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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.
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. So who taught you that?
I mean, how did you become great at what you do? Was it simply by doing it, grinding it out, little guessing, and then slowly figuring it out? Or was there someone around to help guide and teach you, challenge you, stretch you, and invest in your success? Most elite advisors can identify someone and oftentimes several individuals who took time out to teach and encourage them along the way.
And it's this culture of learning, which over time, not only shapes individuals, but defines the very best companies and high performing teams. mean, let's be honest, everyone who is a high performer wants to get better, but few firms really make it a priority. mean, training sounds great in theory and most firms even book time on the calendar. But then what happens? The unexpected client meeting comes up.
someone calls out sick, an internal fire drill hits the calendar, and the training gets postponed once again. The data, however, is undeniable. Firms that grow prioritize training and firms that stall undervalue its importance. Let me share a couple of data points that I think will land well with your team. First and foremost, according to LinkedIn's learning report, 94 % of employees
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Say they would remain at a company and with a team longer if it merely invested in helping them learn. A McKinsey study found that firms with strong learning cultures are 52 % more productive, 92 % more likely to develop innovative solutions for clients, and 17 % more profitable than their peers. Now's a good time to pause. Think about the learning culture that exists within your team.
You see, training isn't simply a nice to have, it's a growth imperative. And the following six steps I want to cover with you today in our short episode can provide a strong foundation towards building a culture that values training. Now, before I jump into that, let me just share very briefly with you here at ClientWise, there are two main areas that we are focused as a team on learning this year. The first is project management. It seems so basic, doesn't it?
But it's interesting. We've hired a full-time project manager to help us learn and develop the skills related to project management skills like budgeting and prioritization, building out timelines and Gantt charts, really creating the individual responsibilities in an interdependent plan that everybody can see. And we're installing a new software program for us, at least it's not new at all. It's called ClickUp. And we're learning how to
build all of our objectives and key results and tying them right back into project plans that are transparent, that are measurable, that everybody can see. It's actually been a lot of fun as a team to learn something new and together. The other is something around HR management. We've installed a full-time consultant to help us with 155.com. Now we've been using 155 for quite a while.
And it's gone pretty okay. We, we embrace it. We like it. Some of the teams were grumbly about maybe it's use. And so we figured, okay, are we maximizing the use of this tool? I think that's a good learning for anybody listening to this episode. Oftentimes you install tools for the team and not everybody adopts full time. So we looked at who was not adopting, who was adopting 15.5 and we went out and hired somebody to help us be really great at it.
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Shannon Derbyshire has joined our team to help us install that. And 15.5, if you're not familiar, the number one, the number five, the word f-i-v-e.com is an online tool that allows us to track our objective and key results, tie them to individuals, to departments, to smaller teams within the overall ClientWise team. We also use it to do weekly check-ins and high five each other.
It's the platform we use to track all of the professional development plans, the performance reviews, absolutely a terrific tool with lots of dashboards. And it helps drive our weekly momentum meeting that we host every Monday morning here at ClientWise. So that's what we're doing this year. And then everybody has individual professional development plans where there's skills and competencies and experiences required to be more valuable in the future
to themselves, to our clients, to our team members. Everybody's got a PDP that we're sharpening and improving so that we can continue to grow each individual so that some of the individuals is greater than the parts. So we're working on that today as a team, which brings me to step one. The first thing that you want to focus on if you're thinking about installing or enhancing, sharpening your learning culture, start with the individual PDPs.
The training process has to begin at the team member level, one individual at a time. And these PDPs, as we call them at ClientWise, if you're in any signature coaching program, you've probably heard the term PDP. It's not a static HR document that buries itself somewhere in a file. It's kind of the go-to something we review on a trimester basis at ClientWise. They're co-created, these PDPs, professional development plans, between each employee and their leader.
They're updated regularly. They're connected to real, tangible, measurable goals. And so we begin asking every team member, hey, where are you today? Where do you see yourselves one, two, and three years from now? And what gaps might exist between today's skills and tomorrow's role? So the skills, competencies, and experiences. And so when everybody on the team sees that you care, they start thinking about their development path.
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one that's tailored specifically for them, all of a sudden the engagement level, the loyalty, well, they go through the roof. So these PDPs are key. That's number one. Number two, career planning guides as your GPS. What is a career planning guide? Well, it details the how. The PDP explains why it's important and specific skills, competencies, and experiences that might be gaps and directionally where you're going. But the career planning guide is the how. This is the tool.
that's designed to outline key milestones like technical skills, certifications, specific leadership traits that are showing up, client experience competencies that are required for each career path level at your firm. From associate to senior partner, you might have some mile markers along the way like a CFP. Okay, excellent. You've attained your CFP. Maybe it's the charter private wealth advisor designation through the IWI. All of these are like
mile markers along the way. Could be an MBA, could be some kind of leadership credential or leadership certification, the completion of a course, all of that. So that's the career planning guide. Step three, I would say budget like you mean it. You won't create a marketing plan without a budget. You won't think about your financial modeling and who you're hiring.
and what you're going to compensate them without a budget. So why attempt to develop a training plan without one? The Association for Talent Development, ADT, finds that top performing companies spend 1.5 times more per employee on training than the average firms and are 24 % more profitable on average than their peers. So training pays off.
start with a training budget that aligns with everybody's individual goals and their team priorities. When we were budgeting here at ClientWise in 2025 for our 2026 budget, one of the things that the team members asked is, Hey, I'd really like to work with one of the ClientWise coaches. Well, let's eat our own cooking. If we're serving a great meal at a restaurant, we want every staff member to actually taste all the specials before they roll out. I know I've mentioned that in previous episodes.
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here at client wise. remember in college, I waited tables and I worked at a restaurant called Howie's. I worked at Chili's as well. And it was interesting. Both restaurants, they were clear, Hey, before the shift began, everybody got to taste the specials. And I thought that was always very smart. So client wise, why aren't we leveraging more of our coaches to coach the folks internally? And they got to choose a coach and they're working with a coach. So that's an example of a budget.
We hired, as I mentioned, a couple of consultants, project manager who are doing internal training. Yeah, we budgeted for all of that. No kidding. That's really important. Start by thinking about the external certifications. Who on your team is going to need a CFP, a CFA, a CPWA? Who wants to enroll in an MBA? What are you sponsoring there? How about conferences and workshops? Are you thinking about the Barron's independent advisor conference? Are you thinking about the upcoming
Future proof, know many of our clients are sending folks their financial advisor magazine and others are hosting conferences and workshops. So paying attention to that, know Michael Kitsis does a good job at posting all of the best conferences of the year. We were honored last year. He mentioned our Business Builder Academy as a workshop and a mastermind group that could be really valuable. Coaching, leadership labs,
internal training time, resources, maybe some of the learning platforms and technology. mentioned 15.5. Like step three here is budget like you mean it. Have you sharpened your budget for the year, both at the individual team level and team as a priority. Okay. Number four, train the team and figure out few things that you might do together. know, learning is essential for continued growth, but team training builds culture.
It's where you reinforce your firm's shared values, your language and expectations. Some of the key training topics you want to include in your focus, something around technical proficiency, maybe a new software program, maybe it's compliance, maybe it's planning standards. Training could also be bringing an attorney in for some of the human resource management, workplace environment, client experience, communication skills. We've had
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quite a number of clients to send their team to Disney, to the Ritz Carlton training program. Maybe it's a leadership development that a few emerging leaders go off together, learn together and come back. At ClientWise, we have our next generation leadership program, and we often see teams send two and three members from their team to the program and they enjoy coming together and learning together. So all of those are good examples. Look for opportunities
to create learning structures and career paths and training specific that pulls two or three or four people together and then let them learn together. One of the things I wanna make mention of is the next generation leadership team. If they go together, they're gonna learn together, they're gonna build experiences together. And one of the things every enduring firm leader and controlling owner wants
Is the next generation enjoying working together, enjoying going together, staying connected, building relationship and trust. And anytime you learn something together, well, that's a natural byproduct of what happens. So I would encourage there's a, you you can knock out, you know, two birds with one stone by thinking about the next gen in particular and asking them, Hey, what would the group like to learn together? Is there a conference?
or a series of classes or courses that you might go together. That might be a really smart investment for you. Step five, here we go. Make it visible. You know, it's funny. I see a lot of teams spend a good amount of their effort putting something together and then it falls by the wayside or you invest in it and everybody forgets about it, but it happens. We'll celebrate completing the training. Maybe it's in team meetings and newsletters. Let your clients know.
I'm always amazed when I facilitate these advisory council meetings that advisors, advisors host with their clients. One of the things I hear consistently is how valuable the clients see the team members learning and growing and being enrolled in courses. And they always get very excited when they see the team members celebrate a win, a new certification or completing a new course or graduating from.
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an MBA or something like that, that the clients really get a charge out of it. Announced learning milestones to the client, I guess is the important message. Hey, we're committed to delivering excellence, which is why every advisor at our firm has completed some advanced training and client experience, fiduciary standards this quarter. Like, make a statement about it. It's a really big deal. Clients don't want just great service and advice. They want to know that you're leveling up behind the scenes.
And let's be real, who doesn't like it when you get smarter? Okay. Number six, gamify the journey. What do I mean by that? Well, consider adopting a powerful concept used by the U S Navy. Qual cards, qualification cards, know, on submarines and other Navy units, sailors complete these qual cards that require signatures from senior leaders as proof they've mastered key systems. It's not just a way to ensure accountability.
It's about cultivating a culture of mastery. That's gamification in action, applying game design elements like checklists and scoreboards and recognition. And that helps boost engagement and makes no mistake about it. Gamification works. Talent LMS research indicates that 83 % of employees feel more motivated to learn when training is gamified.
And learners retain up to 40 % more information through gamified content. So make it fun. Level up badges for certifications, digital dashboards, tracking your PDP milestones, peer to peer endorsements or shout outs for training wins and fun competition between teams and locations. Maybe it's even an award when your next generation completes a course that they go away together and celebrate a nice meal together or something special.
You know, people do want to grow, give them a game worth playing to make that growth journey just a little bit more exciting. And you'll get a great impact along the way. I also just want to say something very quickly about internal versus external training. You know, both are strategic. And while it's easy to support someone pursuing, you know, these prize designations, as I, as I've mentioned, like CFP or CFA or CPWA don't overlook the vital importance of
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internal training to make sure everyone's on the same page when it comes to firm values and vision, standard operating procedures, client onboarding experiences, cybersecurity, compliance, privacy practices, CRM, tech stack mastery. All of these are really good examples where internal training can be very important as well as the external piece. Make sure you take time to build the comprehensive curriculum for your company.
focused on critical things that every team member should know, believe, and be able to do. You may even want to take a page or pick up some insights and tricks from some standout firms that have proven to be visionary leaners in training. Look at McKinsey & Company, legendary internal learning systems and career paths. Google, 20 % time model encourages learning and innovation. They've got this amazing structure around time where they allow individuals to
invest a piece of their time just in learning and innovation. You've seen firms like Edward Jones, Northwestern Mutual, Schwab, Raymond James, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, structured career tracks, advisor development. Some of the institutional firms have done the best at training and development. I remember years ago, folks saying that Merrill Lynch was the groundwork for so many careers in our industry. Look at the Navy. Look at some of our military leadership academies.
high stakes environment, they build on structured peer reviewed training. You don't need Google or McKinsey to succeed in training. You just simply need to look at what you're currently doing, sharpen your focus, be intentional and remain consistent. Training is growth insurance. It's the most in scalable way to multiply teams potential. It retains top talent. It provides a consistent
client experience as your organization expands. So I had stopped waiting around for everybody just to figure it out. The team that, that it teaches the team that invests the team that inspires. So, you know, when I asked the question, Hey, who taught you that team members, maybe in the future will confidently say, Hey, my team did the company that I've been a part of for 21 years, man, they did. I think about my time, 20 years at Alliance Bernstein and all I learned there.
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just an amazing launch out into the career for me. So something that was incredibly valuable. What I would also say, just as we wrap each episode, we include these coaching questions that hopefully you share with your team. They become good leadership lessons along the way. Let me share a couple with you first. What's your firm's current investment in training per employee and what could increasing that unlock? Number two,
How might your clients characterize your firm's development and learning culture? So think about the client for a moment there. Number three, if your top performer were to leave tomorrow, who's trained and prepared to step up into that role? That's where I like to think about double deep. Is there somebody else that can back somebody else up? Certainly helps with family leave, maternity, paternity, for sure. Where will your future leaders come from?
and how are you prepping them for what's coming around the bend? What will a truly learning driven culture look like at your firm one year from now? Do you plan on improving that? Hey, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Make sure you follow the episode. Give us a review. We appreciate your feedback. And with that, that's a wrap. 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 and article.