The Growth Formula: Sub-Reps, Lead Gen and Advisor Empowerment with Jeff Grail

Voiceover: [00:00:00] Welcome to the FAST Podcast, Financial Advisor Strategy Talks with Lara Galloway, SVP of Financial Education at White Glove. Lara provides advisors with an opportunity to hear from some of the best minds in the business, follow along to learn quick tips to help you grow your business. From gaining new leads, to keeping current clients engaged and everything in between. 

Now onto the show.  

[00:00:00] Aric Johnson: Hello and welcome to the FAST Podcast with your host Lara Galloway from White Glove. Lara, you are not alone today. You've got somebody sitting right next to you. What's going on?

[00:00:08] Lara Galloway: I am so excited to tell you all about the person sitting next to me, because this is a guy who hired me into White Glove.

[00:00:15] Jeff Grail: I did.

[00:00:15] Lara Galloway: Many years ago.

[00:00:16] Jeff Grail: Yeah, I remember.  

[00:00:17] Aric Johnson: That was a good decision. That was a fantastic decision.  

[00:00:19] Jeff Grail: That was an amazing decision. Yes.  

[00:00:20] Lara Galloway: Yeah, very. I can't say I disagree. Very good. So yeah, Aric. Who I have with you today is one of the co-founders of White Glove, the none other than Jeff Grail. So I'm so excited to have you here, Jeff. I'm going to read a little bit about you so our people know a little bit about your background.  

[00:00:37] Jeff Grail: Ready to embarrass me?  

[00:00:38] Lara Galloway: Yep. Absolutely. Oh, I could tell you stories. There are some good stories, guys. Wow. But for today, we'll keep it clean. Rated PG here. So for more than 20 years, Jeff Grail has been responsible for generating strategic partnerships, joint ventures, and hosting beneficiary relationships inside fast-moving and established organizations. Jeff has been with White Glove since its inception in 2015. In his role, he creates strategic partnerships and has developed numerous successful relationships with IMOs, FMOs, and financial institutions with lots of other acronyms across the United States and Canada, where he's originally from, little known fact. Jeff Grail is Canadian. So Jeff, welcome to the FAST Podcast.  

[00:01:23] Jeff Grail: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.  

[00:01:26] Lara Galloway: Yeah, well, I've been looking forward to it because it's so fun to always talk to you, and I just thought you have such a unique role because since you've been here, you've been building all these relationships with some of our biggest clients and some smaller firms that have grown big over time with us. And you know, there's a lot, I think people come to us with a lot of the same questions when they're trying to scale up their firms. And I wanted to talk to you today a little bit about that process. And so I know because you're hanging out with these guys all the time and helping them, you're talking to them about what it takes to grow their business. So, what is, what, you know, what is a way that you recommend to an advisor that they can scale their business up from just maybe being a solo business owner, solo advisor, to growing their practice bigger.  

[00:02:12] Jeff Grail: You know, it's such a great question and we get that a lot actually. And I do have a lot of relationships now with a lot of great FMOs, broker dealers, advisors, and people that have actually become friends. So that part has been really amazing but we do get that question and what happens a lot, well, the answer is a simple answer. It's hiring sub reps. Absolutely. There's no doubt. And we get that question a lot because we have advisors that are, it's just them in their practice. A lot of advisors, it might be their spouse that's helping them out, or they might have one or two employees and they actually tell us that the seminars or webinars are working too well and they actually have to hold off on some events. They can't do them as often as they want because they're having too much success and they just don't have the time.  

[00:03:05] Lara Galloway: Yeah.  

[00:03:06] Jeff Grail: So my response to that is let White Glove help you grow your practice by hiring sub reps. You can really expand your business and scale it. And that's the big thing. And we can hold advisors hands through that process. Dean and Mike, my partners, they have done that. So they have a lot of experience. They have quite a few sub reps that they have a very successful system for that. And it's a pretty simple process actually. My recommendation would be that you start locally. So if you're thinking about maybe scaling your business, hire somebody that's local to you. It's easier to train. They need to be onsite. You need to be able to mold them, especially if you have a great system already in place that's working for you want them to use that system, to work that system. So if you can hire them locally, I recommend going to a university or colleges, people that that have just graduated top of their class in finance and are looking to become a financial advisor, what a great opportunity to mold them and help them take them under your wing, right? Because they, you know, advisors, the first year, two, three in the business is very difficult. You can only see so many family friends, and you know, cousins.

[00:04:37] Lara Galloway: Absolutely. And then they're tired and they're not taking your calls anymore. Yeah, yeah.

[00:04:41] Jeff Grail: Yeah.

[00:04:41] Lara Galloway: I don't want to hear from you.  

[00:04:42] Jeff Grail: So how do you get in front of people?

[00:04:44] Lara Galloway: Yeah.  

[00:04:45] Jeff Grail: So we definitely have a solution for that and we'll talk about that through this podcast. But you know, taking a younger person and being able to mold them, teach them the business and help them out. Not only are they going to work well for you in the future, but they really appreciate that help. They need that help, right? So they're looking for that mentorship. Really, they really need that. But what's important too is the training. Training is absolutely the key. Especially when you're looking at doing seminars, webinars. Webinars, you're a master at webinars, right? If you run a seminar, I'm sorry, if you run a webinar the way that you run a seminar, you will not have a lot of success. It's very difficult.  

[00:05:38] Lara Galloway: You're so right.  

[00:05:39] Jeff Grail: Right?

[00:05:40] Lara Galloway: It's so bad.  

[00:05:41] Jeff Grail: I, yeah, I know. And that's why I say you're a master at it. You've studied it. So you know it. So you need to be able to train your sub reps if you're going to do seminars, this is the proper way to do it. If you're going to do webinars, this is the proper way to do that. And you know, and it's not just you, the advisor training, you have White Glove. We have masterclass, we have Lara Galloway, that you know, you do so well for webinars. You know, webinars are so different.  

[00:06:11] Lara Galloway: They are. They really are. I just, you know, it's such a good point that you're saying like, it's such a symbiotic relationship for those young financial advisors just out of school. Marketing, they know they need to do it. So when you're brand new and you don't have a lot of money, you spend more of your time.

[00:06:27] Jeff Grail: Yeah.  

[00:06:28] Lara Galloway: But for an advisor, they have less time and a bit more money. Right? An established advisor, they would have that. So I love what you're saying. It's kind of a symbiotic relationship. If you want to scale, then bring in somebody who needs the support of the back office, the support of the marketing dollars, the support and the culture and the processes that an established advisory firm would have, and then they can learn, they can be, you know, growing up in that and being kind of fed some of the leads to kind of get that book of business started.  

[00:07:00] Jeff Grail: Absolutely.  

[00:07:00] Lara Galloway: So, but you know, but that makes me think then, okay, if we're doing that, if you know, if the established advisors bringing on the sub reps, I mean, that's a lot of money, right? Like, now what, are we paying salaries? Are we splitting, you know, comp? Like, how do you recommend and what do you see with your, so many of your partners, what do they typically do for compensation with the sub reps that they bring on?  

[00:07:26] Jeff Grail: Yeah. It's another great question. You know, our recommendation is if you're paying a hundred percent of the leads. So say you're doing webinars, seminars, or any kind of lead generation, you pay a hundred percent of that. You might pay a hundred.  

[00:07:45] Lara Galloway: You mean the advisor would pay a hundred?  

[00:07:46] Jeff Grail: The advisor. Yes.  

[00:07:47] Lara Galloway: The established one. Yeah.  

[00:07:48] Jeff Grail: Correct. For the trainee. For your sub rep. And then you also pay for all of their office expenses, their assistant, you know, all of that, rent. So they don't have to worry about it. You know, they can truly just focus on growing and improving their advisory skill.

[00:08:11] Lara Galloway: Got it.  

[00:08:12] Jeff Grail: This is what I'm looking for. You know, they can just be better at what they do. That's all they have to focus on. They don't have to worry about money. They don't have all that other stress. If you do that as an advisor, we recommend 30 to 35% commission spread or 35% payout is very reasonable for something like that.  

[00:08:40] Lara Galloway: Okay.  

[00:08:40] Jeff Grail: Now that being said, that would be more for a brand new advisor. Like I said, someone coming out of college or just starting in the business. They don't have any money, right? So you have to take care of them and again, they're really going to appreciate it. But I do believe you have to have that advisor put some skin in the game.  

[00:09:04] Lara Galloway: Absolutely.  

[00:09:05] Jeff Grail: There's no doubt. A great example, my boys going through high school, I bought them a vehicle, a nice vehicle, reliable vehicle, but it was my vehicle. I bought it for them to use it. And Lara, that vehicle was so dirty. All the time. I was on them all the time. I'm like, come on. Really? Can't clean this? There was coffee stains and whatever all over, right? And it was just awful. Now they have their own vehicles and wouldn't you know it, those things are immaculate. They're beautiful. They're shining. They're outside waxing them all time. Right?  

[00:09:40] Lara Galloway: Yeah. Right.  

[00:09:41] Jeff Grail: But they had skin in the game for that. With mine, they didn't. It's the same thing. So if you have a new sub rep, we recommend that they put some skin in the game. How that, what kind of percentage or what it's for, that's up to the advisor. You can do many things. For example, if you do a seminar, they can pay for half of it. You pay for half. Maybe you pay all of the seminar so that you're paying a hundred percent of the leads, but now they're paying their office expenses. They're paying some rent, you know. We like, especially for seminars, having them pay directly for some of the seminar.

[00:10:23] Lara Galloway: Yeah.

[00:10:23] Jeff Grail: Because you just, you treat it differently. You treat those leads coming in. The no-shows, you might be more apt to call them. Right?

[00:10:31] Lara Galloway: Right.  

[00:10:31] Jeff Grail: Because we know financial advisors just throw those in the garbage and there's so much quality there.  

[00:10:36] Lara Galloway: Which is crazy.  

[00:10:36] Jeff Grail: Yeah.  

[00:10:37] Lara Galloway: So crazy. You're right. If they're not going to throw it in the trash, if they realize that that's their money, those are their leads, and they're more likely to follow up with them if they feel that they're their leads. That's a great point and a great way to kind of share how they can, you know, put some skin in the game together too, so.

[00:10:53] Jeff Grail: And if they do, put skin in the game, you know, a 50% ratio, we think is a good ratio. So you think about that, you know how easy is it to start hiring sub reps, train them, and once they're off on their own, you are getting that override from any efforts that they put in. And another common question is, how much money do you put towards marketing and all of that? We recommend about 20% of the advisor's revenue. So if you're using White Glove and getting three to one, five to one, 10 to one ROI on your return, that marketing budget starts to really ramp up and you can get a lot of activity going.  

[00:11:41] Lara Galloway: You know, it's such a good point too because advisors, if you just think about this whole scaling problem, advisors get to be like a lot of, you know, the consultants or or whatever that business type is out there where you're trading your time for your money, right? The more you work, the more money you make, but there's always a limit. And it's at least 24 hours in a day is the limit. I don't know, some people may try to work, you know, right up to that point. But if we say there's a limit to how many more hours you can work, so you can't just drive your revenue and expand your business by working harder and working more. You actually have to do a couple of other things. Raising prices, offer a different product line, whatever. But one of those scaling pieces is to bring on those sub reps, and I love how you're positioning it and I know that we see this with our clients a lot with some of the FMOs and IMOs where they are starting to do this, where they are bringing in the sub reps and thereby giving themselves more time. Now they're working maybe a bit more as an office manager, as a coach to a group of people that's out there performing, getting in front of those leads, working, following up, converting those leads, doing the planning and the advising, and really, really able to take off there because they've just replicated themselves and gotten themselves away from being the only person who can meet with clients. So I mean, it's, you know, I always think about Brad Gotto, who, you know, one of our favorite poster children here at White Glove, and I know that he's been doing that, that I think he's not really even seeing many clients anymore. I think he's really stepped into that management position. So do you see that a lot with your relationships where, you know, the lead advisor is are they still seeing people or are they really just passing that book of business off to the sub reps?

[00:13:30] Jeff Grail: Yeah, we do see that. and your points are really, really good. One thing I'd like to add is you can cherry pick. If you're paid for these leads and some really good people come in, you could say, well, you know what, I'm going to take this one and this one. You can have the rest.

[00:13:47] Lara Galloway: I've got an $11 million client and you can have the $150,000. There you go. Yeah.  

[00:13:53] Jeff Grail: Yeah. That's right.  

[00:13:54] Lara Galloway: That's true.  

[00:13:55] Jeff Grail: Yes. And I think it depends on where you are in your career too. Right? If you are younger and you're looking to just have tremendous growth, you are going to be in that business day-to-day and working it. You're going to be doing the seminars. At the end of your career, absolutely. You're going to build a team and what a great opportunity to be able to build a team and create unlimited leads. And that's what we're talking about with White Glove. I think part of the problem with advisors why they haven't looked at hiring sub reps is because they don't know how to get them leads. As a financial advisor, if you are not in front of people and seeing people and scheduling appointments, your business is not growing and that's probably one of the hardest things you can do. And if you're good at referrals, man, that's the best. A lot of people aren't good at that. Or the referrals dry up. So by using White Glove and White Glove services, we provide potentially an unlimited stream of leads to keep your lobby full and to keep your sub reps lobby full. And you know, one thing I didn't talk about is, locally, you might hire 2, 3, 4, 5 sub reps and your area may get saturated and you have a lead problem, right? How do I get more leads? Well, now you can start looking at what about a sister office, a satellite location somewhere outside of your area that has tremendous opportunity where there may not be a lot of other advisors and you just wish, man, if I could just go there. Well, now White Glove gives people, gives advisors, the ability to hire someone to be able to do a satellite office, and we will do their marketing. We will still provide their leads for them. So the advisor just does the training, you know? And White Glove will take care of them.

[00:15:58] Lara Galloway: And you just expanded your footprint.  

[00:16:00] Jeff Grail: Absolutely. And if that scares people, another option is you don't have to hire somebody outside of your geo. You can hire somebody still local, but if you do a webinar, you then can market anywhere in the country. So your geomap has just increased tremendously. You still have that control of being local with your sub reps, but now if you are in Michigan, you can market to California, which is absolutely amazing. And you don't actually have to get a satellite office, pay the rent, all those things.  

[00:16:36] Lara Galloway: Well, and I know you mentioned, I mean, Dean and Mike with their firm, they, here in Michigan, but they go see clients down in Naples all the time, which they're perfectly happy to go do workshops in Naples or do webinars down there, because why wouldn't they want to go down and travel and meet with clients down there?

[00:16:53] Jeff Grail: It's fantastic. Think about it. How many advisors, especially in Michigan, we're snowbirds, right?  

[00:16:58] Lara Galloway: We all go to Florida. Yeah.  

[00:16:59] Jeff Grail: Yeah. You have that destination. So think about what if while you're at your vacation home or your condo, if you own one, wherever it is, you set up an office there. We can help you and I've talked to many advisors personally where either they were literally moving to another state and I said, rather than wait till you move and start building prospects, why don't we start six months ahead of time. Let's start building up, do seminars so that when you get there, you already have a tremendous lead base.  

[00:17:36] Lara Galloway: Now that's huge.  

[00:17:37] Jeff Grail: Yeah. Right.  

[00:17:38] Lara Galloway: That's huge because how do you get started when you're in a new state and you don't even know anybody?

[00:17:42] Jeff Grail: Exactly.  

[00:17:42] Lara Galloway: You don't have your network, your centers of influence in place.

[00:17:45] Jeff Grail: Yeah. So whether you're moving offices or having a vacation destination where you know, there's only so much beach, I don’t know, for me anyways, there's only so much beach you could do. So during the day, if you want to go and see a client or two, you can do that, put on a seminar. It's a great, great way to do it. And again, White Glove does all the work so you can still have your cocktails on the beach. And, you know, yeah. We'll do all the work for you.

[00:18:12] Lara Galloway: Yeah, absolutely. That's our thing. I mean, you know, this is the bottom line I guess, that I'm hearing from you is that in order to scale a business, you're going to need leads, period. You cannot grow your business without more leads. And you know, we at White Glove, we are lead gen on demand, right? You call us, you let us know. We guarantee we'll get you some leads. We'll get you some people who sit in front of you in your classroom and get to know you and start building that relationship, that warmth, which you can do very quickly in a seminar or a webinar, right?

[00:18:47] Jeff Grail: Yeah, absolutely. And this is probably one of the biggest things that a lot of advisors may not think about, but hopefully I can help them out today, is by hiring sub reps. You're not just increasing your business and maybe bringing in more revenue year over year. Think about your enterprise value. So for the advisors that are thinking of getting out of the business, and there's many, the advisor's average age is getting up there. So there's a lot of advisors that right now have a five or 10 year game plan. Why not start hiring some sub reps? All of the production that those sub reps do, that accounts for your enterprise value and when you're getting multiples on that enterprise value, that's fantastic. So how about work now towards growing that bigger nest egg for when you're already planning on leaving anyways.

[00:19:46] Lara Galloway: That's so smart.

[00:19:46] Jeff Grail: And we can help you do that.  

[00:19:48] Lara Galloway: Yeah. That's so smart. And to even expand on that too, bringing in sub reps, they're generally younger than the established advisor, right?  

[00:19:59] Jeff Grail: Yeah. Yep.

[00:19:59] Lara Galloway: And it's all that next gen investing stuff. All the great wealth transfer. We talk about that so much here on this podcast, but you can't not because it's such a huge thing.

[00:20:09] Jeff Grail: Yeah.  

[00:20:09] Lara Galloway: To bring in those younger generations. And you mentioned that enterprise value of your book of business, well guess what? The enterprise value of your book of business goes up even more the younger the age of investors in the books. Right?

[00:20:23] Jeff Grail: Yep.

[00:20:24] Lara Galloway: So you've got younger people in there. I mean, you've got a succession plan built in because you've got your sub reps already established, ready to take on your clients. Brilliant. Well done. Good plan. Awesome. Well, this has been amazing and I think you've given our folks a lot to think about in terms of thinking what they want to do on the horizon of their retirement or when they're ready to kind of, you know, pass on their business and get out of it and not have to work as hard every day. They could start working less right now by educating those sub reps, getting them in place, feeding them with a steady diet of leads whenever they need it, wherever they are, and expanding their footprint with lots of ways that you just came to, you know, explain to us today. So I really think it's great. Yeah.  

[00:21:08] Jeff Grail: Well, good. I hope there is value here. I love talking about it. I could talk about it all day long. We didn't even mention Nurture and Engage.

[00:21:17] Lara Galloway: I know.  

[00:21:17] Jeff Grail: So as you're hiring sub reps and doing more and more seminars, you're getting more and more leads. So to have a program like our Nurture and Engage where you're dripping on those people, so many advisors call me or we see the testimonials where they're getting clients from 2, 3, 4 years ago, seminars that they put on because timing wasn't ready then, but timing's ready now. They're retiring. Inheritance, whatever. And by having that drip marketing campaign, keeping your face and your name top of mind is so, so valuable. If you're not doing that today and today's social media environment, you have to have social media management.  

[00:22:01] Lara Galloway: You do.  

[00:22:01] Jeff Grail: And again, we do all of that for you. We do all the work. So to be able to do that is just amazing on top of, you know, everything we've talked about today. So as an advisor, I don't know why you wouldn't stop hiring sub reps, right? We do everything for you, so why stop? The only reason you'd stop is if the leads dry up, and I think we've talked about here today, we have many solutions for that you would never have that issue.

[00:22:28] Lara Galloway: But you're so right. If the leads dry up, you still need to nurture the existing leads, prospects, and clients you have with a marketing automation program like Nurture and Engage. It's absolutely going to get you more business out of your existing book. Or out of your existing database, so, yeah. Well done. Thank you. Awesome. So, Jeff, I always like to close out the podcast with a question about success, and I enjoy asking all of my guests, you know, their definition of success, whether it's in life or it's in business, and I'd love to hear yours.

[00:23:00] Jeff Grail: Not messing up on a podcast. No, you know, it's a great question and so many people get asked, and I think back when I was younger, success was very different than what I believe success is now. I admit it had a lot to do with money and material things, right? And now I got to tell you, I'm in business with my best friends and it's amazing. It's really great. They're people I can trust, that our families are very close, we take care of each other. So success for me is taking care of my partners and most importantly my wife and family. Knowing that we don't have to worry about any financial issues, we're going to be set. I can take care of my boys, send them to college, all those things. So in a way, the money is important, but it's for different things now. It's for enjoying my retirement with my wife, traveling, and enjoying it with my best friends and partners and people that I really care about. You know, I used to want the big boat. I don't need the big boat anymore. I can rent a boat. It's way easier.  

[00:24:19] Lara Galloway: And I talked to Richard about that because he's like, oh yeah, let's buy a boat. I'm like, no, no, let's just rent it. I don't want to buy a money pit. We can rent any boat we want. For the day, have a good time. Yeah.  

[00:24:30] Jeff Grail: Yeah. So I just want to help as many people as I can. White Glove gives me the ability to do that, which is amazing because we really, not only advisors, but those advisors are helping the general public. So we reach hundreds of thousands of people and that just makes me feel so good. So by helping people, you know I generate success emotionally, financially, all of it. And then to be able to work with amazing people like you, it's just been a blessing. So really, really happy.

[00:25:01] Lara Galloway: Right back at you. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for being a guest for me here on the FAST Podcast, Jeff.  

[00:25:07] Jeff Grail: Thank you. It was great.  

[00:25:10] Aric Johnson: Jeff, I got to ask a question. I know that you covered this at the very beginning of the podcast. How long ago did you start White Glove?

[00:25:17] Jeff Grail: In 2015, so eight years ago.  

[00:25:21] Aric Johnson: Eight years ago. Here's the thing, I've worked with a lot of business owners and I don't hear the kind of passion come through business owners that have been in the business for 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 years like I have just on this podcast, you are still so passionate about what you guys do. What a blessing it is to be on this podcast with you. Lara knows that now I've turned my camera on, which is rare. But to kind of close out the show, we're going to talk just briefly on a transition that I'm making. But I'm so glad I was a part of this one. She's had a lot of great guests, Jeff, but I'm so glad to listen to your information and how passionate you are about the business. So thank you so much for being on the show.  

[00:26:00] Jeff Grail: Thank you. I really appreciate that. I'm here every day. I love what we do. I truly do. Like I said, we're helping hundreds of thousands of people every day, and it's just fantastic. I love it. Thank you.  

[00:26:12] Aric Johnson: That is awesome. Yeah, absolutely. Lara, what do you think?

[00:26:17] Lara Galloway: Well, I am thinking that it's interesting you talked about the passion you see in Jeff and the way he runs his business and the passion that you have and the way you run your business. And I personally feel really touched that I've had you help us on this journey, getting us started, helping me find some great guests, helping me get great answers and great commentary out of the guests we bring on. And I'm really sad that our time together is going to end. So, but I'm super excited to wish you well on your next venture because I know when it comes to passion, this is your passion and your purpose. So, super excited for you.

[00:26:54] Aric Johnson: Yeah, no, I have been, again, blessed to be along this this whole road with you as you started the podcast and as you have perfected it. It's been outstanding. For those that have been listening for a while. My wife and I have worked with an organization called Boys Town in Nebraska working with at-risk youth. We worked for almost 12 years, raised 68 young men. And just like every other company, they're having a hard time finding people, so they've asked my wife and I to come back. We've been gone for about 10 years, but they've asked us to come back and be house parents again, and that's what we're doing. So on the next podcast, you'll hear Bill's voice. And Bill's a great man and you'll get to hear his story a little bit, hear where he came from, and he'll be working with Lara and the team from this point forward. So Lara, thank you so much for allowing me to be on this journey with you.  

[00:27:40] Lara Galloway: Well, all of us at the FAST Podcast wish you well, and thank you very much, Aric. Good luck.

[00:27:46] Jeff Grail: Thanks, Aric.  

[00:27:46] Aric Johnson: All right. Thank you both, and of course, one last time, our last thank you goes to our listening audience. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to the FAST Podcast with Lara Galloway. If you have not subscribed to the podcast yet, please click the Subscribe Now button below. This way, when Lara comes out with a new podcast, it'll show up directly on your listing device. And we humbly ask that you share this podcast, rate it and leave a review, as this actually does help others find the show. Again, thank you so much for listening today. For everyone at White Glove, this is Aric Johnson reminding you to live your best day every day, and we'll see you next time.

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