Today on the Book More Show, we're talking with Rob Legenhausen, a financial advisor and author of The Dividend Lifestyle, from College Park in Orlando, Florida.
We had a great conversation about what brought him to write his book, his unique approach, and why that creates the perfect runway to identify potential clients and bring them into his world.
Rob also described the instant credibility his book provides with both clients and prospects. Just having a book changes the conversation, as it reinforces what he tells people, and they are more responsive to the author of these ideas.
It was great to hear this first-hand experience of a book amplifying the work you're already doing.
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TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Stuart: Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Bookmore show. It's Stuart Bell here and today got a great interview talking about another great book. That's just recently wrapped up, Rob, how you doing.
Rob: Well.
Stuart: I'm doing intro for everyone and then we can get into some of the book details.
Rob: Yeah, thanks, man, thanks for having me. Great to be with you today. Just got the book finally wrapped up back and forth with compliance. You know, in my industry it's very compliance heavy, as you know financial services. It wasn't as painful as I thought it'd be. You know, 90 minute book was fantastic. I was more concerned with, like, my back office and kind of going back and forth with what they would sign off on. You know, again, being a very restrictive industry that I'm in, the compliance departments are always quite large and well funded and well staffed. But yeah, they were great to deal with. We got it done and book just dropped last month, you know, so the very end of 2022.
Stuart: So let me get. I've got people watching along on the video. I've got the book cover up here as well so people can see what we're talking about. The dividend lifestyle you mentioned you're in a financial services industry, so on the dividend lifestyle, it's this perfect example of picking a single target market, writing for them and having the book specifically on target. When you're thinking about creating it in the first place, what can you lead you to the point of writing it in general and then specifically this subject? What was the journey that got you to reach out to us?
Rob: Yeah, so I'm a strategic coach disciple and I think originally I heard about the company through coach.
I really looked at the project this is the first book that I've produced and I kind of looked at it through the lens of marketing. You know, I'm not necessarily looking to become the next bestseller and be on Oprah although that would be kind of fun, I guess but no, I wanted to use the book as another avenue from a marketing perspective, to be viewed as an expert in the industry, to leverage my centers of influence, my referral sources and partners, and to gift the book away to clients, of course, and to do all that. And the other thing we did was we have an IT guy on retainer, vinny, who's great Shout out Vinny and so Vinny helped me build a website specifically for the project and we're doing a number of things with that website videos where I'm doing blogs. I'm kind of starting to push that a little bit for traffic, and so who knows, we'll see where the whole thing goes. But that was my idea initially was really from a marketing perspective.
Stuart: Yeah, and picking the dividend lifestyle. Is that, very specifically, all you deal with? Or do you deal with a multiple of different subjects? Help people in various different ways, but this was just the one. That was the one that would resonate with people the most.
Rob: So we're wealth managers and fiduciaries. So you know we manage money for folks and you know, really the big thing with us is we are an equity first shop and we're very big proponents of using individual securities. So most of our clients, the portfolios we run a number of discretionary portfolios for folks and the bulk of them are comprised of individual dividend paying stocks. And the reason we like that is because, from a cost standpoint number one, you know if you're using mutual funds or ETFs or you know even annuities or other registered products. You know you're paying the advisor their fee. You know, say, 1% or whatever they charge. And then you're also paying fund expenses to. You know Vanguard or Fidelity or you know whatever product company the advisor is using. So by removing that middleman, it's just us and the client. There's no expense to own Apple stock, like it just doesn't exist.
So if we charge a family 1% to provide advice to manage the portfolio, run the money, do the planning, then that's there. Out the door cost. There's no mutual fund expenses or other things that are layered on top of that. So we're big fans of using the individual securities and I do talk about that quite a bit, you know, in the book.
Stuart: It's interesting because it's a way of we always talk about the book as being the thing at the top of the funnel to introduce yourself to people who don't yet know, like and trust you. So be as specific as possible to that particular funnel. But there's also an element in which we don't really talk about because it's kind of can be a distraction Some people think of. They want to sift and sort people or filter people at the level that they're collecting leads, whereas we're usually talking about as long as you collect and leads in about the right pool, don't get sidetracked on that sift and sort. Later. Treat everyone as if they're a five star prospect until the evidence that they're not. But by the nature of the book that you've written, there is some element of self selecting in that, because if people have got, they've definitely got.
Well. I would imagine that there's a group of people who don't really know at a deep level what a different lens lifestyle is compared with another ATF type product or fund. But then there's those people who do know and, for whatever reason, definitely don't want that. But those aren't the people who you're looking to work with, because it's difficult job to convert people. It's much easier to work with the people who are on the same train already. So it's interesting that the specificity not only really adds value to those people who do resonate with the message, but it's also a degree of sifting of the people who are very resistant to the idea. And then obviously you've got that group in the middle who you can educate and convert over time. Was that thinking in the setup or was that just a coincidence of how it turned out?
Rob: Well, I'd say in the book. You know I do a lot of kind of gentle nudging to vote.
You know I want the reader to be slightly disturbed as they read it. You know, because a lot of times they don't understand the full cost of ownership to have a portfolio of mutual funds or ETFs or whatnot, to have an advisory relationship or if they do it their own. You know, they think that they're getting like free trading on. You know Scott trade or Ameritrade or Fidelity or you know Robinhood or whatever the app is, but it's like no, there's always expenses going on. They're just not seeing them and they're not being transparent. These technologies are not being trained. There was tons of lawsuits for the past couple of years. I mean the SEC. Find Robinhood, you know I think like $75 million last year. It was one of the bigger ones and that levy happened because they were misleading investors saying there's no cost there, it's free trading.
But they're still making spreads on the bid. Ask in other ways, yeah, and so it's like they weren't, and that's fine. They should get paid. But they need to be honest with the people. Transparency about it, yeah for sure. So, so I really want. That was kind of one of the things I thought about as I was creating. The project was like hey, I want people to be slightly uneasy when they kind of discover these truths and whether or not they are, you know, already owning individual securities or not I didn't really think that part through so much, as it was like hey, I want to educate people, make sure that they understand what they're really paying, right, that's, I think, one of the main reasons why we don't mention it really in any of the book blueprint, scorecard, which kind of reflects our framework for creating something, or, christine, the team, as they're going through.
Stuart: We really don't talk about this sifting and sorting and filtering, because it is. It distracts people and the idea of adding that value driven content, of providing as much as possible within the scope constraints of the book obviously there's always much, much more to dive into but really making it a valuable piece for the people who do read it, regardless of eventual readership rates and whether it gets read or not. But, yeah, adding that value and educating people. One of the things that you're touching on there is this idea that a lot of people I think the false idea that people have is either they don't know enough or they don't know they're not going to say anything that's different from other people and I think that's a hang up that people that prevents people from getting started. But the reality for most people is anyone who's been in business for more than a year, you know more than enough to write something, because that fund, that founding information that you've got, is where they are. They don't the people at the top of the funnel don't need the 10 year view, the 10 year knowledge. They need the one year knowledge. So do I know? Enough is almost irrelevant. You almost certainly do. And do I know something in a different way? People get hung up on this.
Well, lots of financial advisors have written books. So why am I writing anything that's different? But they forget that it's just your approach, how you word something, how you describe something. That's the differentiator. I mean, you're not the only person that you can buy stocks, but the way that you present it and how you bridge that knowledge gap. So was that kind of knowledge gap and how you present it? Was that ever anything that held you back, or were you just? Here's how I describe it and there's value to it because I've engaged with customers for however many years.
Rob: There's a lot of smart people in our industry that stay very busy, that have all the accolades, that have the advanced degrees and do things, but they're not great advisors and I don't mean that from the standpoint of like they're not good to their clients and they don't know what they're doing, but they don't run successful businesses because they lack the ability to go out to make decisions, to execute on things and to bring money in the door. There are very few rain makers in our industry, true rain makers. We have a team and so we have the analysts and the traders and the CFPs, and then we have the rain makers, which is me. So I've never had a problem with going out there and telling my story or picking up the phone and calling 90 minute book and say like hey, let's for a very reasonable cost to have a team like 90 minute book walk you through the process. I mean I've told a lot of people, like you know, because people are very impressed when you write a book, you're instantly viewed as an expert. I mean, especially with the older population, you know they have this like this mindset of like oh my God, you authored a book like. That's incredible.
My dad's 81 years old, he still can't believe that I wrote a book and I'm like, well, I didn't really write. I mean, like I did it's my words. But like I did a phone call interview, I had a great team. You know, betsy and all them were fantastic. They put it together.
It's a lot of back and forth. It's not like it actually took 90 minutes, right, like the phone call took a couple hours. But then you know there's a lot of back and forth and like, oh, I like I want this wording done this way, and then they would come back, but it was very easy to do. So you said something earlier, stuart, about if you've been in business for a year, that you already know more than you know most people that are going to pick up this book or even see what's going on. So it's like, yeah, so tell your story. Like in my book. Like I like to share stories and I like to talk about that. So like I would encourage people, if you're on the fence about putting something out there whether it be, you know, a story on social media or a blog or a book don't overthink this stuff. Like it's not that hard. You are so unique. There's nobody in the world that's seen the story as you've seen it, so share that.
Stuart: It's such a fantastic point because it's a hang up that I think people are going to be more and more disadvantaged by. So I just recorded a show last week with Betsy that we just put out a couple of days ago. As we recorded this they were talking about I think we usually pretty kind of not overly charged in the titles, but I think this one we call Time to Get Off Defense because it was prompted by something I was following along with something that Frank Kern was doing this last week, talking about AI content creation and then putting that into ads, and specifics of it aren't that relevant, but the principle that content being out there has been a differentiator for a few years anyway. But now we're at a threshold where chat, GPT and some of the AI services can create reasonable content. I mean it probably even on the high side of reasonable, really quite good content just off the bat. Now that's not as good as refined content and it's not as good as the individual message that you tell.
But what it means is that the baseline for everyone else dumping out OK stuff is going to rise and rise because other people are going to just start churning out this stuff with no refinement or reflection or opinion on it. So if you're still on the fence of not putting something out there with your take and your view, everyone else is going to be doing the same level of stuff. So it's really I think 2023 is going to be a threshold year, for if you're not putting anything out at all, you're going to get left further and further behind. Everyone's going to start putting out this higher baseline level of stuff. But if you can still put out stuff with your opinion, you'll take, whether it's a book or social media post or video or whatever you're comfortable with. It's really time to get off the fence because if you leave it another year or two, it's going to start getting an increasingly long journey to catch up on. It's interesting that you mentioned that as well.
Rob: Yeah, no doubt those new technologies are very fascinating to me and I can see where this whole thing is going. I don't know what it's going to look like but in the next, say, 10 years, with quantum computing for example, that's just mind boggling to me what these machines are going to be able to do very soon and how. Like I have a butt, I was with my son. We went camping last weekend and I was with one of my best friends and his son and we took the boys camping and so we were in central Florida, we drove up to southern Georgia and we're out camping in the woods like real camping, you know, intense and stuff.
So my buddy, chad, and I were talking one night and he's also a financial advisor, runs an RIA and he's very much tech savvy. So he's doing different projects now with digital assets and he's building a blockchain company that's specifically for financial services industry. Like it's going to be basically running compliance on blockchain. It's really neat stuff and so he's very much like into this. And so we're talking about the future of, you know, digital coins and crypto and blockchain.
And I said to him you know, because I just read an article about quantum computing how in the next decade. They're saying that these machines, these quantum machines, are going to be able to run such complex you know, formulas and it's so much data like which, in today's standard, would take like 50 years. They're going to be able to do it in like 30 minutes. It's going to be able to crack any blockchain. That's because right now it's like, well, nothing can crack blockchain, like the morca Like and I'm not big in the crypto at all but they say, like you know, bitcoin can't be hacked because, like, the more people are on it, the bigger the blockchain. It becomes impossible to crack today, but in the future you're going to have these quantum computers that are going to be able to solve anything and then so there, there goes your Bitcoin and there goes your D. So my buddy Chad's like it's okay, in 10 years I'm going to sell it, I'll be out anyway.
Stuart: So necessities for the mothering invention. So it definitely focuses the mind. If you've got, like, a event horizon coming up, yeah that's. I mean it's done without going off subject too much. But that idea of the volume of things that can be processed being so exponentially faster than it is today. It's kind of like the financial services world and wealth management the speed of money now compared with 20, 30 years ago is very different and people's portfolio makeup and their retirement objectives and how they achieve that constantly changing.
So this, the book, being the top of the funnel bringing people into the world, we've got this idea of this is just the starting point, and then there's many things that people need to know and you've got the opportunity to educate them and bring them into your world. So you were talking about Vinny, building the site and having that as a presence for all of the information related to this. That, I think, is a scary option or scary thought for some people because they, as their minds, are looking for reasons not to do it because of, for whatever reason, confidence or time or pressure. They're picking up on things that are a block, a barrier. So the idea of people, if they don't have a Vinny, they don't have all of this other assets. We often say to people all you need is the book and an email, or the book and email because you can follow up and then the idea is to get people on the phone.
But I think it's definitely an opportunity to be able to add in and build on that portfolio the portfolio as in the stuff that you've got to share with people over time. So long way of getting to a short question, these additional things that you're building around. This book has the introductory piece. Are they things that exist already or, having written the book, seeing other things that you can add into that world to kind of build on it? Excuse me, my voice is going.
Rob: So for me, my experience was the book is just another tool. It's not like my only thing, it's just another tool that I have in the tool bag that I'm going to be using. And I would say, for people maybe that are not as comfortable with technology, or maybe they don't have an IT guy on retainer like I'm fortunate enough to have Vinny or maybe they aren't as comfortable putting out videos on social media or other things that I've been doing for years and years I would just say, as a differentiator, if you're doing nothing else and you do a book, like holy crap, that's a massive lot, that's a massive leap in you right, like I would say as a very baseline. Maybe for an older advisor that's been in the game for a while, I would say think of it like I haven't used a business card in probably 10 years now, but think of it like a business card on steroids yeah, and not just any steroids, I'm talking like Arnold Schwarzenegger and his prime Good stuff.
Stuart: Yeah, whatever that looks, whatever that is.
Rob: I mean, but you know. So imagine, like you know, and my thought is like for an older advisor on the fence, or even a younger person, whatever, but just say like, okay, imagine that you walk into your next association meeting or board meeting or you know networking or whatever you do, and rather than have, like some business cards, I have a, my box of books is right over here, but, like you pull out, you know the dividend lifestyle and you know, maybe you just have something written like you know. Hey, dear John, great to see you. All the best. Boom. You hand John your book. It's like that's pretty cool.
Stuart: Yeah, and like you say, I mean the cost for the services is like $3,000 to $6,000, depending on how much you want to spend on it, but the majority people out there, the $3,000 one is absolutely fine.
Rob: I think I did the middle one. I think I did the like.
Stuart: Yeah, so that's the and the current pricing we've got. Actually we've got two to six, so three is in that sweet spot in the middle. It's the cost of printing books is the same. I was talking to another financial advisor firm towards the end of last year and they were sending postcards slightly bigger sized postcards and then driving people to an event like a class-based learning, retirement planning type event, which is pretty common FMO type stuff out there. So the cost of the postcards I think delivered was three quarters of the price of a book. So books typically are running at like $2.50 plus shipping.
And I think postcards were running at like $1.75, something like that. So when, imagine walking like you say, walking through the door, the opportunity to then personalize it with a note, the difference, the fact that you stay in people's memory, is so much more. You said something when we first jumped on the call that the authority of just having a book is still there, and we often talk about this idea of the authority of a traditional book can be 95% captured in a conversation starting book. But then you've got the opportunity to create a conversation starting book for 95% less of the price and the overhead and the mental torture of creating a traditional book. But the trick is not to get caught up in that traditional world. So if you come into a project like this, thinking that I need to go away for six months and write, it needs to be 200 pages, I need to include all of this stuff, you just shooting yourself in the foot, because the job of work of this is to start the conversation and then the conversation is led away from the book towards doing business with you.
One of the things that I ask people is in terms of frameworks. So the Breakthrough DNA framework that the coach think really I'm sure it is because this is a lot of our world. So the Breakthrough DNA framework that Dean's got on the entrepreneurial side, the book, blueprint, school card framework that we've got for you in your world whether you call it a framework or whether you've got a path that you lead people through Is that something that's quite formalized for you in terms of onboarding people or is it very? Every client's different and even if they've got different requirements, they don't follow a particular framework.
Rob: When we onboard a new client.
Stuart: Yeah, yeah. So think about someone who, for whatever reason, comes across your path and gets on the phone. Is it relatively structured the way that you, I'm going to say, on board them, but maybe even not quite as formal as onboard them, but start that conversation? Sure, is there a underlying framework there, or is it just kind of fly by the conversation?
Rob: It's somewhat repeatable. I have an assistant, katrina, who's my right hand, and typically now it's going to be either referral, center of influence or an existing client that brings in more money. I've gotten a few things from social media, just because, again, I'm not scared to post content fairly regularly. So those are going to be the avenues I've done on and off as well, something called Smart Asset, which is like a marketing company that's approved at Raymond James. That's our broker dealer and I've had success with Smart Asset as well over the years, kind of using that. I've got a junior guy in our team now that I work with for those leads. So the Smart Asset leads that come in there's definitely a strict, repeatable process with an email then like a follow up and then they come in and then there's like we send a letter like a recap letter and when they're here there's like a process we go through. But I would say like for the average, like normal, you know, referral that comes in, katrina is going to do the scheduling. We're going to send the initial email that you know coordinate the time and that I'm copied on everything, and then, like a day or two before the meeting, she's going to send a reminder email, like you did for me for today. You know like, hey, you know we have the call tomorrow. Or you know we have this meeting or zoom tomorrow. Look forward to you, know Rob looks forward to seeing you. And then, once they're in here, you know I have a process that I take them through.
We use a planning software called goal planning and monitoring, which is not anything, you know, unusual in the industry. It's a financial planning tool and we take them through that. It's kind of a conversational piece. And then there's a recap letter that goes out and then, you know there's a. They come back in, they bring statements. We do onboarding like paperwork, fee agreement, and then there's a follow up meeting after that. But and then, moving forward, we have review meetings that are autopilot as well. But I'll say the one thing that would be relevant to our discussion here is now, with the book, we're now incorporating that into that process. So when Katrina is setting up that initial meeting, a book will go out.
Right, yeah, and so it instantly, you know, elevates me in terms of, like, you know, the authority figure, like this guy is a pro, and I'll say it again, I mean we work with a lot of retirees or people that are approaching retirement. So it's like that demographic, you know, if you were born in the 50s or 60s or whatever, they really put a lot of weight. If you're an author, if you have a book, they're like holy shit, this guy is really something. Yeah, I mean now, whether or not they actually read the book, it doesn't really matter.
Stuart: No, it's done its job.
Rob: Yeah, I mean.
Stuart: I mean, I think it's pretty good, but you know it doesn't Like you say, the job of work isn't to become a best selling author, it's to predispose people to want to work with you, and the fact that it exists almost regardless of the content, does that job.
But what will make a difference is or maybe one of the things even if they don't read it, people most likely, particularly with physical books, flip to the table of contents. And if that's a roadmap leading towards the next step and the language that you're using reflects that, it all that I think I can mention at every podcast that I'm on the Chaldeany book Pre-Swasion, this idea of subconsciously sowing seeds that are later reaped. It's such a benefit that is often overlooked. The reason that I was asking about frameworks in the process is, again, to give this. So the idea with people that an extra leverage of the book is just what you were saying, build it into the process. So the Dividend Lifestyle, having the Dividend Lifestyle review as part of the process and the next stage in the Dividend Lifestyle checklist, all of the things that you're currently doing already, but renaming them to tie into this roadmap.
Rob: Yeah, I've been thinking about that quite a lot, stuart. I'm glad you said that and yes, that's a thing that we are talking about and thinking about to maybe ultimately rebrand things. Those who name it own it.
Stuart: Exactly.
Rob: Yeah, I'm kicking that around as we speak.
Stuart: Yeah, it's such an interesting opportunity and again, people can get overwhelmed by the idea of it and thinking, oh, I need to put all of this process in place. But that's not it at all. It's doing whatever you currently do. I mean Tweaking. He's tweaking, but it's really whatever you currently do, but just naming it and putting it on a list where people can say, okay, I've joined the train here and here's the three stops towards retirement time. And there's the subconscious expectation of you don't need to make a decision about what the next step is. The next steps here, it's just when we're going to do it.
Such a great opportunity, obviously, both for you and for people thinking about this.
Rob: It makes you more referable when you have names on stuff Like rather than say you know a review, you're going to say like we're going to schedule your tactical dividend lifestyle review. You know something? Like that, it's catchy, and then like oh yeah, like my guy does this dividend thing.
Stuart: Yeah, exactly Non-generic.
That's what I was just going to say. It's not hey, here's the book and the next step is coming to the office for a chat, which people automatically think of in terms of like a timeshare guy, of coming to the office and it gets locked behind them until they've kind of signed on the line. It's not that we're coming in for the assessment stage, the review stage, the name thing, and it's almost again going back to that persuasion idea. It's almost like people they're on board the train and they're quite happy to continue until they feel like it's going off the rails or until they feel uncomfortable about it or that it's not quite what they're expecting. So, whatever you can do to name things to keep people comfortable, they don't want to do the hard work of going and checking out all of these reviews or double checking what you're saying, with like getting five different quotes from people, as long as they're confident enough that they're in the right place, and obviously this goes on the underlying assuming that you're doing good, I mean sure yeah, take that for red.
But yeah, it's that. Comfortability, is that even a word? Yep, and keeping them comfortable all the time in the right place. I went off and tangent then because I was going to talk about something else which was.
Rob: Branding, renaming processes, onboarding.
Stuart: I'll come back to you when we hang off, and then we'll have to do another follow up call.
The opportunities of how to use the book now that it's done. I've got five things that I usually run through people. So I'll often do a strategy call with people either before or after in the book. So there's five things that I run through and that's updating all of the current places where you are. So websites, email signatures, social media presences, having it as the on bio pages, all things like that. These are all low hanging fruit things. So that's one. The next one is emails.
So you've got the opportunity of reaching out to existing customers almost as a way of kind of it's kind of like a referral strategy, but a subtle referral strategy. Hey, I wrote the book. I just wanted to make sure you got a copy of it first. If you know anyone else they want to copy, just let me know and I'll get a copy straight to them. So you've got to be able to contact existing customers. And then there's the list of people aren't customers but are prospects. So a way of reaching back out to them, either if you have been staying in touch or you haven't. If you have, then it's obviously just another thing to reach out to them and include it with an opportunity to hey, if you want to come in for your dividend review, feel free. If it's a cold list, then using it as an opportunity to reengage people. But then there's things like complimentary, non-competing businesses. So this is the idea of reaching out to other people who aren't other financial advisors, obviously, but are other people who have got your clients. So one of the random examples that I use a lot is Bill Blumer, financial advisor up in Chicago Detroit, I forget which in my head they're the same place, so anyway, up north and he used his book, which his first book. He's subsequently written a few, but his first one was the Yotta's Guides of Retirement, because he was a sailor and just used like sailing terms as the analogies in the book. But then he was using it to reach out to the yacht club and use it as a speaking opportunity.
Some of the other opportunities, like if you were a coach, then printers obviously have a lot of your clients because business people get business cards or material printed. The financial advisor or what are the other coaching organizations or business professional organizations, or like the check of commerce and score, and all of those, because those organizations are looking for speakers or looking for people to present to their groups. So that's an opportunity to reach out. And then the last one is just advertising. So either social media advertising, book covers have a.
It's a more compelling option. So rather than running an ad which is, hey, come and do business with me, running an ad saying get a free copy of the book is an easy job, yeah. Or even print ads into the communities of people who have got the similar clients. One option for the kind of pre-retiree like late professional pre-retiree group is reaching out to organizations who might have a HR requirement to provide ongoing training to their employees. So State Farm is a big local employer, organizations like that. All the fact that the book now exists, there's all of these outreach opportunities that would be difficult to you just part of the crowd otherwise, but using this as the opportunity. So, all of that being said, the outreach stuff that, have you got any plans down that route at the moment or any thoughts of using it specifically in kind of outreach campaigns?
Rob: Not specifically. I mean, I love everything you said about getting in you know the doors, on these different speaking engagements, and I love to present to groups. I haven't really thought that part through. I'm pretty selective at this point who I'm taking on as new clients, so I'm not really, you know, trying to throw those big cast nets anymore. I, again, my idea with this book was really to solidify existing clients. Everything I do is fee based recurring revenue. So it's a tool, slash, gift, slash, you know thing I'm going to give to all of my existing people To make them more sticky, to give them value to, you know, make sure that they know that they're working with the best. Secondly, I'm using it to enhance and enrich my existing centers of influence. So I work with a number of attorneys. I work with a local CPA firm and I'm giving you know books to them so they can ultimately, you know, if it's the right fit, give them to their clients.
You know, as a way to rather than just say, you know, hey, I got this guy called Rob, you know he can talk to you about your money to say, like you know, hey, here's a book that that our you know preferred financial advisor relationship, rob, just produced. You know, take a look at the book. That's a lot, carries a lot more weight. You know, kind of like you were saying before, so that's where I'm at right now with it, and then I've got. Can I do a shared screen with you?
Stuart: Yeah, I think this is open for yeah, there's my wife and son.
Rob: So, like this is the website that Vinnie built for me, you know. So we've got about the author downloads money minutes, blog and then schedule a meeting. So there's the book and this is just. You know a summary about it. But here they can download five dividend questions to make sure that they understand, you know, if they have a portfolio of stocks, or they in the right stocks, or they have the right mix of allocation of stocks, and so forth. Here is a series of videos. I can take you to this really quick. This is the mini. Money minutes is what Vinnie branded it.
Yeah, and so we talk about different things here. You know why not go after the highest yielding investment, why that might not be a great idea. What's it between a value stock and a growth stock? How do we select the stocks that we use? You know type of thing. So yeah, so that's kind of where I'm at now, and you know, as another marketing tool that I'm slowly and methodically kind of pushing out there, yeah, and that's having that repo of stuff that you can point people to in various different opportunities.
Stuart: You can imagine a scenario where the lawyer or the CPA or the accountants that you've got relationships with have, rather than just give them 10 copies of the book and say, hey, give these to some clients writing a quick note in the front cover. Mike's the best lawyer that I know. I'm really excited to be able to share some of our stuff with his people. Head over to the website to, because I've got a quick video that if you want to shortcut the results, head over to the website and just download the thing you can do to kind of personalize it a bit more or kind of inflate.
Rob: there you go a little bit so they're more likely to do it. I mean again, that's fantastic.
Stuart: But it just moves that path and no one else is doing it and the overhead of writing that 10 times. I mean okay, do it 100 times, you might get bored, but with a return, because for all of our clients I mean yours more even than ours when you think about the lifetime value of your clients, I mean how much is that worth to put that little bit of extra effort in? I know we're getting close on time. I want to kind of be respectful of bending you ear too much because I can talk about this all morning.
But one of the other options might be is to do a white labeled version of the book in whatever format that is, for the people who you work with.
So you were talking about being pretty selective on your own clients, but the other guys who work with you there's maybe an opportunity of. I could even visit your place where scenario where there's the main version of the book but you allow them to write an intro chapter, put their picture on the front of it it's still Rob's book, but maybe they've got their name and their picture on the front and they can then use that to amplify their world. And it's not saying that they wrote it all, but they're just using the asset that you've wrote as part of the main organization, that is, given them more things and again, that's cost effective and easy to do and if it's worth the effort and you've got a funnel that can deal with that, particularly if you were talking the framework, so repositioning some of the onboarding that you already do into the dividend lifestyle training, and then they're onboarding more people onto the trade and then it kind of amplifies their success. Anyway, a million of what?
Rob: I did. Those are great ideas, thank you, I really liked those, especially the one we're writing in the front of the cover that, hey, regina is the best attorney in town. I want to give this to you. Look forward to talking with you soon. Check out the website as well.
Stuart: Right.
Rob: Yeah, exactly.
Stuart: Because all of that just no one else does it. A few people may take that extra step. It's always kind of like the like we were talking about with the chat GCP content. There'll be millions of people who just press go and ship it out. It's the minority, but it's an easy way of leveraging.
Rob: I would say one last thing on this before we wrap on that AI that we've talked about briefly. It's like, yeah, that's here now and it's going to just get better and faster, but I believe that you can never outsource empathy Completely. I believe that you can't outsource. Well, at least until you have this. You know, like what do they call it?
Stuart: singular machine or something like that. Hey, singularity, yeah.
Rob: Until the machines have consciousness, there's no. You can't out like we can leverage technology for research, to build a portfolio, to write a book to you know, write a blog, whatever, but you can't outsource that, that relationship, that face to face, eyeball to eyeball, and the same with storytelling. Like in my book, I talk about my grandpa, like grandpa Fred. He was a blue collar guy and you know he wasn't overly sophisticated but he saved over the years and his company stock and he never touched it and, like you know, 50 years it turned into be a big pot of money and so it's like that's a cool story that the AI can build a hell of a story, but they're not going to know about grandpa Fred.
Stuart: Yeah, yeah, it's. That's the exact difference, isn't it? It's utilizing it for the things where you get a lot of benefit, a lot of return, but they're not thinking that that's the beginning of the job, not the end of the job, and it saves a massive legwork. But adding your take your stories, your approach, your empathy for the people, building that rapport. That can't be done automatically. There are things that can, but not that. And if you're not out there putting that personal touch on things, that's the thing that's going to start leaving you behind compared to everyone else, because everyone's going to do the bare minimum, the new base level. But it's easy for you to add some personality and preference.
Rob: And.
Stuart: I'll give you that.
Rob: You gave me some good ideas on the handwriting in the book. I'm going to give you one. Yeah, okay, for your clients, if you have people, and I'll speak on financial advisors, because that's what I know. You have advisors that are like, oh, I feel called to do this. I know, but it's just too much work or nobody's going to want to read it or my story's no good or whatever. Right, at a very minimum, you're documenting your story Like to give to your kids and grandkids. You know what I mean. In my book, half the book or more is just family stories about my grandfather and my dad and my sister. It's like you're just laying out a legacy for future generations to learn about your family heritage. That's kind of cool, yeah, yeah.
Stuart: Because how many times do you hear stories of generations passing away? I mean, fortunately, both my parents are still around, but my dad's almost 18 now, my mom's 71, 72. In 20 years I'm not sure they'll be around. My grandparents, I remember when they passed away. There were stories or scenarios that were there and talked about, but I never really paid that much attention. I can't remember the details. Now the opportunity has gone to really get clarity on that, to capture something. We've done a few legacy books and in fact we've got a legacy project. We just don't talk about it very much for no real reason. We should talk about it more, but this idea of legacy books. So I think almost exclusively, I think we've done them for wealth management clients, funnily enough, where as part of the family planning, the advisors have got people to do legacy books.
Rob: So that advisor got their client to do a legacy book.
Stuart: Yeah, so we have had. And again, I mean, as people are listening to this, if it's something that you're interested in, reach out, because we haven't finalized a product or I don't have a page to point people towards.
Rob: Thank you, I like that.
Stuart: Yeah. So the thing that we were talking about, the problem that we were trying to solve, is legacy wealth management firms were saying that all of the structural technical steps okay, we can do that. That's not it's work. It's difficult, but it's not. It's a known problem. The problems come up when the family are then introduced or the clients are then introducing it to their family. And they were saying, a lot of the time the biggest problem is kind of people not understanding. Why not understanding? They're not even wanting to have the conversation because they're saying, okay, I want to leave this money here and this money there. Their problem was introducing even the subject.
So the purpose of the books was to hey, I've written this book. It talks about our financial journey as a family, how we got to this place, what's important for us, going forwards kind of subtly hey, I made this, all this money. I don't want you to just blow it all, so I'm going to write this in a book so I don't have to tell you. So that was a lot of the thing, and that's why the financial planners were sponsoring the, or the wealth managers were sponsoring it, because it was an easy way to bridge that gap. For the sake of paying a few thousand dollars to get this thing created. It was they'd pay 10 times Matt to solve this whole problem of the parents. How do I tell the kids what this?
Rob: is going to be. No, I mean we have clients that pay us $50,000 a year on the high end. I mean not all of them.
Stuart: I wish they would.
Rob: But to do something like that as a project for one of your A clients. I think that's fantastic.
Stuart: Yeah, because it solved two. Well, it did two things. One, who else is doing that as? Come in. We're a wealth management company, we'll do all of this. We'll give you a nice portfolio at the end of it and thank you. Here's the check. He encourages you to write a book that shares the story, but then also, it's really this okay, we've done all of this work. Now you need to sit around the kitchen table and tell the people how are you going to have that conversation, particularly if there's any kind of acrimonious relationships. The book was just the opportunity to start that conversation and the framework laid out into guide the conversation. Listen, we've written the book that tells you okay, as we're getting towards retirement and then thinking about generational wealth, here's what's important to us. So I mean it really did tick a box.
Rob: That's cool. Yeah, I like that idea.
Stuart: Okay, yeah, we should. Again, we should talk about it more. Yeah, we should describe it more to people because it's such a great opportunity. Okay, so that was I'd wrap up, and then I talked for another 10 minutes, which is what I do. Oh good, I want to make sure that people have got opportunities to find out more about you guys and the book and what you do. So is there anywhere where you want to point people towards if they want to find more about your story?
Rob: Sure, dividendlifestylecom. That's the website DividendLifestylecom. We're Raymond James team and College Park, which is in Orlando, florida, lifestylecom is the website for the book. And then our name of our team is Edgewater Family Wealth. So we have our main website is EdgewaterFamilyWealthcom.
Stuart: Fantastic. So I'll put a link to both of those in the show notes so, as people are listening, they can just click through and follow those three. I'm interested that DividendLifestylecom. Was that already taken? Did you have that for a while or did you just?
Rob: get that as part of the book. No, vinnie secured that domain as well as the DividendLifestyle, so I have DividendLifestylecom and then the DividendLifestyle. So yeah, it was available, we grabbed them.
Stuart: It just goes to show that you can't believe that some domains are still available. I mean how that was not taken by now is perfect timing for you, fantastic. Well, thanks very much for your time, really appreciate it.
Rob: We'll check back in. Appreciate you, man. Thank you so much.
Stuart: I hope everyone check out the show notes and we'll speak soon.