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. I am back with Jonathan Rivera of ThePodcastFactory.com. I know last week you weren't on the show cause I had the talk with Matt Jarvis, but is there anything new in your life? Anything you've been doing any cool stories you want to share?
Jonathan: Yeah I was knocking on the door and you wouldn't let me in. Now I know why.
James: Matt, Matt is a cool guy. So he runs a podcast called The Perfect RIA. And I mean, I just don't have time to listen to every single podcast, but I try to listen to his and his personality is very similar to mine in some ways. And I'm like, are we the same person? I'm not sure. It was a very interesting talk and you can see that the title of the episode was how he takes six months of vacation every single year. So he knows his stuff and it was a really cool episode, so.
Jonathan: Amazing. [01:20.6]
James: You have to listen to that financial advisors, make sure you go back and listen to it. Today's show is going to be a little different because I'm going to address a question that has been asked several times over the past few years. This is, this is an example of a show that comes from a listener, someone on my email list, someone who also listens to the podcast, someone who I don't know if the person's an inner circle member or not, I have to go back and check. But I’d say, I make content from the listeners and this is an example. And the question is, how did James choose his personal financial advisor?
Jonathan: Oooh.
James: Very interesting question, right?
Jonathan: Yeah. I like it.
James: Now the meaning behind the question, if I can assume is how does James his financial advisor do his marketing? How does he market his services? And I plan on answering that question in this episode, but first let me share some feedback a financial advisor gave me about the inner circle newsletter. And, this was really cool, I wanted to share this. You can sign up for the newsletter, TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching. Here it is. I've been a newsletter subscriber for almost a year and always find one or two things in each issue that resonate with being more efficient or more focused. My production in the last year has gone up almost 30%. [02:34.0]
Jonathan: Wow.
James: I've done two asset sharing plans in last year to focus on my ideal client and the work, he put the work in quotation marks, has gotten more streamlined while much more profitable. Awesome. Love to hear it. This guy is an example of someone who was doing it right, because a) he's thinking long-term because he's been in there almost a year, he didn't just subscribe for one month and think it will solve all his problems. He realized that this is compounding and b) He's making more money while working less. And I wanted to plug this into the episode at the beginning because he talks about taking six months’ vacation. It's possible. You can make more money while taking more time off, that's what you really want to do. Because anybody can work fewer hours. That's easy, the real or work more hours I should say. Working more hours is easy. Hustling, that toxic hustle culture is easy to embrace, but the real skill comes from getting more out of less. Oh, and this is really going to blow some people's minds. [03:30.7]
This particular advisor is from a company that has really strict compliance, perhaps more than any other company I've ever seen. And there are some financial advisors out there who use the company that they're with as a crutch, they use it as an excuse. They think, Oh, well, this won't work for me because I'm at this company, the price one or the one that's jonesing, right? Or the one that's Wells…Hmm.
Jonathan: Nice.
James: And it's just another excuse that they use to avoid making progress. This guy gets it. I love getting feedback like this. If you want to send me something its james@theadvisorcoach.com. So run along, get all the bonuses and goodies over TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching. Now let me explain how I chose my financial advisor.
Jonathan: Drumroll….
James: I'm a man of sophistication, Jonathan.
Jonathan: I know it.
James: I require nothing but the best. I drink the finest wines, travel in the finest cars, stay in the most luxurious hotels. I wear three Rolex's at the same time. Just kidding, everybody who's listening, if you've been listening to the show for any length of time, you know that that's not true at all. If you, if you watch some of the videos, I'm actually, I'm trying to go a little harder on the videos Jonathan. [04:42.2]
Jonathan: I noticed I noticed you, yeah
James: Upload more video content.
Jonathan: All over LinkedIn lately.
James: I know, and people can see then just kicking it in at home and wearing regular clothes and just chilling. I'm just a regular dude. I don't spend that much money on things that go down in value, although I did recently buy the car, the Tesla.
Jonathan: When do you get delivery on that thing?
James: So it says five to nine weeks. And we're recording this in late October. So hopefully I'll get it by Christmas. The people at Tesla have assured me that they're going to push to get the delivery done by the end of the year because they want to make, or the end of the quarter, I should say cause they push at the end of every quarter to get as many deliveries as possible. [05:23.4]
But I bought that car because the cost of ownership over five years is lower than many other cars in the market. Also the cost of electricity here is lower than the national average. We're going to go solar anyway. So I'm still purchasing it based on a, an economic view, based on a productivity view. How much is this going cost me years from now? So that's how the lens through which I view my life. I've got some nice artwork too. I've got some nice features in my house, but I can theoretically get all the money back from that I'm spending, cause I'm going to put a lot of miles on the Tesla. We're going to deduct mileage anyway, and if you're going to deduct mileage as a business person, you might as well do it in an electric car or take the 57 and a half cents per mile on a car that costs you virtually nothing to run. Are you picking up what I'm putting down, Jonathan? [06:16.2]
Jonathan: I'm thinking maybe I don't need my V8 anymore. You're you're convincing me.
James: Well that, you got to think this way. And, but I'm not the type of guy who just blows money on the first class plane tickets. I'm not driving a Mercedes S-Class, the gas guzzler are and all that stuff. It's a nice enough car. It makes financial sense and it's cool along the way. And speaking of this, the first-class plane ticket thing, I had a conversation with a friend of mine a few weeks ago, and he always flies first class, no exceptions for everything.
Jonathan: I like him already.
James: So he’s, he’s. I don't know different strokes for different folks. I'm not going to judge him. He just thinks he deserves it, I guess. And let's say that I'm going from Philly to Orlando down to visit you.
Jonathan: Yeah.
James: Regular tickets on a regular, I guess, economy, coach, whatever, might cost me 400 bucks on a bad day. First-Class tickets are going to cost about 1200 bucks, that's an $800 difference spread out over three hours. That's $267 an hour. So the way that I frame it in my mind is would I take payment of $267 an hour to sit in that seat? Heck yeah, I totally would. [07:26.8]
You know, if I was already in first class and someone came up to me and offered me $267 an hour to switch, I do it in a heartbeat because I can take that money, I can donate it to charity, I can do something else. I'm just not the type of person who does the conspicuous consumption thing. But when it comes to my financial advisor, I searched far and wide and I was willing to pay the price, that is the difference. In frugal, everywhere else and my experience is not different. I am not giving you just my personal story for the sake of giving you my personal story. I'm setting this up to let you know that many people think the way I do in the, the wealthy investors and the affluent people that you're trying to attract, tend to think that way as well. A lot of these people didn't get wealthy by riding first class everywhere. They're saving the money they're investing it, they're putting it in their business or putting it back in the family, putting it in 529s, HSAs you name it? So I personally spent about two months searching for a financial advisor, and that may be a long time for some people that may be incredibly short. [08:30.9]
Jonathan: Good God.
James: I did not limit my search to my geography. This is going away. If you're a financial advisor in Jacksonville, Florida, and you think that you're going to build your business solely in Jacksonville for the next 20 years, you're going to have a bad time. You got to figure out a way that you can do business with people across the country. You got to figure out a way to demonstrate tremendous value to a certain type of, and that person won't be limited to a certain geography. There's going to be no other way. There's no other way around it. I, I just can't see it working right? If you don't do this, you are severely limiting your income. And by the way, for everyone who's worried about not meeting prospective clients face to face, let me be clear. I have never met my financial advisor in person. I have never met my attorney in person. I have two accountants, well, actually three now. It’s interesting, I wrote a little outline for this podcast, I wrote two accountants, but I actually have three now. [09:31.5]
Jonathan: Wow.
James: I've never met them in person ever. I have four different insurance agents for various items, you know, home and auto and then life and all the other insurance. I've never met any of them in person, not a single one, no. Joe, Nathan as Doberman Dan used to call you. Joe, Nathan.
Jonathan: I was talking to him today.
James: So I know who your financial advisor is, I'm not going to say his name publicly, but have you met him in person?
Jonathan: Well, you know, I haven't because he's in Hawaii and we are in in Orlando and in fact he had to get certified here or approved here or something when he took us on as clients.
James: Wow. So he had to like get his licenses and basically get approved.
Jonathan: Whatever it is. Yeah, whatever it takes. [10:11.3]
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. [10:34.2]
James: Very interesting, very, very, very interesting. And your insurance person also know who that is but not going to mention him publicly, but you've never met him either?
Jonathan: Well, actually I have met them. I count them as a couple.
James: Okay.
Jonathan: But I only met them after I worked with them.
James: That is right. Okay. But you're in separate geographies.
Jonathan: Yeah.
James: As well.
Jonathan: Yeah. They're in, they were in Chicago when I met them. [10:56.9]
Jonathan: Sure. But the world is going to operate this way moving forward financial advisors. I'm not saying you'll never find people who want to meet with you in person. Of course, there will always be people who want to meet you in person, and if they're in your area, it's just a courtesy, right? My accountant, the main one that I use for most of my businesses in New York and when I'm in New York, I try to visit him. It's not like he is busy and working with clients or whatever. And the last time I was in New York was like two years ago. So we've just never had a chance to meet, but there is a section of the market that will want to work with you regardless of where you live. That's me. I don't care whether you live in Salisbury, Maryland, or Cedar Rapids, Iowa. If I think, you know, as a consumer here, I'm talking to as a consumer, not James, the marketer. If I think you can help my situation and you have demonstrated enough authority and enough credibility, I'm going to put you on my short list. So let me break down how I found some of these people because did shop around for financial advisors. That's how people are going to do it whether they tell you or not. [11:58.4]
If you follow the stuff that I'm teaching you to do, and like the inner circle, newsletter and appointments on autopilot, you can significantly reduce the amount of shopping around people do, but it being a 100% transparent with you, it's very, very rare to eliminate it completely. Is it possible to get people to not shop around? Absolutely. But just being realistic people can shop around, and that's what I did. I found my accountant by doing extensive searches. I asked a bunch of people. I spent a bunch of time looking for the best accountant that I could find. And he ended up being someone who specialized in working with attorneys actually. And I'm not an attorney obviously, but I convinced him to take me on as a client. So this guy basically works magic for attorneys. He's an absolute wizard with them, but a lot of the stuff that he does applies to me as well. I want you to notice two of the things that I said here, financial advisors. First, I had to convince him to take me on as a client. It wasn't the other way around. That's an important point. He did not have to beg with me, or plead with me. He didn't have to convince me or persuade me. [13:03.8]
I sought him out, very interesting. And then second, he had a niche. However, even though I wasn't in that niche, I still wanted to work with him. Lots of financial buyers are so scared to choose a niche because they're afraid of somehow abandoning all these perspective clients, I'm a living Testament, walking, living proof that it doesn't happen as much as you might think. Because like I said, I'm definitely not an attorney and I'm still working with him. Now. I found my attorney through his books. He's actually a published author, and I believe you know who I'm talking about Producer Jonathan.
Jonathan: Yeah actually
James: Maybe?
Jonathan: Is that the guy we posted in the group and you told me that's the one, right? [13:49.1]
James: Yes. So he's got a bunch of books and he has a pretty big following online. He's more or less a celebrity in that space. He's got a YouTube channel and everything. So that's attractive to me. And I'm fully cognizant that I am paying, for a celebrity. I get it. I'm not stupid. There are a lot of, or maybe I am. I mean, it tends to be the stupidest people who say they're not stupid, so. It's like stupid inception there.
Jonathan: There you go.
James: But there are people out there that are affluent investors, they, they understand they are paying for a little bit of celebrity. They are paying for the right firm for, to go to their friends and say, this guy's my attorney. And then they pull up the YouTube channel and they show him.
Jonathan: Hmm.
James: Like that, they're paying for that, they get it. And I'm attracted to that somewhat. He's extremely, I mean, we skilled, he's got the skills to pay the bills. He's got the little bit of celebrity in there, so it's worth it. The lesson there, the reason I bring up my attorney is because you want to create a mechanism that provides you with credibility. A book is a way to do that. He's got several, a well-written website is another way to do it. A podcast is
another way to do it. If you want to start a podcast, go to ThePodcastFactory.com. [14:54.7]
Just figure out something that will get you there. Now my insurance agent, I found two of them through referrals. One came from my accountant and the other came from The Podcast Factory. The third one I found through an online search and the fourth one was actually my wife's insurance agent for very specific items. And the reason I chose her was because it was just easy to do. So I'm just being candid with you. Didn't do much work on that one. My wife already used the insurance agent, I was like, fine. I'll just do insurance and do business with her. So I mean, I knew she could solve that specific problem, there wasn't that much searching there. My financial advisor, however, was not a referral. I know there are a bunch of stats out there that say most people find their advisor through referrals, that's not me. And personally speaking, I don't think those stats are going to hold up in the next 10 or 20 years because people are going to go online and search for the financial advisor who can solve their specific problems just like I did. [15:55.0]
The days of asking people for a referral and yes, it's still around. Yes, people still put a lot of emphasis on social proof, but it's, it's fading. It's not as strong as it once was because people have access to information. People have access to very specific needs that may, or they may or may not discuss with their friends. There are some financial advisors out there who have account minimums and they ha they say their niche is like people with $5 million more. That's just goofy to an extent. And the reason they don't get as many referrals is because a lot of these people don't know how much their friends are worth. Especially if they're like the millionaire next door type, you're not going to think of Joe next door who drives the pickup truck being worth $5 million. So you're never, ever, ever going to re-make a referral with Joe. You have to use common sense here. [16:46.6]
So my financial advisor is not a published author. He does not have a YouTube channel or anything like that. And by the way, please, don't ask me to give you the name of these, any names of these people. I made that mistake in the past, and I gave out my financial advisor's information and he called me later in the day and basically yelled at me to never do that again, because apparently people started hounding him and harassing him for a bunch of reasons, including asking a bunch of marketing questions. So the identity of my financial advisor for will forever remain a secret unless he is the one to mention me first. That's kind of like the agreement that we have. If he ever wants to come out and says you know, one of my clients, James Pollard over at TheAdviserCoach.com, that's fine. But until he does that, we'll keep it under wraps. [17:29.0]
Now here's how it went down. Personal finance and investing, they've always been passions of mine. I mean, I've read literally hundreds of books on the subject. And I continue to learn when I have time and emphasis on when I have time, because I've always been a busy person. And as the years went on, I had less time to sit around watching my investments and making sure that they were performing properly. And I know some of you were thinking, watch your investments. I mean, just pick an index fund and be done with it. Well, I hear ya. I understand. I completely understand the merits of index investing, but that's, it's not my style because I have other adventures. I have, I have a business to run. I've got people that have different needs. And so when it comes to investing, I am often categorized as an income investor because I look for things that would give me a dependable cash payout, I already take enough risk in my business. I don't need any more in my investments. Thank you very much. [18:18.9]
Plus, personally speaking, I believe that being an income investor has given me a mentor edge because I literally do not care if the market is going up or down, I just don't care. It means nothing to me. I literally do not care what's happening. I will not sell as long as the dividends can be supported. And as long as I get a check every quarter and I call that coma money.
Jonathan: Hmm.
James: Because it's money that will continue to come in even if I'm in a coma. Interesting name, right producer Jonathan, coma money?
Jonathan: Love it.
James: You can be in a coma and still get that check. So what I did was I looked for a financial advisor who specialized in income investing, plain and simple, that's it. I found someone who matched my investment philosophy and he basically built up a bunch of credibility in the space as of an income investor. I didn't ask anyone for a referral. I didn't interview multiple advisors, although I did check out multiple advisors online. So that counts is like my shopping around process. [19:20.2]
I checked out a bunch of them online and went to him. I didn't batter him with objections. When I finally found him there, it boils down to this. He was known for a specialty. He demonstrated his expertise and he was willing to work with me. That's it. He understood that the best way to build a business is to have clients come to him. So he created various vehicles like an online presence that all facilitate getting me, when people like me to come to him.
That's why, when I talk about things like online marketing and email marketing, I'm not doing it to hear myself talk, I'm doing it because I know it works and I'm living proof of it. I know that it works. Without those things, I never would have hired my personal financial advisor in the first place. I wouldn't be blessed with the advice that I'm getting. I wouldn't be blessed with, to have an amazing individual in my network. If it weren't for the strategies that I'm trying to get financial advisors to use their own business. [20:12.5]
And the cool thing is that he actually asked me for advice every so often and praise the Lord he pays for it. He actually takes it. So I just gave you a world-class case study on how a real person, yours truly chose his financial advisor. And I hope you paid attention to all of the subtle nuances. And I hope you read between the lines, because I would say this is probably one of the top 10 episodes. It's one of those 10, most valuable that we've ever done. This is about as real as can get, because I'm giving it to you straight. How I actually chose my financial advisor, the marketing that he used, why it was important for him to use that. And that is it for this week. [20:57.2]
Jonathan: Love it. All right, so what do you have coming up for us next time, James?
James: Next time I am going to talk about how social media marketing is slowly starting to lose its effectiveness for financial advisors.
Jonathan: No way.
James: It still works, and it will continue to work well for the next few years, but it is declining. You would be naive to ignore this information.
Jonathan: All right. So that is a wrap. Thank you for tuning in fam and we will be back in your ear buds next week with another financial advisor marketing. [21:27.9]
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