Amber: Hello, Libby. Welcome to Productivity straight talk. How are you?

Libby: I am good, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Amber: Oh my gosh. I'm so happy to have you and it's been such a pleasure meeting you and getting to know you over the last, I don't know, four or five months. Yeah, we've done a couple things together and definitely like social media, and I've got to` tell you for those people that think that social media is, I don't know fake. I have met the most amazing people and you reached out to me, and I think we've been creating quite a little friendship now.

Libby: Yeah. It's amazing the power of Instagram, right?

Amber: Exactly. Well, Libby, thank you so much for being here today and I'm so excited to have our listeners hear your story, because when I heard it, I was, oh my gosh, I absolutely need you on the, so thank you for accepting my invitations.

Libby: Yay, and thanks for being on mine it was really fun.

Amber: Yeah, that was great. You have a great community, and we'll hear more about that very soon for sure. Well, Libby, I did do a little intro, but my guest absolutely love hearing from my guest mouth a little bit about themselves, and so I'd like you to share about and business and what kind of support you have at home and, and who do you have at home too? And what is your support in your business?

Libby: Yeah, terrific. I am a physics major turned financial planner, which was a clear path for any female in the science world, right.

Amber: Right, oh my gosh, fact number one, I just learned something.

Libby: Yeah, your backstory there, but yeah. I started a financial planning practice in 2004, literally right after I graduated from college, and I have been running that same business now going on about 14 and a half years, and in the meantime, you have had two children. I've got a seven and 10-year-old at home, and then I have a husband, Justin who supports me unbelievably from the house. Here in the office, I've got a team, I always joke, of two and a half. I have a full-time director of operations, it licenses. That is my right-hand gal, she's been with me for 10 years, and she is just my best friend, my confidant, she's everything. She is fantastic, and she's required to give me a five years notice before she would ever quit.

Amber: You know what? She might have to take that on, and my listening to this episode, now she knows she has to give me five years notice.

Libby: At least five years that I can figure out my retirement plan, because there's no way to do it without a good team.

Amber: Yes.

Libby: And then I have two part-time girls, one that supports me from kind of a front office perspective; greeting clients, handling the scheduling, all things, customer service. And then I've got another girl who does all of our back-office support, which would include research, file preparation and manage all handling all of our post-meeting tasks. The non-client-facing stuff.

Amber: Right, that sounds great. That's quite the team. We have you here because you have such a great story to share with us. Why don't you take us all the way back from the beginning and now you said you've been in business for 14 years. You got to start with where you take us back to you. Like at what point.

Libby: Okay.

Amber: Explain this to us.

Libby: Yes. I will take you back to 2008 and this is really where the quest for being an efficient financial advisor starts because I just found out I was pregnant. So that...

Amber: That can do that to you.

Libby: Yeah. This was great news, and this was super scary news. It was great news because my husband and I really wanted a baby, but it was really scary because for the four previous years, since 2004, when I started my business, I was working around the clock, like a madwoman. Building my business nights, weekends, whenever people wanted to meet, I was there, I was your girl. I'm sure some of your listeners can maybe relate to what it's like to start a business and working like a crazy person.

Amber: Yeah, for sure. At that time, because I'm doing the math in my head is you did not have any support in your office? Like your number one gal, your right-hand lady wasn't there yet?

Libby: Yeah, no. I actually had a terrible administrative assistant that was 10 hours a week, and I'm pretty sure all she did was play solitaire and maybe answer the phone if it rang.

Amber: Oh, my goodness, okay. When you found out you were pregnant, and you knew what life was like now. Let me ask you before you found out you were pregnant, and you were working like a crazy woman.

Libby: Yeah.

Amber: Did you already have little voices in your head saying this isn't so sustainable or this is kind of crazy? Or did it not bother you at all until you found out you were pregnant?

Libby: No, because I'm married to a serial entrepreneur. He had a business that he was starting and was working around the clock, like a mad person, and frankly, I loved it. I loved what I was doing, it was fun being 23 and making real money.

Amber: Yeah.
Libby: Besides just like a part-time waitressing gig. No, and I actually have that personality that I could be a workaholic very easily. I actually have to do a pretty decent job self-checking on occasion to make sure that that's not the case.

Amber: Right.

Libby: And we started a second business here recently.

Amber: Yeah, exactly.

Libby: Yeah, but I do remember thinking, oh my gosh, I cannot have a baby and work like this, but I was pretty happy with the income that I was making too. I didn't want to sacrifice either and I really didn't know what to do. I was in that stage where right, I was exhausted, I was stressed, and I just remember looking at my husband and because pregnant women are so logical. I either need to be able to make the same amount of money working half the time or I should just quit.

Amber: One extreme or the other. Yeah, that totally makes sense.

Libby: but I knew I didn't want to give up the income, but I literally had to cut the amount of time that I was working in by half because now I had new little priority on the way.

Amber: Yeah, okay. Now are you making these decisions the whole time you're pregnant? And then when did you make the actual decision that you were not going to quit? Let's say that. When did you make the decision that quitting was not on the table anymore?

Libby: Well, I don't know. I mean, I still try to quit once every six months, I still have one of those good likes, oh, I can't do this anymore. I'm not very good at this imposter syndrome moment. I still try to quit all the time, but no, I kind of just made that commitment to myself because I knew I was pregnant, and I didn't. I loved what I did, and I knew just by working smarter and not harder that I could make that happen, and I was growing up in environment in this financial services industry that historically was this to make more, you have to do more culture.

Amber: Yeah.

Libby: It's interesting now there's so many more women, but when I started 14 years ago, I was a little bit of an anomaly. In some ways, it was really cool because I got to pave my own path, but it really kind of started for me with just changing my definition of success and not letting what other people define as successful, determine how I behaved, but really kind of creating my own definition and just sticking to it and figuring out the systems and processes and ways that I was going to do things differently in order to facilitate that.

Amber: Oh my gosh, that is so good, because even though I have men and women in all different seasons with their life, listening to productivity straight talk. What you're sharing with us is that you had a season change and I've just heard from so many of my listeners and really my clients firsthand people get divorced. People get married, people have children, their elderly parents get sick. There are so many seasons of our life and our personal life that at some point really challenge the status quo of the way that we've been doing things and mostly in our businesses and how we are available to those that are around us through these transitional periods. I love that you shared, it was stressful, big life changed. You realized you needed to do something different and then you made a decision and then changed your definition of success. That is powerful because sometimes some personalities are like a dog with a bone. They have one vision of success, and whether that means gnawing off own arm, right to get there. They're going to go do that one thing, even though at any time, it's completely okay to change their path to a different vision of success. Share with us, what was that new vision of success. Like you're literally looking at it. It appears, it seems to be what, three days a week you wanted to work

Libby: And that went from about 80 to 90 hours a week, knowing that the ultimate goal was to get down to three days. I didn't do the band aid approach where I just like straight ripped it off. I did that like slow, painful peel version instead. Right. I went from 80 down to like 60 and was like, okay, what do I need to do now to go from 60 to 50? And what do I need to do now from, so that the, by the time that my first child came, my goal was to be down to four days a week and then be able to modify then down to three days. It was, I wish I could say I just had like all these ingenious ideas and ways to do it immediately, but it really was more of like a slow progression and kind of mastering each stage and figuring out what were the tools and resources that I needed to move to the next stage and reduce my hours that much further.

Amber: Now you've made this decision, you have a plan and what does this look like now for you, now that you've created that plan. Before we get into the how right, because that's the fun part, but I mean, take us to, what does today look like for you?

Libby: Yeah, it's really exciting. Since that first pregnancy in 2008, I have more than quadrupled the amount of income that I make per hour. Our office has become a 100% referral-only practice, and right now I run a seven-figure practice with the team of really just two and a half and meat as the advisor, and the crazy part is that I only work 25 hours a week, but now my nights and weekends are spent with family and friends, and I finally have time to do things for myself. This whole concept of me-time is absolutely fascinating.

Amber: Right.

Libby: Right, it's amazing. Why did I know about this before? But I really don't have to spend any time and energy or money on marketing, and since my expenses are low, I actually get to keep a lot of what I make, which is really cool. But when I think about it, the crazy part really isn't that I actually work 25 hours a week. It's that I'm actually turning down new clients that don't meet my ideal client avatar and sending them to another advisor in town. 10 years ago, Libby would've just died, if you told me that I would be turning away people with a heartbeat and a checkbook.

Amber: Right, and so what do you think attributed to that ability to only work with your perfect client avatar? That's powerful. I think that there's a lot of entrepreneurs listening that are, Libby 10 years ago, right.

Libby: Right.

Amber: And they're thinking, how is that possible? What would you say got to there to that big win?

Libby: Yeah, I think it was kind of a progression of a couple of different things. We talked about kind of how I defined success for myself. Step one was, to keep the baby alive, that was like first goal. The second goal was to show up at the office with maybe the same pair of shoes on both feet, matching shoes was like goal two, but then it was really focusing on how our clients felt working with our office. It was more about the client experience and the way that people experienced working with us and completely gave up on the notion of using sales for any shiny marketing ideas or just really tunnel visioning on the experience that I wanted people to have with me. I did what felt authentic to me and the advice that I wanted to deliver and the business that I wanted to build. I had a lot of people who were constantly pushing different ideas down my throat or telling me that I needed to do this, and if I wanted to grow, I had to do that, and I just got really good. I perfected what call the management smile and nod where, when someone had an idea of something that I should be doing or what I should be doing to meet their definition of success or what benchmarks I should be shooting for, I just got really good at smiling and nodding and then just doing whatever the heck I wanted.

Amber: Let me peel that back. You doubled down on the client experience and pretty much throughout all the normal things out the door, not just for your industry, Libby, we're talking entrepreneurial industry. Marketing and sales, and these are some big pillars that you said no. If I only have this amount of time, we're focusing down on the client experience.

Libby: Yeah, and I knew that if I could have really deep connections with a smaller number of
clients and just have a depth over breadth strategy, and we can talk about all the different ways that we executed that. I just knew that the money would come, that the referrals would come. There's a lot of advisors out there who are very professional and have amazing products and services and deliver just fantastic advice. But what I have found over the last 14 years is that a lot of advisors lack in the caring department. Like very much, you are way more than an account number to me. How are the kids, how are the grandkids, how did that weird cyst on your mom's toe that you told me about last year? How'd that turn out? Those details of caring really were important to me. Where I felt in the industry, it was more, well, how many new clients, how many of this did you sell? What's your production? What's your revenue at? How many calls are you making in a week? How many people are you seeing? And just instead focused on caring about your mom's toe cyst.

Amber: Right, okay. We know where you're at. I'm literally envisioning you being totally pregnant like 10 years ago and then you make a plan. Then I know that life is really good for you right now, and you've achieved that goal, but we want to how, right. If the overarching goal and vision a success was deepening your relationship with your clients and I'm guessing that was your north star.

Libby: Yeah.
Amber: When you're deciding where you're investing your time and what you're doing and what your team's doing. The north star is how the client experience is and so why don't you this back and just share us, like, how did you do that? How did you go from 80 hours to three days a week and have what I call life by choice? You made all these small choices to design the life that you chose. So, what does that look like?

Libby: Yeah, okay. If I had to put an overarching theme to the way that we went to market with that strategy was keeping it simple. My main goal was that depth over breadth, it was niching down. So, that was one of the first things that I did was start to develop a niche that I could work in, and my objective was to be the absolute best at that niche and then ignore everything else. I didn't have to worry about constantly staying on top of other things that maybe I only came across every three to six months. Of course, I had to identify for those clients that maybe had those needs, where could I send them? I had to develop resources that I could turn them to. So it wasn't just like a, oh, hey, sorry, I can't help you with that, but really kind of owning the fact that major changes in your financial planning life requires specialty and that's okay. Instead of being all things to all people. I kind of liken it to, you know, the general practitioner, physician and the cardiologist. In this circumstance, I chose to be the cardiologist and really just focus our efforts on clients who are five to 10 years out from retirement and making that transition into retirement. All of our marketing was directed at that the language, all of my research, and it allowed me to literally become in our area the best at people who are getting ready to transition into retirement. As opposed to helping young families, their kids saving for college. I mean, and of course we know about those kinds of things.

Amber: Yeah.

Libby: But what that niche also did was allow me to build more templates, which is a huge piece to the productivity in our practice, because we didn't have to have templates for 37 different types of clients. We really just had to have one killer template that I could train someone else on.

Amber: Yes.

Libby: That come into it and take over pieces of it because it was less to learn, but it was, we
weren't just all over the place. It was so focused that it was easier for me then to take pieces of the planning process and outsource them.

Amber: Okay, I wasn't expecting that. That was really great insight. Libby, I have some additional questions and I'll say they're for me, and I know that the listeners want to hear this too. What was that process of deciding that you were going to do the five to 10 years outa? Because when you made that decision, I'm guessing you had a full portfolio of families and retirees and like everything. Did you do research, did you know that your market area had enough to fuel your seven-figure business or in hindsight, did it just work out? Like how thorough was this decision to go that down that much?

Libby: Oh gosh, I love this. it was actually, you've seen it before, I'm sure. It's that kind of cheesy Venn diagram where it's one circle is your passions are things you enjoy doing. Another circle is your aptitude or things that you're naturally good at, and then the third one being things that are profitable that you can actually make money at. It was really determining who do I like working with? What kind of client, what are they going through? And I think because I have that physics analytical background, which I'm a recovering analytic, by the way. I'm in my like 11th step, it's getting much, much better.

Amber: Yeah.

Libby: But I was far too extroverted to be a physicist. We'll just leave it at that.

Amber: Right.

Libby: No, I had one internship and I was like, and this is not for me.

Amber: Right, right.

Libby: But yeah, it was really that process of identifying what do I enjoy? What fuels me? And it was the complexity associated with individuals going from working to retirement. I loved the, well, how does social security play into this and what pension options should I select? And okay, I've got all these different pockets of money, and which one should I take when, and what are the tax implications? If I, do it this way, is it that way? There were so many different pieces to that picture that I knew it would keep me interested, and I just, I did, I enjoyed the complexity of that kind of planning, because it was very detail oriented. I felt like I was making an impact on people. There was something super-duper rewarding when people would leave the office and feel like holy smokes, I can actually retire, and we have a plan, and I can spend more time with my grandkids. Those kinds of things were just so fueling for me, and they were lucrative.

Amber: Yeah. I mean, I think I'm in my late thirties, and retirement just seems so far out, like right now I'm doing retirement, because it's the right thing to do. Not cause like I can see it so clearly for myself or anything like that.

Libby: Right.

Amber: And to work with someone that's five to 10 years out, every decision you're doing is, if it's 10 years, I'm assuming there's just enough time to make a huge impact, but it feels so close. It feels like in your client's best that they really need to be serious about their retirement and their investment to live the life they want in a very short period of time. This is great, I am totally on board, I love that when you did choose that, and I love that when you did choose that it sounds like it had rippling effects throughout your entire business to create efficiencies. The first thing you had said was templates, but I'm assuming what about your staff? Your two and a half people that are helping you, like it's so much easier for them. If they don't have to have this vast knowledge of all of the area of financial services, they get to be the experts and servicing and helping and fielding the same kinds of questions and all of that, right?

Libby: Yeah, absolutely. It made it so much easier to train and give away when we were just deeply focused on one category, and even in that category, I mean it is still, I mean it girl it is overwhelming. There is so much to know and so much to do and it's constantly changing. I feel like every time my director of operations and I high five each other and we're like, we've got it. They change the tax code.

Amber: Right.

Libby: They security and like, so it it's always changing, but gosh I can't imagine staying on top of all of that and 47 categories of financial planning as well, and I think to a huge piece of having that niche is it made us significantly more referable. Because when people were talking about retirement, we popped into their brains as opposed to the seven different financial planners that they might know from church and the kids’ school and stuff. I think about those planners, and I always kind of a liken it to an attorney that if someone asks me like, Hey Libby do you know an attorney? I'm yeah, I've got like 37 attorneys that were really close with, but what do you need an attorney for?

Amber: Right.

Libby: Is it real estate oriented? Is it a don't divorce? Is it car accident? Is it, there's so many specific things that if someone says, Hey Libby, do you know a divorce attorney? I'm like, oh yeah, I got your girl, her name is this, and here's where she lives, and we kind of became the same thing with people going through retirement that we weren't that one size fits all, that we weren't those people that knew a little bit about working with business owners and a little bit about young family planning and a little bit about charitable giving and a little bit about retirement planning. We were the go-to resource for people who were getting ready to transition for retire and nothing else, and we based on that specialty, we could charge accordingly.

Amber: Okay, awesome. Why don't you share with us how you transitioned from, I don't know, six days, some probably seven days a week sometimes down to, I guess your first was five days and then four days and then the three days, right?

Libby: Yeah.

Amber: How did you envision and build out your ideal week into still get it all done?

Libby: Love that. When my husband and I were first married and we were both entrepreneurs building businesses, we were kind of that young, just graduated from college entrepreneurial mindset that, we have no structure, and we have all this freedom and isn't that amazing. We can work Sunday morning at 4:00 AM and then we could sleep until 12. Changing kids has the sleeping in bed that totally changed that for us.

Amber: Right.

Libby: But it was, I resisted structure for so long and I loved that I kind of prided myself on having this business that didn't have all these obnoxious formalities, like team meetings and weekly wrap up. But it was once I realized that having structure gave me freedom that I went all in, and the biggest challenge for me after I had my first son was just being a hundred percent at the office when I was at the office and a hundred percent at home when I was at home and not this weird in between doing stuff for home when I was at the office and worrying about the office, when I was at home. It was literally creating this structure that allowed me to get every single thing done when I was at the office and every single thing done when I was at home and really trying to focus my advisor onset ADD into just really maximizing every minute that I had. That came with creating a bunch of structure. You alluded to the ideal week, and I always tell people at our live workshops or in our coaching, I have people all the time say if you could only do one thing differently, what would it be? And I always come back to having an ideal week early on that you continue to modify and reiterate until it really works for you.

Amber: Yes.

Libby: Yeah.

Amber: Sit with that for a second. I feel like everyone thinks that your ideal week should come out of your box.

Libby: Yes

Amber: Like yes, it's here and it works, and on day one and you should just execute on it and it's, and that is not how it works. Libby thank you so much for saying that. Not only does it not work forever because we go through different seasons and needs and lifestyle, but it's version 1.0, we don't really know what's going to work. We don't know what kind of time blocks we need for certain stuff until you practice it and work it out and work out the tweaks and the bugs and all that good stuff.

Libby: Oh, I have advisors all the time tell me, oh, I tried doing a model week or I tried doing an ideal week and it just didn't work for me. I was like, well, what was broken? Was it you, were you the problem? Or was it the, that you didn't give yourself enough time to do things? Because usually it's like, well I created this week and then I didn't follow it, and then that's why it didn't work for me.

Amber: A hundred percent.

Libby: Yes, and so at the end of every single week, I have time in my calendar that I reflect back and say, okay, where did I waste time? What took me too frigging long? What do I need to streamline or give away or delegate? What do I need to create a system or process for and really what just didn't work for me? I have a lot of peers that do breakfast meetings. Well, I'll be honest, I am not smart until 10:00 AM. I should not talk to a human being intelligibly about their finances until 10. For me it was just recognizing that that was my sweet spot. I was not a breakfast coffee me being kind of gal and therefore I should not be talking to people until 10.

Amber: Yeah.

Libby: And looking for those redundancies or we used to block a half hour between appointments so that I could do follow up, and I found that the appointments would go over by a little bit. Then I was left with this weird, like 15-minute chunk and I'd go, well, there's not really enough I could do in 15 minutes. I'll just puts around and bug people and make enough their cup of coffee, and so now it's more time blocking and going back to your podcast with David Crenshaw on the iron butt time and really just blocking. Appointments, all my planning, all my follow up appointment, dedicated time for self at education, and just having it in those time blocks and really at the end of every week, reassessing, did I not give myself enough time for this? Was there something that I forgot and then as corny as this sounds, I kind of have a model week for my home life too.

Amber: Oh, that's not corny, that's amazing. Actually, before we get into your ideal home life week, which is gold, I'm sure. Let me just this back, let's say you had a 10 o'clock and how long do your meetings run? 30 minutes or an hour?

Libby: Yeah, we run our like regular review meetings in 60 minutes.

Amber: Okay, great. You probably weren't booking your next one until 11:30, thinking you 30 minutes buffer for time, whatever. I have found this to be too as well in my one-on-one coaching. What happens is, and this was like, you know, growing up and learning is because there wasn't a hard deadline, and I knew that that time was for me to get up, go to the bathroom, write my notes and then I really didn't have a hard deadline until 11: 30. Sometimes it would over a little bit like you just, and it's just amazing that if you had two appointments when at 10 and one at 11, you would've wrapped it up, gone to their next appointment. So, let's just say you reclaimed 15, 30 minutes, four of those a day is an extra either hour or two hours that you can now block at the end of your day for client review or follow up or what you were just saying, like all the, these things. That one little tweak and having these hard deadlines, you need to wrap it up. It was only intended for 60 minutes or here's the best, and I just share this cause people that are listening are going to be shaking their heads. The client comes late to the meeting and because you want to serve, you're like, okay we'll go over 10 minutes, because I really have 30-minute buffer. No, because now you have this awkward time that you're referring to. That was their time they chose to not show up on time. This is all great, I love the back-to-back idea of as long as your energy can sustain that. For me I can do it, I get energy from people, you get energy from people. I think we can kind of sustain that back-to-back appointments for sure.

Libby: Yeah, and it was just really a matter of figuring out how many of those can I do back-to-back. At what point does my brain start to turn into mush, and I just shouldn't be in front of people any longer.

Amber: Right, trial and error on your ideal week. This is what we're talking about.

Libby: Yeah, and like you said, just reclaiming two hours. I mean, that's really how I went from 80 down to the 25 was just constantly finding those little pockets that I could reclaim and then really analyzing the systems that we had in our office. What's taking me too long, like our client follow up process and what was taking me too long, like I am drowning in this and saying okay, well that's where I need to create a system. Now we have a process where I can be 100% done with my notes, my follow, my delegation, my trades, everything, by the time that client walks out of the office, I can literally leave it all on my desk. Stand up, head to the back conference room, sit down with that next set of clients. My team swoops into that first conference room takes all the stuff and they go execute while I'm meeting that next set of clients. It's really just been a progression of developing that over time so that...
Amber: Oh my gosh.

Libby: 25-hour week thing is a reality for me.

Amber: Yeah, okay. I'm learning so much from you, this is great. You said that you have two conference rooms, I'm seeing forms and templates and checkboxes and a place for notes and all this stuff, and your kind in the moment with your client, collecting this information, and then that is the doctor's orders for your team. They take it and they go do their magic, like magic little elves, and then you go into your next appointment. Is this right? Like, this is what my head's seen is little else. I know Christmas is literally eight days away as we record this.

Libby: We're all tiny so elves are appropriate, yes. No, I mean, it's, it is an amazing thing. I will not see that file again until two weeks prior to the next client meeting, which brings me to another point that when you're only working three days a week, we work relatively far in advance. We're prepping for all of our upcoming meetings two weeks before that client's meeting so that I have sufficient time to identify if there's anything that I need to do, that I can delegate that, that I can actually calendar time to work on that. If I'm prepping for a meeting and I'm like, oh gosh, that's right. We said we were going to talk about X. I need to have these illustrations, or I need to do this research. I can identify that two-week prior and then make sure that I've got plenty of time so that if the sick kid happens or the meetings run over or the whatever happens that it's all done and buttoned up, and that has been a key factor in really reducing that sense of overwhelm. The working in advance piece has been just a game-changer for us.

Amber: All right, let's transition back to your ideal home week. This is great, I want to hear about it. When did you implement this?

Libby: Well, I'm on my, like 211th iteration of my model week, but it was really after that baby came and I was like, okay, here's what I got to do, and here's what I got to do it in, and here's how now have a team. I need to be able to tell them when I'm available and when I'm not available. We started pretty much immediately when I kind of came to that rude awakening that I needed structure.

Amber: Yeah.

Libby: And that was really kind of the precipice, and it started kind of just loosely on paper and then it became on paper and then it was hanging in front of my team's faces. If you go outside of this model week there won't be price to pay

Amber: We do not ask for a meeting on X days, yeah exactly.

Libby: Yeah and having to then really train and push back and really kind of train our clients as well that Libby holds meetings on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. You need to meet Wednesday at 6:00 PM, well sorry. It's just not going to work and having to be okay with not being the right fit for people because of my schedule

Amber: Yeah.

Libby: And actually, saying no I'm sorry, that doesn't work for me.

Amber: Well, does that actually happen? Because I feel like sometimes that's a story in our head and it limits us from actually executing and studying boundaries because we're thinking, well, if I set this boundary of not meeting my client at Wednesday at six o'clock, they're all going to leave me, and I'm thinking, well let's poke some holes in that story. How are you asked at Wednesday at six and you say no? Well, no, I just always get asked, you know what I'm saying? Okay.

Libby: Yeah.

Amber: Once you started saying no or, and in fact, it's not even a no, it's just I'm unavailable, can we meet at this time or this time, you're giving them different options. We'll go with that, right.

Libby: Yeah, and we just use language like, oh well, if you can appreciate Libby has a family with small children. She does hold meetings during professional hours, and we'd let it leave it at that.

Amber: Yeah, because what kind of creep is going to be like that sucks, she shouldn't be a mom.

Libby: Yeah, you tell that baby that his mom has to come into the office on Saturday, skip those soccer games, and frankly it was just a matter of determining that, Hey, if Saturdays are the only days that you can meet us like you're just not the right client for us because this relationship actually goes both ways. That was a huge concern, in the beginning, was oh my gosh, well what about all these people and schedules are, and I kind of, and I'll share my dentist rule with you. One of the tenants of my dentist rule is that people take off time to do far less important things than plan their financial future. We now have clients that'll be, oh, well what you got off to lunch. What are you doing after our meeting? And they're like, oh no, I'm going to take the dog to the groomer. People take off work for those kinds of things, and what we do is so incredibly valuable that we find that you can take off work for this too, and frankly, if you're not willing to rearrange your, your schedule or if this is not a priority for us or for you, then you're probably just not a good client for us to work with. Because we only want to work with people who are deeply engaged in their planning.

Amber: Give us some insight, I feel like a carrot was laid out for us. Okay, give us some insight into your ideal week now. What is that personal ideal week look like?

Libby: Perfect, yeah. My week kicks off with if a big block of time where, when I roll into the office on Monday morning, all my appointments for two weeks out are stacked up on my desk and I sit down and I just create agendas for the, I have about an hour, and it takes me about five to 10 minutes per meeting to create a really thorough agenda, which is of course a template. I go in and I weave in all of the fun personal touches. We roll into that meeting with any allocation changes, prepared and documented ahead of time, so that way, if they just say yes, I can circle them and give them to the roles, and they know to go execute those. Our objective is to roll into those client meetings, super prepared. One, it looks like we came in super prepared and that we aren't just making a seat of our pants recommendations for their financial futures, which a lot of advisor’s kind of go, oh yeah, maybe we should reallocate that, you should do this. We prepare all of that stuff in advance. We read back to two meetings prior to is make sure there are no loops that need to be closed or things that we said. We talk about that way we can prepare those illustrations or do the right research so that we can show up prepared. If we know that they're most likely going to act on something or we're going to need to do some sort of trial application, we'll have those prepared, but I spend that hour just out what needs to happen for that meeting and then delegating it to the appropriate person. Then I go into a block of time where I just work on planning and recommendations. As I'm going through those agendas and we're updating people's plans, I spend that time researching, running any illustrations that I need to run, and coming up with all of their recommendations, and then I go to meetings with a little half-hour block in there to check email for the first time in the day and lunch at the same time, and then I have a little window at the end of the day, then that's to process those emails and do any follow ups that only I specifically can do. Maybe a top client calls and has a question and it's something that I need to answer or specifically for them, that way the girls know at the end of the day, I have this little window that that's the callback time, and that's when they can tell that client to expect a call from me.

Amber: Yes, okay and so that's my Monday.

Libby: Yeah, for sure. Tuesday, I roll in and the first two hours of the day are dedicated to kind of my passion project, which the coaching. I will typically have anywhere from two to three coaching calls, first thing in the morning.

Amber: Call Libby, our listeners don't know what kind of coaching. You got to let them know, this is going to be an open-loop for them. What kind of coaching do you do?

Libby: Yes, I have a company called the efficient advisor and over the last 14 years, obviously a lot of advisors have come to me and said, teach me how to work less, teach me how to be less overwhelmed, teach me your systems, I have no systems. We do one-on-one coaching and we also do coaching through courses and we also host live events, that help advisors deliver amazing advice, create fantastic client experiences that help them become more referable and to be to deliver better advice faster.

Amber: Yes, that's awesome. Now you've gotten to where your boys are a bit older, you've sustained your three days a week in your practice. I actually thought you ran your efficiency advisor business outside of the three days a week. You're getting ready to tell me this is within your three days that you do that?

Libby: Kind of yeah. The vast majority of it actually is. I'm in my physical location, 28 hours, 25 of those anywhere from 20 to 25 are spent on my advisory business. The remaining three to five are spent on the efficient advisor.

Amber: Oh, my goodness. Okay great, Tuesdays our efficiency advisor coaching.

Libby: Yes, and then I just do meetings, a little break for lunch and email, meetings, follow up.

Amber: And so, what is your flow? Curious minds want to know how many clients before you had figured out, I need a break. How many clients can you do?

Libby: I can do three meetings, then a little break, and then four meetings.

Amber: Wow.

Libby: And that includes like my coaching. I could do three coaching calls, need a little break and I try to book similar style appointments. Reviews, plans, deliveries, because once I get into a groove, I'm really good at doing the same thing over and over again, and I kind of just get into a mode. We make our best effort, it’s not perfect all the time, but we make our best effort to try to have like appointments back to back.

Amber: Yep, that is the benefit of batching, right? In your energy and your flows in one area, takes certain mind, your headspace needs to be a certain place, I love batching, yes. Yes okay, that's Tuesday. Tuesdays is in-between, it's either coaching or reviews and advising, okay, and then what's Wednesday?

Libby: Wednesday is my home day. My main objective is to not shower and wear yoga pants for hopefully as much as humanly possible that day.

Amber: Yeah, and your boys are older, they're in school. Now, this is like, what self-care day and projects at home.

Libby: Yeah.

Amber: You have like an agenda of things you want to get done or is it truly just your downtime? Nobody's home, you have the house to yourself.

Libby: Yeah, I wish I could say I just sat on my porch and drank coffee and like looked out at the woods, but no, I mean, I go to Pilates. I usually that it's my day to try to connect with girlfriends and have coffee or go for long walks on the bike trail or to get little projects. Oh, every single I forgot every single Wednesday, my husband and I have a day date. While our boys are at school, we found it's really difficult to get a sitter weekly and plus you have to pay for it. We instituted day dates when the boys went to school. Now every Wednesday from 10:00 AM to maybe two o'clock I date my husband.

Amber: Oh my gosh, that is that's cool then. That's great financial advice too.
Libby: Yeah.

Amber: And it's great that your kids don't feel like you're leaving at home once a week either. That is actually really good because I mean, I only have one son, but I get it. He'll be like, why are you leaving me? I'm like because I'm going out with your dad, you don't need to go everywhere we go. In their little heads they think they should, so I love this idea of day dating.

Libby: Well, and it reduced the complexity too because then we'd have to be like, okay, well who's sitting. What time are they going to come here? Did I tell them what time do we have cash? Do we have to get cash? Oh, she can't, she canceled. Well, what? It just reduced all the complexity associated with going out in the evening, and we found there are so many fun things to do during the day that, and we don't have to mess with the whole organizing of the sitter.

Amber: Yeah, okay so good. Okay, Thursday you're back at work?

Libby: Yes.

Amber: Okay.

Libby: The first part of my day I have one hour blacked out that's just personal education time. This is where I read about what's going on in the market. This is where if I have any research to do all week long, I keep a brain dump of things that I need to learn. Maybe a client mentions something to me and I'm like, gosh, I've never heard of that, I don't know anything about that. I'll write that down, or if our parent corporation releases a new product. I need to do my training on it or read the prospects. I will add that to my Manila folder of brain dump stuff, and then Thursday morning before I do anything else, I spend one hour making sure that I'm being the best advisor that I can be by leveling up my knowledge.

Amber: Ugh, sorry. I feel like I'm peeling back all these amazing curtains. What Libby is saying is that she has a bucket and the bucket is education, and so as things come up throughout her week, she's putting it in an organized place to reference and what I have found, because I do the same thing and what I have found and why that helps is then you're not a squirrel to go research the thing your client said, because you're like, no, I have Thursday morning, or if you have a random idea or a webinar or a whatever for like you don't need to carve that outta your schedule, you'll hit the replay and put it in that bucket.

Libby: Yeah, and I keep like three or four different brain dump sheets. Some are related to the efficient advisor, some are related to my advisory business, one's for home, and it's exactly that. If I see something shiny, I am easily distracted and will very much go in that direction. It for me has just been a great place to be like, okay, it's documented, it's out of my brain, and then when I actually have time to dedicate to doing it well, I'll come to this and focus on it.

Amber: Okay Libby I just had an aha, so I'm going to share this with you and every listener. Let me just think this out. I feel like entrepreneurs are always wanting to learn and they're filling up their schedule with learning time, but if we were employees for another company or corporation and we needed to spend that much of our paid hours learning, we would be fired. I'm not saying that learning's a bad thing, but it's budgeted. If you worked for a corporation, they're going to here's how many budgeted hours of your week or your month or whatever that it's dedicated towards education, and I'd love that structure. The structure freedom, that's what you said, and so your structure is with an hour a week, because education is a time waster for a lot of people and the fact that it is never ending and it mushrooms, and it expands to so much time during the week because we are never going to know everything. We always feel like there's something to learn, and so by creating specific boundaries and goals to that of how many hours a week, and then filling it up with a predetermined agenda, that's gold on how to fix that problem when you feel like you're always spending too much time in education.
Libby: Well, and it worked really well, because when I was reducing my schedule, I actually kind of cut education and I was just so busy keeping my head above water, trying to squeeze 80 hours into less in that reflection at the end of the week when I felt like, gosh why was this week? I just knew I wasn't growing and I knew my advice wasn't getting better. I felt like I was delivering the same plan over and over and over again, which from a productivity standpoint is fabulous, but I knew i just.

Amber: But from a client experience, which was your number one goal.

Libby: Yeah.

Amber: You go back to your north star.

Libby: Yeah, well and it was just that process going well, what frustrated me this week and a big piece of it was why don't feel like I'm growing. Therefore, I don't feel like my business could scale because I don't know that next thing. It was making that dedicated time and having it outside of my computer, it's like old-fashioned paper stuff, so that literally when I sit down in my office it's to go and I can start doing what I need to do without opening it up and going, oh I, well, I'll just check my email out really quick, or you know what, I'm just going to work on this, something, something, and then the hour's gone and I can't get it back.

Amber: Yes, thank you so much for sharing both extremes. I was sharing the person that wants to learn but you're right. There are so many as well, probably half and half that are saying, how do I find the time to educate myself?

Libby: Yeah.

Amber: I can't even find to take, go to the bathroom or take a break. There's no time to just sit down and learn and so that's great. It's the discipline of having it on your calendar, having boundaries of one hour or two hours or whatever you determine is best for you, and then sticking, so that's great. This is Thursday morning?

Libby: Yes.

Amber: Okay.
Libby: Then I have three appointments max, and then the rest of the day is spent just on additional planning. Anything that I need to do as a result of that week's appointments, anything else I need to do, kind of looking out into the future for the calendar, have additional plans that we need to create continuing education that I'm required to do for my licensing. All of that stuff happens Thursday afternoon when I'm a potato.

Amber: Yeah, okay. Gosh, I feel like I could talk to you forever. I've got so many questions, this is amazing.

Libby: This is a seven hour podcast, right?

Amber: Yes, we're almost done, but I mean I just find this so fascinating and I know if I do my audience are too, because I feel like this is like reality TV. We're dipping into Li's life behind the scenes and everybody's going to be curious, but there's so much gold in what you're saying, like why you chose certain things on your ideal week, what works, what doesn't work. We're almost there through Friday. Friday's in another workday?

Libby: Yeah, Friday's a no Workday. No day date but that's my day to like do home stuff. That's the day I go and pick up my groceries and I do have someone else do my shopping for me, but that's the day I figure out like, okay, I need to order the next round of clothes for the kids, then I do. Today I will volunteer at school, if I'm going to do any parties or I try to take my kids, I try to meet them at school and have lunch in the cafeteria with them already. So often, which is hilarious, that's kind of the day that I just do my mom's stuff and just organize at home and do the shopping that needs to happen and just

Amber: Yeah, well no, it's all the stuff that's normally happening on a Saturday or Sunday for most people, and so you're getting that out of the way, probably efficiently, because you don't have two boys running around your feet while you're doing all this stuff and now you get the weekends to be present with your family.

Libby: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Saturdays and Sundays are not spent running errands and pit and target. I mean, I try to take the kids and expose of doing that type of stuff, but for the vast majority of the weekend, it's Nope, mom's here and she's ready to play.

Amber: Yeah, oh brilliant. Oh my gosh, thank you so much for sharing some insights into how you actually made this work going from 80 plus hours a week down to three days, and not just three days, like at some point you slay the three days in your financial planning business and then added a second business. This is really good, I feel like we could continue talking, but it's not magic. It was a lot of hard work. It was a lot of focus planning. It was a lot of challenging yourself to do things and see things differently, and I'm just shortcutting this for time because you and I have had a lot of off-air conversations, but I think the other key thing to note here too, and you mentioned it was that you have a rock-solid team and that you really invested in the team that was right. While you stay lean and with your team, it is really about training them and, and having systems and processes that they can follow so that everything runs so smoothly.

Libby: Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of the objective was to create a wash, rinse repeat experience for our clients that it felt as fantastic every single time that they came, but kind of like in the same way that McDonald's can make you a cheeseburger without ketchup and make me one without onions, but it's still the same cheeseburger. It's just customized to our individual preferences but having those systems in place allowed me to give away a lot of the stuff that I didn't necessarily need to be touching each time.

Amber: Right. Well, thank you so much Libby for being here. I know that our listeners are going to want to hear more about you. Well, first let's take your first business. Do you do financial planning just locally or can anyone reach out to you?

Libby: Yeah, no. We primarily work with folks who are five to 10 years out from retirement and making that transition into retirement in the Cincinnati area.

Amber: Okay, great. I love it and then secondly, if we have, and I know we do, we have some other financial advisors listening and you have a business about creating the systems and the processes behind the scenes. How do they find you and where do they go to do that?

Libby: Yeah, so theefficientadvisor.com is our main webpage where you can opt into emails and learn more. We also have an amazing community of advisors from all over the world, just sharing best practices and tips and tricks, and we're of course dropping lots of content into that community and that's at The Efficient advisor on Facebook and you can join our efficient advisor, your community, and also on Instagram at The Efficient Advisor.

Amber: Yes, we'll have all those links in the show notes, we'll definitely be able to find that and that will be at theproductivityspecialist.com/090. Libby, thanks you so much for investing your time with us and really pulling back the curtains and i know that You had a lot of ahas, even for me and just, I know how much we're learning from you and your experiences and how inspirational it is to hear your story of what I think a lot of people are smack in the middle of. Is just working around the clock and that there is a path and that there's a way forward to creating the life that by design that we desire. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us

Libby: Oh, well thank you so much for having me.

Amber: Well, what did you think of my interview with Libby? Wasn't that amazing? Her and I do really have some great energy, but I just loved what she was doing and what she's been able to do through example. We're so fortunate that she jumped in here and shared her story and you know, behind the scenes, like pulling back the curtains of what it's really like running a seven-figure business and having a marriage and children and employees and then starting a second business. I have loved having you listen in to this episode of productivity, straight talk, but the time has come. I need to be straight with you. No change, no change without taking an action, nothing will change for you or your business. Based on what you heard today, based on my conversation with Libby, what were some ahas or actionable that you can pull from this time? What were some things that really clicked for you that you thought, man, if I executed that or implemented that or made that decision in my business? What kind of impact would that have for you and your business? To share your actionable and receive support and guidance from other entrepreneurs just like you. join us on the inside of our private Facebook community. If you're not already a productivity straight talk insider, you can join us for free by going to productivitycommunity.com, and for all you productivity straight talk insiders that are listening to this episode, I would love for you to jump on in and share some take the ways. What did you find valuable? What is it that you want to do so that you can find more leverage and more time and more freedom in your own business? I'd like to send a special, thank you out to one of our listeners that left a review. Now, these listeners are leaving usernames, which sometimes are not even readable, but this username is Cole listener, and that person recently said, I love listening to Amber's podcast. She is a straight shooter with a sense of humor and a quick wit. Her tips and info always hit home with me. Sometimes it's like she's in my head and knows just what I need to hear. Thank you so much for that review and insight, and here's the thing is I'm in your head and you're probably nodding it and in fact, right before I recorded this outro and intro to this episode, I got a text from someone that said you're in my head, and I said, what do you mean? And she said, I'm listening to one of your episodes and you're talking right to me. Here's the reason why I'm talking right to each one of you is because I know exactly what it looks like, but I also know that there's a solution and I know what the way forward is. If you're interested in accelerating your progress and your growth and your business, I would love the opportunity to work with you. If you're interested in finding out what that looks like to work with me, you can schedule a discovery call and you can do that by going to the productivityspecialist.com/call C A L L. Just head on over there, schedule a call with me and we will chat and just find out if based on your goals and based on your current situation if it's a right fit for us to work together. I am looking for the opportunity to chatting with you and until next time have a productive week.

Libby: Okay, isn't Amber terrific? If you want to connect with Amber and me, we're both part of the efficient advisor community. It's a private group for advisors out on Facebook. It's just a community, a place for advisors to share what's working and not working, ask questions, collaborate, and bounce ideas off of one another, and of course, I share special content, do you question and answer sessions. It's just a bunch of fun. You can also check out theefficientadvisor.com. There is a whole host of free resources for you. Templates, video library, hand-free downloads, and you know how much I love blueprints and step-by-step pieces that tell me exactly how to do the thing. I'll link both in those show notes for you. In the meantime, I'm working on some new content, and I'll be reposting some older episodes here in the podcast. So, keep checking back in fact, better than checking back is to just follow or subscribe to this podcast, and you'll be notified every time a new episode is released, and gosh, I love automation and since we're a new podcast, if you found this helpful, I would love you forever. If you leave a podcast review, this helps us get info out to as many advisors possible, and if you didn't like it, do what your mama taught you and just keep your opinions to yourself. I kid, this is all really for you guys. Please let me know if this wasn't helpful. What would be, I am here to serve, please make sure you check out episode three. If you want to learn more about how to successfully create a niche with my special guest divorce, financial planner, Michelle Klain until next time.