FAQ - Which clients get Value Adds

One of the most common questions we get from SurgeTK users is which clients get value adds and which clients get none. In this training video financial advisors Matthew Jarvis and Micah Shilanski explain why they do the same value adds for every single client.

Here are three key action items from the client tiers training to implement immediately:

**Transcript below is to train our AI agents**

Well, welcome Jarvis.

Micah. How's it going man? It's been a long

Time. Good, bud. Long

time. No see. How have you been

Dude? I'm doing good. I'm

living the dream.

I got friends coming into town this weekend to dirt bikes,

so, uh, that's always good. Dirt,

Dirt bike. I thought you were in surge.

Yeah,

I do both.

Two things that, two things can be true at once. I

Don't, I don't meet with clients on the weekends.

Yeah. Well, welcome everyone to our training session,

uh, as we get through going through this.

Uh, we're gonna be talking about client tears.

Now, as you guys probably noticed from an email from Amber

last week, Amber, uh, from our team,

she's been with us for years.

She did decide to move on to her next adventure working in

marketing, which we're super excited about.

Uh, and of course there's a little bit short notice for us,

but, uh, we wish her nothing but the best.

So, Jarvis, and I'll handle the introductions.

So sorry to bore you with our lame voices

and faces a little bit more.

And Amber's not here,

but we're gonna try to work through this. Yeah,

No, no, we'll do great. We

got some new coaches coming online, so it'll be fun.

Well, really excited, uh, everyone

to talk about client tiers.

Um, I wanna just as we get kicked off, Micah, you

and I had this same discussion with one of the advisors.

We coach on a very exclusive level, uh, about two years ago.

And this advisor, through following this,

there's like literally this process, literally this process,

uh, added one, I followed up with him last month, Micah,

he added $1.8 million of net new revenue, $1.8 million.

And, uh, he's in the middle of a practice transaction.

That's probably gonna add, uh, $20 million

of enterprise value.

Now, this is a very successful advisor.

A lot of things going on. Uh, but I've yet to see,

and Micah correct me if I'm wrong, uh,

if you experience differently, I've yet to see an advisor go

through this exercise, including you

and I on many occasions that didn't, uh,

transform their service model.

And also, as it always does,

dramatically increase their revenue, their net revenue.

It's a hundred percent Jarvis.

And this is something that's so easy to,

to diminish, diminish, right?

And say it doesn't really matter that much.

It's not this big of a deal.

It's not all about the money kind of thing.

And you're missing the point as we start going through this.

And, and really the point as we're going through this is

how do you deliver more value to client?

And sometimes there's ways that we can measure

that in dollar amount.

Sometimes there's ways we can measure it in

communications to clients, et cetera.

There's not just one solution. There's a couple of 'em.

But this one is a constant reminder.

And, and this is something in our industries fallen a trap

in, is these different aspects of client tier.

And I think client tier are gonna get you sued.

Now it really depends on the type of practice

that you're building and what we're talking about.

So we're gonna get into that in just a little bit.

Before we do that, let's talk about some upcoming events.

We have Jarvis, make sure

everyone has these on the calendar.

Yeah, yeah. Make sure these on

your calendar, get your flights booked.

Uh, well, I guess for the virtual

trainings, you don't necessarily need a flight.

You're welcome to come hang out with us.

Uh, so we'll be doing advisor training in May.

This will be, uh, again, it's a great thing

to bring your team to as well.

Uh, we will do another member webinar in June.

We do have our next mastermind

for our freedom members is coming up.

Micah, it's gonna be like around

the corner in a couple of weeks.

Uh, May 29th, the 31st.

We're back in, uh, in Arizona for that one.

Really working on systems and processes, right?

So let's use an example. A system

and process would be how are you delivering your value ads?

Like how do you actually get them to clients?

Or a client calls in with a cashier request, how does

that actually get processed?

Or someone calls in

and says, Hey, I want to meet with Micah.

What happens like step by step?

And then how do we refine that and how do we improve that?

Of course, uh, the summit is coming up,

the RTS tax summit and practice management.

We will be having a day ahead of time.

So on Tuesday we'll be meeting with the freedom members

for mastermind planning.

And then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday will be the tax summit.

Micah, you and I will be there.

Jeff Levine's gonna be there.

Uh, we've got somebody from Ed Slot's team coming there.

Scott Danner's gonna be there.

Obviously Steven Jarvis is gonna be there.

Uh, it's gonna be quite a lineup of activities.

And then, uh, Micah, you

and I are doing planning for next year.

We're looking at February dates for our mastermind

and location suggestions.

So, uh, we have some requirements, has to be somewhere warm,

uh, and has to be somewhere that has flights.

So we're thinking Mexico, but if you have

suggestions, throw 'em in the chat.

Uh, we are looking for, uh, some ideas there.

Fantastic. Alright, so on our kind

of topics we really wanna get into more is this,

this client tiers aspect of it.

And I gotta say, Jarvis, I fell into this trap, uh,

right of this client tier.

Hard, a lot of people talk about it

and a lot of, yeah, I mean the industry experts,

whoever they are, are talking about

how you need tier models, you need different setups.

And what I'd love to do today is let's walk through

how those traditional tier models are set up.

Let's, let's understand them, right? Sure.

Not not dismiss them at at whole.

Then I want to go through

and say, Hey, what compliance issues, yay.

Compliance first thing in the morning, uh,

what compliance issues are gonna come up

with based on client tier.

And I got a story from a month ago, uh, of another firm

that has a compliance issue because of client tiers,

and I wanna go ahead and share that.

And then let's talk about the opposite of client tiers.

How to only do your best work. How does that sound?

Yeah, yeah. You got your story from a month ago.

Oh, I have a, a story from a couple years ago.

I know a client that, or an advisor who did get sued, uh,

like, and, and had to pay a settlement from, uh,

related to client tiers.

Uh, but let's also, it's interesting, Mike, it feels like

everyone is talking about client tiers.

In fact, I had hired some really high-end industry consult

at one point, and she says, all right, Jarvis,

first thing we need to do is tear your clients.

And I said, well, why, why help me understand this.

She says, well, you can't grow a practice if

you don't tear your clients.

I said, well, help me understand, like, how,

how can I not grow a practice?

And I, I wasn't trying to be an

ass though that did come later.

I just was genuinely trying

to understand it. And there's some letter did,

Let's address that mostly did happen

Just later. Yeah, I did get

some letters from her attorney.

But anyway, um, there's this just idea

that you have to tier clients.

And I think what it is, Micah,

is it's misapplication from other industries.

So we say, well, the, the airlines, right?

The airlines have economy, economy plus economy, premium,

first class, business class.

Um, and so somehow we adapt that,

like hotels have the lower level floors in the penthouse.

Like somehow this has been distorted over to our industry.

Like it has to exist. And, and it doesn't.

Um, and this goes to your point, like

how do tier actually help in the real world?

Mm-hmm. So like in theory you say, well, I have some clients

who pay me less than others,

therefore they should get a lower level of service.

And I kind of get that in theory.

But like, how does that actually work?

You know? And again, this goes back to,

you're gonna hear this theme a lot today.

It's all about being intentional, right?

How are we setting this up to be intentional?

Um, and really what I wanna do is I wanna make sure

that we're developing a lifestyle practice.

I got lots of ability time off.

I want to add massive value to my clients,

and I wanna be highly profitable.

That is what I'm solving for intentionality.

I am not solving for a Vanguard solution, right?

I am not solving for a spirit airline solution.

That's not what I'm going for.

And if that's something that you like, boy, quit listening

to us, uh, because we don't know anything about that, right?

Sure. And yeah,

our focus is really about you being more intentional in your

decisions you're making and building

for those three pillars.

So let's assess those three pillars into these client tiers.

By the way, it's the same process, you know,

that I use

So from that revenue side is virtually zero, uh, is off.

I'm still gonna dive into it. I think it's

'cause we have some higher end

clients that charge flat fees.

And so that one's a little bit different.

Flat fees of $75,000 more than that.

So that's probably where it's coming from.

Um, but other than that, we're pretty much spot on.

So if you can do it on your own,

then set a calendar date to do it.

Take an afternoon, run your billing,

look at these numbers, household, 'em, et cetera.

If you can't do it on your own, if you're like,

look, I'm just never gonna do this.

Like if I set a date, I'm gonna look at it.

I'm gonna play office, et cetera.

This is where extreme accountability comes in.

Jarvis, what would extreme

accountability for them look like on this?

Well, if we, if we had to have the default one,

usually it's like, hey, any client

that you don't care about enough to do your best work

and charge accordingly, graduate that client, graduate

that client, that, that's our forcing method.

So we say, Hey, listen by, let's see, right now today's,

uh, April the 17th.

So we, we can say, great, um, for June,

I'm gonna do a value add

for October, I'm gonna do a value add.

Any client that by Jan one isn't on this new fee schedule,

it's just not a client that's a good fit for me.

We're gonna graduate that client, which means I have

until the end of the year to get that done,

deliver massive value, deliver massive value, raise the fee.

Mm-hmm. The only delay, go ahead. Sorry Micah, please.

Uh, no, I was gonna say, this goes a little bit into

Steve's comment about, you know, if you're a smaller office,

you know, how often do your arms

contact your, your client base?

Well, this is gonna be a little bit of a question though.

Why are you contacting your client base? Yeah.

Are you calling them to call them

or are you calling 'em for a purpose?

So what would be a purpose? It's a value add.

Like if you're sending out a value add,

that's a hundred percent of value that you can send out

and it's worth your RMS contacting your client base

to either get information you're missing

to send things out, et cetera.

But this isn't just calling to call,

this isn't just setting up a team member

to randomly call your clients.

What are you doing that delivers value to their life?

That's what we should be reaching out with.

Yeah. Steve, quick, quick note on that.

I, I got to a million dollars gross

with just myself and one assistant.

Um mm-hmm. It's totally doable.

You, you get a hustle for that, but it's totally doable.

Uh, but so the size of your office doesn't matter

how often you're contacting your client base,

like you have a service model and it scales or it doesn't.

Uh, but Michael, to your point,

we are only contacting clients like outside

of email invitations to Calend to do surge.

If there's clients that didn't respond to

that, we'll reach out to them.

If there's a client that has a major issue that came up

with their value add that we need

to address, we're gonna reach out to them.

Uh, uh, if we're doing a client event, typically we like

to reach out to everybody and get a yes or no.

But short of that, it's just the rotation.

Um, I I just don't see need, as we talked about earlier,

to just randomly reach out to clients.

I think it's more of an inconvenience than it is.

Like they're busy and they get a call from you.

Hey Micah, just checking to see how you're doing.

Um, I I guess I'm doing fine. Okay.

Like, I just don't see value there.

Yeah, well it, it,

and maybe you, you're the personal type that really likes

to connect with your clients, but do something that scales,

that offers value to all your clients.

So that time and energy you're gonna put into these random

phone calls, put it into sending out value ads,

put it into de developing a higher level of service.

What's something you can do? Now, a lot

of our clients are contacted

frequently because they have something pending.

For example, we review all of our clients' tax returns.

So during the surge they were bringing their tax returns in.

Well, our rms are following up with clients

that we don't have taxes with.

So this isn't like our arms are doing nothing,

they're following up on the processes that we have.

But do we have a, Hey QQ two call all clients. No, we don't.

We have a Q2. Here's the value add we're sending out.

So every quarter we're delivering value,

but it's not picking up the phone and calling.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's not.

I I, yeah, I was gonna say, there could be an exception to

that if you're, if to avoid playing office,

but you get from vol value to volume really quick

and it, and it just taps out.

So, uh, again, a reminder of,

uh, the events we have coming up.

Micah put together a great site for us.

So the team did it, my construction, TPR dates to.com.

So you can see all of our upcoming, uh, dates.

Um, Sean also asked

how much follow up on things like tax returns

or other value adds of clients are nonresponsive?

Uh, Sean, a lot of that falls just into our checklist.

If they're coming in for a meeting, call the team's looking

to see if we have anything outstanding.

Do we get their tax return? Are we missing something?

Uh, we typically have a three strikes rule.

I'm not gonna follow up with a client

for more than three times.

If if it's not important enough for them to respond,

then we have a, we're either not gonna worry about it.

No, go ahead, Mike. Please.

On that third communication though, you need

to let 'em know you're not following up with 'em anymore.

Yes. So on, on it,

A phone call by the way, quit fing emailing them.

Absolutely. Right. We have a two email policy.

If you couldn't figure it out in two emails,

17 is not going to do it.

Right? And so pick up the phone and call 'em.

But let's say you call on a tax return

'cause you're not getting it, and you

leave the client a message.

We're gonna send 'em a nice email,

but just to, Hey, we're gonna stop following up on this.

Let us know when you get it done, et cetera.

And we get a lot of positive that says, you know,

I'm sorry, my life's been busy.

It should get done in August.

Would you follow with me in August? Absolutely.

Our team's gonna take that. They're gonna put a reminder in

August and they're gonna follow up

with the client in August if we don't get their tax return.

So I'm all about doing that,

but this isn't gonna be an endless,

call them every week and ask about their taxes.

Ed ask, what if a client doesn't shares tax return?

It depends on how you're coming with that question.

Isn't a client's not going to give me their return?

Will we have a graduation conversation?

I only do my best work.

I work with everything, or I work with nothing.

I'm not gonna have a middle ground on that.

The client just doesn't have it done yet.

The CPA's being a pain in the butt,

like whatever we're gonna work with, whatever

that situation is going to be.

But it is mandatory

that clients share their estate planning

documents, their tax documents.

This is not an option. What is an option they

can choose to work with somebody else?

Yeah, it's, it's like you go to the doctor

and you're be like, don't take my blood pressure.

Um, it's just not gonna work super well. Uh,

Should do that. Sometimes it's

fun. Push back on that, on it.

Don't sign the forms. See

kind of what happens with that.

Yeah. Don't sign any of the forms. See how far you get.

Yeah. Uh, Almir, I believe, uh, for our freedom members,

I'm gonna hang out for another 15

or 20 minutes to answer any questions you

have about this or anything else.

I believe there's a link that went out to your email

or Almir can throw it here in the chat.

If you're one of our freedom members.

Uh, it's, it's another zoom

room that we're gonna hang out in.

Uh, for everyone else, there's a lot

of great resources inside of the portal.

Fee, increase letters, graduation letters, videos

that we've done, the scripts that we've used, uh, Mike, even

how you articulate the fee to prospective clients, right?

How do you help them index that based on what else there is?

So it's not just some made up number.

Uh, if you have any other questions

or concerns, again, go to the forum.

You can post them there. Micah, any other, uh,

final thoughts before we jump?

Awesome guys. Have a beautiful summer.

There's a lot of amazing stuff.

Making sure you have things on your calendar.

So not only are you taking time off,

but you're moving forward on your

business planning. It's been great.

Love it. All right. Until next time.

Happy planning. Thanks bud.

Happy planning.