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: Hello, financial advisors. Welcome to Financial Advisor Marketing, your favorite podcast; I know it is. I feel like I say this every single episode,
Jonathan, but this is going to be a good one, and maybe it's just the optimist in me, but I think every single episode that we can do, it's going to be the best one. I mean, I record an episode with you and we cut it and I'm like, wow - nothing can top that, and then we do.
Jonathan: That is evolution, baby. [0:00:59.5]
James: Evolution at work. And I, you know, I'm such an optimist - when I was a teenager, I went out and got my blood tested to learn my blood type and they told me it was B positive, and I was like, darn right it… I am. Darn right it's B positive. So I'm such an optimist that it is my blood type.
Jonathan: Love it.
James: Let's get into this podcast episode, but before I do, I do want to share a little story about an ex-Inner Circle member, and this is kind of funny …
Jonathan: Did he leave?
James: They, they - the guy left. Yeah.
Jonathan: Oh, my gosh.
James: It's kind of funny and kind of sad at the same time. So this guy subscribed to the Inner Circle newsletter last year and he canceled after the first month. Now, a year later, he's trying to join again and he kept emailing me, telling me that there was an error with the checkout page, and I'm like, dude - there's no error. You canceled. You get blacklisted. I don’t know what the checkout page says but it's something like your order cannot be completed at this time - you know, please check with the merchant, or like your order can't be completed with this, whatever - I don’t know. [0:02:05.4]
But he's like there was an error with the checkout page. And I know it's because he's on the blacklist. It says it right there on the sales page, and I quote "Using what I teach takes work and it takes time. If you aren’t willing to give the newsletter at least a few months, then you aren’t qualified for this." So obviously, this guy missed that part and anyone who expects one little newsletter, even if it's like 15 or 20 pages, which that's about what it is every month - if they expect that thing to change their entire life and their entire business and solve all of their problems in one month, that person has more problems than I can solve and … I'm completely transparent about that. I mean, the most successful people, they don’t go for the homeruns every time. Like when they try to do something to move their business forward, they don’t try to knock it out of the park on every single decision and every single thing that they do. [0:03:03.0]
They accumulate a lot of base hits, just like they accumulate wealth. The unsuccessful people expect to do one small thing and make millions of dollars and change their life overnight and everything's going to get better. So this guy signed up for a newsletter, which I mean, honestly, it's a good thing and I'm proud of the people who sign up and invest in themselves, but in the grand scheme of things, it's just a small decision. So it's a base hit. So in describing my newsletter, I like to think of it as a base hit every month. I mean, it's loaded with ideas. All you've got to do is take one or two ideas and apply them to your business and make that thing pay for itself and if you think about it, if you applied one idea and you make 1000 bucks, it essentially pays for itself for almost a year, which means it's not that hard to do, especially if you stick with it because you can get it delivered to your door every month. You can reference them for the rest of your life. You can keep them in a little binder. I know people do that, and just study them. Take notes. Read through it every quarter, get some ideas, apply it to your business, but this episode's not about my newsletter. I know I'm rambling on about it. It's about LinkedIn marketing, Jonathan, and I see…
Jonathan: LinkedIn. [0:04:10.8]
James: … you're more active on LinkedIn. I'm proud of you. You're doing your thing. You're really crushing it on LinkedIn.
Jonathan: It's only because I took your LinkedIn course.
James: Great - thank you. So let's give these people what they want and I'm going to tell them a few rules…
Jonathan: These people - I - wait a second, wait a second … I don’t like… I - I really - I don’t like what you're saying there. I think these people need a name. Why don’t we give our listeners a name? Have you thought about that yet?
James: I have thought about that and with a little input from you, I came up with a great idea. You came up with it. Whoever takes credit for it. I'll let you take credit for it. Either way. It is -drum roll please, everyone - I'm going to refer to you as the fam because this is financial advisor marketing podcast. We're all a big family. We come together to listen to this podcast. You know, we have got the drunk, crazy uncles. [0:05:00.2]
We have got the nice cuddly aunts who want to give you hugs and kisses and squeeze your cheeks every single time. We're a big family … big family here. So we're the fam - financial advisor marketers out there, you are officially my fam. So I knight you and henceforth, forever more, you will be known as my fam.
Jonathan: The fam, huh? Let's give the fam what they came for.
James: Absolutely. So, rule number one is having a niche makes everything easier on LinkedIn. I've seen this so many times. It is completely normal to me at this point, but I know there are some advisors out there who have never heard of this idea before, so I want to stress it again. Having a niche makes everything easier, especially an occupational niche because people literally tell you what they do. They tell you their occupation on LinkedIn and I had one financial advisor from Cleveland, Ohio - I've never been to Cleveland, so I want to go out there some time. [0:06:02.8]
He asked me about prospecting on LinkedIn and he told me that he couldn't find anyone, and I was like, hmmm, I don’t think that's the case, but let me humor you for a little bit. So I asked him what his niche was, and he told me teachers. So great, I thought. I went over to LinkedIn. I typed in teachers and filtered for Cleveland, Ohio because I didn't want to show him teachers in like Phoenix, Arizona or New York City, just like in his local area. I got 47,000 results.
Jonathan: Wow.
James: Let that sink in - 47,000, and I mean at that point, if you’re a financial advisor in Cleveland, Ohio and you tell me that you want to go after teachers and prospect for educators, so on and so forth and I give you literally give you a resource where you can go to and find 47,000 of them, like what are you doing with your life? And let's assume that I'm 90% wrong. Let's assume that I have no idea what I'm talking about, I've never done this before, I have no clue whatsoever what I'm doing. [0:07:03.3]
I'm 90% wrong and that means there's only 4700 teachers who are active on LinkedIn - that's still amazing because let's do some math. If you're building a business and you're trying to make more money, it's basically about math. You're going to do math every single day, especially if you're with me and you want to build your business, we are going to go through your numbers. Out of that 4700, let's assume you only get 1% of those people and this is not going to happen overnight. This is not going to happen in a week. It may not even happen in a couple of months, but over the course of your career, if you get the 1%, that's 47 - 47 new clients. Now, let's assume I'm half wrong there. We have already assumed I'm 90% wrong. Now, let's assume I'm half … we're going to take another half off - that's still 23 or 24 new clients. That's nothing to sneeze at because it can add a significant amount of revenue to your business. It can add a significant amount of profit to your bottom line. It can add a significant amount of personal income for you, but once you have a niche and you get involved in that niche on LinkedIn, LinkedIn's algorithm will actually start showing your content to your niche and it will start showing you content from people in your niche because if you're engaging with teachers and you're active with them and you're in their groups and you're doing all that cool stuff related to teachers because your niche is teachers, LinkedIn will pick up on that and they will start showing you more content related to that. [0:08:31.3]
The same is true of Facebook but Facebook is not as effective as LinkedIn, but then this stuff compounds. You'll become even more involved in your niche and what's really cool is when people in your niche, when they start popping up in the "people you may know" section, that's when things really start to compound because there's a higher chance of them being good fits for you because the algorithm is working for you. A lot of times, people want to work harder and they try to make things so complex. It's like LinkedIn is literally giving you the prospects. As long as you play ball and as long as you're out there and you're working and you're engaging with your target market, there's a section on there called "People you may know," and they're basically throwing it out there - hey, these are people that, you know, you may know that may engage with you that may be a good fit for your business. [0:09:18.3]
Like the algorithm is working. So work smarter. Don’t feel guilty about, you know, taking it easy and taking the easy way here because LinkedIn is making it easy for you. So hopefully that makes sense and you kind of get what I'm talking about, but making your target known on LinkedIn, just like I do. My headline is literally, I think it's Host of Financial Advisor Marketing Podcast, and maybe you can correct me if you've seen it, Jonathan, but financial advisors, they're scrolling through their LinkedIn feed or maybe they see that someone else liked one of my statuses and they see this random guy, but the headline says, "Host of Financial Advisor Marketing Podcast." If they're a financial advisor and they're interested in marketing, I'm probably going to stand out to that person more than anyone else. Right? [0:10:06.6]
Jonathan: Betchya … you betchya. It's going to hook them right in.
James: And it is so unbelievable because LinkedIn does have that headline because you can have your name and then you have your headline right underneath it. So if someone comments on one of your statuses or if you … let's say that there's a popular teacher or an influencer for teachers that you follow on LinkedIn and you comment under that teacher or the influencer's status update, other people who are looking at that status are probably going to be teachers. So they're going to see you and they're going to see your headline and it says something like, I help teachers plan for retirement, or whatever it is. You've got all of these eyes on you and they see your headline. If they're interested, they will go there. Like don’t over think this stuff.
Jonathan: Yeah. I've been using that. I think I learned that from you in your course. I've been using that with Strategic Coach. Every time I see a Strategic Coach post, I get up in there and do a little comment and meet the people and I'm starting to notice a trend that more of these folks are reaching out to me lately, and it's just because of that one strategy. [0:11:09.1]
James: Yeah. It's so… like if you get nothing else from this entire podcast, I don’t mean this episode, I mean Financial Advisor Marketing Podcast as a whole, all the episodes that we have done so far - I think this is Episode 41 - if you get nothing else, understand that this is a social network for you to network with other people and you're after a particular person that you can help, that you can add value to through your business or through your products and through your services. When they see that and you hook them, like producer Jonathan said, they're more likely to check you out. They're more likely to go to your website. They're more likely to engage with you and it's just so mindblowingly simple, and I'm amazed that more financial advisors don’t do that. [0:11:52.4]
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: But let's move on to rule #2. Rule #2 - I'm going to keep this short and sweet and it's to avoid sounding too robotic and this is a big mistake, especially on LinkedIn. I know that it's a professional network and you're supposed to be… not uptight or whatever, but you're supposed to project a professional image, but nobody really likes to read these long, extra formal, drawn out messages. Just nobody wants to read that. I mean, I get messages every single day and my assistant, Karen, does too. She's told me about them. She has forwarded me a few that they're just so long. They're so formal. It's like they're sending an essay. There's big blocks of text. [0:13:05.6]
It's just a headache and if you get 10, 12, or 13 of these a day, like I do and like, well she actually gets more than I do - you get these. It's just… you can't catch up after a certain point. You just start zoning people out. If it's not short, if it's not sweet, if it's not a couple of lines to get your attention, you're just going to ignore it. There's an old saying, "When everybody zigs, zag." That saying applies here. It's one of the reasons why my own personal messages, they stand out so well. If you're a financial advisor and I've never messaged you on LinkedIn, I actually don’t do as much of that as I should anymore because I'm focused on other projects, but if you've been following me for many years, there's a good chance that you've gotten a message from me on LinkedIn. They're very short, to the point. I thank you for something. Maybe I give you a resource, something like that, but I am zagging when everyone else zigs. I'm not sending you a long block of text. I'm not sending you an essay. I talk like a human being and it's refreshing. [0:14:05.1]
It's so simple. Again, this stuff is simple. It's not complex. This is not a class. I'm not lecturing you here. I'm not giving you some foreign concept. I'm just telling you about something that you probably already know, but I'm bringing it to the surface. When you talk like a human being, people are more likely to consume your message and act on it. This is not just limited to LinkedIn. If you've been through Appointments on Autopilot, my email marketing system, you realize that all of these emails are, you're just talking like a regular human being. My direct mail pieces are talking like a regular human being. Your website copy - talking like a regular human being. It's really amazing to me how well this works, especially when you consider the fact that financial services websites, as a whole, are the least trusted websites in business by consumers. Consumers do not trust you and they do not trust your LinkedIn profile. Part of the reason is because you're using all this jargon. You're getting drowned out by people who, like me, who sound like human beings, who really engage, who really care and they're not just throwing these blocks of text at you. So avoid sounding too robotic, and I know Jonathan has gotten these messages. He's got to. If it's not on LinkedIn, it's an email, it's direct mail where people just go on and on and you have no idea what they're asking you to do. Right? [0:15:23.7]
Jonathan: I love it. I love the template messages. I start asking them questions like, well what do you mean by that, and they're taken all by surprise, like they don’t even know how to respond.
James: "Dear Sir or Madam: I noticed you had several SEO errors on your website…" I get those all the time. Now, I know Karen gets like 20-30 LinkedIn messages a day. I get 20-30 SEO requests every single day. It's like, "I noticed there are several errors with your site." So I said, "Oh, really?" And I have a screen shot of my Google Search console ready to go, where it says, "Zero errors,"…
Jonathan: Yeah.
James: I just send it right back to them. There is an app called TextExpander that I use; a little plug for them. It saves me so much time, I'm not really going to get into it but TextExpander if you're interested and you want to become more productive. Look at that. [0:16:10.4]
I use that I just go "jjfd" and it just sends it right out. Or "sd" and it sends it right out. I don't have to do it. Rule #3, moving on. You must be consistent.
Now LinkedIn doesn't take a lot of time but you do have to be consistent with it. I tell financial advisors when they ask me - there is no hard and fast rule for this but if someone asks me that and they are looking up to me as the guru or whatever they are looking at me as I have to give them an answer so I say, you allocate 30 minutes a day to reach out to prospects and engage with them. It's not that big of a time commitment but you do have to do it not every single day but maybe every other day. You have to be consistent with it. The beautiful thing about LinkedIn is that you can have the app on your phone, if you ever have some dead time, if you're on the train or you're sitting in a waiting room somewhere just hop on the LinkedIn and reach out to one of your prospects. [0:17:03.2]
Don't play Candy Crush. Don't play whatever the hot, new game is. I don't know if it's like Words with Friends that's over with, right, Jonathan? I don't know.
Jonathan: That was awhile ago.
James: Yeah, Words with Friends. That's the only one I really remember. Whatever the hot, new game is that all the kids are playing, don't play that thing. Get on LinkedIn and send a couple of messages out. I had a doctor's appointment yesterday at 10 o'clock and the lady was running late. And I was like I’m not an impatient person but I'm like come on, you know.
Jonathan: I have an appointment.
James: I have an appointment. Right, I have an appointment for a reason, mame. Let's go. Let's get it moving. But I'm not going to say that to her. So what I did in this case was I pulled out my phone and I sent out a couple of emails. Now you can do the same thing with LinkedIn. You can get back to people. You can engage with. Even if it's just scrolling up and down your feed. Remember what I said, you have people in your target market that you're engaging with on LinkedIn and when you engage with them people in their network can see that as well. [0:18:01.6]
So if there's an influencer for let's say you're working with dentists and you comment on an influencer's status or something like that, the people who follow that person or dentist are going to see you and they are going to see your headline. All of a sudden, you've got more eyeballs on your profile and it's partly a numbers game, yes. And you don't want to obsess about this but when you do have dead time. Let's say you're watching TV and a commercial comes on, you don't want to get your lazy butt off the couch to do anything. Whip out that phone, I know you got it with you every second of every minute of every day and just send some messages out. Then when your Game of Thrones comes back on – that's over too, right, Jonathan? I don't keep up on these hot shows.
Jonathan: I think it is and this last season kind of sucked.
James: Whatever hot show you're watching. I’m actually watching Wu Tang: An American Saga right now.
Jonathan: Oh, man you know what I was – what was her name – Sophia Chang, bro if you listen to audio books listen to her audio book. She talks a lot about Wu Tang.
James: Yeah, you know I think I've listened to a couple of ... anyway we're not going to get off topic.
Jonathan: Yeah. [0:19:07.3]
James: If you're watching Wu Tang: An American Saga and at this point in the show they still haven't got to the formation of Wu Tang, I don't care about the mother and the sister just get to Wu Tang, protect your neck , you know. If you're watching that you pull out a couple of messages. Maybe you're watching a rerun of the Golden Girls. Pull out LinkedIn and get to work because never before has this type of access been available to financial advisors. It's incredible. I mean if you just think through the numbers, you'll realize how powerful this consistency can be. Let's assume you only reach out to 20 people per day on LinkedIn. That's it, 20. Of course, we're going to assume that’s in your target market. That means every single month, 30 days times 20 is 600 people. Even if only 2% of those people set an appointment with you that's 12 extra appointments per month and it's not that hard to do. [0:20:04.5]
You did while watching Wu Tang Wednesday. You're setting these appointments. Especially when you realize what I just talked about – all that stuff how you can pull out your phone, you can start engaging with people. It doesn't need to be some formal strategy. If you want it, I have "How to Get Clients with LinkedIn" but it can be much more relaxed. It can be much more casual than virtually any other marketing method out there. So to recap, those are the three rules for getting clients with LinkedIn. I will tell you one more time in case you're taking notes. Number one, have a niche. Number two, avoid sounding too robotic, "Dear Sir or Madam, Would you like a second opinion on your financial plan?" Don't do that. Number three, be consistent. And if you are interested I have a product that's literally called "How to Get Clients with LinkedIn" and that's where I detail my exact word for word connection request that's where the money is. The reason I can charge my charge is because I have tested that over everything else and it's beaten everything else. So when you use that, you'll greatly improve your chances for success. And I give you my overall strategy and if you get it, you get it. If you don't, you don't. Either way I will be back next week to help you with some more stuff. [0:21:17.9]
Jonathan: Stuff. You're not even going to give us a hint what that stuff is?
James: The stuff may or may not be three things. I know we talk about three rules here maybe next week it will be three things that turn off potential clients.
Jonathan: Alright, bam! Thank you for tuning in. We will be back in your earbuds next time. That is a wrap for another Financial Advisors Marketing
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