Helping Investment Firms Thrive – Fastlane Founders with Gui Costin

Gui Costin talks with Jason Barnard about helping investment firms thrive. Gui Costin is the Founder and CEO of Dakota, a powerhouse in the investment services industry. Dakota has helped clients raise over $40 billion since its inception in 2006. Gui leads with a singular, profound mission at heart, mentoring and fostering career growth. He is a leader in sales and marketing, and works to help educate investment firms on the processes and procedures they can implement to scale their business. Gui explained the necessity of personal branding with clarity and authority, emphasizing how his own brand serves as the foundation for his business as an investment firm. Gui reveals 5 key strategies on how investment professionals can build a solid future. From the emphasis on professional-quality video content to the importance of consistent communication, responsiveness, proactivity and preparation. Gui also shared his journey to becoming the face of his firm and his eventual acceptance of this role. If you’re an investment professional who wants to transform your market presence through authentic personal branding and strategic client engagement, this is definitely your must-watch episode. What you’ll learn from Gui Costin 00:00 Gui Costin and Jason Barnard 01:24 Gui Costin’s Brand SERP 01:44 What is Google’s New AI Experiment? 01:51 What Does Gui Costin’s Brand SERP Reveal? 02:04 What Does Gui Costin’s Left-Hand Side of His Brand's SERP Show? 02:17 What is the Process That Gui Did Not Know He Had Already Implemented? 02:20 What is the Kalicube Process About? 03:05 Why Does Gui Think That His Personal Brand is the Foundation of His Business as an Investment Firm? 04:23 What Made Gui Change His Mind About Being the Face of His Business? 05:15 Why Does Personal Brand Matter to Any Investment Firm? 06:20 How Can Investment Firms Balance Personal Branding With Effective Succession Planning? 07:24 What Strategies Can Investment Firms Use to Build a Solid Future and Thrive? 07:30 Strategy 1: Video 11:41 Strategy 2: Consistent Communication 13:16 Strategy 3: Always Be Available and Responsive 14:46 Strategy 4: Be Proactive and Anticipatory 14:55 How Can Businesses Proactively Serve Potential Clients? 15:46 How Can Businesses Streamline Client Onboarding? 16:13 How Can Businesses Align Their Client Messaging With AI-Driven Brand Representation? 18:55 Strategy 5: Prepare Strategically and Craft Clear, Retellable Narratives 19:36 What Is the Secret to Client Retention and Keeping Clients on Board After They’ve Signed Up? This episode was recorded live on video December 31st 2024 https://youtube.com/live/I8vZdC6CCvw Links to pieces of content relevant to this topic:Gui Costin Transcript from Helping Investment Firms Thrive - Fastlane Founders with Gui Costin [00:00:00] Narrator: Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard. Each week, Jason sits down with successful entrepreneurs, CEOs and executives and get them to share how they mastered the delicate balance between rapid growth and enduring success in the business world. How can we quickly build a profitable business that stands the test of time and becomes our legacy. A legacy we're proud of. Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard. [00:00:31] Jason Barnard: Hi everybody and welcome to another Fastlane Founders and Legacy with me, Jason Barnard. And a quick hello and we're good to go. Welcome to the show, Gui Costin. [00:00:45] Gui Costin: Thanks for having me. So excited to be here. [00:00:48] Jason Barnard: Brilliant. Yeah, I saw Gui and thought, oh, French and Costin. I thought, ooh, French. But it's actually William. [00:00:55] Gui Costin: Yep, it's William. And then of course Guillaume is William in French. And then I'm the fourth and so they nicknamed me Gui for Guillaume. [00:01:04] Jason Barnard: and you use Gui absolutely everywhere. [00:01:07] Gui Costin: Yes, that's my name. Yeah. [00:01:09] Jason Barnard: So from that perspective, your actual official name is William. But you use Gui everywhere. And that gives me a great segue into this, which is it doesn't matter what name you were born with or what's on your passport. If you're consistent across the web with your name and consistent with your brand narrative, which you are, because I know we're going to talk about that, how important your personal brand is to your business, Google, AI, ChatGPT, Bing Copilot, Perplexity, Alexa, Siri and Google Search will all get it right. And here we see the result from Google Learn About which is Google's new AI experiment. And it's this whole learning experience whereby you type in, for example, your name and it will tell me who you are, which it does very well. It tells me that you're founder and CEO of Dakota. It tells me why you matter. It's understood that you're important. It can tell me why you're important. And then on the left hand side, you can see lots of follow up questions that I might be interested in. Early career, Dakota, Stage Investment Network, Millennial buying habits. Those are all your specialties. And what I love about this is that without even realizing, you've been implementing basically the Kalicube Process, which is all about consistent messaging with your personal brand across an entire digital footprint that makes sense to the machines. Did you know you were doing that? [00:02:30] Gui Costin: No. [00:02:32] Jason Barnard: Brilliant. [00:02:32] Gui Costin: Need your service, because I didn't even know we were doing it. [00:02:36] Jason Barnard: Yeah. And the thing is, it is actually very simple in the terms of. It's simple in that you just have to be consistent with a very clear brand narrative and always use the same first name and last name and yet very complicated because you're one of the first guests I've ever had who's actually nailed it. [00:02:51] Gui Costin: Wow, that's exciting. thank you. [00:02:54] Jason Barnard: Brilliant. And I think you've nailed it because your personal brand is so important to your business. And so we're talking about Helping Investment Firms Thrive. And from what I understand, you're saying that your personal brand is the foundation of your entire business as an investment firm. [00:03:06] Gui Costin: There's no doubt and I think there's just more and more evidence it's coming out where it's Matt Gray Founder OS. That's more and more it's all about the people buy the individual versus the company and they buy the individual, if you will. And what that brand represents is the individual. And so it's coming out more and more. We just always did it that way. It wasn't. I would be honest with you. I wouldn't say that I was years ago that comfortable being the man out front and start until 2018. And then over time you realize as you create more and more video and then people say, hey, I really enjoyed your video. I feel like I know you, it's nice to meet you, I've seen you on then your comfort level goes up and up and there's not that kind of weird reluctance. And then I really believe when I look at it, Jason, I think the as long as you're creating content that truly adds value to people's lives and they're whether it's personal or business and it's always coming from that place of adding value, then you can do anything. If it's all self serving, It's all about you or something like that. But if it's all about helping and serving, I think you get a lot of success. [00:04:10] Jason Barnard: Right.  And so you, came out saying, I'm not really sure I want to be the face of the business. What changed your mind and how did you come to terms with it in your own heart and soul? [00:04:23] Gui Costin: No, I was always the face. I just wasn't. We weren't as out there in terms of all of the content that we created me personally. And then just getting comfortable being that person on camera saying all the stuff that I was saying. Then over time, more and more then you get the feedback and it's positive. And very rarely in this stuff do you really get people being mean or giving you seriously negative reviews. And all you're trying to do is share your insights that's what I saw, a value add. Just share your insights into what's worked for you and. Or what hasn't worked and keep it positive, but keep it value oriented. And then it's been. It's been a complete blast. [00:05:03] Jason Barnard: Yeah. Okay. And. And so for you, for an investment firm, would you say that the personal brand is important for any investment firm or particularly smaller investment firms? [00:05:12] Gui Costin: No, I think, all investment firms, listen, I think the brand, if you look at the biggest branded firms, Blackstone, Steve Schwarzman is. That's the largest firm in the world. He's definitely right known as the man, if you will, the CEO and founder. A lot of investment firms, but within it, the larger investment firms don't always want a star system. So they might focus a little bit more on the company brand than the individuals.  But at the end of the day, when you really. Cathie Wood on Ark. On CNBC, you start to think about that. You really, at the end of the day, are investing with people and individuals. And I think for those single, those firms, large or small, one person's brand is really, important because you're buying into that person over time. That's really what you're buying into. [00:06:05] Jason Barnard: But generally speaking, some people are concerned about using their personal brand too much because it makes the business rely too much on them. You talked about the star system. Is there any way around that? [00:06:20] Gui Costin: That, that's one of those things where it naturally evolves, is that it's going to be that way no matter what. And everyone wants a succession plan.