The Influential Advisor

094: Take Fridays Back with Stanley C. Leong

• Paul G. McManus and Gabe McManus

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0:00 | 40:12

He built a successful practice — and it was quietly destroying your life.

That's exactly where Stanley C. Leong found himself a decade ago. Making $600K in revenue, working nights and weekends, falling asleep on the floor while his daughters played around him. On paper, everything looked great. In reality, the business was running him.

Today, Stanley averages 34 hours a week, takes every Friday off, and hit $2 million in revenue last year — roughly triple what he was making when he was burning out. He's now channeling what he learned into 52 Fridays, a one-on-one coaching program he co-founded with fellow advisor Darian Tong to help other financial advisors do the same.

About Stanley C.  Leong Stanley Leong is a practicing financial advisor and co-founder of 52 Fridays Coaching. He began his career as an engineer before spending 24 years in financial services, building a specialized practice serving technology professionals. Stanley holds a $1 million minimum and runs a lean, efficient practice that he uses as a living proof of concept for everything he teaches. He trained with the Machado brothers — the same instructors who trained Keanu Reeves for the John Wick films.

What We Cover

  • How Stanley went from $600K and completely burned out to $2M working half the hours — and what actually made that possible
  • The jiu-jitsu analogy that explains why busy advisors can't grow: when you're in survival mode, you can't think strategically
  • The 52 Fridays Framework: Focus (individual efficiency), Structure (team efficiency), and Clarity (practice efficiency) — and the ~50 strategies inside them
  • Why defining a niche is the single highest-leverage efficiency move most advisors aren't making — and why it makes you more attractive even to people outside your target market
  • How a more efficient practice actually improves client experience — less falls through the cracks, and you have the bandwidth to go the extra mile
  • Stanley's journey to confidently turning away prospects who don't meet his $1M minimum — and the scripts that make those conversations work

Resources Mentioned

Connect with Stanley Leong



Claim your free audiobook copy at: www.theshortbookformula.com

Support the show

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Influential Advisor Podcast. Today I'm sitting down with Stanley Leong, a financial advisor and efficiency coach with over 24 years in the industry. Stan started his career as an engineer before transitioning to wealth management, where he built a thriving practice specializing in technology professionals. He's now the co-founder of 52 Fridays, a coaching program helping financial advisors work less and make more. In this conversation, we'll explore how Stan tripled his revenue while cutting his hours in half, the three-part framework he uses to help advisors reclaim their time, and why specializing in a niche might be the single most efficient decision you can make. Good, good. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. So I've been looking forward to our conversation today, and I'm really excited to dive into what you're doing with your company 52 Fridays to help financial advisors, I think get their life back in in many ways. So just the big picture. Actually, big picture. Tell us a little bit just who you are, a little bit about your background, and what is 52 Fridays? How do I take every Friday off? I'm taking notes for myself at this point. Yeah, perfect.

SPEAKER_01

Um yeah. So I'm a financial advisor, uh, started in 2002. I was actually an engineer before that, and then became a financial advisor, switched careers. I've been in the industry uh 24 years or so. What led me to 52 Fridays is about 10 years ago. I was doing okay for myself. I was a solo advisor, had an AFA and non-licensed staff. On paper, I looked good. I was making about$600,000 in revenue. But in reality, I was really stressed out. I was working nights and weekends, I was working during conferences, during vacations, just and always work is always on my mind. I was just really stressful. I also had two little girls at the time. And so I wasn't home as much as I wanted to be. And even when I was home, but it wasn't quality time, I wasn't fully present. At some point I just realized that this can't continue on. It's not sustainable. So I actually started just trying to do research on how do we become more efficient. I started reading books, listening to podcasts, doing some coaching programs. And fast forward to today, last year I averaged about 34 hours a week, essentially took every Friday off, which is where the name 52 Fridays came from. And perhaps most importantly, I tripled my revenue, just hit around 2 million in revenue last year. So basically tripled my revenue working half the hours I was working 10 years ago. What was interesting is I started taking every Friday off maybe about a year and a half ago. And uh a couple months into it, I started getting bored on Fridays. What I didn't think about was no one else takes Friday off. My wife is working, my kids are older, they don't hang out with me anymore. My friends are all working on Friday, so I had nothing to do. And I started thinking about maybe helping other advisors achieving what I did. And so I ended up talking to a colleague of mine, also a financial advisor. His name's Darien Tung, also a very similar practice to mine. He takes one day a week off as well. He's been in some of the same trainings and programs that I have. It turns out he was actually interested in coaching as well. So we put our heads together over the past year, started talking about how we can help others start developing a program for other advisors to go through so that they could have the same success we did. And 52 Fridays was born.

SPEAKER_00

I I love what you said about you realize that you achieved the dream. Probably most people listening to this, myself included, every Friday off, that's fantastic. And then you realize once you've achieved it, wait a minute, everyone's working.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. And so now I'm gonna now I'm using these Fridays to help with the coaching. I was talking to some other coaches and they were joking that I actually failed because now I think it comes down to optionality and choice, right?

SPEAKER_00

Because as you said, when you're working too many hours essentially, not because you want to, but because you feel forced to do it and you're not able to be present for vacations and your family and everything else, and that's not a good lifestyle. As long as it's by choice, then it's purpose-driven. Um let's unpack that a little bit more. You said this was 10 years ago.

Burnout Signals And Family Costs

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, about 10 years ago. One of the things I remember uh clearly now in hindsight, that one of the few things that started me on this track was my wife actually came to my office once, I forget why, but she had coming off, she was doing work in the conference room, and she but she could hear me talking to my staff or my clients. And at the end of the day, she was like, At work, you talk twice as fast as you talk at home. And I never think, of course, I never didn't realize it, but thinking that's weird. I started paying attention more. And I really, when I was at work, I was talking really fast, and I started to realize it's because when I'm at work, time was scarce, right? I was so busy, I was working nights and weekends. Anytime I could save a minute, I wanted to. When the talking fast was just this result of me just constantly stressed about time. I remember that was the first sign that things weren't going like I wanted it to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. No, I think it's so common. I'm I'm actually in the process of writing a new book that mirrors a lot of that, where it's I call it the success track, where someone builds a practice and they're successful from the outside where good revenue and all those things. But if you can't enjoy life, if you can't enjoy the fruits of your labor and it causes the stress and health problems for many, then it's is that really successful?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, that's that's exactly where I was too. It was uh to call it victim of your own success. Yeah. But then that's that much more time I have to spend servicing the clients, and then all of a sudden you're just running around putting fires out all day.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's hard because I think this comes down to identity and vision and choices that we make. What are some of those? You mentioned your wife, and just the comment that she made. What are some of those, if you think back to that time, what are some of those early insights or indicators that got you to essentially decide to pursue a different path or to find a better path for yourself?

SPEAKER_01

I know another one was, and I'm sure everyone deals with this when they had little kids, is I have two little girls and I get home later than I'd want to. Almost every, and I know a lot of people struggle with this. I tell my wife, okay, yeah, I'll be home at six, and eight o'clock I get home every time. And then I had some time to play with the girls. You lie down on the floor and you're playing with whatever figures, and before you know it, you're just completely asleep. And my girl's like playing on top of my body. And that happens so many times. And I was like, Yeah, that's not good. I'm not like being involved in their life. And so that was definitely a sign that I something had to change. And then another one, too. This was when I right around when I was starting the journey of becoming more efficient. I was listening to Kisses had just come out with his podcast where he interviews financial advisors, and one of the early ones with was with Matthew Jarvis. And he had a practice that was a little ahead of mine. He was making a little more revenue. He was talking about how he had didn't have much his practice looked very similar to mine, uh, staff-wise. He was taking, I don't know, half the year off and he had this lifestyle type practice. I remember just thinking, you can do that. I had no idea that was a thing. I just thought you grew your practice and then you hired more people, and then they took on your junior clients, and then you work up your way up. And before you had you have this huge enterprise practice with the 20 advisors under you and that type of thing. And I didn't even realize you could do have a lean, efficient practice like that. When I heard that, I was like, wow, that's that sounds like something I want. So I know that was definitely a big motivating step to keep it.

SPEAKER_00

Do you find that for the advisors that you work with that do many of them lean towards wanting to build more of that enterprise practice, or do they prefer to build more of a lifestyle practice? Or just what's your take in terms of other advisors?

SPEAKER_01

I think most advisors, especially that are a little more experienced, I think they're like me in that they either don't realize or just haven't considered a practice that that can be efficient and you can actually have a real life and really enjoy your life while you have the practice. Because the enterprise practice is really the traditional route of growing a business. And so I feel like most advisors I talk to have they may know that it exists, but never really thought about it for them. Or if they did, they just didn't know how to go about it. I do think I do hear younger advisors, especially in the independent space, they tend to know that there's the things that are called lifestyle practices and they tend to be more a little more open, open or realize that's an option for them.

SPEAKER_00

I remember my very first financial advisor client, this is back in 2016. His name was Shane Walls, and he like lived the epitome of a lifestyle practice. He, and this is before COVID, but he had no office, he worked from home, did it on Zoom, made super high income, had no staff, no employees, was traveling all the time. And I could tell just back then, this is about 10 years ago, that everyone they're like just amazed and jealous about what he was able to establish for himself. Because to your point, I just I think the traditional models, hey, we all want to grow, right? But it's like there's you can make choices in terms of how you grow. And if at the end of the day you're stressed and aren't able to enjoy the fruits of your labor, then is that really success?

Lifestyle Practice Versus Enterprise Growth

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I'd say too, the uh one technology has made it easier for sure. Um but also the it's I know sometimes I think life's the term lifestyle practice is starting to almost be a bad word now. Okay. And I you know, obviously it just depends on what you want practice. And I just maybe just point out that it doesn't have to be one extreme or the other, it's just a balance in between. I would consider my practice not really a pure lifestyle. I'm still growing, I'm still I still have equity in the business. I am still making a lot of decisions for the growth of the business rather than just for my lifestyle. But I definitely have more of a lifestyle practice than the folks that are just going pure enterprise trying to build this 20 advisors under them type of practice. You can choose, of course. It's I think sometimes we just get focused on it has to either be lifestyle or where you're traveling all the time, everything's virtual, and you have no equity, but you're taking all the income versus an enterprise where you have no life, you're not actually making much money because it's all going in the business, and you sell it, you can sell it for billions of dollars. There's you can land anywhere in between as well.

SPEAKER_00

Definitely. And out of curiosity, why does lifestyle practice have a negative connotation?

SPEAKER_01

Uh I think it's gotten, I think because it's gotten a little more popular, especially in an independent space, it's become, oh, you're just trying to make as much money now at the sacrifice of not having anything in the future. It almost feels selfish in that you're just enjoying your life, but then you don't care about the business. It's so weird. It's oh, you're enjoying your life. Shame on you, right? I know, I know, exactly, exactly. Yeah, I don't I it shouldn't have a negative connotation.

SPEAKER_00

What's fascinating though is that during this time of making this transition, you optimized for quality of life, I'll call it. And at the same time, if I heard you correctly, you tripled your business and at the same time. You must know something that the rest of us don't know because in my mind, so I'm gonna optimize for a lifestyle means I'm gonna maybe not be as ambitious in my business. But it sounds like you've done both at the same time. You've grown your business and you've increased the quality of your life. Tell us more about that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think that's what makes our program a little unique from others. The our tagline is work less, make more. And so the main is the make more part is essentially what most coaches focus on. And we do too. Like you said, ultimately the objective of most financial advisors is to grow their business. We do believe, just like I've done, you can make more by working less. So the work less part actually causes you to make more. It's not just one or the other. Advisors that work with us, they can expect to go home earlier, have less stress, have more quality time with family, or take more vacation and feel better when they are at work, be more productive, but at the same time, do that without sacrificing the growth. Anyone can take Friday off and make 20% less in revenue. The idea is to take Friday off or whatever it is you want to do, but continue to grow the revenue and in fact grow the revenue even faster than you were before when you were really busy. And I know it sounds counterintuitive.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, that was my question. That's counterintuitive, right? I work less and I make more. Okay, it sounds good as a catchy title, but you've lived this, you've done this. How is that possible?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So at a high level, I think I'll pull a jujitsu analogy here. One of the things that you learn in jiu-jitsu is when you're fighting someone, and it's jujitsu is grappling, right? And so when you're essentially wrestling with someone, the things you're supposed to think about are what does your technique look like? What are they doing to you? And how do you defend against that? Where is your center of gravity? Where are your arms and legs compared to your torso? All these type of things. But I remember the first week, month, even year of doing jujitsu, I'd learned all this stuff. And then you start fighting someone, and all of that goes out the window. I'm not thinking about any of that when I'm fighting someone. I'm thinking of one thing and one thing only, and that's just to survive. You have some guy that's trying to choke you out, trying to break your arm or dislocate your shoulder. But all I can think about is survival, right? I don't have the luxury of thinking about, oh, how is my technique looking right now when someone's trying to kill you? I just want to not die, basically. And so I think a lot of financial advisors are in that similar survival state of mind with their business. Just like you said, victim of their own success, they're making more money, they're bringing on more clients, but then that means more time in the business. And all of a sudden, they're just trying to keep the business afloat. And when you're in that kind of survival mode, you don't have the luxury of thinking about, oh, I wonder how I can bring more value to my clients this month, or how do I make this process a little more efficient so my practice runs smoother? You're just trying to keep the business afloat and put out all the fires. Fast forward the clock to the day. Now that my business is efficient, I'm working less. Now I have time to think of those things. And in fact, that's all I think about. When I every day I go to work, the first thing I think about is how can I provide more value to my clients? And that's not something I could think about 10 years ago when I was just running around trying to keep the business afloat. So I think the working less part helps you make more, if only because when you work less, you can now focus on the things that really matter and that have meaningful change to your practice.

SPEAKER_00

I totally agree and seen that in my own life, and I think that's really wise. I need you to share this is that you mentioned jujitsu a a moment ago. And my understanding is that you have been trained by the same person that trained John Wick. Yeah, yeah. Tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01

I I yeah, I don't train with them regularly, but I did go to a camp essentially that they were running the Machado brothers, who were the same folks that trained Keanu Reeves for the John Wick movies, and I got to train with them for a week or so, which is awesome. It's amazing. These guys are killers. And they're just like the nicest people ever. They're so humble, they're so nice, they're just the greatest people. So it was a cool thing to experience.

SPEAKER_00

How are you seeing AI impact what you do as a financial advisor, as well as how it can potentially enable and empower financial advisors to become more efficient? What are you seeing in terms of AI, whether it's in your own financial advisory practice or in the work that you do with other financial advisors to coach them?

Work Less Make More Explained

SPEAKER_01

I think AI is going to be a big, big contributor to efficiency for practice. I think we're still just on the beginning side of that. I'm still learning myself on how to use it most efficiently. There's a lot of little things that definitely I know advisors and I'm using right now, but many of things you people may have heard of before, just helping you write emails. I have a million-dollar minimum for my financial advisory practice. And sometimes folks will email me and want to work with me. And I've always had trouble. How do I write an email back that's like nice and not, oh, you don't have enough money to work with me type of attitude. But at the same time, make pointing out that I do have the minimum. And I have been so foolish for that. I just ask it like the first try, hey, I have this situation, and it just writes such a great email that's it's not knobby. So things like writing emails, of course. Some of our forms, in order to put a trust into our system, we need to know who are the trustees. Do they have the ability to do this? Do they have the ability to do that? Can they do they both have to sign something, or can one just sign independently? Now instead of reading through the trust document, I can just just use AI to look it over and AI answers all those questions for me. I can so little things like that, I think, help with the individual productivity efficiencies. I think where AI can really benefit is more on the strategic side, trying to help figure out how you should market the direction of your business, how to integrate new tools in an effective way. I feel like those in the future is where they'll have the really the biggest impact.

SPEAKER_00

ASFAS thinning and it's how do we gain the efficiencies and also add more value at the same time? Because I think there's always going to be a human factor. We need to evolve as professionals to make sure that we're calibrating correctly so that we're able to increase the level of service and so that our clients still see us as valuable to them and at the same time leverage it for all the things that it can do so well. I always tell myself that today's the worst it's gonna ever be. And it's already pretty amazing. We were talking earlier, it can get frustrating at times if it doesn't do it perfectly. It's like but at the same time, today's the worst it's ever gonna be, and it's gonna only get better. So it's how do we effectively integrate it into what we do so that we can, I think, free our own time up even more as well as provide more value to the people that we serve. Yeah, absolutely. Share some details. Someone wants to learn more, they're interested. What are some of the things that they can expect or who's a good fit for it? Share some details of it with us.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we've actually created a framework for what we call the 52 Fridays framework. And there are essentially three objectives that we think you should try to achieve in order to become the most efficient practice you can be. The first is focus, the second is structure, and third is clarity. So it's all revolved around those three objectives. Focus is essentially individual efficiency. The more focused you can be, essentially the more work you can get done in the smallest amount of time. And so these are like productivity efficiencies, time management, having a model week, managing your email so it doesn't distract you too much, those type of things. Again, trying to get as much done as you can in the shortest amount of time, that's what focus is for. Uh, creating structure in your practice is what we call the team efficiency. So structure allows teams to work together much better, much more efficiently. If you don't have any structure, everyone just doing their own thing, it's really tough to coordinate. Uh, but if you have a really good structure in your practice, then teams work very efficiently. I think of it like a well-rolled machine. Everyone plays their part and the practice is very efficient. And then the third part is clarity, and that's the practice efficiency. So I think of these sometimes like a CEO type of decision, being clear on who is your target market, what is your value proposition, what is your client service model, fee structure, all those things. The clearer you can be on those things, the more efficient your practice overall just becomes. And so it's really focused around those three objectives. And then within each of those focus, structure, and clarity, we have a whole bunch of strategies and areas that we help our advisors with. I think I last count was like 50 different things between three of them that we help advisors achieve so that they can achieve those three objectives.

SPEAKER_00

And how do you help them achieve them? Group coaching is the one-on-one coaching?

SPEAKER_01

It's one-on-one coaching. It's our main structure. Our general structure is the first month. There are three one-on-one coaching sessions, second month is two, and then every month thereafter it's uh once a month. And then we we're happy to have coaching sessions with staff as well as needed.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. I think what we all face, right, is that we can have an idea about what we need to do, but the reality is that we don't do it. I think the accountability is a huge piece.

AI Tools That Buy Time Back

SPEAKER_01

The reason we like one-on-one coaching, absolutely accountability is a big part of it. But I say the other one too is just being able to get in there and helping our advisors implement on those things. When it comes to efficient, what at least for me, what I found is once you start realizing this efficiency thing works, you're excited to do it because you you want more time back and you're motivated to do some of those things. Some of them, especially the clarity ones, the more practice level efficiencies, sometimes take time to really implement and to see results. And over time we lose willpower and sometimes lose motivation. And so it's nice to have one-on-one coaching for that. Also, there are some good group coaching programs out there that also focus on efficiency. I've been a part of some of them, Limitless Advisors with Stephanie Bogan, and then I was with CEG with John Bowen for a couple of years as well. Both are incredible programs. So I highly recommend them for anyone that would be interested in that type of forum. But they are group programs, like you said. So group programs are a little bit more classroom programs in the sense that you learn a whole bunch of different ways to make your practice more efficient. But then it really is on you to figure out which one of those actually apply to your business and which will be most effective. And then it's on you to actually go in and figure out how to execute it. Whereas at the one-on-one coach, one, I'll note your business inside and out. So I'll be able to not only teach you what to do, but also know which one of those will be effective, which one should we work on first versus last. And then again, I'm an advisor, Darien is an advisor. We're both currently practicing advisors, so we're in the trenches with the advisors that we coach. We can go in and really help them execute on it as well.

SPEAKER_00

I think most people understand the reality that there's information is abundant, especially with AI. Now I can go and get a million different frameworks, but I don't know which one is good for me. There's no context. I'm not going to follow through. I think having that personal accountability is huge to actually make change in your life. I think without it, it becomes a good idea, but it doesn't get executed. I think what you're offering is very valuable.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Also add that the uh just in my journey of becoming more efficient, again, those group programs are great. Both Limitless and CG were instrumental in helping me get more efficient. But I feel like that was what was missing. If I had a one-on-one coach that was an advisor that had implemented all these things already and could help me implement those things and execute, I would have gotten to where I am a lot faster than I did.

SPEAKER_00

And the bottom line is that we're talking about people that are stressed out because they're too busy. And so what they need is to save time. Who is the ideal fit for your program? Is there a range in terms of the type of advisor where they're currently out of their business?

SPEAKER_01

I would say at a high level, anyone looking for more efficiency we can help with. I think we would really have the biggest impact are folks that just feel like the practice is running them and not the other way around, that just feel like they don't have enough time to get everything they want to get done, or they would just like to spend more time at home or vacation or whatever. And then also if you're really stressed out, one of the biggest side effects of becoming more efficient is just my stress level is so much less now. Yeah, I've even had clients that are also good friends and tell me, hey, you look you're definitely a lot less stressed than you were back in the day. And if the clients notice that, I imagine even the clients that didn't say anything, they probably noticed somehow. If you're really stressed out about work, you're spending long hours, you could the business is controlling you instead of the other way around. I mean, that's where we have the biggest impact.

SPEAKER_00

Most importantly, what does your wife now think about this? So going back 10 years where she noticed that you talked twice as fast at the company to now, roughly 10 years later, what's her impression of her husband?

SPEAKER_01

She definitely sees I'm more relaxed and now she gives me more stuff to do at home. I'm not sure that's good or bad.

SPEAKER_00

Is there any question that I haven't asked you that you think would be important for our audience to know?

SPEAKER_01

One thing just to mention is I do everything that we recommend are things that we ourselves have implemented. So we're not just recommending something we read about or something. These are all things we've been through ourselves. So we can we've been through the trial and error. And so our advisors don't have to go through that. That's a big part of our value add.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's huge, right? Like I think at the end of the day, it's who do you trust? And you want someone who's actually, it's not theoretical. It's like, yeah, there's some principles on how to grow your practice, but no, this person's actually done it. They were where you're at, they've reached the result, and you're mentoring them from hard-earned wisdom and experience.

The 52 Fridays Framework

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Let's see. Another one, just some things I hear about when I talk about this. One is people are afraid that working less will then cause the client experience to be less valuable. Less you're not providing as much service and that type of thing. But similar to the work, let's make more part. It is the opposite. The less you work, the more efficient you are. It's actually a much significantly better client experience. One, less fostered the crowd, right? When you're efficient, you have good systems in place, then the less things get forgotten, less things foster the crowd. Remember, I bought a used car many years ago, and it was at this kind of shady place. And we go in and we found the car we wanted, and we sit at his the guy's desk. His name was Gino. We have this godfather picture on his wall in his office. And his desk is just piles of paper. Yeah. And he's okay, we're gonna need to sign one of these forms here. And he's like looking under things, okay, here it is, and sign this. And that just did not give me a really good feeling. Completely disorganized. I have no idea. Didn't seem like he knew what he's doing. And so clients don't want to see that. But if you're organized, I maybe another example is when you go to the mechanics. I I uh I used to ride motorcycles, and uh, when I bought a motorcycle on the ride, there was a mechanic I'd go to just to see is this motorcycle okay to reuse. And he'd take a look at it and be like, yeah, it looks good, or oh, we need to do this, whatever. And so I didn't think much of it. And then he left or something. I went to a new one later on. I got a new motorcycle. And this mechanic had a whole list of, I don't know, 50 things that he checked off as he went through, right? Said, Oh, these look good. Oh, this one you might want to look at this, that type of thing. And just the fact that he had a list made me feel so much better. Wow, this guy's organized. This guy knows. The first I may have, but he didn't have a list. And so you don't really know. But just the fact that the other person was more organized just made me feel more confident. So I think that's a better client experience when the clients see that you're really organized, that you have really good systems in place, that you're consistent and the experience is more consistent. The other thing that I've experienced too, again, just myself, is because you're less stressed about time, you can focus more on the client experience. When I was really stressed out back 10 years ago, even when I met with clients, like the back of my head is like, all right, we need to wrap this meeting up because I have a ton of stuff to do and I don't have enough time to do it. If we can get the meeting done early, even better, I've had that extra time. And one thing, for instance, just as a small example, I I'd help my clients rebalance their 401k at work. What I do is that I create a nice looking table and say that this percent goes into this much, this percent goes this much, and I give it to them, be like, hey, okay, go to your 401k on your own time, not on my time, on your own time, go to your 401k. Here's how you should do it. And I gave them instructions on how to do it. But there was no way I was going to do that with him because I was so short on time that if we go online, they're gonna have to do the two-factor authentication, and the text isn't gonna come, and they're gonna forget their password, and all this time is taken up. But now every single client I offer to do it because I'm not worried about the time part. And so now every single client, I when it's time to rebalance your 4K, I say, hey, let's go in and rebalance your 40K. We can do it right now on the team's call, just share your screen, go with them. And they really appreciate it. I hadn't realized it until I started doing that. They really appreciate it. Even the clients that are tech savvy, I work with technology professionals, they know how to do it. But just the fact that I'm doing it with them just gives them that peace of mind. They're not doing it wrong. All the fun sound the same and they're afraid they're gonna mix it up. And so my client experience is so much better than it was back when I was busy, if only because now I really have the time to just always in the meetings, there's always in the back of my head I'm thinking, how can I provide more value? How can I provide more value? And so the client experience is so much better now that I'm less stressed out.

SPEAKER_00

Those are excellent examples. And just from my own experience, I can completely see agree and just say it's so true. Just in my own words, once you get it out of your head and there's a process that whether you follow it or a team member follows it, but the client sees that there's a process, it gives them that much more confidence, you're able to deliver that much more consistently. And then just to your final point, when you're not stressed out yourself and you have more time, you can actually be more present with your clients and do some of the extra things, like you said, that it's just it's small, but it goes a long way in terms of that. So very smart observations.

Better Systems Create Better Service

SPEAKER_01

Yep. Yeah. And then one of the things I did want to point out too, just I know something you'd appreciate as well, is I do get asked something like what's the one thing I should do first to make my practice more efficient. And that's so I guess maybe first I'll point out that, as I mentioned, there's like the 50 things that we can help with. And I don't know if you read Atomic Habits. Yeah, he has that story about the UK cycling team, and the coach came in. The UK cycling team was terrible, the coach comes in, and his whole philosophy is just marginal improvement, right? Just get one percent better at a bunch of little things. And though each one of those things is insignificant, is almost seems trivial, but then in aggregate, it makes a big difference. It was like brought in a sleep specialist just to help have their sleep better, right? Teach them how to wash their hands, right? So they're less likely to get sick, those type of things. And all of a sudden they win the Tour de France and they win gold medals in the Olympics and so forth. It's very similar with all those 50 things. Even if you just get a little bit better in each one of those things, it can make a really significant difference. So there's no silver bullet of one thing that'll just suddenly you can take Fridays off and grow your business. But I would say if there was one thing that I see a lot that is relatively easy to change, but have a big impact, is just become having an ideal, defining an ideal client and then becoming a specialist in that client, that type of client. So I know you work with financial advisors, right? So that's your specialist. I do the same thing. I work with technology, high network technology professionals, and I've implemented that myself. Once you do that, as I'm hoping you've experienced it, it's everything becomes so much easier. How to market, how to create your client service model, everything just becomes so much easier and so much more efficient. Uh, a lot of advisors shy away from that. I think a big part of it is because they're afraid they're going to exclude some people that might be good clients. Otherwise, one thing to point out is just that one, you don't have to exclude them as clients. I still take on clients that are not in my target market. So you don't have to necessarily exclusively just work with your target market. You can if you want, but that's not something you have to do. You can also make the target market as broad or as narrow as you want. Even if you say I specialize in finance and retirement planning, that's still pretty much everyone, but it still separates you. It's still something that can help you make you more efficient because then you can focus on that with your practice, client service model. And if I'm looking for an advisor and you say you're specializing in retirement planning and this advisor doesn't have a specialty, I I'll else being equal. I like the retirement specialist better. And then the other thing I think is they're sometimes afraid the prospects will be turned off if they're not in that target market. And my experience has been the opposite as well. When you specialize, you actually look better even to someone not in your target market. The example I use, when I moved first moved out here to California, I didn't know anyone. I had to get a new health plan and got a new doctor. I just got randomly assigned a doctor. And when I looked her up, she specialized in working with athletes in sports medicine. And I'm not an athlete. I play around a little bit, but I'm not an athlete by any means. And but the fact that she specialized in athletes, I was like, wow, she's that much better than the regular doctor. She's definitely good enough for me if she can work with athletes. It put her in higher esteem, the fact that she specialized, even though I wasn't the target market. I think that's the same idea. I have that happen. I've gotten in conversations in if someone asks, Oh, what do you do? And I said, Oh, I financial planners specialize in working with technology professionals. This person is not a technology professional. And then they'll ask, Oh, I'm not a technology professional, but yeah, is that can you help me out too? And in my head, I'm thinking, I just said that I don't work with people. Or I just said I work with people that are not you. And now you want me to so I think it it actually just the fact that you specialize makes you look better than the generalist, even if that person's not in your specialty.

SPEAKER_00

A number of really smart points there. One is that it creates a constraint, right? Because and this is just focus, because if you're thinking, okay, I can work with everybody, that makes it incredibly difficult to know where to show up, where to market. And the impact is that it's very diluted. You sound like everybody else. What you do is very inefficient in terms of return on investment. It's kind of like the idea of small pond, big fish versus small fish, big ocean. And if you say like yourself, it's like I work with technology professionals. Now you've defined it, you've created a constraint around this. And so now you can show up in a bigger way, and it just makes it that much easier for any marketing you do becomes that much more efficient. It makes it much easier for the people to refer you. And to your point, it's that it's almost like I would jokingly say it's almost like the takeaway, meaning that oh, I work for these people, and so now the person who's not a technology professional sees that you're not trying to sell to them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

So now they're interested. Where you'd be like, Oh, I help people, everyone, you know, are you interested? They're like, No, get away. Exactly. And I think there's so many different psychological factors going on there. And what I found in my own business is that I got an idea of or I learned about the idea of target market back in 2014. I studied my mentor at the time, it was a guy named Michael Port. He wrote a book called Book Yourself Solid. And that was one of those ideas I just really latched on to. And so the past decade, I worked with financial advisors, and it's just such a good constraint because we're always tempted to say, Oh, I can help these people, I can help these people, but it would just create so much more work and effort, and you would get lower ROI on your time because now you just sound like everybody else. And the funny thing though is that you get you still get other people come to you, oftentimes through referrals, but just as you said, usually it's couched in, oh, would you be willing to take on someone? I'm not in that audience, but I'd like I'm interested in the service, and they start coming to you. It's beautiful.

Why A Clear Niche Wins

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. And then that actually I was going to mention too, along those similar lines, one of the side effects of it is it's so to me, at least it's so much less stressful once I specialize. If only because again, you're at the dinner party, the social gathering. I remember back in the day when I first started as an advisor, right? We take anyone what we used to joke, Brady, if you could fog a mirror, you could be a client, right? And so it it was uh it was stressful. Even when it was I was at a social gathering or in line at the DMV or whatever, everyone could is a possible prospect. And so anytime I got in a conversation with anyone, part of me is oh, make sure I say the right thing and make brush up on my elevator speech, all that stuff. Uh, and then you say you're a financial advisor and they back away. Now I'm at a gathering and someone asks what I do. I say I'm a financial planner, I specialize working with technology professionals. Like I said, if they're not a technology professional, they're like, Great, because they know I'm not selling to them. There's no weirdness, there's no awkwardness. I don't feel like I have to say the right thing, and that's everything's great. And then, like you said, because you take it away from them, sometimes they're like, Oh, maybe you can help me. And then if they are a technology professional, that's actually even better. Because now you specialize in what they do, they're then they're actually really interested. They're oh, how do you do that? Even if they might not want to be a client, oh, how do you do that? Well, I didn't know that people specialize in what I am. It's just even just from a social gathering standpoint, it's so much less stressful when I can just say that. But the client experience, I was going to mention to tie back to that. When you specialize, the client experience is so much better, right? For that target market. If you're a generalist, now I have to know every rule about every retirement plan, about small business owners, about every I have to know everything about everything. Whereas I work with technology professionals, that's my specialty. I just have to be really good and know how technology professionals work or what are the issues that they have. And I can do that. I can be an expert, I can get brush up my knowledge on one thing really well. Whereas if I have to know everything about everyone, that's not a very efficient practice.

SPEAKER_00

It's not efficient, and I also find in terms of efficiency, it's your ability to essentially convert someone from a prospect to a client. Yeah. Is that at the end of the day, it's about trust, right? The person's looking for signals that can I trust this person? Is this a good choice? And if the person, if you speak their tribal language, as I call it, and you can demonstrate very easily and quickly that you understand them, their context, their world, the things that are important to them. And you do this through conversation and stories and clients, people like to know that you work with people just like them. And so it's um testimonials or references, whatever it is, it makes the the sales process so much easier. And it makes it where it's actually enjoyable in the sense that you can go into a call knowing that more likely than not, this person's going to say yes and want to work with me versus the struggle. It's like, how do I convince someone to that I'm a good choice, et cetera?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Correct.

SPEAKER_00

One thing that you mentioned I want to just touch on is that you now have a million dollar minimum, which I think is fantastic. And it just, I think it it shows your confidence in what you do. I think it's also supported by the clients that you work with, et cetera. Can you share any tips or insights in terms of just your own journey of where you were maybe just years ago to now confidently turning down people? You said it, right? It's like before I've been saying if you can fog a mirror, you're a client. Whereas now you're literally turning people down if they don't have a million dollars to move to you.

Minimums Scripts And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01

I would say of all the strategies that we help with, perhaps the toughest one is the part where either you have to turn down prospects or if you choose to, you want to trim down your client base. And so you have to reassign some of the lower qualified clients. From an emotional standpoint, that is definitely the toughest ones. And I'm again, I can totally relate to it. I've had to do it myself. I've gone through several rounds of it and I've done the right things, I've done the wrong things. But we'll say there is, it's never the easiest thing, but there are easier ways to do it. You want to make sure you do it in a way that's that's respectful of them and that they don't feel like they're getting turned off. The last thing you want is like a bad review, or someone feel like they they've been jaded. I'm to the point now where I've got pretty good scripts, I have systems in place where it's a pretty easy conversation now. Not only am I reassigning or especially a prospect coming in, they don't have a million dollars, not only am I turning them down, but they actually appreciate that I spent time with them. And so it just has to be put in the right way, put in the right frame of mind, frame of reference, the right perspective. But there are ways you can do it that's good for both you and the prospect. And the prospect actually is very appreciative that you're very open with them and that I always try to help them. They don't qualify for me to working with me. I always either reassign another advisor or at least give them next steps to take. Always try to take make them feel like they're taken care of by me, even if they're not working with me. I think if you do it in that manner, uh it it can be done without turning without offending anyone.

SPEAKER_00

Which again goes back to you have time to think, you have time to do things right, you have time to have standards that you're benefiting from all of that.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

A lot of trial and error with that one too. But I think I figured it out now.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Where can people find you? What's the best way for someone to learn more about you?

SPEAKER_01

They can go to my website, fifty twofridayscoaching.com. It's the number 52, and then the word FridaysCoaching.com. And there's information on the site on how we work, the 52 Fridays framework, the focus structure clarity framework is on there as well with our menu of services. And then if they'd like a free consultation, they can always just email me at stan at fifty twofridayscoaching.com.

SPEAKER_00

Perfect. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, thanks, Bob. I enjoyed it as well.