Photo Gallery: Photo Gallery: Top Coaches

Oct. 8, 2012

Bill Good

FIRM: Bill Good Marketing
LOCATION: Sandy, Utah

“I build roads and sewers,” says the 69-year-old Good - meaning the basic, hands-on tools financial advisors need to improve.

Good calls his plan the “Bill Good Marketing System”. Currently 1200 FA’s work with his firm, he says. Clients pay from $2,000 to $5,000 a year. The system’s goal, Good says, is to help FAs either double their income in two or three years, or work half as much.

Good says that for advisors to grow their business, most need to expand their teams. But not all are natural managers. Many FAs don’t understand what their new hires should do or how much to pay. Good works with advisors to dismantle those road blocks, helping them see where their needs are, what it will take to hire someone new and what to look for when interviewing. He also coaches FAs on how to prospect; for instance, by planning seminars. In addition, he provides compliance-approved marketing materials that FAs can customize.

Good says FAs have to be open to all ideas, even some considered retrograde, like cold calling. “I know a lot of people are not aware that seminars ‘won’t work,’ or that cold calling ‘won’t work,’ because they’re out there doing it.”
Matt Oechsli

FIRM: Oechsli Institute
LOCATION: Greensboro, N.C.

Oechsli teaches FAs how to reach high-net-worth clients. (Disclosure: Oechsli is a frequent contributor to Rep. magazine and WealthManagement.com)

Oechsli charges $1000 per month, which also covers three two-day “rainmaker” retreats a year. Any reps that work with Oechsli also need to sign an annual letter of agreement, spend a day onsite, and participate in bi-weekly coaching calls. Each client also sets up an online “dashboard” so both he, and his coach, can see whether they are fulfilling the program’s requirements.

“The affluent want their financial advisor to be a solutions provider for all aspects of their family’s affairs,” says Matt Oechsli, 60. “They want personalized communication, not mechanical communication.” Credit the Madoff-effect, where clients felt both ripped-off and betrayed by a money manager they only thought they knew.

Oechsli tells clients to speak less, listen more, and meet clients, whenever possible, face-to-face. “The crisis highlighted to the affluent that they need advice,” he says. “But they don’t want just another broker.”
John Bowen

FIRM: CEG Worldwide
LOCATION: San Martino, Calif.

Bowen says he works with financial advisors who “want to build a simple and elegant business, and make themselves indispensable to the right affluent clients.”

Bowen started CEG in 2000. He says he only coaches FAs where he can make a huge impact. The goal is a ten-fold increase over their advisors’ fees in one year. The cost is $21,500 a year. He judges a client’s success in three areas: did they increase their impact with current clients; are they able to attract new clients; and have they created a great quality of life?

The ideal client, Bowen says, is someone who’s had success, but is frustrated. “They see their peers having more success, and they don’t understand why,” he says. To get this success Bowen says advisors first need connect to understand how the very wealthy think. “Clients want help beyond investments,” he says. “They want wealth management, and only 6.6% (of advisors) do it.”

Bowen’s goal is for his advisors to have the success in two to three years that would normally take five years. “Success should leave blindingly obvious clues,” he says. “We give specific answers.”
Joe Lukacs

FIRM: International Performance Group
LOCATION: Melbourne, Fl.

“Being a financial advisor is one of the great professions you can have,” says “Coach Joe” Lucaks, 48. “You can create the ultimate lifestyle.”

Lucaks encourages his clients to dream: Do they want to attend the Olympics? The World Cup? Visualize what you want, he says, and he can help you achieve these goals.

First he and potential clients go through a 30-day evaluation process, mostly over the phone. There are three to four 30-minute calls before a client is accepted into the program. Lucaks says he wants clients who take responsibility both for their successes and failures. This means he wants people who don’t blame, say, bad markets for bad results.

Unlike other coaches Luckaks doesn’t have a set fee. He is compensated based on how much his clients increase either revenues or assets over over their individiual benchmarks in a two-year time frame. “I only get paid when they improve,” he says. He typically receives from 10-20% of a client’s increase.

If the initial two-year period is a success clients can re-up for another two years.

Less than one in four financial advisors (23%) have an ‘external’ advisor or coach to help guide them professionally, according to WealthManagement.com’s recent Practice Management Survey of over 645 financial advisors. When we asked for specifics, over 80 coaches were mentioned by name. But only a small handful were mentioned several times. Here, the most popular professional coaches among our survey respondents.

Photo Gallery: Top Coaches

Bill Good

Matt Oechsli

John Bowen

Joe Lukacs

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Photo Gallery: Top Coaches

Bill Good

Matt Oechsli

John Bowen

Joe Lukacs

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