The #1 Mistake Advisors Make

Alex Hormozy has coached thousands of entrepreneurs and reviewed thousands of business deals, and someone had asked him, what's the biggest mistake that you see business owners make? And he thought for a minute, and he said, they only study their business, not the game of business. And most advisors, including me for years, we obsess over what other advisors are doing, right? We read the same industry blogs or articles. We go to the same conferences. We listen to the same podcasts, and we focus so much on what other advisors are doing. We sometimes miss the breakthroughs happening beyond our bubble. And a lot of times, those businesses have already solved the problems that we're struggling with. When you think about it, a lot of times too, the financial services industry is often behind what a lot of other industries have already done. I did something like this about seven years ago, and I just want to share that. And I also want to share a few other ideas to get the wheels spinning about other industries that we could start applying to our own industry and to your own business this week. So seven years ago, I made the shift. I started looking at businesses outside of our industry, not just financial planning. And here's some of the best ideas that came from it. But first, this channel is to help advisors like you. If you end up liking this, please click the like button so that hopefully YouTube could spread it to other advisors and they could get help as well. And if you do that, thank you in advance. So what did I do a few years ago? Well, we needed more consistent new business. So first, I dove into this field of direct response marketing. And I started reading guys like Dan Kennedy and Gary Halbert and other internet marketing guys. And they would often sell intangible products and services just like we do. And they taught me how to communicate our value in a way that makes prospects really lean in instead of glaze over. And I learned how to write emails that people actually wanted to open and read and how to structure first meetings with prospects so that they wanted more and how to position our services, what we do for people as the obvious choice and not just another option in sameness out there. The next field I studied was other content creators that were not in the advisory space. It was like Justin Welch or Ali Abdaal or Alex Hormozy, who I mentioned earlier. And I watched how they built audiences and they created trust, and then they offered solutions. And I thought, why can't advisors do this too? Up until that point, I had thought, we don't want to give away our best stuff because then people will just implement it themselves. Well, I think that that's definitely the wrong way to think. So we started creating weekly content on LinkedIn first, and then YouTube, and we gave away our best ideas. We really wanted to serve without expecting anything in return. And then here's what happened. About a year later, we went from originally getting maybe 20 prospect inquiries a year to then it went to 30 to 40 per month. And then it continued to scale beyond that. And today, we're over 100 per month, people reaching out. And it's no paid ads, no cold calling, just valuable content that attracts our ideal clients. But here's the key. I didn't learn these strategies from other financial advisors. I learned them from studying how creators and marketers built audiences. That's really the power of studying the game of business. So you might be thinking, okay, that's great, Dave, work for you, but I don't have time to read a bunch of business books or take courses. And I get that. So here's some practical places to start that doesn't really require a massive time investment. I'd say first, start with the audio versions, audiobooks, podcasts, maybe downloading YouTube videos to listen to while you're driving or walking, doing the dishes or working out, whatever it is. It's that idea of net time, no extra time. You'd be doing this thing anyways, start to plug in and start to learn from other industries. And now these are eight places where we could study the game of business outside of the advisor industry. Number one is look at SaaS companies. So they've mastered reoccurring revenue and client onboarding. Imagine you, the software that you use, how do they make that experience so seamless? The first time you log on to get going, they make it easy. They might even make it fun. Now that's the opposite of what a lot of clients will say when they're working with an advisor the first few weeks or months. So ask yourself, how could our client onboarding feel as smooth as setting up a Netflix account or if you've ever tested Robinhood just to see what it looks like? Or what if new clients felt like they were guided and supported from day one, instead of confused about the next step? Just a few questions. Number two, join masterminds or groups that are outside the financial services industry. I'm actually in a business group where there's people who are owners of a marketing agency. There's a DTC brand, directed consumer brand, a CPA practice. One guy runs a factory and then another guy has a sales agency. And they think completely differently about scaling teams and marketing and service delivery. And it's so cool when you get someone from an outside perspective talking to you about your business. Sometimes it's not great ideas, but a lot of times it is. And it's sparked ideas that I've never had in other advisory study groups. A third thing is analyze how content creators monetize trust. So YouTubers or podcasters or newsletter writers, they're experts at building that client loyalty. And then after that, that's when they offer their solutions. So watch how they educate people first and then invite them into their paid solutions. There's a roadmap there really for your own lead generation that actually works. It's worked for us too. And this one you might not like, but look at how private equity views businesses, right? They look at it in terms of multiples and margins and systems. And even if you're not planning to sell your practice, understand how they value businesses and how they build something that's more durable and scalable. And then ask, can this business grow without the founder doing everything? That's really the question we should be asking ourselves too. The next one is observe franchise owners or observe how franchises operate. Chick-fil-A or Orange Theory or any great franchise out there, they run on playbooks and they train teams consistently. They deliver the same consistent experience every time. And they build a culture by design and not by default. So ask yourself, do we have a repeatable system or are we just winging it every time? I've got a few more to share, but let me know if this is landing with you. Hit the like button or subscribe. And then also I've got a weekly email list where I break down one strategy in 90 seconds or 120 seconds each week that you can implement that week pretty easily. So that's below, but let's get into the next one, which is another one to study is direct to consumer, Magic Spoon or Liquid Death or Morning Brew. They're masters of storytelling and email nurture and customer loyalty. Really it's studying how they do that. What's their email sequences? How do they deliver value online? And another one is related to community. And this is looking at churches and nonprofits because those organizations, they are experts at community building and vision casting and onboarding people onto a shared mission. So there's a few things to keep the, get the wheels spinning. But what I would do is have a swipe file, a place kind of a library. It's simple, but it could be powerful. Every time you see a interesting offer or a onboarding sequence or just a podcast or a YouTube video, put it into this library where you can save it and watch it or have chat GPT summarize it for you. Or screenshot stuff, bookmark stuff, put it in the folder. Over time, you've got this idea bank that you could pull from if you hit your growth ceiling or whatever the next step is for your business. And I'd love to know if anything came to mind, uh, as you were watching this, put a comment below, what are some of the things outside the industry that you like to watch? Are there any specific YouTube channels or podcasts or books, anything at all? I'd love to hear it and it'll help other people too. And here's actually an example of how we applied this to our own industry or to our own business recently. And we saw immediate results. It's called the peak end rule. And that video is here. You can watch that. I'll see you over there.