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: Hey financial advisors, welcome to episode of Financial Advisor Marketing, I am your host James Pollard here with producer, Jonathan of ThePodcastFactory.com. And I want to start off by talking about one of my favorite movies of all time, which is Scarface.
Jonathan: Alright. All right. We're starting there.
James: We're down in Florida. I mean, you wrote something on social media the other day, like I'm in Florida where you're liable to get shot for
Jonathan: Yeah.
James: Walking…
Jonathan: Hell yeah. For walking in the door un invited. We got guns and we're not afraid to use them.
James: Amen. And I am with you on the gun thing. I I'm consistently amazed. You've got the same people who were basically saying, now remember, I'm not trying to get political with this, but I'm just calling it like I see it. You got people who are basically saying you don't need guns. What do you need a gun for? Those are the, just call the police if you have a problem. These are the same people who are saying, Oh, defund the police?
Jonathan: Defund, okay. [01:34.1]
James: Just other fricking day, you were talking about how I could call the police by the problem that I didn't need a gun. And now you're basically saying defund the police. What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? So if you, I could care. I could, I could not care less what you decide to do financial advisors, but just if you're going to pick a stance on something, whether it's political, whether it's business, whatever, like make sure you're consistent with it. Don't be one of those people who say you don't need a gun call the police. And then a week later defund the police. So it's just.
Jonathan: Don't get political James.
James: Yeah. Well now the, back to Scarface, the main character of that movie is a gentleman named Tony Montana. And he's played by Al Pachino. And if you're not familiar with the movie, Tony rises through the ranks to become the biggest drug Lord in Miami. And you get to see him climbing the ladder of, I guess, drug Lord success. I don't know what else to call it. [02:31.7]
And in hip hop culture and business culture, there's a lot of references to Tony Montana and people use his name when they're talking about being a baller and being in control and all that. And what I realized because I was watching a movie. You don't want to be Tony Montana. You want to be Alejandro Sosa because Sosa was the one who funded Tony everything. Sosa was in charge of the entire operation. He was the mastermind behind everything. And in the same sense, you don't want to be the star quarterback. You want to be the guy who owns the team. Why be Tom Brady when you can be the guy who signs Tom Brady's checks. That's the real baller. So financial visors dream bigger. Don't be Tony be Sosa. Now let's get into the episode as titled ‘Stop Trying to Please Everyone.’ I figured this would be a good topic because it's something that can not only improve your marketing, but it can improve your life as well. So I'm going to talk about both sides on the show today. [03:36.75]
At some level, we are all wired to seek acceptance. We want to be liked, we want to be accepted by others, this is part of our biology. And in the early years of humankind, it was absolutely necessary for survival, but there are certain ways that acceptance seeking is harming you and your business. So let's begin by talking about the marketing side. I've seen many instances where companies and individuals want to change their marketing and they make it so bland so vanilla that it doesn't appeal to anyone. They're so desperate to try to appeal to everyone that they end up appealing to no one. And the sad thing is that sometimes this marketing can, it can eke out a profit. It can make a little tiny little bit of money. And here's a story that illustrates the point. Back in the 1980s, a little old man, legendary marketer named Gary Halbert, maybe you've heard of him producer Jonathan. [04:36.4]
Jonathan: Yes Sir.
James: One of the best of all time, he was asked to go to Las Vegas to see somebody who was in trouble. And the guy who was in trouble was the nephew of Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. And he inherit, I don't know. I don't even think it's Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore. It's gotta be KFC, right? Cause it's
Jonathan: Yeah.
James: Not technically chicken anymore. Or at least that's what the urban legend is. And not allowed to call it Kentucky Fried Chicken because.
Jonathan: Nice.
James: It’s not really chicken, it's like rats on steroids or whatever. Allegedly, this is what people say. I'm not saying the KFC has rats in their chicken or whatever This is all urban legend. At least I think it is. But anyway, the guy who was the nephew of Colonel Sanders, he was in trouble. He inherited a bunch of the Colonel's money. He invested it in a lot of like high price vitamins essentially was what it was. And he wanted to sell these vitamins through the mail. [05:33.7]
And he had one mailing that was already working. And he said he was mailing between 300,000 and 1.2 million letters every single month and it was making, a decent profit. But Gary Halbert found that the mailing was working in spite of how terrible it was. So he asked to redo it. Now pause here for a second financial advisors. I want you to think, is it possible? Like, I mean, I know that we all want to protect our ego and our egos are fragile. I understand that. But is it possible that maybe your marketing is working in spite of how terrible it is? Maybe if you improve it, you can get more results. You can get more clients, you can set more appointments, you can make more money. You can make more of an impact. Just something to think about now, not, not calling anybody out in particular, you protect your ego if you want to. It's just something to think about. Back to our story, the Colonel's nephew, he agreed to let Gary try it to redo the letter and he made a deal. So Gary cleaned up the mailing. He reformatted it a little bit. It took him about 45 minutes. And that promotion ended up pulling in approximately $96,000 more every single month. [06:44.8]
Jonathan: Wow.
James: Little change, 45 minutes and extra 100K almost every single month. And the moral of that little story is to show you that it's completely possible that by tweaking your marketing just a little bit, you can get amazing results. And when it comes to your marketing, don't be afraid to call out the type of person that you really want to work with. So if you want to work with pediatricians, but $250,000 or more in investible assets, make sure you say that. Don't beat around the bush. Say it loud and clouds and loud and cloud loud and clear so nobody can get it twisted. It will save you a bunch of time. You won't have to deal with unqualified people. Now, of course, it'll probably decrease your response because that's what happens. The more you, the more specific you get within a certain market, you're going to decrease your response. But that doesn't matter because you're not really in the response business, you're in business to make money. [07:41.8]
You shouldn't be worried about the clicks or the likes or the engagement. You should be worried about one thing, dollars in versus dollars out. And people have a hard time understanding what I mean when I say that and they have a hard time understanding what I mean when I say this, ‘some of my highest converting emails also had the lowest open rates.’ You've got so many people who are talking about Oh, five things to do to increase your open rates. Now it's not a bad idea to increase your open rates. Like sure if increasing your open rates also increases how much money you make sure I'm all about increasing my open rates. But some of the highest converting emails I've personally ever sent had some of the lowest open rates. But here's the thing, I was very clear about who I wanted to open that email. So the result was that even though fewer total people opened it, the conversion rate was higher because the offer inside was a perfect fit for those who did open it. There's a reason why I constantly preach qualification. It's because it makes your marketing more effective. You can appeal to a smaller group of people, yes. But it's heads and shoulders above everything else. Now, do you qualify at all at the podcast factory? Are you just accepting anybody with a pulse, producer Jonathan? [08:56.3]
Jonathan: If you got a credit card and it goes through, I take you.
James: But what if they had…what if they give you credits
Jonathan: No…no…no…no. We don't, we, we, we're pretty, we're pretty picky about who we work with. That's why we have to have the call ahead of time and make sure that we're working with the right kind of people.
James: And I know our call on Monday. We do on every Monday, at least at the time of this recording, the people of the podcast factory, we just get together for a little hoedown on video chat.
Jonathan: A lunchtime hoedown.
James: And this Monday it was like a, like a sausage Fest on that thing.
Jonathan: Yeah. I haven't posted the video either, but I got a little, a chauvinist on that one.
James: It's like, you just attract all the guys and then what the heck is going on here? I know there are women in the podcast factory, and I listened to 'em. I listened to several people within the podcast factory. I listened to the podcast when I have time. Recently, I haven't been listening as much, but I try my best. And man, the women they're bringing it. Like their podcasts are really good.
Jonathan: Yeah. [09:56.4]
Hey, financial advisors – if you’d like even more help building your business, I invite you to subscribe to James’ monthly paper-and-ink newsletter, The James Pollard Inner Circle.
When you join today, you’ll get more than one thousand dollars’ worth of bonuses, including exclusive interviews that aren’t available anywhere else.
Head on over to TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching to learn more. [10:18.9]
Jonathan: And you know what, I'm going to put this out there just to ease my soul. The women that we have that are, there are bad asses.
James: Yeah
Jonathan: And that's the reason they can work with an irritable guy like me is because they can hold their own.
James: Yeah. I mean, Oh my God, like, they're just the things that they discuss and like the way they're running the business and the insights that they're having is just, it's, it's just nuts. Like they really are crushing it. And I’ll tell, I’ll share a little secret. I've never said this on the podcast before. I don't think I've ever mentioned it in any email. I have never talked about it. So here we go. I'm going to say it. [10:55.2]
So as a percentage of women in financial services, let me just Google it real quick cause I’m in, I'm in front of a computer now we're going to leave this in the show. Let's see. Percentage of women, financial advisors is 20%. I thought, I thought it was like 15 to 20%. So according to barons, 20% of financial advisors are women. And then let me see, I'm scrolling down through the articles here, about 15%, according to investmentnews.com, 17% of all financial advisors are women. Alright, get ready. This is crazy. More than 30% of my inner circle members are women.
Jonathan: Wow.
James: So.
Jonathan: Really? [11:37.6]
James: Yeah, 20% of all financial advisors are women, according to one source, 70%, according to another one, but over 30% of women. So there's something I'm doing or I may guess maybe it's something within, I don't know. I haven't been able to figure it out. I I've asked around, I have tried to put together a profile, you know, trying to be an, be a good marketer and everything. I cannot figure this one out. Over 30% of my current inner circle members, subscribers are female. I mean, that's double the rate of their, I guess, population within financial services. So there's, there's something that women, I guess, want, or they're attracted to a paper and ink newsletter or maybe they just, maybe they're just better business people. I don't know. I mean, do you have any ideas of why double the percentages in the newsletter compared to overall? [12:30.2]
Jonathan: Yeah. You know, I'm trying to think of that. And I, the only thing I can think of is the personality, perhaps. They gotta be able to deal with the no BS personality that you have, and they probably have to deal with that in the office as well. And so maybe that maybe it's a certain type of woman that you're attracting.
James: I think that's pretty accurate. I don't know if that explains everything, but I think that's very, very close to accurate because I try to research the inner circle members. Like when they ask questions, if they've got their website in the signature, if they got their LinkedIn profile in their signature, I will click on it. I'll try to, you know, not necessarily snoop around, but essentially snoop around.
Jonathan: Snoop around.
James: If I can, if I can help them, I want to be able to do that. And sometimes, I mean, I've been known to just send them a quick email and say, Hey, you know, love the thing that you did here. And they're like, Oh my God, like you really do care. Like you check, like, yeah, totally. Cause I mean, I want to make sure you're doing this stuff. And a lot of the women now I have not went back and gotten the actual data on this, but as far as I can tell, the women tend to be the founders. [13:34.1]
And I have a lot of men in the inner circle who are also founders, also CEOs. They run their own companies. Yes. But I think I could be wrong, but I think almost all of the women are in executive or like founder level or CEO level positions where they have founded their own company. But the men, I mean, sometimes they work for someone else. Sometimes even their own companies sometimes are under someone else's umbrella. But the women tend to be the ones that steer their own ship. They've got their own businesses. There's something to think about it. I have not been able to decipher that, but yeah, just straight up more women as a percentage are in the inner circle newsletter then in the financial services industry, crazy.
Jonathan: Double, double. That's crazy. [14:15.4]
James: Yeah. So me I'm doing something right. Or maybe the women are doing something right. I don't know. Now back to the show, Steve Jobs once said, “He said, if you want to make everyone happy, don't be a leader, sell ice cream.” Because trying to try to please everybody, it's just an exercise in futility. I mean, even if you did sell ice cream, you'd probably get some whiners complaining about how you don't have corn on the cob flavor. And yes, that is a real flavor.
Jonathan: Yeah man!
James: If you Google it, it's in Queens, New York, there's a restaurant that sells corn on the cob flavor. So if you are ever in NYC? You're from New York, right? Did you say that at one point?
Jonathan: Oh man. When I was a kid, I'm from Florida. I've been down here since 91.
James: Hmmm or you're ignoring your birth state now I guess?
Jonathan: Hmmm..Yes. I don't want to be part of that over there. I'm a southerner now.
James: You’re a southerner You know where your, your Tim's and your North face?
Jonathan: No, no flip flops and board shorts. [15:11.9]
James: Hmm. Well, Florida's too hot for me. I just don't. I love Florida, but there's no way I could live there. I just can't do it unless I live on the coast where like near the, near the beach where it's a little cooler, I couldn't, just can't deal with that heat.
Jonathan: Yeah. It's bad.
James: So financial advisors, if you want to become better marketers, I urge you to harness the power of exclusivity because I found that if you can repel the wrong types of people out of your life, the right types of people become even more attracted to you. Because exclusivity is right there in the word. It's not about including people and trying to please everyone. It's about excluding people. Exclusivity is about excluding people. This isn't some sexy tip design. It's not designed to make everyone happy. It is a raw uncensored piece of business advice that can help you grow. Here's a real example of how this can benefit you. [16:04.0]
Let's say you're a financial advisor and you have strict account minimums. If someone comes to you who doesn't meet those minimums, you should respectfully and politely turn that person away while letting him or her know that you're open to helping anyone he or she may know who meets those minimums. I know of several instances where handling this situation correctly, has led to referrals and I've discovered that people like it when advisors just tell them like it is, they're just transparent. If you don't think you'll be a good fit for someone, just say it, don't beat around the bush. And I take my own advice here. For example, on the sign up page for the inner circle newsletter, I say explicitly, it's not for middle of the road, can't make up their minds, afraid to take a risk losers who can't make the decision to invest in themselves. I can't tolerate this mindset. I don't want it anywhere near me. And a few people have asked over the years, if that costs me subscribers. I mean, yeah, it probably does, but there are certain people I do not want subscribing. So I make it clear. Let them go bother someone else. [17:01.7]
Now let's talk a little bit about how being a people pleaser impacts your life as a whole, not just your marketing, not just your business. When you stop trying to please everyone you'll have more time and more freedom to do what you want to do. People pleasers, they tend to commit to a lot of things. They have a hard time saying, no, they feel like they have to say yes. When someone asks for their help, remember that you always have a choice to say no. When you stop trying to please, everyone you'll begin to build internal validation rather than an external validation. This doesn't happen overnight. I still thrive on external validation when I make a bunch of money or when someone's congratulates me and they say, they love my stuff, that's external validation. Sometimes it does go to my head. I'll admit that I love getting it. I'm still attached to this. We all are. But I also have internal validation and you want to reach that point because you'll be happy with everything you're doing. You'll be doing what you want to do when you want to do it. Not because you're living to someone else's standard. [17:59.4]
And to recap the show, trying to please everyone, it's just toxic, not just to your business, but to your entire life. And even though it may seem counterintuitive, you can typically make your marketing more effective by making it more targeted and excluding certain people. I, it blows a lot of people's minds when they figure this out. And this is like a truth that they're enlightened now. They make their marketing more effective by cutting people out by excluding people, just making it narrow. This is one of the core philosophies of niche marketing, which is a drum I've been beating since the beginning of this podcast. So that is it. Stop trying to be a people pleaser, just do you and stay in your own lane and grow your business. You are the captain of your ship and that's it for this week. [18:44.7]
Jonathan: Boom! What's coming up next time, James?
James: I am going to do what I do every couple of episodes and I'm going to let the people decide. So send me an email with your thoughts and ideas. I love hearing from financial advisors, they influence the content of the show a lot more than they realize. In fact, the bulk of these episodes, they come either directly or indirectly as a result of emails, financial advisors send me. So send an email to james@theadvisorcoach.com with your ideas, with your questions, with your suggestions and we'll read them.
Jonathan: Boom, boom, pow! All right, fam that is a wrap for another Financial Advisor Marketing. Thank you for tuning in and we will be back in your buds next week. [19:25.3]
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