Emotional intelligence includes the ability to spend most of your client meetings listening – not talking. If that sounds like a tall order, consider this: 

Emotional intelligence is a muscle that you can train.

In this episode, Matt Halloran talks to Carl Richards, a decade-long columnist for The New York Times and creator and author of “The Behavioral Gap,” about ways to practice emotional intelligence to help you connect with and educate your clients. Carl also shares how he finds the “crunchy bits” to inspire emotionally resonant content, and his advice for any advisor who’s still “the best-kept secret” in their area.  

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About Carl Richards:

Carl Richards is a Certified Financial Planner™ and creator of the Sketch Guy column, which appeared weekly for a decade in The New York Times. Carl has also been featured on Marketplace Money, Oprah.com, and Forbes.com. In addition, Carl has become a frequent keynote speaker at financial planning conferences and visual learning events around the world.

Through his simple sketches, Carl makes complex financial concepts easy to understand. His sketches also serve as the foundation for his two books, The One-Page Financial Plan: A Simple Way to Be Smart About Your Money and The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money.

Are your marketing strategies failing to produce the results you want? Are you worried you’re wasting time and money on things that aren’t growing your business?

In this episode, Matt Halloran talks to Mary Kate Gulick from Carson Group Wealth Management. They unpack the most prominent marketing mistakes advisors are making – and what to do instead to drive new business and meet your goals.

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About Mary Kate Gulick:

Mary Kate Gulick is an award-winning marketing veteran, creative leader, content marketing pioneer, Amazon bestselling author, and WealthManagement.com’s 2022 CMO of the year. 

After years of providing game-changing creative ideas, leadership, and marketing strategy for award-winning ad agencies, Mary Kate joined IBM to lead their employment brand offering. From there, long-time client TD Ameritrade tapped her to head up brand, creative, and digital marketing for the Institutional business, where she developed a keen understanding of the needs of RIAs and independent advisors while building the company’s award-winning content marketing program and category-leading digital presence.

Now at Carson, Mary Kate heads up advisor marketing, driving lead generation, sales enablement, field marketing, and business growth.

If you’re like the advisors we know, you enjoy continuing education because it equips you to help more people. But you don’t love the time-consuming admin work that often comes with it. Or sitting through courses you don’t find valuable. 

What if you could satisfy your continuing education requirements on your own terms, and with less time required? 

In this episode, Matt Halloran has a thought-provoking discussion with John Waldron, Founder of Learnedly. They talk about more fulfilling ways to learn (unless you prefer pre-recorded webinars?), how the continuing education landscape is changing, and ways to help your clients spot the red flags of bad finfluencer advice.

John discusses:

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About John Waldron:

John Waldron is the founder of Learnedly, a digital training platform for Canadian financial professionals. With more than 20 years of experience in financial services, John has worked in the banking, securities, and investment fund sectors, as well as Canada’s largest training provider for financial professionals. 

Over the course of John’s career, he has earned several designations, including the CFP®, FMA, CIM, and CIWM. John is the author of Wealth Ed: Money Management for Ontario Teachers and served as an advisor to the Ontario Ministry of Education to integrate financial literacy into Ontario’s school curriculum. 

If you are not jumping out of bed energized every week by the work you’re doing as an advisor, chances are your time is being misallocated.

Tons of advisors develop burnout or a lack of motivation in their work at some point in their career, and our guest is here to put an end to that feeling using the power of proper time allocation.

In this episode, Matt Halloran talks to Shannon Spotswood, President at RFG Advisory, about the importance of developing a positive mindset around time allocation and its ability to completely transform the fulfillment you feel in your role as an advisor.

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About Shannon Spotswood:

Shannon Spotswood is a 25+ year industry veteran in financial services with an outstanding reputation built on leadership roles in professional management, investment banking, hedge fund management, and business development. 

Joining RFG Advisory in 2015, Shannon recognized the opportunity to combine her entrepreneurial experience with her passion to build an innovative, Advisor-focused RIA of the future. At RFG Advisory, Shannon of RFG 2.0, a fully integrated platform for independent Financial Advisors and the implementation of strategic initiatives contributing to advisor success.

While many businesses are passed down or built with inherited money, that’s not the case for what Andrew McIntosh calls the 1st Gen Entrepreneur.

First-generation entrepreneurs face more unique challenges like gaining influence, building a good reputation — and, of course, earning sales. 

In this episode, Matt Halloran talks to Andrew McIntosh, the founder of 1st Gen Entrepreneurs, about what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur without having the luxury of a fancy (and expensive) business coach. 

Andrew discusses:

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About Andrew McIntosh:

Andrew McIntosh is a serial entrepreneur who was the first in his family to start a business, or as he calls it, a 1st Generation Entrepreneur. Since Andrew grew up without any formal training/education on what it takes to properly grow a business, he always felt as though he had to learn everything the hard way, and that the road to success was filled with uncertainty and indecision.

This is why Andrew started 1st Gen Entrepreneurs, to provide new entrepreneurs like you with all the mentorship you could ever need.

Andrew has founded an online support community built specifically for 1st Generation Entrepreneurs, where you can get all the help, support & guidance you need to grow your business successfully.

As much as some advisors hate to hear it, the age of the hard sell is over.

Your prospects want a relationship, not a sales pitch. It’s time to change how you present yourself online.

In this episode, Matt Halloran talks to Samantha Russell and Susan Theder from FMG Suite about how to stop coming off as salesy and start showing up as a genuine person your prospects want to know. Samantha and Susan also predict the role that ChatGPT will play in content marketing for most advisors. 

Samantha and Susan discuss:

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About Samantha Russell:

Samantha Russell helps financial advisors create digital marketing strategies that produce exponential growth through channels such as content marketing, SEO, website development, social media, and video.

A prolific speaker and content contributor, over 10,000 financial professionals have heard Samantha speak at industry conferences and even more have read her educational content in the pages of well-known industry publications.

Samantha is Investment News 40 Under 40 award winner, a ThinkAdvisor Luminary, and a WealthManagement.com “10 to Watch”.

She was part of the original five-person team that launched Twenty Over Ten and now serves as Chief Evangelist at FMG. There is nothing Samantha finds more inspiring than being able to empower advisors to market themselves effectively, and she gets a thrill from each message received from those financial advisors who are enjoying returns on their marketing investments.

About Susan Theder:

Susan Theder is the Chief Marketing and Experience Officer at FMG Suite and a member of the company’s Senior Leadership Team. Susan places an emphasis on the importance of customer-focused strategies that leverage data and technology to deliver personalized and customized experiences that WOW. 

She has a passion for helping financial professionals grow and market their businesses and is an active supporter of women and diversity initiatives. She was named CMO of the year by WealthManagement.com in 2019 and a Women to Watch by Investment News in 2019. 

Susan currently serves on the Board of Directors for SMARSH and ComplySci, both leading SaaS/RegTech companies serving the financial services industry. 

As an advisor, you guide clients to do the right things with their money and mindset. And it’s no coincidence that the ones who listen have the most optimized wealth. 

Imagine you applied this exact same expertise to become more influential in your market…

In this episode, Matt Halloran and Kirk Lowe flip the script. They show you how to look in the mirror and take your own advice as an advisor. Matt and Kirk have some fun sharing examples of commonly used financial adages that, when applied to running a business, will make massive shifts in your influence trajectory. 

Matt and Kirk discuss:

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Imagine you could hop into a time machine and go forward 5-10 years in the financial services industry. What do you think you’d see?

In this episode, Tim Welsh, CEO and founder of Nexus Strategy, joins Matt Halloran to predict major upcoming marketing and tech trends for advisors to pay attention to. Where is the industry headed? Are advisors becoming content creators? Will all of advisors’ different tools and software ever truly  “talk to each other with integration”? Tim’s best predictions await you in this conversation. 

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About Our Guest:

Timothy D. Welsh, CFP® is President, CEO and founder of Nexus Strategy, LLC, a leading consulting firm to the wealth management industry. Nexus Strategy’s primary focus is working with leading organizations to best market their products, services and technology to the independent advisor community. 

Tim is frequently quoted in the wealth management media on a wide range of business management and industry topics. He is the author of a number of industry white papers, a regular columnist for RIABiz, ThinkAdvisor, and wealthmanagement.com, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events. 

If you’re like the advisors we know, you want to meet more of the right clients. But how?

By increasing your influence and referrals. 

In this episode, Matt Halloran talks to Bill Cates, a ProudMouth client & vetted expert in our PodRocket Influence Academy. As a referral coach, Bill has helped 250,000+ professionals and business owners experience exponential business growth by multiplying their best clients. Now, he’s sharing four proven ways to increase your influence and referrals – so you can become your ideal clients’ obvious choice. You’re about to hear success stories of advisors who are earning new business using these four techniques.

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About Our Guest:

Bill Cates, CSP, CPAE, is the President of Referral Coach International and the author of “Get More Referrals Now,” “Beyond Referrals,” and “Radical Relevance.” He is also the founder of The Cates Academy for Relationship Marketing™.

For over 25 years, Bill has helped financial professionals move from incremental growth to exponential growth by communicating more compelling value and multiplying their best clients.

Thousands of financial advisors are using Bill’s Relationship Marketing System™ to enhance client engagement, create more effective personal introductions, and communicate more relevant and compelling value. 

Between 65-70% of young inheritors leave their parents’ advisors because that advisor made little or no effort to engage with them. 

What holds advisors back? Not knowing how to connect and build relationships with the younger generation.

In this episode, Matt Halloran is joined by Julie Johnson, president and CEO of XY Communication. Leading with empathy and decades of experience, Julie shares two proven ways to start marketing to the next generation, even if you feel reluctant to discuss the wealth transfer process with your clients. She also reveals eye-opening stats about what advisors stand to lose by not having good relationships with women. Take this as your ultimate inspiration to become a safe space for all clients. 

Julie discusses:

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About Our Guest:

Julie Johnson started her career in 1996 as a rookie with Smith Barney in Denver. By

2007, she and her team managed over $1B in AUM. They moved their team and every

client, including pensions, foundations, 401k’s, family offices and ultra HNW

individuals, to UBS in the fall of 2007, and then came 2008…..

Julie was named SVP with UBS, her team received Barron’s top advisor and top team

awards during her tenure. On multiple occasions, she was invited to speak at

national conferences and consult on practice management, sales and business

development as well as relationship management.

In 2016, Julie received her Behavioral Finance Certification and began her career as a

full-time certified coach, consultant, public speaker, and author. She is engaged to

coach management, advisors and teams, and speak at such esteemed national

conferences as Barron’s and Fidelity, as well as several regional conferences, both in

person and virtually with FPA, Forbes, Morgan Stanley, Wealth Management, UBS,

Ameriprise, BNY Mellon, just to name a few.