Follow Your Business Motivation To Empower Your Work And Ignite Your Life, with Susan Latremoille

Dan Sullivan: Hi, this is Dan Sullivan. I'd like to welcome you to the Multiplier Mindset podcast.

 Yeah, I have a real treat on Multiplier Mindset today because it's a 30-year Coach entrepreneur. You know, it's really interesting that over the years, every once in a while, I would run into a teacher either from grade school, high school, or college. And I would get talking to the teacher, and the teacher would say, one of the real downsides of being a teacher is you only get the student for one year, the students you really like, and the students that they're really bright, they suck up everything that you have to give them, they utilize it. But then the end of the year comes and they go on with other teachers and you lose touch, they lose touch with you and you lose touch with them.  

For Strategic Coach, it's just the opposite. Yesterday, I had a workshop in which a 32-year client was there. So he's been to 128 straight quarterly workshops. And he's 75 right now, and he's at the top of his game. But I've been with him for the entire 32 years. He's been in my workshop for 32 years. But it's very interesting. Susan doesn't really remember this, but I've known Susan since 1982. And I was at a conference, not related to Coach, but in New York State. You know, we were all trying to get rides with other people in those days. So the whole trip there and the whole trip back, Susan was sitting in the back seat with me. So it was 12 years later, about that, that she joined Strategic Coach, and then I've known Susan ever since that. As a matter of fact, she came out with her best-selling book, I think it was about two years ago, and I wrote the foreword for this book. 

It's such a pleasure for me to have these long-term relationships where all along, throughout the relationship, they're growing. It's all about growth. It's growth in their business. It's growth in their personal life. And it's most of all growth of their sense of what their ultimate purpose is for using their entrepreneurial skills. And Susan just hit on everything that I really like, but it was such a pleasure to see her talk about how she has always had this mind of serving the customer. She's always had this great commitment that we have to find out what it is that they're heading towards and then what are the dangers that are standing in the way, what are the opportunities they have? Dangers need to be eliminated, opportunities need to be captured, and strengths need to be maximized. She gave, for me, I mean, that's almost like a textbook definition of why that works, how that works. 

So I take an enormous amount of pleasure in the success of my entrepreneurs, who are, as you can say, these are not people who come for a meeting. These are not people who come for a year. These are people who come for decades within the framework of a quarterly workshop. They get clear again, they get simple, they get focused, and they get motivated and energized to go back out. I know Suvi Siu and her team, my Multiplier Mindset director, manager. She tells me when to show up. She tells me what to say. We're now doing a project where we're combining in a group where we have Strategic Coach clients who have been in Coach for more than 25 years, and Strategic Coach team members, backstage team members, who have certainly been in the company more than 20 years. And they just talk about their different experiences of what it's like to be in the Strategic Coach culture. 

And Susan was one of our first participants in this special project, so on a Multiplier Mindset in the near future you'll be able to see the interviews with two clients more than 25 years, and two team members who have at least 20 years in the Program, so this is an advance notice to you to make sure that when the interviews come, you see them because it's kind of hard for almost any company in the world or any other kind of situation in the world where, on the one hand, you have the 25-year people in the front stage and you have 20-year people in the backstage and they're talking about their experiences. And so it's all great, loved it, and I feel so proud of sharing this experience with Susan Latremoille. 

Susan Latremoille: My name is Susan Latremoille and I'm a co-founder and partner in Next Chapter Lifestyle Advisors. It's a firm that my partner, Marianne, and I started about three and a half years ago to work with two audiences. One is financial advisors and our goal there is to help them take their game to a much higher level. As the wealth management industry goes more and more high-tech, we believe that advisors have to be more high-touch, and that's not how typically advisors are trained. So we provide them with tools and resources for helping them help their clients who are transitioning into retirement or changing in some way, going through some kind of a transition. Our other audience is individuals and couples who are preparing for retirement or already in retirement, because many of them struggle with finding their new identity, finding purpose and meaning in their lives, and finding new networks and ways to stay socially connected. So that's Next Chapter Lifestyle Advisors in a nutshell. 

So I think my beginning as an entrepreneur probably started, I'd say very early in life, where I think my parents were, even though we didn't call them entrepreneurs at the time, they were interested in doing something that hadn't been done before. And that was the founding of a very successful summer camp for boys that runs to this day, 75 years later. So I grew up with nobody going to a nine-to-five job, nobody dependent on, you know, the company pension or anything like that. So I think that's what gave me my first insight, really. But then I went the usual route and worked for big companies like IBM and 3M. And then I also had my own small business. And I thought that, you know, how could I combine both the attributes of working in a large organization with the independence, freedom, creativity, and so on of doing my own thing? 

And that's how I got into the wealth management industry, which I didn't, on the outset, believe that it was entrepreneurial. But actually, being a financial advisor is extremely entrepreneurial because you don't get handed your clients. You have to start your own business. You have to develop your clientele. You have to hire your team, and basically build your own business. So I guess then I knew, okay, I guess I'm an entrepreneur and then that led me to Strategic Coach through a colleague of mine. And at the time I was really more interested in finding balance in my life because I was married, I had a young child, I was building this business, and it was like, how do I do it all? So it led me to Strategic Coach and that's been instrumental all along the way of helping me build and grow and keep balance in my life.  

Over 25 years at Strategic Coach. Yeah, over 25 years. And people say, I know Dan always says, well, you people that are long-term Coachies, you must have short memories and deep pockets. But really, I continue to get value. I find that the quarterly workshops really bring me back to the basics, reinforce the concepts. And every quarter, that day of planning is really, well, what's the next step? And so I continue to derive value from it, even though I probably could sound like a broken record with reciting some of the phrases and concepts and so on that I've learned over the years in Coach. 

So I was a financial advisor for 38 years. That's how I got originally into the wealth management industry working for Merrill Lynch in the institutional equity sales area. So that was hardly entrepreneurial, but that was the days before, that was the '80s when people didn't have computers on their desks. And yet, important decisions had to be made before the opening of the Wall Street markets, the stock market. And I was dealing with primarily portfolio managers who were managing millions, sometimes billions of dollars. And so my role there was really to convey the opinions, ideas, recommendations of about 100 analysts on Wall Street to these portfolio managers and money managers. So I did that for five of eight years. I specialized in the U.S. market. And then really for personal reasons with a young family, I thought, you know, I need to do something that's more flexible and more independent. 

So that's when I made the move from the institutional side of the wealth management business to the private client world. And I was with RBC Dominion Securities for 15 years, built a very successful practice and team. I was a member of their chairman's council, which is sort of the elite advisors. I headed up the private client advisory board for a year. So I had a wonderful career there. But still, it wasn't entrepreneurial enough. So after 15 years, I left and joined a startup, basically, a brand new firm, Richardson Partners Financial. Fast forward 15 years later, after 38 years in the business, I decided, you know, I need to do something new. And I know Dan always talks about, make your competitors your clients. And that really stuck with me. My competitors were really other financial advisors that I was competing with. So what did financial advisors need? And from the experience I had, that's when I made the shift, and I said, advisors need to take their game to a different level. 

The problem in the industry is that financial advisors are typically trained in technical things. They're CFA, CFP, trained in talking and studying financial markets, the economy, interest rates, the stock markets, and so on. And that is all well and good. But in a way, it's like being a mechanic where you're fixing cars. It's all under the hood from a client's perspective. Very few clients want to know all the different parts of their car under the hood, and very few clients want to really know all the ins and outs of how markets work, etc. So, I've always seen the role of a good financial advisor is somebody that can understand the client's needs, interpret all that other stuff, and bring it to the client in a way that's meaningful and helpful to them. 

So, advisors aren't typically trained in what I would call some of the softer elements, some of the more human elements. And if we see what's going on in the world of technology today, a lot of the things that are happening are automating the role of a financial advisor. So clients could be left wondering, what's the value I'm really getting? So my message really is, how do you take someone trained in those disciplines and give them the tools and resources to be more high-touch with their clients, to develop deeper relationships, which is exactly what clients are looking for in this day and age. So, my transformation is really from being a financial advisor competing in the very competitive field to now starting really on the ground floor of a new industry that is still not widely recognized, which is retirement lifestyle planning. 

And in a way, the two are so complementary because you have to understand, as a financial advisor, you have to understand the life of the client before you can do a meaningful financial plan. And then financial products more or less sell themselves because they are driven by the financial plan. So that's my take on where the industry is right now and the new industry that we're creating. So how do you differentiate yourself? I think that's important for any entrepreneur, any industry. And I think, I hate to bring up a Coachy term, but it comes back to using the R-Factor and the D.O.S. question. So when you understand, as an entrepreneur, what the goals are of your audience, you know intimately what dangers, fears, concerns they have. You see their opportunities and you have a system and a way to build on their strengths. That, to me, is where the added value comes in, and those are the things that differentiate you from anyone else in your industry that you're competing with and so on. 

So it really starts by honing in on what the client's needs are. It's not starting with, well, what would be a great idea or what would I love to do? It's really what's in the D.O.S. And once you understand that, then it's much easier to build the products and services, tools and resources around that. 

So I would say that technology has always been the bane of my existence. I am not a techie person. And when you have an entrepreneurial business, you need so many platforms. You need billing platforms, and CRMs, and mailing lists, and marketing, and social media, and website, and all of this. So all of that stuff, to me, is not my Unique Ability, so not what I'm interested in. So those have been challenges along the way. And I guess that brings up another Coach concept of not how do I do this, but who can do it. So that was a challenge for my partner and myself. And the "Who" we found is the most perfect Strategic Assistant who loves all that stuff. She's younger, she gets it, and she's not afraid to tackle technology. I think in any small business, any business at all, that whole platform, your operating system, or let's say the backstage, is critically important. For us, it was a matter of finding that person that could handle all that stuff. 

So that's definitely, for me personally, been a challenge, is to deal with all the technology and the platforms that we need to operate on. I guess that the industry and the clients guide us. And what we realized when we first started is that we were looking to really work with sort of one person at a time. And then we realized that if we're really going to magnify, amplify the issues, and amplify the solutions that we have, we needed to take it broader. And so now that's led to speaking opportunities, and leading a CE credit course for CFPs, and attending and working on a trade show floor where our audience comes and explores what's new and what's available. So the business obviously is still young and still evolving. Who knows where it'll end up, but I do see different directions evolving now. 

 And I want to say also that, in a way, this retirement lifestyle planning is the way that personal training was about 25 years ago. At the time, nobody had a personal trainer. And people would say, what do you need a trainer for? You can do a push-up. You can do a sit-up. So why do you need a trainer? Fast forward to today, where people are in masses making transitions from one business to another, from career to another career, or simply to say, "I'm changing my life and going to retire." But how do you do it? And most people don't realize that it works better if you have a plan, just like everything else. And developing a plan when you've never done it before is daunting for a lot of people. So I want to predict that in hopefully not 25 years, but within the decade, that having someone to work with you as you transition from your work life to another form of life, whether it's called retirement, I don't like that word, but, you know, "unretirement," "rewirement," whatever you want to call it, that it really is helpful to have someone by your side who knows the ropes, has been through it, and provides tools and a model, really, for how you plan that next phase of life. 

Generally, we find that when an advisor is dealing with a couple, there tends to be one spouse that's the financial spouse, the one that pays more attention, is looking after the money side of it. Often, the other spouse is not engaged at all or doesn't have an understanding, perhaps is intimidated by all the financial gobbledygook. Well, when you're talking about lifestyle planning, it's quite often that non-financial spouse that comes alive and says, yes, this is what all this money is for, this is what our life should be about, and it's a great way to engage the non-financial spouse for a financial advisor. So I think that by putting out there that you're different, that you have something that other people don't have, that the services that you can provide as a financial advisor are unique, they're different, they're helpful, those are the ways that advisors have come back to us appreciating the work that we do with them. 

I think there's no silver bullet to becoming successful, and I would say that, you know, you just got to get in the saddle every day and ride and just put one foot ahead of each other and be diligent, industrious, committed, hardworking. There's no substitute for that. But I also think that you have to step back from time to time and think about your direction, think about where you're going. I'm a big believer in teamwork. And I remember when I was a solo advisor, sharing an assistant when I first started, I was really busy. And I said to my manager at the time, believe it or not, I had a manager then, I said, "How can I grow unless I have support, unless there are other people?" And he said, "Well, you need a bigger business to be able to afford to have an assistant." And it was a chicken-and-egg question. And I said, you know, if I'm going to grow, I need to invest in people. So that's when I hired my first team member. And, you know, my business wasn't all so successful and profitable at the time, but I knew it would be an investment in building the business. 

Six months after we hired first team member, we hired the second team member. Six months because that leverage of our time necessitated adding another person to the team. So I've always been a big believer in building the team with capabilities that you don't have that complement the entrepreneurial capabilities, and delegating. And I'm not a micromanager, and I think that's key. I like to empower people. I like to push them a little bit beyond their comfort level so that when they take on new responsibilities, they can rise to the occasion. And that worked really well for me because I was able to take, I planned to take, a fair bit of time off. In fact, in the summers when my kids were young, I used to take a month off. Now, the clients didn't suffer because the team rose to the occasion. They knew what had to be done, and they could step in when I wasn't there. And it had so many benefits. They felt more confident. It raised their capability. It got the clients to relate to more than just me. You know, they always had a backup person to talk to. It paid off in so many ways, professionally, and then also personally, because if I talk to my kids today about their childhood memories, they'll always say, "Mom, remember when we used to spend a month at the cottage?" Which nobody did at that time as a financial advisor, but I did, and it served everyone really, really well. 

So I think a lot of the Coach principles, all of those basic, basic concepts that we learn way back, just have to keep coming up and being reinforced. And that's the beauty of the quarterly workshops is the reinforcement of those concepts. And then going back to the office and back to home and implementing a lot of it. I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't joined Strategic Coach back there in the '90s. I didn't really know what I was getting into at the time. But when I started to come to the workshops, I could start to see the value in what I was learning and how I could apply that in my business and in my life. So I would say that Strategic Coach has been fundamental to my success as an entrepreneur. It's fundamental to my success in life. And I really give credit to Dan's wisdom and his foresight and leadership, and of course, Babs leading the team inside, and just marvel at the quality of everything that Strategic Coach does. 

I was thinking when I got out of the car today to come here, it's always a good day when you get to go to 33 Fraser. So I don't understand entrepreneurs that go for a year or two and then drop out. I just find that the evolution that I've experienced in the thinking processes has really helped me a lot and led to the writing of my books. I don't think I ever would have written a book if I hadn't been in Dan's workshop when he talked about, how do you put your experience and your wisdom into a form that other people can use? And so for me, a book was the logical one. And that was back in 2006 that I wrote my first book, The RichLife: Managing Wealth And Purpose. Little did I know that up to 2022 was when I wrote my most recent book, that I was on a trajectory, even then, of a thought process of a philosophy and development that would have taken me to where I am now. So the future looks bright, even for a 72-year-old. No idea of what I would do if I didn't have my hand in the entrepreneurial world and if I weren't helping others to succeed and get better. That brings me a lot of joy.