This book is built on the following premise: Financial advising is a noble profession. As a financial industry veteran of more than 25 years, I have been witness to the amazing work that advisors do every day to help other people live satisfying, fulfilling, and successful lives.

Financial professionals do meaningful work. They help their clients to design the lives they want to lead and then help them live to the fullest, whether by guiding clients through the challenges of transitioning toward retirement, preparing for and selling a family-owned business when there is no next generation to take it over, making adjustments to original plans because of a divorce, or sending a child to the college of his or her choice. Financial professionals provide support to clients taking care of unexpected health care costs with aging parents and are there as clients work through the financial and maybe even emotional implications of a spouse’s death. The most effective financial advisors also speak to their clients about philanthropic giving, endowment work, and setting up trusts, helping to create a positive influence that radiates out into society.

I call it impact work. Why? Because when advisors do their jobs well, not only does their work impact this generation, but it also carries forward through multiple generations. If a financial advisor does a great job with his or her client, that client’s children and grandchildren will be better off because of that partnership, as will the charities and endowments to which the client contributes. Society will be better off, too, as advisors have helped clients maximize both their wealth and their ability to pay that wealth forward.

Advisors themselves have an opportunity to create change by the way in which they conduct their practices. As Dan Sullivan puts it, financial advisors of the future will have the opportunity to “innovate more and more fundamental solutions to economic, political, and social issues.”¹ I am reminded of one advisor client of my firm who has found a way to start schools in Africa for girls and another who is involved in an annual bicycle giveaway to underprivileged children. Sullivan points to the example of an advisor who created a divorce mediation program that could be used not only in financial services but also in legal and counseling services. Whether on a small, medium, or big scale, that’s true impact. It’s what our profession looks like at its best and what it can be more and more as we move into the future.

Good versus Evil in the Financial Industry

The idea of the financial profession being noble sounds a lot like heresy if we rely only on what we see in the media. There, we don’t hear about the positive side of the financial industry; we hear instead about financial traders under criminal investigation, brokerage firms facing fines, scammers using Ponzi schemes to cheat investors, and decent Americans having their homes foreclosed on due to a mortgage industry gone awry. We see the rawest side of the financial industry depicted in films that showcase sex, drugs, and corruption (The Wolf of Wall Street comes to mind); we may witness our neighbors shaking their heads at the mention of the latest financial scandal among the big banks on the evening news or their social-media feed; and we may hear our friends and family complaining about the greed associated with the industry.

In reality, these portrayals represent only a small segment of the financial profession, and they certainly don’t represent the typical financial advisor. If you are a financial advisor, you know as I do that the majority of individuals in our industry are principled, hardworking, and committed to serving others. They are taking client calls the night before a holiday because they want to make sure their clients get the service they deserve. They are reading up on the tax code on weekends to make sure they have the latest information for their clients long before April 15 rolls around. They update their knowledge of the capital markets frequently. They are curious about people, and they are excellent listeners. They are dedicated to their clients’ financial health and prosperity, and they are not counting their paychecks as the media sometimes suggests.

While it’s true that being a financial advisor and being the founder of a financial advisory firm have monetary benefits, the majority of the financial professionals with whom I have had the honor of serving and partnering are empathic, notable for their deep integrity, and committed to serving others. Throughout this book, you will read many of their stories, which reveal the approach they are taking to help accelerate their own success and how they partner with clients. I have the unique good fortune of occupying a front-row seat to observe the work of the best in the business, and I will share what I’ve learned with you.

Who This Book Is for

As you decide whether to purchase this book or whether to read deeper, you may be wondering whether this book is for you, given that there are so many different types of financial professionals out there. In fact, this book is for financial advisors of any type—wirehouse, independent broker-dealer, and registered investment advisors—who are interested in enriching and/or expanding their teams, strengthening their client relationships, and growing their practices.

In particular, if you are an advisor who knows you have something valuable to offer your clients but you are asking yourself whether you and your firm are doing an effective job of communicating that value, this book is for you. If you are a financial advisor who has found yourself thinking about your professional brand lately and wondering if it is developed enough to attract your ideal client, this book is also for you. Maybe you have yet to define your own brand or specific value proposition, but you do know that you’d like to grow your practice, and you recognize that there is room for you to do a better job of marketing your services. Or perhaps you’ve been pigeonholed by some of your clients: They don’t understand the full breadth of services you offer, and you’re ready to break out of that narrow mold and create a brand that is as big as you now are. If so, this book is for you.

This book is also for those advisors who want to be able to sell their firm someday and who are seriously thinking about an exit strategy. This book will help these advisors clarify their value proposition to clients and learn to document that value, so others on the team can replicate the unique capabilities and approach of their firm and scale them over time for greater profit.

Last, this book is for those advisors who believe in the potential of this profession to help people live better lives and who are interested in having a positive impact on others and leaving a legacy.

The Goods: What This Book Contains

This book provides all the tools you need to consider how you may wish to reframe yourself, your team, and your firm, as well as to engage in the actual reframe. While the reframe itself ultimately will be unique to your firm and your clients, the process to get there is consistent across firms, as I and my team have tested, refined, and perfected it over the years with thousands of financial advisors. We share it here with you. In fact, I have included in this book everything I believe you will need to successfully reframe your practice. This includes key concepts to help you understand the philosophy behind reframing, assessment tools to help you identify important patterns, coaching questions that enable you to reflect, a step-by-step formula for engaging in the reframe, hands-on exercises to move forward, and industry insight from top financial leaders that will make your reframe even more effective. You will also be given access to online resources and an online community of other financial professionals with whom you can engage, chat, brainstorm, ask questions, and share insight to make sure you don’t have to go it alone.

This book is divided into three sections. “Part I: You Gotta Believe” covers the thinking and philosophy behind why the reframe is important. This part will help you create new thinking patterns that can inspire and motivate you to engage in the hard work of reframing your practice. You have to be open to the possibility of some shifts in your thinking and beliefs before you can engage in the reframing process. You may also find out while reading this first part of the book that you’re on the right track and/or that how you’re currently framed is exactly how you wish to be framed. That can help increase the confidence of all members of your team, including you as the leader, while keeping you all motivated and energized to continue on your path of success and development.

Then, “Part II: Five Steps to Reframing Your Business” gives you a step-by-step plan for how to effectively reframe your practice. This section is full of support tools—coaching questions, checklists, exercises, online resources, and more—to help you create a powerful new frame that will help you meet your goals for your practice. In particular, Part II will help you

• determine how your clients are currently framing you,
• explore what you’d really like to be seen as representing and match this up with your clients’ actual needs,
• create a marketing story to communicate your new frame to others,
• reengage your clients with your new story so they can fully partake in your firm’s services and tell others about your story, and
• build a network of trustworthy professionals who will help you deliver on your promise to your clients and spread the word about what you do.

Part II will help you create an authentic marketing approach that builds a bridge between what you want to provide and what your clients need, so you can grow your business in a conscious and purposeful way that meets both criteria. It’s the ultimate setup for long-term success, whether that’s defined as selling your business someday for the greatest return or watching your firm continue into the next generation.

In “Part III: Now What?” you will learn how to assess whether you have effectively reframed your practice by looking for 10 specific signals. This can be as rewarding as hearing your client tell someone else about your services and nailing them spot on or as simple as discovering that you like to go to work once again. Part III will also review key concepts, talk about the future of advising, and highlight some of the additional free resources awaiting you online as you engage in reframing your business. These resources include helpful checklists, articles, and opportunities to converse with other financial leaders.

Joining Together to Create a Noble Profession

I sincerely believe that the financial profession is a noble one and that advisors have the potential to make a huge impact on their clients and the world. This book is meant to help advisors reach their full potential so they can not only achieve their own goals as business owners but also benefit their clients, transform the industry, and change the world. Are you ready to join me?

I’m invested in the journey and here’s why.

My dedication to the financial industry is rooted in my long history with the profession. I first joined the industry at 17 years of age, when I was fortunate enough to get a job working at 140 Broadway in downtown Manhattan as a summer intern for Alliance Capital, which was really beginning to grow as a mutual fund company. Although I was born in New York, I had moved to Texas at age 11; six years later, I came back to New York to learn the ropes in financial services. I ended up earning enough summer money at Alliance Capital to put myself through my first year of college at Baylor University.

At Baylor, I learned a lot about myself, a lot about values, and a lot about integrity. I owe a great deal to the university and to the many professors there who invested in helping to shape who I am today. I was taught at Baylor that we get to grow up to be whatever we wish to be, to be curious and learn from others, and to be a journey learner. I remember, too, one of my professors reminding me upon graduation that the journey for learning had only just begun.

For 20 years, I chose to work in the asset management space for Alliance Capital, which became Alliance Bernstein, in multiple capacities. I started in operations when I was 17, where I learned the business from the inside out; next, I moved into an inside sales role and then a field sales professional role, meeting with financial advisors, which I did for more than a decade. Then I was recruited to be part of the leadership team, where I was responsible for leading the bank channel, the independent financial planning channel, the registered investment advisor channel, and the insurance channel. It was a long, prosperous, and wonderful career that gave me an opportunity to understand the financial industry in a way that an outsider cannot.

I had always felt called to make a difference in the lives of others, so I decided to engage in that calling more fully: I left Alliance Bernstein and trained to become a professional certified coach. By January 2006, I had launched ClientWise, dedicated to coaching the financial professionals with whom I’d worked for so long. In this work, I have the pleasure of leading a team of coaches who help many top professional advisors discover how their clients view them and discern how they would like their clients to view them in the future. These coaches also work with advisors as they rebuild their frames and grow their referral networks to create businesses with greater value, purpose, and longevity.

In addition to leading a team of more than 25 coaches and growing ClientWise, I have the pleasure of traveling the United States and internationally to speak to, train, and coach top-tier financial professionals. I continue to discover that as highly capable as advisors are, there are still discrepancies—sometimes big, sometimes small—between how they see themselves and how others see them, clients and team members included. That is why I have written this book. It excites me to be an advocate for financial advisors and for the great work many of them do for others. I think that if advisors listen to clients, connect to their own passions, and match the two, their work can truly change the world.

I bring a unique background to my current work as an executive coach and CEO of a coaching company dedicated to financial professionals. While other coaches in this space may have covered the financial industry as journalists or have come out of a more general business background, I have worked directly in the financial industry for more than two decades, rising through the ranks and learning how the business operates, from rainmaking and relationship development to team building and practice management.

I also have a personal familiarity with the process of reframing, having done it many times over the years: as a Texan working in New York City, a New Yorker working in Texas, a salesman who became a leader, a field sales guy who moved to the home office, a wholesaler that grew to be a national sales director, and a financial services leader who became an executive coach to financial leaders.

Ultimately, my intention in writing this book is to make a positive difference in the lives of others, from the financial professionals who read this book to the clients they serve, who will be affected for the better. But it’s a journey that we have to take together. If we are going to evolve the industry and pull so many clients up with us, we must agree to listen to our clients, try new pathways, work hard, and go back again to our clients to listen to their feedback until we get things right. In the process, we can fall back in love with the profession and spend our time doing more of what we love.

Are you out, or are you in?

Harold Rubin, a good friend of mine who is also a mentor, will often remind me that my job is to grow into the most that I can be each and every day. “Yesterday is over,” Harold will say. “What do you plan to do today to become the most that you can be?” I would like to challenge you to ask yourself this same question. By engaging in the reframe process, you will have the capability to ask and answer, “How can we be the best we can be today and in the future for our clients and ourselves?”

How to Read This Book

While this book can be read from start to finish, you don’t have to read the chapters in a particular order or even read the book cover to cover. Feel free to focus on those chapters that most excite you and resonate with you or to view a snapshot of each chapter by reading the key concepts, coaching questions, and industry-insight examples in each. Be sure not to miss the alerts, too, for the complimentary online tools that are available to you on the ClientWise eXchange™ (youvebeenframed.clientwise.com). These unique tools and resources can help you and your team to reframe yourselves, achieve the goals you have set, and ultimately make the kind of difference in the lives of others you hope to make. Icons are used throughout the book to signal each of these different elements.

• Key Concept
• Coaching Corner
• Industry Insight
• The eXchange™

The eXchange™ is a first-of-its-kind platform that provides financial advisors with access to proprietary content developed by my company, ClientWise, since 2006 while working with top performers in the industry. As a reader, you will have access to a special book-related set of tools on the eXchange™, as well as to other financial professionals who have read this book.² The eXchange™ also provides access to a network of high-performing financial professionals across the nation and the ability to engage with the world’s highest-credentialed executive coaches. The membership on the eXchange™ continues to grow; I invite you to take advantage of this opportunity to join.

Conclusion

In an industry marked by constant change, the ability to reframe oneself, one’s team, and one’s practice is essential. Fiduciary standards will continue to evolve, compensation will continue to change, and new technology will continue to emerge, regularly disrupting both the way we do business and the type of service that clients expect and the government demands. Today, it is the robo-advisor; tomorrow, it will be something else, and we can only predict so much.

The ability to reframe your practice will give you the agility you require to stay relevant in tomorrow’s world. It will provide you with the tools you need to articulate your value to the client when competing technologies emerge, downward pressure on compensation continues, and the unforeseen changes of tomorrow take place. The ability to reframe will ensure you are ready for that change and that you will be able to evolve again and again over time as the marketplace shifts into its next iteration. Reframing ensures relevance!