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: In this episode, I'm going to talk about three common but terrible niches for financial advisors. But, first, I want to share something I’ve noticed now more than ever.
I’ve been rereading Robert Greene's book The 48 Laws of Power. I highly recommend reading everything that Robert Greene puts out. If you want to understand human nature, you need to read Mastery. You need to read The 48 Laws of Power. You need to read The Laws of Human Nature, which is right there in the title. These are all amazing books. [00:59.1]
Right now, like I said, I'm going through The 48 Laws of Power. Again, I try to read it, I would say, once every year, but it's really more like once every year or two, maybe like every 18 months, and it's just a fantastic read, and Law 36 has been bouncing around in my brain for the past few days. I'm starting to notice it in a lot of places. I didn't realize how common this law was, but people love disdaining the things they can't have, and that's exactly what it says. It says, “Disdain the things you can't have.”
For example, a friend of mine posted a photo of his vacation on social media, as people who use social media do. It seems like they love posting pictures of their pets, their vacation, what they have for dinner, and I'm guilty of all of those. He posted a picture of this resort in the Bahamas. It's like $5,000 per night, it's not a cheap resort. It's a wonderful place. He's worked hard to stay at places like this. He's proud of it. He wants to share it all, as people on social media do. Somebody commented, “I'm glad I don't need all that. It doesn't take much to make me happy.” [02:00.2]
Now, while that may be the case, it may not take much for this person to be happy, it's a classic example of disdaining what you can't have, because I know for a fact that the person who commented cannot afford the $5,000 per night that it cost to stay at the resort. It's not a choice. It's like it's not a will or won't. It is a cannot. There is no choice, can’t afford it. So, instead of working harder and being the person who can go to a resort like that, he decided to do what was psychologically easier, and that's to disdain it.
That's what people do. If they can't have something, they disdain it. If someone is fat and out of shape, and this is not a knock on fat people—I’ve been fat. I'm still kind of chubby right now—but it would be like me looking at a fitness model and saying, “Oh, I'm glad I don't have that. I don't need all that. I'm fine just the way I am.” And I can be happy with myself, but I don't need to disdain other people. I hope that makes sense. I hope I'm getting my point across correctly. [02:56.0]
Another common way people disdain what they can't have is when they say money isn't important. Oh, really? Money is not important. If money is not important, then why are you selling 40 hours of your life every week to get money? Get out of here with that idiotic mess. I've never had a wealthy person tell me money isn't important.
Of course, money is not everything. There’s family, love, honor, loyalty, respect. These are all things better than money and more important than money. But as far as in the real world where you need food, shelter, water, it's up there, because money can purchase food. Money can purchase shelter. It can get you there. It's just really . . . it's strange.
Go ask your favorite charity if money is important or if it's not important. One of my favorite charities is one called First Book, and the last time I checked, they wanted donations in the form of money. They didn't want thoughts. They didn't want prayers, although prayer can help as long as you know and follow how prayer actually works instead of what people think it is. They want money, moolah, cash dinero. Isn't that interesting? [03:58.8]
So, if I say money isn't important, what I'm really saying is “It's not important for me to support the charity. Children don't need books. What do they need to learn for?” Don't be silly. Of course, money is important, but that doesn't stop people from disdaining it.
I recently saw an online post from a financial advisor disdaining website marketing. In a nutshell, this guy said having a good website isn't that important and isn't the foundation that many people, including me, make it out to be. Curious, I googled the advisor’s name like many prospective clients do and I clicked on his website like many prospective clients do, which is actually why having a good website is important because people are going to find it, and his website sucked.
He had no clear calls to action. He had a big, ugly slideshow on his homepage, his header, which is a rookie mistake. His “About Us” page was terrible and his contact page was abysmal. No wonder he was bashing website marketing. He was merely disdaining what he couldn't have. He couldn't figure out how to make his website work, so he figured it must not be that important. “Oh, it can't be that important if I can't have it or if I can't make it work. I don't really need that.” [05:07.4]
I also see financial advisors disdaining niche marketing, only because they haven't been able to figure out how to make it work. I see this everywhere. I see it with direct mail. People say, “Oh, direct mail is not that important.” No, it's because you haven't been able to figure out how to make it work. I can send a letter out today to a niche market and get clients as soon as next week. I can do that with direct mail. I've done it many times before. People say, “Oh, I tried it. It didn't work. It doesn't work. It can't work.” You're just being silly. Of course, it works. That's why people do it and get results with it.
And people say that with niche marketing, too. Some advisors will say, “Ah-huh-huh-huh, I don't have a niche and I'm doing okay for myself,” and they make maybe 100 grand a year, maybe 200 grand a year in personal income, not realizing that they could triple or quadruple that if they successfully chose and marketed to a niche. [05:55.4]
Really, I don't know what else to compare this to. I guess it's like someone with vision problems hating on glasses or contact lenses saying, “Oh, I don't need those. I see just fine,” and everybody else is just like, But these lenses will make you see better. They're easy to use. Just pop them on, wear them, you'll have perfect vision. So, the biggest mistake is not having a niche at all. It's like being blind. Instead of having poor vision, you have no vision, and you're trying to work with everyone who can fog a mirror. That is a massive mistake.
The second biggest mistake is having this big demographic group masquerading as a niche, and that's what I'm going to talk about in this episode. The first common but terrible niche is women. You mean, half the population? It's ridiculous. There are 168 million women in America, and let me put this in perspective. There are 68 million people in Britain, 68 million people in France, and 26 million people in Australia. If you add those numbers up, 68, 68 and 26, you get 162 million people. That's still fewer than the number of women in America. [07:09.2]
But I wonder if the same people who say they target women would feel as comfortable saying, “I target all British, French, and Australian people.” They probably wouldn't. They wouldn't say that. They would mock other people. If there was a financial advisor out there who said, “I target all Australians. I target all French people, too, and I target all British people, too,” they would laugh, but they're doing the same thing in terms of population and just sheer size when they target women. We'll talk about this a little bit later, how you can narrow down the women target group.
The second common but terrible niche is business owners. This isn't as bad as women in terms of a population size, but there are more than 31 million business owners in America. I'd suggest narrowing it down a little more, and we’ll talk about this. Again, it's like trying to target all of Australia. It's silly. It's goofy. It's asinine. [08:04.8]
I know some people will say, “Oh, but that is a niche because they have something in common, like the entrepreneurial spirit or whatever.” But that's a cop out because there are so many different types of businesses, and there is no way you can be an expert on business owners, in general. You have real estate businesses, information businesses, publishing businesses, like mine at The Advisor Coach—I publish the most prestigious newsletter in all financial services—franchises, agricultural businesses, mechanic shops, body shops, firearms dealers. Being in FFL is a completely different headache that you have to deal with. There are just so many businesses.
Take my Inner Circle Newsletter, for example. I have a ton of subscribers who work with business owners, but they work with different types of business owners. One Inner Circle member works with farmers and is very successful with helping them manage cash-flow issues, financing, helping them avoid estate tax issues because farms can be worth tens of millions of dollars, just stuff like that. [09:01.0]
Another one of my Inner Circle members works with real estate agents. That Inner Circle member has entirely different systems and different processes, and different marketing materials, because real estate agents have entirely different financial lives and financial planning needs.
How can you possibly say that you work with business owners when that category includes both farmers and real estate agents? Simple, you can't. At least, not honestly.
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.
The third common but terrible niche is retirees. There are more than 47 million retirees in America. Again, I have a ton of Inner Circle members who focus on retirees, but they focus on specific segments of the retiree population. A 70-year-old retiree in Iowa will face different challenges than a 55-year-old retiree in Florida, even more so for people who retire early. If someone is in the Financial Independence, Retire Early movement, if this person is 35 and retiring and has different tax buckets, like you've got your taxable and your pretax and your tax-free, there are just different things that you need to take into account, and there are different ways you need to market to them.
Someone who is 55 and retired in Florida is going to respond completely differently to something that would attract a 30-year-old person in the Financial Independence, Retire Early, or somebody who had a big exit and is just traveling the world now. It's just completely different. Anyone who says that he or she can serve both of these people at a high level is being disingenuous.
Now, are you someone who targets or wants to target one or more of these three niches? I hope it's not more, but can you imagine targeting all women, all retirees, and all business owners, goodness gracious. I guess there's somebody out there who does it. [11:05.3]
But don't worry, all hope is not lost. I suggest doing something I call layering. This is where you add something on top of the existing group. You layer it with something else. That's why it's called layering.
For example, if you know you want to work with women, then you could layer that group with something like geographic location, an occupation or an industry, a common set of values or beliefs, a recent life change, an age group or a generation, like Gen Z, millennials, and boomers.
By doing so, your Niche can go from women, this big massive group with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds to female entrepreneurs in Florida. That's a lot better. Or recently-divorced women aged 50 and older. That's a heck of a lot better. Or women in the tech industry. Good, that's so much better than just women. [11:59.3]
Of course, you can get too narrow with layering. I wouldn't feel comfortable trying to target recently-divorced female tech executives, aged 50 and older, in Florida, because I doubt there would be many of them and they would be difficult to find. Also, that would be a lot of words to put on your LinkedIn profile, your website, your email autoresponder, your lead magnet. You just want something simple. It would be so much easier for me to say “Women in the tech industry” on LinkedIn.
How hard is that, to have your headline say, “I help women in the tech industry”? How hard would it be to create a lead magnet that says, “Seven mistakes women in the tech industry make with financial planning and how to avoid them,” or “10 mistakes recently-divorced women make with their money and how to avoid them”? It's so easy and you can just generate these leads, and you can target these. You can target divorced people. You can target people who are in the tech industry.
You can literally open a LinkedIn ads account today—today—and filter by what you want to see, if you want to see people who are in the tech industry in San Francisco with a certain company headcount. Maybe you want to retarget website visitors. There's just so much you can do. But you can't do it with just men or just women, or just retirees. You can't do it. [13:10.5]
You know how I'm always talking about strategies versus tactics? This is a good time for me to do it again and I want to explain to you the difference between strategies and tactics. I'll do so with a question I received from a financial advisor. Here we go. Here's the question. It's a long one, so buckle up.
“I have been thinking about a question related to niche marketing that I was hoping to get your thoughts on. Specifically, I’ve been wondering whether a niche can be too small. You reinforce how important niche marketing is all the time, and I know that it can allow me to tailor my services to meetup groups’ unique needs and establish myself as an expert.
“However, I'm wondering if there's a point where a niche becomes too small. If I were to focus exclusively on a particular sub-niche of a particular industry, would that limit my potential client base to the point where I would struggle to get clients? Have you ever come across such a situation? How do you determine the optimal size of a niche to target?” [14:06.1]
That is a great question and I actually answer it in depth in Deep Dive Into Niche Marketing over at TheAdvisorCoach.com/niche. Once again, that's TheAdvisorCoach.com/niche. It’s an entire program all about niche marketing and it's absolute gold.
But I will give you something here. Niching is a lot easier than people make it out to be. Essentially, you're picking a group of people that a) you like, and b) you can find. If you can find the divorced, female tech executives or whatever in Florida, then you should do it, assuming you like them. Both are equally important, because it's goofy to work with people you don't like and it's asinine to try to market to people you can't even find.
You’d be amazed, some financial advisors email me, “Hey, I want to specialize in this. How do I find them?” You don't know? You don't know how to find the people that you want to target and you want to work with? What are you doing? [15:02.3]
In many ways, your niche should be obvious. For example, my father-in-law is a car guy. I'm not. He knows all the car lingo and it looks like he can fix any car by just talking to it, or picking up a wrench and just tapping the car and then, boom, the car is fixed. He's that type of person.
You probably know someone like this. Maybe you've got an uncle. Maybe you've got a brother. Maybe you've got, I don't know, a family member, a sister, somebody that you know that can fix cars like that and they're just car wizards. But this is my father-in-law. He knows a ton of car magazines, social media groups, in-person meetups, and more.
I don't know these things because I'm just not a car guy. I'm not in that world. If you pinned me against the wall and you asked me to come up with 10 different places to find car enthusiasts, I'd struggle to come up with more than five. I know a couple message boards, like the Auto Geeks one. There are a couple YouTube channels. You've got like Meguiar's and Chemical Guys for car detailing. You've got Porsche meetups. You've got Tesla meetups. Things like that.
I know these. I know how to target them on Facebook. I know how to target them on Google Ads and YouTube, and all this other fancy stuff. I know how to get direct-mail lists. But as far as groups with the really insider type stuff, I would struggle to come up with that. [16:19.7]
My father in law could probably name 100 and that's not an exaggeration. I mean, seriously, this is not hyperbole for the podcast. I mean, he could really sit down and write out 100 places where he could find people who are interested in cars. Exotic cars, luxury cars, classic cars, new cars, used cars, dealers, everything. He's just that person.
If he was a financial advisor who wanted to choose a niche, something to do with cars would be pretty freakin’ obvious. It would be an easy way for him to gain a competitive advantage, because he would know more than you. He would know more than me. He'd be in there, because he knows where to find them. Oh, and guess what? He also likes them. It would not be a good niche for me, because even though I like these people—I like car people. I understand. I like anybody who has a hobby they're passionate about—I just don't know where to find them as well as he does. [17:11.5]
Now, I know some of you stick with niches like women and business owners, because you're worried about being too narrow, and I think that's a silly fear. I've done so much work in this space. I’ve done so much research. The degree to which your conversions increase by having targeted marketing, it dwarfs the amount of alienation that occurs, because some alienation will occur. I'm not going to sit here and B.S. you and say, “Oh, you're just going to include everybody.” Obviously not. You can't be exclusive without excluding people.
But your conversion rates are going to go up in your direct mail and your social media and your email. They're going to go up across the board, because you can speak to a specific group of people. If you're currently converting, I don't know, 3%, and you choose a niche, it's not going to be unheard of for you to convert double that at 6%, and that will be a tremendous impact on your business. But, really, really take that to heart. [18:00.8]
Also, think about this. How many clients do you really need to accomplish your business goals . . . 50, 100, 300? You can always add niches. You can always add more, but it's really hard to take them away. It's hard to build your business around retirees and then say, “Oh, never mind, we're working with real estate agents now.” But it's very easy to work with real estate agents, and then add investors, and then add general contractors and things like that.
You shouldn't really start that way, though. You shouldn't start by saying, “I work with real estate agents and contractors,” and this and this this, because then you're running into the same problem as the financial advisor who works with everybody in Australia, for example.
I have a lot more I could say about this and I probably will in the future. Niching is a fabulous thing. I just want to make sure financial advisors do it correctly, and if you're going to try to target women, retirees, or business owners, please, please, please add a layer on top of that. [18:56.2]
If you're interested in learning more, go to TheAdvisorCoach.com/niche and check out Deep Dive Into Niche Marketing. It's an incredible resource for advisors and explains exactly why 70% of financial advisors who are making more than $1 million per year focus on a niche. It's not a coincidence. So, choose a niche. Go hard. Choose a niche that you like and choose a niche that you can find. And I will catch you next week.
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