Jordan discusses why adding too many “value-adds” to your financial advisory services might actually be hurting your clients and your business.

Drawing from his experience working at a hot dog shop famous for its special sauce and simple menu, Jordan illustrates the power of a focused core value proposition. During this episode you’ll learn:

• The importance of identifying what truly makes your services unique
• Why your clients need to understand that value
• How to reliably and consistently deliver that value.

Before you jump into offering additional features or services, Jordan challenges you to consider whether these value-adds support or distract from your core offering. Tune in to learn how simplifying your services can enhance client satisfaction and make your business more referable.

Transcript

Jordan Haines:

Hello friends. And welcome to another episode of L mentality. My name is Jordan Haynes. I’m a financial metals expert here, elements and your host for today’s show now. I want to talk to you about why value adds are potentially. Hurting your clients. Uh, I understand this is going to be controversial. 

Many of you might not like this and that’s okay. You don’t have to agree with me. And if you disagree with me, let me know. Before I do that though. I want to tell you a story. Um, when I was a senior in high school, I worked for a company called Jadon. go look it up. J D a w G S started by a guy. His name is Jay. That’s why I’ve called J docs. Um, Jay started a hot dog shack in the shadow of BYU in the early two thousands. Um, and that has since, um, scale beyond that hotdog shack and it’s now I think they have a couple dozen locations. Uh, they serve. Hugs and all of the major sports arenas in the Utah area. So if I were to make a relationship or a similarity, Between what many of you probably are familiar with? 

I would say Jane. This is like the. Uh, in and [00:01:00] out burger of hot dogs. But that, I mean, they have a very simple menu. They only have a handful of items that you can get there. They have a little secret menu that you can order from, but it’s just that one thing. And frankly, since I worked there, More than a decade ago. It has not changed all that much. I mean, it’s about one thing. 

The thing that made J dogs unique though, is they had this, what they call their special sauce. It was like a sweet barbecue sauce. Go look it up. It’s glorious. It’s one of the best sauces that I’ve ever had. Um, you can order it online. They have tons of knockoff recipes that you can try. I don’t even know what’s in it. 

And I worked there for years and I knew the owner well, Um, but this special sauce was the thing. That made J dogs, what it was. And because of that. Every mix in from jalapenos to onions to sauerkraut to pickles, needed to pair well with this genomic. Y because they wanted every single person that came in there to try the Sauce. 

They wanted to try that. That special sauce. Because that was going to be the thing that kept them coming back. That was the thing we knew [00:02:00] reliably. Was valuable to customers. And so, because. We have that. We couldn’t add melted cheese to the menu because that did not pair well with the sauce. It meant that we could, we had to remove distractions, ketchup, and mustard. 

They were nice to have for people that needed it, but it was not the core value proposition. So we put it in a little cart in the corner of the room and they could do it themselves. It was self-service. Everything around Haydock centered around this special sauce. In supporting this core value proposition to them. Now to draw a distinction here. A couple of months into working a new competitor had opened up around the corner. Um, I don’t remember the name of the place, but they offered hotdogs. 

It was a hot dog place, but they had so many options. They sold everything. I think when, when we went there to check it out, they had three or four page menu with probably a couple hundred different options of how you can have your hot dog. And I remember talking to the owner because we were doing a little recon work and saying, what makes you valuable? 

What makes you unique? And he just said, well, it’s just how [00:03:00] many different things that we have in combinations and how people can experience this. Well, it’s sad for me to say this, but, um, that business ended up closing down. Um, probably just a few months in. But that, uh, contrast there was, has stuck with me ever since. Since. On one hand, we have a very. Very. Three distract. value proposition. Position. 

There are so many different valuable things that are on the menu. That it’s hard for me to look at. What is the thing that I’m coming back for? Whereas with J dogs. There was one thing on the menu. It was special. The sauce. That’s what I was. Coming back for, and every other quote, unquote value add, there was in support of that core value proposition. Now friends. 

The reason I bring this up is because in our marketplace, I hear so much. This idea and this concept of adding. Value. Or value. ads. Issa. Essentially these. These are like new features. To our core value proposition. And the problem I’m not here to bash on value ads. I think they’re important, but the problem is we do it prematurely. [00:04:00] 

Too many advisors are adding value when their. Core value proposition. Is. Not. Clearly. We defined. Fined. And those value adds are not supporting that core value proposition. So when we present. People. With too many quote unquote value ads. We can H they can get distracted from the thing that makes us actually unique and valuable in the marketplace. So, what are some examples of value adds we have nowadays? Um, these range anywhere from like a quarterly status update to, uh, tax planning, to estate planning to, um, a letter that you can send to your CPA at a certain time of the year. Um, insurance planning, student loan, planning, college planning, all of these different topics. 

There are so many of them and finances, and I’m not here to say that any of those are bad or wrong. In your business. What I am here to say is I want to answer the question in your mind. Are these value ads distracting. We’re contributing to your core value proposition. [00:05:00] And if you don’t know what your core value proposition. is, you need to understand that. So spend some time talking to clients, ask them this question. 

Why are you coming back? Why are you even here? You might find different variations of a core thing. So for example, For many of the clients that I’ve worked historically. Most of them would come to me. Because they were disorganized. They wanted to know where everything was at. They just felt like they couldn’t get a grasp on all of the financial stuff in their life. The core value proposition that I offered them. Was order and orientation. 

That’s why you guys hear me talk about that a lot. The core thing that I could offer people was orienting them to their financial situation, getting it all in one place, having them have a clear framework and understanding of their financial life. Everything else beyond that was fluff. Everything else beyond that was distraction. So if I’m going to add value in the future. It needs to be in support of that core value proposition. 

I need to bring them back to that. [00:06:00] So the second question I want to insert in your mind is if you number one, do you know what your core value proposition is? If you don’t, we need to find out what that is. Ask your clients. Identify trends. This is a big, big, big thing. If you have questions on how to do this, please feel free to reach out to us. 

Maybe we’ll do another podcast specifically on trying to figure out what your core value proposition is. The second question I want to insert in your mind is do your clients actually know, can your clients articulate what this value is. In my experience, especially in the world of financial advising. Clients will come to us with one problem and we’ll solve another one. 

That’s probably deeper and more acute to them that maybe they weren’t able to articulate before. So your clients need to be able to articulate what that problem is. Why. Well, then you just become more referrable because they can go to their friends and articulate the same problem to them. Like think, think in your own life, have you ever had a problem? 

That’s just kind of nagging and you haven’t really been able to like clearly identify what that is or say it out loud. And once you could just put a name to it, there’s something about it that really helps. And I think about these personality assessments and things like that. Once we can [00:07:00] label something or put a name to it, it really helps. clarify our minds and know where we’re going to go in the future. And the third question I want you to insert in your mind is can you then reliably consistently deliver on that value? So, let me go through those questions. 

One more time. Do you know what your core value proposition is? Do your clients know what that value is? And can you reliably deliver on that value? Those I think are the three most important questions that we have today. Answer these questions before you do value ads before you do at value ads. Before you jump on that next, uh, Kitsis webinar and learn all about the new ways that you can add value to justify your fees. 

How about you start by understanding what your core value proposition is. Articulate. It really clearly. And then go. Just dive into that. Get really good at that thing. Any value add should not be a distraction from your core value proposition. If it is scratch it. scratch it. It’s okay. To be simple. It’s okay. 

To not do too many things. It’s [00:08:00] okay. To be simple. Now. Let’s bring this back to reality a little bit. Many of you listened to the show. Many of you follow elements because you want to give. Advice at scale. You want to have more conversations with more people around finances and that’s certainly important. In my experiences, the conversations we have are pointless, unless we’re attacking a problem, that someone is actually an acutely feeling today. That my friends. Is the value proposition that you’re going to offer? That is what I refer to when I say product market fit. 

So. Apply these things at your own risk. Um, you can tell I’m passionate about it. If you have questions, if you want to push back on me, that’s okay. I think when we add too many value adds, we’re distracting people from the thing that actually makes us unique and important in the marketplace. That’s the point I want to make today. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. You know me on LinkedIn, Jordan Haynes, H a I N E S. Not like the underwear, or you can email us@podcastatgetelements.com that’s podcast to get [00:09:00] elements.com. Otherwise we’ll see you next week.