Strategic Lifestyle Planning for Success with Marc Sydow

So grab a coffee , sit back and let's get ready to blast off . I'm your host , Francois Dutouet . Good morning , Mark , Welcome to Propulsion Live .

So really looking forward to delve a little bit deeper into what that is for you and sort of how you go about it . But also you're doing it from outside of South Africa , which is also , you know , you have to use technology a lot , so I also want to get into that conversation . So really excited for that . So thank you very much for your time .

I want to start off just briefly , maybe just first . You know I mean your journey to get to where you are . I just learned just before the show that you also hail from the West Rand . Initially you grew up there . I didn't know that about you . I didn't grow up there , but I lived there for a long time and it's funny how you always learn these things .

But just give us a very , very brief , quick overview of your journey into this thing called lifestyle financial planning . And then , what got you to choose the niche that you did .

And I went through an evolution , I think , looking back , you know , brian Foster had this thing , has this thing called the evolution of the financial planner , which I would say started from 2010 .

As a salesman , you know , I went through the training schools that were on offer then and I made the evolution across from selling policies to shortfall analysis in order to sell policies , and then sort of gathering assets charging AUM , and then sort of gathering assets charging AUM .

And I think in 2018 was when I made the shift into actually delivering lifestyle financial planning , and the reason for that was that the old way wasn't really suiting me anymore , and I'm quite honest that it was about me in the beginning and it was how much I was enjoying the work that I was doing at the time .

So , by all means , it had the ability to make lots of money , but the work wasn't great . It was 2018 , the work wasn't great . It was 2018 . Investment markets had been flat for about control that , which I didn't right . In hindsight I didn't do that , but it was what we knew at the time .

So I think I did what I knew at the time and we kind of made the change from commission to AUM . That was the right thing , but it wasn't a great time . You know , when markets were good , you didn't hear from clients because they thought you were doing your job .

And when markets were bad , you heard a lot from clients and you didn't hear very nice things , but also your income fluctuated a lot . So you earned more when markets were good and you earned less when markets weren't good , and then those were things that you can't control . So 2018 , I kind of looked around and I enrolled in some programs .

Brian Foster was instrumental in my evolution and my change . You know , I saw a webinar that he did with Alan Gray and it sort of sparked some stuff and I tried to , you know , go cheap and do it on my own initially , which I couldn't and I called up Brian and did some work .

We did a lot of work together into this evolution to understanding the business and , I think , moving from like an AUM to a full lifestyle , financial planning , business and everything that entails , because for me it's all encompassing .

There's a lot that goes with that you know you need to develop a value proposition , you need to segment your clients , you need to develop how you want to charge for it , and then you need to go and take that to existing clients , and I think that's kind of where the , the niche comes into play .

And it was kind of initially , after doing the work with Brian , I wanted to be all things to everybody , so I wanted to just take my existing client base and we segmented it down . I remember it went from like 270 clients down to 150 . And then I wanted to take these 150 clients and make them fit into the service level agreements that I developed .

And on the face of it , that sounded great , because if I did the numbers 150 clients paying me those fees everything worked out . But not everybody wanted what I was doing and what I wanted . The type of work that I wanted to do with people . It didn't fit everybody , so then it kind of didn't work out .

We had another roadblock there , so we had to identify who's it for right . So so who wants what I do and who who sees value in it ? And I think that's where the , the niche of of female executives and financial services came about .

Uh , you know it's looking at the people that take your advice , that you enjoy working with that enjoy working with you and that you can working with that enjoy working with you and that you can have an impact on their life .

And that just happened to be those people , so formulated around that and then targeted all the messaging and my outward communication to speak to those people and now , more recently it's kind of evolved into female executives in financial services , but also founders in mid to early stages of their entrepreneurship journey , and that's sort of come about through my

relationship with Dosh Guard and the work that they do . But we can chat more about that .

But this is what speaks to you , this is what's important to you , this is how you want to do things . Let's go find the people who want the same thing , instead of saying , oh hell , this is not working . Let's just call it a day . Let's go back to the traditional way of doing things .

And I think that's sometimes where , when we make changes in our businesses , we don't see immediate results or we don't see the results that we think we're going to get . Then we go like this isn't working , when in fact there's more work to be done to get it to work . So really fantastic to hear that from you .

I do just want to stand still a little bit around lifestyle financial planning . For me , lifestyle financial planning is sort of a philosophy in my mind , but I'm really keen . Just I mean , what is it ? What is lifestyle financial planning ?

What is your definition basically for lifestyle financial planning and what do you believe is the one thing that distinguishes it from just financial planning , or financial advice for that sake ?

It's about understanding how much is enough . How much is enough to live the life that you want , and I think the emphasis really is just putting it on the client . It's saying what does a life well-lived look like to you and how do we help you achieve that ? That is at the core , that is at the essence of everything that we do .

If we're not doing that , then why are we working together ? I want to work with people who want to live a better life , who are prepared to do the work , and I think that's what lifestyle financial planning is . It's also helping people connect with what that life looks like .

And you said something about my journey earlier and sticking to my guns about the work that I want to do and who I want to do it with , and I think it goes hand in hand , because the reason I was able to do that is because I was .

I identified what I want my life to look like , so I took myself through a journey of lifestyle financial planning in in 2018 for the first time .

You know , after being a financial planner for eight years , I did my own financial plan properly , and having that end goal in mind that you can really connect with really helps you make the tough decisions on a day-to-day basis . So if you know what the end looks like , it helps you stick to the tough decisions that you have to make daily .

Um , and I think that's you know what lifestyle financial planning to me is about .

It's about living an amazing life , and I look at clients and and we've all got the opportunity to do that and financial planners right , we all have the opportunity to build amazing businesses and live amazing lives if you're prepared to do the work , and that's what's also so difficult , and not everybody wants lifestyle financial planning . Some people just want more .

They just want you to manage your money , their money , and that's fine . There's loads of people that want to do that . I am just not one of those people and I think that's fair and I'm happy to tell people that if that's what you want , then I'm I'm not the right guy for you .

I'm about helping you understand what enough looks like and and then making sure we get there . If you want more , you know I can recommend a whole bunch of people that can help you with that yeah , and I think that is important .

You know , ultimately it's about being very clear on who you work with , who you don't work with , what you do , what you don't do , and not being afraid to attract those people or for people they're not to contact you because I find um mark where , uh , and I always use my opportunity to throw in a stone in the bush or plant a seed or do things like that

when I speak to groups and you can often find that , uh , you know almost advisors .

That's been around for a very , very long time because we were brought up and taught that you know you help everybody , give everybody a great service , and because you never know when they are going to come into money or you never know when they're going to refer someone to you .

You never know what job they take or what business , like , you never know , and that's perfectly fine , it's always worked like that . But it does mean that you try and be that person , that you try to be everything to everyone .

You know you want to help everybody , versus saying no , but this is who I help and then being okay for somebody else , because anyway , we can only deal with so many clients at a time in .

In any event , the other big question I want to ask you just around lifestyle financial planning , before I step off onto some of the other things I want to talk about is you did mention a little bit about you know , sort of you have a clear vision and an end in mind , kind of thing .

I mean , that's not always easy for somebody to know , or is it in fact that people , innately they know that you know , ultimately , this is what I want , ultimately this is the thing , or how many of your clients do you need to help get there ? And , um , you know , is is that a relatively easy thing to do ? Is it a very time consuming thing to do ?

Is it a very time-consuming thing to do ? What does that process look like ?

easy . But I think what not everybody knows , like you say , but what people do know , is that they don't want anything less than what they currently have . And that's always the starting point for the work that we do . It's identifying where you are now , how you got here , what life was like , what money was like and what it all means for you .

Now , right , and this becomes the starting point . So many people don't even know what that means . If you can visually show them where you are now and what that means for you into the future , that then creates the opportunity for them to start dreaming , to say , okay , well , if I just keep doing what I'm doing now , where do I get to ?

If I earn the way I earn , save the way I save , spend the way I spend and my investments do what they say they're supposed to do , what does that mean for me ? Then ? That point , you know .

If people can see that they're , it's either they've got something in their mind about what retirement looks like or what the future looks like , and then it's going to push against that . So great , I'm on track or she's actually . This needs to change . But when it comes to like actually sitting with clients and it's creating that environment for them to dream .

You know , like people , you know , get into this world of working and earning and you know the hedonic treadmill just getting on and doing more and accumulating more to fund the things that we do . But if you offer them the opportunity to step out and say well , in a perfect world , how would you design this ? What would life look like ?

How do you want to spend your time ? How do you want to spend your days , your weeks , your weekends , your evenings ? I think it's offering people the opportunity to to think like that . So often we don't Right I'm not sure how many you know , even advisors think about that Purposefully design their days , weeks , you know , months , lives .

It's a very thought-provoking thing , I think , and it's a collaborative approach . It doesn't just happen . You don't sit there and say tell me what your goals are , because nobody knows what their goals are . They've got some lines in the sand , things that they want to achieve along the way , and it's an iterative process .

You start with things and you've got to recheck . You know , are these things still important ? How are we tracking ? Are we making progress ? And eventually you get to the point where it's like , wow , people see , okay , well , I can do things differently , but again it's work . But again it's work .

And I think that's also quite important for us is that when clients start working with me because of the way that I work , they've gone on some self-exploration already .

Right , there's some awareness that that's been created , something's happened that they have prioritized this in their life now , because this is not a typical financial planner relationship , there's no , it's not sales driven , it's not product driven , it's not implementation driven .

It's like I really want to live a better life and not to say that I'm living a bad life , but my priorities are shifted . Something has happened and awareness has been created before we have a conversation .

Because if we , if that hasn't happened , then I'm almost selling the ability for you to to experience life differently , and if that's not inherent in what you want , then it's back to sales , I guess .

model that needs to underlie this . From a business model point of view , and particularly I know that you charge a fixed fee , if I've got my information correct . Can you talk us just a little bit through that ? I mean , how's that working ? You know whatever you're comfortable in sharing Mark , but one , how's that working ?

You know whatever you're comfortable in sharing Mark , but one , how does that work ? And two to that , I mean , how has that transition been ? Where were the challenges in moving to that fixed fee as well ?

I mean , what has the experience been ?

If there's the because in typical financial planning world , it's you've got to do all this work and and then you've got to implement something in order to get paid , whether it's , you know , take the assets and put it on your code or sell a policy . Uh , some sort of implementation has to happen , and in my world , the implementation happens when it happens .

That's not how I get paid , so I've had to price it correctly . I charge fixed fees , like you mentioned , we have two service level agreements and two different price points , and I kind of had like a trial before you buy experience with clients .

So there's three meetings where we get to , and at the third meeting , we present our , our plan and our understanding of your life and the understanding of what you want life to look like in a roadmap , and we ask clients in that meeting to commit financially to the journey . So we would have had to demonstrate sufficient value . This is in my mind .

This is what I'm trying to do in those three meetings is demonstrate sufficient value that clients are happy to pay the rent value , so that value transfer needs to happen . To say , mark spoke in a good game in the intro call .

He's demonstrated enough of it in the discovery , in the presentation meeting , and he's outlined what the next 12 months are going to look like and the work that we're going to do .

That that's what I'm trying to portray to the point that they can say , yes , I'm happy to pay you 60 , 70 000 rand or , you know , 20 , 30 000 rand , depending on the service level agreement . That is what I'm trying to get across . And if I've done that correctly , people have to pay for it .

And then , because they're paying for it and I don't need to implement or sell a product , I'm able to to sit with them and take them through the process . Uh , time is not an issue then right , you know my calendar is is booked a month in advance for existing clients and then for new clients . It's like here's a link find a time we can meet every day .

If there's a time , it starts available . Uh , we can meet once a week . The cadence doesn't really matter to me , it's . I'll give you all the time you need in order to fulfill this , this plan that we put forward , right , um , so ?

So value proposition and a planning process are , like imperative if you're going to charge fixed fees , because clients need to see value , they need to understand what the journey is going to look like . No one's going to pay you , uh , a a 60 000 lump sum to go through one financial planning meeting a year . It's not going to happen . It's , it's . It's .

It may happen in an aum world where it's one percent of six million , but they don't . There's like this . There's no friction there , so nobody sees it and you know there's a value up front and then we'll meet once a year . But that's not how we put our proposition forward . I would say it's really a relationship and , I guess , uptake right .

So I've been doing this now for for five years . I started in in 2018 , 2019 , 2019 was when I really started applying it and we it's been good . Uh , it's hard because you have to say no to a lot of people , um , but it's . You know , you've got to say no to the wrong people in order to say yes to the right people .

You , you go through this experience and you see who's keen and who's not keen , and , and , and you've learned , like you know , I was taking any prospects , potential prospect , through my three meeting process and then landing up at the presentation meeting , and , and they would opt out and that's just a waste of my time .

So I've learned to to sort of select people along the journey , like look out for things . Are you really interested ? Are you really keen , are you prepared , are you able to pay ? Are you prepared to do the work ? Because the work that we do , it's not just me , I'm not just doing , I don't have all the answers .

It's a journey , it's a relationship and I tell this to clients it's going to take time , it's going to take commitment and are you prepared do that ? You know our roadmap outlines exactly who's going to do what , when they're going to do it and and how we're going to hold each other accountable for that .

So if you're not up for that relationship , then I'm not . Not the right guy . And this is all related in in the beginning .

But it's also again about finding your people right and knowing what you can do and who you can do it for at that point . So that's very important . I want to talk a little bit about the technology you use , because obviously this is something that we touched on at the event . I think Robin asked maybe a little bit about that .

But I mean , you've always obviously had to create a lot of efficiency and really enable your business and your practice to be able to do what you do from where you're doing it and all of this good stuff and making sure that you also create a proper experience , because you can't be charging fixed fees , you know , and people have to pay , and then the experience

is bad on the other end , because that it will just det attract from that . So just talk me a little bit through your tech stuff . You know what specific things have you done and are you using and have you implemented , you know , whatever comes to mind just from a tech point of view , cool thanks .

I sit in the basement in my house , which isn't in order to , in order to deliver this experience and and you know , because , again , because clients are paying us fees , you know , we tell them we're going to meet on this date and this month and we're going to do this , this , this and this . You have to deliver on that .

There's like , in my eyes , they're paying me money for it . There's no way that I can't make that meeting or I can't book the meeting with them . Or if they don't book the meeting , for me just to say , okay , well , that's fine , you didn't book the meeting .

There's massive accountability that I think needs to be upheld , and how we do that is so we use X-Plan . I know people love it or hate it , but for me , I work with AdviceWorks and they've really invested in X-Plan and it's a great tool .

Like we've embraced it , we are super users , whatever you want to call it , but X-Plan's got massive capability if you learn it and use it . So my calendar is booked three months in advance for existing clients . So we send out existing clients and this happens automatically through x-pan . I don't have to go and do it anymore . We used to , but now it happens .

So three months in advance clients get notification by email to book their whatever meeting it is . We've got specific meetings that we have throughout the year . There's a calendly link that they can go and book it on . So it happens automatically . A month after that they get a reminder automatically to do it .

Everybody gets a reminder , whether they're booked or not . We haven't figured that out yet , but they get a reminder um 15 days after that reminder they get another reminder and seven days after that they get a phone call . So the phone call is the human intervention and that seven days takes us just before the meeting month .

So everybody who's supposed to have a meeting in May has had three opportunities to book that meeting and a phone call . You know , because we have to have the meeting . It's a non-negotiable . We're not oh , you didn't want to come to your meeting . If I'm going to have the meeting , it's not a , it's a non-negotiable .

You know we're not oh , you didn't want to come to your meeting if I'm going to have the impact that I said I'm going to have in your life . We've got to meet and and , and this is the cadence and this one we're going to do it . So we use x plan to to enable that . Um and calendar is huge in that that world as well .

Obviously , clients book their own meetings . They can choose teams , they can choose zoom . We used to have whatsapp calls . We've scrapped that and that's because of the experience . Right , some people opt in for a whatsapp call , but I don't know just for myself . If I'm on a whatsapp call , you know I'm probably looking around over there and chat .

If I'm here , I've got to be looking at you , so I'm I show up differently and I've had to be aware of that . Again , it's because of the value transfer , so I need to show up in a way that's of value to clients . Some other tech that we've used which has been a game changer is Fathom .

It's AI transcription , meeting , note taking software , and this has really been good . I've been on this AI journey for like well , not AI journey , but transcription journey for about almost a year now and we've tried a whole bunch . Read AI it's great . It's not 100% accurate . Crisp's got an AI transcription service also not accurate .

Fathom is so good that we've automated that . It goes out at the end of every client meeting . I don't need to check it , it's that good . And then we use Zapier as well and we've been able to integrate the tasks that Fathom picks up .

So they pick up action items , next steps and tasks and we populate that straight into Airtable , which is our task management software , and it all happens automatically and it's so accurate that I can finish a meeting . Now I can have back-to-back meetings . I don't have to worry .

I used to have a bit of decompression time , like 15 minutes , so that I can gather my thoughts , make sure all the notes are done . I don't have to do that anymore . The technology just does it all for me and it's reliable , which is huge .

Interesting that you're using Airtable as the task management system , and Airtable is absolutely fantastic . Those of you who don't know it , it's like Excel on super steroids . Sometimes it's like a combination between that and data . Anyway , let me not change that . So the question is , mark , why do it there and not also in the CRM ?

Like , what is the what required you to sort of rather go with that approach ? Is it just a personal choice ?

Then I'd tell Marcus Marcus creates a task and he also doesn't like admin that much , which doesn't help if he's your right-hand man . But Airtable and I guess the big thing is Zapier can't integrate with Iris or X-Plan at the moment .

So I think there's an API , but we're not that far advanced yet in terms of understanding that , and Zapier integrates straight to Airtable , so we don't have to think about it . That's why we use that as our fail safe . Once a task is complete in Airtable , marcus does go and upload that task into X-Plan .

So as the CRM , it does still have all of the tasks that are done . We just don't use it for the tracking uh path , and that's just because I'm lazy when it comes to to that , but it still has to happen . So I've used Airtable to make sure it still happens yeah , fantastic .

I also listen to a lot of podcasts of different industries and and pick up things there and webinars , like I'm a serial webinar signer , rapper , whatever the right word is . But I sign up for everything . It's in my calendar and if I can make it , I'll make it while I'm working , if I . If I can't , I get the recording and I try to watch it .

So it's like constantly trying to absorb things and the whole thing that is coming back . Or the reason , francois , that I do all of this stuff is it's because I want to live an amazing life like I'm not shy to say that , like this business is meant to enable me to do that and I'm very clear on what an amazing life looks like .

So I can't be working into the night or on weekends or in my family time . That's a no-no , that's a non-negotiable . I'm not going to do that . So if I want to look after the number of clients that I want to look after , I want to earn the amount of money that I want to earn and I want to have the freedom of time that I want .

I need to be efficient , and efficient for me is not bringing more people into the practice , it's using technology in order to able that efficiency which enables me to do the things that I want to do when I want to do them Brilliant stuff .

I see we're out of time , but I do want to ask one big question , mark , as time flies , when you're having great conversations , what has been , maybe just very , very briefly , the things that you've done from a personal development point of view or from a growth point of view for you personally , whether it's in your personal capacity or for you in your business

that you've done , that have moved the needle the most for you ?

I paid his fees , which were a whack of money at the time , to go on that journey , I signed up to Paul Onsen's Inspired Advisors , which was priced in pounds . That was a whack of money . Inspired advisors , which was that was priced in in pounds . That was a whack of money . Uh , I .

I worked with johan urstazen , who is on here and everybody knows I think lots of people do and that was that was a whack of money for for 12 months sort of process , massive value .

I think what I'm saying is I invested in myself and my ability to be better at the work that I want to do , and the last , the latest iteration of that was was the financial transitionist uh program , which I did last year , and , and the exams now , and that again is priced in dollars .

So , admittedly , I don't have an ra right I , I don't have that vehicle being in portugal now . In hindsight , not a bad thing , but I've taken that money and invested in myself in order to be better at at what I do , and I think that's I would advise that to other people right ? Just invest in yourself .

Don't don't try and go alone and go cheap , but you can only get so far .

The way you do things , the way you embrace things , the way you think about things is just absolutely incredible . So thank you so very much for spending your time with us .

And with that , yeah , we'll be back next week , same time , same place . Be safe , be blessed and prosper , enjoy your weekend and we'll see you next week . Thank you very much , love you , bye-bye . All right , folks , that's a wrap for this episode of propulsion . I hope you got as much out of this as I did .

Remember to tune in every friday at 8 , every Friday at 8am , south African time , for our live show called Propulsion Live . You can find it at wwwpropulsioncoza . Forward slash live and , trust me , you don't want to miss it .

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