Practice Management Takeover - Kate Guillen, Founder of Simplicity Operations Management

Transcript

[Music]

this is learning at its most fun [Music]

hey hello everyone welcome uh thank you for coming to another practice management webinar today uh we actually

have kate kin here who is the founder of simplicity operations management uh for

everyone who has seen me before or has it my name is catherine beltran i'm a trainer here at redtail uh but i just

have to say i am thrilled to have kate here she has been gracious enough to take out some of

her time today to talk about how to handle in person as well as virtual

meetings now i'll let kate give more about kind of like her backstory how her

company came to be but she's been working with not only myself she worked with haley when she was on the training

team she's worked with austin so she's had her feet with a lot of us over here on the training team and she really does

know her redtail stuff so truly if there's anyone you ever really should get some input and listen to it is kate

she's brilliant and i know she's gonna be a great resource for all of you today uh but before i really give her the show

i do want to give again those little reminders so first things first it's the popular question we always get

is this going to be recorded and the answer is of course it is we do have this recording as i am actually talking

right now it will be available on our help desk for a replay i would honestly expect it probably

closer towards the end of next week but again you will find it on our help desk so if there's anyone who was unable to

hop on and you're sitting there going man i wish my co-worker was able to join good news you can always you know get

that reference and send that over to them second thing some of you have already been using the

chat i always love that but we also have the q a of zoom available as well i feel

like that's obvious but if you have questions definitely pop them into that section uh

try to avoid putting those questions into the chat sometimes they'll get a little missed and i won't intentionally

annoy you but it could happen so make sure you put those questions in the qa and we'll answer those as soon as

possible uh last but not least i think this is always just a comfort level for everyone uh just to give a heads up

everyone upon entry is automatically muted as well as no one else can share their videos so whether you like it or

not you're only going to see kate and myself today so we're the only videos that can be shown again that's just for

privacy so don't worry about any of that all right well i think i have talked enough really on just again those

reminders with all of that said kate i'm gonna hand it over to you and let's actually

let's go through this process thank you catherine for the lovely introduction i really appreciate it um

hi everybody thank you for joining us today um as catherine said my name is kate gian and i am the founder of simplicity

operations management but even more importantly i am a long time redtail user

i'll give you a quick little background before we get going um but i was first introduced to redtail when i was the

operations manager for an ria here in southern california um it was the crn we

were using and you know we were really only using it as a glorified rolodex if

you will um logging clients contact information the occasional note but by no means

using the system to its full potential at all um the you know but lucky for me uh this is

you know all pre-coveted and i was uh lucky enough to attend one of redtail's in-person red tail universities um and

if you know any of you have had the privilege of attending one of the red tail universities you know just you know

how fabulous the red tail team is at presenting and how mind-blowing um it is

to learn for the first time all that the system is capable of managing um

and so you know after attending the event i was super energized and really committed

myself to mastering the system all of the integrations and really utilizing redtail as a tool to

help streamline our operational processes in an effort to become more efficient

so to do this you know i i built workflows and a system to manage our team's tasks

pipeline uh our calendar and additional operational you know processes

to become that well-oiled machine that we had always strived to be and so fast forward to today

i started simplicity operations management as a way to offer my expertise to advisors and their teams

to optimize their redtail and really streamline you know their operational processes

an effort to you know more efficiently manage your desired client experience so today we'll

kind of talk about that and i'll share with you some tips and tricks for delivering your desired

client experience regardless if it's in you know an in-person or a virtual environment which we know is you know a

hot topic today so and again if anybody has any questions

please fire them off to catherine she's gonna you know we can this is very much intended to be a conversation and we can

work through them if anybody has any questions but i'm gonna kind of give you a lot of information here um

and start with you know really standardizing the process while still providing a a very

personalized client experience i like to use a combination of keywords

recurring activities automations and workflows within the crm

um for today's example i'm going to focus on you know your regular client review meeting process but do know that

you can definitely you know adapt these processes and

you know and implement something similar for all of the different types of meetings that you host

so to get started we need to set up a proactive client review process or productive client

review schedule within redtail and that tells us you know who are we meeting with

and prompts us to proactively reach out to them accordingly

i have found keywords to be a very effective way of managing

this process and what i mean is i create 12 keywords one for each month of the

year and then i assign the keywords to my clients based on their segment within

my book of business um i have constructed my service model so

that their segment dictates you know how many times a year i meet with them for

example my top tier clients i might reach out to them four times a year so they're going to be in four keywords i

reach out to my you know second-tier clients uh twice a year they'll be in two keywords so on and so forth

and the feedback that i've gotten here is it has made it very easy to identify

who i'm meeting with when um who has an upcoming review uh it makes it very easy to shift

clients you know from one keyword to another if you happen to meet with them kind of off cycle

and you're very easily able to and i'll model this for you in just a second move

clients around in keywords if you need to increase or decrease the amount of time you meet with them and then lastly and i love this one

because it really allows you to create a structured calendar if there's

months of the year that you wish not to meet with clients you don't have the keyword for that month of the year

um so now that we've kind of built the the uh foundation here with knowing when we're

meeting with clients and how often i use a recurring activity to prompt me

to reach out to next month's keyword uh to schedule the review meeting

um it kind of acts as my you know reminder to generate that list for anybody who is due for an upcoming

review um so that's you know kind of like our

proactive foundation here but there's additional things that we can do in redtail to really simplify and create

and you know an efficient client scheduling process and so i'm going to jump over to the database here for a

second yeah and while you're doing that actually donna did bring up a question here what are some examples of your

keywords so again really what is getting stressed here is that you would have 12

keywords because again there's 12 months thankfully nice and easy there we don't have too many much complications but you

would really have it where would be like um client meeting dash january client meeting dash february client meetings

dash march you know so on and so forth so you really just have to set up those 12 but then you use the combination

based on how many times you meet with that client some you might meet with only a year so you just pick oh we're

meeting with them in february and february only or maybe it's twice a year okay we gotta meet with them february oh and we also

have to meet with them over in um june or again whatever month we have so that's really what that's saying there

exactly but make it obvious obviously don't make it too complicated but that's really what those would look like

yeah you got it and then so in addition you know now that we have people organized in those keywords there's

additional things we can do in the database in bulk to that group of contacts

organized by that keyword one of which is sending a broadcast email

to that keyword proactively scheduling the next you know review meeting and so here's kind of an example template

boilerplate information you guys are welcome to snag this um of you know initiating that contact to schedule the

review meeting um

so and kathryn i think you said that they can take a screenshot of this oh sorry

my friend you're on mute yeah there we go sorry wait let me get to it my mouse had like disappeared on me for a hot second so i

just want to pop in i go i know i'm interrupting again but if anyone is listening here and if

anyone can relate to how i feel sometimes where we have these ideas and we don't know where to begin

take a screenshot of what you're seeing right now because this is actually a really great example of what you can use

within the crm itself of that broadcast email saying hey based upon your keyword it's october

you're supposed to come in this month let's get you on our books or if you're maybe more proactive it's for november

you want to start reaching out now that's again where you can really just get that screenshot you can tweak it

yourself but this is that starting point sometimes that's really where we need we're not sure where to go we don't know

we're afraid to jump in this is kind of that whole all right we're pushing you in whether you want to or not so take a

screenshot um that way you have again that example of this broadcast email

yeah and this broadcast email is just a little quick easy thing to implement to

save you from having to send this same email 10 times over to each individual

person in the keyword that's right you know so you know yeah sorry i'm so sorry to cut you off there we did quickly get

a question here with how do you do a screenshot my apologies um depending on what computer you want it might be the

print screen button on your keyboard so if you look almost towards like your uh numerals struggling with english there

for a second there should be a print screen button on there otherwise if you are on a mac do a command 5

and that should actually give you that screenshot so either or that should work also keep in mind this is going to be

recorded too so if you do miss this and then you go back to your desk later and go

man i regret it i should have had it definitely you can always again zoom that out now keep in mind you can always

zoom in on this page if you take a screenshot you can always zoom in on that it should not mess with the quality

but again it's there if you'd like you perfect and i also at the the last slide

i included my contact info so if you want me to email this to you i'd be happy to do that too just reach out to me separately um

all right so i think we've covered the the broadcast email here uh you know in an effort to

work smarter and not harder you know doing things in bulk is is a great way

to uh you know manage your time efficiently uh another i'm gonna go back over to my slideshow

here another thing we can do in bulk to that group of contacts in that review meeting

keyword is assign a follow-up activity to ensure that the review meeting

actually gets booked and again like i said here you can do this using the bulk action

uh feature within redtail um and then uh i lost my place here sorry

okay so this is the fun stuff that i really like automations and workflows really my bread and butter and my

favorite part of the database um so once the review meeting is booked we are

going to use that as a triggering event in redtail linked to an automation that

automatically launches the review meeting workflow um

because the the workflow really becomes the tool that we use to standardize the

review meeting process and truly execute your desired client experience over and

over and over again um but before building the workflow there's a couple things we got to do

before we can just jump in there one of which is brainstorming or what redtail calls white boarding

what the process is going to look like you know what does the prep look like what's happening day of uh

what does your follow-up look like um but i want to go a little bit deeper i

want my process to be you know the ritz-carlton experience i want my clients to feel special and valued and i

want them to genuinely look forward to meeting with my team and i um so you know as you start to construct your

process start thinking about relationships in your life that make you feel you know

the way you want your clients to feel people in your world that make you feel heard and valued and really give you the

desire to return um so things to start thinking about

is you know what made you feel this way and let's try to recreate it um

this is kind of fun i'll share with you some things that i've learned from some teams over the last couple of months is

really crafting you know your environment um a team you know has their diffuser with the

essential oils going with you know seasonal oils or i had a tin that bakes

chocolate chip cookies that give that warm inviting environment um you know i think this kind of goes

without saying but make sure the office is well organized and tidy and you don't have stacks of paper um

you know how how were you welcomed um what you know what was it what was the person at the front desk like

um did they have a welcome sign with your name uh you know printed on the front desk were there coffees or waters

available for you um on the on the coffee table or better yet did they know what your favorite

beverage was and have it readily available um i like this one too uh did the person

that greeted you acknowledged that it was your birthday month or that or that you were celebrating your 20th wedding

anniversary you know just going above and beyond to really give that ritz carlton white glove experience and make

someone feel truly special and then did you know what to expect did you get

an agenda ahead of time did you feel well prepared um and what was the

follow-up like was there a recap email was you know what what are you doing to

keep your clients engaged um so by going through this exercise you've

essentially created a workflow you know what the steps are you know what the tasks are within this step you know

who's going to be doing them and when they need to be done um

so now that we've kind of you know whiteboarded and built out what we'd like our workflow to look like

we need to formally document this in the form of a workflow to really standardize

that process and eliminate having to reinvent the wheel every single time we have a review

meeting um you guys if anyone's ever talked to me before kind of my my

mode of operation is if it is repeatable it is work flowable

and this is a great example of a repeatable process that i love to create a workflow for

so i'm going to jump back to the database here and i'm just going to go a quick overview of

my you know review meeting workflow for my client here ron swanson i have a

review meeting with him on the 29th and i'm going to take you through you know my prep process my follow-up

process day of process so on and so forth um so a week you can see here a week prior to

the 29th um this is my associate advisor is going to review the financial plan in

preparation for the meeting i'm not going to go you know into too much detail here but i'll just kind of

show you a little overview um you can see here's here's the step in this path within the steps if you hover you can

see kind of the description or the details that pertain to this task

or yeah tap and uh as we work through them we complete them

here so if there's two people that are responsible for a certain step by completing the

the task it will move on to the next person um so a reminder for the associate

advisor to review the account details all right he's working through this um a

reminder to put together a review meeting agenda i'm a big agenda girl i like having an agenda personally to keep

me on on task um and keep you know the conversation on track and then i have

found that my clients like having an agenda to take notes on um something to follow along with so

big agenda girl um and here is where i'm gonna backtrack for just a second i've completed the

week before preparation and now this is when we create um

a step in the workflow with a couple of outcomes to allow you to kind of accomplish two things in one by offering

a virtual or in-person review and this workflow is going to take us down both of those experiences

and then come back together for the follow up because regardless if it's in person or or virtual the follow-up is

going to be the same so i'm going to complete this here and it's going to ask me you know what are

we doing here a couple of outcomes and in this case we are going to move forward and confirm whether this meeting

is going to be in person or virtual thank you okay

uh so here we go i'm going to complete this step and for the sake of this example i'm

going to take you through the virtual review meeting workflow so i'm going to select that as an option

here and then

so for anyone who is maybe unfamiliar with workflows or they're sitting there going we've tried doing this it's not

working out the way outcomes are going to be your best friend for a scenario like this outcomes

really are that fork in the road hey which direction should i be going to so i'm a big fan of what kate just showed

there where we have almost like a landing platform and you decide which way i need to take off from there so

again if you've tried building this and you're hitting this wall outcomes are what's going to give you that ability to

pick where you're going to sorry i did not mean to interrupt you

no that's great i i could not agree more i'm sorry i kind of breezed over that but yes that's how we create the fork in

the road and and allow this workflow to go a couple of different directions and in this case we're going to go down the

review meeting route and then come back together for the follow-up so you can see here kind

of the the timing three days ahead of my review date my client service person is

going to send the agenda to ron uh in preparation for the meeting and i i love

this um redtail allows you to include you

know in the description here a hyperlink to where the review meeting agenda lives in my cloud-based server so i don't have

to you know file through you know my desktop or wherever you're storing documents i can one click

access that very easily wordsmith it you know plug in the new information oh and i can copy and paste this email into my

uh this email template into my email wordsmith that and i you know i

this is as efficient as i can get you know and again i'm in the business of working smarter and not harder and where

we can template things i would suggest templating everything um

so daisy here has sent off the uh email template and the agenda to the client

and then this is where i really you know think that you can and you know show you know

your you know how how you are different from the next guy here by by handling these meetings

and really taking that you know additional uh level of

i don't know what i'm trying to say uh takes you to that next personal touch yeah exactly and and make sure that your

team knows if the client's birthday is coming up if they have a milestone

uh you know they just had a new baby or a grandchild or a big marital anniversary um

make sure that you you know know who you're meeting with and and what their you know interests are um

and acknowledge them when they come in um and then i i love this one um

this group so in an in-person environment they always have danishes and coffee available and they take

really diligent notes about you know clients um preferences um and they say well how are we gonna

parlay that into a virtual environment and they actually doordash coffee and

danishes to their clients when they're meeting with them on zoom i thought that was so cool uh another

group sent flowers it was their a big marital anniversary and although they were not coming into the office they sent him a bouquet of flowers

i just thought that was just such a nice added touch and really um you know

that's that's their brand that that's what makes them different and i just thought that was really special

yeah i can't stress enough that's the one thing we can teach you how to use the serum

kate can teach you how to use the crm he can teach you how to use these methods i can give you ideas about them the one

thing i can't do and that's the one thing she can't do there is force you guys to give that reason for those

clients to stick around so i would include something like this where you not only review

those big milestones those big ideas but don't even limit yourself to just the client i had a story where

this kind of co-worker of mine the reason you stuck around with his financial advisor for so long wasn't

because of the details he remembered about himself it was the details he remembered about his children because

his children are his world to him so he i remember he was like my advisor would literally

um ask about like hey hey did you you know what are you gonna do for you know insert kid's birthday here and

he goes and he remember that it wasn't those things that oh it's your birthday the kids he goes because that is

everything so think about those families think about again that extension not just the

client and make sure you act on those i love that this you know this is your

opportunity to think about what it is that makes you different and then document it so that it it

your desired experience and and the services you provide to your client are well organized and documented

and it's a repeatable thing that you can you can do over and over and over again um and let's you know

let's document this in the form of a workflow so that your team knows what is expected of them and this is executed time and time again

without having to reinvent the wheel so i um all right i've confirmed any special

handlings i told you know my team that there's a big marital anniversary and we're gonna have flowers

available and some coffee and some danishes i'm all set here um and now this is you can see timing

wise day of the review meeting i love this catherine did this for me the other

day we were having a zoom chat morning of she resent me the zoom link the the

zoom link so the top of my inbox i didn't have to go searching for it didn't have to go digging around it was right there i i loved that and so i i i

took that from kathryn here and i added this to my review meeting day of resend them the zoom link again here is your

email template so you can just copy and paste it into your email get that off

and then prepare for your zoom call you know just because it's a virtual environment this is not your time to

slack off still put yourself together still get dressed yes you can wear sweatpants on the bottom in your ugg

boots but this is you know get yourself together you still want to have that same experience for your

client that you would if you were in person um and then just a reminder to make sure you know your electronics are working

your computer's going you've got your camera working um again that you don't have stacks of paper with other people's

social security numbers sitting on your desk cabinets are closed i just put together a list here

this is a big one making sure your cell phone is silenced uh that includes the vice you know the the vibrating so that

um you know people aren't listening to that it's a little bit distracting um

and making sure you know your desktop and your computer's well organized and then also

morning of prior to the meeting uh open up the sites and the things that you are

going to be reviewing in the you know over the duration of the meeting financial planning software your custodial site your portfolio management

make sure that you have a copy of the agenda to keep yourself on track um

and then you know i'm getting into the release here but i like having the important information tab up as well as a personal profile form if you're not

familiar with the personal profile form check it out it is a great way to keep clients contact information current

uh it's a great way to see what information you might be missing at the contact level i could probably talk for

30 minutes about the personal profile form so do yourself a favor and check it out

i'm going to complete here so this is day of you know virtual meeting prep

i have done what i need to do morning of and now this is going to take me into my

follow-up process and i'm gonna i'm gonna backtrack here for just a second if i were to have gone

down the in-person route it would look very similar um

you would still put together a meeting but there's a step in there to prep the conference room and what goes into preparing the conference room so that

regardless of who's doing it on your team there is a step by step to you know wipe down the table make sure that

there's agenda you know items out for everybody there's pads of paper and pens and and whatnot so

regardless if it's in person or virtual you'll go through your prep process you'll go through your morning of process and then we're coming back

together now because the follow-up process is the same and for my follow-up process i send a

follow-up email again you can hover here to see the details of the email or you can open it up uh this is just a recap

um and some follow-up action items again copy and paste this into your email worksmith it send it off to the client i

love having things in the workflow and having templates available so you're not having to recreate the wheel you know

reinvent the wheel every single time you go to follow up after a review meeting

um a reminder to add your meeting notes to redtail i'm a big mobile assistant girl i like the voice dictation

capability um so this is just your reminder um again setting the standard

for your team about what the follow-up looks like you need to put in your notes um sometimes that kind of slips through the

cracks and by having it here documented in the workflow it you no longer have the ability for something to flip

through the crack i also put it here i'm getting into the weeds again you have the ability to add

a hyperlink to your post review meeting note template

again i'm a big templates girl uh for these repeatable processes rather

than having to type out your you know review meeting notes time and time again let's template that so all you have to

do is plug in the current information and redtail makes it really easy by giving you the ability to create a hyperlink to where this note template

lives in your database all right i've put together my post

meeting notes i'm going to update the important information tab if there's anything new i need to add there i'm going to update

the redtail contact card again i use the personal profile form if there's missing information or i get their new email

address i want to make sure that makes it into redtail this is my reminder to do that and any follow-up tasks again

templates use the activity templates for um recurring tasks things that come up

after a review meeting oftentimes there's action items as a result of having met with your client things like

opening new accounts distributions contributions you see you can see a list here and i like to have activity

templates to standardize the uh the you know the management of your

tasks and tasking your team members on your on your team so start thinking about you know

commonly executed tasks and create activity templates to standardize this process as

well and then lastly

this is your reminder to review your clients review meeting keywords

kind of taking it back to the beginning of this conversation um by organizing your clients in the

monthly keywords it makes it very easy for you to manipulate their review meeting schedule

uh so in the case that i meet with ron kind of off cycle if you will um this is

your reminder to take a look at his keywords and move him around accordingly if need be

so i'm going to complete that step here maybe and i'm going to take you back here to

ron's contact and show you what i'm talking about so down here at the bottom are where you can see the list of keywords that ron is

in and it's for some reason so i've got wrong set up on a february july schedule

i knew them twice a year the beginning of the year and the middle of the year and you know ron comes in

kind of off cycle and so i need to adjust him so that i don't meet with him so frequently and what i'm

going to do is i'm going to add him to the i'm going to start meeting with

him why is this not working give it a nice little refresh and while

you're actually doing this here that actually might be a perfect time to help answer i apologize if i say this wrong

siri she has the question saying why do you use keywords versus the client review reminder um to which i did get a

nice little chuckle when i first saw that and that's only because kate and i had this whole conversation uh because

normally that is something that we'll teach we'll use the client review reminder but the reasoning really behind

this one and you can correct me if i'm wrong on this kate is that this is just kind of like an alternative but it's

it's searchable just like a client review date is itself but this one's really going to help give that just the

broad more of the reminder hey they fall under this month and they fall under this month

where i will even admit so again you can kind of even quote me on this one this

is easier to quickly switch them out when those changes do occur

so for example like ron is not following the normal monthly procedure he's going from like a february to an october cycle

that's completely different right all she had to do here is switch off you

literally unclick the older keywords and you click the new ones all in one sitting here you save it and it's

automatically there so it's really fast to change out when again those clients get off cycle

with the client review reminder you would actually go in there change the first review date which

confuses a lot of people because they take that very literal you have to change that date for that

new cycle to begin so that panic some people i know it trust me i get that call all the time but

again this is kind of that alternative that fast way either or is perfectly fine they're both gonna help track um

but correct me from wrong that's kind of how you explained it to me kate and then the other thing that i really like about this because i ran into this

where i was getting you know steamrolled by my calendar i had too many review meetings

in a day in a week and a month and so by organizing them as keywords

like you said it is it is reportable so i created a custom export to show all of

my clients the 12 months of review dates who was in which month and i was able to

organize it to make december a little lighter because i wanted to spend the holidays with my family or make april a little lighter to

help answer you know be available for tax related questions it was a very easy way for me to see an overview

you know like like as a bar graph you know to see who was in what review you know month and be

able to adjust my calendar appropriately that was really the big selling item to me

both accomplish the same thing you can set this process up the same way kind of into the weeds on that one i

hope i helped answer that question yeah no that's definitely useful so again uh just maybe a quick recap as to what you

really just did there you're back on iran's main page by the keywords and then i'll kind of let you go from there

and i went here and i don't know why this page doesn't let me do this let me refresh the page again it's always something okay

uh i'm down here under keywords and i just click add and currently ron i have set up on january in june but you know

he came in off cycle i'm gonna take him out of that frequency i'm gonna scroll down here to my client review meeting

options and he's gonna start coming in uh in february and july so

i think six clicks by the time we're done and now he's set for this going forward

and just really you know it it it's just a very efficient way of being

able to see who has an upcoming review meeting uh be able to move people around very

easily and shift them like you know in ron's case he comes in kind of off cycle

so i i know we just gave you a ton of information but i hope you see the value

of documenting this process in redtail in the form of a workflow to really help eliminate reinventing the

wheel every single time you go to do something that is repeatable um really reducing the opportunity for um

you know really reducing the opportunity for something to slip through the cracks to forget something and and really

create a predictable standardized process for both your client and your team

um and allows you to execute you know your desired experience time and time again really showcasing you know your

unique brand and what it is that makes you different um so i'm going to turn it back over to

catherine here uh to help answer any questions that have come up i know we kind of just gave you a ton of

information so if you have questions now's your time we're happy to help answer anything yeah definitely we always get this when

we're with our rtu's neddy actually you know i'm going to take a step back any presentation it's always a fire hose of

information but what has been described it truly is once you really understand once you kind

of take a step back because i know when we're in the weeds it's rapid fire everywhere but once you take a step back

it really does make it one two three done one two three done you know it's that repetitive easy

tribal knowledge which is my favorite part about it you're keeping everyone in the office on the same page you know

there's less of that whole where are we at what do we do what you know you have less of that going on especially if you

are still working virtually we are or if you're giving that option again sometimes that kind of handicaps us when

it comes to the communications and we want that to be totally as open as possible so um really at this point in

time i want to thank both kate and everyone listening in today uh i know

time's the one thing we never have enough of and i say that frequently so thank you for that

thanks so much for joining us today for this particular session if you have any questions please don't hesitate to give

us a call at 800-206-5030 option 3 for support or

just shoot us an email over to support redtailtechnology.com thanks a lot have

a great day