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: Hello Financial Advisor Marketers, my fam, I love you. Thanks for, thank you so much for tuning in, I’m glad to have you here. This week's episode is going to be about systems, you probably saw the title when you downloaded the show. It's called ‘3 Systems Financial Advisors Must Have To Grow Their Businesses’, not the sexiest topic in the world, but Hey, I'd rather give you some substance, some value.
Jonathan: Ooohhh.
James: Rather than some dog and pony show that you'll never use. Well systems, it's funny because the more I work with advisors and the more that I grow my own business, like I've got the independent contractors in it. I've got the freelancers and I've got the virtual assistants and all these different people that do things that just didn't exist a year or so ago, or at least not in that capacity. I have been thinking a lot more about systems and I've gotten pretty darn good at it. And it's such a shame because it's like a natural talent for me. And I wish I discovered this earlier and it's got me thinking, like, what if there's other talents out there that I don't know about? I'm sure there. Sure there are, but I'm very shocked at, I mean, I don't like to delegate necessarily, but I can create the machine to work. [01:45.2]
I can, that's what I do with email marketing. That's what I do with social media marketing, but with people as well and systems are important because they allow you to scale your business without breaking it. They also help increase your productivity because you have a proven repeatable process for getting things done. And the reason most business owners don't have systems is because they think one dimensionally. And let me use an example from the insurance world to set the stage for this idea, because a lot of financial advisors, when I explain stuff in marketer speak, I mean, I'm talking about things, everything from like Russell Brunson, as an example, to certain software, to other things, they just, they kind of sort of get it and then they kind of sort of don't, so let me use a, an insurance example. [02:29.3]
Sometimes people will say that their spouses don't need life insurance because they don't work. So I want you to think of a husband who has a wife and the wife doesn't work. And let's say that they have two or three kids. And the wife is the one who stays home and takes care of the kids. Well, is that not valuable? I mean, is that not worth something? If anything ever happened to her, the husband could hire a nanny or an assistant or a cleaning company or someone to pitch in and help him raise the children. Or he could stop working for a little bit to take care of the kids without worrying about the drop in income. So I would make the argument that if you're raising children and depending on one spouse's income, you definitely need insurance on both spouses. And the reason I'm giving this particular for example, is because focusing on just income as justification for having life insurance, meaning you only need to ensure people who are earning an income, that's thinking one dimensionally. [03:30.2]
You, there are situations where you may want to insure someone who isn't earning an income and people who don't use systems, they are typically one dimensional thinkers. All they know is their ability to put foot on gas, make car go faster, that's it. They don't think about the MPG. They don't think about aerodynamics to health of the engine, they don't think about anything else. All these other variables affecting the car. They just think feet go down car go fast, that's it. They're one dimensional bankers. And before the call, this is actually pretty funny, producer Jonathan and I were talking about me purchasing a Tesla in the near future. And my wife kindly let me know that I was not allowed to purchase the performance model because I would put foot down make cargo fast, and she doesn't want that. I would do that fairly frequently, financial advisors. We had a red light, Hey, you want to race?
Jonathan: Yeah. [04:26.4]
James: That's me. That's my personality. So she, she kindly.
Jonathan: Yeah.
James: Let me know that that wasn't in my future, unfortunately, but one day maybe I can convince her otherwise, producer Jonathan.
Jonathan: Well...
James: Let me have it. Let me have the faster car. Oh, well she's saving me money, I guess, that's how I look at it. She's preventing me from spending the extra like $10,000. I don't know how much it is. I think it's $10,000. Yeah.
Jonathan: That’s right.
James: So I will take it. I, I think on the positive side, Jonathan. She says, no, you don't want, you don't need performance, you don't have it. I'm like, Oh, well, thank you for preventing me from spending the $10,000, so.
Jonathan: That goes with your personality, that ways the number stays up that much. [05:12.2]
James: Hmmm….Yes. Well, that's the thing, if so I call the Tesla. I don't even know what it's called. It's not technically a dealership, but there's one in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. And I called him and I was like, Hey, can a player get that demo model, the showroom model. So that's, that's the thing I'm always looking for good deal. I'm trying to save the money here. I figure if I can make a 15 minute call and they say, sure, you can get the showroom model for $3,000 less. Well, gosh, darn I just did $12,000 an hour with that one call?
Jonathan: Nice.
James: Why not? Right. But they basically laughed at me. And they were like Uhhh…NO. You're not, you're not getting the showroom demo model. Get out of here, go order it online. It takes four to eight weeks at the time of this recording, we're not giving you the showroom model, but that's what I wanted. I was like, give me the one they've went over with a fine tooth comb, making sure that everything's cool because it's being presented to customers, making sure everything's okay. Give me that model and all, because I'm doing you such a favor and taking it and off your hands, maybe you can knock a little couple thousand dollars off the price, but [06:19.5]
Jonathan: James, you know, better than that's their marketing, bro.
James: I understand. I thought it was worth a try, but then I got laughed off the phone. Their laugh was so loud, they could hear it in Minnesota. They just, they laughed me right out. But Hey, that's cool. So here I am being the sucker, I guess, paying full price or going to pay full price for this car. But at least I'm not getting the performance model, I guess I can be grateful for that.
Jonathan: At least.
James: Now.
Jonathan: Keep telling yourself that.
James: Now, before we start talking about the ‘3 systems financial advisors must have’, I want to say that these are not the only systems you should have. In fact, the systems are fractal. You can have systems inside of systems. You can have a system for how you file your folders and then another system for how you organize the papers in each folder, it's fractal, they keep going. It's like, if you, the 80 20 rule, you can 80 20, the top 20%, then you can 80 20 that and you can 80 20, it’s fractal. [07:24.3]
And it would be impossible to go through every little nitty gritty detail of systems building for financial advisors in a little 20 minute podcast episode. So I'm going to do my best to give you a broad overview. So you can hit the ground running. First you need an attraction system, this is what most financial advisors think of when they hear marketing. This system is all about getting in front of people, getting prospects, to demonstrate interest and getting them to set an appointment. And like I said, I am repeating myself at this point, but it's fractal. You can have a seminar marketing system within your attraction system. Then you can have a system for how you present and you can have a system for that and you can keep going and going and going. You could have an email marketing system within your attraction system and you can continue to go down that path. Ideally, you want multiple marketing strategies all under the umbrella of your attraction system. If you're a longtime listener, I have beaten this into your thick cranium. [08:22.5]
And one of my favorite pieces of an attraction system is a website because your website can “talk to people”, no matter what you're doing, they can browse your content, they can research more about you, who you are, what you do before they ever reach out before they ever interact with you. They can get a sense of who you are, what you're all about, it's a wonderful thing. And I feel bad for all the financial advisors who work at companies who won't allow them to have a real website. They got to do whatever daddy says, and daddy says no websites, they cannot have one. But the truth is, if you don't have a real website, you're leaving a literal fortune on the table. And I don't even sell website design services. I don't sell websites, I don't sell any of that stuff. I'm just telling you the truth, there's no agenda with the website thing here. It's just, if you don't have one you're in for a real bad time. [09:17.3]
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James: And another piece I like is direct mail. Mail is an incredibly effective way to filter through people and get a response from people who are interested. I actually, I mean, I did an interview with Craig Simpson and it's absolute gold and it's an inner circle bonus, which you can download and listen to as soon as you should drive to the inner circle newsletter over at TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching, one more time TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching. And honestly that one bonus alone can pay for your newsletter subscription in perpetuity. It is that good and Craig is the man when it comes to direct mail. He even blew my mind and I'm already pretty good. I'm pretty good at this stuff. I've been doing it for years and I've been specializing in helping financial advisors. But the stuff that he talks about is so next level; even I was like taking notes. I'm like, Oh, I got to do this, I got to help them with this, I got to do this, so really like get that. [10:48.0]
And within your attraction system, I always, I always like LinkedIn. LinkedIn is really cool because your profile probably ranks in Google for your name and people can connect with you when they search for your name. They can engage with you without any serious commitment. That's, what's really nice about LinkedIn from a prospect perspective, of course, is that they can kind of lurk. They can sit in the cut, they can relax, they can check you out. LinkedIn has a bunch of these lurkers. They'll just watch you for a long time without doing anything. But then they do, just like they don't do anything. They just watch till they do, and that's your attraction system. [11:27.0]
And the next system you want, number two is your follow-up system. And this is where lots of people drop the ball and it's an incredible waste of marketing resources. Imagine spending a bunch of time and energy to bring people into your world and then not follow up with them. It's crazy! People spend all this money, people are so addicted to tactics like online ads and content and having the prettiest website. Now that can help all that stuff can help, sure. But then they don't follow up with people and it is just nuts. And I'm glad that producer Jonathan, I'm glad you have the podcast factory and I hope that when you sell the podcast factory as, as a business, meaning not sell the business, but to consumers, you say, well, the podcast are essentially a follow-up system because if you have 50 episodes, right? I mean, it's like if people listen to all 50, you've essentially followed up with them 50 times. [12:24.7]
Jonathan: Yeah.
James: That's a good way to look at it.
Jonathan: You call it an asset, creating an asset.
James: Absolutely! It just works for you. You could be on vacation, you could be truly being your podcast is always going to be there. And I think about follow up whenever I go to restaurants and I joined their rewards, clubs and stuff, most of them don't follow up. I mean, I'm giving you an email address; my favorite location, my birthday, and I get nothing except maybe $3 off, maybe a free appetizer. It's goofy. It's just so goofy because if I was the one running that restaurant and running the follow-up, I would give incentives to return at a favorite location, I’d give a birthday discount, I'd asked for their anniversary, I'd asked for any other special events. I see how many friends they have. I would ask if they have recommendations or put a Sierra button on there and more, I would leverage follow up. Like you've never seen…that would just revolutionize it. [13:21.5]
I think, I mean, we, we go out to different restaurants all the time. I think maybe five of them have had good follow-up sequences. I mean, could I pay attention to this stuff? Because I'm in marketing, right, it's just what I do. Maybe five have had good ones and one of them was a Disney. So no shocker there, right? I mean, Disney's got their stuff together. So of course they're gonna do everything right cause if you're taking over the world essentially. But yeah, it's, it's so sad, it's just like, Oh, here's just $5 to spend at your birthday once a year. Well, what about all the other months? What about all the other dates? What about the friends that I have? Like, it just, it blows my mind and financial advisors have the same problem. The best way I've seen to solve it thus far is with email. Because depending on the study you read it because different studies have different methodologies and stuff like that. Anywhere from 92 to 98% of people who visit a website for the first time, they're not ready to do business. But if you put an email opt in on your website, people can opt in to your email list and basically give you permission to follow up with them. It's a wonderful thing. [14:32.5]
And guess what happens when you follow up, a percentage of those people set an appointment, it's not magic, it's just math. All you're doing is implementing a follow-up system where none existed before. That's it! And I don't want to talk too much about follow-up because it's one of the things I frequently see. I frequently talk about an inner circle newsletters, and I want to respect the people who have paid for the information, but I will tell you this, most of the time implementing a follow-up strategy is one of the biggest, quick wins I can give any financial advisor, just follow up more. I mean, I've already said too much, so I'm gonna keep it moving. [15:06.5]
The third system that you want to have is a financial advisor. And again, this is not the end all be all, but these can get you get, you started pretty quickly as an onboarding system. Now this can really be two different systems, but I wanted to lump them together here for the sake of brevity and because this show is more or less about getting clients, it's not about keeping them. Yes, every so often I will write about keeping clients in the blog. I write about it in my emails, but this show is financial advisor marketing. It's about getting clients, but that doesn't mean onboarding isn't important. It's critical. And it's critical that you deliver a solid experience every single time you want to be welcoming, comforting, and most importantly of all, well perhaps most importantly of all, you want to reinforce the fact that your client made a good decision. And I'm going to reveal one of my tricks here. I'm going to pull back the curtain. What did you say? You pull back to Kimono, something like that. [16:07.2]
Jonathan: That's Ben Settle. Oh no that’s Doberman Dan.
James: Pull back the kimono here. When you purchase a digital product from me, the thank you page it basically says, send your testimonials to james@theadvisorcoach.com. Now why do I do that? Is it because I'm going to use the testimonial somewhere? Well, not always. I mean, in fact I really don't use most of the testimonials I get. Because I don't know, I'm just bad at that. Sometimes I ask, like, if I'm there and I really check the email, but I'm checking my email like once a day at this point, aside from the inner circle subscribers. And if I happen to see it and it's like within five minutes, I'll just shoot an email back, like, Hey, can I use this testimonial? But most of the time I'm, I'm bad at that. I really should start asking more. [16:53.2]
But the reason I do it is because I want to reinforce your decision. I want you to immediately start thinking about implementation and results. I want you to realize that you made a good decision right away. I asked for your testimonial because you, because quite frankly, you think, wow, this stuff is good. I'm going to give results. Cause you are. And I should send the testimonial when I do. So it's like a win win for me and you. You get the result, I get a testimonial. We're reinforcing the mere act of me, reinforcing that belief into people who purchased, makes them more likely to implement. So all of this is done on purpose and you had to do the same thing with your clients. During the first few weeks, when you've got a new client here as a financial advisor, you've got to do everything in your power to reinforce this idea that they made a good decision, deliver some immediate value because we're paying you that point. You want to give all the value that you can for what they're paying for. Send a ‘thank you’ note; go above and beyond for them. Do whatever you need to do to get the job done and then put it into a repeatable process so you can deliver it every time. So those are the three systems, financial advisors, number one, the attraction system. Number two, the follow-up system, arguably the most important because it's where people spend so much time and money and energy and resources on marketing and just follow up. It's nuts. And number three, the onboarding system, and that is it for this week. It's a rap producer, Jonathan. [18:28.6]
Jonathan: Boom! Drop the mic, but after you tell us what's coming up next week.
James: Next week is going to be all about my advice for what I like to call Soon-to-be Rich Financial Advisors.
Jonathan: About that, I'm out looking forward to it. All right. Financial advisor marketers, fam. We'll be back in your earbuds next time. Thank you for tuning in. [18:50.0]
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