Shadowing Practice: How to Drum up New Business - Learn English Speaking with Video

The content I'm going to share with you is relevant, whether you've been in the business six months or 30 years, or whether you're a rainmaker or a lead advisor on a team.

There are certain things that are found within every growing advisory practice in the industry, regardless of channel.

So whether you're an RIA, you're in the wire houses, you're in the insurance BDs,

the firms that are rapidly and continuously growing that aren't affected by changes in the markets or changes in the industry.

that just are consistently growing organically have something in common.

And so before I talk about the things you can start doing immediately, I want to talk briefly on that.

It's really three things that I've seen.

Number one, the firms that are growing

and the advisors who are always consistently generating leads are number one advisors

that have 100% in total conviction in what they're doing.

And it's more than just value proposition.

It's a total conviction in the vision and the impact that the financial planning profession has,

meaning they feel so 100 percent sure about the value

that they provide and how much they help people that they almost feel obligated to tell the story.

You know, you talk to advisors sometimes who are struggling with with organic growth.

Like sometimes you'll you'll hear a hesitation in their voice to to make the ask

or ask for the introduction or go to the neighbor and say, hey, you know, by the way, FYI, I run an advisory practice.

Like the best in the business, their belief in the value supersedes all of that.

And so that's the first thing.

The second thing is most of them are what I consider relentless prospectors.

That doesn't mean that they're comfortable cold calling and knocking on doors.

It just simply means that their mind is always focused on telling the story.

Every single person is a lead or an opportunity unless we qualify them not as a leader opportunity.

In other words, like simply the act of telling the story,

talking to the COI, talking to the introduction is worth it in and of itself, because like the story needs to be spread.

And so those who have

that relentless prospector mindset are completely committed to telling the value proposition

and the value of what they do over and over and over again, multiple times a week and multiple times a day.

That's the second thing.

And then the third thing I would say is they're in it to win it.

Like they're the activity in any given week is reflective of the growth and revenue generation.

And what I mean by that is, and this is an important question to ask yourself,

if you're finding that there is a lull in lead flow or perhaps the pipeline isn't as strong as it was,

you know a year ago or you're feeling like you know I don't really feel

that excitement from from the outside

or from clients as I once did you have to reflect on your own activity

and ask yourself two questions number one what are we doing to obsessively

and relentlessly tell the story and talk about the value of what we do and look at your week, like how you're spending your time in your calendar.

Is it aligned with the relentless prospector type mindset?

That's number one.

The second thing is, am I dedicating at least 50% of my time to prospecting?

And by the way, this is a whole other discussion, but this is the reason why firms like mine exist because advisors run out of time and capacity is an issue.

And when it comes to telling the story to a COI or handling, you know, a client issue with an account, like you're doing the latter.

But as the person who's responsible, let's say for revenue generation and remaking, am I spending at least 50% of my time a week,

half of my day telling the story, talking to prospects, creating content, et cetera.

Okay.

So that's the backdrop.

Now, what can you actually do to start drumming up business or sort of getting the lead flow going?

A couple of things.

And I'll say there is no secret sauce.

I've said this on many webinars, videos rather

that you can bring on whatever ghost written marketing platform you

want you can do the paid ads it doesn't matter

if those three things that I just talked about aren't there

and if your individual activity human to human isn't there and

so a couple things number one change your activity I recommend advisors literally look at the last month and this is

you know first month of the year like everybody gets a pass

but but looking at the average week how much time are you spending

doing the things

that we know generate interest in the business telling the story

talking to clients talking to centers of influence um what i share with advisors

if you ever have a week where you're feeling like we're

really not getting after it the best thing you could do is pick up the phone

and call your very best clients and talk to them about their experience

or call a close friend or somebody in your network

or a coach or whomever and talk about the business

and talk about the vision of what you're building the reason i share

that with you is because talking about what we're doing

and having somebody listen to us produces dopamine it makes us feel good

and when we feel good we want to repeat that activity

so the hardest part is actually getting started the The other

thing I'll say is I talk to a lot of firms that get overly complicated things.

I call them practice management happy, right?

They need the system and they need the points for the dials.

Just start calling people.

Doesn't matter if it's not perfectly logged into the CRM

or it's not perfectly in the order that you want it to be in.

Spend every day with five phone calls to people who you know will take a call from you,

will reinforce and validate value proposition in your mind,

and might be open to sort of having a bigger discussion about what you're up to at XYZ Financial.

And so every day you should have your, whether it's a top client, somebody in your network, or somebody who potentially could be a center of influence,

a text message, an email, or a phone call.

Again, we want to get ourselves that dopamine up so that we're getting ourselves excited about continuing to do that activity.

And by the way, this goes for everybody in your organization.

We can teach everybody to be brand ambassadors just by asking everybody to post once a day on social media,

something that they're really excited about within your practice or within the organization.

Okay, that's the first thing.

Drum up activity.

Number two, give people a very specific reason to talk to you.

Oftentimes, advisors shy away from, you know, posting on social media or direct messaging somebody,

which I don't love, or asking for an introduction, because it feels transactional and it feels very much like it's only benefiting them, which I agree with, by the way,

you can watch my video on why I don't think advisors should ask for referrals.

But if you know that there's something happening for clients that you serve or within a certain niche,

for example, you serve tech entrepreneurs or executives, like there are massive layoffs happening right now in the tech space, reaching out to folks in your network,

whether it's blanket, like big picture funnel, like top of the funnel on social media,

or whether it's directly emailing somebody you know or messaging somebody and say, hey, by the way, there's so much going on right now in this space.

If you need someone to talk to, this is the work that we do.

Happy to waive the initial fee and have a conversation with you.

Happy to help.

100

Like give people a reason to have a conversation with you that benefits them initially.

101

And by the way, if they never become a client or even a real prospect, you put good juju out into the world and that's good enough.

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So that's the first thing.

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And I'll say anyone who's worried about, gosh, the market's bad, people are feeling shaky.

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That's all made up.

105

There's never a perfect or optimal time to be working or engaging with a financial planner.

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I would argue that if there is an optimal time, it's actually when things aren't going well, because then the value of what we do in our industry becomes so much more apparent.

107

But now is the time to say,

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hey, there's one type of person that's qualified and certified to be able to help people navigate difficult times,

109

noise, headwinds, all of that.

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It's financial planners.

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And so whether you've been in the business, by the way, five days or 50 years, that story still holds true.

112

And if you're a young advisor and you belong to a bigger organization, you have the backing of the bigger organization.

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You should never feel like you shouldn't have a seat at the table.

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That's the second thing.

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So drum up activity, give people a specific reason to talk to you.

116

Number three, start creating community with your content.

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Advisors shy away from creating content because it feels overwhelming.

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Like, should I be on YouTube?

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Should I be on, you know, Twitter?

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And remember that the audience that you want to create content for already exists within your practice.

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and content can mean something as simple as you writing an

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email to all of your clients who are tech executives and saying, hey, I've put some points together.

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If you are facing layoffs or have faced a layoff, here are a couple of steps you can take.

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Here are a couple of resources.

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Please share this with other people.

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I'm going to start sending a communication once a week.

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if you find it helpful, you know, pass it on.

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If you have questions, that is a content strategy.

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Now, it may not seem as fancy and sexy as other content strategies, but that is a content strategy.

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And anybody who you talk to who has built a social media following will tell you

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that is the way to create an audience.

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So if you post something ghostwritten or general on social media and you don't get the likes, again, your dopamine is not going to go up.

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You're not going to feel like it's working.

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You're not going to want to continue to do it.

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But if you start creating the content for people whose eyes and ears you already have access to, and you start getting a little bit of feedback,

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then it becomes easier to continue to do that activity.

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The final thing I'll say, and this is like 101,

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but spend 30 minutes one day a week going through your email from the last couple of years,

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literally just like scrolling down.

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I'm a big proponent of flagging things in email that you may wanna get back to, but like go through your email,

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go through your messages and start re-reaching out to people that you've had contact with at some point in the past.

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Even if it's to say, hey, just want you to know I'm still here, like reminding people you're in business.

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I'm still here.

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Let me know if I can help in any way, things have changed or just simply dropping a line.

145

imagine doing those four things

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that I just mentioned week after week for a year now imagine you

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and two other people on your team are doing

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that now all of a sudden you recognize

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that you don't have a problem with lead flow anymore

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and organic activity and organic growth is higher than it's ever been okay I hope

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that was helpful folks leave your comments let me know what's working for you I'll see you next time

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “How to Drum up New Business”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: advisor, activity, content, client, value. This video has 151 sentences and 2037 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:53. The speaker talks at a natural 172 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
advisor noun	/ædˈvaɪ.zə(ɹ)/	One who offers advice.
dopamine noun	/ˈdoʊ.pəˌmin/	A monoamine C₈H₁₁NO₂ that is a decarboxylated form of dopa, present in the body as a neurotransmitter and a precursor of other substances including adrenalin.
layoff noun		A dismissal of employees from their jobs because of tightened budgetary constraints or work shortage (not due to poor performance or misconduct).
prospector noun	/ˈpɹɑsˌpɛktɚ/	A person who explores or prospects an area in search of mineral deposits, such as gold.
relentless adjective	/ɹɪˈlɛntləs/	Unrelenting or unyielding in severity.
proposition noun	/ˌpɹɑpəˈzɪʃən/	The act of offering (an idea) for consideration.
drum noun	/ˈdɹʌm/	A percussive musical instrument spanned with a thin covering on at least one end for striking, forming an acoustic chamber; a membranophone.
prospect noun	/ˈpɹɑspɛkt/	The region which the eye overlooks at one time; a view; a scene; an outlook.
funnel noun	/ˈfʌnəl/	A utensil in the shape of an inverted hollow cone terminating in a narrow pipe, for channeling liquids or granular material; typically used when transferring…
planner noun	/ˈplænɚ/	One who plans.
mindset noun	/ˈmaɪn(d)ˌsɛt/	A way of thinking; an attitude or opinion, especially a habitual one.
optimal adjective	/ˈɑptɪməl/	The best, most favourable or desirable, especially under some restriction.
conviction noun	/kənˈvɪkʃən/	A firmly held belief.
advisory adjective	/ædˈvaɪz(ə)ɹi/	Able to give advice.
qualify verb	/ˈkwɑ.lɪ.faɪ/	To describe or characterize something by listing its qualities.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
do over verb	/ˈduˌoʊvɚ/	To cover with; to smear or spread on to.
get back to verb		Return to (an activity)
go up verb		To move upwards.
make up verb	/ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/	To constitute, to compose.
pick up verb		To lift; to grasp and raise.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've been · I've seen · I've said
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are found · aren't affected · is always focused
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	those who have · people who you · somebody who potentially

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 56 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: proposition /ˌpɹɑpəˈzɪʃən/, conviction /kənˈvɪkʃən/, transactional /trænˈzækʃ(ə)nəl/, hesitation /ˌhɛzɪˈteɪʃən/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/
Long words — get the stress right: proposition /ˌpɹɑpəˈzɪʃən/, advisory /ædˈvaɪz(ə)ɹi/, organically /ɔːˈɡænɪkli/, relentlessly /ɹɪˈlɛntləsli/, transactional /trænˈzækʃ(ə)nəl/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like advisor, dopamine, layoff.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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