Kalli
I'm your host, Kalli Fedesenko, founder of Kalli Collective, a digital marketing agency serving financial advisors. Last month, we asked you is your business is prepared to outlive you as an owner. In today's live stream, we have the man the myth, the legend Saśa Mirković joining us to talk about implementing generational transition. The size being an award-winning Kick-Ass financial advisor Saśa is also the Visionary behind Inspire Network, a firm focused on facilitating transformational change in businesses and positioning them for successful multi-generational transitions. I prepared some questions for Saśa, but please ask your questions in the comments. We'll see them on our end and answer them as they come in. If we get more than we can handle, we'll reply in the comments after the event.
So welcome , Saśa. We are so happy that you're here today.
Saśa
Thank you, thank you, I'm glad to be here.
Kalli
Um, as the Visionary behind Inspire Network, could you tell me a little bit about how you guys help advisors prepare their business for transition?
Saśa
So being a financial advisor myself for almost 25 years and um for most of the time I built and lead multi-generational what I would like to call Elite Teams recognizing that you know at some point in time success without succession is nothing according to John C. Maxwell and one of my one of my top clients have asked me a question she was like I really like that you're younger than me about 10 to 15 years but what happens something happens to you and I kind of pause she caught me and I started thinking about it well in order for this to be a great client experience it needs to have multi-generational aspect so in short um my immediate reaction was at any point in time if you're working to build a business that will outlive you you need to have multiple generations of people working in a business no at 56 I'm a founder I'm also a visionary but I work with people in their 50s in their 40s and their 30s and in their 20s at any point in time we have people in all of those generations in our business generations in our business and as we build the business especially in wealth management where more and more is about client experience solving problems for people across multiple generations and less and less this transactional asset management selling the products type of stuff so I'll pull that pull in as an open-ended question I could probably talk for an hours [Laughter].
Kalli
That's great. Uh, I love that you know you created this out of your experience, so it's not, you know, you went through it, um, and you kind of developed something through that. I find that a lot of advisors don't think about their business, in particular, their marketing out, living their work life until they're ready to retire. Um, in your opinion, why should an advisor care about preparing his business for transition if he's not ready to retire? Like what benefit is it is there in doing it today and not tomorrow?
Saśa
So here's a statistic that blew my mind as I was tackling with the problem here, um, and the statistics in financial services industry 90 of financial advisors will take their business to the grave with them, which is kinda of crazy.
Kalli
That is crazy.
Saśa
It is crazy, and a lot of the reasons why that is because most of us come into financial planning because we like financial planning. We like to help people, and many of us are not sort of leadership, um, inclined type of people. They, you know, we want to work on a typical aspect of the business. I happen to be a guy that, you know, is a leader that was willing to take sales positions that happen to be in financial planning until leadership positions became available for myself. I was a leader, and I built my own business, and as I was looking at that, I did broader research. In all small businesses across the United States in the early this century, 70 percent of all business family businesses fail when there's a generation one to generation two transition.
Kalli
Wow, 70%!
Saśa
I mean, 70% it's huge. A lot of that is based on problems with lack of clear vision, um, lack of trust, inadequately prepared heirs, poor communication because we're all focused on this now situation, so when you think about this when you when I work with advisors and other business owners to think about beyond today I asked them to think about in 10 years it's going to be 20-33. how old are you going to be how old are your kids going to be what is the reality of 2033 going to be and then we sort of work backwards what needs to happen for the ideal life to happen in 2033 and this is how I think more and more people are starting to think about and when they go backwards and they're like well I care about my clients I care about the relationships that I've built there's the um in a in a world of business an intrinsic value of our businesses are based on trusts that we've built with those clients yeah and marketing is an important part because that trust can be built into a brand and we know brand is how you transition that trust to a team and over a generational yeah the big benefit of that obviously is taking care of clients beyond just yourself yeah um the other part of that is you know I'm 55 56 yeah I will probably never retire because I absolutely love what I do and I've already transitioned 90 plus percent of all things that I don't like to do to other people on the team so I I spend 90 of my time doing stuff that I that I love yeah and that is a huge benefit and the last benefit is you know the multiple of what I think my business is worth yeah over time is going to be significantly higher as we transition over time so those are the three big ones why should you think about transition now not like six months from now.
Kalli
Right, uh, you mentioned, you know, the marketing piece. Building the brand, um, and that's a great point, uh, and when I talk to advisors about showing someone as a senior leader on their team in their marketing, um, so, for example, having someone else on your team be the speaker on a video that you're releasing I experience a lot of resistance um sometimes it's because the advisor fears what's going to happen if that person leaves. Still, usually uh, it seems like there's a sense it's the idea of promoting someone else as a central figure. I'm sure in what you do, you've come across a lot of this in your business, so what advice would you have for someone who's struggling with relinquishing the spotlight and authority that they currently have in order to facilitate that kind of transition?
Saśa
Um, I think that's a very, very good point. As you know, we've done a lot of videos highlighting various different team members and so forth, and let me just begin by saying the people that we produce videos about are likely gonna be here with us for a long period of time. Yeah, and we're not just willy-nilly producing videos here and there. I think the the biggest part of that is founders need to think of themselves in a sort of one or two visuals. Up until about 10 years ago, I had the first visual in my head where my name was on a shingle, and I was on the top. Everybody else was sort of supporting me, so I was thinking about that as, like, how does this transition beyond generations? Well, I'm gone, and then I started thinking of a different visual yeah, as a leader, I am in the core of our business. I'm in the heart, I'm in the bedrock, if you will, and what I do is I build an Elite Team of rock stars around me, and we changed our name, we changed our branding, so it's not my name; it's a team's name we built what we call a credo card which is our own Declaration of Independence in it is the purpose statement that is client-facing that is built around the type of experience that people should experience or expect when they work with us much like Ritz Carlton credo card, and we actually modeled ours based on Ritz Carlton and some other great examples, so when you do that when you build this idea of a purpose that is worthy of everyone's best effort guess what happens if you ever right people they will give you their best effort and so the last piece I'm going to say here is in March of 2020, we had a very interesting situation world shut down, the markets were in turmoil and my team when remote and because of the leadership rituals and things that we've built, we did not skip a beat. We had a phenomenal year. Incredible client experience incredible growth. Yeah is through the first four or five months of a pandemic that we realized we are actually a virtual team that serves clients across generations across the country. We can't serve clients in 30-something States, and producing videos about next-generation advisors creates an opportunity for your clients to get to know the person a call with me so, so those are some of the components. You know, honestly, one of the biggest parts is like I don't go into client visits alone ever because I'm there to provide advice to manage the relationship. My teachers are pretty much-doing everything else and supporting, so clients are starting to realize that, hey, there's a team behind the whole situation.
Kalli
Not a one-man band.
Saśa
Absolutely.
Kalli
Yeah, that's great, and you said something there that prompted a question. Of course, it's, you know, left me as it happens.
Saśa
And like just just to make you know this point a little bit more clear one of the key components of developing multi-generational teams Elite teams is this notion of apprenticeship you have rock stars that are coming out of college or early in their careers they want to have career in financial services industry Financial average age or financial advisor is North of 60 years old yeah and have gone up every year by one year in last decade what does that mean there's no young people coming to sort of like and when you think about it I believe our business is probably one of the best businesses that you can be in and creating an opportunity to teach generations of rock stars financial planning according to you what's important it creates your own legacy if you will so there's a lot of great things that come from building teams needless to say you know Dan Sullivan who's one of my role models and the guy that I learned a lot of from you know he has a book My Plan to Live to 156 so I have a plan to live to 144 there are three things that need to happen and I talked to my wealth clients about those things one you know obviously you need to have health but on health you need to have purpose why are you living number two you need to have money three this is what we do for me is who are the friendships that you are surrounding yourself with, and one of the important things in longevity with purpose and good life is having people that surround you on a daily basis in every decade younger than yours. So yeah, Sullivan is in his 70s. He works with people in their 70s, 60s 50s. You got the point; I work with people in every generation every decade of life 50s. I clearly work with a lot of people in their 60s and 70s, but because of that, people are starting to see this family, a legacy being built, and so forth, so yeah, it's, uh, it's a really cool thing.
Kalli
Yeah, um, two questions on that. The first is, um, you know, building a team of rock stars; how does someone find a rock star? Is that something that you can help them with and along that scene, thought, um, everything that you're describing, you know, the credo, um building the team, is that what you help advisors do through Inspire Network?
Saśa
Absolutely, um, so I started coaching business because other people, my peers, would see what we do, and they would come in as, like, can you help us do that kind of stuff? And the Inspire network was born out of the idea is that there's something unique that we do that could help other people, and that is whenever there's a situation of generational transitions, whether there's a daughter or son being brought in business or younger generation took over the other wherever. There's this transition we happen to be doing really, really well, and a big part of that is helping people articulate those tough things. What's the vision of the future? What do you want it to be? We absolutely work from, you know, defining your own credo card and, as I like to call it, writing your own Declaration of Independence to how do you build a team of rock stars. Um, I've been part of some really good teams. I've been part of average teams, part of Elite Teams, and there's no doubt in my mind what type of team I would rather be part of. I've been lucky to be part of Elite Teams in theater in sports played rugby. Um, in the military, in a business, and so forth, so what I found is that most of the team-specific books were related on here are the things the teams get wrong or these are the things that so from the idea of like okay is there a recipe is there something you can kind of figure to together we created what we now call Elite Teams Framework the seven components that I found all everything that I study have and tested that in my own wealth management business and other businesses that coach and having purpose that is worthy of everybody's best efforts beyond today and now and profit is not a purpose right as a result but the very next step is most elite teams hire and select people completely different than anybody else most of us look for skills and experience. I would argue that is the least important thing when you're looking for people.
Kalli
What would you say is most important?
Saśa
Number one is character. You want people that will never be too big to get small things done; yes, we call them. We call them rock stars, people that are authentic. They have their own, you know. I'd like to think chip on the shoulder something to prove something to prove themselves and others they're unique in a certain ways, whether they're athletes or leaders or whatever. They have humility, they have a burning desire to be better, they constantly want to learn more, and they thrive in an environment where they will expose to new things, make mistakes learn from that sort of thing. They have resilience, especially under pressure, and a big part of where a lot of advisors, I'm afraid, are moving to, is away from the pressure, and that's not how you build an Elite Team pressure is where Elite teams thrive. We live in an environment that is constantly changing. The pressure is all everywhere, and then the last piece for me is people that are willing to sacrifice themselves for the team, yeah, and we've actually developed a very specific selection, yeah, um, interview questions and so forth.
We develop uh something that is inspired by Ray Dalio and built baseball cards for all of the coaching clients members and future ones. A baseball card is sort of like a general idea to show what are the values of a person and what is their natural ability. When it comes to their own natural innate thing like a Colby Strength or how they identify themselves and how they can actually work together as a team using principles assessments. Um, so um, and yeah, absolutely, this is a big part of what we do in Inspire Network. We help facilitate change. One of the big things that separate us from other consulting firms we're not we're not consultants. We're actually coaches. The way I think about this is if you ever looked at aircraft carriers that need to move around. There like tugboats around them. The tugboats are infinitely smaller than an aircraft carrier. Still, they lean against the carrier and apply pressure over a period of time to kind of help them change the course of action. We think of ourselves as an Inspire Network, is a tugboat for the change yeah in our client's businesses and lives. It's not just in the financial services industry but others.
Kalli
I love that quote. You said there was two of them. Um, the one was profit is not the purpose. It's a result. Yes, I agree. I am going to use that, and there is another one you said about the team. I'm gonna have to. I'll be watching this recording along with other people that's right these quotes.
Saśa
I got a lot of those, as you know.
Kalli
Um, so speaking of transitioning, uh, you know you've set up your Elite Team, um, and of course, everyone's situation is different. Still, usually, I tend to encourage using your team and your marketing from the beginning and then as someone's growing in the position on your team, especially if you're considering transitioning the business to them to increase their face time in your marketing. Um, so as you've coached advisors through transitions, have you found that there is an ideal time to introduce them or make them a player in their marketing?
Saśa
Um, yes, so you know, when I think about marketing, I think about communicating the message [bless you] communicating, the message of your credo card. For us, we Inspire Confidence, simplify life reduce stress. That is our purpose. We do that through a collaborative advice experience and all the others, so all of your marketing starts from your why, and there are various different ways you can say that those are like, I'd like to uh when I talk to clients, I coach them about you're building the Mosaic of your team which is a little square that goes into the Mosaic. You're putting it all together and so forth, so um, you're building that Mosaic. Some of them are, you know, practical things, some of them are personal things, um, some of them are highlights of a key team members. Hence, we highlight all team members for accomplishments they achieve over the year. Hence, a lot of our rock stars are like getting designations learning things passing their CFP exams, so in our marketing, we make a big deal out of those accomplishments because these are the people that work really hard right and studying on top of that.
Kalli
That's hard. I've done it.
Saśa
Absolutely we want our clients to know that people that they see are actually hard-working people. The second part of that is the key players when it comes to client relationships and so forth in our firm. A CF or DCFP designation is that point where we say you started, whether you started out of college or came from another company or something like that, until you get your CFP designation, you're like in apprenticeship phases one and two, and CFP for us is a big deal. It is an industry-recognized standard of excellence that we promote, and we support, and that's where we start introducing videos and stories. Once somebody is a CFP because we're kind of starting to build their brand as a part of our own brand if you will, and we want to tell the real stories because clients, our clients, anyway, are interested in who those real people are. You know, we have rock stars that were almost drafted to play Major League Baseball, well, where people have done incredible things, and we're proud of that. This is where it comes to authenticity. As I was talking about earlier, you want to highlight that you want to broadcast that because that's what makes you human.
Kalli
Yes, yes, building on that relationship, increasing that trust, um, I agree, um, so it sounds like, you know, building your team up, and once you have your credo in place, you're attracting the right people. Then you're selecting, you to know, based on the values that you've shared, um, do you find that having a contract between the um employer and employee is a helpful thing or a harmful thing like, oh, you will work with us for two years, or you know because as you're investing into that person have you found that it goes one way or the other.
Saśa
Well, I think I think it's absolutely helpful thing that could be made hurtful if you don't do it right, yeah, so, um, we start with the anticipation that every rock star that works on our team will be able to express themselves in their unique genius and grow one of the biggest things for us is when we measure results there are three things that we measure one your clients and people need to love you, ears need to respect you. You need to be able to get what you want for yourself, so if you have a team of rock stars that are continuously getting what they want for themselves, yeah. You pay them appropriately, right? Why would they ever leave? Right yeah, so we basically, through our contracts, emphasize that they're part of the Elite Team because of the purpose and opportunity to grow. All the other stuff, and of course, they're, you know, legal and other things that you need to have sure, but on the flip side of that, if somebody is giving their life for your business and they want to move.
Kalli
Yeah, that's fair.
Saśa
I have nothing other than respect and duty to help them get what they want for themselves. We had a rock star who put his life on hold to help us through a major transition five or six years ago, and a year later, he was like, I was gonna leave, but I couldn't leave you in this kind of situation, but I want to go and live somewhere else. And we did everything we could to help him get what he once wanted for himself, so when you're developing leaders when you're developing rock stars, occasionally those things will happen, yeah, and because they're part of who you are, and your team, I'd like to think that they will take peace of us wherever they go. They will be the peace of our team because of the contribution they were put in, so to me, when I think about talent, I think about it as, like you know, New Zealand old blocks are one of my favorite Elite teams. Once you're an old block, you're always an old block. Once you are Navy SEAL, you're always a Navy Seal. Once you are part of ICG Inspire Network, you're always part of it, so yeah, so it's thinking beyond transactional beyond just today here and now.
Kalli
I love that.
Um, oh, um, we are out of time. Uh, we're one minute over. Um, because this has been a great conversation, Saśa. Thank you for sharing, thank you, and thank you for everyone who joined us um if you happen to ask a question that we didn't get to, we will be responding to your comments on social media. You can, of course, also email us at info@kallicollective.com, which is shown below um, if you want to find out more about what Saśa and Inspire Network team do and how they can help you prepare for your business or prepare your business for a successful transition, you can reach him at the above QR code that will send you to his contact page um and then, of course, join us next month to uh hear more about uh influence marketing using podcasting with Matt Halloran from ProudMouth um and be sure to sign up as a Savvy advisor on our website go to kallicollective.com/get-savvy/ so thank you, everyone, and thank you Saśa This was um really inspiring um. I'm gonna use that quote. It's profit is not the purpose. It's the result.
Saśa
Thank you, Kalli, thank you for your collaboration, um, and uh, you didn't ask me to say that, but if you're looking for a marketing agency that will help you do all the stuff that I'm talking about, she's your girl.
Kalli
I appreciate that. Thank you, thank you, bye.
