Darrell

[0:00]You know, that's one of the biggest courtesies you can pay for somebody or pay

[0:06]

Setting the Stage for Client Experience

Darrell

[0:04]to someone is just be ready for them. And for us, that translates to when you walk into one of our conference rooms, all the chairs are at the same height. They're all at the table at the same space. The menu is laid out. The coasters are laid out. Their presentation is already pulled up on the smart board. When they walk into that room, they know we are prepared and we're ready for them.

Jerry

[0:29]Welcome to The Intangible Brand, where we explore the connection between employee experience and client experience, and the hidden forces that make brands stick. I'm Jerry Gennaria, and I'm joined by my co-host, Carl Winstead. Today, we're talking with Daryl Grant, Director of Client Experience at Hightower Wealth Advisors St. Louis. Daryl has worked across education, insurance, and now financial services, giving him a unique perspective on what truly drives client trust and lasting relationships. We're excited to dig into how he approaches client experience in such a trust-driven, regulated industry. Daryl, welcome to the show.

Darrell

[1:08]Thanks for having me.

Carl

[1:09]Yeah, Daryl, thanks for taking the time to sit with us today and talk. It might be great to start with a little bit of context for our listeners. So, you know, you're at a party and somebody says, hey, Daryl, what do you do? And you say, well, I'm a director of client experience. And then somebody says, OK, well, tell me more about that. And what does that look like on a day to day basis? Can you give us a little insight of what you would say in that?

Darrell

[1:36]Absolutely. So first of all, I never tell people I'm the director of client experience. Experience has shown me people glaze over with that one. Actually, what I tell them is I'm the butler. and they're like, huh? And I say, yeah, I'm the butler for a wealth advisory firm. So what I like about it is it's short, it's succinct. It's actually very direct to what I do. I'm responsible for the house. So as far as that explanation of what I do, I'm responsible for everything from making sure the windows get clean, that the carpet is right, the lights are on, the food is stocked, that our people are ready for our guests, clients, whatever they may be. Day-to-day, it's really, it's a juggling act. Some days I feel like I'm the guy on a unicycle juggling bowling pins with knives stuck between my toes on a high wire, spinning plates all at once. It's a little bit of everything.

Carl

[2:30]I mean, that is like one of the coolest definitions I have heard. And I like that. I'm going to stick that back for use later because I really do. I do. That says a lot. I like that.

Darrell

[2:43]I appreciate that. I hate saying that I wear a lot of hats because, again, it's one of those things people glaze over with. But if I say I'm doing lots of different things of all different nature, people get a better sense of what my day actually looks like.

Carl

[2:58]Yeah, it's perfect. Perfect.

Jerry

[2:59]Carl, I want to see you on a unicycle juggling plates with knives between your toes.

Darrell

[3:07]I'll sign up for that show.

Jerry

[3:09]I'm going to see that too. Yeah, I don't know if insurance covers it or not, but I think we'd all sign up for that.

Carl

[3:15]So, Daryl, you work— We have people that might show up to throw knives at me on a unicycle.

[3:19]

The Role of Trust in Client Relationships

Jerry

[3:19]Exactly, exactly. So, Daryl, you work in an industry where trust is pretty much everything, but it's not always the most visible thing. Where do you think that client experience starts in a relationship like the ones that you have with your clients and where does it end?

Darrell

[3:36]Yeah. So for me, there's a great book. It's Unreasonable Hospitality. It's actually something I believe wholeheartedly in. And if you read that book multiple times, you'll pick up something different from it every single time. And for me, a lot of it is just it's about the courtesy and doing the unexpected. it. It's those little details. And sometimes it's as simple as keeping a promise. A small promise can go a long way. One of the things that people are always fascinated about when they come into our office is when we seat them, there's a drinks menu. It's sitting there and it's got a full list of items. I consider that menu to be a promise. And my team knows that I consider it to be a promise. And what I mean by that is if it is on that list, better be in stock and it better be ready to hand over to a client. And I actually had an assistant. She's no longer with us. And part of why she's no longer with us, I couldn't get her to understand that correlation between that little detail that if you present the menu and something is on that menu, we need to be able to deliver it. You know, as far as where does it end, client service, customer service is a bit transactional. It's about the moment, and it's about being in that moment. But it's also a lot about consistency.

Darrell

[5:03]You've got to find a rhythm and do it consistently. And again, sometimes it's those small details. One of our coaches years ago, he taught me when somebody asks, how are you doing? Your response is unbelievable. And the whole idea of that is unbelievable is an interesting word. It can be two ways. It can be that it's great and things are going really, really well. Or it can be, man, this is unbelievable. And I just can't believe I'm here. And it can be down in the doldrums. But the great thing is when you deliver that to a client, you are inviting the conversation. They're going to ask you, is that good or bad? And you get to have that conversation all because of one word and delivering that consistently. It's interesting now, I've been using that about five years and clients now, when they call me, they will go, how are you doing, Daryl? And if I don't say unbelievable, they call me out on it.

Carl

[6:05]Interesting. That is interesting. Yeah. You know, that, Daryl, that book, unreasonable hospitality is is a great read that was a gift that actually jerry gave me a while back and i i think everybody should read that book i mean it really is it really is good.

Darrell

[6:23]We're finding a trend. Jerry's the one who told me to read it.

Carl

[6:26]Okay. Maybe Jerry has stocks.

Jerry

[6:31]It's one of my favorite books from the last five or ten years. And I think for Carl and I, getting Will Gadara on the show is kind of a bucket list item.

Carl

[6:39]Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, Daryl, you made a really good point that you talked about details and things really matter. And I know a lot of times I feel like a lot of firms will say,

[6:58]

Moving from Forgettable to Lasting Experiences

Carl

[6:52]hey, we care a lot about clients, but that's not always really a differentiator. So if you're thinking about that, what do you think actually separates a forgettable experience from a lasting one, especially like in your space, in your industry?

Darrell

[7:09]Yeah. So for me, one of my things is thinking about the difference between caring and hearing. I think everybody in my role, no matter what firm they're with, they actually care about their clients. I believe that. I believe they genuinely care about their clients. The question is, do they hear them? And I think for our industry, a lot of times when a client is talking, what we hear is about their financials. We hear that kind of stuff. They're concerned about the market, their retirement, et cetera, but we don't really hear them. And kind of along the line of unreasonable hospitality, there is an unrelenting earnestness that is required. And that is getting clients talking, not interrogating, but story sharing. And one of the things that Melissa and I do here when we greet clients is we actually talk about ourselves. We don't go in asking clients, you know, well, what'd you do last week and all this.

Darrell

[8:12]Instead we tell them what we did Last week we tell them what we're doing This weekend we're, earnest with them about the things that are happening around the office. Because what we're doing is we're priming them so that when the advisor comes in and they start talking, that little seed is planted in their head about, oh, what did I do last week? What am I doing this weekend? We get them thinking about the big picture by inviting them to have a conversation with us, have that interaction with us. And that earnestness where that comes in is I cannot believe the number of places that I call where, you know, you're trying to reach someone and they tell you, oh, they're in a meeting. And it's just so self-important. We actually tell our clients when they call in and somebody is looking for Stephanie, if Stephanie is at the hairdresser or the nail salon, we tell them, oh, yeah, she's out having her nails done. She's got an event tonight or this weekend. She's out having her hair done. We're honest with them about that. When I had a heart attack, we were very honest with clients about the fact that I had had a heart attack. And guess what? Suddenly, clients started sharing with us, oh, I have to have a pacemaker put in in two weeks. I have to have this done. So through that earnestness, we're inviting them to be earnest with us back. And that's where that trust builds an understanding.

Carl

[9:38]That is really, that's a good thing. I, you know, you, you, you're telling that story about being honest with people. I once had a, had a business associate who would not even tell a client that they were going away on vacation. I'm like, it's okay to tell them you're on vacation. Like that means you're a real person.

Darrell

[9:55]Exactly.

Carl

[9:56]So I really like, I like that approach to saying, yeah, tell, tell people, it makes you real. It makes them, you know, believe you and feel like they can, can relate to you. So that's the second great piece of advice you've already given us today.

Darrell

[10:11]Well, it's right.

Jerry

[10:12]It's interesting, Daryl, because what you're talking about is very personal, but you're in this industry where you have a fiduciary responsibility, where you have, you know, a lot of regulations.

[10:23]

Balancing Personal Touch with Compliance

Jerry

[10:24]How do you how do you balance being personal and, you know, fitting within the kind of boundaries that you have as a as an industry and as a business? How do you find creative room to express yourself, the firm, your personality, your values without getting run over by your compliance boundaries?

Darrell

[10:46]And that can be a little tricky sometimes because we have a limit, a financial limit of what we can spend on a client in a given year. Part of it is understanding the balance of that. And, you know, what are the numbers? What falls within it? What falls without it? So, and what I mean by falls without it, you know, outside is if there is a major life event, it can actually fall outside those limits. So it's, and, you know, I can't abuse that. It's being attentive to it. But a lot of it is curiosity, thrift, that getting to know the client, what actually connects with them. And, you know, like one of the things we always try to surprise and delight clients. But one of the things that we do that when I tell my peers about it, that they're shocked by is when someone passes away in a client family, we don't send flowers immediately. We send flowers 30 days out. And there's a psychological reason for that.

Darrell

[11:47]Studies show that it's at that 30 day mark where people start to feel lonely again. So when someone passes away, that survivor is surrounded by a group of people. But it's over that next 30 days, people start to fade away. That help goes away. And that's when somebody needs that pick-me-up is at that 30-day mark, not day one.

[12:16]

Creative Ways to Connect with Clients

Darrell

[12:12]So that's one of the things that we do to just try to connect with people. But also, an example, we have a client. We work with the entire family.

Darrell

[12:24]And one, she's pushing 90. She's the matriarch of the family. And one of the things that she and her husband used to do is they traveled to the national parks. And several years ago, when I went to the U.S. Virgin Islands and I knew I was going to get to go to the national park there, I mentioned it to her. She goes, oh, that was one national park we never got to. So when I was there, I bought her, you know, one of those about the size of a quarter. It looks like a postage stamp and it's just a pin, but it's for the national park. I brought that back to her and I laugh because when I see her, she's got her Louis Vuitton bag with her little coach scarf tied on it. And there are three pins on that silk scarf. One of them is the one I gave her.

Darrell

[13:09]And it's because I heard her. She she told me something very important to her and I heard it. And that was a I think that pen cost five bucks. But it's I didn't go out and buy her something expensive or extravagant. And that's another situation. I sometimes in my role, I will have my peers from sister practices reach out to me. And I had one recently. They have some clients who are self-described wine snobs. They are avid collectors. And one of the things that they've been doing is for their anniversary every year, they have been sending fancy bottles of wine, expensive bottles of wine. And the client never seems overly enthusiastic. And last year they sent they finally sent like this fancy aerator. And the client was not excited. And so they called and like, man, Daryl, can you help us ponder something different for this year? And I said, well, what do they like to do? You know, and they I kind of gave them some questions to ask. They didn't have the answers, but they went to their advisors and said, hey, get us this answers. And this is where the curiosity is important. In that conversation, it turned out that the woman had been taking Italian cooking classes and had fallen in love with fresh herbs.

Darrell

[14:31]And I've said, okay, so play with that. Well, what they ended up buying them was a set of little handmade clay pots with some herbs that she could put in her kitchen window seal. And they gave that to her. And the response I got back was she lit up like we'd just given her a box of gold.

Jerry

[14:52]That's amazing.

[14:58]

Empowering the Team for Client Engagement

Darrell

[14:53]Well, yeah. If they're wine collectors, they don't need anything affiliated with wine. They already have it. but this is something new that she's taking on and she's excited about ride that excitement wave and those little handmade play pots with some herbs is what did it that's awesome.

Carl

[15:13]You know it's interesting daryl because that story you told about like the the gift that really wasn't landing and then the one that does so the client experience in that case was not necessarily excelling. And it wasn't because of a bad intention. It may be just been a little bit of internal like misalignment.

Darrell

[15:34]Cookie cutter.

Carl

[15:35]Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it sounds like your team, you've kind of been really honing in on this in a way that you, you know, you kind of work with your team and you're thinking a little bit, you're thinking like the client. And so what's some advice? Like, how do you keep your team, your advisors, operations, leadership, people like centered on that experience ideal?

Darrell

[15:56]With a bullwhip.

Jerry

[15:58]Okay.

Carl

[15:59]That works.

Darrell

[16:00]Honestly, it's about giving them the rationale. You know, in any organization, as you get away from one department's specific objective, the rationale gets lost. Why do we ask clients for their favorite treat? Why do we ask clients for their anniversary date? You know.

Darrell

[16:22]I have to make sure that that's front and center with my team all the time, not what we're giving. They don't necessarily need to have front and center what somebody gets for their 50th wedding anniversary. What they need to understand is that the reason I'm asking for that piece of data of an anniversary date is because we are going to do something that is special for that client. And so the rationale and then reinforcement helping them understand you know the the value of it and where that comes in a lot of times is is that client feedback i love it when when when we send out a gift and we get an email back from a client and they're like wow this just really hit the mark this did something for me i can then share that to the team and the team sees that client's response And when we get one of those a week, and that's about the average is one a week, then it reinforces why we're doing it the way we're doing it. Why, you know, we have a lot of budgets and I don't really have a budget for client experience. And there have been advisors who have asked, why do I have an advertising budget, but Daryl doesn't have a CX budget? Well, it's because we want to be nimble. We want to be able to meet clients with what's going to have impact for them. And really, I kind of do have a budget. You know, part of it is just being sensible.

Darrell

[17:51]But it is that rationale and that reinforcement. And luckily, you know, clients do share that feedback with us. You know, we recently had a client whose daughter had surgery. We sent a food basket over so that they wouldn't have to cook. And she emailed back thanking us for the food basket and letting us know that they actually didn't need the food basket, but one of their friends lost their home in the tornado. And so they sent the food to that neighbor. And it was like, oh, wow. You know, so we impacted two lives that day, our client, but then we gave them something that they could pass on a value to someone that they knew, which then gave them a whole different value from our intended value. We were trying to feed them. Instead, what we gave them was that benefit of being able to share and give on. Yeah.

Carl

[18:45]Do you find that sometimes I know that these things that you're doing certainly are very client centric and are resonating really well with your clients? But when you're getting that kind of positive feedback, you know, do you find that these things are also feeding your team as well? Like on the employee side, they're going, yeah, that feels really good to have done something. Is that how does that impact or boost or change your your team's morale by what they're doing?

Darrell

[19:11]Oh, yeah. So, I mean, obviously, when we get that feedback from the client and we share it with the team, the team is excited to share in that. Pardon me. One thing we don't do is our gifts don't come from a person. So when we send gifts, they don't come from me. They don't come from Melissa. They don't come from the advisor. They come. All of our gifts come from the Hightower Pixies. And and the reason is we we want it to be a little out of the box and that quirky smile and the pick me up. And so having that response from the clients, sharing it with the team, that helps the team. But the other thing is, unlike a lot of businesses, we actually treat our team like clients. So we have a gift that we send.

[20:00]

Onboarding: Creating a Welcoming Experience

Darrell

[19:56]Actually, we treat our associates like our top tier clients. So we have a specific birthday gift that we send to all of our top tier clients in a given month. And if a associate birthday is in that month they get that same gift that that associate that that platinum client got we we want them to have that same experience and we also you know treats and all these little things that we do for clients we do for our associates as well we want that whole connection to be very fluid we we want people to see it from start to finish and part Part of seeing it is experiencing it.

Darrell

[20:39]Then even like hiring someone, you know, what's the difference between someone simply starting with us or being onboarded with us? And unfortunately, onboarding is a word that's been abused. And in a lot of companies, it just means starting. For us, the onboarding process, when we get someone to commit, we have two weeks before their start day. So, and it's always on a Monday. The start date's always on a Monday. So that first Monday, they actually get an email from me of that two-week period. They get an email from me starting then one per day. And it starts with the very first email is, hey, howdy, how are you? And it introduces me and Melissa as the CX team. And then it asks them a series of goofy questions that are all about us being ready for them in the office. What's their favorite treat? Do they like their phone on the right or the left-hand side of their monitor? Do they want a phone?

Darrell

[21:34]You know, it's all these little things. That's the same kind of series of questions that we ask clients. So they've had that experience when they join us. And then when we're working with the client, onboarding a client, they see that same kind of thing. We're asking those same kinds of questions. So we've treated them the same. And it's all ultimately not about the return on investment. ROI is not how you measure client experience. You measure client experience with what is coming back from it and that's also associate experience if you treat people with the respect and confidence and you are giving them an experience that is positive in their main in their mind and it sticks with them they're more likely to refer people and in our industry one of the things we talk about it a lot is referrals and that is when a client gives us someone, but they've already really talked us up to that person. And they're like, go talk to, you know, go talk to Susie. But I've already talked with Susie and Susie's prepped. You just need to call her. And.

Darrell

[22:39]It's funny because when we call Susie and we're like, hey, we know that Jill talked to you and she told us to give you a call. What caught your attention? What had you tell Jill that you wanted us to give you a call? And sometimes it's the goofiest stuff. It is that pen that they got from us or a bar of chocolate. We actually have had that. We've had that twice in the last year. New clients who specifically told us that part of what caught their attention was the chocolate that we constantly send to our clients. Chocolate.

Darrell

[23:17]Seven bucks. Again, I'm not sending them a bottle of wine or a fancy wine aerator. I'm sending them a bespoke bar of chocolate that comes from a St. Louis chocolatier. And we do that for our clients. We do that for our associates. And that's what creates that loyalty.

Jerry

[23:33]It's not really about the chocolate. They can buy the chocolate anytime that they want it. It's about the fact that you're thinking about them. They were on your mind enough that you took action as a result.

Darrell

[23:49]Correct. And, you know, that's that's the thing that matters is, again, it's back to that that unrelenting earnestness, you know, I and it's a bit of an illusion. Like I said, CX is a bit transactional. They don't have to be on my mind all the time.

Jerry

[24:05]Right.

Darrell

[24:06]But they all need to be on my mind some of the time. And part of that is you have to build some kind of relationship in order to get started with that.

Jerry

[24:15]Well, I wonder if part of what makes it so powerful is it's not just that they're on your mind as the CX lead. It's a proxy for the fact that they're on the firm's mind, that they're on their advisor's mind, that they're not just someone that, you know, you put a report together for, you put, you know, shuffle some money from one account to another, you do some transactional things in a transactional way, but you're actually thinking about them.

Darrell

[24:45]Oh, yeah. And I think that's something that's unique with us. I'm seeing more and more businesses do this. And honestly, it's a key factor in unreasonable hospitality. And it's that stopping and thinking not of someone as mine, but as ours. And for us as a practice, we invite the entire team to always take ownership. First of all, no advisor. A lot of times in this industry, the advisor owns the client. But for us, we, the royal we, own the client. And so having the occasional, well, they're mine. They're my client. That's good. That's personal ownership. But overall, what we want is we want it to be our client. And that's unreasonable hospitality. That's that unrelenting earnestness, all of us working in tandem together. And you're right, Jerry, it is, it's my sending them something is a sign that the practice, someone here is thinking about them. And, and sometimes that's all that's really needed. It doesn't have to be a high touch or a hard touch. It's a soft touch.

[25:58]

Building Internal Culture for Client Experience

Jerry

[25:59]Yeah. So, So I think what you're talking about is really directly connected to internal culture and how you build culture. Is there anything in particular? I mean, you've highlighted a number of things, but beyond that, is there anything else that you're doing to really build the kind of internal culture that lets you deliver that kind of client experience?

Darrell

[26:21]Well, this is what I would say is we try to direct the client as much as we can. And again, that's and that's part of, you know, helping our internal culture and it's in an odd way. So, you know, it's something that's innate from a client is they need something. It is innate for them to want to call and ask for their advisor, the lead person that, you know, that top of the ticket. the thing is, that's not always who they need.

Darrell

[26:50]And sometimes it's as simple as changing your phone system. You know, we used to have one of those phone systems where you called in, you know, thank you for calling Hightower. Press one for Barbara, press two for Omar. Well, what we ended up with when we had that is we had detachment from the clients and we had detachment from a lot of the team because the clients always wanted to go to their advisor. They you know they didn't want to you know they with that automated system they wouldn't go somewhere else they'd always go to the advisor the advisor would then try to get the answer and deliver it back or they might hand it off instead what we did is we got rid of that whole system and now every single client who calls in gets answered by either melissa or me they speak to a human and even if they say you know hi you know this is jill i need to talk to omar well jill what are you trying to actually accomplish today? I want to make sure that I get you to the right place as fast as possible.

Darrell

[27:52]Oh, I need to withdraw some money. Well, you know what? That's actually Kathy. Kathy is going to help you do that. And if I get you to Omar, Omar's just going to transfer you to Kathy. So let me just let's just skip Omar and go straight to Kathy. Well.

Darrell

[28:05]That reinforces to the team their individual value to the client because they see that they're not just trying to help the advisor take care of the client. They are taking care of the client. And that empowers them. That empowers them to get creative. That gets them excited. It also helps them build a relationship with the client. And it's interesting how even those internal relationships within a household work. And for us, a household is it's the clients, their children, but it's also their three advisors, their customer service rep, and then CX. So that's how we think of a household. We look at it as this bucket of people. And it's interesting sometimes how male or female a client may connect better with their csa than their advisor or they may connect better with their advisor than their csa we have clients who they've connected with me they barely even talk to their advisor anymore they'll call me and ask me the question and and i'm like no no no no that's really not me that's that is something you know, so-and-so should talk to.

Darrell

[29:17]And that is part of empowerment of the team, too, is that delegation, that stopping to think, if I have the answer, should I be the one giving them that answer? Should I deliver that? And a key component is just stopping to always think, just because I can, should I? And I'll tell clients that, honestly, you know, money movement. I can make money move i have all the access i can make i can make money move from account a to count b.

Darrell

[29:48]One i don't do it with enough regularity to be confident in it and two it's it's not my role that's not what i'm supposed to do for them i'm supposed to keep them happy and smiling and part of how i can keep them happy and smiling is getting them to kathy who will do their money movement effectively efficiently and correctly the first time right.

Carl

[30:09]Well, you know, Daryl, hearing you talk about just your experience and what you're doing, I don't think you just woke up yesterday and this is how you started behaving. My guess is it's been a long time in coming. I think your background, you've worked in education, insurance, and now the financial services. So that's a pretty good variety of backgrounds. So I'm just wondering, how do those experiences inform the way you think about the human side of your services today?

Darrell

[30:38]Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things they all have in common is service. And I don't mean service as in just delivering a basic need. I mean service, you know, with a capital S. And for me, where I really come from is two of my grandmothers. Yes, I have four. two of my grandmothers were school lunch ladies. My grandfather was a school custodian. My parents owned a variety of businesses, grocery stores, laundromats, video stores. My grandmother, one of my grandmothers was the quintessential church lady. You know, she was always out and about in the community. And what I learned from all of that is just being part of the greater good, being out there, being wanting to be of service. You know, it's about walking down the street and seeing a piece of paper on the ground and bending down and picking up and taking it to the nearest trash can.

Darrell

[31:35]All of that informs what we try to do for our clients. It's looking for those little things. You know, we have this brief interaction when a client arrives and we're taking them into their client room to have their meeting. And it's making sure that that sidewalk is clear, that we are providing that service to them of, you know, being ready for them. That, you know, that's one of the biggest courtesies you can pay for somebody or pay to someone is just...

Darrell

[32:06]Be ready for them. And for us, that translates to when you walk into one of our conference rooms, all the chairs are at the same height. They're all at the table at the same space. The menu is laid out. The coasters are laid out. Their presentation is already pulled up on the smart board. When they walk into that room, they know we are prepared and we're ready for them. And that's how all this translates. You know, in education, that's no different than having your lesson plan ready and walking into a classroom of a morning and saying, I've got this. This is all ready to go. We're handling this. Insurance, you know, if you're selling insurance, it's about having your sales pitch prepared and making sure that you're walking into a situation to be able to address all the concerns. If you're on the back side of insurance or financial services, it's making sure that all those details are in place so that the people who are selling the product or servicing the product can do their job. And that's a key thing is just it really, for me, boils down to being of service and looking at that big picture S.

Jerry

[33:14]So interesting, though, really that that complete idea of being prepared and having all those things ready and set up when they walk in, it's a very specific way that you're bringing your brand promise to life. Are there other examples you know, besides, you know, some of the things that you've talked about that really has helped to translate the Hightower brand promise into the, you know, a specific experience for clients.

Darrell

[33:42]Yeah. You know, I think a lot of it is a signaling up front from the very beginning of what kind of client you're after. I'll admit, I'm in a lucky situation. We work with multimillionaires who know other multimillionaires.

[34:03]

Defining Ideal Clients and Brand Promise

Darrell

[33:58]And so that's a key component for us. But any business can do that. Just stop and think about who really is your desired client. And then signaling that that is your desired client. For us, what we are seeking is we are seeking clients who want to be involved. They want to leave a legacy. They want to leave something bigger than themselves back to service. You know, they want to be of service to society.

Darrell

[34:28]And that's where our old motto, make a plan, make an investment, make a difference was signaling that. And then, you know, changing our story to talk about our move forward, not looking toward the past, but looking forward, it's align your means with a life of meaning. Again, we're signaling to our potential clients from the very beginning, this is what we want. This is our expectation of you. We're going to do our job. In a way, financial services is a bit of a commodity. There's basics that can be done for anyone but what we're signaling is if you meet our criteria and you're a client who wants to leave a legacy you want to leave your stamp on the world we're going to leave our stamp on you because we're going to do it right by you so that you do it right by others and i think that's a big thing that gets lost sometimes is some businesses they defined their potential client base is so big that they can't actually bring real value to it.

Darrell

[35:34]It all becomes mechanical but if they can bring it in the closer that they can get to something succinct and stable and defined then you can give that wow experience every single time to every single client because you have an environment where you can manipulate it by turning it a little bit. If it's the size of, you know, a beach ball, you can't do that. But if you can get it in your hands and you can control it, then you can give that wow experience. You can give that unreasonable hospitality, that unrelenting earnestness, and you can create that experience.

Jerry

[36:14]This has been a fantastic conversation, Daryl, and just a lot of really good, practical, actionable kinds of takeaways if there's one thing that you would want the listeners today to take away from this conversation what would it be.

Darrell

[36:32]It's three and it's actually it's the same thing three times. Get the book, get the book, get the book. You know, I really would. You know, there's a lot of books out there that talk about the same thing. And I've read a lot of them. I will say unreasonable hospitality is probably one of the best books that I've ever read that brings a ton of ideas all to one place and a practical way because he's talking about the life of a restaurant. So you can see it in your head. You can envision it. You can feel emotionally and in some ways tactically what he's talking about when he's talking to things. So one thing I would encourage everybody to do is go out and get that book, read it, and then set back and think, how do I apply this to what I do? I've worked everything from basic retail to literally digging sewer ditches. My dad was a contractor. And I can tell you, unreasonable hospitality does fit everywhere. It's all in how you interact with people and what you bring to the conversation. And that particular book, it just really does do a great job of framing it in a way that I think anybody can actually understand.

Jerry

[37:50]Yeah. Is there any particular moment from that book that stands out for you or that really captured your attention?

Darrell

[37:57]Yeah. So there's a couple, but one that particularly caught my attention was he was talking about when he started at the restaurant, there was this vase and it was in completely the wrong place. It obstructed the view. And I don't remember what it was because he moved it. He had it moved and they moved it back. And he's like, why? Why did you move this back? And they had their rationale.

Darrell

[38:25]But then he explained his rationale of why it should be in this other place. And I think that really stuck with me because sometimes what happens is we're doers. We want to get it done. I'm a get it done kind of guy. I am the kind of guy that would just walk in and grab the vase and put it over there because that's where it needs to be. But what he missed was that conversation with people about why. Why is it where it's at? And there was a reason. It wasn't as valid a reason as where it should be, but there was a reason for why it was there. And that's the thing is sometimes you just have to stop and think for a second, you know, who are the stakeholders? Why is it being done the way it's being done? What are the ramifications for the change? And you have to weigh all those. And in the end, it got moved. Again, his criteria, his rationale was justified. But he needed to understand that. Instead, all he was was the new guy who walked in, threw the doors open and said, I'm going to start changing things with this flower pot. Yeah.

Carl

[39:40]Daryl, I want to echo what Jerry said. Thanks so much for sharing your insights, the connection between the culture, the client experience, brand strategy.

[39:57]

Key Takeaways from the Conversation

Carl

[39:51]They've all been so easy to understand and I think just very poignant today. And so I appreciate that. I'm going to walk out of here and announce that I am the butler. I think that's an awesome thing. That's great. And I'm going to tell you the other funny thing about this is I literally before this, this recording, I was in the process of ordering the book for all the partners for a book club for this fall. And that brings me to the final thing. We always at the, at the end of our show, we always ask our guests one final question. And it's like, is there a book you'd recommend to our audience? And I believe you've already done that. Now, if you have another one, that's fine. but I think you pretty well, uh, a resounding, um, your recommendation for unrelented, um, hospitality. So, so I think that's, that's good.

Darrell

[40:43]Yeah. You know, I, another book that I would recommend and it's a short, quick read is QBQ, the question behind the question. And it's just, it, it, it fits a lot with unreasonable hospitality. It's, it's that, it's literally that question of why is the vase here? What's the purpose of it being here and engaging that group of people that were part of that decision and who need to be part of the change decision. And that's what QBQ is about. So I would say that where unreasonable hospitality may be the primer for what needs to happen, QBQ is kind of that first step in how do you execute that vision.

Carl

[41:22]Okay, well, I guess when I go back to my desk, I need to look that one up too

[41:27]

Resources and Further Learning

Carl

[41:24]and place that order as well. So maybe it's a two for one.

Jerry

[41:28]Yeah, there you go. Daryl, where can our listeners find you online or learn more about you or Hightower?

Darrell

[41:34]Yeah, so they can find us at HightowerSTL.com. We have team bios out there. We're not the stock bios of stuffy, oh, Daryl went and got a degree and he's certified in this, this, and this. Ours actually talk about us. It's back to that unrelenting earnestness. If you look us up, you'll find out I wanted to be a ninja and you'll find out Omar wanted to be a truck driver and Barbara wanted to be an astronaut. So it's that's one way to find us. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm not an avid poster. I just don't spend much money, much money, much time. My time is money, but I don't spend much time or effort on social media. I find that all it does is actually make me angry.

Jerry

[42:17]So, yeah, there's a lot of that going around. I can't imagine Omar as a truck driver. And I knew that, but I still can't picture him. I can picture Barbara as an astronaut, though. That completely fits. Mission, particularly if it was the command chair or mission control.

Darrell

[42:37]God help us all.

Jerry

[42:40]Well, Daryl, thank you so much for being a part of our show. And that wraps up another episode of The Intangible Brand. If you found value in today's conversation as much as we did, please take a moment to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Your support really does help us continue to bring more insightful discussions like these to folks like you.

Carl

[43:01]And if you happen to be watching on YouTube, don't forget to like the video and subscribe to our channel. It helps others discover the show and join our community as well.

Jerry

[43:11]We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's episode. Feel free to leave a review or share your feedback or questions with us. You can reach us at hello at theintangiblebrand.com. Tell us what you liked or what you'd like to hear next.

Carl

[43:24]And you can always connect with us on LinkedIn or there's the website, which is theintangiblebrand.com. There you'll find some resources and information about the show.

Jerry

[43:33]So once again, thanks for joining us on The Intangible Brand. And remember, the strongest brands are built on the experiences they create, both for their clients and their teams.