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: It is officially 2023. Can you believe it? I want to help you make this year your best year ever, so I'm going to share a few things with you that you should focus on if you want to get more clients, grow your business, and all that good stuff.
But, first, I want to share two things with you. Number one, if I sound a bit different, it's because I do have a little bit of a cold and I rarely, if ever, get sick, because I do all sorts of cool stuff to my body, like extra steps for hydration and red-light therapy, and infusing my body with vitamins and minerals and some anti-aging stuff. Whenever I get a cold, it doesn't last more than like a day, and it just so happens that recording day is the day that I have it, so go figure, but ain't nothing going to stop the grind here. [01:13.5]
Number two, I want to share a moment of silence for all the financial advisors who missed out on the January Inner Circle newsletter issue, which shipped out yesterday. The past two newsletter issues had some awesome bonuses. The December issue had a bonus about delivering superior client experiences. The January issue, which shipped out yesterday, which would be January 1, had a bonus about how financial advisors can conquer call-reluctance.
The bonuses alone, let me just tell you this, the bonuses alone are worth more than $99 per month and I'm including those bonuses for free because I care about Inner Circle members and I want them to succeed. I literally brought in two people who are respective experts in their fields and had conversations with them about their areas of expertise. It was some good stuff. So, let's have that moment of silence. Here we go. [02:01.8]
All right, let's get this party started. The first thing I want you to focus on in 2023 is improving your social media presence. There have been so many studies published over the last few years that have revealed how financial advisors are getting clients from social media and how prospective clients are searching for financial advisors on social media before committing to work with them. I want 2023 to be the year you bring your A game to social media. If you're already using it, use it better. If you're not using it, you need to get on it.
If you think your clients aren't on social media, you are wrong. I rarely just call people out and say, you're wrong, but you are. You're wrong, because your clients are on social media. The key-- I guess I should preface this. I know I'm going to get an email from somebody. “Yeah, my clients are Amish people,” and I say, “Oh my God, dude, yes, okay, then fine, your clients aren't on social media.” But 99.9 percent of the time then your clients are going to be on social media. The key is finding the right platform and becoming active on it. Chances are the right platform is going to be LinkedIn, but I will encourage you to check out Facebook, Twitter, and all the others. [03:11.6]
One reason why social media is so powerful is because it puts the law of large numbers in your favor. How many clients do you really need to build a thriving business? Let's say you need 100 clients. You need to ask yourself, is it possible to find 100 of your clients on social media? Absolutely. I've seen it so many times, especially on LinkedIn with occupation-based niches.
You don't have to get all 100 starting on the first day either or on the first day. This stuff can take years. Building a business takes time. You don't need to rush this thing. The key is getting started and improving your odds over time. Your worst day is going to be your first day, because let's say that now, right now, it will take you five years to get 100 clients from social media and you're converting 1% of everyone in your pipeline. Those are your stats on day one when you get started. [04:06.1]
But let's say you go hard this year and you ramp up your social media marketing efforts, and you increase that conversion rate to 1.2%. That's a one-fifth improvement, which means your time to get 100 clients is now reduced by a fifth after that point. Isn't that incredible? How much is that worth to you? How much is it work to save your time? That's how this works. The compounding effect is real, not just with money in investments, but with literally everything in your life, if you're improving and getting better and just 1% better, 1% better, 1% better, 1% better.
This stuff is not complicated. A lot of it boils down to being clear about who you want and speaking directly to that person. What's cool about this strategy is it doesn't require a large audience. In fact, I’ve seen many financial advisors with small social media followings—I'm talking less than 1,000—make more money than advisors with 10,000-plus followers. You might be thinking, How is that possible? It's possible because the advisors with the small following, they have more right fits than advisors with the large followings. It’s really that simple. [05:12.7]
If you have 1,000 people following you on LinkedIn, 900 of them could be right for you. If you just go hard with your targeting and your market-to-message match is on point, 900 of them could be right for you. Compare that to someone who has 10,000 followers who are all over the place with only 100 of them being good fits, because that person might do little LinkedIn pods and do engage for engage or comment for comment, or all these little dumb strategies that really don't add value to the end result, so there aren't people who are going to be clients.
It's like if I'm targeting people who want to buy refrigerators and I just go out and connect with literally anyone with a pulse, it's not necessarily so that they're going to buy refrigerators, but if I go to a refrigerator search group or something-- I'm just making this up. Of course, there's no refrigerator search group, but you get the idea. [06:03.5]
Now, here's something crazy. It's even better than that, because when you have a high percentage of people who are good fits for you, your social media feed—listen to me, listen to me. This is important—your social media feed becomes a source of power instead of a distraction, because you can log in and see exactly what all of your prospective clients on social media are thinking and doing. This can give you inspiration for your marketing materials. It can provide a way for you to interact with them to start a conversation, because social media should lead to conversations. If it doesn't, you're doing something wrong.
Too many people let social media use them instead of them using social media. I have to admit, I hate what social media does to people when it uses them. Social media can be awful. It can be terrible, toxic for our society. When people use social media and they get addicted to it, their brains get wrecked. They feel inadequate. Have you ever seen people walking around in public scrolling through social media? [07:06.5]
I was at the Grand Canyon last year. Was it last year? Yeah, I guess last year. Yeah, 2022. It's last year technically. The Grand Canyon is one of the most beautiful places in the entire world, just full of majestic beauty, and people were still stuck on their phones seeing what other people were doing. It's insane.
If you're from Brooklyn, New York, okay, and you go to the Grand Canyon and you're just seeing what all your little buddies in Brooklyn are doing, that's dumb. That is dumb. You're missing out on the beauty in front of you, the majestic, the wonder right in front of your eyes for something like what your friend Joe had for lunch, okay? Joe's pizza is not that important, okay?
If I didn't use social media for business, I wouldn't have it, but the way I use social media is by staying on top of what financial advisors are doing. In many ways, it is “the” best market research tool ever made. I can log in and see what financial advisors are doing. Is there a major industry change? I'll know about it. Are financial advisors frustrated because of certain client problems? I'll know about it, because I’ve refined my social media feed to show me financial advisors. [08:17.3]
I don't have a bunch of other junk on there and other people, and I want you to do the same. I want you to refine your social media feed to people who can help you. Yes, this includes industry leaders. Yes, it includes prospective clients. Yes, it includes people you want to learn from. If you're going to use your social media, at least make sure it benefits you. You could literally do this today. You could go into your office, you could bring up your social media feeds, and you could start unfollowing anyone who isn't relevant to your audience. [08:47.3]
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 $1,000 worth of bonuses, including exclusive interviews that aren't available anywhere else. Head on over to TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching to learn more.
Next, the second thing, I want you to focus on this. I know I see it a lot in these podcast episodes. I bring it up quite frequently because it works like you wouldn't believe, and that is email marketing. If you're allowed to use an email autoresponder, you need to use one, seriously. It is one of “the” most powerful assets you can build in your business, because it allows you to automatically stay in touch with prospective clients and offer them the ability to set appointments with you when they're ready. There are lots of autoresponders out there. You have Drip, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and more.
I was talking with the financial advisor a few days ago when he told me he was afraid to do a lot of email marketing strategies, not necessarily email, because he felt it was like chasing people. Guess what? Email marketing solves that problem because people are opting in to your list. They're raising their hands and saying they're interested. “Hey, please send me more stuff. Please stay in touch with me. Please let me be a part of your world.” That's what they're saying when they're opting in. You're not chasing them at all. People are free to come and go as they please. [10:16.1]
What's interesting to me is that, typically, people are lazy. There are some people out there who wouldn't even get off the couch if their house was on fire. I don't like that, but having an email autoresponder is giving yourself permission to be lazy, because the software is doing the work for you. The email sequence is talking to prospective clients. It's introducing you, your company, your services. It's answering questions. It's handling objections. You could be anywhere in the world doing anything you want and the software will continue to work.
Full disclosure, this is what I do. I do this in multiple businesses and multiple industries. It's just that I’ve discovered that it works very, very, very well for financial advisors, because guess what? You're asking people to set an appointment. You're not trying to sell something right away. [11:04.1]
If you have an e-comm business and you're selling shoes and t-shirts or whatever, it's hard to get people to whip out the credit card and buy something. You need a fit, form a relationship. You need to build that little personal brand. You need to do a lot of things before someone feels comfortable enough to buy from a specific store.
Are there exceptions to this? Absolutely. The lower the price point, the easier it is, but guess what? Financial advisors, what do they do? They charge multiple thousands of dollars either at once upfront or over the course of a year, so it's not, quote-unquote, “cheap.” It is worth every penny, yes, but it is not, quote-unquote, “cheap,” meaning, the absolute dollar amount that you put out is more than you would pay for a mortgage payment, for example, so you need to keep that into consideration. But the reason it is wonderful for financial advice is because you're not asking them. You're not asking them for the money right away. You're asking them to set an appointment.
The downside to an email auto-responder sequence is that it does take a little bit of work to set up. You have to write the emails. I tell financial advisors, aim for at least five emails because most conversions happen after the fifth touchpoint. This is assuming you don't want to do anything else besides email marketing, which I would think is a mistake. [12:15.0]
In the real world, you would connect with people on social media. You would call them. You would send them something in the mail. Those things would count as touchpoints, but I still recommend having at least five emails in the autoresponder to cover your bases.
Conversions also tend to drop off after the 12th touchpoint, so the law of diminishing returns kicks in after 12. Is it possible to get conversions after 12? Yes, it is. I know, you don't need to send me an email talking about how you got a conversion from someone who is on your list for 47 months, 12 days and 11 seconds. There are people who it might take years to become clients, but those people are exceptions, not the norm. [12:54.8]
If you want to learn more about my proven email marketing system, register for the webinar over at TheAdvisorCoach.com/webinar. I will walk you through everything and show you exactly what you need to make email marketing work for your business. The webinar is 90 minutes long. It's not a little 45-minute webinar with 15 minutes of Q&A. It is completely automated. Therefore, there cannot be Q&A. So, make sure you set aside 90 minutes, not 45, not 60, not 75, 90 minutes so you can watch the entire thing.
And, yes, there is an offer at the end of the webinar. The offer is for Appointments on Autopilot. It is my email marketing system. It's $2,000. A lot of times, people are anxious on webinars because they know an offer is coming, but they don't know what it is. They don't know the price. They're just in this weird limbo and they're nervous. They just want someone. “Just tell me what it is. Tell me what's coming up. Tell me the price.” So, that's the offer. That's the price, Appointments on Autopilot, two grand.
I genuinely just want you to focus on the information in the webinar. I really do, because it's responsible for, literally, I swear to you, thousands of appointments set for financial advisors, and if you just take in the information, even if you don't get appointments on autopilot-- I'm sure that you will because you'll see how incredible it is. But even if you don't, you can just focus on the information inside the webinar. Once again, the URL is TheAdvisorCoach.com/webinar. [14:14.5]
The third thing. So, we covered email marketing. We covered social media. We're going to move on to the third thing here. I want you to focus on exactly who you want as a client. The reason this is important is because it will open marketing doors for you that you didn't even know existed.
I'll give you an example. I have this Inner Circle member. Or should I say have or had? I mean, this person is still an Inner Circle member, but used to struggle with direct mail. He and I have gone back and forth through emails talking about how to get his mailings to work. The very first email I sent back to him told him to niche down. That's one of the first things I did. If somebody's just having trouble and I clicked their website and I realized that they don't have a niche, I'm like, Look, you need to niche now. [15:02.7]
He didn't listen. He came back and he did the mailing, and then he told me, “Oh, my mailing didn't work.” I don't remember exactly what he did, but I think he was targeting everyone in a certain zip code. Maybe it was Every Door Direct Mail, if that's still a thing. I used to recommend Every Door Direct Mail, because back in the day, it worked and you could get results with it if you had the right mailing, but in today's world, it is much easier to get results if you niche down. So, I would rather have you just send a targeted mailing than to do Every Door Direct Mail, because the odds are just so much better, and that's exactly what I told him to do.
He then sends out a mailer to everyone above a certain age in certain zip codes. That's a little better, but there isn't really a golden thread linking everyone together. There could be a 65-year-old single, vegetarian liberal, and a 65-year-old married, carnivorous conservative. That’s kind of funny, a lot of alliteration here. Carnivorous conservative. Those are two very different people. You need some sort of thing linking them together, and one reason why I love occupational niches so much is because occupation serves as that golden thread. They link people together. [16:13.8]
I want you to imagine you're boarding a plane by yourself, which means you're going to have to sit next to a stranger. I know, strangers, ooh, scary. And the stranger who sits next to you is also a financial planner. How would that feel? Pretty good, right? Or, at least, I hope it would feel good. You would be like, No way, I'm a financial planner, too. Where are you located? What's your specialty? You could talk shop the whole plane ride. That's the golden thread. You would probably stay in touch afterward. You would probably exchange numbers or emails, or at least LinkedIn profiles. That is what happens. That's why it's important to have a niche.
The same thing happens in alumni groups with liking sports teams, having the same hobbies, belonging to whatever group you can think of. Someone sitting down next to you and saying, “Hi, I'm 65 years old,” doesn't really have the same effect. [17:03.7]
The financial advisor finally took my advice and niched down. Hallelujah, thank you, thank you, thank you. He finally niched down. Exactly what he did isn't important, but I will give you an example to give you a vision for this. A mailing sent specifically to real estate agents, talking about how a financial advisor works specifically with real estate agents, including proof and credibility, is going to be way more effective than a mailing that doesn't, that doesn’t have the proven credibility. Yes, that's important, but a mailing that doesn't talk about working specifically with real estate agents in a mailing specifically to real estate agents.
And, yes, I know that sounds simple because it is simple, but guess what? It works, and that same effect occurs in online ads, on social media, in email marketing, and everywhere you put yourself in front of other people. I know I talk about niching down a lot, but this is the closest thing to a layup you're ever going to get when it comes to building a business. [18:04.6]
So, in 2023, I want you to embrace social media. I want you to embrace email marketing, if possible. Yes, email marketing can work if you do it manually, but it is a pain in the butt, and it's a lot easier to set up an email autoresponder sequence. If your company doesn't allow you to use an autoresponder sequence, then, I say this half-jokingly, but get to a company that will let you, because it really is that powerful, and get clear on who you want. I want you to make 2023 your best year ever, and you can do it. I believe in you. You can do it, if you focus on these three things.
And I will catch you next week. Hopefully, I won't sound like a goose with this cold. I will catch you next week. [18:45.0]
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