You're listening to Financial Advisor Marketing. The best show on the planet for financial advisors who want to get more clients without all the stress. You're about to get the real scoop on everything from lead generation to closing the deal. James is the founder of TheAdvisorCoach.com where you can find an entire suite of products designed to help financial advisors grow their businesses more rapidly than ever before. Now here is your host, James Pollard.
James: Welcome to the podcast. If you're a first-time listener, boy are you in for a treat. If you've listened to several episodes, way to go - you've been able to stand me and all my shenanigans and my cheesy jokes. You deserve a cookie. So have a virtual chocolate chip cookie. I extend my arms and give it to you.
Jonathan: Yum.
James: Yum. Directly from my heart and to you. Today we're going to talk about one of my favorite productivity hacks. I know people throw the term "hack" around, like oh, this is a productivity tip and hack and sexy life hacks and things like that, so. [0:01:06.8]
But I really don’t know any other way to describe it because it's like a shortcut, I guess, or it's a way to improve your life. It's a little controversial and it makes people uncomfortable and I get that - I really do. But if you can use this effectively, you are going to be more productive, no questions asked. But before we get into the productivity stuff, I want to address a question I got from a financial advisor asking about marketing to the Sandwich Generation.
Jonathan: Sandwich Generation? What is that?
James: Yeah. Some people have never heard of this. These are the people who are taking care of both their parents and their children. So …
Jonathan: Ohhh.
James: … they're kind of sandwiched in between. They have got to take care of mom and dad, maybe they need to go to a nursing home. They've got their own issues. Then they've got to take care of the children too. They're growing up, maybe going through high school or are going to college. They've got to put a college plan together and they're sandwiched. To be honest, it's not easy because you're setting up those two things and marketing to the Sandwich Generation, I will admit it is a lot harder than marketing to a specific occupation because it's a lot easier to ask, is this person a surgeon or not; is this person a nurse or not; is this person a retiree or not. [0:02:20.3]
It's much easier to do that than to say, oh does this person have parents and children. Now with that being said, there are a few ways to do it, and I'm just going to straight up give you some valuable content.
Jonathan: Here we go. Straight away now.
James: Get your candles. We're going to party. Put on your little party hat. You know this is what you want. So, I'm giving the people what they want,
Jonathan. Here's how you do it. Facebook lets you target by age. You could do that. If I remember correctly, there are potential audiences broken down by parents with children of a certain age. So you can target parents with toddlers. You can target parents with middle school kids and so on. In this scenario, if you were going after the Sandwich Generation, you would want to target people with high school and college age kids because it means they're a little older and it also means, statistically on average, the parents are also a little older. [0:03:09.2]
The kids still need help because they're in high school or college. So you want to do that and if you can't do Facebook ads as a financial advisor, that's out of the question. So another way to do it is to somehow get a list of parents in their 40s and market to them. The only thing is, this is probably going to be really expensive because it's not a good way to qualify them - just because they're parents and just because they're in their 40s doesn’t necessarily mean that they're sandwiched. However, they have the highest likelihood of being sandwiched and at the end of the day, total dollars in versus total dollars out is all that matters. So if you spend $300 to get a client and you make $2000 from that client, it still makes sense. If you really wanted to go after the Sandwich Generation, you're probably going to spend more to acquire a client, but hey, if you're still profitable, do your thing - more power to you. If you're doing what you love, you can't really put a price on that. Can you, Jonathan?
Jonathan: Absolutely not. [0:04:04.8]
James: Now - however, I think the best way to get the Sandwich Generation is to have a website answering questions that they're typing into Google - questions like "How to care for elderly parents; how to spot depression in elderly parents" and yes, that's a real thing and people are searching for it. I actually did some research and I figured this out before I came on the podcast just flapping my gums. Yeah, it's a real thing. People are asking about depression in elderly parents and they feel, they have certain emotions and they're sad about it and people are asking for advice on caring for these people. I personally would not bet the farm on marketing to the Sandwich Generation, but it can be done. Yeah, yeah - I just gave you a bunch of different ways to market to the Sandwich Generation. So you are welcome, but realize it's going to be harder for you than just picking a specific niche like doctor, dentist, nurse, someone like that and going after that niche. On to the show. [0:05:00.8]
The productivity hack I'm talking about here today is called a "commitment device," and this is also called a "Ulysses pact" or a "Ulysses contract" because of the ancient Greek myth about Ulysses tying himself to a ship so he could avoid the siren songs. Apparently, these sirens were so beautiful and they sang such enchanting songs that any man who heard their voice would just become so captivated that he would stop acting rationally and he would doing but listen to the songs, and eventually, that man would die. In other words, producer Jonathan, the sirens were all Beyonces.
Jonathan: Get out your black leotards.
James: I can relate. I can relate. Because every time Single Ladies comes on, I have to stop whatever I'm doing and just listen. I can't… sometimes people would just taunt me because they'll just call me and they know my ringtone is Single Ladies.
Jonathan: No way.
James: My ringtone is Single Ladies and people would just keep calling me and calling me because they want to destroy my productivity and they know I can't help but dance to that song. No.
Jonathan: Lovely. [0:06:03.8]
James: The idea behind this pact is that it's a way for you to make a choice in the present that will lock you into an action in the future. For example - you can make a decision today to set up an automatic deposit for your investments. You're making a decision today that will continue to grow your investment account for years to come. Basically, you're making a decision now, when you're calm and rational, that will impact your future in such a way where it has a positive result. Because sometimes, in the future, we aren’t so calm and rational. One of my favorite commitment devices is to lock away my phone, and this is how I avoid the sirens. When people call me and Single Ladies plays, I can't help but dance for four minutes, so I know how to prevent that because I just locked my phone away. [0:06:52.8]
Hey financial advisors, are you ready to take your business to the next level and get more clients with less stress? I invite you to join the James Pollard Inner Circle, a paper and ink newsletter that gets delivered directly to your door every month. When you join now you'll also get a 90-minute instant download called, "Five Keys to Success for Financial Advisors", a $97 value for absolutely free. All you have to do is head over to TheAdvisorCoach.com/newsletter and join today.
James: And honestly, the Smart Phone is probably the single biggest drain on productivity for financial advisors to date. I know they think they need it, and they may do some productive stuff on it, but most of the time, Smart Phones do more harm than good. So - what do I recommend? I tell financial advisors to get one of those little kitchen safes. They're little plastic containers with a lock on it. You can set the lock for a certain amount of time and it will only let you in when the time has passed. When it comes to food, people use this for cookies and desserts. They're literally locking the desserts away so they can't access them. The same idea applies for phones. [0:08:00.8]
Some people just can't be trusted to have a phone anywhere near them. At first, I was telling people to put their phones in another room so they don’t even see it, but then I noticed that wasn’t strong enough. People would just walk up and check their phone, get distracted. So lock that thing up. What do you do with your phone, Jonathan? Do you have it near you all the time? Do you have a particular strategy for avoiding distraction?
Jonathan: Yeah. I don’t have any ringers. I don’t have voicemail on it. I try to keep it away from me if I'm trying to focus.
James: No kidding? You don’t have voicemail.
Jonathan: Nope.
James: I don’t even know what that works. How do you set it up?
Jonathan: Listen - I had to go through some trouble to get that done, but I do not have voicemail.
James: Wow. That is cool. Another example is to literally delete all social media apps from your phone and only allow them to come up for a certain amount per day on your desktop. I want everyone to understand this because these big social media companies literally have hundreds of developers and they're working every single day to make sure you use their platforms as much as possible. [0:09:05.0]
It is in their best interest to take as much time of your day as they possibly can so they can show you more advertising. You need to realize that. Facebook? Hundreds of engineers, all working to get your attention, to take time from you. You just can't fight this stuff. You can't somehow discipline yourself to use it less because eventually, they will win. If you have such a big ego that you think you're somehow smarter than these hundreds of developers with millions of dollars to play with, hey - I can't help you. If you get what I'm saying, you might be thinking, "Holy crap - this guy is right. They're just trying to get me sucked in," then you want to delete that stuff from your phone. I have seen a couple of your ads on Facebook, Jonathan. I'm creeping on you.
Jonathan: What?? I have ads?
James: You’ve got some good ads.
Jonathan: Well, thank you.
James: You're pushing the free book funnel or the book less shipping.
Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah.
James: That's a good strategy there. There are some advisors who use that. You can get some good results. It has to be hypertargeted. So, I'm not going to ask you to reveal any of your secrets, but the targeting is key to making that thing work, based on my experience. [0:10:12.0]
Jonathan: Yeah. And having an agency do it for you is my secret.
James: Woooo - agency. You are fancy with it.
Jonathan: You know it.
James: Well, check this out. I did a quick Google search before recording this podcast and I found out that the average daily usage of social media is 136 minutes per day.
Jonathan: Wow.
James: Per day. Per day. So the average social media user spends over 2 hours every single day on these sites.
Jonathan: Good grief.
James: Do you realize what an incredible advantage you could get by just reclaiming those 2 hours per day? Even if all you did was read, you could crush everyone else. And it adds up. Let's do some math. We have got 2 hours a day for 30 days, so let's just say it's a month - that's 60 hours and that's like gaining a whole work week and a half. If you work a traditional 40-hour work week, that's like a work week and a half just from ditching social media. [0:11:09.8]
So the commitment device that you can use is to install an app. If you're using Chrome browser, there are tons of browser extensions that you can install on Chrome. I know producer Jonathan uses Chrome and I use a Chromium browser myself. I do not use Chrome, but I use a browser that is built on that platform. There's a browser extension called News Feed Eradicator…
Jonathan: Love it.
James: … and that's what you want to put on there. Do you use that, Jonathan?
Jonathan: Yeah. That's how I stay off and I don’t have it on my phone and I don’t have the news feed, so I go in with intention.
James: Wow. It's like we're the same person. That's cool, though. Good for you, man. Yeah, the financial advisors out there may not know. So one more time - it's called News Feed Eradicator for Facebook. That's what you want to put on your browser. There's another called DFTube, which is Distraction Free for YouTube and it gets rid of all the YouTube videos and suggestions and stuff because it's the same concept. [0:12:09.0]
Google has hundreds of, thousands - thousands of developers and engineers who are all working to make that algorithm show you videos that you are more likely to watch than anything else on their platform. They are - it's in their best interest for you to spend as much time on YouTube as possible so they can show you more ads. Google makes billions of dollars from advertising. They're really good at this, so if you think you're going to fight this, hey, more power to you. Go do your thing. I wish you nothing but the best, but in my experience, the best thing you could do is to use a commitment device and commit today to install those browser extensions to get your attention back so you can focus on the things that matter. If you're going to use social media, I would recommend that you use LinkedIn to get more clients and if you're using LinkedIn to get more clients, I want to show you how to do it and how to get clients with LinkedIn. In that program, I explain what you want to do is set aside a certain amount of time to use LinkedIn each day and after that, these browser extensions will block access to the site until the next day. [0:13:13.0]
So you won't be able to access this. You won't be able to. You won't even have a chance to get distracted. You won't have any temptations. So start thinking about how you can use commitment devices in your own life. If you really want to fall down this rabbit hole, go ahead and Google commitment devices or Ulysses contracts or Ulysses pact, and just start reading. It's really fascinating stuff. You want to start asking yourself - how can you literally force yourself to become more productive. One thing I like about force is that it works. It may not be pretty. It may not be comfortable, but it gets the job done, which means if you're someone who cares about the end results, then this is for you. Because you're creating a situation where you're literally forcing the bad stuff out of your life.
So that's it for this week. Commitment devices. [0:14:02.5]
Jonathan: You're creating a void.
James: Get to know them and that will help you.
Jonathan: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. What do you have coming up for us next time?
James: We're actually going to talk about seven things great advisors do that others don’t. It's going to be a fun, fast-paced episode that will help a lot of people.
Jonathan: Looking forward to it. That's it for another Financial Advisor Marketing. We'll be back in your ear buds next time.
This is ThePodcastFactory.com
