You're listening to Financial Adviser Marketing, the best show on the planet for financial advisers 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 TheAdviserCoach.com, where you can find an entire suite of products designed to help financial advisers grow their businesses more rapidly than ever before. Now, here is your host, James Pollard. [00:31.7]
James: Welcome to the Financial Advisor Marketing podcast If you're not at least somehow involved in financial services, you're in the wrong place because, and I honestly have no idea how you got here, but this is for financial advisors, insurance agents, financial planners, accountants, tax planners, and so on, all of those people listen to the show. I also know for a fact that real estate agents listened to the show because..
Jonathan: What?
James: Few of them have emailed me, which is weird because at first glance, this isn't for them, yet the more I talk about strategy and how to think and business building as a whole, the more they listen. And one of them asked me, I know you used to be involved in real estate game. You got some real estate podcasts under the podcast factory umbrella, Jonathan?
Jonathan: Yeah, lots of them. I still own a real estate. And I'm a tired landlord. [01:21.7]
James: Hmm…Well, one of them asked me a question about how to get more listings. And I was like, I don't know, Facebook ads. Like I have no clue. I'm not involved in that world. I really don't know. You have to understand, I really only work with financial advisors. In the past I've had attorney clients back when we were doing the done ‘done for you marketing stuff’, where we were running people's ads and doing all that stuff, we don't do that anymore. But I would have like, attorneys just basically begged me to take them on as clients, because the same process is kinda sorta swap over financial services and attorneys and lawyers and stuff like that. But we cut that off completely cause it was just a pain in the neck, but I'm really only work with financial advisors. People who manage money, do financial planning, all that sort of stuff, helping those people that's my superpower. I'm like the Hawk there, everything else. I'm just Bruce Banner. And you got to think that way. That's why I want financial advisors to have a niche. [02:17.9]
If you work specifically with physicians, you're going to be the Hawk there. You're going to be Hawk smash every single day, but with teachers, you're just Bruce Banner. You've got to put yourself in a place where you were going to be the Hawk every single day. And that's why I love what I do, that's why I have the energy that I bring to the table. That's why I have the newsletter, that's why I've got all the blog posts. What is this? This is like episode 86 now?
Jonathan: Sir 86 already.
James: Holy crap! What am I doing with my life? I mean, you got to think about that, like 86 episodes. I'm coming at you every single week to give you stuff. I love to do this. I love helping financial advisors, but man, you've to get in where you fit in. And I'm so blessed, and I'm so grateful to know that I am in an area where I can get results for people, because I mean, that's what it's all about. And in today's episode, I'm going to talk about some weird things, successful financial advisors do that you probably don't do. [03:14.5]
And I do want to start off and I'm glad I did kind of start off by admitting how lucky I am to even have this vantage point. Because most people don't, I mean, it's just the truth. There's a lot of groups where advisors get together, there's a lot of masterminds and whatnot. But once you have to realize is that these groups only attract a certain type of an advisor. They attract the type of advisor who is a) willing to grow and actively looking for resources to grow and b) is already fairly successful. So for better or worse, my business, TheAdvisorCoach.com, The Advisor Coach, LLC, it attracts all types of financial advisors. I'm just being transparent with you. I've got advisors who purchased your first year and then quit a few months later. I've got advisors who have been inner circle members for years and inner circle members being cream of the crop, like the best financial advisors. It's arguably the greatest thing I offer is the inner circle newsletter. My point is I see both sides of the coin and that's important because if you only see the successful financial advisors, meaning if, if you've got like a $50,000 per year mastermind, well, you've got to have at least some level of success and in order to be, even be at the table, they're at the mastermind. [04:23.1]
So the mastermind by definition and by default is only attracting a certain type of advisor and that can lead to survivorship bias. And survivorship bias is defined as, let me get the definition here, we got it in front of me. It is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and the overlooking those that did not typically because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to false conclusions in several different ways. So survivorship bias, I mean, Holy crap, it runs rampant in financial services because here's what happens. A lot of success traits that people talk about they're present in both financial advisors who succeed and financial advisors who don't succeed. That's the huge glaring critical mistake that most people make. And I'll admit I've made this mistake because it's incredibly hard to separate out the survivorship bias. I don't think it's possible to do it completely because financial advisors are so diverse. [05:25.2]
There are so many different companies, there's so many different philosophies. There are so many different unique selling propositions. So many different variables within a person's business. But there are a few that you can, a few traits that you can see where survivorship bias is minimal. And like I've fallen victim to basically touting different traits that don't take into account survivorship bias. Like I'm being completely transparent, I've made that mistake. For example, I've said that discipline is important. I've said the competitiveness is important. And I've said that curiosity is important, but here's the thing you got to think about this, both failed and successful financial advisors have those traits, so the only explained so much. Now it may be true that successful financial advisors have these traits in a higher quantity, right? Maybe they're a little bit more curious. They're more competitive. They are more disciplined. Maybe that's true. But again, it only explains so much because of survivorship bias. [06:20.7]
So with that said, I'm going to try my best to give you some things successful. Financial advisors do that others don't. I can't make any promises that I have fully eliminated the survivorship bias because I mean, I'm sure some failed financial advisors have these things and do these things, but they have an incredibly strong correlation with success and success only. Now I know you read a lot of self-improvement books, Jonathan. Have you ever thought about some of these traits that people who have failed also have like this survivorship bias thing?
Jonathan: I, as you read that, I was like, Oh man, I've got this, bad. I never thought of the flip side of it. I just thought all of us have these things in common that's why we hang out together. But I didn't think the flip side of it.
James: So I think that, that, I think there's some merit to that though, because you do want to have certain traits. Like there are certain traits that are necessary, but not sufficient, meaning you, I feel like that is with persistence, just to give you an example, I feel like persistence is necessary. Like you've got to be persistent to succeed because you've got to stick to your plan and you've got to go towards your goals and all that stuff, you've got to have persistence but it's not sufficient. Meaning that's not all it takes, like you've got to have some more traits in there. So there are people who have utterly failed in business who were dog-on persistent, like, they kept at it and they kept going, but they did the wrong things. [07:45.1]
Jonathan: Yeah.
James: Yeah, like they weren't thinking clearly they didn't make good decisions. So you got to consider these traits that not only eliminate survivorship bias or try hard to get rid of it as much as possible, but also figure out which traits are necessary, what's sufficient. I know there were some financial advisors who were like, Oh my God, just tell me what to post on my Facebook ad.
Jonathan: No doubt.
James: Tell me which headline to use? Should I use seven, seven ways people can plan for retirement or should I use seven reasons people fail at retirement? Like this is financial advisor marketing, isn't it? Oh, okay. So these traits that's, successful advisors do that others don't: Number one, successful financial advisors don't view marketing in a vacuum. And I talked about this concept in last week's episode and it was a great one, like it was a good episode. If you haven't listened to that one, go back and listen to it, it's called ‘Marketing Vs. Prospecting: What's the difference?’ [08:41.5]
So successful financial advisors, those who have weathered some storms, they continue to serve their clients, they continue to achieve their goals. They're the ones who understand that marketing is much more than just a line item on a, on a budget. It's all encompassing, they're cognizant of how everything they do either helps them or hurts them. And I even talk about how your office looks. Is that marketing? Yes, it is. Because it can either move people closer to you or they can take them away from you. They can take them far, far away, where they would never consider doing business with you. I gave an example of a bank treating me well on day one. And then screwing up after that, both of those are marketing. The bank screw ups are just bad marketing. Now, yes, marketing does involve stuff like content, email, social media, direct mail, phone calls, handwritten notes, all that stuff. But marketing is much more than those things. You aren't ever done marketing. It never ends. If you publish a blog post, you aren't finished marketing. Marketing just is so really like seriously, go back and listen to that episode if you haven't, because it's just it's, I hate the term game changer, but like, it really is. [09:51.0]
Trait Number two: They blanket their niche markets. And I talked about this and deep dive into niche marketing, which you can get at TheAdvisorCoach.com/niche. Check it out. It's it's seriously like a deep dive into Niche Marketing. It’s a 103 minutes of video content and it's designed specifically for financial advisors who want to take their business to the next level. In fact, here's a little tidbit for you, Jonathan.
Jonathan: Yes.
James: Did you know that 70% of financial advisors who make more than a million dollars per year focused on a niche?
Jonathan: I do now.
James: Yeah. [10:26.1]
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James: But that's wild though. 70%, they just look at the people making over a million dollars a year. 70% of them all have that in common. How's that for eliminating survivorship bias?
Jonathan: Boom!
James: You got it. But this is a high level observation that I made and well, that's not entirely true. I mean, it's been around for a long time, so I'm not taking credit for this. This is not new information. None of this is the niche stuff. None of that is really original, just being transparent with you. But it's one of the things where I've truly been able to keep survivorship bias to a minimum, meaning that for the most part only successful financial advisors do this. So the 70% who make a million dollars or more per year, yes, they have a niche market. But when you actually dig deep into the data, when you actually look at the financial advisors who are making more than a million dollars per year, who have a niche, the ones who are the most successful within that segment, they blanket their niche markets and here's the difference. [12:06.2]
Almost everybody knows you should have a niche. It's been a hot topic for the past few years, I've been preaching it since 2015. Yes, it's a good strategy. However, there have been advisors who choose a niche and still fail or quit. Why? That's because, based on what I'm seeing is because they have failed to properly reach the niche. And this is yet another example of why having multiple marketing strategies is the Holy Grail of all financial advisor marketing. Let me explain, just because a financial advisor chooses a niche doesn't mean he or she will have an impact because imagine you choose to work with people in government, even though you've niched down. Yes, you've got a niche, people in government. Congratulations! Let's throw your party. You're still in this vast ocean of government officials. And I think there's something like 2 million government employees in the United States. That's a lot of people and
Jonathan: I know. [13:02.4]
James: Yeah, it's crazy. Right? We got big bankroll here, financing all these people working in government. Is your taxpayer dollars at work Jonathan?
Jonathan: Don’t get me started on that.
James: Man, inflation. I don't want to get off topic, but Holy crap, inflation's going to be rampant with all that stimulus stuff and.
Jonathan: Money money.
James: Money printed go bruuu bruuu. Bruuu print that money fed. Go ahead. I sent, I sent an email out back in April. The subject line was the fed is making it rain.
Jonathan: Hmm. I love it.
James: And people, that got the most unsubscribes I think of any email that I sent in April.
Jonathan: That must hurt.
James: People are like, no, I don't want to listen to this. They, whatever they, yeah, fed was making it rain. Fed still making it rain. Fed doesn't…like Honey badger don't care, fed don't care. Here's the thing back to the niche thing, 2 million people in government, that's a lot of people, I don't know you or your business, but I will be willing to bet that you probably don't have the time. You don't have the money. You don't have the energy to market to 2 million people, just a wild guess. And even if you did, it likely wouldn't be effective. [14:10.9]
I would rather niche down again and blanket that market. And by blanket the market, I mean, basically reach everybody right, in case that wasn't clear. Make sure that they all know me. Make sure they've seen my face several times. You can approach the exact same market from different angles because your resources, they stretch much longer. So let's say you niche down again to government employees in Rhode Island. And I just Googled this before the show. And I found out that Rhode Island has 14,058 government workers. Now we're talking because it will be much easier to reach this market several times. Not just once you can reach them with a note, you can reach them with a call. You can meet them with a direct mail piece. You can reach them with a seminar or a webinar, an online ad, you can social. You can get there, you can blanket them and you can break. You can break through all the noise. [15:00.4]
So rather than going after government workers where there's literally 2 million of them in the United States, you could niche down again. You could go after government workers in Rhode Island. And guess what? All of the sudden your blog posts or your lead magnet or whatever your title now goes from attention, government workers to attention government workers in Rhode Island. And then, then once you can do is advertise to people in Rhode Island. Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding.
Jonathan: Taaa…dahhhh..
James: Not that hard. You just got to know that this stuff exists. It's so easy. Like it's like breathing for me. I breathe in, breathe out. It's just, I see this stuff. I see opportunity everywhere. So that's trait number two. Trait Number three: Is: they take their own advice.
Jonathan: No way.
James: Hmm…It's going to hit hard, Jonathan. So get ready. Put your seatbelt on. This is another thing I've noticed that successful advisors do that most unsuccessful advisors don't. Like I said, their survivorship bias it's really hard to filter out, but this is something that I've seen. It's like somebody selling Chevy's by driving a Toyota. [16:10.7]
It immediately damages the sales person's credibility. And even if the sales person kept the Toyota hidden from his customers, it would still mess with his psyche. It would affect how he approached potential customers. It would affect how he interacted with them. So if you're selling insurance, you better have a lot of insurance. If you provide financial plans, you better have a plan for yourself. And if you're providing financial advice, you better for all that love of all that is good and Holy have your own financial house in order. If you're doing something that you don't personally believe in enough to do it yourself, that's a clue that maybe just, maybe you're not in the right career. And this seems so obvious when I say it out loud, but you will be surprised at how many so-called financial advisors don't have a regular savings plan. It's insane, literally like insane. I don't get it. I cannot relate because you're going out. You're trying to convince people to do something that you don't do yourself. [17:15.7]
It just blows my mind. I'm kind of getting a little bit of a headache right now, thinking about it. So for example what, I offer, what is in my biased opinion, the most illustrious newsletter for financial advisors in the world, but here's the thing. I'm also subscribed to a bunch of different paid newsletters myself. In fact, it is my favorite type of product to buy because newsletters keep me accountable. They give me ongoing education. And because I have an investor mindset, I know that one tip in one issue like a year from now two years from now, that could be the difference between not at all and adding tens of thousands of dollars to my bottom line, putting that in my business, paying myself and paying back the newsletter info in perpetuity, but it doesn't even stop there because the information compounds over time, I can start putting together all this information from various issues and create something that didn't exist before. All of these issues and newsletter issues that I personally subscribe to and pay for they merge together and they shift the financial odds in my favor. [18:14.1]
And the same is true with financial advisors. I'm not recommending a newsletter just for kicks and giggles here. I'm recommending it because like, it's, it's honestly the best tool you can use because it's like every single month you're getting something that you can apply, you can implement, you can do it immediately. It's cheap enough to where anybody can afford it. And it's expensive enough to keep the tire kickers out, which means that there won't be saturation, there won't be everybody won't use the marketing strategies all at the same time and make them ineffective because that happens with a lot of other industries with a bunch of free information. They're like do this thing and everybody does it a thing and it becomes ineffective. So that won't happen with my inner circle newsletter because it only attracts a certain type of financial advisors and those are the ones who are going to win. They're going to crush you like it's just going to happen. [19:03.6]
So if you want to check out the inner circle newsletter, go to TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching. You're either part of the, part of the problem or you're part of the solution in the industry as a whole. And I'm working together, I want to be your partner in success. So those are the three things that ‘Successful financial advisors do that unsuccessful financial advisors don't do.’ And I think this is one of the most illuminating episodes I've ever done, because I really had to think to put these three things together. It's not like I just sat down and wrote it on a post-it note or something. Like I sat down and I was like, okay, I had to rack my brain to dive deep. And I had to figure out the things that really truly made the difference. And I'm sure there's a bunch more, I may do another episode like this in the future, but producer Jonathan, I think we are out of time.
Jonathan: Alright. That was awesome, James. So what do you have coming up for us next time?
James: The title, I think the title is going to be ‘3 Systems Financial Advisors Must Have To Grow Their Businesses.’
Jonathan: He’s following the law threes. Alright looking forward to that, another financial advisor marketing is in the can. We'll be back in your ear buds next time. Thank you for tuning. [20:10.3]
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