Welcome back to the 272nd episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Kate Guillen. Kate is the founder of Simplicity Operations Management, a consulting firm based in San Diego, California, that specializes in helping advisory firms get the most out of their CRM systems and streamline their internal operations along the way.
What’s unique about Kate, though, is the way she utilizes the advisor’s CRM system – not their broker-dealer or RIA custodial platform – as the central hub of their entire business, and then builds multi-system workflows from that base to ensure that everything gets done and nothing falls through the cracks.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about why Kate views the CRM system and its four core components of Calendaring, Task Management, Sales Pipeline, and Contact Management as the center around which all advisory firms should be built, why the key to building good workflows is about not just articulating the steps of a process but also the follow-up to demonstrate that good service to clients, and how firms can start the process of systematizing the key repeatable steps of the business in new client onboarding and ongoing client service.
We also talk about how working for an advisory firm herself and observing their operational systems (or lack thereof) encouraged Kate to first master Redtail and its intricacies, how Kate was inspired to launch her company after discovering how often advisory firms underestimate and underutilize their CRMs operational potential, and why Kate has found that it can take up to 6 months to really go through the process of overhauling an advisory firm’s operations to be more efficient.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Kate shares how her nervousness at launching a consulting business just as the pandemic first broke out (and how her fear subsided once it became clear that the pandemic was actually amplifying the need for advisory firms to better systematize their suddenly now-remote businesses), how Kate believes achieving goals begins with having confidence in one’s own abilities and not being so hard on yourself, and why Kate feels, while it is great to do what you love, she has had to learn to get better at saying “no” to find her own balance between growing the business and enjoying her time with family.
So whether you’re interested in learning about how Kate leveraged her organizational and CRM expertise to start her business, how Kate utilizes Redtail as her operational hub to build and incorporate systems, or why Kate feels it is more important to appreciate the journey in building a business than worrying about the destination, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Kate Guillen. Read More…
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