From Lifestyle Practice to Scalable Business: Technology and Growth Strategies with Ray Adamson

Sam Sivarajan: 00:00

Hi everyone, I'm your host Sam Sivarajan. Welcome to today's episode of the Future Ready Advisor. Today, I'm joined by Ray Adamson, a long time coach, practice manage expert, and FinTech executive who has worked across the advisory, carrier, and technology sides of the financial services industry. Ray brings a combination of insight into advisor behavior, tech innovation, and industry structure. All of which are critical to understanding how to build a scalable, human-centered advisory practice. In today's episode, we'll explore how the evolution of advice, emerging tools like AI, and smart succession strategies are reshaping the future of the industry. We'll also talk about how advisors can thrive by shifting from ad hoc habits to structured, scalable processes, and how that shift is essential, not just for growth, but for survival.

Sam Sivarajan: 00:52

Ray, welcome to the show.

Ray Adamson: 00:54

Sam, thanks so much for having me. I've been looking forward to this since I saw your main platform presentation at the Cable Conference a couple of months ago. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today. So thanks very much for having me.

Sam Sivarajan: 01:06

Well, thank you for joining. I'm looking forward to this conversation as well. It's very timely. Now, Ray, you've had an interesting career that spans advisor coaching, carrier strategy, and fintech leadership. What drew you to each of these roles, and how have they shaped the way you think about the future of advice?

Ray Adamson: 01:18

Well, that's a great question, Sam. And I'd love to say I had a grand overarching plan for all of this. But as I look back, there wasn't one specific thing that led me to where I am today. Much of it, I've built my career on relationships and, you know, starting out in the business as an advisor. I hired a business coach. That got me into the coaching experience. We built a practice management business and that led me to working with one of Canada's largest carriers. And what drew me to the roles was the opportunity for leadership to support growth and development, both of the organization and the people in that organization. Also, my own growth and development as well. That was a big part of what attracted me to those roles for sure.

Sam Sivarajan: 02:14

It's funny as you're talking, just reminds me that that's, you know, that would be my answer to my rather varied career, et cetera. And it reminds me, there's a Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard, that said that life must be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards. It's only now that I fully understand what he means by that, but totally understand your point, but we're all the sum of our experiences, right? It's hard to kind of explain what they do, but they do give you a unique lens on the world. And that explains a lot of your success and a lot of the insight that you're able to bring to advisors and advisory practices.

Ray Adamson: 02:52

Yeah, well, yeah, I agree 100%. Thank you for that. When I look at my experience as an advisor and in the advisory space, and we look forward to kind of where things are going, the future of advice, when you look at the industry, a lot of people are focused on high net worth, which I completely understand and respect. But I also get concerned because there could be a swath of our population that isn't getting access to the advice that they need at the time they need it. And when I look forward, I think technology, I might as well mention it, it's gonna come up. I'll talk about AI. I think that that could be a leveler of the playing field to be able to support the industry in providing appropriate advice to everyone at the right time.

Sam Sivarajan: 03:32

No, it's a great point. And let's talk about that for a moment, because it reminds me of what you're saying. And I agree with you 100%. It reminds me of the experience that the UK had when they brought in their new regulations, And it created a vacuum where the low and the call it the mass affluent and the retail space, we're Canadian, so let's use the hockey analogy. It's the high net worth. To your point, I understand why there is an attraction there. I mean, I myself worked in that space for many years, but it's almost like going to where the puck is as opposed to where the puck is going to be, right? And to your point, I mean, other than the fact that there is a huge swath of people that really do need advice and that are probably being underserved, which in and of itself creates opportunity. I also believe that's also the segment of the population that is in most dire need of good quality advice.

Ray Adamson: 04:42

Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, I think that there's a desire to really do good in our industry. And I think you can do well by doing good, but it comes back to your systems and processes. And I know we'll talk about that in a few minutes, but if you're set up to have a more of a mass approach, I worked with advisors years ago that their whole business structure was Mass selling at the time it was through faxes, you know, dating myself but they were generating a lot of business and it was a transactional business and I will support that a hundred percent if it's a if it's an actual conscious decision to drive a business like that, so I think when we look at the high net worth strategy, there's a lot of people fishing in a very small pond and competing against each other while we have this larger pond that virtually nobody's really working in. I feel it's a miss and I think it comes back to getting the right systems and processes in place so you can go after that market in an appropriate and profitable way.

Sam Sivarajan: 05:49

100% agree. Technology can play a huge role. And we will come onto this. Is moving from, call it a lifestyle type of practice to a business type of practice, which as you mentioned, it requires having the right processes in place using digitization, using technology. And on that note, I think it's certainly been my experience and I suspect yours that before you can digitize a process, you actually need to have a analog process, right? Why do you think so many advisors struggle with building repeatable processes? And what would your advice be for making that shift from that lifestyle type of practice to a real business?

Ray Adamson: 06:19

Well, it's a good question. I feel that, and I'm gonna paint the industry with a broad stroke right now, I feel that a lot of advisors are unconscious competence. They're good at what they do, but when you probe as to why they're successful or why they're achieving what they're achieving in their business, most of them can't clearly articulate what their processes are. And when you are able to articulate a process that ensures that it's easily transferable and repeatable. And that's important because as you look at growing a practice, if you don't have those processes clear and you're bringing other people into the business, it becomes more challenging because everyone starts to approach things from their own perspective. I think that for a lot of advisors, it's really about shifting from being that unconscious competent to really finding what is their true process for different aspects of the business. It's not just how do we sell, how do we service, what's our marketing process? And when they have that clearly mapped out, as you said, in the analog format, it now becomes much easier to figure out how do I wanna digitize this? So when they're looking at technology solutions, it's not just, hey, what's everybody else using or what's the new shiny tool that's on the market. Now it's more about, hey, here's what I do. How does that fit into this piece of software? How does that software actually accelerate my business and what I'm trying to accomplish?

Sam Sivarajan: 07:51

Right. Now I'm going to say something that might be controversial. How much do you believe in addition to what you've said that there is a genuine desire from advisors to want to give, we call it a personalized experience, a personalized service. And so there's a bit of a implicit militancy to kind of create processes because there is a view perhaps that that stops you from being personalized.

Ray Adamson: 08:28

Yeah, I can see where that interpretation could come through for people, but ultimately what you're trying to do is ensure that the people you're working with, your clients, your prospects, centers of influence even, they're getting the appropriate experience that they deserve. And when you are, all that you're doing when you create a process is ensuring that you're consistent in that experience. So it's not putting up walls around how you're approaching things and you have to do it this way every single time. But what I've seen in the past in working closely with advisors, when they have a clear process, it ensures that everything gets done on a consistent basis. Because often when they're running hard and out and about meeting with clients and prospects, things will slip through the cracks. So a step here or a step there. So that experience isn't consistent. And I'll tell you, with sales, it's one thing. It's the after-sale relationship strategy that I feel is probably more important to retain clients, continue to offer them services that they require and products, as well as working through them to get access to more opportunity with their network of relationships.

Sam Sivarajan: 09:46

I couldn't agree with you more. And I might add that even on the sales side, given that we live and work in a very regulated environment, that process is becoming increasingly important to make sure that you're ticking all the right boxes, And it's the analogy I always use, it's like an NHL team, right? They practice plays, which is the equivalent of the process that an advisor would use. And that's not meant so that the game itself becomes very mechanical and road. That practicing the processes allows the freedom for the player, the stars, to be able to be creative and react in the moment, to have the extra resources to kind of do the things that require that special tweak or finesse, et cetera, because the rest of it is now down to muscle memory.

Ray Adamson: 10:14

Absolutely. Well, they all have systems. All of the pro teams have systems that they're playing and they will evolve the system based on what the other teams' systems are. And that's where they're trying to compete and combat against their competition. When I look at advisors today and I think starting out, younger advisors are, or new advisors I should say, because the average age of entrance to the industry, I think is still around like late thirties, early forties. You know, they are really trying to drive revenue. And I think you mentioned earlier, it's that lifestyle practice mentality kind of creeps in. Where I've seen advisors have real impact on themselves and their businesses when they start to shift their thinking from revenue and sales to business. And it's one thing I've done over the years, and I didn't do this in the early stages. I learned it through the experience I had in coaching. I'd ask advisors, step out of your business. What I want you to share with me is what's your personal vision? What do you want to achieve? Let's say in three years, what do you want your personal life to look like? And that often is a very difficult question, harder than what they want their business to look like. Because we aren't wired to think this way. But when they take the time to start to craft a personal vision, we now can discuss, what type of business do you have to build in order to achieve that personal vision? And it's amazing the buy-in both mentally and emotionally that advisors get when they start to realize, hey, this is all about me getting to that place with myself and my family or whoever versus just trying to build a business that generates more revenue. Now it's a means to an end more than anything.

Sam Sivarajan: 12:21

That's a great question and a great approach. Now we did promise that we'll talk about AI, so let's go there. You had mentioned when we talked earlier, Ray, that we can delegate to AI, but that we can't advocate. I love that turn of phrase. Can you unpack that idea for us? And where do you see the real opportunity with AI and advisory practices? And where might advisors need to be a bit more cautious?

Ray Adamson: 12:26

Well, great questions. You know, if I look at AI today, a lot of people will use chat GPT the way we use Kleenex for tissue. It's a brand name that we now use for AI. But there are a lot of systems out there from Gemini to Claude, you know, Grok, there's a whole bunch. But the reality is with AI, you can't just put in a prompt, take the output and use that verbatim. There's still an onus on us. It's just like hiring a new employee. There's an onus on us that we are responsible for that output. So we need to be able to review and assess, take the information because often what comes out of AI comes out very quick and very detailed, which is fantastic. It saves time there, but we do still need to review it and then figure out how we want to apply that. I use ChatGPT and Gemini quite frequently on a daily basis, but I'm using it to augment what I'm doing myself. I'm advising a couple of startups that have AI agents for different purposes for industry. They're doing some really cool stuff. With the agents, we're going to get to a point where more can be done behind the scenes to give us the output we want. But that's going to be an evolution. I think for advisors today, the example that I'll use is I did a prompt, I was trying to put some marketing stuff together. So I asked the chat GPT to pretend it was Steve Jobs. And I gave it context for what I was trying to do. And I got the output just having some fun with it. That's the advice I give most people today. Don't be afraid, play around with it, and try different things to see what the outputs are. But don't just take it verbatim. That's where we have to delegate to it, but we can't just take what they give us as verbatim.

Sam Sivarajan: 14:41

I love that and I couldn't agree more. I play with ChatGPT, play with Claude and it's great as a tool. But your point, I might make two comments to that. I can never forget this story and it's a real story about this lawyer in the US that did a court submission, a court filing, and he was arguing in court in front of the judge, relying on chat GPT research, and the judge just ripped him to shreds because the cases that he cited did not exist, right? So, full hallucination. So to your point, it's very important to double check what you're getting out of these chat GPT or Claude. The other thing I would say, especially for us as in a regulated privacy driven industry, I think we have to be careful and advisors in particular need to be careful about putting any client sensitive information into a chat box, et cetera, because it's not entirely clear that that information doesn't then become part of the overall language model that is being used.

Ray Adamson: 15:44

Exactly, you know and when you say that on the surface we think well, that's just logical. You know, why would anyone do that? But when we're just in the moment and we're running hard sometimes we don't think and we do have to put some guardrails around ourselves to ensure we don't put someone's real name in or identifying fields of information because you're right. We don't know where that's going and I was at a conference, ITC Vegas, last year, and the overarching theme was all about AI and everything else, but really it was about how do we regulate and police this in a way that allows us to really leverage the tool, but not open up the industry to much more more risk. There's too many bad players out there already, and we don't want to give them more ammunition to come after. So when I say bad players, I don't mean regulators, I mean the criminals that are out there.

Sam Sivarajan: 16:37

Yeah, no, it's good advice. And it's still early days, but, we're all subject to spam calls. And, we see all of the fraud, that's occurring even without AI. I think this is just something that we need to be aware of and be taking proper precautions. I think your point is right. It seems obvious, but all of us, we'll have to stop to think. Is there identifying information that I'm putting in there, right? I mean, the natural reaction is of course not, you know, I'm not really putting the specific details, et cetera, but it always struck me that somebody said, what is it that the, that if you put your name and I think there's three pieces of information that a scammer needs to kind of get your full history, right? Something like that. So.

Ray Adamson: 17:20

Depending on where you're based. Like Canada, it's a little tougher, but not a lot tougher than the US. But they don't need much information. And one of the things I'm concerned about is the ability to capture someone's voice. You need five seconds, and then they can take that and basically make you say anything. So if you have clients or family, there could be phone calls happening that sounds like you and the fraud risk there is significant.

Sam Sivarajan: 17:52

100%. Now we touched on succession and it's one of those problems that the industries talked about for decades. Yet here we are and most firms are still not prepared. What in your view is getting in the way of effective succession planning? And is there a role for technology to help unlock that next generation of advisors?

Ray Adamson: 18:13

Yeah, what's getting in the way? This has been a, I'd say a focus of mine probably since 2004. So over 20 years now. And the industry, when the numbers are thrown around, the average age is, was when I look back then it was 51. I think people are saying it's 58, 59 now. A lot of people are staying in the business because it is a great industry and you can continue to service and support your clients and help new people as you choose. On the wealth side, I think they're in a place where they're getting better at the succession side of things in that they're helping advisors transition their books to other advisors within wealth firms. They're helping with financing, things like that. They're doing things where there's more of a runway of the, I won't say retiring advisor, but the downsizing advisor still stays involved for a few years, which actually benefits everybody, including the clients. But I think overall, a lot of advisors aren't sure how to approach succession. They've tried bringing on junior advisors. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, it hasn't worked out the way they wanted it to because the juniors either came on and the focus was for that junior to build a business within the business. And as they got successful, then they exited out and did their own thing. And the opportunity I see is for those senior advisors to bring on juniors to help build that business and to incorporate them into the systems and processes of the business and take on more and more responsibility to become that natural successor. But I think that the challenge is really, it's more about the how than it is about the why and when. And the more that the industry as a whole can support the how, and that can be from a process perspective, from a financing perspective, I think that's gonna help things. The other thing is advisors have to recognize, and I think compliance and regulatory changes will continue to put pressure on this, they have to recognize that they can't just do this business part-time. As they get older, yeah, it's great you've got a block of business and you can be reactive to your client's needs, but you really do have to proactively service them. Now, technology can be a leverage point for that helping with the proactive outreach and the reminders on who to connect with and when. I also think technology is a key for transitioning a business because I do a lot of work with insurance advisors and often I'll ask them, what's your system, what do your systems look like? Well, they've still got the old filing cabinets with paper based to a certain extent. And I'm going, my God, like you'll be lucky if someone doesn't charge you to take over your business because of the risks that are there. So I think technology, getting a solid CRM in place with clear processes really will help increase the value and the transferability of practices in the market.

Sam Sivarajan: 21:06

That's some very powerful observations. One that really struck me what you said, Ray, is that you can't do this part time. And that's bang on, especially in a regulatory and a fast moving world. I think that that's something that advisors need to keep in mind. Now you had mentioned something about the, the more effective way that senior advisors can bring junior advisors is, and I'm putting words in your mouth is in effect teaming, right? That they're not built brought in to build their own business within a business. They're teaming up on the existing kind of clients and then growing it from there. I totally agree with your point that it's the how that matters more than the when and the where. Can you think, what would be some recommendations or suggestions that you have for advisors that are interested in this and agree with this concept that they can start thinking about the how.

Ray Adamson: 22:15

Yeah, for sure. I think where it starts is they first need to get clear on what they want their role to be. Because often when I speak with advisors, they're wearing a lot of different hats. They just are, you know, I have to react to this. I'm doing this today. I'm, I'm going to be working with our accounting and doing that. I'm going to be doing our outbound marketing call, whatever it is. They wear a lot of hats and whatever stage an advisor's at, getting clear on what their role is. And what I mean by that is what are they accountable and responsible for? What are the outcomes that they're directly responsible for? And if they have to wear a couple of hats, I won't argue that, but it has to be a conscious choice that that's what they want their role to be. Once they've got that clarity, then they can assess what what else is in the business that needs to get handled and they can decide what they want to outsource and what they want to hire for. And I always say you want to hire for core competencies. So if my focus as I built my practice, let's say I've been in business 10 years, 12 years, whatever it is, I've built up a good client base, I've got pretty good revenue, where do I get my joy? Where do I have the most fun in my business? I want to do that more of the time than the stuff I have to get involved in. So sometimes I'll look to bring on some, you know, whether it's an accounting or a bookkeeping firm to handle all of that stuff. Maybe I've got a marketing firm that I can bring in to help me with my social media strategy, whatever that is. But now I can start to look at, who are the clients that I want to work with? Who are the ones I want to replicate? And how am I going to go out and get them? Well, I still have all these other clients. So now, if I'm going to bring in an associate, I need to be clear on what their role is going to be, what they're accountable for and responsible for, and how we measure success for them. It's been interesting over the years. I've had advisors that have been reticent to bring on other people because in the end, they realize it creates accountability on them. They have to do what they're supposed to do. When they're kind of lone wolves and maybe have an admin or two, they can kind of get away with doing whatever they want. But now when you're bringing on other people in similar roles, there's a different level of accountability. And I think that's a positive thing. And I think it actually adds to the value of the business. So hopefully that gives us a bit of context to the question that you asked.

Sam Sivarajan: 24:45

No, it is. It does. I think it's a very important one. You got to start at the beginning to kind of define what it is that you bring and what it is that you don't want to do anymore and see how you can fill that gap. Ultimately, what is valuable that you just said is that you need to have a real business that you're going to be able to sell. And so that means that there's processes and people that can run and do the things that clients are going to expect to be done with or without you there. Right.

Ray Adamson: 25:16

Yep, exactly, exactly. Now, to flip that, I also support somebody who says, you know, I want to build a lifestyle business. I want to generate a good revenue every year. You know, I'm not as fussed about selling something down the road. If that's a conscious choice, I'll support that all day long. Unfortunately, too often when I meet with advisors, that's just been a default because it's been an unconscious decision. So that's where they need to get that clarity for kind of where they want to get to.

Sam Sivarajan: 25:46

100%. And I agree that there's nothing wrong with this being a lifestyle practice. It's noble. I think that's great. To your point where they're not clear, then they go into it by default or worse what I've seen is situations where they, they wanted to run it as a lifestyle practice. But at the end, towards the end, they started thinking they wanted to get multiples, on an exit, which you can't have both, right? An exit multiple is only viable for a viable business.

Ray Adamson: 26:14

Exactly. Exactly. You know, I've asked advisors in the past when I've worked with them on succession, they, they come up with multiples, I think I'm hearing people are getting, you know, four or five times that I'm like, four or five times what, is it based on recurring revenue? Is it on profit a bit? Like, what, what is it? And often they can't articulate that. I'll often ask them the question though. If you were going to go out and buy a business today and you looked at your own business, what would you pay for it? And sometimes that's a bit of a sobering question for some of them.

Sam Sivarajan: 26:47

That's a great question. That's a very good question. Now let's go back to what we talked about a bit earlier about this, everybody rushing into the high net worth market, if you will. And you've argued convincingly, that the right tech and segmentation strategy, there's a real opportunity in the mass affluent and retail markets. What does that look like, that model look like in practice?

Ray Adamson: 26:58

Oh boy, that's a good question. You know, I'm a big supporter of the high net worth strategy. I'm coaching advisors that that is their focus and they're putting the business together to support that. And again, conscious choice, I'm always supportive of. But on the mass scale, people always say, and I can't remember, it was one of the investment organizations in Canada just recently announced that they weren't going to be paying out comp on investment. No, they were charging more for the investment accounts for under a certain amount. And that would really impact the advice, some advisors practices. And there's concern around that. And I get that. I think as you look forward, how people are going to want to deal with advisors. Some of them, it's okay to have a transactional relationship. And that doesn't mean it's a one and done. My dad was 40 years in the business and his mantra was eat what you kill, move on with the hunt. It wasn't about relationships at all. But I still feel that when you're in a transactional relationship, it still is a relationship and there still is an opportunity to be proactive in managing that relationship. But in order to do it at scale and profitably, that's where you need to leverage both your process and then technology to support that process. So for instance, if I'm doing a mass marketing out, whether it's online, whether it's through partnerships with neighborhood associations or whatever. And I'm getting prospects coming to me for help. I can set up my website. I can have a self-directed needs analysis on there that's simple, gives them some initial information, gives them the ability to request a meeting. They can schedule that. It could be a 15-minute meeting. It could be with me or could be with my junior advisor. It could be with a licensed admin person that I've got that just answers some basic questions, assesses where that person's at, and helps them through potentially the buying process for whatever it is they need. So they need to set up an investment account with monthly PAC of, you know, 100 bucks. You can do that. And what that becomes is potentially over time, inventory for cross-selling and up-selling. But again, you've got to have the process in place to be able to do it at scale and arguably with profit.

Sam Sivarajan: 29:38

Makes total sense. Now you've coached hundreds of advisors and you've got a good grasp of where the industry is and where it's going. What's the mindset shift you think advisors most need to make today in order to stay relevant over the next 10 years?

Ray Adamson: 30:02

Boy, that's a really good question. You know, I think that they cannot just sit back on what they've always done. I think that the advisors of tomorrow are going to continue their success or grow their success by embracing change. It sounds kind of trite when I say it, but things are accelerating and will continue to accelerate. And that's gonna be driven by technology for sure, but it's also the changing mindset of the demographics in our population. You know, my daughter just turned 30. I can tell you that she and her husband don't really want somebody coming over to the house in the evening and sitting at the kitchen table talking to them about financial planning. They're gonna do their own research online. They will probably wanna talk to somebody to get advice at the right time. So you need to have yourself set up in a way that you can provide the information that people are looking for on a self-serve basis and then be ready to provide that advice in whatever format is most appropriate. Whether it's through, this is face-to-face and a friend of mine, Brent Lemanski, who just retired as head of Limerick Canada, he used to say, this is face-to-face, but now, what used to be face to face is skin to skin. I said, Brett, that's a little potentially offside. But what he meant was you're actually in person meeting with people. And I think that when we look at younger advisors coming into the industry, and I'd love to see a lot more, to be honest, they're looking at how they leverage technology, how they can do what they do in financial services the way they do things in their personal lives. And a lot of it is through texting and the Instagram and TikTok interactions that they have. And then they're still getting together with their friends and family in person, but it's different than kind of when we were growing up where everything was just, okay, you pick up the phone, hopefully somebody would answer and you'd figure out where you're gonna meet. I think the industry, has to stay relevant. So even if you're an older advisor my age, you still need to be up on what's happening with the younger generations because your clients today eventually are going to pass on, whether it's through investments or insurance, opportunity to that next generation. And if you want your business to be there to support that, you need to have people that can speak to that generation and you need to have a way to build the relationship before they're even at that stage where they would be clients of yours potentially.

Sam Sivarajan: 32:44

Your comments remind me of a conversation I had with a previous podcast guest who is in PR and she had given advice to an advisor who was branding herself. Her target audience was divorced women and it's a niche. But initially, I think the advisor was focused on perhaps ads in glossy magazines. Right. And there was a lot of work that was done. And this PR advisor had said that, is that where your clients are? Are they reading? Is a divorced woman going to be reading these glossy magazines? And the answer after a lot of research is no, they're not. And it comes back to your point. It's whatever channels that an advisor might have used, whatever types of information or mode of information that the advisor might have used. It's important, but it's perhaps irrelevant if your target audience or that next generation of clients, your clients' kids aren't using that, then you have to think about how you need to adapt your message or the way that you deliver that message to wherever those future clients are going to be.

Ray Adamson: 33:44

Absolutely. You know, come back to the succession topic. This has a direct impact on the potential value of your business. Because if I'm coming in to look at your business to potentially acquire it, one of the things I'm looking at is what's your existing client base look like? What's the average age? You know, what are the niches that you're in? And if I see that, you've got some older clients, that's fine. But if there's a swath of the younger generation, I see opportunity there. I'm probably willing to pay more for that type of opportunity than if everybody's the same age as the advisor and I know that they're gonna be aging out and there's no relationship with that next gen.

Sam Sivarajan: 34:37

That's such a great point Ray, such a great point. I think you're absolutely right that it's that growth potential that you're really selling for a viable business. That's where you get the higher multiples.

Ray Adamson: 34:47

Exactly, exactly.

Sam Sivarajan: 34:49

So finally Ray, for advisors listening in who want to future proof their practice, what's one practical step they should take in the next 30 days?

Ray Adamson: 34:59

Oh boy, in the next 30 days. Well, we're halfway through the year. And when I talk to a lot of advisors and I ask them about what their vision of success is for their business, I'll ask them kind of one year, three year, 10 years. And what ends up happening for a lot of advisors, they do their planning, you know, in December, January for the year, and they'll set their targets and You know, they're kind of, some of them are tracking them on as they go, some look at it, infrequently. I think halfway through the year, it's an opportune time to step back and go, okay, where am I year to date? And where do I wanna be by the end of this year? And don't just come up with a financial number. That's part of it. You want to make sure that you're on track for whatever that financial target is that you want to achieve. But also start to bring in what do you want the business to look like by the end of the year? What do you want to experience personally before the end of the year? And as you articulate that, start to figure out if you're not on track, how you get on track. If you are on track, you need to challenge yourself and say, okay, Am I aiming high enough? Is there something I need to adjust? And then, you know, the one thing I'll add on, kind of cheating, it's a little more than one thing, but is in that, clearly define what you want your role to be. So almost make a do not do list as opposed to a to do list. So figure out all the stuff you don't wanna do going forward and then start to figure out how that is going to evolve over the next six months before the end of the year.

Sam Sivarajan: 36:37

That's great advice. And the I love the do not do list, but I also love the caution that you gave that don't just focus on the financial. That's very important. And that different timeframes, the one three year for instance, and perhaps even five years. And because it goes back to your comment. If you have a strategy of growing a younger customer base, for example, that isn't a six month effort that is a three-year effort. So, you have to work backwards to your point to say, so if your goal is in three years time that you have, and I'm making this up, 20% of your practice being the younger generation, What steps do you need to take in the next six months to kind of get the ball rolling so that in three years you can achieve that goal?

Ray Adamson: 37:04

Yep, exactly, exactly. You know, it is, it's, the old adage, how to eat an elephant one bite at a time. But really it is getting clarity about where you want to be in the future at a specific time. And the clearer you can create that vision. I always use the analogy of, remember the Polaroid photos, you take a picture and then you'd pull it out and everybody would shake it like it would develop faster. But when you watch those develop, it never just appeared as a full picture. There were parts that would start to come into focus. And when you think about your vision, the clearer that vision can be so that you see that full picture, so that you can carry that around with you and it starts to influence your decisions, things you're gonna do and not do, that becomes powerful. And it doesn't have to be something you build into your marketing or anything else. But it can be something you share with the people that are important to you, whether that's your spouse or family. It could be something you definitely share with the people that work with and for you. Because the more they understand this is where we're going, the more they can buy in and support that.

Sam Sivarajan: 38:26

That's great. I love that Polaroid analogy. I had never thought of it that way. Ray, we're coming to the end of our podcast. So I'll have a few rapid fire questions for you that I ask all my guests. So number one, professionally, what is the most important lesson you've learned over the years?

Ray Adamson: 38:49

Build strong relationships and do it planfully. If it happens opportunistically, great. But work at building strong relationships because it's something that has really served me well over the years. I can't say enough about the power of the relationships in your life and in your work.

Sam Sivarajan: 39:10

That's great advice, especially in a relationship business. You're right. I think we tend to underestimate, especially perhaps newer advisors that are coming in. It's a long-term game and you'll be surprised how many people you come across over and over again as you mature in the business.

Ray Adamson: 39:25

It is a small industry and you don't want to burn bridges.

Sam Sivarajan: 39:28

Correct. So number two, what is one practical tip you would offer listeners keen on applying your insights?

Ray Adamson: 39:36

You know what it really I think it comes down to making time to work on your business not just in your business and What I've done with with people I've coached in the past is they've actually set up meetings in their calendar with their business and they they'll decide if it's you know, afternoon, a month, an hour a week, a day, a quarter, that's up to each person to decide. But when you take that time, you treat it as if you're meeting with your top client. It is sacrosanct, you are not gonna reschedule it, you're not gonna say, I'm gonna do some other stuff while I'm thinking about this. You need to step out of working in the business and really start to work on the business. Reflect on where you've come from. where you're at and get real clarity on where you're trying to go to. And when you have that, it now becomes easier to say, if that's where I'm trying to get to and I can define when I want to be there, I now can create that strategy or ensure the strategy I have is moving me in the right direction.

Sam Sivarajan: 40:41

I love that. It's important. And beyond the work on your business rather than just in your business, the tactical element that you propose is very powerful that you actually block it in your calendar and work everything around it because it is important. Whether you do this once a quarter or twice a year for a couple of hours or an afternoon or a day is irrelevant. It's this idea that you do kind of dedicate this time to reflection and undisturbed thinking about all of these key questions that you've outlined.

Ray Adamson: 41:14

Absolutely. Too often, you know, our life is elastic and the things like our family and planning and all of that, that kind of gets pushed to the, not to the side, but it's the priority shifts because opportunity presents itself or the stuff has to get done. So it really is inherent in us to really make the commitment that we are going to do this and it will be something that's approach just like any key meeting that we've committed to.

Sam Sivarajan: 41:42

That's great. Ray, this has been a fun and rich exchange of ideas. If listeners want to learn more about you or connect with your work, where should they go?

Ray Adamson: 41:51

I think the easiest is just find me on LinkedIn, Ray Adamson, and feel free to send me a connection request. I'm always happy to jump on quick calls to have conversations. I'm helping a lot of startups who are targeting financial services, a lot of them in the tech space. And I enjoy having those conversations and trying to help people based on the experiences that I've had over the years. So feel free to reach out anytime on LinkedIn and I'd be happy to connect.

Sam Sivarajan: 42:21

That's great. Ray, thank you again for joining us today on the Future Ready Advisor.

Ray Adamson: 42:26

Thanks so much, Sam, for having me. I've really enjoyed this and look forward to talking to you soon.

Sam Sivarajan: 42:30

Likewise.