Rob Sweas is a Certified Financial Planner at Arete Wealth, a financial advisor firm headquartered in Chicago. He began his financial planning career in 2007, working with his father until his untimely passing in 2012. Rob helps clients through significant life transitions, leveraging his personal and professional experience to offer guidance and build trust. He has led a major overhaul of his firm’s operations following a transition from TD Ameritrade to Schwab. Outside of work, Rob is a dedicated family man with five children, a baseball coach, and a passionate traveler who completed a bucket list journey of visiting every major league baseball stadium.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
[2:25] Rob Sweas discusses how Arete Wealth helps clients dealing with anxiety from financial transitions
[3:41] How personal hardships and professional experiences shaped Rob's approach to client support
[5:58] Techniques and technologies for delivering a standout customer experience in finance
[8:39] Importance a strong and collaborative professional network for comprehensive client service
[10:41] Rob explains how he managed the challenges of transitioning firms and adapting to a new environment
[22:32] Key features of form-filling software that have streamlined financial processes
[26:37] The curiosity-driven approach to problem-solving and technology adoption
[29:35] AI’s potential in financial advising
[31:57] Rob’s leadership style and the influence of his father’s mentorship and ethos
In this episode…
Facing unforeseen changes in your professional and personal life can lead to financial uncertainties. So, when everything seems to fall apart, where do you find the strength to rebuild? What secrets can you learn from an expert who has faced similar life challenges to turn your financial anxiety into a confident future?
After his father's death, Rob Sweas, a Certified Financial Planner, took over the family business and implemented a significant overhaul of the firm's operations. This included navigating a merger and adapting to major industry changes, such as the TD Ameritrade to Schwab transition. Rob emphasizes the importance of embracing change, striving for operational efficiency, and delivering value through education and technology. He shares his experiences collaborating with various professionals, utilizing powerful financial tools, and enhancing customer experiences, all of which contribute to business growth.
In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker interviews Rob Sweas, a Certified Financial Planner at Arete Wealth, about leveraging customer experience in financial planning. Rob discusses how Arete Wealth helps clients dealing with anxiety from financial transitions, techniques and technologies for delivering a standout customer experience in finance, and how he managed the challenges of transitioning firms and adapting to a new environment.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
Rob Sweas’ Email: rob@krmfinancial.com
"Redefining Productivity in Business With Steve Miksta" on The Customer Wins
"Maximizing Efficiency With CRM Optimization for RIAs With Kate Guillen" on The Customer Wins
"Creating Financial Health With Abby Morton" on The Customer Wins
"Scaling Communities and Operations Excellence for RIAs With Shaun Kapusinski" on The Customer Wins
Quotable Moments:
"We help people going through hard life transitions, taking a lot of the anxiety out and explaining what life's going to look like afterward."
"I love giving people the confidence to face what's ahead and not have to feel anxiety, pressure, or stress."
"If you can give people good advice and help them understand it, you can prove your value and that you're worth paying for."
"Good ideas are only so good if you actually have some implementation and are able to do them."
"I love being able to connect with people and just help solve their problems in any way I can."
Action Steps:
Develop emotional intelligence: By focusing on understanding clients' emotional needs and anxieties during major life transitions, you can build trust and provide more personalized service.
Utilize technology for efficiency: Embrace tools to streamline operations and reduce manual data entry, which can significantly save time and improve client onboarding experiences.
Enhance client education: Providing clients with clear visuals and explanations of financial concepts can empower them to make informed decisions, differentiating your services in a commoditized market.
Collaborate with other professionals: This collaboration ensures comprehensive client service and positions you as the quarterback of your client's financial team.
Adopt a growth mindset: This proactive approach to learning and adapting can enhance operational efficiency and expand your capacity to serve more clients effectively.
Sponsor for this episode...
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Episode Transcript:
Intro 0:02
Welcome to The Customer Wins podcast where business leaders discuss their secrets and techniques for helping their customers succeed and in turn grow their business.
Richard Walker 0:16
Hi, I'm Rich Walker, the host of The Customer Wins, where I talk to business leaders about how they help their customers win and how their focus on customer experience leads to growth. Some of my past guests have included Steve Miksta of Oppty, Kate Guillen of Simplicity Ops, Abby Morton of Elements, and Shaun Kapusinski of HIFON. Today, I'm speaking with Rob Sweas, Certified Financial Planner with Arete Wealth Advisors. And today's episode is brought to you by Quik!, the leader in enterprise forms processing. When your business relies upon processing forms, don't waste your team's valuable time manually reviewing the forms, instead, get Quik!. Using our Form Xtract API, simply submit your completed forms and get back clean context-rich data that reduces manual reviews to only one out of 1000 submissions. Visit quikforms.com to get started.
All right, I'm really excited to talk to Rob. Rob Sweas is a certified financial planner in the western suburbs of Chicago. Starting back in 2007 Rob worked with his father for five years, until his unexpected death in 2012. Since then, Rob has been helping clients who are going through major life changes. Over the past year, Rob has been overhauling his firm's operations because he changed firms, went through the TD Ameritrade transition to Schwab and merged with a larger group of advisors. He enjoys spending time with his wife and five kids coaching baseball, and recently completed his bucket list by visiting every major league baseball stadium, 42 in all, including ones that are no longer in use. Rob, welcome to The Customer Wins.
Rob Sweas 1:53
Thanks for having me Rich. I'm glad to be here. And yeah, checking off that bucket list. The last Stadium was in Dallas, Texas, the Texas Rangers stadium that was the last one.
Richard Walker 2:04
Oh, that is awesome. What a cool trip that it must have been. All right, so for those of you who haven't heard this podcast before, I talk with business leaders about what they doing to help their customers win, how they built and deliver a great customer experience, and the challenges to growing their own company. Rob, I want to understand your business a little bit better. How does your company help people?
Rob Sweas 2:25
Well, we help people going through hard life transitions. So, we like to say we're male-practicing shrinks, right, there's a lot of anxiety that comes with people's finances. And we've seen the deer in the headlights. Look where somebody lost a spouse, or they're going through a divorce, or they're doing something like approaching retirement, there's a lot of anxiety with that, and clients don't know what to do. And what we found in our field of work, clients are willing to pay for good advice and just help them through those life transitions. So we take a lot of the anxiety out of it. Talk them down, we explain what life's going to look like on the other side of this big life transitions. And it's a great feeling. I love being able to help people in that way.
Richard Walker 3:09
So I have to admit, I'm actually no stranger to change myself and part of my own story when I meet people. People always ask, Rich, where are you from? I say, Well, I've moved 33 times in my life, while I have not experienced the tragedy of losing a spouse or something like that, change is really, really hard, even if you know how to do it. I mean, I guess your father's passing must have been a catalyst, but I have to guess there's even more to it than that that makes you drawn to wanting to help people through this change. What is it for you?
Rob Sweas 3:41
Yeah, I mean, I have been through a lot of hard changes. I mean, losing my dad. I had worked with him for five years, I basically had to take over his financial advising practice and kind of, I had to put my big boy pants on, so to speak. I had to think quick on my feet. I had to collaborate with people and find solutions. And so I think, I was just put in a situation like that, and I needed to be able to run things smoothly and get help where I needed to and just be able to streamline it. So I think that feeling of feeling like life is kind of, it feels out of control. Like nobody likes that feeling. You want to feel settled, you want to feel confident, and so, I love that feeling.
I love giving people the confidence and to be able to face what's ahead of them and not have to feel the anxiety, not have to feel the pressure and the stress, and just being able to help alleviate that. It's a great feeling for clients. It also builds a lot of trust and some lifelong connections, and clients will always look at you and be so grateful for that time where the first call that they have, like when this awful thing happened, they call you and they don't know what's next. And you can help them through that. They'll always be grateful for that.
Richard Walker 5:03
Yeah, that is amazing. I mean, I remember when I was an advisor, everybody's like, You got to Define Your Niche. You got to figure out who is your ideal client, that kind of stuff. And it's true of any kind of product, service, business. But this one is in specific. I mean, it comes from a personal standpoint, but also from a business standpoint, you are building lifelong customers, and that's amazing. I want to ask you more towards customer experience, because when you have a product or service, inherently, you're asking somebody to change in order to become your customer.
And one of the things I talk a lot about is if you build a better customer experience, you will win more customers, drive more growth things like that. What is it specifically that you're doing to make the experience of working with you better than somebody else might be? I mean, you mentioned a little bit giving them confidence. But, I mean, what are some of your techniques, or what are some of the ways you communicate or be proactive or reactive to their situation that makes you different?
Rob Sweas 5:58
Well, we like to educate our clients. We like to give them some tools in their tool belt, have them understand things like their tax return, a very complex thing. We like to help, give visuals help them understand, like, the consequences of making different decisions. Like a lot of decisions that clients make, they're easily quantifiable. You can say, if you do this, it'll cost you this, or if you do this, it'll save you this much in taxes. And so our advice is not just some feel-good thing like there's tangible value to it. And in a day and age where a lot of investment advisors, it can be very commoditized, everybody can have different investment models and ETFs and mutual funds or whatever. But if you can give people good advice and have them understand it like, you really can prove your value, and you can prove that you're worth paying this advisory fee.
You're not just coasting on whatever, some commission or advisory fee or whatever, like we like to really give the value, so we strive for that. So a lot of what we do is good visualizations, good software, explain here's your net worth statement, and use some powerful financial planning software and show them a visual of, like, what their income will look like every year. And here these big changes that are implemented, here's what life will look like. Here's what the assumptions are. You want to compare worst-case scenario, here's what it looks like. And then clients can see like, they can visualize themselves in that place down the road and say, wow, okay, I feel confident to move ahead with this decision.
And so, yeah, a lot of it is just really good education, good visuals, to just be able to explain things so that they can make a confident decision. I mean, no client likes to have, buyers or more sore. Oh, man, I made this decision. I wish I made this one, if you can just really frame it up in a way where it's like, it's a no-brainer. This is how you want to proceed. And they clients love having that confidence to be able to proceed.
Richard Walker 8:09
Yeah, do you feel like you tilt your practice towards big events and planning for them, for the people who haven't necessarily gone through them? I mean, look, I think a lot of advisors talk about, hey, you could die. You should have life insurance, so that kind of stuff. But like, even in some of the discussions I've had with companies that are AI-focused, they're looking at life events, driving advisor behavior, with their client behavior and more engagement. Do you find yourself in that leaning or is it just natural come up?
Rob Sweas 8:39
We work closely with a lot of estate planning attorneys. And so a lot of times, the attorneys can see things that might be on the horizon, or something coming like that, maybe clients in poor health, or there's been a big change in their life. And hey, they're really going to need the assistance of a financial planner to be able to help them through this. So a lot of it, I think we just have a good referral network of some estate planning attorneys, and they're like, hey, this person needs someone to talk to. They're going through a hard time. And so, yeah, I wouldn't say that it's really event-driven, but that's what I've learned, too, is you have to have good collaboration with other professionals. Nobody can be an expert at everything.
You have to rely on others. You have to rely on a CPA to give that tax expertise. You have to rely on the estate planning attorneys. And when you can have the whole team working collaboratively together the client, they appreciate that. They see the value of that too. So there are times where I feel like a quarterback of a client's finances, where they need somebody to kind of bring it all together, and that's what we strive to do.
Richard Walker 9:54
Nice. All right, so I'm going to shift it back to you a little bit and talk about the changes you went through with your firm. Because. Is that's another big type of change that you've been facing. And full disclosure, everybody listening, Rob's actually a customer of ours, and we met because he gave us some tremendous feedback on our product and how things were working. And I was like, oh my gosh, what an amazing guy. He recorded a video so we could actually see it. It was just awesome. So I'm like, man, you need to be on the show and talk about this, but I don't want this to be a commercial about my company, per se. What I want to be able to do is help other advisors and firms out there who are listening to this see what you went through to make these decisions and how you came about these decisions, because it's so fresh in what you've been going through. So can you talk about the big changes your firm went through, and then how you went about solving for these changes?
Rob Sweas 10:41
Sure, and, yeah, this is not a commercial for Quik!. No, I won't say the checks in the mail, or I'll expect the check in the mail, but honestly, this is our experience. We just kind of stumbled across Quik! and your software. It was just out of necessity. Basically, what happened was, a year ago, we changed our broker-dealer in our registered investment advisory firm. So that is no small undertaking. So it was a lot of preparation, explaining to the clients, this is the emphasis for why we're making this change. We're assimilating into a larger group of advisors. And then when you have to do it, and, you know, kind of pull the trigger and, all right, it's go time. I mean, it was a lot of just the way we did.
It was just a very labor-intensive, lot of just managing a team of people and manual data entry and get, you have to have the right set of forms for the right set of types of accounts, and communicating with the new firm and trying to understand how they work and what they're looking for. And it was very difficult, but when we did it, it was, it worked out well. When we sent those hundreds and hundreds of DocuSign packages, they were all customized. That was on what it was, July 1, 2023 and it worked well, because within two to three weeks, all those investment advisory accounts that we lost oversight of those accounts, they all came back online with our new firm. Within two to three weeks, we had every account back.
Richard Walker 12:15
So was there a lot of fear and trepidation before you hit send on all those DocuSign envelopes?
Rob Sweas 12:22
There was, it was a lot of like, having people check it over, like, is this right? Did we include everything? Did we get anything, like all this disclosure and legal ease and all this stuff? And it was a big undertaking. You prep as much as you can, and then when it go time you just hope for the best, and it worked out quite well.
Richard Walker 12:43
What would have happened, or what did happen if anything was wrong? What did it mean to you if it was wrong?
Rob Sweas 12:48
If we didn't get something right? I mean, we would not have been able to have oversight over their clients, investment accounts. We would have not gotten paid. I mean, as soon as we left firms like that's all that revenue was shut off instantaneously. And so we were like, okay, if we can get this all back online as soon as possible, that will be great for everybody. We can continue managing it without a hitch. So it was hard, and then it was not even two months after that, we made this big change, and we're trying to understand the operations of a new firm. Then anyone in the financial services industry would know it was a big change when TD Ameritrade was bought out by Charles Schwab.
So that was over Labor Day weekend last year. And man, then we were like, okay, we just felt like we got our footing a little bit, and now it feels like everything was unplugged, like, at the same time, like, don't know how to do the most simple tasks were so tedious and laborious, and it was just demoralizing. We were just like, gosh, like, everything's so hard. Like, we knew how to do everything with TD Ameritrade, a really good technology. And anyways, like, so we were really struggling.
But then I think slowly but surely, it was like understanding how a system works, understanding a software like or a platform like Schwab, for example, and I got to give Schwab credit. They did implement a lot of the suggested changes that a lot of financial advisors had so slowly but surely, it just it was getting, we were making steps in the right direction, but, but then we were just like, man, for onboarding new clients. We're like, see, there's a lot of different ways to do the same thing. Their Schwab has, like an onboarding system, for example, and like a digital onboarding and we tried it out. We're like, okay, let's give it a shot. And we had clients test it like, some friendly kind of test it out. What do you think of this? And they're like, I counted 25 checkboxes. I had to click through, and it would just keep expanding and like, more and more legally.
It was like, are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to do this? It was just a very unpleasant client. In signing experience. And we're like, gosh, I don't want to send this to a new client. This would be horrible to put them through this. And so we kind of ruled that out. We tried using Schwab's free DocuSign service. We're like, okay, well, it's nice because it updates the forms and you can do some customization. But we tried doing that, and there was no way to get the data flying in. It was just very copying and pasting and just labor intensive. So we tried that. We tried some other like, proprietary things that our back office had tried, and it wasn't quite ready, and it wasn't working the way we thought. So we're like, man, we got to find something better, because we're dying here, the status quo is like, that's not an option. So what it what it did was talking to people, talking to consultants, talking to DocuSign, and see what their capabilities were.
Talking to Redtail, our CRM software, what are these integration capabilities? And so we came across Quik!, and I had heard of Quik!, and I had used other form-filling softwares in the past, and I was like, let's give it a shot. And then I was not seeking to become some operations guru by any means, but I just was, kind of felt like I was put in this position, and basically we found a way to integrate Redtail is our CRM with our central depository of client information. Integrate it with Quik! who does the heavy lifting with the form filling, and then DocuSign advisors, own DocuSign is the system just where does all the side here flags and initial flags, and so bringing all that together, and then, not just that, but just really, just exhaustively trying to figure out the capabilities of software.
And then when I just, at first I was investigating Quik!, I'm like, okay, this is good, the fields are matching up, but then really doing a deeper dive of just being able to pre fill different parts of paperwork, like, if it's the same, if it's uniform across every client account of ours, if we could program it in a way to, like, streamline that, that would save us just countless hours of time. So I'll give you one example on Schwab paperwork, and this is, like, we had to figure this out the hard way. Like, if you check one box, it will allow an advisor like us to be able to do a Roth conversion, you know, moving money from, like a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA with a click of the button. Just you instantaneously done. Super easy. But if you don't have the right box check on the paperwork, like you can't do it, you got to have the client sign all this paperwork. And it's just, super laborious thing, yeah? And another thing was it was just, yeah, just getting the right, the right boxes.
Oh, yeah another one was changing the tax withholding on an account, you know, to be able to do that with a click of the box, like the advisor do it before we process it with it all, you know, if you don't have the right box check, you can do it. You have to have the client sign all this formula. It's just a big headache. So we were like, we want every single account we open to have uniformity of everything check just the way we do it. We don't want to have to think about it. We want opening accounts to be so easy and seamless and to be able to do everything and have everything at our fingertips. And so what with Quik!, we were just testing it out, and now we got this system, and it's like, everything is pre-checked just the way we want it. And so if a client's like, hey, I want to do a Roth conversion, it's, it's an easy thing. It's like, open this account and it's open the next day, and we process it online.
It's like, it's like, an amazing thing. So we feel like, like, in our industry, we're in the business of giving good advice, good consulting, right? That's what clients pay us for. But like, a good idea is only so good if, like, you actually have some implementation and you're able to do it. And so if we have really good operations and can streamline this, then our good ideas actually become a reality, and clients experience the benefit of it. And so, that's basically a flyover of how this kind of happened. It was like, man, we got to change something, and we discovered this integration process, and so we've been really, really happy with it.
Richard Walker 19:28
No, that is awesome. And I'll point out, you're referring to our ability to set field rules with default values, right? Honestly, that's a hidden feature. It's not exposed in the application interface. You have to read our guide to know it exists. You have to talk to somebody on my team to know it exists, and we may have even had to help you set it up, which we're happy to do, and we're working to expose that capability, because it's been part of our system for a long time, but I didn't realize how powerful it is for what you're trying to accomplish and how much it changes the user experience.
Because, again, you just told me, If you skip that check box on that form, going back later, is 10 times the effort versus doing it up front, and now you can make it a default setting. That's just awesome. So Rob, I want to ask you a question, when you switched firms, and two months later, you're switching from TD to Schwab. When you switch firms, were you already with TD? And then you just switch to TD again.
Rob Sweas 20:30
Yeah. We changed our back office firm? That was July 1. And then so we it was a TD Ameritrade to TD Ameritrade change at first, and then it was Labor Day last year. That's when all the TD Ameritrade accounts were converted to Charles Schwab accounts.
Richard Walker 20:48
Okay, did you miss any? Like, did any not arrive in time to get converted over to Schwab?
Rob Sweas 20:56
No, everything, all the TD Ameritrade accounts that were in existence, like, as of a certain date, they all were automatically kick-carried over to Schwab. So I think the hardest part of the transition to Schwab, it was like a negative consent letter, like we didn't have to do anything to, like, change them to Schwab accounts. So they just happened over Labor Day weekend. The hardest part was just not knowing how to do anything. I mean, we watched a lot of videos and training, and this is how stuff works. But like that only goes so far. You just have to dive in the deep end and just figure out.
Richard Walker 21:33
Your operational knowledge was gone. Basically, yeah, yeah. New processes, new websites to click into, etc, that makes sense. I mean, that's like being thrown into a foreign country where you don't know how the electricity works or what side of the road they drive on. Yeah. No, that's incredible, so you're going through all this. And I think your example also points out something else. I think Schwab does an amazing job. They've put a ton of time and money and thought into customer experience and into product, but it still is never going to be a pan of say, it's never going to solve everybody's problem, no matter how good you are. And to me, that's an example of what customer experience is and is not. It's impossible to get it right and get it perfect every time. And I think about what you're talking about that, had you not talked to us and found out that you could do default rules, you might not be satisfied at all with the product. It might just be, oh, another product that can fill out forms, right?
Rob Sweas 22:32
Yep, it was a game-changer. Because if you're starting from scratch, opening accounts, I mean, it takes a long time just to make go through every form and make sure it's just right. And if I can preset all of those rules, it's fantastic. I mean, I will say, like, just understanding what the capabilities of the software were, and just trying to ask good questions. I mean, I'm no coder. I mean, I don't know the first thing about software engineering and whatnot. But I was like, I kind of caught a glimpse from some of your team there at Quik! and I was like, This is what I'm looking for. Can it do this? And like, Oh, yes, sure can. And they would kind of unlock some of these doors for me.
And it didn't take a lot. I was just like reviewing some, things on the website, like, here's how to get started with this. And I was like, Am I doing this right? And then once I kind of got going with it, I was like, okay, I kind of capture the vision. I don't need a lot of help anymore. And then just being able to code everything just right and prep it just right. And then when we get accounts open, like I said it, we can do everything that we need to do, like we have all the capabilities at our fingertips. And so it's just this is going back to the client for more signatures.
Richard Walker 23:47
This is another lesson about how customers win that I want to bring up, and it's not something I talk about very often. I tend to talk about how you as a provider can help your customer win, how you as a designer of a solution can help your customer win by making it easier, more obvious, etc. But I'm guilty of something, Rob I'm a product person first, like sales is an afterthought to me. It's like, how do I get the best product features and designs and capabilities into our system? And we have so many things in our system, it's impossible to tell everybody about all of them all at once. So what I want to point out is the other way you help your customer win is when the customer dives into the details and has a thirst, a curiosity, to find out, like you did, what can this do?
And this is part of the conversation I had with Kate Guillen when she was on my show. Is that she really helps people understand what you can do with a Redtail and how you can use it to its most maximum potential for what you're trying to accomplish. How many times do we as consumers buy a product it's going to change my life, fail to read the instructions, and it not change our life? So I applaud you for having that courage. A lot of people are afraid of tech, like, oh, I'll break. If I go in too hard or click too many buttons, but I applaud you for having the courage to try and figure it out and then discover it can solve the problems for you.
Rob Sweas 25:08
I would say that, the drive for that curiosity, it just came from being in a situation where all of our operations were just so disrupted and everything seemed so difficult. We were just like, we have to find a better solution. So it was like, I want to know everything that this thing can do. And I want to exhaust every avenue, because I know this. I know how to do it this way and this way. It's terrible. So and then, I feel like we really were on to something really good. And you know, now it's just a matter of, hey, let's roll it out to the whole team. We can make bundles of forms.
And so, hey, we're all doing this. Let's scale it up now. And so I feel like I'm in a place, you know, I've been using Quik!, like, maybe six months now, like, I understand it really well. I've kind of pre filled out a lot of forms, just the way we want it, trying to make compliance happy, and every everybody happy, and we're like, Okay, this, this is what we want to do. And let's, let's scale it up. So that's kind of my next, maybe after the turn of the year, that's my next goal.
Richard Walker 26:13
So, Rob, let's pretend something. If you are on a panel on stage at a conference of your peers, and you're talking to an audience who is not forced to change in all the ways that you had to change so rapidly. But you know many of them are not maximizing the potential the tech they even own already. What would you say to them? How would you help them see this as a catalyst? How would you help them move forward? Because so many people just get comfortable.
Rob Sweas 26:37
Yeah. I mean, I think, what it comes down to is time, time is money, and you want to, you want to be able to use your time the most efficiently. And I think that when I really discovered just how much time this saves us and how things are not daunting, and just oh gosh, like, I have to do this. It's going to take this long, or whatever, or managing a team of people to do that. It just you feel lighter, you feel like more nimble, you feel like you can accomplish a lot more. And it's like, oh, yeah, that's nothing I can do that. And, and I feel like it really, it saves time.
But then you're able to offer clients such a better experience and better service, and you're able to all these good ideas that we might have in our head, like actually get them done. And so I feel like that's really where I feel a sense of accomplishment, is you're doing what's best for the clients. You're helping them solve problems, achieve their goals. And so, yeah, there's only so much time in the day, but you know, this is a way to maximize it. And so, yeah, I feel like that's a good motivation.
Richard Walker 27:55
No, that's awesome. Are you seeing measurable results, increased revenue, client referrals, I don't know, any measurable results, because you've been improving customer experience?
Rob Sweas 28:06
Well, I mean, I would say, yeah, we definitely built a system where we have the capacity to do that much more, whereas before it was like, oh my gosh, I don't even know if we could take on new clients, because we're still figuring out the best way of doing everything. But I would say that, yeah, our capacity is greatly improved. Our morale is greatly improved. There's so many things across the board. So yeah, I would say that yet, that by nature, it will turn into more new business, and more client and serving more clients. So I think, yeah, they go hand in hand.
Richard Walker 28:47
Yeah, for sure. I actually the studies prove it. McKinsey came out with a study in June of 23 that says exactly that Microsoft and Gartner Group have been talking about that for a while. When you focus on a better experience, you drive growth. And what I also think about, and I try to make the distinction of it's not just your customer experience that you try to improve, it's your own internal experience, because our internal experience is projected outward. So what people feel on the outside as a customer is actually what's reflecting from inside the company too.
Let me ask you a slightly different question, and this might be coming out of left or right field here. So forgive me, are you doing anything with AI? I mean, it's all the rage right now. Are you doing anything with AI to make things better, faster, easier?
Rob Sweas 29:35
I have listened to a lot of podcasts and done some training on AI, and seen some of the capabilities I've tried out chatGPT, and I've asked questions into that, like a client question, like, what should I do if I have this situation? I try to see how specific it is. So, I've tested it out of dabbled with it. I guess, there's the rules are always changing. So you got to know, you can't just trust a piece of software, like, in whatever data it spits out, like, you got to know, like, what it's saying and what is, what is it telling you to do? You have to know what the numbers mean. And so I'm always gonna be a little hesitant until they maybe fine-tune it, but I think it's interesting to dabble with it.
Sometimes, if I have ideas in my head, I can kind of test it like, oh, maybe I'll see what chatGPT says. And it's a remarkable software, if you try chatGPT, I mean, it could write papers or make investment, advice, you could just see what it says. And then I think maybe what it's good for right now, from my perspective, is just maybe affirming advice or confirming something that I say, like, the software tracking with, you know, with what I'm thinking? So I think that's kind of how I'm using it right now, but not, not to a great extent. I'm sure it'll improve or increase in the future.
Richard Walker 31:02
In a way, I'm insanely jealous I'm not becoming a financial advisor now, with all the tools that are available, versus 2000 2001 when I was doing it, it's incredible what's happening and what's coming. But again, I applaud you for going out and trying it out. There are so many new rules coming down the road, I'm sure to help put guardrails on this thing. Look, we have to wrap this up. And I have another question, but before I get to that, what is the best way for people to find and connect with you, Rob?
Rob Sweas 31:31
Well, like I said, we've got a lot of firm changes and things like that, so I would say email is the best right now. So you could feel free to reach out to me. My email is rob@krmfinancial.com.
Richard Walker 31:46
All right, awesome. So my last question, who has had the biggest impact on your leadership style and how you approach your role today?
Rob Sweas 31:57
Well, I would say, without question, it would be my father. His name was Paul Sweas. He was the CPA financial advisor. Like I said, I got to work with him for five years, probably the best five years of my life. It was just a great time just being under his mentoring and understanding the industry. And just like I said, solving people's problems and then his untimely death, you know, it put me in a position to just be in this difficult transition period in my life. And I saw how he helped people and gave them confidence to face what was ahead in life. And now I'm in a position with my unique experiences as well, and going through various hard things. I can turn around. I can help clients do the same. And it's a great feeling to be able to help people. I love what I do, I love working with people, like you're talking about AI, it's helpful. But like, at the end of the day, it's a personal relationship business, and I love being able to connect with people and just help solve their problems and in any way I can. So yeah, anyway, thanks again.
Richard Walker 33:07
Yeah, I love these stories. Maybe I should start the show with these stories. All right. I want to give a big thank you to Rob Sweas, Certified Financial Planner with Arete Wealth Advisors for being on this episode of The Customer Wins. Go check out Arete's website aretewealth.com, and don't forget to check out Quik! at quikforms.com where we make processing forms easier. I hope you enjoyed this discussion and will click the like button, and share this with someone and subscribe to our channels for future episodes of The Customer Wins. Rob, thank you so much for joining me today.
Rob Sweas 33:41
Thanks so much Rich.
Outro 33:44
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