Here is an uncomfortable truth that nobody in the financial services industry wants to say out loud: most advisory firms are terrible at choosing clients.

They will spend thousands on marketing funnels, sales training, and CRM platforms, all designed to convince more people to say yes. And then they wonder why half their book is full of clients who drain capacity, resist implementation, and quietly erode the firm’s ability to serve anyone well.

The problem was never your close rate. The problem is who you are trying to close.

The Talent Scout’s Mindset

If you have ever watched a professional sports draft, you know that the organizations who win championships are not the ones who get lucky. They are the ones who scout better than everyone else.

Think about what a Premier League football club does when it evaluates a young midfielder. Yes, they measure speed. They test endurance. They review match footage. But the best scouts in the world will tell you that the measurables only get you in the door. What separates a generational talent from a journeyman is something harder to quantify: football intelligence, coachability, composure under pressure, the willingness to do the unglamorous work when nobody is watching.

The NFL operates the same way. Every year, teams pass on players with elite athleticism because the scouting report says the player does not process the game fast enough, or cannot be coached, or folds when the moment gets big. And every year, some overlooked kid from a mid-major program gets drafted in the second round and becomes an All-Pro because he had the intangibles that the measurables could not capture.

Now apply that lens to your firm.

If you’re interested in taking your business a step further, click to head over to my Substack to read the full article and subscribe to Can I Borrow Your Car.