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Welcome back to the 358th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today's podcast is Veronica Karas. Veronica is a Senior Financial Advisor at CAPTRUST and works from the RIA's Lake Success, New York, office, where she oversees $360 million in assets under management for about 200 client households.
What's unique about Veronica, though, is the unique 3-question approach she uses to generate referrals not only from clients, but also from centers of influence as well, and even uses it to get referrals from prospects… all without being too pushy or salesy.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Veronica developed her 3 referral questions – which first ask clients (and others) to reflect on what else she could be doing from them that would be valuable, then what are the services she and her firm provide that are the most valuable, and then whether there is anyone in their lives that could use help with those same services they just said are so valuable – and to please facilitate an introduction to those individuals in need, how Veronica built this 3-question approach because she didn't have a natural network of friends and family to give her referrals and had to figure out how to comfortably ask the existing clients of one of her mentors, and the way that Veronica follows up with the introductions she receives to turn them into new business opportunities!
We also talk about how, amidst onboarding 52 new clients in a single year (due to the success of her 3-question approach), Veronica developed a blueprint that all new clients would go through in their 1st year with the firm that leverages a more modular approach to planning and stretches out the planning work (for the client, and her own team) over the span of 12 months, how Veronica's firm structures associate advisors to work with multiple senior advisors at once to not only offer high-touch service to their client households but give those associate advisors more intentional opportunities to learn what they can by being in meetings with many different experienced advisors of the firm, and how Veronica's firm structures its advisor compensation to both empower associate advisors to take over client relationships and still have the incentive to learn to build their own book of business as well.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Veronica shares how she overcame her early-career feelings that she was too young to serve as a lead advisor, how a commitment to talking about her work with at least 5 people each day for 2 years, from strangers at Target to fellow advisors, helped Veronica to overcome her fears and generate a rising flow of prospect leads and introductions to key referral partners, and how Veronica has maintained her focus on doing the right thing to navigate ethical dilemmas that have arisen over the course of her career, even when it meant leaving a job after less than a year to start over somewhere else.
So, whether you're interested in learning about a structured approach to generating more referrals, how to create a systematized process for a client's 1st year, or how to overcome the challenges of starting out and creating your own book of business, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Veronica Karas.