INSPIRATIONAL
SPEAKING TOPICS

Preventing Your Succession Plan Bloodbath addresses the challenges financial advisors face in successfully transferring their businesses to a successor without conflict or failure. Simon Reilly, a seasoned expert in the field, advocates for using Values and Behaviors Assessments to evaluate both the Founder’s and the Potential Successor’s fit, avoiding what he terms “succession plan bloodbaths.”

Reilly outlines three common succession scenarios:

1. Outside Successor: A Founder who has built deep client relationships considers an ambitious external successor. The challenge lies in whether the Founder can relinquish control and whether the Successor’s innovative approaches align with the Founder’s values.
2. Family Successor: The Founder contemplates passing the business to a family member with no industry experience but high academic credentials. The critical issue is whether the Successor has the individual strength and drive to succeed in the business independently.
3. Assistant Successor: The Founder is considering promoting a long-time licensed assistant to a Successor role. The concern here is whether the Assistant has the leadership qualities needed to guide clients through advanced financial planning.

Reilly emphasizes that Values and Behaviors Assessments are crucial in these scenarios. He argues that while behaviors determine 10% of success, values—representing the deeper motivations—account for 90%. These assessments play a vital role in identifying potential misalignments before they lead to conflicts, ensuring a smoother succession process and providing financial advisors with a sense of reassurance and preparedness.

Reilly invites financial advisors to learn more about preventing succession failures by understanding the importance of matching the right values and behaviors between Founders and their Successor. His extensive experience in coaching and consulting within the financial sector underscores the value of this approach, inspiring financial advisors to learn from his experience and apply it in their own practices.

Have you ever wondered why many financial advisors struggle to sell life insurance despite knowing its importance? How often do you find yourself avoiding the topic because it feels uncomfortable or pushy? If you’ve felt this way, you’re not alone. Many advisors experience the “Shame of Selling.” But what if you could transform these conversations into opportunities for genuine connection and value?

Start with the Client’s “Life Insurance WHY”: Begin by exploring the emotional reasons behind a client’s need for life insurance. Ask questions like “Who do you love?” or “How do you want to be remembered?” to help them connect emotionally with its purpose. Use both logical (10%) and emotional (90%) questions to understand their motivations.

Clients Buy Emotions, Not Logic: Clients make purchasing decisions based on emotions and justify them with logic. Tap into their emotions by asking, “What is important to you?” or “How do you want your family to be supported in difficult times?” This will help them see life insurance as an integral part of their financial plan.

Overcoming the Shame of Selling: The “Shame of Selling” comes from fears of being pushy, lack of product knowledge, cultural reluctance to discuss death, or past negative experiences. Signs of this shame include avoidance, negative self-talk, and reluctance to close sales.

Reframe Selling as Helping: Shift your mindset from “selling” to “helping.” Life insurance provides peace of mind and financial stability. Focus on the “Honor of Helping” clients secure their future, emphasizing that you are offering a vital service.

Merge & Upgrade the Process: Incorporate emotional exploration into the fact-finding process. Present life insurance clearly: “Life insurance ensures that life can continue as you want it to for those you love.”

Eliminating Shame Through Forgiveness: Forgive yourself for past negative beliefs. Replace them with positive affirmations, practice self-compassion, and engage in ongoing training to build confidence.

By combining these strategies, you transform life insurance from a product being “sold” to a service provided out of genuine care.

Why are the life insurance average policies per life insurance agent so low when life insurance is integral to these six components of holistic financial planning?

1. Cash Flow
2. Financial
3. Insurance
4. Retirement
5. Estate
6. Tax

At last count, there were approximately 108,000 life insurance agents in Canada, and last year, 589,000 policies were sold, an average of 5.45 policies per agent. Why are these numbers so low when life insurance is integral to holistic financial planning?

Popular culture has created negative stereotypes and the belief that a salesperson is inherently:

• Manipulative
• Selfish
• Arrogant
• Unfamiliar With The Truth 
• Cold And Calculating 
• Only Money Motivated 

Could these selling stigmas influence the number of life insurance policies sold in Canada?

Life Insurance is a product for which there can be no shame. When used as intended, it only does good things, not bad, and changes people’s lives when they need help the most. 

Financial advisors can fear life insurance more than their clients because of avoidance behaviors, cultural or family beliefs, fear of rejection, and self-worth issues, which they transfer onto their clients. These issues relate to The Shame Of Selling.

What is the Shame Of Selling and its symptoms? What are the signs that you have the Shame Of Selling? Where does the Shame Of Selling come from? How can you cure the Shame Of Selling and offer life insurance combined with holistic financial planning?

Do you struggle, or is your success up and down with Shame Of Selling symptoms that include?

• Avoidance behavior
• Downplaying your success 
• Fear of rejection 
• Focusing on negative outcomes
• Imposter syndrome
• Negative self-talk
• Reluctance to close
• Self-worth issues 

Join Simon Reilly to learn vital understandings, eliminate the Shame Of Selling, and sell more life insurance because life insurance, when used as intended, only does good things, not bad, and changes people’s lives when they need help the most.

Simon Reilly, of Leading Advisor, is an Advocis, EPIC, FPA, GAMA LAMP, MDRT, NAIFA, Pro-Seminars, TEDx, and WIFS Speaker, Values and Behavioral Analyst, and Business Coach with over thirty years of experience working with financial advisors to meet and exceed their goals.

Banning commissions related to financial products and services has been on the horizon for decades, and Fee-Based Fee-Only is inevitable.

The Challenge with Transitioning from Commission to Fee-Based Fee-Only is like the Challenge that Financial Services Professionals have when asking for Referrals.

Financial Services Professionals don’t ask for Referrals because they don’t have a Script, and even if they have a Script, they don’t have the right Mindset to ask for and receive a Referral.

The absence of a Script and Mindset equates to Fear.

Join Simon Reilly to understand and learn The Ultimate Mindset and Script to Seamlessly Transition to Fee-Based Fee-Only.

Simon Reilly of Leading Advisor Inc. is an Advocis (The Financial Advisors Association of Canada), FPA, GAMA LAMP, MDRT, NAIFA, Pro-Seminars, TEDx, and WIFS Speaker and expert Business Coach & Author.

Most fact-finders fail because the fact-finder, both process and advisor delivering the fact finder, are all about the facts and not about both the facts and feelings that must be discovered and understood at both the advisor and prospect/client level to help prospects/clients discover and invest in what they truly want. 

Join Simon Reilly to learn the following vital understandings to help you implement The Ultimate Deep-Dive Values Discovery Process to help prospects/clients achieve the solutions they want seamlessly:

1. Discover your Value Proposition 
2. Examination Before Discovery – The difference between a consultant and a salesperson
3. The Ultimate Deep-Dive Values Discovery Process and Questions 
4. The True Values Of Today’s Successful Consultants 

Since 2020, everything has been changing everywhere all at once, contributing to psychological debt without understanding a Regressive vs. Regenerative Mindset and a Fixed vs. Growth Mindset. Change is situational. Transition is psychological. Psychological debt will disrupt your business if the psychological debt is not understood and dissolved.

Covid, Wars, Supply Chains, Inflation, Markets, Interest Rates, Banking Crisis, Recession, What’s Next?

Are you, your prospects, and your clients distracted by wondering what is next?

Are you up to date on financial advisory and emerging trends? Are you ready for the future? Do you understand the difference between change and transition? How do you, as a Financial Advisor, view the future of your retirement?

Careers change or end. Relationships change or end. Role(s) in life continually change. Some changes hit us out of the blue; some have been brewing for decades. 

Concerning Financial Advisors and their retirement, a Recent Survey indicates 65% of Financial Advisors will cycle in and out of numerous Retirement-Transitions into their 70s and 80s. 

“Change is something that happens to people, even if they don’t agree with it. Transition, on the other hand, is internal: it’s what happens in people’s minds as they go through change. Change can happen very quickly, while transition usually occurs more slowly.” ~William Bridges

Do you understand the differences between these Mindsets? Regressive, Fixed, Growth, Regenerative? 

“Someone with a growth mindset views intelligence, abilities, and talents as learnable and capable of improvement through effort. On the other hand, someone with a fixed mindset views those same traits as inherently stable and unchangeable over time.” – Harvard Business Review 

A Regressive Mindset includes flux, depression, frustration, grief, accelerating age, and a regressive mindset compounds frailty, feeling useless, and feeling like a burden. These compound fears override the impulse to grow.

A Regenerative Mindset provides excitement, curiosity, growth, improvement, and embracing the future.

Join Simon Reilly to learn the following vital understandings to help you to transition to your next level of success.

• Change Transition Transform Transcend Defined
• The Future Of Financial Advisory And Emerging Trends
• How Retirement Planning Will Change
• How Do Financial Advisors View The Future Of Their Retirement?
• What Do You Want To Bring To Your Clients?
• To Expire Or Retire Or Regenerate?
• Growth vs. Fixed Mindset
• Regressive Or Regenerative Mindset Is A Choice
• Concurrent Transitions
• In Competent Stuckness
• The Messy Middle

A significant percentage of financial advisors do not have a meaningful relationship with their clients’ adult children.

“Advisers risk client loss over intergenerational strategy failures.” – Professional Adviser – August 2023 

Why are these results happening?

• 66% of adult children fire their parents’ financial advisor after they inherit their parents’ wealth
• 88% of those who chose not to work with their parents’ advisor never even considered doing so
• 75% of investors say their adult children have never met their advisors
• 50% worry that their children will lose the wealth their family built 
• 20% agree that their adult children are well prepared to handle family wealth 
• 70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the 2^nd generation

Tomorrow is too late as 60% of affluent investors met their first financial advisor before 45 and one-third before they were 35.

During this presentation, you’ll learn these vital understandings to help you create Relationships with the Adult Children of your HNW Clients.

• Learn a Step By Step Process to help your HNW Clients Understand the Value of Multigenerational Risk Management and Investment Planning that lead to Introductions to their Adult Children.
• Implement A Step By Step Process to elegantly Introduce Yourself to the Adult Children of your HNW Clients 
• Create an Intergenerational Value Proposition to be used for Brochures, Direct Mail Letters / Postcards, Email Campaigns, Website, Public Speaking, and Prospect & Client Meetings.

• The Difference Between Change vs. Transition.

• Understanding transition to give you the wisdom to clarify your purpose, make course corrections, get things wrong, experience doubt, build experience, recognize wins, celebrate milestones, and manage your narrative towards a purposeful growth mindset.

• The Six P’s Of Transition; Personal, Physical, Psychological, Pandemic, Professional, Purpose.

• The Three Stages Of Transition.

Are you ready to move past the complications of change and embrace the journey of a transition? 

You don’t have to do it on your own. At Leading Advisor, we help you navigate through your awkward middle and streamline the process that allows you to make your way to new beginnings with strategy, support, and guidance. 

Successful Relationship Marketing To The Adult Children Of Your Higher-Net-Worth Clients requires understanding and implementing:

1. Create an Intergenerational Value Proposition to be used for Meetings / Speaking, Brochures, Direct Mail Letter / Postcard, Email Campaigns and Website 
2. Implement 8 Steps to Segment Current Clients & Adult Children
3. Develop the All About You and Your Children Discovery Process 
4. 7 Steps to help your Clients Understand the Value of Multigenerational Risk Management and Investment Planning that lead to Adult Children Introductions 
5. Create Key Steps and Strategies for Successful Family Meetings
6. Upgrade Technology 
7. Create / Research Intergenerational Clients Interest Content Marketing for Direct Mail Letter / Postcard and Email Campaigns
8. Implement a Personalized Intergenerational Social Media Campaign 
9. Create a Client Gifting Program 
10. Create and Implement an Educational & Theme Event Plan
11. Write Job Description & Hire Client Relationships Manager 

Attract 5 – 20 New HNW Clients In 2023 By Creating Relationships With Their Adult Children

Financial Advisors and Insurance Professionals can benefit from: 

* Understanding what buyers believe and experience in the sales environment to align your marketing tactics in a positive, informative strategy that brings business.

* A guide to developing a written plan for the client commitment process through people reading, a needs analysis interview process, questions to qualify, a way to guide your clients to the experience they want, and help your clients make the right choice.

* Marketing processes to attract prospects, referrals and your client’s adult children.

* Information on free marketing tools, content ideas, social media marketing management, and top-of-mind tricks for financial advisors and insurance professionals. 

“What not to do is just as important as learning what to do.”

– Simon Reilly

Are you ready for a brand new business world?

Are you on a waiting list for success?

Is fear, procrastination and overwhelm crowding out your action, confidence and focus? 

Would it be worth investing 60 – 90 minutes of your time to regain your energy, focus and activity by learning the following?

• 3 Steps To Get Out Of Fear NOW! – learn how to dissolve the emotional contagion, hypertension and pain dumping 
• 6 Essential Tips To Get Out of Overwhelm – this infodemic is creating more overwhelm than ever
• 8 Time Management Basics To Magnify Your Focus – working virtually requires time management basics like never before 
• 15 Virtual Advisor Tips – learn from my decades of working virtually with financial services professionals 
• 6 Key Questions To Create A Bigger Vision & Business Plan – key questions to get you and keep you on track 
• 7 Steps To Eliminate Time Bandits – there is a whole new set of virtual time bandits trying to rob you of your time while working virtually 
• 4 Questions To Ask To Prepare For A Strong Virtual Team Meeting – keep a strong virtual team connection 
• 5 Steps To Create Values Based Goals That Will Inspire You – reconnect to your passion for both your life and business 
• 7 Practices To Reset Your Mindset – 7 practices to keep you energized and focused 

You can get this information in just 60 – 90 minutes with Simon Reilly, an international values & behavioral analyst and financial advisor business coach with decades of experience. You will receive the “Sketchnotes” PowerPoints, White Papers and an audio recording of How To Regenerate Yourself & Your Business NOW!

Join Simon Reilly of Leading Advisor, an expert speaker, author and business coach with 20 years of experience working virtually with financial advisors to understand how to regenerate yourself and your business now.

How To Regenerate Yourself & Your Business NOW!

The Bull is over and now is the time to face the truth and the Bear. 

What has changed in your mind since COVID-19? 

Nothing. 

COVID-19 has just magnified the fear, procrastination and overwhelm that was already there crowding out your action, confidence and focus.

Regenerate Yourself & Your Business NOW and create more action, confidence and focus for the brand new business world!

You are a successful Leader & Manager passionate about mentoring, developing, growing and inspiring successful advisors to create a career of significance and become the best, passionate version of themselves.

While you and your advisors know exactly HOW & WHAT to do, you and your advisors experience challenges with balance, complacency, delegation, fear, procrastination, qualification, rejection, stress, time and overwhelm, all of which crowd out action, confidence, commitment, consistency, energy, focus, inspiration, practices, production and vision.

You are ready to increase your understanding; success is 10% about HOW & WHAT to do and 90% of success is about WHY you do what you do. Inspirational Leaders & Managers understand:

• Defining yourself first by WHY you do what you do is more important than HOW & WHAT you do
• Inspirational Leadership & Management is about WHY business gets done, not about HOW & WHAT business gets done
• How to lead with intention, purpose and compassion
• How to get the most out of people – and it begins with the Leader & Manager
• How to bring to light various issues and solve them
• Inspirational Leadership & Management is critical to the team, inspiring the team to have purpose and meaning beyond the tasks that they perform day to day
• Management is telling people what to do; Leadership is inspiring people by exhibiting your six core values
• Inspirational Leadership & Management helps the team understand what their values are, linking their values to goals and activities
• Success is being more values based giving up the needs of approval, control, perfection, power, safety and worthiness
• How to give up judgement and experience limitless consciousness which begins with the self, in the moment with self-awareness through mindfulness
• Inspiration must be Managed to get out of your head and be in the moment, to be grateful and compassionate, a spectator of your own thoughts, and to be of service to others
• Compassion and mindfulness are not a choice; they are a requirement for success, from which all Leadership and Management should be taking place

Join Simon Reilly, 25x Advocis, 2x MDRT, 40x NAIFA National & State Conference and 2x TEDx Speaker with 20 years of experience coaching successful financial services professionals as he helps you discover;

• The difference between Motivation and Inspiration;
  • Inspiration is to influence, move or guide from within
  • Motivation is influenced by fear and need
• The difference between Values and Unmet Needs – The missing link to The Law Of Attraction
  • Values drive positive emotions, positive beliefs and positive outcomes
  • Unmet Needs drive negative emotions, negative beliefs and negative outcomes
• A 3 Step Process that will eliminate the fear that has been blocking you from your success. Unmet Needs negative emotions and negative beliefs are the fuel that create challenges with balance, complacency, delegation, fear, procrastination, qualification, rejection, stress, time, overwhelm all of which crowd out action, confidence, commitment, consistency, energy, focus, inspiration, practices, production and vision.

Leading Advisor offers Inspirational Assessments and Coaching to help you to inspire yourself and hire, develop and grow successful advisors to create a career of significance and become the best passionate version of themselves.

“When there is no understanding, there is judgment. When there is judgment, there can be no understanding or inspiration.” – Simon Reilly

5+ years as a NAIFA member attending NAIFA Local & State Board meetings & speaking at 40+ NAIFA Conferences along with coaching NAIFA Leaders combined with 25+ years of coaching and sales training experience has given me a unique and outside perspective to successfully deliver 2016 NAIFA Member Workshops for NAIFA Ohio, New Mexico and Iowa.

Here is what the NAIFA Membership Workshop includes:

• Inspire both your association and business increasing membership, recruitment and sales – this NAIFA Membership Workshop is transparent to both the association and your business
• Lead prospective members into NAIFA enrollment with a thought leading membership script
• Help prospective NAIFA member’s get associated to their WHY, helping them to easily see the value in becoming a NAIFA member
• Walk away with a Values Based Goal Setting System that will reignite your values, positive feelings and beliefs about the business
• Create Membership Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies and Action Plans
• Discover, Connect to your Values, Feelings and Beliefs at the core of WHY are you a member of NAIFA – the core of your membership plan
• Understand the difference between ‘How can we make membership care more?’ and ‘How can we care more about membership?’
• Refocus leadership and commitment to make a difference to all that you serve
• Understand that when leaders become more passionate, members and clients become more passionate
• Remember that 90% of successful NAIFA membership enrollment is about the prospective NAIFA member’s WHY
• Understand that NAIFA members and prospective NAIFA members want to know what is in it for them
• Learn when to tell your NAIFA story as prospective NAIFA members are more interested in what is in being a NAIFA member for them

The above will assist you with the following;

• Inspire leadership, members and prospective members to come to NAIFA meetings
• What you will learn will be transparent to helping you create more client meetings
• Breakthrough the barriers and increase membership, LiLi participation and IFAPAC contributions
• Create a strategy to increase the pilot members value proposition
• Convert the pilot members to long-term paying members leading to increased board member participation
• Deal with objections about participation including ‘I just don’t have the money’.
• Engage in initiatives like having a agency meetings, adding value and increasing membership
• Make membership more aware of NAIFA benefits at a local and state level including advocacy, education, LiLi, networking/fellowship
• Increase your relevancy with potential members and prospective members
• Stay active in NAIFA

The NAIFA Membership Workshop is filled with fun, shout outs, success formulas, roll playing a membership enrolment script and a membership enrollment plan that will ignite your membership goals.

The NAIFA Membership Workshop can be delivered in 2 ½ hour and 4 hour formats. The Workshop includes an advance telephone SWOT analysis with Simon Reilly and your NAIFA Board.

My speaking calendar for 2016/2017 is limited. Please contact Laura at 1 877 248 6012 or email lreilly@leadingadvisor.com to schedule a Conference / Webinar Call with your State or Local Board so that I may introduce the highlights of NAIFA Membership Workshop.

Please note that my vision is to deliver the NAIFA Membership Workshop for your NAIFA Board the day before delivering The Inspirational Tipping Point / The Page Business Plan speaking presentation(s) for your Kick Off, MDRT Day, Sales Congress or Local/State Conference.

Thank you for the opportunity to be of service.

Simon Reilly

PS – Here’s the feedback from Greg Johnson and Steve Dewer, NAIFA Iowa Board Members;

“I liked the one-on-one engagement question session, hearing about how to get rid of my ‘backseat driver’ and the flexibility of Simon’s workshops. I learned tools to help me strategize a membership plan.”

Greg Johnson
Johnson Insurance

“Simon’s fact finder is transferable to NAIFA enrollment and client discovery. It’s a great way to discover what is important to others! I gained a deeper awareness of my values, beliefs and feelings.”

Steve Dewer
Financial Decisions Group

Would it be worth investing 60 – 90 minutes of your time to understand how to create more sales, focused action and a bigger vision & plan and save you decades of struggle?

You already know countless techniques & solutions yet there are times when you are stuck, inconsistent and you don’t understand WHY.

Most techniques & solutions are about HOW & WHAT to do and relate to 10% of your success. Sustainable success is 90% about WHY you are doing what you are doing.

In this Inspirational Tipping Point Presentation with Simon Reilly, you will learn the following and receive FREE follow up assignments to;

• Integrate 3 keys to understand, implement and magnify your WHY and create more sales, focused action and a bigger vision & plan for 2015 and beyond
• Answer 5 questions to design and jumpstart your 2015 business plan
• Learn a 7 step process to get out overwhelm and plan your time
• Discover 5 keys to delegating more and build a stronger team
• Implement 9 Steps to fill your marketing funnel with qualified prospects
• Follow 5 sales steps to help your prospects decide to become clients in less than 1 hour
• Create a sustainable system for long lasting success
• Know More … to Sell More!

Remember, failure is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results without understanding WHY.

Join Simon Reilly of Leading Advisor, a NAIFA National & State Conference, a 2x MDRT & TEDx Talk Speaker and expert Financial Advisor Coach to understand how to create more sales, focused action and a bigger vision & plan in hours versus decades of struggle through The Inspirational Tipping Point.

When there is no understanding, there is judgment. When there is judgment, there can be no understanding or inspiration.

– Simon Reilly

Simon Reilly Speaking Topics – Breakthrough! – How to Breakthrough The Plateauing Out Syndrome

• Have you managed to maintain the same levels of production through recent events?
• Are you struggling to figure out how to “grow” your business in real terms?

• “The Plateauing Out Syndrome” was coined by the members of The Million Dollar Round Table. With the advent of “The New Normal” contributing to clients taking longer and longer to make decisions, Breaking Through “The Plateau” seems more daunting than ever.

For some, the pace of business isn’t what it used to be contributing to thoughts like, “is this all there is?”, and “what am I doing this for?”, and “what is the use?”

“When there is understanding, there is no judgment. When there is judgment, there can be no understanding or inspiration”.

Join Simon Reilly to understand How To Breakthrough “The Plateauing Out Syndrome”.

Are you bumping into the same office issues time and again? Are you a control freak? Stop being a control freak within your own business.  Control freaks will make a living, but they will not make any money.

We will introduce you to a scientific approach to creating sustainable change. Through a battery of assessments we focus on the issues that are stopping you from gaining the results that you are looking for. You will be motivated out of your comfort zone and move in a direction you really want to go. You will understand what is stopping you from moving forward. You will get re-inspired about your business, and you will attract more clients and business.

You will also learn how to create a team of people who can create a business for you.  You cannot grow your business yourself.  Select your people based on their skill set and the appropriate Values & Behaviors for the position. Hire a support team to do exactly that, support you and your business, and let them.

Management is about systems; leadership is about people. Learn how to recruit, train, and inspire your dream team.

It’s all about Questions, the Questions we ask Ourselves and the Questions we ask our Clients
In a time-based economy you can never demonstrate enough value to justify your fee. In a results-based economy you can never do enough to justify your commission.

Things have changed from a results-based economy to an experience-based economy.

Clients want the experience; they want an advisor who shows up on time, who they can trust, who treats them like family, who finishes what they start and who fulfills their commitment.

You’ve got to make a difference in the way people think and feel about themselves. That’s the real reason clients buy from you and stay committed.

It’s not about an extra quarter percent. It’s about how you make clients feel.

Secure, safe, confident and committed clients will stay as clients.

Customers move on, they care less about how they feel and more about getting the cheapest price.
Customers can get it for a quarter percent less anywhere and they are just customers.

From the very first visit to your website, through telephone, front desk, consultation, delivery and after sales, the client experience can create a brand ambassador or a brand disaster. A happy client becomes an unpaid ambassador of your sales force.

In order for commitment to happen;

• An advisor has to make a difference in the way they think and feel about themselves
• An Advisor has to make a difference in the way clients think and feel about themselves

It’s 90% about WHY and 10% about HOW and What to do.

Join Simon Reilly in this value-packed presentation, The Psychology of the Client Interview that includes the moments of truth that will both re-create your commitment to your business and create committed clients for life.

When there is no understanding, there is judgment. When there is judgment, there can be no understanding or inspiration.

– Simon Reilly