The Perfect RIA

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**The Perfect RIA**

Welcome to The Perfect RIA podcast, the ultimate resource for advisors who want to master time management, optimize advisor-client interactions, achieve unparalleled profitability, and maximize value in their practice. Hosted by industry experts Matthew Jarvis, CFP®, and Micah Shilanski, CFP®, this podcast is your blueprint for success.

Matthew and Micah don’t talk theory; they share what has worked for them in the real world. They cut through the noise to deliver practical advice that you can implement immediately so you can make the most of your time—allowing you to spend more of it outside the office.

Whether you’re a seasoned advisor or just starting out, The Perfect RIA podcast equips you with the tools and knowledge you need to excel. Tune in and transform your advisory practice into a powerhouse of success.

Latest Episodes:

The Art of Prospecting & Time-Blocking [Episode 7] Sep 03, 2018

Show notes

Key links

Episode 2 (featuring Gina Cotner) of The Perfect RIA
Gina Cotner's website for virtual assistants: Athena Executive Services
The financial advising program that Matt was enrolled in: Academy of Preferred Advisors
The two books referenced in this episode: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell & The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
Matthew Jarvis's prospecting process

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If you are currently successful, so-so, struggling, in a down quarter, thinking about quitting or unsure of where to turn regarding your practice, Matthew Jarvis has some valuable advice to give. In this episode, he explains to fellow advisor Adam Hersh that there are a few important concepts necessary for elevating your practice to its optimal level. This is done by centering your focus on time blocking, prospecting, defining a clear client-service model, and staffing.

Because of his six years spent with Tom Gau and Ken Unger's coaching program, The Academy of Preferred Financial Advisors (APFA), Matthew learned a lot and transposed those ideas to fit his own practice. He explains that the concepts he learned while in that program helped him work with retirees, gave him ideas for how to naturally increase his network, which in turn led to robust opportunities for prospecting new clients. Also, Matthew gives Adam some good advice on prospecting potential clients and expanding his network when he suggests that he teach free college classes at the community college. The reason for this being that those who attend a three hour lecture (one with an overabundance of information) are bound to come up and ask questions after the lecture--which is a perfect icebreaker for generating a new client. Matthew also explains the importance of being a young financial advisor and being able to assure clients that you are there for the long haul, that you won't be retiring before them. He also talks a little about delegation, and how Adam should hire a virtual assistant to do some of the non-value tasks (like paperwork) that he spends so much time on. Referring back to the second episode of The Perfect RIA, he recommends Gina Cotner's platform: Athena Executive Services as an invaluable resource for this.

Finishing up his talk, he has five key takeaways that one can utilize for generating a more valuable practice: These are as follows:

Ideally, designate a day of the week which is proactively spent on just working on your business. For example, you could make this a Monday, where the phones are off the hook, and you are proactively working to generate more value for your practice.
Pick five non-value tasks to delegate or eliminate.
Read Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point
Read or reread Tim Ferriss's book The 4-Hour Workweek
Remind yourself that doing is the key to all success, and just knowing is not enough.

A Primer for Determining Your Fee Schedule [Episode 6] Aug 17, 2018

Show notes

Key Links

Math Diagram

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As the title states, this episode is all about determining a fee schedule for clients—that is, what a fair rate to charge clients for services rendered should be. Instead of making it complicated, both Matt and Micah stress over and over again that simplicity is key when it comes to your fee.

Also, just as important as simplicity, is the cost-value structure that you set up. This isn't as complicated as it seems. What is meant by cost-value structure is determined by what your goals are. If you have ambitions to keep growing your firm's revenue or assets, then keeping your prices high enough to meet that goal means that your cost-value structure has been correctly formulated.

Lastly, Matt and Micah talk about raising rates and how much the process varies over time. But one should never negotiate prices. Staying fixed, usually only rising and never falling in price, conveys that you will only keep growing. Not having a business plan and negotiating too much means that people will not take you as seriously. And that hurts your reputation and potential revenue. Do not let this happen.

Always Take the High Road [Episode 5] Aug 10, 2018

Show notes

Key Links

Book Referenced by Matt and Micah: Selling the Invisible

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"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it."

This quote from Warren Buffet frames the whole episode. And by using this as a tool for showing just how important reputation can be, hosts Matthew Jarvis and Micah Shilanski chronicle the instances in their lives where reputation has generated large ripples in one way or another.

Be it, a firm tarnishes their own reputation because of charging money for "services rendered," even though the "services" they rendered were certainly of a negative quality. Or, a treasurer for a church suffers the embarrassment of a check bouncing because of a mistake from Matt's firm. Whatever the circumstances, both Micah and Matt cut through the noise and simplify everything with four words: "Take the high road."

And it is through these four words that almost everything is made simple. By taking accountability and offering to pay penalties, or giving a client their money back because they were unsatisfied with the services provided, you keep your reputation intact. And because word of mouth travels fast, you may lose some money in the short term, but the positive reputation you gain is much more valuable.

Systems, Perspectives, and Procrastination: Business Coach John Barron's Advice for Entrepreneurs [Episode 4] Aug 03, 2018

Show notes

Key Links

John Barron's LinkedIn profile

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In this episode, John Barron shares the importance of replacing old systems with new ones. Most business owners take a plateau personally or as a sign of having mismanaged their business, but Barron says this is not true. The culprit is often that there are systems in place that are not consistent—somewhere along the way, X stopped being X and became Y instead, even though what was really needed all along was Z. Or as Barron says, "a Toyota factory can't produce a giraffe."

Perspectives are just as important as systems because if you are an entrepreneur who has been "down in the weeds," and you are suffering from tunnel vision because of it, often you need an outside agent to provide a more balanced viewpoint; a coach can help one obtain this crucial vantage point.

Procrastination can also be just as powerful a tool as well. As Matthew, the host of the podcast shares in this episode, he works more efficiently when a deadline looms near. Putting things off to the last minute actually helps him get work done at a faster rate.

The Legitimate Limitations of Speaking Financese and Legalese to Clients [Episode 3] Jul 27, 2018

Show notes

Key Links

Carl Richard's Website
Malcolm Gladwell book which profiles Tom Gau: The Tipping Point

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During the episode, host Matthew Jarvis supplies us with nine crucial rules to follow regardless of if you are an advisor, CPA, actuary, or if you are just concerned with imparting understanding and reassurance in the minds of clients. These nine rules range from the necessity of practice to the headache-inducing method of trying to shrink a whole financial plan onto a single page.

Using the metaphor of speaking a foreign language to someone who doesn't know the tongue, Matt communicates just how difficult it is for common people to understand the financial and legal nomenclature so easily referenced during consultations and financial-advising meetings with clients. He gives the advice to simplify speech, not as a tool for talking down or belittling the client, but to cover all bases during the consultation. One wouldn't talk down to an English-speaking tourist vacationing in China for not knowing a wide range of Mandarin.

Matt also draws from a lot of biographical experiences where he was forced to act as a translator because the financial experts who were involved had a hard time self-censoring the depth of the language they used. In other words, it is very easy for smart, technically-gifted people to have a hard time not using their specialized jargon—terms that would confuse the average person (of any levels of education). Matt says this confusion should not be there, and he teaches listeners of this episode how to prevent most language barriers from forming.

Inspection over Expectation: Gina Cotner on Developing the Right Dynamic for Delegation Between Executive and Assistant [Episode 2] Jul 20, 2018

Show notes

Key Links

Athena Executive Services | Website | Facebook Page

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In this installment of the Perfect RIA podcast, CEO and Founder of Athena Executive Services joins us in the studio and shares her wisdom on why hiring an executive assistant can and should be an enriching and ultimately game-changing decision in one's professional life. By giving clear-cut examples in her interview, Gina establishes the importance of "inspecting instead of expecting" results from your executive assistant. In brief, when an executive has done their due diligence and inspected adequately, then proper delegation of tasks is possible.

Gina states that once the appropriate amount of time has elapsed, and any learning curves have been superseded with mutual understanding, the investment made in an executive assistant (or a virtual executive assistant) is worth the initial time it takes to get on the same page.

And to design the correct dynamic between executive and assistant, an executive needs to truly inspect the work that is done. This means that guidelines need to be expressed clearly, and tasks explained properly. Once the input and output coalesce into a coherent whole, a very streamlined process is the outcome. And as a result, you have successfully created a mechanism that enhances the value of your enterprise and your time.

What Metrics Should Matter To Your Practice? [Episode 1] Mar 13, 2018

Show notes

There's more to life than AUM -- assets under management -- to understanding the success of you and your firm. Listen in to learn more.

Subscribe to the show and leave us your comments at ThePerfectRIA.com.

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