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:Financial advisors, I have a very special treat for you today. One of my goals for 2023, I mean, this episode is scheduled to come out in May, but I'm recording this earlier in the year and I really wanted to get more guests on the show who know things that I don't necessarily know, that financial advisors haven't been exposed to, and I’ve gotten to talk with some amazing people about YouTube marketing, marketing to Gen Z, marketing to specific niches, going all in on your niches, targeting the top 0.5% of households. Just incredible stuff from incredible guests, and today is no exception. [01:04.3]
We are over 200 episodes deep into the Financial Advisor Marketing podcast and I have never talked about Instagram marketing outside of some businesses that I have had in the past and that I used Instagram for, but I’ve never talked about it in the context of helping financial advisors get more clients.
But, fortunately, I have Clare Baukham here today, and she is doing Instagram marketing and she has a lot to say about it, and she's going to help me and help you. So, Clare, thank you so much for being here.
Clare: Thank you for having me.
James: Can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself, your background, how you got to where you are today?
Clare: Yeah, so I actually started in the business, believe it or not, I was actually started in my working life as a florist. I was a floral designer, and I quickly went on to become a professional actor, because you have to try all kinds of things in life, right? And as I was an actor, I figured, you know what, I wanted to be rich and not famous, because getting famous is something that is few and far between in that industry, if anyone's ever tried it. [02:06.0]
So, I actually started to trade the stock market and I had a lot of people. I had some really good gains in all of my trades. I was trading options on the U.S. markets, on a lot of the high beta stocks. I had a lot of people who were wanting to give me their money, because the word got out that I was a good trader.
And, whoops, it turned out you need a license for that, so I didn't trade anyone's money without license, just for disclosure. But I did find out that, okay, I need some hours in the business, so I went and actually started in a chop shop. There's a movie, I forget what it's called, with Vin Diesel, and all they're doing is-- In Boiler Room. Boiler Room.
James: Boiler Room, yeah.
Clare: Yeah, yeah.
James: That’s intense.
Clare: And it was like Boiler Room and I had to work from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Literally, I was only allowed to make cold calls. I was not allowed to bring in any family. I was only allowed-- Anyone who's complaining about making cold calls, which I don't think are working anymore these days, but I made 3,500 cold calls a week, so it was intense. [03:10.4]
It turned out, I obviously didn't stay with them. I didn't like them. I won't name the firm. I found a firm down the street from me and I walked in there and I said, “Yeah, this is my background. I used to be an options trader. I still am an options trader, so let's get going.” They obviously welcomed me with open arms. I figured I'd go in there and I would just make my hours in the business, and I would leave and I would go start a hedge fund, because that was the world that I felt like I belonged in based on my trading background.
But then I met my mentor who had one of the largest books of business in Canada and he started teaching me these strategies that were just unreal. I'd never heard of anything like them. Even when I tell other advisors today about the strategies, their eyes get crossed. I remember asking my mentor at the time-- I'd be with this guy day after day, just listening in on appointments, just learning a strategy. I’d go home and I’d do them at night. [04:05.5]
I remember asking him, “Why do you not see other advisors doing this stuff?” He said, “Because, honestly, Clare, they're mentally lazy.” He says, “Don't take that the wrong way. I'm not trying to be mean to other advisors, but they're mentally lazy. They will not do the work. They want to bring in money and they'll just manage it. They’ll put it in a balanced fund and then that's it. So, they won't do everything else in order to help someone to truly become wealthy.”
That was it for me. Once I met him, I just decided, yeah, this is what I want to do. I've been in the business for almost 10 years now. It'll be 10 years, I think, in April, and I guess 10 years by the time the episode comes out. I’ve switched firms a couple of times, picked up some books, little books of business here and there, and that was kind of how I got my start.
James: Why do you think a lot-- And this is not just advisors. There’s entrepreneurs and people from all walks of life. Why do you think so many people are just mentally lazy? [05:00.0]
Clare: I think that as soon as people are faced with any kind of adversity—take going to the gym. I was telling you earlier that I used to be a fitness athlete. People will ask me constantly, “How do I lose weight?” and I’ll tell them, “Just change your diet to this and go to the gym. You don't even have to go to the gym. Just workout at home. There's so many programs at home that you can do.” And people, I just don't think people have the motivation that they need these days. Do you know how many diets that my husband and I have done for people and they just won't follow? You know they won't follow it.
But this is also a plus, I think, as an advisor, because no one is really going to do it themselves. People are too busy. Sorry, to sort of answer your question, I think people are too busy and I think people are unhappy with their lives, so I think that they're going home and they're delving into things like a shell. James, I don't know if you watch TV or not, but it's so much easier to just lose yourself in a show or a movie and just fantasize about “Oh, this could be my life,” right? That kind of thing. [06:02.7]
James: Absolutely. It's just I like to frame it as an advantage, because if you can do the hard stuff, then you are set apart from everyone else -
Clare: Yeah.
James: - because they're not willing to do it. If you look around, 99 out of 100 people are mentally lazy and don't do the things required to be successful. If you can just do that, then you're so set apart, and that sounds like what you did.
Clare: Exactly, exactly, and I do that in-- I try to do that in all aspects of my life, which is not easy and it makes you a real overachiever. I even homeschool my kid.
James: Oh, that's awesome.
Clare: He's only three, but you know what? I see what's going on in the school systems and I'm not impressed. I was going to bring him to either a private school. I was looking at, what's it called? Waldorf or Montessori. I love them both. I think they're really interesting, the way they teach the kids, though the Waldorf school looked really grungy and the lady who gave us the tour was not super friendly, and the lady who was the Montessori, she kept spelling his [name]. My son's name is Henrik, H-E-N-R-I-K. She kept spelling his name wrong and I thought, You are not going to pay attention to my kid the way I will, even though I'm home running a business or at the office or whatever. [07:16.8]
My husband also works from home, so we found a way to-- We just like to work differently than anyone else, but I think that that is also the advantage that you just mentioned.
James: I think homeschooling is awesome. My wife worked in the education industry and I'm super passionate about First Book and DonorsChoose, and all this stuff. But I can tell you, no one's going to care as much as you. Assuming that you have the background, assuming you have the will, the drive, and the materials to do it, homeschooling is the way to go. The problem is that most people just don't have that stuff. But if you have it, then, oh my goodness, absolutely do it.
Clare: Yeah.
James: Let's get back to marketing here. Before we get into Instagram, I want to ask you, which marketing strategies outside of Instagram did you use? What tended to work well for you and what didn't work at all? [08:01.1]
Clare: Yeah, cold calling did not work at all. I think out of those 3,500, I probably got one, so you can do the math on what the return on investment is on that. I think cold calling is, for me-- I don't know, James, maybe if they train with you, if you're into cold calling, that would maybe work because I see you know what your talent is in teaching people. For me, that didn't work. I always put the test past myself. Could a cold caller get through me? They wouldn't. They just wouldn't.
James: Yeah, right.
Clare: I'm actually brutal. If you get me on the phone, I'm brutal. I would not want to have me on the phone. What did work for me, before Covid, obviously, was we did a lot of dinner seminars and coffee, that kind of thing, coffee, water, whatever seminar. That works tremendously well for me. [08:51.3]
I'm from Ontario. My main business is in Ontario, but I have clients across Canada. I remember I had absolutely no clients in Vancouver and I went prospecting. Then I just started going out and inviting people to a chic, luxurious dinner at the Fairmont Waterfront and it was going to be a steak-dinner situation, and we actually booked 52 people there out of knowing no one, and it was over two days of prospecting, and we were focused on a certain niche at that time as well.
That was in a province that I wasn’t from, didn't know anyone in, and we just happened to be going out there for a conference later that year, so we thought, Let's put a seminar together and get some business out of it as well. But doing that in Ontario was my huge–
Getting people to a seminar that either I'm speaking at or my mentor is speaking at, I think selling someone else, you always hear about that. “Have a buddy. Have an advisor buddy who you work with.” I think that works, especially if-- My confidence wasn't up yet. I was a few years in the business. Inviting someone to say, “You've got to come and hear my mentor speak. He's amazing. You'll never hear anything like it.” So, selling someone else at the time when I was new really helped me. I got a lot of business from those. But a lot of them were people I knew and friends of people I knew. “Yeah, so-and-so, just bring them” kind of thing. [10:14.8]
So, I made it. It wasn't so formal. As you can probably tell by personality, things are always a little bit more casual for me. I don't think there's a need to scare people into coming to a seminar or becoming your client.
James: Yeah. I mean, sometimes people will poke fun at the dinner seminars, like, “Oh, free steak dinner,” but they do work, if positioned correctly, just like cold calls, direct mail, email. I mean, you name it. Anything can work, if you work, and you obviously made it work.
I also want to point out to financial advisors who are listening, the buddy system that you're referencing, that absolutely does work. It works really well with seminars, obviously. It works really well with direct mail. Legendary marketer Dan Kennedy talked about one of his most successful mailings is something called the “Al The Plumber” mailing, and it's, basically, Al. It's like a chain mailing from people, and so on and so forth. You can google it and figure it out. [11:08.5]
It also works really well in webinars. These are called joint ventures, where people will basically get together and have them. That’s why you see the webinars all over the financial-services industry, where there are two people and they bring on a guest, and that's the reason why it works. Thank you so much for bringing that up.
How did you pivot into Instagram?
Clare: I was on Facebook and I saw a lot of people on Instagram, and I kept hearing about Instagram. “Instagram. What is this Instagram?” It was kind of starting to annoy me, actually, so I got on there, personally, and I just started posting. If you go really far back in my feed, I started posting just things I liked, because I didn't know how to use it. I didn't know what to do with it. And you'll notice that I start to change a little bit later into a little bit more financial-related. [11:57.7]
But, really, I started, personally, because I had heard about it, and then, like I said, I was on Facebook, and then I really started to see the opportunity. I started to see how many followers some people have. I don't even have that many followers, but I know because I’ve read your emails and all of your material on your website that having 1,000 or 10,000 followers doesn't matter, if nobody's engaged. I only have 1,400 followers, but there's a lot of engagement there.
James: Right, absolutely. That's a good point. When you got started with Instagram, and I want financial advisors to pay attention to the strategy behind what you're saying, you're saying that you experimented with it. You weren't afraid to learn how to use it, what to do with it. When I googled—I do research on my podcast guests—and I found what I believe to be a personal account, so @ClareBaukham, but there's also a link to @ClearWealthGroup.
Clare: Yeah.
James: Which one do you prioritize for getting clients, the personal one or the business one?
Clare: Yeah, so it's the personal one. [13:00.2]
James: Wow, that's interesting.
Clare: Yeah, yeah.
James: I could have guessed that. But a lot of people probably would not have guessed that -
Clare: No.
James: - that way.
Clare: I know. Clear Wealth Group is my company. The way it works for us is Clear Wealth Group works under-- I'm currently with Mandeville Private Client. I don't want to call them my back office, but kind of in a way it works like that, so I can have my corporation inside of that firm, right? And there's reasons I chose that firm over others, but that's another story for another day.
But @ClareBaukham, the thing is this. First of all, @ClareBaukham has more followers. However, people want to see you as a person before they want to see you as a corporation. I think the corporation is strictly financial. And I don't keep it that up to date and the reason is because I have to put every piece through compliance—every period, exclamation mark has to go through compliance—whereas with @ClareBaukham, because it's personal, it doesn't always have to go through compliance. [14:02.7]
Now, my financial-related posts with @ClareBaukham, I do a lot on stories, so they're not permanent. If there is something that I want that's going to be really heavy on financial and it's going to have any figures in it, then, yes, I have to put it through compliance.
But, honestly, the reason mainly is because people want to see you as a person and not a corporation. The corporation, if I look at my Clear Wealth—and, personally, I told you, I pass everything through myself personally and I see how I would feel about it—@ClearWealthGroup is it's awesome and there's a really good strategies on there, but it's not a person, and I want to connect to a human.
James: Yeah, absolutely. This sort of business account, the way that I view it is, it’s just like something that makes you legitimate.
Clare: Exactly, yeah.
James: If you're here, if you really want to check out my business page, this is where to go. But I do think that more financial advisors could benefit by realizing that, yeah, people do want to see you as a human first. [14:59.5]
This is very interesting because I come from the marketing world, very heavy in that. For better or worse, I have now either branded myself or been branded as email marketing for financial advisors, and I appreciate that, I like that, and I notice that the most successful emails don't talk about money at all. They don't talk about investments at all.
People say, Oh, but not a little, even just a little bit? No, not even a little bit. They're talking about restaurants. They're talking about recipes. They're talking about pets. They're talking about your kids, talking about where you went to high school, interesting stories from high school, talking about which TV shows you watch. But when I say this, a lot of people don't believe me. But it's cool to see, on Instagram, it makes perfect sense because it's visual, highly visual, because it's just photos and video.
If you're a business account, I'm trying to think, if I had the Advisor Coach business account, what would I post? I don't know. But if I had James Pollard at Instagram, which I don't, if you're listening, I could just take a video. If I see something, take a video. If I'm out somewhere, take a photo, and people will respond to that, and I'm sure they do with you, too. [16:07.7]
Clare: They do. My best responses are from personal posts. If you see a picture of me on there, you'll see that I get the most likes and comments on that. I do, also, a lot of motivational. I think, if you guys are trying to do, to the audience, if you guys are trying to do your personal Instagram, stop posting your plate of food. It's really pretty and everything, and I'm sure it's like sometimes I post food because I'm a fitness person and I'm drooling over a burger or pizza that I can't have until my cheat meal or whatever, but people know me for that. Right?
People truly want to know who you are. I've had so many people say two things to me. “Oh my gosh, Clare, you're so transparent. I love it. I feel like I know you.” People want to feel like you're a celebrity. “Oh, I work with Clare Baukham. Oh, yeah, you should do it.” [17:02.1]
I had a girl go get her a pedicure done close to my office. Sorry, a girl from my old office at my old firm. She came back to the office and she says, “What's with you?” and I said, “What?” She says, “I went in to get a pedicure and they're like, Oh my God, do you know Clare Baukham? She's really tight, and, “Yeah, I know Clare.” “Oh, because she says that it's worth it to fly first class.” Because that's my thing.
My thing is, how can we get into more? I want to get a private jet. How can I get a private jet? How can we, like I am right now? I'm in Mexico living here for two months, January and February, and I’m working down here. How can you make these things possible in your life? How can you get more? How can you make more money? You want to buy a house on the lake? I do. I'm looking at one right now. It's not for sale, I want to get it.
People will find all of this out about you on your personal. Your corporate or your professional—whatever you want to call it—Instagram is going to be strictly that, strictly about your business. We keep it professional. We do the Merry Christmas thing or whatever, the Happy New Year. All of that stuff is just to make sure people know that we're a real company and we're alive, like we said about it just-- [18:07.8]
James: It’s legit, yeah.
Clare: Yes, exactly, because they're going to look. And I looked. As soon as I found out about you, James, I looked up your Instagram. I didn't find one, obviously, but then I realized that you do most of your stuff on LinkedIn or whatever.
But, yeah, don't. We can't be posting things. You have to post things that you think-- This is kind of weird. You have to post things that you want to be known for, and it's taken me a very long time and a lot of research to figure out who I am through all of my acting days as well. My director is actually incredible. I'm still in [touch with] one of my main directors. He was a private coach as well for me. He still helps me figure out who that person is. That all gets kind of molded into whatever I post.
I'm down in Mexico right now and I'm posting a lot of that, but a lot of people are just like, Oh my God, how do I live that lifestyle? That's what you want. Look at the accounts that you're following. If you're thinking to yourself, Oh, I love this account, look at why do you love the accounts that you're following? “I love this account because they're living this lifestyle. Oh, man, I wish I could live like that.” [19:16.2]
People want to see, especially financial advisors. It's such a cold industry. It's a cold professional. It reminds me of the-- We're not relatable usually.
James: Very robotic.
Clare: Very robotic. As soon as you become relatable, people have approached me because of “You know, Clare, I feel like I can ask you this because . . .” People have told me, “I feel like you're relatable.”
The second thing is I get a lot of people saying, “I feel like you posted today's . . .” whatever I posted that day. I do have, like I said, a lot of motivational. “I feel like you posted that directly for me.” Because I go after a lot of business owners, small business owners, I get a lot of everything, to be honest, but I have a specific niche, obviously. But, yeah, I get people who feel like, Do you know what's going on in my life? Because I feel like you posted that for me. And I'm like, Yeah, of course, I know what's going on in your life, so, yeah. [20:12.7]
James: Yeah, because I work with people just like you.
Clare: Exactly.
James: And they see that.
Clare: Exactly.
James: And this is the proof of concept.
Clare: Yeah, exactly.
James: Take me back to the first class, flying first class thing. How did you get known for that? What exactly is that? Because I want to learn more.
Clare: Yeah? Like out of what?
James: You said it's worth it to fly first class.
Clare: Fly first class? Yeah. Here's the thing. Once you sit in those bigger seats and you get that hot meal, and you get the treatment and you get to get on the plane first and off the plane first, and you don't have to line up at security, once you get that treatment, that's a mindset. You cannot-- I don't know about you, I cannot walk past the first-class seats into the economy. I had to and it was a very bad situation, and that was only actually because we were actually down here, we had to put my mom in the hospital. [21:02.2]
She ended up passing away a couple months later. She had lung cancer metastasized to the brain. I had to take an emergency flight home. We sent her home on a private jet with my dad. I won't mention the airline, I had to take a very tiny seat home and I had a six-month-old baby, and it was the worst experience of my life. And my brother is like, I don't know why you fly first class, this is amazing. I thought, What? You simply cannot walk past that. People are like, Oh, it's not worth it.
You're paying an extra, whatever, $300, $400, $600 more. I could buy a hot meal and bring it on there.
Guys, you're missing the point completely. It's not about the meal and the hot towel and the private bathroom, and all. It's not about that. It's about a mindset. It's about leveling yourself, leveling your mindset up. Once you sit there, you belong in that crowd. You're making that kind of money. You can't go back. [22:03.2]
James: Absolutely.
Clare: You're making 60 grand a year and you're like, Okay, I need to make 80 grand, 100 grand a year in order for me to sit in first class, you're not going to go back to 60 grand a year. You just ca
James: There’s an old saying about that.
Clare: You just find a way. It's always about finding a way. No. Yeah.
James: I will admit, I have a personal rule. If the flight is about two hours, here's the thing, I live in Delaware and I fly to Florida a lot and a flight to Florida is 2 hours 30 minutes, 2 hours 15 minutes. I don't remember ever flying first class to Florida because it's such a short flight, but if it's five hours, like to LAX from Philly is 5 hours 53 minutes, I'm sorry, I'm not going to do that in the Southwest. I'm just not, period.
Clare: Yeah, yeah.
James: So, that's how I approach it. If it's a short flight, then, no, I don't fly first class. I'm just being transparent with you. But if it's long flight -
Clare: Yeah, yeah.
James: - boy, it's worth it, a hundred percent. You don't go back to that. [22:59.6]
Clare: Listen, inside Canada, flying first class, it's literally like you have to take out another mortgage, so for us, domestic flights, it doesn't always make sense. Actually, yeah, let me say that as well. I totally agree with you. If it's a shorter flight, forget about it. I do a priority . . . what's it called? Economy? Premium Economy?
James: Yeah, right, stuff like that.
Clare: Yeah, like front seat for us to put-- There’s things like that. We have a little bit more. My husband is 6’5”, so I can't get away with sitting in the back anyway. But, no, on longer flights, especially because we own our place down here, that’s where we do the splurge, totally.
James: Yeah, I agree. We're on the same page with that.
Clare: Yeah.
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James: But it is a mindset and I want to talk about this. I know the episode is titled, like, how to get clients with Instagram marketing, but I really want to talk about this because I think it's important for financial advisors to get that mindset. [24:15.0]
And it's going to be different for everyone. Everybody has different things that they splurge on. I’ve spent an ungodly amount of money on my bedroom, and not in a naughty way. Just like the equipment, like the mattress and the blinds, and all this fancy stuff.
Clare: Yeah.
James: It’s insane, and most people, they don't want to do that, but it's important to me. Literally, today, I bought a brand new desk. One of my pet peeves is when people do research. Let's just say something is, I don't know, $100, and they spend eight hours researching it. That's nuts to me. I can't do that. I don't want to do that. The desk I bought today was several thousand dollars and I'd tricked it out and did some fancy stuff to it.
I told myself in advance, “I don't want to spend more than 20 minutes buying this. I'm going to buy it. I'm going to get it done. If it doesn't work, then I’ll send it back. But I'm not going to spend a week trying to figure out, Oh, should I get this hook? Or should I get the J-hook or should I get the V-hook? Should I get this drawer organizer in bamboo or should I get it in laminate?” I don't want to do any of that. [25:12.4]
Everybody has their own things that are important to them. You have to decide what that is, and you have to know what it is for your clients. So, I imagine, if you're working with business owners, they prioritize stuff in their business and business productivity. They also probably prioritize playing harder, because these people probably work harder, and you know that.
Clare: Yeah, exactly. Actually, on that point, I get someone to do my groceries for me when I'm at home, and I'm really missing it when I live here because I don't have anyone to do that and I have to do it, and I hate it because at home, it would take me two hours roundtrip. Plus, I don't want to do it. I pay someone, I think, a CA$20–30 tip kind of thing.
“Oh, but you could get groceries with that.” Guys, again, people say this stuff to me, and, guys, you're missing the point. It's time. It's frustration. It’s during Covid. I don't want to go out there. I've got a 3-year-old. Blah, blah, blah. [26:04.1]
James: It's just there are so many things. I think financial advisors, they step over dollars to pick up pennies, or loonies, I guess.
Clare: Yeah, yeah, loonies, that's right.
James: Loonies, yeah, I got that right.
Clare: Yeah.
James: What's interesting with the Instagram thing is I see a lot of parallels. Instagram, again, I want to stress this, is highly visual and it's important for people to understand that you're posting content about you. You're posting content about what you believe. You're posting content that resonates with a certain audience. What type of content doesn't work well on Instagram?
Clare: Honestly, I thought the motivational posts did not work well, and then I started hearing feedback from people, like I said before, that “I felt like you were speaking to me, and, yeah, you know what? I need to hustle up.”
My whole thing is hustle up. I have someone who is trying to sell me these manifests, become a manifestation coach, because I'm already kind of coaching people in a way, right? And they're saying to me, “Well, you shouldn't have to work that hard.” Guys, you always have to put in the work, right? [27:10.8]
So, which posts? The posts that are . . . I'm not great with what isn't working. I'm sure I could go through my feed and tell you what has the least likes, but the most likes, which I mentioned, are personal. The other ones that get a lot actually are financial-related, but striking an emotional chord with people.
For example, this one actually hurts me, which is that I saw a picture of—there’s two—when people do a GoFundMe because they have cancer and they need money. Why do you not have CI insurance? What happened? Why are you waiting to get cancer for you to get a CI policy, a critical illness policy? And that's just a small one, as you know. [28:02.4]
James: Yeah.
Clare: The other one is, I’ve seen kids—this is hard. It's hard because I have a small child—seeing a little guy, a picture of a little guy in a diaper with no hair, bent over the toilet throwing up because he's got cancer and he's doing chemo, and the parents are … “Oh, this is little Joe and he's super sick,” and I'm thinking to myself, Parents, you have these kids, you buy them the toys, and all that. Please, for the love of all things holy, get them a CI policy for 100 grand, so that when . . . if they get sick-- I don't want to [say “when”]. I don't like [to], because I say “when” for adults because the likelihood of us getting sick is about 60% with cancer.
Ames: Sure.
Clare: Or more now. If the little one gets sick, you want to be able to be off work, don't be worrying about—James, I saw a family in my own town at home doing a bottle drive to try and collect money, because their little guy needed a special treatment for his cancer. As a parent, your heart is being crushed when you see something like that. [29:07.6]
I see things online. I follow very uncomfortable content like that and I expose myself to it, because then it strikes a chord in me emotionally, which prompts me to do a post which prompts other people. I probably got about three different [people] out of my last, I think it was a story I did. I had three different people come to me and say, “Oh my gosh, I need CI insurance. And, by the way, let's just look at the rest of my stuff as well.”
James: Yeah, like, “while I'm here,” and that's a good point. I mean, people buy the toys and they have the Netflix and they have the streaming services, but those things don't matter in the grand scheme of things. And you're protecting an asymmetric downside. When things go wrong, they go really, really wrong, and it is important to have people like you and other financial advisors in the world to basically protect against those downsides.
Clare: Yeah. [29:58.4]
James: Actually, I didn't even think about that at all with Instagram, and it makes a lot of sense because, for better or worse, and we don't have time to go down this rabbit hole today, but the way social media networks work is they basically play off your emotion. On Twitter, essentially, what I’ve noticed is there are a lot of political posts, basically reinforcing stuff that you don't believe in, meaning, if you're a super-left-wing liberal or whatever they're called nowadays, I don't even know, or conservative—I don't even know what these words are. But what is a wing? Do we have wings? I'm not sure.
Clare: Yeah.
James: They will show you the opposite of whatever it is that they have found out through their data. They'll show you the opposite just to get you outraged. Instagram will do that with emotions, and positive emotions, negative emotions. Now, a question I have for you that's not content-related necessarily is do you have a direct messaging strategy on LinkedIn, or on Instagram?
Clare: You mean, do I start messaging people directly in order to get business? [31:01.0]
James: Sure, that or “DM me for more info” or “LinkedIn bio.” I'm not sure. Again, I'm not on it. James Pollard, as a person, I'm not on Instagram, so I'm just asking. I don't even know.
Clare: No. Once in a while, I’ll put a “Just DM me if you want more information,” just because it's too much information. I do not have a strategy, and I think the reason is because I see too much of it and I see too many people hammering other people's inboxes and that has become the new cold calling. How many do you get where -
James: Oh my goodness.
Clare: - even for you, on your LinkedIn? Oh, my gosh, I get so many and I can't stand it. I don't even read them anymore. “Oh, you look pretty. You look like you'd be good for our jewelry campaign,” whatever, so I just delete, delete, delete. I don't want to give someone that negative connotation about me and what I'm doing, so, no, I don't have a DM strategy. [31:54.6]
James: What's interesting is that the people who tend to be most successful with social media, this is very weird, this is one of those things where I have to trust the data, but then my eyes kind of deceive me. What's interesting is that all of the data suggests that the financial advisors who are successful with social media, they do engage in some sort of direct message strategies. It's like 94%.
But the interviews that I’ve had—and this is through the Advisor Coach and podcasts like this, and even private consulting gigs, because the people who pay me, they are doing other things and they're just in another universe—they don't. I'm in a weird headspace, because I see the data. I know the data. I know that direct messaging stuff can work. But the people who really are upper echelon there, they don't.
I had a guest on either last week or a couple of weeks ago and he talked about Twitter marketing, and he's just killing it on Twitter. It's just amazing. He doesn't message at all. Wait a minute. So, it's just one of those things where the above-average? Sure, they do it. But is it just killing it? Not necessarily. So, it is interesting. It is interesting. [33:05.8]
So, if you don't have a DM strategy, what is your overall sequence for getting someone to turn from a visitor to your Instagram profile into a client?
Clare: I will usually get a message about something that I’ve posted, and then I actually do the same thing as I have a very high close rate, so I will give them the information they're looking for. I'm not trying to hold things back. I noticed a lot of people will do that. If I'm looking for some information, I'm either given off to someone else to answer the question for me who's not answering the question for me or they're just not in it. People are withholding this information. I don't know if you'd know Grant Cardone and Gary Vaynerchuck.
James: I know more Cardone than Vaynerchuk. [33:58.7]
Clare: Yeah, they just give the information. There's enough people out there. I have this thing about karma as well. Give people what they need. If it's meant to be, it'll be and they'll come back to you, right? You have to have enough in your pipeline that you're not dying for that one prospect that has asked you the one question.
Have your pipeline so full that it's like, Okay, whatever, next. Not whatever in a mean way. Just if you don't want to work with me, it's all good, if you don't want to go to my mentors. It’s just saying, “If you don't want to go to the prom with me, I don't want to go to the prom with you. You want to go on a date with me? I don't want to go on a date with you.” It's all good. There's no hard feelings.
So, I give them what they need and I just say, “Yeah, you should have this. You should have that.” Or I’ll say-- I can't always explain it through direct messaging. I'll say to them, “Look, the markets are down and this is literally one of the single best investing opportunities that you've had in a decade, since 2008–2009, basically, so I hope that your portfolio is set up that way,” and if they want more information, they’ll ask. If they're scared, they may not. So, I sometimes will follow up and just say, “Hey, just let me know if you have any questions,” and I let it go. If you love something, let it go, and if it loves you, it'll return, back to you, right? [35:11.4]
James: Yeah, and you have marketing assets that follow up. You may not follow up manually, but your assets are still there.
Clare: They’ve seen the posts.
James: If they want to learn more, they’ll go back. Yeah.
Clare: They’ve seen the other posts, yeah.
James: Yeah, exactly.
Clare: You asked me earlier, just to go back really quick, sorry, you asked me earlier about what's not working. Just really quickly, for advisors, I think everyone is using Instagram wrong. Very, very wrong. I will post a story and I will tag 20 people in it, and you can't always see those tags, it goes behind the scenes. That means, as another business, you’ve got to repost it. People are not reposting other people. So, Instagram is a tough gig, I think, because there's not a lot of education. People are not using it properly. [35:59.4]
If I post something and I tag you, James Pollard, done. You should be reposting for me. I mean, we're kind of a related-ish business, right? If I'm posting, like I posted in Mercedes-Benz because I said that my next car that I wanted was going to be the Mercedes-Benz Maybach. Definitely, that's what I'm getting, right? I have a Benz now, that's what I like, and I have a mini. They reposted it for me, so now all of their followers follow me.
James: Oh, that’s cool.
Clare: Yes, this is a huge thing. Repost people, if you want to get more followers engaged. But I got 1,400 followers from scratch, okay? And as a financial advisor, that's decent.
James: Yeah.
Clare: I guess I'm trying to keep growing. I grew. I think I’ve had about 150 followers in the last two months, just because I'm doing more. Post often. Posts a lot of stories. The reels are huge. We need to do a whole other episode on this, James. There is a strategy. I do a lot of research on how to, and what works and what doesn't work, and that's why I’ve been growing my engagement. When I first started getting really heavily into Instagram a few years ago, I think I got about $2.5 million out of it, which is not a heck of a lot. As Canadians, the average advisor will write about 3 million a year. [37:13.7]
James: I did not know that. I didn't know that. I didn't know the Canadians stats.
Clare: Yeah, yeah.
James: That is actually very interesting.
Clare: And, also, I do not pay for sponsored ads yet. I am going to because I'm now at a level where I want to start really getting this going, but I do not pay for ads. So, if you think that you need to go in there and spend a bunch of money, you don't. You need to engage people and it's got to be on a personal level.
James: You have to have a proof of concept.
Carle: Yeah.
James: I love online advertising. I've spent a boatload of money on online advertising.
Clare: Yeah.
James: It's one of the things that-- I brought up the console stuff. Essentially, it's weird because people will basically come to me and say, “Can you just look at my ad account?” I’m like, Okay, sure, I’ll do that. But you have to have a proof of concept. I cannot stress that enough. You have to have something that is working. You don't want to start throwing money at the wall with ads and have nothing. [38:09.3]
If you have a blog post, let's say you have 10 blog posts on your website and one of them does really well, sure, run ads. But don't start on day one and say, “Hmm, I wonder if this will work.” You have to have something. So, thank you for bringing that up.
Clare: I think we're all looking for the easy way out because we're trying to just do our business. But I have someone in the background who basically does all of the admin, like the “business” business, and basically, my job as the advisor is marketing, which is prospecting, kind of, and sales. Sales, meaning, speaking to the people -
James: Help people, yeah.
Clare: - getting them to do what they need to do to make themselves wealthy and in a good position.
James: Sure. You brought up Grant Cardone and Gary Vaynerchuck. I don't know enough about Gary Vaynerchuk. I have read a couple of his books, but I do know a little bit about Grant Cardone and I did follow him for a number of years. What's one thing that you've learned from Grant that has helped you? [39:06.2]
Clare: I love Grant Cardone. My husband and I both love him so much. We have every one of his books. I feel like there's a similarity in our personalities.
James: Yes. Yep.
Clare: Yeah, he's a little bit more. But the one thing I’ve taken from him, I loved his book, The 10x Rule.
James: Me too.
Clare: I even say this to clients or because I have other advisors who I sometimes not mentor, but I’ll help them out, no problem, just younger advisors who are just trying to get going and they just can't seem to find their way, and I say, “Listen, Grant Cardone says, if people don't know you, they can't flow you.”
James: Can’t flow you, yeah.
Clare: Yeah, so that’s my number one—get in front of as many eyeballs as you can.
James: This is interesting because this is going to be a little story or fun fact about me for financial advisors that might not know. I bought a bunch of stuff from Grant Cardone, every single book. I mean, The 10x Rule, in my opinion, is the best. You have to get the audio version because him reading it is better than you reading it - [40:08.4]
Clare: Reading it, yeah.
James: - and trying to hear the voice in your head. Anyway, one of the products that he had was something called the Wealth Creation Formula and this is a course, and it basically stresses things like start with one flow of income. Don't backflow. Add a parallel flow. A lot of people mess this up, they don't add a parallel flow, and parallel flow is something that hooks onto an existing business. People will basically start a Shopify store and then try to start another, like an ice-cream truck or a food truck. Don't do that. Have a parallel business.
One of my secrets of my personal success is directly from the Wealth Creation Formula, because I am basically taking marketing skills and applying them to multiple businesses. I mean, before we started recording, I shared with you two businesses that I had that I don't have many more, but I had that were using Instagram marketing. Those were parallel flows, not because they're in the financial services industry, but because I'm literally just taking the marketing concept and applying them to the businesses, and I thank Grant Cardone for that. [41:12.0]
I know a lot of people point out his flaws. He seems kind of scummy sometimes, but I'm a believer that you can learn from everyone. He obviously has some positive traits, because you don't get to where you are by being garbage in every aspect of your life. You just don't, period. So, I wish people saw beyond that and realized that he's got some positive qualities you can learn. And The 10x Rule was amazing. The Wealth Creation Formula did change my life, and so I'm forever grateful for that.
Clare: Can you give an example of, I'm sorry to put you on the spot, but a parallel business for a financial advisor?
James: Partnerships with other strategic alliances and centers of influence, you could do that. Content creation.
Clare: Yeah, accountants, lawyers, that kind of thing. Content Creation. [41:56.7]
James: Yeah, cool. So, content creation. There are financial advisors who have big YouTube channels. You're not going to make a bunch of money from YouTube, but you have to understand, let me put it to you this way—I am actually, behind the scenes. I'm trying to do some stuff with YouTube right now in unrelated businesses, not in the financial-services space, but think about it this way—if I wanted to make $25,000 or I wanted to get $25,000 per year based on the 4% rule, I would need to have $625,000 worth of cash money invested.
Okay, what is easier, for me, to build a YouTube channel that generates $25,000 per year or get my hands on $625,000? In my opinion, it’s easier for me to get that asset, the YouTube channel to $25,000, because here's the beautiful thing—if I take $625,000 and I put it in a relatively conservative investment and I'm withdrawing from it, and maybe it grows a little bit, whatever, it's not going to get to a million dollars in a year or two. But that 25,000 could get to 40,000 in a year. It could get to 45,000 in the year after that, and then 60,000, who knows, if I keep growing it? But in my opinion, getting that income stream that is equivalent to a nest egg is a heck of a lot easier. [43:12.7]
So, there's that. There are financial advisors who have written books. There are financial advisors who—Now, this is tricky in the United States. I'm not sure about Canada. Affiliate relationships are typically a big no-no, but you have to structure them correctly. If a financial advisor is known for a certain hobby, meaning, I don't know, fishing, for example -
Clare: Yeah.
James: - there are ways to just plug fishing-related stuff on your blog, in your content. You can have an Amazon Associates link where it just says, “Hey, this is the fishing reel that I use, in case you're interested by that.” This is not life-changing money, but the way that I view it is just it's the equivalent to a 4% rule distribution. I could work my butt off to get to $10 million or I could create multiple businesses to make me $400,000 per year passively. What's easier, 10 million or 400,000 passively? [44:03.3]
Clare: Yeah.
James: So, that’s where I come from.
Clare: That's the great thing. It’s that as you're going forward and you're building that, you probably eventually get to 10 million anyway -
James: Exactly.
Clare: - because you're probably not going to be, right?
James: Right.
Clare: So, yeah. Yeah, that's great. I love that.
James: This has been an amazing conversation. I hope a lot of financial advisors get stuff from it. And one thing I have noticed, you asked me off the air, it was like, in case clients find me. No, what happens is they search your name and stuff like this will come up in search engines, so they'll say like, Oh, Clare was on a podcast, let me listen to this. So, how can people get in touch with you, if they want to learn more about you, anything?
Clare: Yeah, you can find me, if you want, on Instagram, Clare Baukham, @ClareBaukham, which is C-L-A-R-E B-A-U-K-H-A-M. There's no “I” in Clare, please. Or direct, and you could actually check out my website as well, ClearWealthGroup.com, and you can find my email through there as well.
James: You heard her, @ClareBaukham on Instagram and ClearWealthGroup.com. Very easy website that you will be able to remember, so I am appreciative of that. [45:07.0]
Financial advisors, I hope you have enjoyed this episode. It has been absolute gold, all about Instagram marketing. I hope you got as much out of it as I did. And I will catch you next week.
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