7 Minutes to better Selling Podcast Ep. 2

Hey, welcome, everybody. Welcome to the 7 Minutes to Better Selling Podcast. I'm your

host, Colin Lake. As some of you know, I'm the president and founder of Developing the

Next Leaders. And we'll talk a bit more about that as we progress through the conversation

I'll do a brief logistics reminder, and then we'll bring in our guest speaker. So from a

logistics perspective, although the title says 7 Minutes to Better Selling Podcast, these

live conversations last anywhere from seven to last week's was about 15 minutes. And then we go

back to the drawing board after the call and we narrow it down to these seven minutes for easy

pullout of concepts and ideas to immediately implement into your practice. So with that in

mind, I'm going to welcome a very good friend of mine, a colleague, a confidant, and a guy I've

known for 15 years, Gary Baker. Gary is the CEO of Undivided Wealth. Undivided Wealth is a very

successful registered investment advisory firm in the Midwest, based in St. Louis. And if I just

left it there, it'd be pretty impressive that the firm has done some amazing things for some

amazing people. But this firm, Undivided Wealth, is something so much more than that. And it's

because their leader, Gary Baker, who we have on here, thinks so differently and so much bigger

than so many. So Gary, welcome. Thanks, buddy. Great to be with you as always

Yeah, great to see you, G. I'm really appreciative you're here. Okay, so Gary

I'm going to give a setup thought, and then I'll ask you a question. Sound good

Perfect. Bring it on. All right. So the sales industry, and more specifically

the financial services sales industry continues to come under pressure. One of the reasons why

is people continually just try and share information with one another versus a better way to like use that information That one of the ways that we suggest So what one of the ways we suggest to solve this problem So developing next leaders is busy researching and talking to folks like yourself trying

to figure out how to solve this problem. So with that in mind, again, we're really happy to have you here to walk through with this

So if you will share with everyone listening, and all those folks will be listening on the

back end, how do you get to where you are today in this lofty role at this amazing firm

Well, I appreciate you asking that. And as you and I have been talking over the last couple of weeks, the question is timely

Yesterday was my 20-year anniversary to my beautiful bride, Sarah. And, you know, when you have these milestone kind of moments, you know, it absolutely just causes you to reflect

But the way I went about this business has changed massively. And so when I started in the, you know, the latter 90s, that was the dot com bubble, all of that stuff

It was all about making money. And then we went through this process where, you know, everybody, you know, wanted to have a CFP

And so we went down, you know, the investment planning process. And then we went down the financial planning process

And about 10 years into my career, I kept asking myself because originally I was going to go into psychology because I wanted to help people

And, you know, I had a long sit down with my grandfather and he said, hey, you know, that's an interesting career choice

And there's a lot of great work that can be done that way. But, you know, doing something with business and maybe psychology as a side may be a better avenue

And so I started exploring this idea of becoming a financial advisor. And then you recognize that half of our time is being spent with clients on being not so much the psychologist, but being their friend, being their confidant, being, you know, the person that they trust the most

So about 10 years into my career, I recognized we need to do something differently. We're putting

our firm in the center of these conversations. We're putting our own way to make money in the

center of this or we putting our own ego that we the smartest person in the room And I started thinking about this as I became closer and closer to my clients What if we put them in the middle And if we put them in the middle everything would kind of take

care of itself. So what has led me ultimately to this point to have our own firm is this freedom

to be able to put our clients in the center and build everything around them and not have any

other pressures, any other mandates other than just taking care of who is actually paying us

and that's what's led to Undivided. That's great. One of the takeaways I have from that, Gary, is

this idea of like you had a vision of your personal life and your professional life

and you've just done the things that you needed to do to get to that. So that's awesome. Great

lesson there. Let me ask you this. From a lesson perspective, what would you suggest maybe is

one lesson you would share with the listeners that maybe they could use in their lives or their

their work that they do or their callings that they all execute every day

What's one lesson you would share with them? Perfect. Well, Colin, I know the people that you work with are very high achievers

I mean, they're focused on growing their business. I'm a firm believer in understanding now that whatever we put in our sights

what's ever in that scope is what we are going to work relentlessly to hit

And it is so critical that we understand what's in that scope, because for a period of my life, what was in that scope was money

for a period of my life, what was in that scope was, you know, my own ego, my own title, my own

you know, ability is whatever it is to prove my worth and what I could do. As soon as we changed

this target to basically put our client in the center and built everything else around it

my ego went away, you know, money actually started, you know, coming in faster because

we're taking care of our audience. And what I'm constantly checking myself with is what is in that

scope. And the moment it's it leads off and veers off from you

know, what matters the most, which is our clients. That's when I know that you know I tracking the wrong thing And I may may end up hitting the wrong target So just constantly reassessment of what in that scope So do you have like a process you go through to reassess what in that scope

Because so many people were like almost forced in today's world to think about money as like the driver

Like what enabled you to get there? And do you have a process that's repeatable for our listeners to work from

Yeah, I think the main thing is just reflection. You have to get away from the business and pull back and say, am I happy doing what I'm doing

Am I happy making what I'm making the way that I'm making it? The point of it is by putting the client in the center, you start to build everything around them

So back to, yes, I want to make money. I mean, I'm a capitalist. I love our industry. I want our clients to make money

But I'm making money because I'm solving clients' problems. I'm not making money because I'm selling something to them

So there's a distinction right there that the one thing that every advisor can understand, if you want to provide value, walk in there with a problem solving mindset, not with a selling mindset

And the key distinction is selling is I am selling you something

I can make money from this. I'm the smartest person in the room. A solving mindset walks in there with why do you want to accomplish that

Tell me more about that. You ask so many questions that you get to the root of what it is

And if you can solve that problem, trust goes through the roof, the money will come

and that's how you build a growing business in my mind. Heck, I learned something from you now

Instead of being a problem solver, be a problem listener and then become a problem solver

Yeah, boy, that's beautiful. Hey, we're going to wrap it up with that exact thought

Gary Baker, CEO of Undivided Wealth. For those of you who are looking for a financial planner who actually cares about the relationship above all else, Gary Baker's firm is at the top of that list

I think the world of him as a human being and as a professional. And I thank everyone for joining us

And, G, I'll talk to you soon. See you, bud