus first figuring out who is our ideal customer that we want to serve at the highest level now, what product would serve them at the highest level.

And so I think there's a few steps before you get to what I call productizing your services. Which is naming, trademarking, figuring out what are the ingredients in the recipe, and how do you package it, everything that goes into that, then it's how do you communicate it, uh, in a clear, compelling way, not a acronym, jargon filled messaging, like many financial advisors, it's the curse of knowledge, and so, I'll stop there, because there's a lot of different places we could go, but that's where my head starts to go as we, drill down into how to get there.

[00:09:09] Derek Notman Tank: There really is a lot there. I'm sorry, Adam.

[00:09:13] Adam Holt Tank: that's become obvious about following you in this space is that you have focused a lot on coaching. And I'm curious because , you seem to be part of a new wave of financial services advocates beyond a vendor to financial services. Professionals that is trying to wake them up, help them and support them in a whole new level.

And I think it's actually endemic of what you're talking about at the financial services level. We need to find ways as professionals to deliver more than the commodity, more than what was previously expected. And I think you're doing this actually at a vendor level. I'm curious, what inspired you to do that?

Or is that just an ethos of, of how you approach things?

[00:09:52] Brand Johnson Tank: I, I love that you brought up the word vendor, Adam. Um, we say that a lot around here and it's not a good word. We have a list of trad, bad words, vendors, not a good word. Um, I don't think people get too excited about vendors, you know, at the end of the day. And I think vendors don't get too excited about being called a vendor either.

So, um, if I had a whiteboard, I would draw this out. But for those listening in, think of like a pyramid. With three levels, the base level. It's actually part of my learning here. Adam is this is the industry I grew up in. If you look at insurance distribution, the company I grew up in was called a field marketing organization, a lot of financial advisors.

I mean, I think it's. Better known today, but back in 2007, when I got in this space, if I talked to somebody with a series 65, they had no clue what that even was. And so field marketing organization was a term invented by Allianz, who at the time was the largest distributor of fixed and indexed annuities in the United States of America.

And what they did is they said, we're the insurance company creating the product. Here's the field distributing the product. Let's create a middleman. Distribution platform in the field that markets to the field. Right? And so that was very much a vendor based. Uh, the index annuity was invented in 1995.

And so it was to educate and distribute to the field to market. It's very vendor based. Hey, here's this new product. Here's the caps. Here's the rates. Here's how it works. Go sell it. We'll license you. We'll help you sell it. It was very product vendor based, very commoditized. Then a few years later, there was a firm called asset marketing way back in the day, a guy named Rick Metcalf.

To me, he created a second tier and this was, wait, we're not just going to help you understand the product. We're going to help you. Build a marketing funnel to get prospects in the door. And what they did was they created probably not the first, but they're the first very successful dinner seminar.

Here's the slide deck. Here's what you say. Here's the mailer you send. You can fill a room, convert half the room to appointments. Now, hopefully you convert them to clients and there you go. Now you've got a way to market and grow your revenue as a firm. So I labeled that the industrialized model because they created a shiny marketing object.

They mass distributed it where every single person that went through that firm got the same thing. And this was. Probably 25 years ago now. And then what our industry did was replicated that because now the competition was getting eaten alive because everybody was flooding to this new organization that figured something different out and then the shiny objects just became more advanced.

It went to radio shows. It went to TV shows. By the way, this still exists today, except it was industrialized. Like, put it on this assembly line and swap out a logos, swap out the name of the company. Same script on the radio show. Same script on the TV show. And now let's mass distribute marketing. What we believe Triad or what we're trying to create in our space is a third level.

Which is a true partnership and how we got there. We listened, Sean and I, my business partner. We get asked this a lot is how did you come up with this master plan of triad? We're like, we didn't, we just kept hearing over and over and over that industrial model is a beautiful model until you reach a certain level.

And you're like, wait, I've actually started to create a brand. I maybe don't want the same radio show. That the guy, you know, halfway across town has, because it's not true to me. It's not unique. It's not distinct. It's not preeminent. So a true partnership, the reason partnerships, you can't scale them to the masses is you have to go deep.

It has to be very, um, unique one of one, and you have to actually understand your client and what are they? Why are they different back to we're coming full circle here? What products makes them unique and distinct think McDonald's. Burger King versus the hamburger stand on every street corner in America.

They might not have that good of burgers, but they are distinct. They have created something unique in the marketplace, which has allowed them to franchise and spread out through the world. So, sorry, that's a long sound bite, but I wanted to explain the thinking behind it.

[00:14:02] Derek Notman Tank: I think that's great. I, I would listen to that whole thing

no, but that, that it was really cool. I mean, you give us a really interesting history for context there, but also what you guys are doing and how it's different, you know, Adam, I was thinking there's , some similarities to this whole financial advice 3.

0 that we've been talking about. Yeah. , and how there's these things are going deeper and there's, it's more empathetic, like you're saying, like, Brad, you want to understand who you're serving on a much deeper level and then go serve them that way. And we keep hearing that across a lot of different areas now.

[00:14:35] Adam Holt Tank: well, it just makes so much business sense, right? I mean, that's the, this whole context of, of empathy, understanding your partner, not maybe your customer or your vendor, but your partner in this endeavor certainly breeds loyalty. And, it breeds obviously expansion of your business and long-term retention.

And so all the good things on the business side that, that are supported by this, I, it's highly aligned with what I think the, the market needs to move.

[00:14:58] Brand Johnson Tank: Well, I don't think it's that different guys. The, the upper echelon of what I've seen to be independent financial advisors that build true holistic planning. They don't have a one size fits all cookie cutter. It's not here's your fact finder, plug it in and in a online portal and then print, and then here's your financial plan that they all look the same.

That would be the industrialized model, right? That the, the firms I've seen that truly. Scale and deliver on holistic planning. It's a very one to one approach. Yes. There are some common rules depending on the problem you're trying to fix and solve, but it's very unique. It's a, it's like building a custom home versus these boxes that all look the same.

And for us. The reason that we are truly limited on who we can bring on and serve, which is why we built the model. We did, we, we took the minimum way up because the math still needed to work economically as a company. Um, we saw for growth mindedness, that's kind of non negotiable number two for us. So 10 million plus of distribution annually growth minded.

And then, you know, I mean, you guys know this do business do life. We want to work with people we enjoy doing life with and, um, our onboarding process. Is seven to eight hours of interviews because it's like that scene out of Jurassic park. You remember where they pull the DNA out of the mosquito and the Amber, like we have to extract it.

And we found most founders, it's not that they don't want to, but if we ask them to go, you know, journal in the woods and you know, while they're looking out in the wilderness. One out of maybe 50 will and 49 will be like, yeah, I meant to do that and I haven't had time. So we just ride beside them, interview them, pull this out and package it in a way that they can then deliver it to their team.

We call that our launch plan. So we had to actually create Kristen Shea, she's our chief product officer. And this was a very, very painful process. And it was hard to build because it had never been done before.

And we're like, but wait, this is what they need. How do we facilitate the extraction process so that we can then deliver what they need to actually become a one of one brand in their marketplace and message it differently from everybody else?

[00:17:12] Derek Notman Tank: You guys are going so deep and listening so much and helping. I would argue most advisors truly want to do what you're helping them do, but they haven't really had, I mean, let's face it. Even probably in the way that you grew up in the business initially, Brad, here's our product list, learn it, go cold call, and we'll hopefully see you in three or five years. And then we'll talk about being a business owner and help you with all this other stuff. Consumers don't want transactional advice anymore. I don't think advisors want transactional business building.

[00:17:42] Brand Johnson Tank: Yeah, 100%. I found that to be very true.

[00:17:45] Adam Holt Tank: So I'm curious here. Is there anything else that you think that the industry really needs to rethink or debate and controversies? Welcome. We love it.

[00:17:53] Derek Notman Tank: Oh yeah.

[00:17:55] Brand Johnson Tank: Yeah, I think the definition of success and finance is broken. And I'll speak specifically to. The financial advisor space, because that's the world I've grown up in. I can't speak to kind of the more the retail or the institutional side that's, you know, building products or things like that. But I've grown up side by side in the trenches next to independent financial advisors, primarily starting in the insurance world.

And today, you know, most, I think 98, 99 percent of our distribution are, we call them triad members. We don't like the word advisor agent because we, we curate a community. Um, 99 percent of them are securities licensed. And I think the thing that I look at either of those two worlds, both insurance asset management, it's, it's really a red line behavior environment.

And what I mean by success is broken or the definition of it is success for many. Many advisors that I've talked to over the years is they grind. This is definitely a survival of the fittest industry where most people get thrown into the deep end. They're lucky if they met, they're like, they come in in this class and they're like the lone survivor at the end of the day, you know, a year or two later when they look up because they grinded, they door knock, they cold called, they figured it out the hard way.

And so it's like almost. Driven into you from your first round until you hit , this glass ceiling. Typically you become a victim of your own success and you've been running on the hamster wheel. You're exhausted. You're you go from 20, 30, 40 hours a week when you have no clients and you're prospecting to all of a sudden you still have to prospect and drive new revenue, but now you have to serve clients.

And now this trade off of all the time in the world and no revenue becomes more revenue, but. Oh, wait. I actually don't have time anymore. So most people go from 70. I saw one guy that was doing 100 plus hours a week. But here's the problem. It's celebrated. This is the same advisor that walks across the stage.

He's the top 5 in his firm or her firm and patted on the back. Good job. You're a top performer because you drove max revenue in the firm or annual premium or whatever that metric is. And this is the same guy I talked to his health is failing. He's on his second marriage. He hasn't seen a kid's ball game for the last five years, all in the pursuit of, but I'm doing it for my family.

It's the entrepreneurial lie. It's a myth of I'll just grind and make this living for my family, where what I see is all your family wants is your time. That's it. So it's absolutely backwards. In my opinion, it's one of the things do business to do life for us. That's our mission at triad because we're trying to correct that.

And what we found is , it's been, we call it dog whistle languaging. It's like the people that want to hear that. They're like, that's what I want. I don't want to sacrifice my family, my health. My marriage simply for sheer production or success or to be paraded across an industry stage for five seconds and then hate life the rest of the year.

So I think that's very broken. We're working to fix it. , but yeah, , that's a big topic to

[00:21:13] Derek Notman Tank: Well, that resonates more than, you know, Brad.

[00:21:16] Adam Holt Tank: Yeah. That's his mic drop, by the

[00:21:18] Brand Johnson Tank: well, I, I think that's why you formed the business. You did, Derek. If I. I mean, I know you went a very different direction compared to a lot of advisors out there.

[00:21:27] Derek Notman Tank: Oh, for sure. I was doing what you were talking about and yeah, you, you do your award ceremony once a year and you're like, yeah, I'm awesome. And then you go back to just hating life and it got real free when I became a dad, right? That's, that's when I was like, like, oh shit. Like I'm watching my kid grow up on this thing while I'm traveling or out and about, and like, this, this is not okay.

[00:21:51] Derek Notman: Great conversation with, with Brad, huh?

[00:21:55] Adam Holt: Absolutely. Boy, that really just hit home in so many ways. You know, thinking about that, just smiling at some of the stuff that he just dropped. Some really great, great reminders and phrases. What resonated for you? I mean, of all the things, what, what did you really think about?

[00:22:10] Derek Notman: I think he's spot on in everything he's saying. I like the angle and the direction that he and his team at Triad are taking, but what hits closest to home for me was his whole definition of success for financial advisors. And even like my early days in the industry, it was like once a week, once a month, quarterly, annually.

It's. Here's how much so and so sold, here's how much they made, here's how many policies they sold, and you kind of get drawn into it like, man, that's a lot of money. Boy, I bet they've got a great life and they got the flashy suit and the big house and 14 cars or whatever. But, but Brad is right. Is that most of them are pretty actually unhappy and unhealthy.

And I fell into that, man. I said, boy, does that resonate? How about you?

[00:23:01] Adam Holt: I'm thinking about it myself, you know? 'cause most of us started out in either a wirehouse or an insurance agency or something like this, where what was monetized was the placement or acquisition of new assets, either premium or a UM, whatever it might be. So in a sense, the entire business has basically been funded by money in motion.

And the acquirer of that, whether it was the FMO that helped you acquire the money. Uh, the advisor, everybody was getting a piece of that action to fund a business. So it's no question that this was, this has been a sales and a distribution business and still is today. I mean, even the robo advisors, guess how they're making their money.

Premium placement.

[00:23:41] Derek Notman: Exactly.

[00:23:43] Adam Holt: I mean, so that's where the monetization is. We charge a fee, we charge a commission, whatever it might be. The thing that really just hits home is this constant statement that the number one advisor in your org is really tied to their amount of revenue. They generate amount of sales commission.

We're still treating it like an AUM game when we're trying to argue that this is advice is so much more than just. Asset collection. So I think it's an interesting, perspective because I know it to be true. I just don't think it's going to change.

[00:24:13] Derek Notman: It probably won't, but you know, what would be cool is to add one or two metrics to be like, okay, top advisor did this in production. Awesome. Okay. They're doing something right. If you're right in that kind of business. MR and Mrs advisor, how many hours a week do you work?

[00:24:31] Adam Holt: Oh, it worked the least hours.

[00:24:33] Derek Notman: You know, like, no, seriously add that to the equation and be like, well, so and so made a million this year, but they work a hundred hours a week, you know, and then this other person made 600, but they work 10 hours a week. Right. So something along those lines would be cool to add where we're not taking away the production aspect, but we're adding a quality of life aspect, maybe throw that in there somehow.

[00:24:56] Adam Holt: interesting, it's so, it's so qualitative. It's not quantitative. It's easy to calculate revenue generated, right? It's, it's not easy to calculate impact. One of the coolest awards I know that they had in my original firm was this honor. Agent, which actually contributed to society. And actually people came out from community and talked about what can impact them in their lives.

I think we're seeing more of a, uh, I think a desire for people to find meaning. I think a lot of us find meaning in our, in our home lives, uh, you know, God willing, if we've set them up that way. And that's why I think we're seeing much more intentionality around behavioral coaching and even financial advisors becoming more coaches to help people live the life they want, not just collect the dollar amount that they think they need to fund what they.

Really want, and I think there's some, there's definitely some great trends that have been, that seeds have been planted over the last 10 years. You and I have been touching on trying to move towards trying to drag other people towards. And, and I think, uh, we're starting to see it though. There's just general awareness that the life balance, the work balance, especially given the COVID kind of forced remote work has really woken up a lot of people.

You know, I couldn't help, but think also about , the project that we're working on with rebel dads. How did that, how did that bring that up for you?

[00:26:10] Derek Notman: Yeah. That, that whole rebel dad's thing started for me. Why it's been in the works for many, many years. I just didn't really put it together as an idea until about a year and a half ago, but it's tough being a successful entrepreneur, advisor, whatever you want to call it, while also being a great parent. And our kids grow up so darn quickly, you know, my, my kid, my, my wife said that my son last night was looking in the mirror, trying to see if he had armpit hair. I'm like, what the hell are you? This kid's growing up too quick. Um, and so I wanted to figure it out. Like, man, there's gotta be a better way where I can be present with my kid, but also still run a great business.

Cause I get fulfillment out of that as well. And, well, we'll talk about that a little bit later in this episode,

[00:26:55] Adam Holt: Okay, good.

[00:26:56] Derek Notman: uh, yeah, we're going to figure, we're trying to figure out how to crack that code.

[00:27:00] Adam Holt: Oh, all of us. And by the way, it isn't, it's a process, a continuous process. It's not perfect way. We can't get this down to a conveyor belt. And I thought that was really interesting. His story about how FMOs and partnerships and, or that kind of came out of vendors. Really move to this industrialized distribution.

I didn't think about it like that. It's, it's, once you figure out how to make the hamburger, you want to scale it, right? You want to replicate it. You want to turn it into a conveyor belt and do it again and again and again and monetize it. And it's what, what a lot of us talk about in technology is how do you scale a process?

How do you do it cheaper, faster with less overhead? But the interesting thing about this evolution of human delivered advice and the expectations that we're all looking for more value is, are we asking the same questions of our typical vendors? Are they delivering more than just the commodity at the right price anymore?

Are they delivering an experience, a process, a way for me to multiply my impact, not just economically, but also in my own life? Are you, are you finding, are you. Creating ways to find more relevance, uh, in the practice, or maybe even make difficult decisions, like how to, how to cut elements of our practice that don't serve us.

And I think we're seeing a, um, a desire for many advisors out there to seek downstream value from our typical vendors to become partners and realize that we're really in business and our success is tied to each other.

[00:28:27] Derek Notman: I agree. There's definitely been a shift there, even myself, like I look for more than just the basics because we need the we need that. But here's the the sticky wicked is that it's The partners, which tend to be , product manufacturers or marketing arms, they don't get paid until we sell something. So if you call it like, I don't know, maybe an advisor engagement 2. 0 or 3. 0 advisors, just like the consumer are looking for a deeper, more personalized experience. Uh, fine. I love that, but that's a long tail for the vendors, the partners providing it because they don't get paid on that today. They get paid on that three years, five years from now. And so trying to find that balance because you got to get paid today too. So I don't know, it's, it's, it's an, it's an interesting shift that's occurring. And the one that could probably balance doing both, which it kind of sounds like triads doing it on their level.

There's going to be a lot of success there.

[00:29:34] Adam Holt: Well, triad is also being intentionally selective, right? I mean, they, they mentioned that they had 4, 950 some. Members notice this, his change of language makes a big difference. Members, not agents or advisors or reps. These are partners in their process and their firms. And they very much view it that way, not just in business, but also in life development, coaching, and all kinds of other and marketing, right?

Beyond the typical marketing, like here's a brochure or a webinar or seminar to send out. We're talking deeper branding. I loved what he said, this idea of one of one brand, right? Can an advisor be a one on one brand? I would say though, in general, the only way that they're able to do that and go super deep is if they have super, uh, we'll call it.

Scale on the advisor productivity, right? It begs the question again, do you have to be rich to get the best service? And so I think one of the bigger challenges for all of us is how do you deliver this level of intimacy to hundreds of clients or how does a vendor deliver it to hundreds of professionals?

You know, it, it begs the question how we're going to scale some of these practices so we can make it more universal.

[00:30:40] Derek Notman: I don't think we're going to solve it today, man. That's a big

[00:30:43] Adam Holt: No, we're not. I, there's a question whether we want to in the sense, right?

[00:30:47] Derek Notman: Yeah. I

[00:30:47] Adam Holt: everybody really wants it at that level.

[00:30:50] Derek Notman: you look at the wire houses, the insurance companies, I mean, they are hiring thousands of people a year and you could argue some of them probably shouldn't have been hired in the first place,

[00:31:00] Adam Holt: Quota, another

[00:31:02] Derek Notman: thing, right? So like, look, if I hire enough, I know I'll get some great ones out of it.

And I'm willing to take the great ones because I missed the other ones. I don't know. I guess it's kind of like. Picking 10 different stocks and hoping I get a couple of winners or venture capital firms investing in 10 companies, knowing most of them will fail. I don't know, it's interesting. Maybe the model can't be fixed.

Maybe it is what it is, at least at that level. I don't know.

[00:31:26] Adam Holt: It's a decision. It's a commitment. So what did you take away? What are the, what are the actionable aspects that an advisor can put into motion now or start rethinking?

[00:31:35] Derek Notman: Well, I, I like this and I've been a big proponent of this for a long time is figure out who you are and want to be, which will then help you decide on who you want to serve. Brad was talking about defining your vision and getting super clear on that. And using that then to, to build your practice and really figuring out who's your customer first and then coming back and saying, okay, how are we going to build a practice around that customer?

And we've even talked about this before in other episodes. And , instead of saying, , here's my ingredient list, here's my product list. Now I build around that. Let's turn it the other way around. Like, all right, who do I serve? Oh, they need these things. I'm going to focus around that instead.

So I really like that about just flipping that around. And then I kind of already mentioned this already, but , it's moving from, a support practice management offering from a 1. 0 more to like a 2. 0 type of thing. When you're looking for your vendors, those are the big ones for me.

How about you?

[00:32:32] Adam Holt: Yeah, I kept thinking to myself, we are telling our financial advisors, friends, we're telling you the listener to be very intentional about your process. About the brand you create the preeminence that you promote about the technology that you use about the front office experience, your staff, your customer, your full client experience.

And that means even the referral partners that you send business to, whether that be legal or tax or maybe insurance or maybe investment or financial planning or all the different services that we tend to. Remote for our clients that are maybe a degree separation. Maybe we don't manage that personally.

We have dedicated people. We trust we will refer that business to, but I don't know that we always hold our vendors in the back office to the same standard. And I think what Brad is starting to really say is. Why aren't we looking inward? The way we've always done business does not have to be the way we always will do business.

And the question is whether your current infrastructure supports who you want to be and who you can be to create a brand that needs to stand out from all the other commodities out there, because we certainly are moving towards a more commoditized environment. I don't think you saw this today, but, but Bitcoin ETF is basically coming out.

Uh, clients are, you know, can self service, they can buy all this stuff. Uh, more accessibility is there. Technology is making everything available. Why does the human advisor exist? And I think we're going to need to be even a bigger, deeper package of value. And that includes not only who we refer to, but who we're actually relying upon in our practices day to day.

And are they delivering more value than just a commodity?

[00:34:19] Derek Notman: You know, as a new advisor, you're drinking from a fire hose. There's so much to learn and do. So, so how do I wrap my mind around what we're talking about today? If I'm listening to this, I don't know, man, I think that that's tough. It's almost like maybe the vision is like, listen, all right, three years from now, I want to have what they're talking about on this episode right now.

But today it's just not feasible because of time budget. I got to eat today. Right. I still got to sell something and eat today too. But maybe even just knowing that, like, here's the path I want to be on. When I started, I was like, I know I want to be a CFP. It's going to take me years to get there, but I know I want that.

So what do I have to do? And then just chunk that up in stages. And maybe you can do that when you're picking your vendors and the type of client you want to work with and the support you're getting. We do have a choice in that. Just maybe being a little bit more mindful of that. You know, so if you are listening, you're in that stage, just maybe take a step back and just take a look at what's around there because.

You may be getting some, appealing offers, like, Hey, join our firm and we'll give you X bucks, but what kind of handcuffs does that come with? You know,

[00:35:24] Adam Holt: You know, what the irony behind all that is Derek. You and I would not be able to have this conversation unless we had an experience, a set of experiences that we just said that we loved. And we'd hated the irony behind maturity and perspective is that you have to go through the fire to be able to look back and say, I don't want to keep doing that.

I want to do something different. So the irony is that when you start out in the business, you have to learn the basics anyway. Being a good entrepreneur and being a successful practitioner means you have to learn how to be a business person. You have to learn how to manage expenses, how to do things you don't want to do, how to actually generate revenue when it's tough.

And that's how you determine whether you'll be successful 20, 30 years. Cause you know how to do the things that most people are not willing to do. And so that's really the irony behind it is that you must go through the fire in order to come up with this vision of contrast to say, I'm not going to do it that way anymore.

I really want it now. And now that I understand the machine, this is how I'm going to use it.

[00:36:18] Derek Notman: Such a great

[00:36:19] Adam Holt: we all have to go through it. Unfortunately, it's a, it's, these are, these are what we would call the earn your stripes, right? You have to go through it.

[00:36:28] Derek Notman: to your point, we can maybe give the advisors going through the fire. Yes, they all have to go through the fire a hundred percent, but maybe by giving 'em our insights, they've got a fireproof suit on or , it's a smaller fire, or they can go through the fire faster. There's value in that and you still learn, you're still going to get burned, but maybe it's not going to hurt as much.

[00:36:49] Adam Holt: I don't know. As a father, I keep telling my kid, if you do this, this is going to happen, you know what she does, she does what she wants to do. And

[00:36:54] Derek Notman: so

[00:36:55] Adam Holt: burned and she learns anyway, but all of us have learned this way, right? I

[00:36:58] Derek Notman: Yeah. What do you know, dad?

[00:36:59] Adam Holt: Yeah, right. Do you think a podcast is going to help somebody not make the mistakes we've made?

No, they're going to make the mistakes. And then they're going to say, yes, yeah, I should have listened to Derek and Adam, but that's, but that's okay, because it's, it's the number of times that hopefully you make better decisions when the moment happens. And I think that's for all of this. I think, I think the rethink conclusion for me in this program with Brad is, is really just , to challenge the status quo again and decide whether yes, I'm going to continue to keep up with the status quo because it serves me in some form or it doesn't. And then that recognition will promote a change, right? A change or not a change. And that's really it. So I think that's the key. Ask, ask whether you're getting as much value as you can and whether you care, uh, and be intentional about what you're creating, uh, or don't and get the default outcome.

Who knows? , but that's the choice we're all making every day.

[00:37:49] Derek Notman: Well said. And I really appreciate Brad coming on and helping to spur this conversation. They're doing some great work and As I said before, it's kind of one of those, duh, we should be doing this. , there's other things than production that matter and they're definitely focused on that. So hopefully this is opening the door and shedding some light on this for

[00:38:09] Adam Holt: Totally. I agree. Very cool. All right. Talk to us about our community question. Who, who wrote in this week?

[00:38:14] Derek Notman: So this is Jeff up in Duluth, Minnesota, which is where I used to live, man, way up there in Duluth, up in Duluth. I'm a UMD bulldog, man. That's where I went to school.

[00:38:25] Adam Holt: didn't know. So there's like a, you're one neighbor. That's pretty cool. Ex neighbor.

[00:38:30] Derek Notman: All right. My ex neighbor. , He actually writes in a question via LinkedIn that this one's close to heart. , he says here, , hey, hey, Derek and Adam. It's tough being a dad and a financial advisor slash entrepreneur. How do you balance being great at both?

[00:38:48] Adam Holt: Well, you get, you do a lot of production and you, that's how you determine that you're great as a financial

[00:38:53] Derek Notman: And get, get all the awards and then bring the awards home and put them on your kids, like the shelf next

[00:38:59] Adam Holt: To show them. Right. To show them what they should be aspiring to.

[00:39:02] Derek Notman: then kiss them on the forehead and say, you'll see him in a week.

[00:39:05] Adam Holt: that's right. Right. Right. I'll text you. Cause the kid is on their phone. Bye. Bye. Bye. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, look, there's, I don't know that, that we have it down. I'll speak for myself. You know, I, I have really been focusing a lot on presence in one of the goals I had when I was, when I first got into the business at 25 was, was my goal was to get to a place by the time I was 35.

Cause I had seen my mentors cause we, we sold a lot of insurance. We sold investment management. We knew how to do it. The formula is very clear. Was to get to the age of 35, be able to spend 20 hours a week working and 20 hours a week intentionally at home being really present and making a quarter million dollars a year.

That was my goal by the time I was 35 and I achieved that. And of course I had so much extra time and I didn't have a kid yet. So I decided to build, build some other businesses. So,

[00:39:58] Derek Notman: Right.

[00:39:59] Adam Holt: but even to this day, Jeff, I am committed to being present. And the way that I have defined that is at, I am at home at 5 30, every single day.

I make dinner every single night. I. I'm present all the way through till sleepy time. And then once sleepy, you have time to happens, then it's back to my time. And I usually use that time to work or work on my hobbies. I take my kids to school every single day for her entire life at 12 years old. And also I never work on the weekend.

So the key is I've just defined it through calendar management. Cause that's the only way I was able to execute it. And it's basically saying hard. No. So I, for me, my love language was being present and it, and so I just basically said, then that's what I have to do to express my love, uh, is basically to say, don't, you know, don't tell me what you value, show me your calendar and your budget, I'll tell you what you value.

And, and that was just the way I rationalized it for myself.

[00:40:54] Derek Notman: I love that. As a dad. I mean, I'm sure you've experienced this. I experienced it about every single day. I can tell my son something 10 times, 20 times. He'll say he understands it, but he doesn't, right? I show him something that resonates. So when you show your daughter, you're driving her to school, you're making her dinner, you're there.

She gets that no matter what you say, she understands that dad's home and present. So I think that's a really great example is just showing your kid like, Hey, you are a priority in my life. And you know what? Communicate that with your clients. Like, Hey, I only work these hours. I have a kid. My kid comes first.

And almost opening up a little bit with your clients, like, Hey, I'm, I'm coaching my kids football now, or I'm doing this, or I'm doing that and show that there's, there's like a human being behind the business, I guess. Um, but, but it is challenging and Jeff brings up an interesting point. And also, I don't think you can ever actually achieve the balance that people claim is maybe out there, just like you can never achieve perfection, but you can, you can strive for, you can get better.

That's one of the things you and I do in our next episode is going to be a very special one because you, myself, and a group of other really cool dads are getting together on Necker Island to talk about just this type of stuff. How do we be the best dad, but also entrepreneur possible. Um, so that's going to be a really fun experience, man.

It's going to be some really great relationship building insights from some very successful people and can't wait to record that episode with you.

[00:42:35] Adam Holt: Absolutely. No, that's really great. Just remember, Jeff, that the balance is never perfect. The best way I describe this is go stand on the top of a medicine or a yoga ball. At what moment are you balanced? One moment in, you know, 1 percent of the time, 1 percent of the time, the rest of the time roll over to place if not falling off.

And so it's not a, it's not a perfect sport, right? It's a, an ethos. It's a, it's an attempt, uh, to be mindful of making decisions and when you're pushing it, right? When to, when to compensate and when not. And I think that's really the key for balance. It's never perfect. With that, let's thank Brad, , everyone who attended today. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being part of this and we appreciate your time. We look forward to the next time, Derek.

[00:43:19] Derek Notman: Yeah, definitely. Great conversation. Great insights. Good things to think about. Please follow us on social and give us a great review and send us a note. You want us to talk about something that's important. Let us know. We're here.

[00:43:35] Adam Holt: go. Awesome. Until the next time, my friend.

[00:43:37] Derek Notman: See you, brother.

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