Some firms don’t bother tracking this kind of data right away because, as Bill says, “they don’t feel like these numbers mean anything yet. ‘I've only got six months of numbers. It's really a pain in the rear to create these dashboards and to create these numbers, and they're not giving us anything significant yet.’”
But CEO Bill understands what these frustrated advisors don’t: this data stream is a leading indicator that’s pointing Keen Wealth towards more growth. Because Bill has monitored how these seminars produce new clients over time, he knows that if he keeps doing them, he’ll get results.
“It's so easy to just look backwards and say, ‘Well, we raised $90 million last year. That's awesome, that's great,’” Bill says. “But assets raised is a lagging indicator. That's just what happened. What we want to know about is what are the leading indicators? What are the things that we had to do to raise that $90 million last year? What were the things that made it happen? And if you do this over the course of years, you'll start to build some data that has predictive value. And I would contend you have a business that's worth more, from a valuation standpoint, because you have real metrics around what drives the success of the business.”
Next Steps
1. Bill mentioned that he got some good insights on seminar building from my conversation with Steve Cassaday. Steve has grown to over $2.7 billion in AUM using seminars and an unorthodox—but effective—approach to building financial plans. Listen to that episode for some more ideas on how to develop your own programs.
2. Every year, Bill and his team host a holiday breakfast for clients and friends of the firm where they review the previous year in finance and make some observations about where the market could be headed. You can click here to watch Bill’s most recent holiday seminar or listen to the audio as a podcast. This is a good example of the kind of client-focused events that Bill believes lead to more prospects.
3. Check out the excellent podcast I co-host with Bill called, Keen on Retirement.
Steve Sanduski, CFP, is the founder of Belay Advisor; the CEO of ROL Advisor, a discovery process technology system; a New York Times bestselling author; host of the Between Now and Success podcast and a financial advisor business coach.