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Hosted by Financial Advisor Coach, Ray Sclafani, "Building The Billion Dollar Business" is the ultimate podcast for financial advisors seeking to elevate their practice. Each episode features deep dives into actionable advice and exclusive interviews with top professionals in the financial services industry. Tune in to unlock your potential and build a successful, enduring financial advisory practice.
Ray Sclafani (00:00.142)
Welcome to Building the Billion Dollar Business, the podcast where we dive deep into the strategies, insights, and stories behind the world's most successful financial advisors and introduce content and actionable ideas to fuel your growth. Together, we'll unlock the methods, tactics, and mindset shifts that set the top 1 % apart from the rest. I'm Ray Sclafani and I'll be your host. Let's dig into something that every advisor claims to do.
but few do well, and that's client engagement. Let's get this straight, sending birthday cards, quarterly emails, or even scheduling the annual review, that's not engagement, that's maintenance. True client engagement is emotional, intentional, and value-driven. And when done right, it becomes a differentiator no competitor can copy. If you want to build a business that lasts,
that attracts, retains and grows multi-generational relationships and stays connected to the heirs of your client's wealth, well then client engagement must evolve from checklist to core strategy. In coaching sessions, I hear this all the time. We have great engagement. Our client retention is over 97%. We're constantly staying in touch. But when I ask how, I get a list of transactions.
a tax season email, a holiday gift, a market commentary, a review meeting that recaps performance. That's not engagement. That's a contact schedule. True engagement is not about the frequency of your touches. It's about the depth of the connection. It's about whether the client feels seen, heard, and understood. And that feeling doesn't come from automation. It comes from intentionality. Let's reframe this for a moment. Client engagement is the consistent
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delivery of relevant, resonant, and personalized experiences across your firm. It's not just the advisor's job, by the way, it's got to be all about your firm's culture. And it shows up in three ways. It's about number one, proactive conversations, not waiting for the client to call, getting ahead of life transitions and tax events and liquidity moments, and bringing insight before they ask. Second, it's about customized communication.
understanding how each client processes information. Some want data, some want visuals, some want stories. Your messaging should adapt, not assume. Third, it's about personal milestone recognition. Not generic birthday notes, but celebrating a business sale, a new grandchild, a retirement party. These are life's precious moments that matter. And when you get them right, you become
unforgettable. Done well, engagement becomes advisory equity, a trust reservoir that pays off in retention, referrals, and cross-generational continuity. And here's why it matters more now than ever. Where in a time of increased commoditization, robo-advisors, AI-generated planning tools, off-the-shelf portfolios, every firm is touting tax alpha and holistic planning.
Clients aren't comparing you to other advisors anymore. They're now comparing you to Amazon, Apple, and Netflix. They expect personalization. They expect speed. They expect meaningful relevance. Engagement is your moat. It's what keeps your clients from answering those recruiter emails or responding to that offer in their inbox that promises lower fees, more service. If your clients don't feel emotionally engaged with your firm,
they are already at risk. So let's get real tactical here for a moment. You cannot scale client engagement on charisma alone. You need systems, roles, and shared ownership within your team. So number one, start client journey mapping right away if you haven't already. Outline the full cycle from onboarding to long-term planning milestones and identify those key moments that require
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proactive communication or what I call surprise and delight touch points. Second, engagement ownership. Who on your team owns the relationship beyond the advisor? Can your client associate their great experience with your firm, not just one individual? Number three, the annual, what I call achievement reviews. Instead of just performance reviews, lead a conversation on what the client believed
they accomplished over the past year in partnership with your firm financially, personally, relationally, celebrate the wins, capture the impact. One of the powerful questions you want to ask in every client meeting is since we last met, what do you believe we've achieved together? Be prepared to jog the client's memory with all that you've been working on and what your team has delivered during that period of time. Number four, their feedback loops. Don't
Guess how engaged your clients feel. Ask. You want to use surveys, questions like I just described, interviewing them, net promoter metrics. You might do that within hiring somebody externally. However you choose to do that, make sure you're tailoring these emotional connections, not just client satisfaction, by asking them what they're experiencing. Remember, what gets measured gets managed. Here's the real opportunity.
Most firms are still treating engagement like a luxury. The best firms treat it like a strategic asset. They know that engaged clients are stickier and multi-generational, more loyal, more referable, and more likely to expand their relationship across generations. So here's the challenge. Don't ask, are we staying in touch? Ask, are we staying relevant? Are we deepening connection?
Are we creating moments that matter? Because if you want to build a billion dollar business, you better start engaging like one. Start with your top clients, revenue per household, and work your way down asking these questions. With each episode, we introduce these future oriented coaching questions. Today, there are three. Please use these questions to reflect on the short episode today. Number one, what moments in your client experience could
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become more intentional, more personalized and more meaningful. Number two, where are you relying on routine communication instead of true engagement? And how can you shift the conversation? And number three, if your top clients were asked to describe how your firm makes them feel, what do you hope they would say? And what do you need to change or improve to make that true? Well, thanks for tuning in and that's a wrap.
Until next time, this is Ray Sclafani. Keep building, growing and striving for greatness. Together, we'll redefine what's possible in the world of wealth management. Be sure to check back for our latest episode in order.
Ray Sclafani (07:30.925)
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