Executive Summary
For many financial advisors, the traditional way of doing business has generally been based on a transaction-based service model involving functional solutions to clients' practical problems. In more recent years, though, advisors have begun to focus on developing stronger and more meaningful relationships, recognizing the advantage of better understanding clients' values and priorities when it comes to solving for their long-term goals. And with this growing realization, many advisors are also recognizing the profound impact they have on their clients' lives beyond solving their everyday financial challenges. Which begs the question: Is there a missed opportunity for advisors to market themselves as providing value that transcends solving just their clients' functional goal-based needs and that addresses their emotional, social, and even aspirational needs as well?
In our 133rd episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards explore how many of the services provided by financial advisors often align with those outlined in consulting firm Bain & Company's "Elements of Value Pyramid", a 4-tier model representing different levels of inherent value delivered by products and services. Similar to psychologist Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs, the Elements of Value codify some of the less quantifiable concepts of what is important and valuable to clients – including those that are emotional, life-changing, and socially impactful – that are often naturally addressed (but not necessarily marketed as part of the services provided by the advisor) through the advisor's planning process, offering a potential framework for advisors to consider when deciding whether to market themselves as providing these 'higher' levels of value.
As a starting point, while clients often approach advisors with basic financial problems, there are often deeper concerns (and goals) associated with their initial requests. And when the advisor is able to gain an understanding of those underlying issues through active listening and engagement using carefully crafted questions, clients often benefit in ways that naturally address their higher-tier needs in the Elements of Value Pyramid. Which further elevates the advisor's value to encompass broader services that the client may not have even realized they wanted or needed in the first place, potentially increasing loyalty and trust within the relationship and even leading to growth of the advisor's business through increased referrals!
Advisors seeking to market these higher-tier services (e.g., providing hope and motivation, reducing anxiety, promoting wellness) may need to find a comfortable balance between explicitly communicating the intent to provide such services, versus relying on the client to recognize the added benefits as an organic by-product of the advisor's standard process. As while serving in a fiduciary capacity to create a comprehensive financial plan in the client's best interest can result in providing solutions that cascade into the emotional, life-changing, and even social-impact tiers of the Elements of Value Pyramid, sometimes without the client ever realizing they had needs in those areas.
Ultimately, while acknowledging a client's emotional and social needs hasn't historically been a large part of traditional financial planning, the concept of financial psychology has been gaining credence as an important aspect of financial planning. And by considering all the ways they can provide value to their clients (including the evaluation of 'higher-level' elements as outlined by Bain's Elements of Value Pyramid), advisors can be confident about marketing themselves as servicing these client needs in whatever capacity works best for them – whether it involves exploring simple questions about a client's desired future life or delving into the deeper levels of how the client perceives life-changing self-actualization or even self-transcendence!
Authors:
***Editor's Note: Can't get enough of Kitces & Carl? Neither can we, which is why we've released it as a podcast as well! Check it out on all the usual podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts (iTunes), Spotify, and Stitcher.
Show Notes
Kitces & Carl Ep 127: Creating Value Through Presence (And The 50 Fires Podcast)- #FASuccess Ep 015: Why Life Planning Is Simply Financial Planning Done Right With George Kinder
- Why To Use George Kinder's 3 Life Planning Questions With Financial Planning Clients
- #FA Success Ep 241: Scripting A "Values-Based Financial Planning" Business Development Process, With Bill Bachrach
- The Private Client Lawyer Now by Russ Alan Prince
- Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte
- Start With Why by Simon Sinek
- 50 Fires
- Stephen Covey Quote
- Bain & Company's Elements Of Value
- Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs
- McKinsey & Company
Kitces & Carl Podcast Transcript
Michael: Well, hello there, Carl.
Carl: Michael Kitces, how are you?
Michael: I'm doing well. I'm doing well. We're, like, squarely in 2024 and underway. We're, like, plowing through the first quarter. I'm a little thrown because my brain still wants to be in 2023. And I've realized we've totally lost that ritual where you write the new year on the check. And when you write the new year on the check and you don't put the wrong year by mistake and cross out and write the right year, that's when you're really in the new year. And I haven't written a check in years. So, this whole turning the calendar thing to me has gotten very strange. I'm like, "Oh, I guess we're, like, well into the new year now because we're already through most of the first quarter."
Carl: Yeah, it's really crazy. So fast and fun and amazing and all those things for sure.
Michael: So what's on your mind these days
Advisors Want To Talk About Bain’s Elements Of Value [01:55]
Carl: I've been having this repeated experience for... it's been a couple of years, probably since we've been back from New Zealand, so 3 years. I get this email. People know. I mean, I live in Park City, and lots of people travel to Park City. So it's like somebody's traveling to Park City and they read something or listened to one of the podcasts, and they say, "Hey, can we get together? I'd love to just chat with you." I'm like, "Okay." And I kind of know what's coming. So I've started actually having... And it's interesting because this is often...
Michael: You know why they want to meet with you in advance.
Carl: A little bit. I'll tell you this in just a second. But yes, I sort of know what's happening. And it's interesting. It's often people from our... I'd go so far as to even say our profession, like this little group.
Michael: I was going to say, is this advisor world or, like, consumers? Because you've got the column and now the 50 Fires podcast. You appear in many places.
Carl: Both, but it's often people in our industry, speaking broadly and often even narrowly, like financial planners and advisors.
Michael: I call them advicers, but yes.
Carl: You can call them whatever you want, my friend.
Michael: I appreciate it.
Carl: So I often try to meet at the same coffee shop, or if it's in the summer, on the same trail. And this repeated thing happens where they kind of look around, and these are... so far, this experience has been... the majority have been men. And they look around and they're in the age cohort 45 to 55. And that might be a function of what's going on here. They look around and they say, like, "I won." And some example, like balance sheet example, like "I sold a business. I make a million dollars a year," "I make more money than I ever thought," or "I sold a business for $20 million" or whatever. Some balance sheet example is, like, the definition of "I won." And then they look around and make sure nobody's listening. This has happened at conferences too. Make sure nobody's listening. And they say, like, "Is this all it was for?" Right? Like, "Is this all it was for? Is this why I did it all?"
And having had this experience enough, and it lines up. I mean, there's a reason people are asking me because I write and talk about this a bit. It lines up with this idea of, like, the best comparison I have is the old Stephen Covey quote that often we spend our whole lives... And I'm paraphrasing. Often we spend our whole lives climbing to the top of the ladder only to find out it's leaning against the wrong wall. And I think there's a lot of that going on. And I think the pandemic accelerated it. I think we got permission to ask questions that we never thought we could ask before, like "Where do I want to live? What kind of work do I want to do? Do I like these people in my house?" Just all sorts of almost existential questions. And so I've been thinking a lot about that. Like, this idea of, like, the ladder and the balance sheet, and what's it all for, and money and meaning. And sometimes I feel sort of like a, I don't know, like, mountain town hippie for thinking this way. And then what do you get from Bain? Right? Bain comes out with this report. And what did they call it? They called it the pyramid of value?
Michael: Bain, the consulting firm, not the comic.
Carl: Bain Capital.
Michael: Sorry. I hear "Bane" and I go to different places than Bain Capital. So Bain Capital, the consulting...
Carl: Consulting arm and...
Michael: ...firm.
Carl: And McKinsey said something very similar, but Bain's is really striking because I always feel like they're, like, a button-down consulting firm. And they put out this thing. What did they call it? The pyramid of value? Is that what they called it?
Michael: Yeah, I've seen this bouncing around. And I want to actually find it online while we do this episode so that I can talk about it.
Carl: Yeah, yeah. It was basically like, think of, like, Maslow's hierarchy of needs for financial advice.
Michael: Okay. All right, I've got it.
Carl: What was the most valuable thing? And at the top, what did they put there? Self-transcendence? Self-actualization? Self-transparency?
Michael: So it's self-transcendence. So it's got four tiers. Let me see. I'll turn this on as a screen share for anybody who is on the video version of this. So you've got, like, a pyramid of things you can do that are valuable that's kind of broken into four tiers. So the bottom tier, the base of the pyramid, is labeled functional. So this is things like informs, reduces costs, reduces efforts, reduces risk, makes money, simplifies, saves time. It's actually, like, I feel is where a lot of us sit in financial planning world, right? Like, we do these things for you to make you more money or save you time and costs. So there's a functional tier. Then above that, there's an emotional tier, reduces anxiety, wellness, fun entertainment, provides access, rewards me. So I'm sort of thinking of this like this is where a lot of us, I think, have gone as advisors. Like, I provide peace of mind.
Carl: Yeah, maybe we'd even put, like, behavioral finance or behavioral coaching kind of in that category.
Michael: So then there's a third tier that's labeled life-changing. As someone who likes to think financial planning is already life-changing, I'm going to try not to be offended that apparently I'm not in this tier right now, but maybe that's the point of this conversation. So I've got my life-changing, provides hope, motivation, affiliation and belonging. Self-actualization is here. And then there's a fourth tier. We're now at, like, the very pinnacle. So we had functional, then we had emotional, then we had life-changing. Now he gets to the fourth tier that's labeled social impact and it just has one thing, self-transcendence. So I'm going to admit I'm not entirely positive about the difference between self-actualization and self-transcendence, aside from, like, layers of being I apparently have not achieved yet. But I'm going to kind of infer from this and sort of the visuals. So there's little icons where the self-actualization is like a person at the top of the mountain planting their flag, and then the self-transcendence is that person helping someone else up the mountain. And it's in the social impact tier. So I'm kind of inferring the top of life-changing is my own self-actualization, and self-transcendence is like I'm now impacting the world. This is beyond me.
Carl: Yeah, transcending or rising above the self and relating to that which is greater than oneself, right? So it's really like where you start to focus on others and the impact you're having. And so I think you think of it that way, the self-transcendence.
Are Advisors Themselves Supposed To Be Self-Transcendent? [09:19]
Michael: So I truly don't know if this is where you were going with the conversation or not, but now I'm looking at this and I'm like, "Is the implication here I'm supposed to be at, like the upper tier?" The next, next of financial planning is the self-transcendent financial advisor. Well, I guess that would be about us, but if you become our clients, we'll help you with self-transcendence. Is this where we're going? Is that the implication of the discussion here? Or are you just throwing this out there because you like to do that sometimes?
Carl: Both. I am fascinated by this because one of my favorite topics lately has been purpose and meaning and turning money into meaning. And you see that even down in the emotional jobs. Well, actually, really in the life-changing jobs, providing hope and affiliation and belonging, motivation, self-actualization. That's all pointing to having a sense of purpose and a sense of meaning, at least a piece of it. I think that's what this... I mean, this is just fascinating to me that this came from Bain, a buttoned down consulting firm.
Michael: Yeah, not the folks I usually think of to say, "Let's talk about the self-actualizing and self-transcendent value..."
Carl: No, no.
Michael: "...of consumer services."
Carl: For sure. And I think what they're pointing at, and I don't know for sure, but I think what they're pointing at is really kind of summed up in that Stephen Covey paraphrase. We've been really, really good. And by the way, I want to point out something because I think this is really important, because I sometimes get accused of devaluing the functional jobs that we do as advisors. And one thing that's really important to me is that the functional jobs are at the base of the pyramid. You take them out, everything falls apart. It's not...
Michael: Because they are literally the foundation of the pyramid.
Carl: Yeah, so important, so important. And we're at risk. And I remember that... what was it? It was Russ Allen Prince's book, "The Private Client Attorney" that he used to sell, which I just thought was brilliant, for $197 or something. That was what the price was on the back of it. And they give it out at conferences. But I remember there was a survey in there, and I think this might be going back 15 or more years. There was a survey in there about estate planning attorneys. And the population that they surveyed, the population was high net worth families that valued and were willing to pay for advice, had paid for the advice. So they had had an estate plan done, and there was some number connected to it, like $5,000 to $10,000. This was real work, especially 15 years ago. And then they didn't do anything with it. And we've all seen that happen, right?
Michael: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Carl: "Have you had your trust work done?" "Yeah, of course." How come nothing's titled?
Michael: Uh-huh. That's a really awesome, completely unfunded trust that will do absolutely nothing when you die.
Carl: Yeah, so the question they asked this population in the survey was "Why? Why didn't you do anything with it?" And the answer, and again, I'm hesitant to put a specific number, but it was 90% plus said, "This didn't represent what we wanted." And I remember just feeling like, man, that's just such a huge risk of you build... And another metaphor I sometimes use is, are we busy building... I would always point to the attorneys, so I wouldn't say us. Don't find an attorney that wants to build a monument to themselves. Find an attorney that wants to get the job done. And so I think this is the... All of this is pointing to this risk of, if we just do the functional job, I'm not sure that we've got the ladder against the right wall. And so I don't really know what it means. Actually, I do know what it means. To explore purpose and meaning, for everybody to have a statement of financial purpose. Mine's pretty simple. Time with my family, mainly outside, serving in my community, my church. Well, if I keep that in mind and I keep narrowing in on it, I think it'd be cute of me to think that I've nailed it, but if I keep thinking about it and narrowing in, like, "Oh, it turns out I'd rather do that or that or that," over time... And we talked about this once with goal discovery over time. I think it's very similar.
And then last thing, and then I'll be quiet and hear your reaction. David Whyte has this great... David Whyte, the Irish poet, in his book, "Consolations," there's an essay called "Courage." And in "Courage," David Whyte says this beautiful line that "Only slowly do we learn what we really care about and allow our outer lives to be realigned with that gravitational pull." And I think this is just acknowledging that slowly over time, we start to learn what we really care about. And of course, all of the functional jobs should be done in service of that. And so it means we have to start with guesses, like "We think." "I think." Right? And then we slowly, over time, we're a little less wrong with clients, and then we're organizing, and we're reducing risk, and we're putting quality product in place, and we're building the correct calculations in service of what? And we could call on Simon Sinek here to just say, like, it's just... all this is is why?
Michael: So I'm struck by this that... or I feel like you've painted a version of this where clients are on this journey towards self-actualization, right? We as humans are on this journey towards self-actualization, if you want to follow your Maslow's hierarchy. And I love that David Whyte quote that you shared of part of that journey is just figuring out why we think we're actually on this earth or, I always joke, is what we want to do when we grow up. Because I'm 46 and I'm still not sure I know what I want to do when I grow up. That's why I reinvent myself every three years. I'm still figuring it out. So part of me, I'm struck by how you frame that. I can't help but come back to this from just the business ends, like if I'm in the business of financial advice, being a financial planner, what do I do with this? What am I supposed to be doing with this? And I think it's kind of the context of Bain putting this out from a business consulting end. These are the tiers of value. These are the tiers by which you get to provide elevating value out to the consumer marketplace.
And I'll admit, I got to come back to self-transcendence in a bit. It's going to take me a while to process that in a financial planning context. But when I go to the first three tiers, so this starts with functional, organizes, saves time, avoids hassle, reduces risk, makes money. Okay, that's me. That's most of us. And that's what I do as a financial planner, literally many of those things. I try to simplify your financial life. I help you manage your risks. I'll save you time because you don't really want to do it yourself. We'll try to optimize and increase your wealth. Then there's a segment of us that I think have moved and evolved our businesses and careers into this next more emotional level. I think we've struggled with it in some ways, but it's all of us who put on our website, "My value is that I bring you peace of mind," which, I'll admit, I have long struggled with because whenever I see that on a website, and I've literally seen that on a few advisor websites, it's hard for me not to snicker a little.
Do you know how much crazy I live in my life? You could be the most amazing financial planner. You are not bringing me peace of mind. Maybe you can sort of help with the financial portion of my life, but you're kind of overstating the amount of complexity I live in my world. Peace of mind is, like, an unrealistically high promise. And then I reflect back on clients I have sat across from over the years where I'm like... Yeah, but no joke. We've actually gotten people there. I remember how stressed and freaked out and miserable they were about money things, and that I didn't just help them with money things, that solving the money things and helping them figure out the money issues then helped them unblock them to figure out work issues and life issues and time issues, which then helped them work out family issues. And geez, we really did take them on a journey that was pretty life-changing because the money was screwing them up and fouling them up in some ways that when we helped them figure out how to solve and remove those roadblocks, their life kind of transformed way beyond even just the financial advice. We optimized their wealth and saved them X dollars in taxes, which to me sort of goes right to this last tier, or second to last below self-transcendence, this life-changing tier of self-actualization, provides hope, motivation, right?
To me, that's part of our emergence of our accountability partners now. I'm not just going to tell you the money things to do and try to bring you peace of mind. I'm going to help you actually get there. Like a trainer, I'm going to give you the occasional kick to the backside if that's what you need, or the pat on the back if that's what you need. I'm here to help you actually do the things that will change your financial life or your life life for the better. So, on the one hand, I look at this chart and the part of me that sat across from clients is like, "Yes, I've actually taken people down these kinds of journeys." And then the business mind of me that says, like, "So am I supposed to put this on my website and say this is what I do?" I'm like, "I'm still having trouble getting there. I don't know how to say this. I don't know how we show clients that we do this without making it sound, dare I say, like a little over the top or more than a little."
Carl: Yeah, can I talk about that? I think that's really important. I think, yeah, you're exactly right. Hope, motivation. I think even the...
Michael: I can maybe do the motivation. I'll be your accountability partner and give you a kick when you need it. Maybe I can do the motivation part in my life. But, like…struggle with the rest.
How Do Advisors Talk About The Higher-Tier Things They Do For Clients? [21:09]
Carl: Yeah. I want to talk about there's a big difference, and this comes up a lot in the kind of consulting work that I'm doing right now with some bigger RIA firms. It comes up a lot, which is, "Okay, we do all these things, but how do we talk about them?" And I think that's a really, really important conversation because I think even the most kind of, like... I was just going to use the word stiff and old guys with their arms folded in the back of the room. I don't do any of this. When you sit down and talk to them and ask them, if I go ask your clients what they appreciate about you, they're probably going to use words like "I feel a little motivated." Right? Or "I feel hopeful" or "We're organized for the first time, and that's got me really motivated." That's the kind of words. They're not going to say, "Craig designs great portfolios for me." That's not what they're going to say. And so even the most...
Michael: No offense to Craig and his great portfolios.
Carl: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the example I always love using is I've been to mortgage payoff parties. I've never been to an efficient markets portfolio party. So, the feelings make their way into it. And I think everybody recognizes that. I've had those guys in the back of the room with the folded arms, and I've gone straight at them and been like, "Tell me what your clients actually... When they say what your value is, what do they say?" And they say things like, "Oh, I know the family really well," or "The kind of non-interested spouse would be really comfortable working with me," or "They say they just feel secure." I'm like, "Well, that's not down in the functional level." The things you did at the functional level made that possible, of course, but the words they're using aren't really often describing the functional level.
So here's my take on how we talk about it. And I think there are people who can do this better than me. In fact, I know there are. But my version of it is, "I think you're right. It might be a bit too much for most people." Nobody comes in asking for the emotional jobs to be done by you. Nobody shows up at your office and says, "I'm here because I need some hope." Right? But they show up with a presenting problem. So I love the idea of, like, let's still show up in the world how they're expecting us to show up. Maybe there's some softer versions of that. And Kansas State's work on what the office should look like. And maybe the website feels a little bit more like an architect and less like a bank and maybe a little bit more like a coffee shop, whatever. I mean, we soften around the edges, but we don't want to make it so... It's like showing up for your brain surgeon. He's got a rubber nose on and a tie dye shirt. He may be the best brain surgeon in the world, but you're like, "Whoa, he doesn't look like a doctor."
Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There comes a point where the disconnect actually becomes unsettling. Like, this is not the way I was expecting...
Carl: You put a barrier.
Michael: ...a professional to show up.
Carl: Yeah, one of my clients actually told me this. They're like, "Just don't put an additional barrier between me and trust." So I love the idea of still showing up, because the presenting problem is never hope. The presenting problem is never self-actualization. The presenting problem is "I just inherited some money,"or "My 401k..." The presenting problems are almost always down at functional level. But I like to think of that as just a righteous trick in service of the client always. But we're thinking in our minds, like, "Yeah, performance is really important. I understand why you're here asking about the fact that your portfolio is performing terribly over at the place. Performance is really important to us too." So that's an empathetic "I'm going to greet you where you're at." And then I'm going to just slowly, like, "Michael, would it be okay if, before we dive into that, we have a little conversation about why performance might matter? Tell me a little bit. If we were meeting three years from..."
And you go right into your question. And your question can be anywhere on the spectrum of questions. Like with Dan Sullivan, you know, or yours even, like, "Why did you come in? What brought you in today? And how do you think I can help?" Or Dan Sullivan's "If we're meeting three years from today, what would have to happen?" All the way over to George Kinder, who is off the charts good at this. But if you think of them as a spectrum, just dive into the question. And Bill Bachrach in there. "What's important about money to you?" So we can greet them with the presenting problem, have empathy for it. By the way, we're the ones that taught them they should show up at our offices with the presenting problem. Right? So we have to have empathy with that. We can't just be like, "Sorry, I don't do that. I only do self-transcendence."
Michael: So the idea is... I mean, the path to success is they're coming in with the money problem, the portfolio problem, the rollover problem, whatever.
Carl: Almost like the functional problem.
Michael: They're coming in with the functional problem. Your opportunity is to start being this motivation...
Carl: Righteous trickster.
Michael: ...accountability coach that provides them hope and helps them down this self-actualizing journey because it just goes really well and then they tell all their friends.
Carl: Yeah. And I don't know that I... I mean, I've never used the words self-actualization or self-transcendence with a client, like, "Hey, I'm so glad you reached our level four." It's just more like, "Hey, why are we doing this? Let's get a sense of purpose, a statement of financial purpose. Let's have really clear goals that match the purpose," which we would call, 10 years ago, goal-based planning. All of that is... let's just recognize where we're headed, which is we wake up one day and somebody is like, "I'm doing really meaningful things in my community. It's so amazing. And you know what? You made that possible." And I don't think you run in and go stamp self-transcendence. I just think that's where we're headed is "You know what? Man, if there was ever money left over, I'd really like... I care deeply about the..." I just had this conversation with somebody. "I care deeply about the local food production in my valley in Colorado. And it's so great right now because I feel like everything else is taken care of. I can spend a little bit of time helping local food, like with the farmer's market. And I feel so great." That's all. That's all. That's all.
It could be "It feels so great because I never wanted to be a burden to the kids, and I've got that nailed down now. And so now I'm actually taking each of the grandkids. I pick one every month and I take each of them to go do..." It's transcended them. It's about the grandkids now. It's about the food production. It's about the climate. It's about diversity issues that we have. It's about helping in another country. But that's only possible because we nailed down the other things along the way. And we were having these conversations, like, "What would you do? What would it look like? If money was not a thing, what then?" We're just pointing at it. But I don't know that we have it on the front page of our website. Do you? Because I think nobody knows they have a self-transcendent problem, and nobody thinks a financial advisor is going to solve it.
Michael: Yeah, I think that's really the crux of it is no one believes that they have these problems or necessarily looks at a financial advisor to solve them. The closest I get is, like, I could... The one of these in the life-changing domain I actually can see some marketing around is this sort of motivation. I probably wouldn't word it that way, but we'll be your accountability partner. We'll help you get done the things that you know you need to get done and you just never quite seem to get around to, and we can help with that. We're really good at that. I don't think that gets to everyone because some clients, it's not a motivation problem. They got other stuff going on, but it's not a motivation to action problem. They're good at that. I can see some segment of marketing on the motivation end, but at the same time, if all the values at the actualization level, I'm kind of weeping that we can't figure out how to market it better if that's the value there. According to Bain, that's the top of the value. So, if we're doing it, I want to claim credit, darn it.
Carl: Yeah, and I think you're seeing people do this a bit. And I think what I'm feeling... I mean, I just discovered this Bain research a couple of days, maybe a week ago. And I felt so energized by it because I feel like there have been plenty of voices in the wilderness talking about this for 20 years, but they're always kind of like... We even have phrases sometimes. We're like, "Oh, that's woo-woo," or "That's so California of you." And I feel like having Bain say it is like, "Oh, that's so great." But I've been feeling it for 10 years. I've been feeling this move towards that. And the other one I want to just point out, I think heirloom is probably something like legacy, right? And I think legacy planning, what legacy do you want to leave is something like... I mean, that's something that we've probably been talking about for a little while.
But yeah, how do you market it? I think there are some really creative ways to do it and we're seeing... I mean, I think of firms. We probably both know firms that are doing this kind of work. But I don't think it means you need to run out. I just had a great conversation with the founders of a really large, couple billion-dollar RIA firm. And they're in good Midland, middle of America, heartland sort of folks. And they're doing this work. They actually, internally, they say, like, "We're going to bring clients into a sacred..." They use words like sacred space. I was blown away. But their public-facing stuff is still very much like, "Hey, I'm not going to put big barriers into... You've got a presenting problem. We're going to help you solve it. And then we're going to slowly show you over time what we really do is self-transcendence."
Michael: And what strikes me just in how you framed it in the example you gave earlier, it's not even just something to help you start solving your functional money problems, and then later we'll be going down a self-actualization journey. I think part of the power of it is, and you can literally start that journey with the questions you ask in the first discovery meeting or the first prospect meeting. And that's how you start doing this is you just start asking questions and opening conversations that no one else has asked them about. And if they're humans that at all resemble Maslow's hierarchy, that will probably be connecting to them.
Carl: Amen to that. That's exactly right. And again, we talked about the spectrum of those questions. Just find the ones you're comfortable with. They're as simple as, "Hey, we're meeting three years from today. What would happen?" And the buying process, this all matches with the research on buying that. What the prospect is thinking in that meeting as they're judging your value is they're saying... They're not actually using these words, but what's going on in their head is desired future state, discounted for uncertainty, right? And so all we're asking the question around is, like, what's your desired future state? And again, please don't use that question. That'd be a terrible question. But we're asking questions to uncover. I actually know somebody who does that now. They're just like, "What's your desired future state?" And they're like, "I'm just going to cut to the chase." They'll be like, "Fine." But we're asking questions to try and uncover that. And that offers clues at these emotional jobs and higher, which I just love. It's so good.
Michael: Well, very cool. Well, thank you, Carl. This went an interesting direction today.
Carl: Amen, Michael. So fun.
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