Many of the efforts advisors undertake fail before they reach the finish line—and it’s not because of flawed strategies. Too often an advisor lacks the commitment to follow through on what’s required to achieve the objective.
On this Elementality, Abby and David DeCelle, of Model FA, talk about your need for commitment and consistency as you build a business. As an advisor, commitment and consistency are two of the most powerful tools you have. They build the confidence you need for success. Prospects rely on a predictable flow of information from you as you try to establish your expertise. To gain their trust, your clients need to know you will do the things you say you are going to do.
Podcast Transcript
David DeCelle:
Good habits create good habits, so we’re trying to create those good habits on the onset so that the other things that we bring up on the go forward basis get integrated and you stay consistent with it, because it doesn’t matter what referral methodology you subscribe to, If you don’t do it consistently, you’re not going to get results if you do it for a month or two and you’re like, Oh, it’s not working, and then you immediately switch, you never give it time to mature and bear that fruit on the back end. So what we’re trying to teach is making sure that you’re someone that can call themselves consistent, so that when you choose to implement something, you’re consistent with that implementation and you give yourself enough time to reap the rewards on the back end.
Jordan Haines:
Welcome to Elementality. Each episode, we will explore the challenges and the opportunities faced by financial advisors and how advisors can use elements to grow their business and serve their clients better. We hope you enjoy this episode.
Abby Morton:
Welcome to Elementality, everyone. Today, I’m your host, Abby Morton here with David DeCelle from Model FA. Welcome David.
David DeCelle:
Hey Abby, thanks for having me on, and it was also nice to meet you at the Riskalyzed Conference last fall, which I guess now will be the nitrogen conference moving forward.
Abby Morton:
I know.
David DeCelle:
But always good to put a face to the name in person.
Abby Morton:
Yes. Yeah, it’s so nice to meet you. I’ve actually known Model FA for a while back in my dentist advisor’s days, we reached out to potentially work with you guys, and I was always really impressed with what you guys did, and so as I was looking for a guest to have on the show, Model FA was definitely top of my list because I think you guys provide some really unique services for advisors, so why don’t we start there, what is Model FA and what services do you provide for advisors?
David DeCelle:
Yeah, so Model FA, we are a consulting and marketing company for advisors, and our clients range from the individual advisor, kinda, solo practice, maybe 25 to 75 million in AUM, up to the ensemble style practices where maybe the advisor has a small team from like 100 to 300 million in assets, and then we partner up with larger firms that have a billion to 15 billion in assets, and effectively we plug in with the advisor or with that firm as either their fractional CMOs or their factional Chief Business Development Officer. So what that means is, a lot of advisors got into this business to do just that, be advisors, and maybe they’re not marketing experts or maybe they don’t get energy from putting together a marketing plan, so we do that for them, ranging from strategy to the fulfillment of the ideas that we come up with.
David DeCelle:
And then on the consulting side or our coaching side, whatever you wanna call it, helping advisors grow so ranging from helping elevate the client experience, to getting more referrals from their clients, to perhaps developing a better center of influence, COI network of other professionals that they can send business to and get business from, and then overall just quite frankly, a lot of what we do is just holding advisors accountable to doing what a lot of them already know they need to do, but, and I think we’ll get into that topic here, shortly, but for one reason or another, aren’t overly consistent with those actions, so there’s something to be said about exchanging a decent amount of money for accountability, you tend to actually do the things that you’re supposed to do compared to if you weren’t exchanging money for that, so I’d like to say that we have some of the best tips and tricks and tactics and proprietary things, but the reality is, is the things that we help with aren’t necessarily ground-breaking, they’re effective, but they’re not groundbreaking. But a lot of the value comes from making sure that you’re doing the things that you know you should be doing.
Abby Morton:
Yeah, wow. Really a wide range of services that you’re providing. Do you think more people come to you for business coaching versus marketing, or do you think it’s pretty equal?
David DeCelle:
That’s a good question, I would say. So it certainly depends. I think that a lot of advisors reach out to us for something specific, be it, I wanna increase client referrals or I’m thinking about launching a podcast, ’cause we do podcast fulfilment for advisors as well. So they come to us for something specific, but as we get to know them, the relationship with them evolves over time, so Model FA in its current form, and when I say current form, we rebrand it about five years ago from Brewer consulting, my business partner, Patrick Brewer, we re-branded to the Model FA, and in its current form, like 85, maybe 90% of our clients haven’t left because the relationship continues to evolve over time, and if there’s still an exchange of value that meets or exceeds whatever their investment of money is in us, why should we stop? So as we get to know the Advisor, as we get to know their business, we’re able to uncover other opportunities within the business that we’re able to help with, so we’ve helped folks ranging from the things I’ve already listed off to even little things like properly segmenting their clients.
David DeCelle:
We’ve helped them implement the EOS system within their business, we’ve helped them with their social media content and generating leads on LinkedIn, we’ve helped them with increasing the value of their business, creating standard operating procedures, so a lot of times they come to us for one main thing, whatever that biggest pain point is or the largest opportunity in front of them, and then once we have the relationship and we’re able to develop that, we tend to navigate our ways throughout their entire business to over time, give it a big overhaul, whereas if we led with that like, Oh my gosh, we could do all these things.
David DeCelle:
It can be overwhelming, so it’s like, Alright, let’s solve that problem, it’s kind of like working with the client, if you’re an advisor, solve that problem.
Abby Morton:
I was just gonna say, It’s the same thing, right?
David DeCelle:
Yeah. And then you get into the whole financial plan, but solve that particular problem. And we do that same thing.
Abby Morton:
Okay. Very, very interesting. So let’s say I’m a financial advisor and I wanna come to you with, I wanna generate more leads through social media, I have an Instagram and a LinkedIn profile, but I just don’t feel like I’m seeing enough demand. Talk me through more specifically, am I working with one specific coach within your company, and that’s kind of my main go-to, am I working with a broad group of… Let’s see, employees at Model FA, who am I working with and how does that really work for that specific use case?
David DeCelle:
Yeah, so I’m trying to not say it depends, but it does. So let’s say you’re a larger firm, billion to 15 billion, we put our entire team’s resources behind that client, those are also like six-figure contracts, so they’re very, very intimate relationships. If you’re an advisor or a solo practice, smaller ensemble, you would get assigned a coach on our team, and they would help you with whatever the thing is that you came to us for in this case, you say social media. So the first thing that I would say as it relates to social media is I would focus on helping set their expectations, what’s most likely not going to happen, especially at the onset of really developing your social presence is you’re not gonna get 5, 10, 15 leads a week, it takes time to build, so that should not be your only line in the water, you need to be focused as well on client referral COIs seminars or whatever your main business development activity is already. It’s meant to be a compliment and it takes time to mature, so if you type in Model FA podcast, social media, I did an episode with three of our clients that we’ve helped with social media, and they say the same thing, Hey, it took a little while to pick up, but now we’re seeing some consistency.
David DeCelle:
The other thing that I would say is, social media isn’t just about generating leads, it’s also about keeping your relevance with your audience via prospects and/or clients, because if you’re meeting with your clients, say twice a year, every six months, while in the fourth month after meeting with you, they may be in a situation to where they could give you a referral, but you may not be top of their mind, because it’s been four months since they’ve talked to you or seen you or done anything with you. Whereas if they just saw you post something on one of the social platforms, you stay top of mind, so it helps to increase and maintain relevance in between touch points, and then there’s also a certain level of pro activity that needs to happen both on content creation and reaching out to folks. So as an example, if an advisor’s posting once or twice a week, and I’m sorry to say this, but that’s just not enough. It’s not enough at all. You need to be doing it preferably every day, minimum three, four times a week, or preferably every day, in addition to that…
Abby Morton:
And you’re giving them that maybe even content calendar to help them understand like, Okay, if I’m only doing once a week, but now I need to do more you’re working with them to figure out what that content is for them, what to post.
David DeCelle:
Yes. Correct. Correct. And a lot of it is, Listen, don’t sit there and just view out financial planning information, you’re gonna lose a lot of people, open up your life with your passions, with your hobbies, talk about your family, talk about what you learned that day, talk about the client scenario that you’re able to help with, diversify your content and don’t just spit facts about financial planning ’cause you’re gonna lose a lot of people that way, and then in terms of proactive outreach as simple, you could use this as a script, I guess, but Abby, let’s say you and I were connected for some time, and I viewed you as a potential prospect that I could help serve as one of my clients, I may say, Hey, Abby, it’s been great being connected with you here on Linkedin or on Instagram, whatever, and I really enjoy seeing insert commonality right here. And it’s, although it’s been nice being connected online, we’ll also like to connect offline, learn more about what you’re doing in your career and in your life moving forward and see if there’s any way I can help, be it, with what I do or connecting you with someone that I know would love to just be a resource for you, and being proactive.
Abby Morton:
I like that there’s like a perfect script right there that someone could take from you. I love that.
David DeCelle:
So, I appreciate that. What’s not gonna happen, unless you become like a true influencer and you’re incredibly dynamic and people are attracted to you with your social presence, what most likely is not going to have it happen is social media isn’t necessarily gonna just serve as a magnet where you wake up to your inbox and you got five new leads every single day, there needs to be some proactivity on your end, and also when a client talks about a friend of theirs, if they’re resistant to formally make that introduction, all you have to say is, Hey, no problem, here’s my Instagram, here’s my Facebook, here’s my LinkedIn, invite them to connect with me on one of those platforms, and they can see on my content, they can get to know me from afar in a nonthreatening way, and if they choose to reach out, they’re happy to… They’re welcome to reach out and I’m happy to facilitate an introductory call, so it makes it easier to refer folks as well, because you’re just sending them to something they’re already used to, which is one of the social media platforms.
Abby Morton:
Yeah, no, I like that idea. I hadn’t ever thought about with referrals that could even happen in a way is that… I think that’s a great idea. So what you’re telling me too is that it’s also gonna take a lot of work from the advisor, and you talked about this of like, how can we be your accountability partner, we at elements always say finance is better with a buddy, that’s why we sell elements to financial advisors and not an end client, because end clients aren’t motivated to get things done, they need that person to hold them accountable and help them get things done. So let’s talk a little bit about that and how you provide this kind of accountability piece to what you guys do as well. What insights do you have there?
David DeCelle:
Yeah, I think there’s a few different ways to be held accountable to again, doing the things that you probably know you should be doing anyways, but as humans in general, it’s easier to let ourselves off the hook than it is to let someone else down, so that could be an accountability buddy. So maybe it’s a peer of yours, either in your office or an industry peer, where you have… You form some study group perhaps, and set initiatives and goals and commitments, and you follow through on those, you add what I call a squeak, which is if you don’t do it, you gotta put some skin in the game, whatever that is, it could be something embarrassing, it could be monetary, like just something that would make it fun and interesting and hold your feet to the fire, so you could do something like that, and/or you can pay for accountability, just like some people, if they truly want to lose weight and get in shape and eat clean, they pay for a personal trainer. It’s the same thing. So you can do one of those two things, and then one of the things that we provide as well, and if anyone listening likes this, you can feel free to just shoot me an email and I’ll send you the information on it so you can give, take a stab at it yourself. It’s just David@modelfa.com, but it’s a pretty simple process. I call it the C3 list. So the C3 list, there is threes, fives and twos, and I’ll unpack those.
David DeCelle:
So the threes are the 3Cs, so it’s the idea that when you commit to something and you’re consistent with that something, you ultimately build confidence, and we need confidence to be able to serve our clients as best we can, we need confidence to operate at a high level, and we need confidence to build something of significance, if that’s what you want to do. Now within the C3 list, there’s five total things that you do on a daily basis that fit three categories, so the three categories are personal, professional and of service to others, and there’s five things that you do in those categories, and then there’s twos, and then there’s a one. So what I know this is, if I was crushing it professionally, but I wasn’t happy with what my weight or fitness or food intake was, it doesn’t matter how much money I was making, I still felt off, and I could convince myself otherwise, but deep down, I knew that I wasn’t in a place that I wanted to be.
David DeCelle:
Whereas if I was super fit but I wasn’t making any money, I still felt off it, if my personal life was in check, professional life was in check, but I wasn’t intentionally trying to serve others outside of what I’m compensated to do, I would feel off. So what I found is when I move my personal life forward on a daily basis, when I move my professional life forward on a daily basis, and ultimately when I move the lives of others forward on a daily basis, it’s really, really tough to have a bad day. So these things in their personal life, you do two things, professional life two things, and of service to others, do one thing, that’s where the 3, the 5, the 2, and all that stuff comes from.
David DeCelle:
Profession… Excuse me, personally, they don’t need to be ground-breaking things, whatever you need to work on and create consistency around, so maybe it’s waking up at a certain time and not hitting the snooze button, maybe it’s working out for 30 minutes or 60 minutes, maybe it’s eating clean maybe it’s drinking a certain amount of water, maybe it’s reading a certain amount of pages of a book, it doesn’t need to be groundbreaking, it just needs to be something to where you’re checking that personal box. From a professional standpoint, maybe it’s asking for referrals, a certain amount of times that day, maybe it’s a certain amount of relational advancements within your client and prospect book of business to move those relationships along, maybe it’s creating a piece of content, maybe it’s learning something new in the industry.
David DeCelle:
And then in terms of being of service to others, this is probably the most fun one, and it’s the easiest to do, but it could be passing another compliment or two every single day, I could be putting away two shopping carts instead of one. It could be picking up the piece of trash when you walk by, it could be calling two people just to check in and see how they’re doing without any agenda outside of that, and when you, what you may have noticed as I went through that list, is that everything… It wasn’t losing a certain amount of weight, it wasn’t getting a certain amount of referrals, it was all whatever you can control, because we can only control the input, we can’t control what the results are, so if you’re consistent with that and you put things on the list that are 100% controllable, it’s either you did it or you didn’t do it. So this is all meant to build your confidence, but there is a potential… How should I say? There’s a disclaimer in that if you start this and then stop it, and then you start it, and then you stop it, and then you start it and you stop it, so on and so forth, it’s gonna have the opposite impact of creating confidence.
David DeCelle:
It’s going to decrease your confidence ’cause you’re gonna further prove to yourself based on evidence that you are not someone that follows through when they say they’re going to do something, so if you’re going to do something like this, just make sure that you’re actually committed to it, because all the positive benefits if you follow through, there’s a bunch of negative benefits if you don’t, but that’s something that I’ve incorporated into my life, that a lot of my clients incorporate into their lives, and it’s proven to be very effective to have a well-rounded day, hold yourself accountable to the key initiatives that are gonna move yourself your business and others forward, and ultimately have you walk around with a little swagger because you have high confidence, not cockiness, but confidence to be able to further serve you and your family and the other people around you.
Abby Morton:
I love it, but it’s all about… I like how you… It’s being balanced in every aspect of your life to doing something in every aspect to make you feel better. I think that’s really interesting thought. Because I think sometimes we often think work as work and home is home, and we, they don’t connect, and I wanna leave it that way, I wanna leave them separate, but what you’re saying is by making my full self rounded out and feeling good, therefore I’m gonna succeed and do better in every aspect of my life.
David DeCelle:
It is, and I’m not a huge believer in having a balanced life, ’cause when you think about it, that would mean that you have… Let’s say you work eight or nine hours a day, that means you would then need to have eight or nine hours to your personal life, and then we barely have time to sleep, so I’m more of a believer in a blended style life where as long as you’re intentional about your personal actions and the actions related to whatever your family looks like, spouse, kids, etcetera, then you end up not feeling guilty, ’cause if I was so focused on work and not my personal life, I’d feel guilty while I was at work, and then I would be with my personal connections and feel guilty that I wasn’t at work ’cause I was so focused, so by checking each of these boxes on a daily basis, it just allows you to have a well-rounded day, which eliminates guiltiness and in turn increases happiness.
Abby Morton:
I like that. And are you, is this accountability practice something you do and often work on with your clients, like they say, Hey, I wanna help… I want you to help me kind of achieve this, I want you to be my accountability buddy to make for sure I actually do this every single day.
David DeCelle:
Yes, but I would also say, People don’t pay us for just this thing.
Abby Morton:
That alone.
David DeCelle:
So I would consider this as more of like a foundational aspect of a relationship, if someone needs help with accountability and follow-through, but that’s not to say that this is the only thing that will work on with some people. We use this as a foundation and we lay our stuff on top of it, like client referrals, like increasing your social presence, like living in the client experience, so on and so forth, but it’s one of those things where if you can’t follow through with the simplest of things, like the ideas that I share with you aren’t gonna matter, ’cause you’re not gonna do them anyways, so it’s good habits, create good habits. So we’re trying to create those good habits on the onset, so that the other things that we bring up on the go forward basis, get integrated and you stay consistent with it because it doesn’t matter what referral methodology you subscribe to, if you don’t do it consistently, you’re not going to get results, if you do it for a month or two and you’re like, Oh, it’s not working, and then you immediately switch, you never give it time to mature and bear that fruit on the back end.
David DeCelle:
So what we’re trying to teach is making sure that you’re someone that can call themselves consistent, so that when you choose to implement something, you’re consistent with that implementation and you give yourself enough time to reap the rewards on the back end. The C3 list connects to aspects of our coaching aspects, life, so on and so forth, it’s not just you need to get out of the bed at the same time every day, it’s bigger than that, but it’s very simple, it’s such a simple exercise that has profound results when actually done correctly. And additional ideas woven in throughout that engagement.
Abby Morton:
I like it. Do you have a specific example of someone who’s kind of done with you and how it changed their life or helped them.
David DeCelle:
So I have the most, me for one, I’m a product of this. So I’m incredibly consistent. In my previous life, when I say previous life, I was an advisor for seven years, I was the most consistently inconsistent person ever, it was like two months all in, two months all out, six weeks all in, four weeks, all out. It was just evident, flowing like you wouldn’t believe, and it just… It wasn’t sustainable, I wasn’t happy, I put it on the facade, of course, for the outside world, but deep down inside, I was letting myself down, so this has been incredibly impactful for me, and then a client that I’ve recently onboarded, and he crushes it. He’s 32 years old. He probably generates on his own like $1.4 million in revenue to his business, he’s doing really, really well for his age, and by anyone’s ages standards, for that matter, but he’s just not happy, or he was not happy, and he’s still not at the point of happiness yet, but that if you look at the progression, it’s gone in the right direction since implementing this, and it’s only been about a week since we started working together, but I’ve noticed that his attitude has improved, he’s mentioned that his family life has improved as well, so I can’t wait to see what the results are a month or two from now.
David DeCelle:
But he was someone who tried to do 20 different things every single day. And it’s like, Hey, I appreciate that. And you probably feel amazing on the days that you’re able to do that, but doing 20 different things every day outside of what you’re normally tasked to do, that’s just not sustainable, you need simplify the list and lower the bar to start, and then once things actually become a habit, then you can add something else, add something else, add something else. But you need to get really good at the core group of activities in order to have a solid enough foundation to add on top of that.
Abby Morton:
So great, so great. So people wanted to work with you and reach out and ask you that burning pain point that they have, that theme that they’re like, I really need Model FA’s help. Where do they go? How do they find you guys?
David DeCelle:
So modelfa.com is our website that has all our information there, you can schedule calls on there, if you just Google David DeCelle, all my social handles are there, my personal website is there as well. Some podcast recordings, I host our podcast, like Abby does as well, so you can feel free to check out our podcast. And I’m most active on Instagram. So if you wanna get to know each other, shoot me a DM or just toss to follow and I’ll follow you back and get to know each other from afar. Happy to help any way I can. And like I said, If anyone wants more information on the C3 list we have, I can’t remember if it’s a one-page or a two-pager, but there’s a page or two that list everything out and maps everything out for you, just email me David@modelfa.com and I’m happy to send that. No strings attached.
Abby Morton:
Maybe we could even put it in our show notes too, ’cause that would be provide some resources if that works as well. But…
David DeCelle:
Nice.
Abby Morton:
Stay awesome, we’ll reach out to David, it sounds like you guys really provide a great niche and help and support, and I know that we’re all just looking for that extra help and a way to be a little bit happier in our lives every day, it sounds like you can help us do all of that…
David DeCelle:
Well, appreciate you having me on. And for those of you listening to this, definitely go and check out our podcast as well, ’cause Abby will be appearing on it shortly if it’s not already published by the time this goes out, so go check out the episode where we swap seats.
Abby Morton:
Thanks so much, David, have a good day.
David DeCelle:
Thanks, you too.
Abby Morton:
Next time on Elementality.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly:
Definitely to anybody that’s thinking about starting a podcast, if you think about the podcast and you’re really trying to make it to be like a marketing fund, ’cause that’s what it is, it’s a top of the funnel thing, middle of the funnel, if you will, if you’re gonna make it that, then just be intentional with who you’re trying to connect with. And I think that if you have a narrowed focus on who you’re trying to go like what problems are you even answering for the people that are listening to your show, what are their pain points, or you’re answering those pain points, what are the things that they find interesting. What are the things that they’re worried about. You know what I mean? And if you have those kind of things that you’re answering in the podcast is gonna lead people to become clients, but just being a generalist about all things isn’t gonna lead people to you the way that you would want them to from the time, energy and effort that you’re using in your podcast.
Abby Morton:
To find out more about elements, go to getelements.com/demo. Elementality’s executive producers are Reese Harper and Carl Richards. Elementality is produced by Ted Henderson and directed by Abby Morton. Have a good one.