Leveraging Workshops to Grow Your Clientele With Lara Galloway

Lara Galloway

Lara Galloway is the SVP of Channel Management at White Glove, a marketing and management firm helping financial advisors connect and engage with quality leads. Lara collaborates with White Glove’s Resource Partners to provide educational resources to financial advisors on marketing practices, practice management, and presentation skills. She is also the host of White Glove’s FAST Podcast, featuring industry leaders who have discovered the secret to success.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Lara Galloway shares how White Glove serves the financial advising industry
Lara’s background as a business coach and how it led her to White Glove
Knowing when it’s time to pursue development coaching
How does the White Glove model work?
Nurturing and engaging potential leads
Mistakes financial advisors make when organizing workshops

In this episode…

Many financial advisors excel at their jobs yet struggle to maintain longevity with clients. Why? Because they don't know how to get in front of the right people. What do you need to do as a financial advisor to get more quality leads into your pipeline?

Lara Galloway recommends providing financial education workshops. Gathering qualified prospects to glean from your expertise is a marketing technique to expand your client base. How you advertise your seminars can determine the success of your workshop initiative. Knowing what your target client is interested in is a framework for what material to include in your seminars — and which topics to avoid. Organizing workshops is a strategic way to build your professional credibility and connect with potential clients.

In this episode of Advisor Today, Chris Gandy and Suzanne Carawan sit down with Lara Galloway, SVP of Channel Management at White Glove, to discuss how financial advisors can leverage workshops to grow their clientele. Lara shares how White Glove serves financial professionals, knowing when to incorporate development coaching, and the mistakes financial advisors make when organizing a workshop.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by NAIFA partner White Glove.

White Glove is a tech-enabled marketing services company that, through its proprietary done-for-you platform, makes it easy for professional advisors such as financial, insurance, estate planning, and more to succeed with client-getting strategies, such as educational seminars, webinars, direct leads, and appointments, social media management, and other digital media. Backed by Quadruple Guaranteed seminars and webinars, advisors pay only for performance.

Not only are White Glove marketing services done-for-advisors, but we get better results! Advisors can grow their business without spending extra time booking venues, setting up webinars, generating leads and appointments, following up with workshop registrants, or keeping social media channels updated with great content.

White Glove’s tech-enabled done-for-you programs are meant to be an extension or replacement for advisor marketing departments – doing the hard work and aligning on performance and results. Clients benefit from countless freed-up hours that they can spend on other important things – like their own clients, their family, and activities they enjoy – all without sacrificing results.

Episode Transcript:

Intro 0:02

Welcome to NAIFA's Advisor Today podcast series, where we focus on how financial advisors work, live and give to their local communities and our greater financial services industry. Now, let's get started with the show.

Chris Gandy 0:20

Hi, everyone, this is Chris Gandy, one of your co-hosts for Advisor Today's podcast with my wonderful co-host Suzanne Carawan. Suzanne, how are you?

Suzanne Carawan 0:28

I'm good, Chris. Great to be here.

Chris Gandy 0:31

Wonderful. We're so excited to be here. It's been a little bit of time since we've had an opportunity to bring a wonderful podcast, a new and a fresh podcast. So we look forward to our today's episode. So there's that who's a sponsor for today's episode.

Suzanne Carawan 0:45

So Lara Galloway is our guest today. And also White Glove is our sponsor, so she's kind of like a twofer package right and doing that. And so today's podcast, we're going to learn all about White Glove if you're an advisor out there and don't know it. I know I was out Brison your realm just two weeks ago in Chicago land. And of course, you were in Ireland, we completely missed each other, of course, but I was able to talk to many of our advisors we had at the Success Summit, about White Glove. And it's such a no-brainer. I'm gonna let Lara tell us about that. But it's such a no-brainer. People couldn't believe they weren't actually using this as part of their marketing. So we're just going to kind of cue it up with that, and then getting to know Lara because she herself is quite an expert at dealing with, I shouldn't say dealing with counseling, educating, right, working with advisors to help them make more money. And that's what we're here.

Chris Gandy 1:39

That's what it's all about. It's all about. So, Miss Lara, how are you today?

Lara Galloway 1:45

I'm doing great, just freezing in Michigan again. But other than that, I'm doing great. Thank you guys for having me on the show today.

Chris Gandy 1:53

Okay, well, thank you for joining us today on our wonderful podcast, where we feature some of the top talent and some of the most influential people in the insurance and financial services market space. And so, with that being said, let's kind of kick this off, shall we? The White Glove? Oh, I mean, the concept itself kind of says a lot. But when I hear the word White Glove, I think of special treatment. So what is it? We've heard it around the industry what is White Glove actually do? And then what is it that you do at White Glove that really helps bring it to an advisor, so it become effective and efficient for us.

Lara Galloway 2:35

The things that White Glove does, and I love that you said you know, you kind of already have a little connotation, and you've heard about it a little bit. But what we want you to think of when you hear the word White Glove is that it's all done for you kind of just things are taken care of, you don't have to sweat, you don't have to do all the work, you don't have to take all the risk, you don't have to be a whole bunch of things that you never signed up to be when you became an agent or an advisor. We do all of that for you. So when you think of White Glove, I'd love for you to think of done-for-you. But done for you what, okay, so we do financial education workshops. And we do a lot of marketing, we are lead gen. And when I met with Suzanne, last week in Columbus and got to attend one of the fabulous events and got some of the representatives and the NAIFA's members there. And I got to hear some really amazing conversations about what people are doing, to advocate on behalf of their clients, and also some of the things that they were struggling with. And one of the things that you said you hear all the time, Suzanne, and I agree, we hear it all the time, too is, these advisors and planners and agents, they're doing great work, if they can just get in front of the right people. And how do you get more leads is a struggle. I mean, if you're out there, you're hustling, you're talking to everybody, you know, in your community, you're asking for referrals from friends and family. But that's not enough. And it's not a way for a growth-minded adviser or agent to actually build a book of business that is sustainable, and is going to get probably where they need to be. So you need some sort of lead generation tools. And that's where we work with advisors and agents, we are all about getting you in front of a roomful of qualified prospects that can benefit from hearing your expertise. We want to put you in front of the room make you the expert. And then that's when we do all the work and we take all the risk comes into play. Because you're an agent, you're an advisor, you have certifications you've studied, you've gotten credentials. You need to be doing your work. And when you are instead trying to figure out how to post an ad on Facebook, how to organize an event how to call a venue, make sure they have a big enough room, make sure it's available, pay the insurance, make sure the room is set up the right way get the reservation then do all the marketing put up a landing page, have people sign up, call them confirm with them. Yay, Suzanne, you're registered, can't wait to see you next Tuesday night. Here's a map, here's a way to get there, here's where to go. Once you arrive at the building, like all that stuff, that's what we do. So we do all of the event planning, and all of the marketing for a financial education workshop. That's what White Glove is all about.

Chris Gandy 5:25

So those of you who don't know, Lara Galloway has spent 12 years in our own coaching and consulting business, and she's the SVP, Senior Vice President of financial education at White Glove. She's dedicated her life to educating and helping others meet their personal and financial goals. So with that being said, Miss Lara, tell us how did you get started in your business? Because you kind of wear two hats, right? I mean, you coaching and consulting and White Glove like, how did you get started? We're always interested in that story.

Lara Galloway 6:03

It's funny, because we all have a lot of different things that we've done in our lives. And I've kind of had a few different careers at this point. I started out working at IBM when I was 19. And I did sales and public relations and communications with them for about 10 years. And then my husband and I decided to start a family and I left White Glove. But I was really antsy and needed to do something with my skills. And so I found my way to business and life coaching. And so I did a yearlong coaching and leadership program that helped me really figure out how to help other people get what they wanted, in a nutshell. And a lot of that was focused around really powerful communication, understanding how we show up to other people, and getting to be intentional about that, so that we can then have really good personal connections. And so in my coaching business, I focused on women entrepreneurs, my company is Mom Biz Coach and I ran it for 12 years, where I helped women who were the head of a family also run being the head of a business, and all of the conflict that came in that place. And so everything that I did pretty much Chris was virtual, I built a business using webinars and back in the day Skype, and good old conference calling. And I built out my own brand websites. I did 300 podcast episodes back in the day, I coached people all over the US, Canada, all over actually. And I built a pretty big business, I attracted a lot of sponsors, so I had to work with sponsors, and I had to learn all about marketing. And I help people build businesses from the ground up from concept to exit. And that experience, I did that, and I enjoyed it so much. But as my kids got older, they went back to school and didn't need me as more which is part of why I left IBM was I needed the flexibility of running my own company. So having been an entrepreneur, I can really relate to financial advisors and agents who are your entrepreneurs, you're building your own book of business, right? And understanding what it takes to market and effectively keep that pipeline full. And to always be converting more people and always taking care of our clients. When I did that for 12 years, I learned a lot. But then my kids grew up and went back to school and didn't need me as much anymore. I needed to do something else where I continued learning. And so I reached out and found a couple of friends that I just said, I need the next step. I'm not sure what my next step is going to be. And I ended up interviewing with White Glove and started out doing business development for White Glove. And we've always been working with financial advisors. My goal here was to help us bring in different topics for financial advisors, and different verticals, maybe we can work with, I started working with estate planning attorneys, maybe we can work with accountants, maybe we could work with real estate agents and mortgage lenders. And so that was part of my role. And I've evolved over the five years I've done one of everything and White Glove maybe even to where I've led departments from business development to product to marketing, and does special products projects in our financial wellness industry. And now I'm back in this Devon client relations. So that's a lot. But what has really happened for me is I've been able to use my skills as an entrepreneur and my ability to learn how to connect with audiences. Take all the coaching experience that I have, coach our advisors here at White Glove and help them figure out how to get better. In a nutshell. I've created a ton of best practices guides because we used to do exclusively seminars out like love before the pandemic and then the pandemic hit, and our revenue went to zero. Absolutely zero every single public venue was shut down. That's where we do In our workshops, we do public libraries, community centers, community colleges, we couldn't get into a single one. So we had to switch to webinars. And that, again, was one of my projects that I had to leave the company through, because I had experience with those doing it in my business. And I got to watch all these advisors who some of them knew exactly how to communicate and how to be effective relationship builders were the audience and others didn't. And they did not in a big way. And so I've worked really hard to develop some programs that our team actually now teaches all of our advisors, whether you do a seminar with us in person, or you do a webinar with us, virtually, we teach you a lot of best practices, so you can better connect with those prospects that we put in front of.

Chris Gandy 10:46

Got it. Okay, that's pretty interesting. So you've been around the world and back with multiple opportunities and multiple platforms. And let me ask a question from advisor's perspective. Fair enough. So when is the right time to use White Glove because I've been in the business long enough to where I've trained and developed advisors. And one of the challenges all advisors have is what I call that inner muscle, right, the ability for them to actually articulate who they are, and what they do, and why it's a value in the marketplace. Right? And it takes us being an extrovert, when we may naturally be introverts. There's the coaching part of it, right? And so when is the right time to engage a White Glove so it doesn't hamper the skill development, or the fundamentals that I may need to learn? What is the right time? And then how do I go about engaging with White Glove or potentially talking with you about, hey, coach me up, I want to be the best version of me.

Lara Galloway 12:01

Yeah, I just want to pause for a second, Chris, because you said something, I think it's really, really so impactful. And it's that yeah, a lot of people perceive if I'm gonna get out there and build my business, I have to be a salesperson, I have to be an extrovert. But I really am an introvert, I just want to say, that's such an important point. Because not everybody can just be something they're not. And we have advisors who are like, I'm just gonna say they're a little nerdy. They're a little uncomfortable in front of a group, they actually don't like public speaking at all. And I've worked with them and said, look, we're going to use that to your advantage. Because you know what you are, you're relatable. And you don't have to be magnanimous. You don't have to be an amazing presenter, what you actually have to be is a warm and friendly person, because what are we asking these people that are sitting in your workshop to do? We're asking for them to trust you with their biggest financial decisions. With so much that's going to impact their life and their family and communities lives. You have to be a likable, noble, trustworthy person. And if you're a little awkward, that's okay. People will accept that. If you know your stuff, but you're kind you're friendly and relatable, you got a lot going for you. So just want to address that with the extrovert versus introvert because I don't want anybody listening today to go, oh, I'm not a public speaker. Oh, I'm an introvert. I could never do that. Right? That's not for me. You're thinking of it the wrong way. We've helped so many people who actually do struggle, putting themselves out there selling themselves. Let us do that for you, really. So when do people use us? We have several different in marketing lingo. They're called avatars, so several different kinds of clients. And they're at different stages in the lifecycle. So you mentioned, Chris, that you are very established your coaching and training up so advisors, that's actually one of our avatars is an established advisor who's probably been in business between 15 25 30 years, and is still growth-minded. Let me just say this, the one unique piece across it all, is any kind of person that comes to us is growth-minded. They're not waiting for referrals. They're not done. They're not just coasting until retirement, they know that the value of their book of business will only go down if they take their foot off the gas. So if they are hoping to exit soon, they're still growth minded because they know that they want that book of business to be valued better and that whoever they're passing it out for their succession plan is going to really benefit from that book. So growth-minded advisors is number one, if you're not growth might have been some art and that's fine, then probably don't look for White Glove. So growth minded to start, but let's say you're in the business and you're getting ready to exit you're looking As the next step, you're looking at retirement and you want to move, step up the business, maybe you've brought on some juniors, some sub reps, maybe you've expanded your team, maybe you've gotten another office, whatever it is, maybe you've expanded to another state, because you got your retirement home, your back and forth, whatever that is, those advisors often hire us. And a lot of times, in fact, one of the gentlemen I spoke with, when we were in Columbus, and I'll just call him Tom and not give a last name, but he was telling me kind of a similar relationship to what you just said, Chris. He's like, I am the champion. I'm the leader, I'm the president, the owner, and I have these younger juniors that I bring into my business. I'm a better speaker, I bring that competence, but I want to be able to pass these leads to them. I want them to grow these leads. So how do I do that? How do I be the person in the front of the room, but transferred to others. And I said, let's talk, we've got so many advisors doing that exact model, and it works really well, I'll tell you how to do it, then we have other advisors who are, maybe they have broken away from a big white house, or the broker-dealer or a big agency, and they've gone out on their own, and they're looking to expand and grow that book of business really quickly. And those people, they could be individual contributors, maybe they just have an assistant, their partner or their spouse is helping them out. That is also very common, I will tell you generally, though, it is people who know that this is a sales cycle. And understand that they're kind of wanting to continue farming, and continue getting more and more leads in their pipeline. They're also individuals who understand marketing automation, and a great CRM is going to serve them well. Because if you pay me money, to get the leads that I delivered at this workshop, and then you don't follow up with them for the rest of their lives, you're missing out, you're wasting money. So it can go across the spectrum. It's individuals up to groups, and some of our biggest groups are some of the independent broker-dealers and the FMOs out there, IMOs, we are partnered with a lot of them, and they send a lot of their people to us. And we appreciate that, because we provide all that extra coaching and stuff. So it's a practice management development tool for those FMOs and IMOs, as well at IRAs.

Suzanne Carawan 17:23

So as a marketer, one of the hats, I don't know that I've ever articulated this, but as head of marketing NAIFA, one of my jobs, I kind of think is like being a personal shopper for our members, and trying to find really good tools to help them get that ROI. So I'm going to cut to the chase because you actually set a bar. And that is that. Here's the thing, Chris, I could not believe the more I learned about the White Glove model, like I kept having to say, let's go through it again, let's go like, what's my upfront cost for an advisor, and the upfront costs for an advisor is zero. And so like they've taken completely the risk off the table, which is typically which advisors, that's gonna be the big blocking point. So they'll take you on you, they'll do all that you're only paying for the people that actually really show up in the room. Isn't that right? That's how it works. So to me, that's like a no-brainer. So I'm like, so hold on, let me get this again, I'm going to go in and I'm going to do a retirement workshop, right, I get to go in and speak, White Glove is gonna handle getting butts in seats, doing all the marketing, getting the people there, all I have to do is do what I do, and then take the leads, and then pay them for that.

Lara Galloway 18:28

Well, I mean, we'll pay, we'll research and find the venue that meets your criteria will consult with you on the greatest pockets of wealth in the area that you're looking for. I mean, we're a marketing company, we have so much data, Suzanne, so we bring that data to the table for all of our hosts, we call them a workshop host. And we give you that advice. And we'll say hey, this is good. But if you move three miles northeast, there's a lot more people out here that you could reach and I think that could be really beneficial for you. So we do all that advising, we do all the consulting for you. We booked the venue, we pay the venue fee. I mean they're cheap places $35 to maybe 200 for a room rental, right because we're not doing big hotels and steak dinners. We're doing all educational places. And that branding helps you it's educational and brand so people expect an education now pitch and then we'll even pay the insurance. You don't have to cover that we do all that. So we pay all of that upfront. We need about five to six weeks lead time to find and book a place and get your workshop on the books. You prep. You show up you present the day after your event. You pay us for who attends so we consider attendees is a buying unit we call it a household. So if there if to if you want to 20 people and 20 people show up, you pay us the day after that for 20 people, if you want to 20 people and a snowstorm hit or a hurricane or a pandemic, that's been crazy. But if one of those things happens and say, only three people show up, you pass for three people. Okay? If nobody shows up if the facility gets struck by lightning, and we have to rebook your event, you pay zero, and we rebook your event, and you pay for the people who show up with that. That's pretty crazy disrupted the industry with that business model for sure.

Chris Gandy 20:24

Yeah. So you, you said that basically, it's a no-brainer. That's essentially what you're just you're describing to us. There are no-brainer. So what's the downside? Everybody wants to know the downside attached to it. So what is the downside?

Suzanne Carawan 20:40

That's what I keep trying to find out to. What's the downside? I keep on sticking out or like I'm on there must be something right. Why would someone not do this? Yeah.

Lara Galloway 20:48

So funny. So people say, That's just crazy. I don't know how you can stay in business and aside, well, we've been around since 2015. And we're founded by financial advisors who built their business doing this. And the whole thing that people say you can't stay in business, because you're not accepting money upfront. Don't you just get ghosted? Nope, we don't, we're doing great. But I would say if there's any downside, the key is not being prepared to handle those leads. So if you want to 20 people and 20 people show up, and you host your event on Tuesday, and then Tuesday at the end of May. And then on Friday, you and your family leave for a two-week vacation. That's bad. That's bad thinking. That's bad timing, because the downside is you need to build time in your calendar for the at least the next two weeks to strike while the iron is hot. So you have to be willing to invest that time to meet with these people that signed up on your calendar, because they attended your workshop, and said, yeah, I want to learn more. So just make sure if there's anything I've seen advisors do wrong, it's not doing those follow-ups and not making time to follow up with those people after the workshops.

Suzanne Carawan 22:07

Yeah, and I think we were talking about this, too. You mentioned, kind of that lifecycle, and then I'd love for Chris to weigh in on that. But it's not just a one-and-done. It's not like, hey, I just follow up with you one time, you have to have at least three to four, month cycle and continue to grow these people and have reasons to reach out. And I think a lot of times, what I see is that people are like, Well, they didn't respond next, right? Because they don't enjoy the process, they don't enjoy the process of cultivating those leads and kind of doing the lead nurturing. And so then they just want it to be, and instead, you just look at is like what a great reason to constantly now continue to send that education to them, right to send more, hey, here's some helpful article, whatever the case might be, to try to cultivate that relationship to turn it into a new client.

Lara Galloway 22:57

literally, and I mean that the good news is, I almost heard the words done for you. He said, they don't want to do that they want it and then I was expecting you to say done, we do it for you. If you host an event with us, heart of your fee that you pay again, only after the event is we will include a 45-day conversion campaign for every event that we do for you. What a conversion campaign is Suzanne is it's a 45 day cadence of emails, phone calls, text messages, very specific all not burdensome, not crazy. Very hey, Suzanne, thanks so much for attending the workshop, or even will segment your list for the no shows that we give you as well. Hey Suzanne, sorry, were unable to make it to the workshop. You know what Lara's still willing to meet with you and answer your questions one on one, would you like to schedule a time on your calendar? We do afford? If people have said oh, I'm gonna have to hire a call center? We're like, no you don't, we'll do it. We have the call center, we do that we will reach out for 45 days after that, trying to get people to vote on your calendar and all of our advisors say that they are getting, maybe two or three appointments that are coming just from the conversion campaigns. No more cost to you at all. And then if after that, if you love that idea, and you really are looking for some marketing automation solutions. We do have though, where we will drip on email, we'll do email drips, email newsletters, email campaigns, social media posting, I mean, we'll set up everything for you. We'll customize it, do it all for you. We'll do that for every lead you have. I don't care where you bought them, where you got them that whatever's in your database, we will do that for you. And that is a simple fee that can be paid monthly or yearly. That is $3,600 total for the year we call that nurture and engage. So wherever you got leads from you need to be staying on top of mine and sending them that good content, like you just mentioned showing that thought leadership, otherwise they're listening to your competitor, you can be sure.

Chris Gandy 25:04

Lara, how do we get started?

Lara Galloway 25:08

Yeah, so I'm going to give a link to you guys that you can share on your podcast page, Suzanne is the landing page that we have for you guys, because every NAIFA member that comes through this link is automatically eligible for a discount, and our silver palladium program, which gives them a discount off the households for every workshop they ever do. And it also gives them a status we call silver palladium, which has a lot of perks, including attending our live event, which is the registration is completely waived for you and a guest. So you definitely want to take advantage of that you fill in this form, and it's just your name, your email, your phone, number, your company, whatever it is, and then we will reach out to you, you'll automatically get the NAIFA discount of that $5 off, just because you're a NAIFA member. So I'll send that to you guys. So you guys can get started. And then we'll connect you through that form, you're gonna get connected to an executive marketing consultant, that's we call it our sales team, because they're marketing consultants, they're helping you figure out where to do your marketing, and they can get you set up in about five to six weeks for your workshop.

Suzanne Carawan 26:11

That's great. So how can we backtrack a little bit later. And I want to kind of go back to kind of your life coaching plus your advising piece and say, our listeners love to kind of know, top sales tips and tricks, right? So hit us with like, top three things you wish advisors are kind of doing now that they don't know that they could be doing to be more effective. Or you could go the other way and say three things you see all the time that they're doing the kind of hurting them, right?

Lara Galloway 26:41

Yeah. Well, we do see a lot of advisors out there who are saying, you know, what, I know workshops are effective. I mean, it's lead generation on demand when you need leads, really want to pump things up and August and September, okay? host a workshop, you will get leads, period, we guarantee right? So we're giving you leads, all right, so maybe you're doing that on your own, maybe you're already doing these sorts of things. Some of the mistakes we see people make is choosing the wrong topic. They just don't really know what topic resonates. Like, hey, anybody want to do a workshop on annuities? Yeah, if I had a nickel, no, a penny, I have penny for every advisor or agent who comes to me says, I want to do a workshop on annuities. And we're like, sorry, friend. Nobody wants to come to a workshop about annuities. We've tried, we have tested that topic a million ways to Sunday. We do know what topics will bring in people who absolutely will buy annuities products from you. And let us teach you how to use those topics to get those clients. So I see people out there using the wrong topic or like, they just can't get people to show up. That's why when they hear us like oh my god, I don't even have to pay for it. And you guarantee people show up so I don't have to walk into a room of one person and feel like my soul just got crushed. Like, yeah, we can help you out with that. So the number one thing is choosing the right topic. The topics that don't play well. Annuities does not play well. It just doesn't life insurance does not. You have to call something different people will not come generally it's very hard to get to the site. We recommend topics like Social Security yields to the masses, everybody's got to talk to them about Social Security, because they know, when they're awake at night wondering, is my Social Security gonna run out? If you have a workshop called Social Security? And will your Social Security last? Then they're going to sign up? Okay, so we've learned we've split-tested our marketing, every thought, every word, every picture on every marketing page we've ever done, to let cows come out with split testing just means trying one variable versus another to see which performs better. And by performs better. I mean, people register for it, and people show up for it. So your topic is absolutely critical to get right. We know Social Security, taxes and retirement. A lot of people don't know that that's a topic out there you see a lot. White Glove created that. Our founders absolutely created that topic. So now there are very various different vendors using it. That's our topic, we create it. And then estate planning, which crazy enough, every advisor every agent should be doing because you are not an attorney, you are not creating documents, but you doing estate planning strategy every day, the products and services that you're selling are all about preserving an estate and making that transfer of wealth down from one group to another as positively impactful and not the negative tax implications and stuff like that. So all of this stuff, these are the topics that I think are so important. So definitely the first thing is picking the right topic, not using fear-mongering, okay. The second thing that I see people doing that they really don't need to do is steak dinners, guys, I get it, I still get probably I'm 52 a woman of a certain age, I get my postdoc box shelf full of these things. I get fired all the time for people that want to feed me every night of the week. Okay, I can afford my own steak. But why would I go eat somebody else's steak dinner? I mean, it's fantastic. You don't have to do that. You're an educator, you are an amazing, you're a subject matter expert. And people need to hear what you have to say. They're desperate for it. They're staying up at night. They can't sleep. They're so worried about their finances and their future and whatever it is that they're worried about. You show up and you'd be a warm-friendly presenter for them. You've got it. People, you answer their questions. You don't have to give us take. You can if you want to.

Suzanne Carawan 30:53

So far, I didn't even think about the way you're right. As you get to a certain age, the volume of AARP plus take dinner, right? It's unbelievable. Now that you say that there was one that came the other day. Here's a topic you shouldn't have either. So you definitely need to know like, you're sending it to me. I'm a marketer. It literally said from wedding to widowhood. Getting ready for the next stage of your life. That's was the topic of the steak dinner. And I was like, Oh, my God.

Lara Galloway 31:22

Like, no.

Suzanne Carawan 31:23

I thought who goes to that? Right?

Lara Galloway 31:26

Yeah, well, and that's, that's the challenge when you're doing it your own and you're not a marketing expert. Like we are. Okay. This is what I mean. Like we've taken all the lumps, we've tried all the horrible topics, I promise you we have. And there's some that work and some that don't. So the third big mistake I would share, and I think this is so important, guys. Don't pitch, just don't do it. I don't care if you just got back from your carriers conference. And you are so stoked. Again, if I had a penny, for the amount of oh, we got a product like no other nobody else on the market as it is exclusive is so great. Guys, if you walk into a room full of people who are laying awake at night, wondering if their money is going to run out, if they're laying awake at night trying to figure out what to do with their daughter who just got divorced and is in a messy battle. And you're trying to figure out how to pass some things. Yeah, if you got a family business, whatever it is, whatever these clients are doing with you, if that's why they show up, people show up in these workshops, because of a life event. Because they are humans, okay. They are humans who just experienced a life event, marriage, divorce, layoff, job, change, new business, whatever it is, there shall be either that just happened, it's about to happen. Or it's going to happen in the future. Okay, you need to connect with them on life events, if you walk in and trying to tell them about how high you are on this fabulous product that you just got back from a big Titans club and you're the winner. And if you're just alienating the hell out of people, don't get yourself. Don't ever pitch a product in a workshop? Never, ever. And you may think, well, well, how am I gonna get clients then, by being a warm, friendly educator who is very knowledgeable about all the things that these people are struggling with in their lives, all the dreams and goals they have. And then making sure that you know, you communicate with them? Yeah, actually, there's a great life insurance products that can be used for these sorts of things, be happy to talk with you about it, we can take a look and see which ones work best for you. However, maybe you need to look at this, XYZ, you don't pitch a product, you don't promote yourself, do not waste their time promoting your firm. They're there for an education, educate first. Now, when they sign up at the end of your pitch, or during the workshop, you want to say get rid of the word pitch at the end of your workshop. If you want to say you know what, it's been great talking to you guys today. I hope I've answered some of the questions that you've had. I know some of you have very specific questions, and maybe some things that are pretty private that you don't want to disclose in a big group setting. That's fine. I'm taking one on one appointments. If you'd love to come into my office, I'd love to meet with you wherever you want to meet virtual coffee in your office by whatever is fine. I'll sit down with you and I'll go over those questions complimentary one on one meeting 30 minutes or an hour you choose. And if there are if I can answer your questions that are great. If you have more questions and you're looking for some guidance, I'll be happy to explain to you how I work with people. That's it when they show up for that appointment. Now you can sell, I'd love to work with you. My clients say I'm the best here's what we do. Here's what we provide. Here's how my team works. We've been doing this for this many years we offer these services, these products here are my fees. Would you like to work together? Absolutely. But don't do that in your workshop.

Chris Gandy 35:04

You've given us a roadmap for us to say here that I think people need to take notes of this podcast, play it back and say here in the don't, because odds are we probably weren't there to do. And then we need to engage you with White Glove. I mean, what a great opportunity, the partnership with NAIFA. Suzanne, kudos to you for continuing and silly down this pipeline. And putting together these meaningful relationships we talked about. The NAIFA's is one of the great resources, but it's got a lot of hidden gems of resources that most of the advisors have never tapped into. So if you're out there, and let's tap into the resources, at NAIFA through Suzanne, what's the portal that people can look at some of the resources.

Suzanne Carawan 35:55

Yeah, just go to our members portal, right at members at NAIFA.org login. And it's really newly redesigned. There's all sorts of good stuff in there, we're trying to help bring that to light and let NAIFA members know how much is in there. That is we're now really going and finding kind of like I said, from that personal shopping standpoint, we want of course, our members to be the absolute best and to do the best. So we're putting all that together and easy to find format.

Chris Gandy 36:24

Wonderful. So Miss Lara, any final thoughts before we get to Final Jeopardy? I mean? Suzanne, they're gonna take us off your final round?

Lara Galloway 36:38

Yeah, I just want to say that we make it easy for you, even if you're not sure that you are a presenter, even if you've tried it a few times, and it hasn't worked. Talk with us, because we're very passionate about education, just like NAIFA's for you guys, we are very passionate about educating you and making you better. And I mean, guys, what do you have to lose, like, there's no risk to you, you're not going to put any money up front. And we don't make any money unless you are successful unless we get those people to show up for you. And we're gonna guarantee registrations, we guarantee attendees, we guarantee appointments, and we guarantee a client, so the risk is removed, give us a shot, and know that we are going to provide best practices coaching, we have coaches on hand that do work with all of our advisors and our hosts that want to level up their game, we have an educational events like our virtual Summit coming up on June 7, that is all industry giants that are sharing all of the things that our advisors are doing to do better and grow their business. We have host university, which is an in-person event in August, and we just, we go all in on education, we share that with you, because our success is only related to yours. We're not making money and say good luck to you. We don't make money unless you're successful. So we put our money where our mouth is, and try to make sure that we educate you. So don't take yourself out of the running. If you're thinking, oh no that can do workshops, give us a shot. Let us help me out.

Suzanne Carawan 38:10

And I'd also just come at the White Glove as a frequent contributor to our business performance centers, blog and webinars. We've got some great content in there, they've got some great top tips for digital marketing and things to do. So it's great to be able to have that it's some of our most consumed content comes from White Glove. So it's very popular. We're happy to be able to share that with our membership. But Chris, I think it is time for the lightning round.

Chris Gandy 38:35

I wish we had sided. I wish we had found effective lightning. Yep. So first of all, thanks for being here. So this next round is a series of questions, kind of brainstorming that comes first to mind. And so the key to this as you can't really think about is depth the answer to the question. Okay, so, we've had some fun with some past guests and stuff. A couple other guests. You know, at the end of the day, it's just so people can, it can feel relatable to you, right, so they get to know you a little bit better. Is that fair? Okay, great. We'll start off something simple. You said you're already in Michigan now.

Lara Galloway 39:18

I am.

Chris Gandy 39:21

Okay, so I have to ask the question. Are you a Spartan fan or the basic blue?

Lara Galloway 39:25

Not either. I don't do sports at all.

Chris Gandy 39:29

Okay, great. Okay, that's a great neutral answer. That's the greatest answer I think we've heard of all time. All right. So with that being said,

Suzanne Carawan 39:40

That's why she drove down to Columbus, Ohio. She was able to drive it into Columbus, Ohio and be in Buckeye country because she didn't actually relate to any of the other sports up in that state.

Lara Galloway 39:53

Not spontaneous.

Chris Gandy 39:59

So What's your favorite food?

Lara Galloway 40:03

My favorite what?

Chris Gandy 40:06

Your favorite food.

Lara Galloway 40:08

Food, man, that's been can't stand it like I grew up eating so much chicken. I'm a foodie. I love chicken. I love so many different ways I can cook it. I know it's not exciting, but like, I make it exciting. I make chicken amazing. I love chicken every single way I could possibly eat chicken I love chicken.

Chris Gandy 40:33

Okay, your favorite place you've visited in the last five years.

Lara Galloway 40:39

Bozeman, Montana, where my son is currently a freshman at school. And Dear God, I want to move there with him. He's living his best life. We're big outdoors, folks. So hiking, camping, kayaking, rafting. That's what I want to do. That's where I want to be ease. I'm living vicariously through him.

Chris Gandy 41:00

At White Glove, today if I was to choose a topic, what would be the topic that you say you have to be a part of?

Lara Galloway 41:07

Estate planning, the wnd.

Chris Gandy 41:11

Estate planning the end? Okay. Last question. If you could go back in history and have dinner with one person, that history. It's either here today or no longer with us who would it be and why?

Lara Galloway 41:25

I think the person that pops up for me is Madame Curie. Just the idea of someone who just broke the mold and applied herself in a field that was dominated by men in a scientific field and learned and made such a huge, valuable impact on people. I think like I just would love to hear what she did all day and what she thought and what her family life was like. And what drove her what her passions were, because that just I don't know, people like that in my personal life. And so that would be just I know, a lot of business leaders. But talking to someone who had to, like, forge their way through science, and find such amazing solutions for people that would just be really cool to me.

Chris Gandy 42:16

Last question, I had an extra question. Here's the question, if you could go back and give your 21 years old self advice what would you give? What advice would you give yourself?

Lara Galloway 42:25

For a 21-year-old now that's fun, because I have an almost 21-year-old and I would say stop with the imposter syndrome. I got hired at IBM when I was 19 years old. And I can assure you, I developed a healthy imposter syndrome. I knew if there was no reason they should have hired me. There was no reason I should get to work with all those really smart and talented people. There was just any minute people were going to find out I was a phony. I was a fake. I didn't know what these people knew. I didn't fit with them. I had a real hard time with. And I think when I see other youngsters out there young adults that are forging their way in the world. It's a different world than when I went through it at 21. But just really knowing that what you bring to the table, it's what you bring to the party. It's your set of ingredients. And it's not somebody else's and not worrying that everybody thinks you're less than you are. But just being where you are being okay with whatever knowledge, experience, talents, and fears you have. That's what I would have said because I spent a lot of time worrying about what other people think and being constantly worried that I wasn't good enough.

Chris Gandy 44:03

Well, Miss Lara, you're definitely good enough for the Advisor Today podcast. We couldn't bring it home any better than that. Thank you for laying that up for us. Suzanne, do you have anything as we close out.

Suzanne Carawan 44:12

No, just look forward to upcoming events with White Glove and getting great content and doing more education together.

Lara Galloway 44:20

Awesome. Thank you guys so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Chris Gandy 44:24

Miss Lara, thank you for everything you do with our industry. It's like-minded individuals like yourself, who allow for this type of podcast for people to tap in and to get the resources necessary to help grow their business. Thanks all of you for listening to our podcast today's. I want to post sick my wonderful co-host Suzanne Carawan Suzanne, Chief Operating Officer over there operating the podcast and thanks all for listening where we come together and we collectively uplift and promote the industry. And then the financial services industry collectively together, where we as a group as an organization as NAIFA, as one NAIFA's are stronger together than our part. So we'll see you next week, same place, same time. Thanks for being here. Appreciate it.

Outro 45:21

Thanks for joining us for NAIFA's Advisor Today podcast series. Make sure to subscribe to get future episodes and if you're interested in coming on the show, let us know.

36 min read