Kurt Dupuis:
Welcome to the Whole Truth, where two wholesalers help financial professionals build great practices and thrive in a rapidly changing industry. We'll bring you the stories and voices from those on the front lines of this change, and we'll have some fun along the way.
Steve Seid:
We're building a community of financial professionals who are growing forward-thinking and want to get better. Thanks for listening and contributing to the discussion.
Disclosure:
The views expressed herein are those of the participants and not those of Touchstone Investments.
Steve Seid:
And welcome everybody to the Whole Truth in the Bay Area, California. I am Steve Seid.
Kurt Dupuis:
I am Kurt Dupuis.
Steve Seid:
So we had Liz Lenz back. Liz Lenz formerly worked for a broker dealer who we love, she loved. She was a prominent figure there. She ran practice consulting for them. She recently left to start her own firm and we sat down with her to talk about that, to reflect on her career at the prior broker dealer, and to talk about where she's headed.
And of course, we bounced some of our industry questions off of her. Some interesting insight on starting a business and some of the things that she worked through. What I found interesting when you asked her that question is you were going where my head was going with it, which is like, how do you start the LLC? Where do you get office space? And she didn't touch that at all actually.
Kurt Dupuis:
Right, I was leading the witness, that's what I was asking about. And that's not where she went at all.
Steve Seid:
What she spent is so much time thinking about her value offering, who was she going to serve, what she was going to deliver to those people. That was her initial focus was getting that right and making sure that that was correct, which I thought was kind of interesting.
Couple of other things, we got into processes. She said, "Listen, if it's not differentiation, put it in a process." The areas where you really differentiate, don't overly put that in a box. Be creative there. The rest of the stuff, process it away.
Kurt Dupuis:
Can I give you another little nugget?
Steve Seid:
Yeah.
Kurt Dupuis:
So I was at a conference this week for one of our broker dealer partner firms. James Clear was one of the guest speakers. So he did a talk, the guy that wrote Atomic Habits. And the one thing that I emailed myself to think about was standardization over optimization, which is what I was reminded of as she was talking. So often I know I'm a person, well, what's the best way to go do something? I say, well, a lot of times it doesn't matter what the best way is, just do something…
Steve Seid:
Yeah.
Kurt Dupuis
…and then you'll optimize over time. But standardizing is how you start.
Steve Seid:
Well, that's a really interesting comment and I love that book. But anyways, we covered on so many other topics. The comments on sales assistants was profound, the comments on M&A, so I won't review all that, but what I found so compelling to me is when you think about coaches who we've talked to a bunch of on the show and off this show, what are their answers when you get to the second level of question? For Liz, that's when she gets going. The depth is in that second and that third order of question to me.
Kurt Dupuis:
That's a good observation.
Steve Seid:
And that really sticks out to me about this interview and her.
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah, the only disappointing part is we only had an hour with her.
Steve Seid:
I know.
Kurt Dupuis:
We got going and we only got through two thirds of our questions, so luckily we know where she lives.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, we'll have her back. We're certainly going to leverage her capabilities at Touchstone for sure. So thank you guys for listening. As always, hit the subscribe button, give us a rating, really, really helps. We're seeing more and more of that.
Kurt Dupuis:
And we're getting more emails at thewholetruth@touchstonefunds.com as well, especially if you have criticism because Seid likes to read those at night before he goes to bed.
Steve Seid:
Love them. I do. I want to know how bad I am and what I can reflect on and lose sleep over. Without further ado, here is our interview with Liz Lenz.
And welcome back to our good friend, our returning champion.
Liz Lenz:
Woo.
Steve Seid:
She just started a new firm. Liz Lenz, welcome back.
Liz Lenz:
Hi. I was actually Liz Stiles last time I was on this podcast too. I hadn't even changed my name all the way yet.
Kurt Dupuis:
And now you're a mother. There's all kinds of new things in your life.
Liz Lenz:
My husband and I joke about this, but we just hit warp speed every time we decide to make a few life changes, we just do them all at once. So yeah, I'm happy to be back and it was really fun last time, so happy to be back again and sharing a little bit about my new venture.
Steve Seid:
Yeah.
Liz Sitles:
My new business.
Steve Seid:
So maybe let's start there. We're going to talk a little bit about your old role, but we're going to start with the new one. So how's it going? Why did you decide to start it? What's the focus?
Liz Lenz:
New business, Lenz Insights, LLC. A nice Florida-based company in the financial services industry, enjoying the Sunshine State, but getting to work with people across the country and it's been really fun starting the business. It's something I always wanted to do and it's really because I had a great job.
I loved my team, I loved my boss, I enjoyed the work I was doing, and eventually I just got to a point where we were making so many changes, hence the warp speed comment I made earlier in our lives. We had had a child, we had moved, we had gotten married. My husband was moving his business to the RIA1 space, and I got to a point where I was like, there's a lot of things happening. I've always wanted to start my own business. If I don't make a move now, when am I going to do it?
Kurt Dupuis:
I have a friend who's going through a big work change too…
Liz Lenz:
Sure!
Kurt Dupuis:
…and she's a lawyer and the firm she's leaving is throwing her a big party and it's a big to-do. And maybe it's because I've been in sales for a couple of decades. When salespeople leave, they don't throw you parties. They're more like, don't let the door hit you on the way out. It's like a different culture there.
Liz Lenz:
Yeah.
Kurt Dupuis:
I don't know. No one's ever bought me a cake for leaving a job.
Steve Seid:
I'll buy you a cake.
Liz Lenz:
Actually, yeah, I'll buy... yeah.
Steve Seid:
But I don't want you to leave.
Liz Lenz:
I think it's the culture of the company plus your role. So I was lucky in the sense that everybody I talked to was so supportive of me doing what I wanted to do. They were really sad, but really supportive.
Steve Seid:
I'm fascinated by entrepreneurs. I actually studied it. It was one of my concentrations in grad school. Always did want to start my own business. And I feel like what we do is very entrepreneurial, but it's different. It's not being an entrepreneur and that's a leap, that's a risk. And I was reading, you had a blog post on your new website, which by the way, what is your new website? Let's plug that.
Liz Lenz:
Lenzinsights.com or lookforlemons.com, both of which you land on the site.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, check it out. She's posting some good stuff there. But I'll quote you directly, "Many good reasons kept me from taking that risk and that jump." So talk about some of those reasons and ultimately how did you step over into that horizon?
Liz Lenz:
My background while I was working, first of all, I loved working with the advisors. I had done a lot of the merger and acquisition consulting, which I fell in love with pretty early on in my career. And I enjoyed the work and I was brought over to the practice management department to help build out the coaching team and the practice management offering. They already had great content.
And so over the years as I was building out the program, we were growing the number of coaching program and offerings, we were adding to another team, and every time I felt like maybe we're reaching a plateau and I should reassess, we got a green light from senior management to do something else. So it allowed me to keep building. So as a young person, I think the number one thing somebody can give you in the first 10-15 years of your career is experience and the ability to take risks in a safe environment. That's the greatest gift.
And I was fortunate enough to have that experience. So I was able to build out a program, try different coaching tactics, try different coaching topics, try different techniques, develop my own coaches, and that gift was, it's priceless because that experience helped prepare me for this next chapter. And then when I really wanted to do it, I had just gotten married, I was pregnant with my first child almost right away, and that was a brand new experience for me.
Adding, I was already a stepmom, but adding another version of mom to my plate and experiencing bringing life into the world for the first time, that was such a changing moment for me personally, professionally, mentally, physically. And I didn't want to layer starting a new business on top of that. So I took some time and after coming back, our team was in a really good spot and I thought what we've built is working. I've got really great coaches, I've got really happy people around me. Now seems like a really safe time where everyone will hopefully continue to be successful if I make such a drastic change.
Kurt Dupuis:
When you decided to make this leap, there's a thousand things you must have to do, establish an LLC, get a separate bank account, that's the obvious ones, but where did you start and what were some of the immediate things you had to or boxes you had to check to get rolling?
Liz Lenz:
I did what I would tell my clients to do, and I'm fortunate to have a husband who's in this business too, and he loves coaching, facilitating as much as I do. We went to the office on a Saturday, we hired a sitter and we literally spent five hours at the office brainstorming. First of all, what do you love to do? If I'm going to start a new chapter, who do I love to work with and what kind of work do I love to be doing?
So we spent four to five hours really breaking that down into different sort of verticals and segments of the business that I wanted to focus on. The greatest part about being independent is I got to really, my role before was practice management, coaching, consulting. I got to now pull in that M&A advice and guidance that enterprise coaching I was doing before, working with recruiters and working with people making affiliation changes, all that stuff that I had exposure to in parts, I had the opportunity now to really put that together in an offering and figure out who do I love to work with, who would benefit from these services?
And then where does that mean in terms of spending most of my time? That's how I got to the point where now I'm working, I'm doing some practice management coaching, which I call Advisor Excellence coaching now, or Team Alignment coaching. I'm doing enterprise growth coaching and consulting, so helping firms that are looking to recruit and acquire other advisors more regularly, develop their platform, their process.
And then the last piece is helping more mature practices and more mature wealth management firms that typically have over 20 plus advisors create an advisor engagement platform that allows their advisors and their team to really participate in the technology and the services that allow that value add advice and guidance that each of those respective industry parties are providing to be applied to their respective businesses and grow organically.
Kurt Dupuis:
The three - Advisor Excellence, which is largely practice management Enterprise, so kind of buying, selling, marketing firms to firms and Advisor Engagement. So the larger organizations looking to just build more culture, build processes on a larger scale.
Liz Lenz:
Correct. Yep.
Kurt Dupuis:
So before we get too more into what you will be doing, if you think about your previous role, how do you think about your impact, whether quantitatively or anecdotally, where do you feel like the most bang for your buck, where you spent with financial professionals?
Liz Lenz:
You develop really deep relationships with your clients. One of the hardest parts about leaving my past job was leaving the captive audience that I had as the advisor field. I worked with some of the same people pretty frequently in different capacities. Initially, I got exposure to a lot of these people because every advisor needs a catastrophic plan.
So “plug”, if you don't have one, you really got to have one. You need to have some sort of agreement in writing that allows your team, your clients, your family to be taken care of if something were to happen with you. And because of that initial connectivity point, I developed a lot of these relationships.
Now, some of them turned into I want to acquire another practice. I'm recruiting an advisor. What does that look like? Some of it's turned into I need to improve my practice or I need to make it more valuable. How do I go down that path? And that's where a lot of that other practice management, coaching consulting came in.
The types of engagements I had varied, but it was with the same people and it's because of those relationships. So I think the impact comes when you really know your client, you're going to find a million ways to work with one another, especially if you feel like the client and you have, dare I say, vibes right? …an understanding.
Kurt Dupuis:
We did a vibe check. Yeah.
Liz Lenz:
Yeah, a little vibe check. You're really listening to them and understanding where they're coming from and they know what your style is and your ability to be transparent with them and almost read you a little bit.
Steve Seid:
It's really interesting you say that because one of the things that I think has made our firm successful on the practice consulting side is we try to walk them through the steps. And what we're really looking to, and the thing that I espouse to my team is can you develop an ongoing relationship with these teams that is something substantive because change is hard. These are busy people, and if the more you can spend with them, maybe there's a failure to launch on the first initiative, but if you stick with it, it happens a second time. It's not just the length of time. It's also the understanding with each other and maybe the accountability.
Liz Lenz:
Correct, the impact of the time that you're spending together. You could spend a lot of time with a client and have very little impact. You could spend a short amount of time and have a massive impact on them, and it's your responsibility to help make every effort to drive that impact. So what that would mean is early on when I was coaching, consulting, it means not being afraid to go the extra mile.
If they had a question that wasn't in my area, I wouldn't just hand it off. You have to have a curious mind and say, all right, well, I don't know the answer to this question, so I'm going to take an initiative and try to call and understand what the answer would be, and then do either a warm handoff or be involved in that secondary conversation because it's a learning opportunity for you. Then over time, all of a sudden you're going to know way more than you thought you did.
Steve Seid:
And financial professionals do that too, going that extra mile in ways that clients don't expect, and that's how you build that different kind of relationship.
Kurt Dupuis:
Seid, didn't you tell people, didn't you have a client one time that asked they wanted to start an orphanage in Zimbabwe, and you're like-
Steve Seid:
Sure.
Kurt Dupuis:
... I can help you accomplish that.
Steve Seid:
The answer is yes to everything.
Kurt Dupuis:
It's always yes.
Liz Lenz:
Well, hey, that's what inspired the “look for lemons” thing. So a lemon is an opportunity, it's like a sour situation or a little pickle that you can make better. And your job is to find those small opportunities. It's usually not process oriented. It's usually not as part of some game plan. It's about you paying attention to your client, to the other person and hearing and seeing a moment where you can add value. And in doing that, that's where you're going to really build trust and camaraderie, be present in the moment and hear things that the client doesn't hear themselves and that's what makes careers. That's what makes clients stick with you forever.
Steve Seid:
So good. I love it. So picking technology.
Liz Lenz:
Yeah.
Steve Seid:
Give us some quick tips there.
Liz Lenz:
Yeah. Well first of all, if you don't think your team's going to use the tech, you're dead in the water before you start. So you can have the coolest tech in the world, but if you don't think your team is going to adopt it, good luck. Technology is great, it's a tool, but it's all about adoption and behavior change, adoption is key.
So couple things I would look for. First of all, if you don't even know where to start, I always start at g2.com. This is like non-solicited promotion of the site. I don't know how I found the site, somebody recommended it to me. And if there's any tech or software or whatever it could be non-industry related, I definitely search it and see if I can find on their specific to our industry. Like Michael Kites has great technology, T3 conferences, it's a conference that they hold in Tampa.
They have a research report that's amazing to look at. Few things to look for. One, does it integrate with your other stuff? Is it allowed and does it integrate? Two, is it easy to learn? Is it easy to pick up on? You want to make sure it's got all your compliance approvals depending on your affiliation that answer can vary. And then I guess the last thing is that you have to make sure that it's really adding value.
Tech is so cool, but red shiny ball syndrome is going to happen to you. You're like, that is so cool. I could definitely use that for X, Y, and Z. If it's not critical to your practice functions, then you have to make that technology and the integration of it important. Otherwise, it's just going to be another thing you subscribe to and it's going to sit on the shelf. So make sure that it's important enough for you to invest in. Otherwise, you might be subscribing to something that you're not really using.
Steve Seid:
You make an observation, which we've seen as well, regardless of whether you're independent or wire, all the firms are investing in a ton of tech. And basically what you say is innovation has happened, but adoption of things like productivity tools, it's actually quite low. So you've got all this investment in tech with low in adoption. What's happening there?
Liz Lenz:
Yeah, I have a couple theories on this. One is most of the technology makes things easier, but there's a learning curve, so there's a willingness to learn. The second thing I think is when it comes to technology adoption, I think you really have to be cognizant of whether or not it's going to integrate with things as easy as you think it is.
There's sometimes where you think it's going to integrate or you get told that it's going to integrate, it's like another thing for you to click on. If it's not easily accessible, it becomes difficult. And then I think the last thing with technology is that you really have to make it imperative to your business function. I remember in my broker dealer before, I would have these advisors that would be at the firm for 15, 20 years and they would learn about this piece of technology that had been out for five years and they had no idea because it's hard to keep up.
Our platforms are evolving so quickly with all this great new tech. It's like, oh my gosh, I didn't even know that existed. Well, truth be told, it was told to you 600 times in email. It's hard to keep up with it. So it has to be something that you're really intentionally wanting to look at to solve and then you're making it a priority.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, yeah. Spend a minute there. I'm at this firm giving them whatever number of basis points I am to park here. One of the benefits of that is all this infrastructure and tech. So how do you be more deliberate about, is it simply like, Hey, once a year we're going to do, bring our tech person on to do an overview? Is it like what do you suggest for teams like that to be more deliberate?
Liz Lenz:
So first and foremost is awareness. So I think one of my greater accomplishments at my last organization that I built was this, I called it the Start Smart assessment tool. It looked at the entirety of the platform. And so based on the way you run business, based on the way you function and what you're sort of motivated to fix, what are the value add technology pieces and the value add consulting practice value add pieces that you might be missing or you should be considering in a high, medium, low priority ranking order.
And the first thing is if they were missing a tech or a department that would help them fix or improve a certain aspect of their business, that's going to show up in a high priority list. And then they can say, wait, what is that? I've never heard of that and click on it and learn.
Now, the decision to adopt is the secondary decision. So let's pretend that they're aware of it, but they're not actually using it yet. This is where I do think a consultant would really help because they could come in and say, yeah, you want to do these six things. Let me see how this technology actually applies to the way you function. It's got to be one of those things where they rub their chins and say, very interesting. And then don't do anything about it unless you have someone that actually helps them implement it. So a consultant's a great way to do that because not every person has a tech-savvy person on their team motivated to implement all this new stuff.
Kurt Dupuis:
And another thing you talk about on your website and your blog is creating processes. And that's actually one of the ways I describe practice management is it's like it's stacking processes, but what are the reasons that people don't really create or formalize processes for their business?
Liz Lenz:
Because it's a drag. It's so boring to do.
Kurt Dupuis:
Great answer.
Liz Lenz:
Listen, because it's a drag, it feels like a drag at first.
Kurt Dupuis:
It feels like homework.
Liz Lenz:
Yeah, you want me to document every single piece that I'm like, that sounds like the last thing I want to be doing. That's why. It's just easily deprioritized. I'm starting my own new business and this is the way it happens. I think for anybody, whether you're an advisor, a new business owner, is that you start to develop, okay, this is what I want to offer. Here are my deliverables. And then you figure out how you want to do it.
Then you have to sit down and go back and go, what did I just do? Okay, now I got to write it all down. And that first of all, I think there's so much process that happens organically as teams evolve. It takes a lot of effort and patience to go back and say, okay, what did we just do? Now I need to document that. So I think organically as a team matures, processes get created, deliverables or forms get created, it's hard to go back and really memorialize all of it.
Steve Seid:
So let's say you have a process documented. So as an example, I've sat down with a team couple years ago who said, we need an onboarding process. We just need to be better at this.
Liz Lenz:
Yeah, yep.
Steve Seid:
And we sat down with them and we literally went through every spot, what's supposed to happen, who's doing it, what's the time involved?
I mean the whole thing. We drew a nice, beautiful, wonderful picture that we created and then what we have to do, and we've gotten better at this over time of getting in the weeds with people to help them take steps. But back then it was like, all right, we did this. Do we all agree to this? Yes. And then we cross our fingers that they actually do it. How do you then get to…?
Liz Lenz:
Yeah,
Steve Seid:
…this is our aspiration, but the team actually doing it and holding each other accountable. Is there any kind of insight you have there?
Liz Lenz:
Yeah, absolutely. That would happen all the time. We actually, in our coaching program, and I do this now, you have the kind of design piece of let's design the process. Let's write it down. Yeah, you're right. You never wrote down your onboarding process. I'm the coach, I'm going to sit down and make you do it. You go through this whole process, but there's two questions I ask. One is what you wrote down, is this what's happening today?
And let's be honest, if it's not, let's circle the things that are not happening because that's the first thing we need to figure out. Can we implement all of these? Let's say it's a 15 step process and four of the steps are not things that we're doing. Are those four things, the four things we're going to implement tomorrow, or do we need to implement one at a time?
Steve Seid:
Good point.
Liz Lenz:
And you almost have to create an implementation plan to include those new processes in. Now the other thing to do is, and I've had this happen, the team says, yeah, let's start a new way of doing it tomorrow. I'm like, great, good on you. Let's go do it. I'm going to hold you accountable to it. And then lo and behold, a month later they're doing three out of the four things. But the reason why they're not doing the fourth is because logistically it doesn't make sense or functionally, it's got some other nuance to it that we didn't really write it down all the way.
So it's often a best practice to go back after that implementation and be like, Hey, are we good to finalize this? People say yes and then you check the box. With any process though, the number one thing that’s your friend is technology to help you implement it.
And what I mean by that is tasks, workflows. If you can create a workflow or task management system behind it that's automated, the systems are going to start telling you. And one, you're either going to notice that it's wrong right away in the way you're functioning versus what it's telling you to do. And if you ignore it long enough, you say, yeah, it's wrong. I'm going to do it this way anyways, you're going to get annoyed about seeing the wrong task too many times. So yes, that is another way to implement it and hold yourself accountable to the process.
Kurt Dupuis:
So processes just suck. That's the answer.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, because chaos isn't exactly above suck either. Chaos is-
Kurt Dupuis:
Some people thrive in chaos. See, you're-
Steve Seid:
You love chaos. You love chaos.
Kurt Dupuis:
No, no, I embrace chaos. You are Mr. Framework, you like procedures for everything.
Steve Seid:
That's not true. Go-
Kurt Dupuis:
I don't want to be put in a box.
Steve Seid:
Go back to my Kolbe score. I didn't show up really high on processes. So I can live in that world, but you can't if you don't have anything. If you don't have, you and I are lost. We're floating around in the air with all our ideas, not doing anything. That's all I'm saying.
Kurt Dupuis:
True story.
Liz Lenz:
Listen, I love chaos, Kurt. To that point, I think thriving in chaos is a good thing. You have to create processes on the non-differentiating pieces of your business. Anything that's boring, repetitive, the same thing-
Steve Seid:
Good call.
Liz Lenz:
... that you could teach a computer, you make that process oriented. You want to be wild on your “wow gift” idea. Every client you onboard, make it a wild moment. That's fine, but make everything else process oriented so you can intentionally make certain things chaotic. If Kurt wants to make everything chaotic, just give him a box for the chaos. That's all I'm advocating for.
Steve Seid:
I like it. You see this, this is a true consultant. She just solved our back and forth right now.
Kurt Dupuis:
Is this marriage counseling?
Steve Seid:
Yeah, for real.
Kurt Dupuis:
Okay, so we didn't get too into this last time, but you're familiar with our work with PAR and how that's our Practice Analysis Review, which is…
Liz Lenz:
Yep.
Kurt Dupuis:
…sort of, one way I describe that is our one-page financial plan for financial professionals. Let's look at the data and see what we're working with.
Liz Lenz:
Yeah.
Kurt Dupuis:
And at the previous shop you had something like that. But can you give us kind of a little bit more detail or just answer the question, what sort of data or information are you looking to have or possess before you really start digging in and working with a team?
Liz Lenz:
Yeah, so it's a great question.
Kurt Dupuis:
Thank you.
Liz Lenz:
So the discovery process... you're welcome. It is a good question because before you start working with a client, before an advisor starts working with a client, they should go through some sort of discovery process. So my discovery process is some quantitative, some qualitative.
So some quantitative information I look for, I obviously look for assets, revenue, number of relationships, and number of advisors servicing those relationships. Then I start asking different questions with, I would say categories of questions. There's client facing and team facing aspects of every main question. So the first is, who is your client? So when you think about that, I'm like, okay, who is my target client? Who do I want to embrace? Who do I want to work with? Who do I believe is like-minded? Where do I find that person? That's team facing. The client facing side is, okay, how do I attract that person?
What is my branding and my packaging and my business development activities that demonstrate to that ideal target client base that, “Hey, I'm uniquely qualified to serve you”. So that first question is, who is my client? And you look at it from those two angles. The second piece is, what do I offer? But ultimately to your client, it's by working with me, how do I help you achieve your goals? What aspects of your wealth management plan am I tackling?
How often do I tackle those things? If you're a business owner, what business owner topics am I covering with you? So yeah, you have all your processes and all your products and all your services that you provide, that's team facing. But from the client's perspective, they need to be able to rattle off quickly, how are you helping me? Ideally you package it in something visual that they could easily track and understand so they understand the scope and depth of your services.
The third section that I look at is how am I servicing these clients and how am I servicing my people? And by people I mean clients, I mean COIs, I mean any sort of stakeholder that's influencing or a part of your client experience process. And on the backside of things from a team standpoint, that's service models and touchpoints and different matrixes that you're running to make sure that you're touching the client the right amount of time. And for the client, that's deliverables. What do I see when I engage with you at a client event? How is my client reviews? What do I get on the other side of that, my client onboarding process? What do I get?
Do I get update emails and do I get a “wow gift” at the end that welcomes me into your firm? So it's those different pieces. And then the last piece is what's motivating your people? And this is probably where I think we spend the most time, and it's two sides of it. It's like, well, what's motivating your team? What makes them pursue the particular job or career that they're in? How do they tackle adversity? Those types of questions that allows you to manage and lead them appropriately.
And then the client facing side is what's motivating your team, your brand, your culture to speak volumes about you and what you've built when you're not in the room. And that's ultimately going to influence how your business and how your key stakeholders network and talk about you outside the room. And that's going to fall directly in line with your marketing plan, your business plan, your strategic plan of how you want to expand your brand and expand your influence in your respective communities. So lots of things there, but different aspects I'm looking for in each of those topics,
Steve Seid:
I am fascinated by what you just said about team motivation and we're not going to be able to talk about that. I would love to hear what you do when you diagnose and coach and talk about motivation. Maybe a snippet there because I can't leave it alone.
Liz Lenz:
Yeah.
Steve Seid:
When you're coaching on motivation, where are you spending your time? I know this is a topic you could probably could go on for a long time.
Liz Lenz:
Yeah. Simply speaking, I think when this is where the qualitative side of my discovery process comes in, I do team interviews, what each person's role is on paper and what they see that their role or position in the firm could be two very different things. And it's first important for you to understand their perspective in their world as they're living it with you. And there's often things that happen in your personal professional lives that influence the way you behave at work.
And it's important for you to have a sense of what those big influence role factors are. So that's the first thing is just truly get to know somebody. But when it turns out to what's motivating people, you have to ask them, what are the most exciting things about your day? What do you love doing? What do you loathe about your job? Everybody has aspects of the job they're not obsessed with.
So what are your things? If you're going to tackle some huge project for the team, what would that be? How do you think you would do it? What keeps you from doing that particular project now? And those questions really give you insight of how that person is feeling. The other piece I coach on all the time is people think that motivating their team members is just about comp. And I'm speaking from experience here. I've talked to many team members, yeah, compensation helps, but ultimately what keeps people motivated and driven is typically beyond comp. There's other things that really fill their bucket. So one of the key questions I have my advisors ask their team members is, okay, if I'm going to recognize and reward you for good work outside of monetary compensation, what's another way for me to do that that would make you really happy?
And even that question alone is going to give you insight. Now, some people are like money, that's it. That maybe the answer, but I think you'll find that there's other answers to that which is more time off with my family, or I love recognition or buy me a gift or something and, I don't care. Or I used to love it when people did X. And if you can't ask the question outright, you could also rephrase the question.
Say, hey, outside of someone rewarding you with money, what are some other ways that people, parents, teachers, bosses have rewarded you before that made you feel really good? So remove the hypothetical and make it case-based scenario. You're always going to find something interesting.
Steve Seid:
Yeah and it shows also that you care and that you're engaged.
Kurt Dupuis:
Wasn't there a book that the five Professional love languages is love languages, but professional edition?
Liz Lenz:
There is and I have the book, actually this is really interesting. I had a client that they started a book club with their staff and they needed something to bring them together. So they started the Five Love Languages of the Workplace. There was one weird one for physical touch because I think it was high fives or something like that. It was something acceptable in the workplace, but they did learn a lot about each other about how to reward and recognize each other. So that's another tactic, but a lot of my bigger firms do book clubs with their team and their staff. Really interesting, really good bonding tactic if people are willing to participate.
Steve Seid:
We got to close with quickly your enterprise consulting. I do want to mention that as well. And here's another humongous topic that I'll give you about a minute to answer. So you're welcome.
Liz Lenz:
Oh gosh.
Steve Seid:
Sales assistants, which to me and support staff, that is probably the topic that lately I spend more time discussing than almost anything else is you spent some time on the training side at your former broker dealer. What would you say is happening right now?
Liz Lenz:
Yeah, sure. So I actually spent some time in my new business focused on this too. And there's a lot of interesting research. I think we put anybody in a non-advisor role in kind of a bucket sometimes that's really not fair. So I'll first start by saying that is that there's a lot of professionals on teams that are in these non-advisor or non-client financial planning facing roles that are playing really critical, specific aspects to the client's experience that we're not describing well enough.
I think it's really important to understand what's motivating the sales assistant from a professional development standpoint, and then start to really think about their potential career path and track that aligns with their professional passions. You're seeing a lot of specialization and different types of roles of wealth management firms that vary from the financial planning side to operations to more marketing to more investments.
And there's different types of categories and tracks because if they don't find it with you, they might find it with somebody else and the competitive job market for great sales assistants is, I mean, high.
Steve Seid:
It's serious. Yeah.
Liz Lenz:
It's serious. And yes, compensation is becoming competitive, but in absence of value, what do you look at? Money, to provide value, provide development to those sales associates, to those branch professionals, to those firm associates that are not in advisor roles. And I think that you'll find that you can motivate them in different ways than you have before.
Kurt Dupuis:
Last question. You have a lot of experience in the M&A space. You have 30 seconds... No, I'm be kidding.
Steve Seid:
You keep doing this to her.
Kurt Dupuis:
You're the stop.
Liz Lenz:
Sorry.
Kurt Dupuis:
As as much as deep as you'd like to go, what is going on in the M&A space? We're hearing anecdotally crazy numbers, oftentimes mismatches between buyers and sellers. What's your take on what's going on in that space?
Liz Lenz:
Lots of activity. Yes, because of demographics. It's because you've got family and private equity money in the industry and the space that you just hasn't historically been there. I would tell you that there's two sides of it. If you're a seller, there's a couple things I would be thinking about. One is the greatest thing about this business is in a lot of ways you don't have to retire right away.
You can work as long as you want. However, for you to capitalize on some of the activity that's happening right now, you really need to think about what matters to you the most. So aside from making sure your clients are in good hands, that's the first thing. Client first, you want to make sure your clients are taken care of. Let's assume that a potential buyer meets that checkbox is like, my clients are going to be good.
Second thing is, all right, what do I care about the most? Is it money? Let's be honest. If it's money, just say it. Okay? Don't lie to yourself. Second thing is it my brand, right? Is it the culture of what I've built? I don't want... It's a small town, I've got legacy here. I don't want that to go away. Is it a particular team or staff member? Maybe you've got family or people that feel like family that work for you, that you want to make sure have jobs, have careers that are taken care of.
Or the last thing is, do I want flexibility in my departure? Start to prioritize which one of those things matter first. And then when you ask questions from the buyer, start to look for things that are going to validate, that they will emphasize whatever those key factors are that are going to make you most comfortable in a transition.
If you do want to have a flexible timeline, I want you to come up with the three to five things the most that you want to get off your plate immediately, like somebody to take it off your plate tomorrow. What would those things be? That's someone who can add value day one. Then make a list of the things that you absolutely love that will keep you getting out of bed in the morning and showing up to work and being somewhat productive.
Maybe not working 40 plus hours a week, but working some hours a week. What does that job look like? That's going to help you tremendously in your due diligence process for the buyers, all those things that I just said about the seller, you have to be prepared to flip answer those. You also need to be willing to be creative about your deal structure.
So yes, there could be multiples that are crazy on paper, but there's claw backs. There's other aspects of that deal structure that are protecting the buyer and setting yourselves up for mutual success. So I'd encourage you to work with a consultant, especially if you're an independent advisor and thinking about what's a dynamic way I can come up with a deal structure that makes sense.
How much liquidity do I need? And baby steps. If you don't have a long-term deal, what's the seller's catastrophic plan look like? Something like 40% of the industry still doesn't have a succession plan. Maybe they're part of the 40% and you could be that easy answer for them. So that's a baby step to get in the door. But lots of activity, lots of stuff to do. And where I get the most consulting is actually not only on the deal, but how do I transition after the deal? How do I actually integrate two firms together?
Steve Seid:
Thanks to our amazing guest, Liz Lenz, I'm sure we're going to be talking more in the future, so look forward to having you back. Thanks, Liz.
Liz Lenz:
Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Kurt. It's always a pleasure.
Kurt Dupuis:
Thanks Liz.
Liz Lenz:
All right, talk to you soon.
Steve Seid:
And we will be back with our Costanza Corner. This is The Whole Truth. Stick with us. And welcome back to our Costanza Corner where we like to leave on a high note. Kurt, what do you have today?
Kurt Dupuis:
I am going to be a complete hypocrite because I tell you so much that let's stop doing the animal stuff.
Steve Seid:
Yep.
Kurt Dupuis:
Because-
Steve Seid:
Give it to me.
Kurt Dupuis:
... three quarters of yours are animal things, but this one was too good to pass up. So the short version is a Welsh woman found a kidney donor because of her dog on the beach. So check out this story. A 44-year-old lady named Lucy Humphrey had lupus her entire adult life, but it was in 2017 that she heard from her doctors that if she couldn't find a new kidney within five years’ time, there'd be a chance that she would die.
So requiring dialysis, they had to cancel their campervan holiday and decided just to go to the beach nearby. And while they were there, one of their two Dobermans, a big lug called Indie, kept running over to this other camper to pester her while that she was crocheting. And so the third time she went over to apologize, and the lady was like, no, no, no big deal. The lady had just registered with a kidney donation registry there in Wales. They struck up a conversation, did the blood test. They were a perfect match. She claims this is a one in 22 million interaction to meet someone that's such a good match randomly on the beach.
Steve Seid:
There's so many amazing things about this story. First of all, the dog thing, of course, is incredible. Probably the reason that animals are 75% of our Costanza Corners. They do provide a whole lot of positivity and maybe we should treat them really good, all of them, not just dogs. Okay, I'll stop. But how about her? The lady that just volunteered for the kidney registry? Talk about a saint. Who does that? It's amazing. So many uplifting-
Kurt Dupuis:
That's crazy.
Steve Seid:
Yeah.
Kurt Dupuis:
In October of '22, they had the transplant and she finally got to go on her campervan holiday.
Steve Seid:
Mic drop. That's it. We'll see you next time. Thanks everybody.
Kurt Dupuis:
Thank y'all. You can find The Whole Truth and subscribe for free on Apple Podcast, Spotify or your favorite podcast app. We'd love it if you took the time to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. It helps others find the show. And for more episodes of The Whole Truth, go to www.touchstoneinvestments.com/thewholetruth. That's touchstoneinvestments.com/thewholeTruth, all one word.
1RIA is an acronym for registered Investment Advisor– a firm that advises clients on securities investments and may manage their investment portfolios.
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