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: Hey, financial advisors. Bow-wow-wow, yippie-yo, yippie-yay. Welcome to another episode of the Financial Advisor Marketing podcast. This is your host, James Pollard, coming at you with a topic that may turn your world upside down because I want to talk about marketing assets.
Yes, I can almost see your eyebrows shooting up. You're wondering, Marketing assets? What in the world does he mean by that? I think I’ve heard him talk about that on the show before, but he's never really “talked” about it. My friends, buckle up. We're diving into uncharted waters here and what I’ve got to share with you is pure gold. [01:06.3]
When we think about assets, we usually think of physical stuff, like buildings, machinery, stocks and bonds, if we're talking financial assets, but marketing assets, they're different but still very similar. They're golden eggs in your business that keep on giving long after you clocked out for the day, and the beautiful thing is that they're working for you even when you're snoozing away in bed or soaking up the sun on a beach somewhere, and, boy oh boy, do I have a treasure trove of examples to share with you.
We'll be talking about email autoresponders, blog articles, social media posts, podcasts, e-books, and more. Make yourself comfortable and get ready for a ride into the wild world of marketing assets. It's time to step off that relentless marketing hamster wheel and start building assets that work tirelessly for you. [01:54.6]
Imagine this. You're melted into your plush armchair at the end of a hard day, cradling a piping hot mug of hot cocoa or maybe a stiff drink, and somewhere out in cyberspace, your autoresponder is relentlessly sending out personalized emails to every bright-eyed prospect that stumbles onto your mailing list. It's like cloning yourself into a superhuman version, who doesn't sleep, doesn't eat, and doesn't even know the meaning of the word vacation. This mini you is ceaselessly building bonds with your prospects. Doesn't that sound awesome?
This is a relationship business, and autoresponder sequences give you the power to build relationships with a personal touch while you're busy living your life. It's like a never-ending game of chess where you're always one step ahead, a welcome email here, a follow-up there, a nudge here, a value bomb there. You can map it all out in advance.
This is a predetermined sequence of emails that goes out at predetermined times. If somebody joins your email list today, that person should get a welcome email immediately right after, because that person wants to hear from you. Then tomorrow, the person gets an email. Then the next day, that person gets an email. You've only created the sequence once, but it continues to work for you. You're essentially crafting an engaging conversation that unfolds over time, gradually leading your prospect from “Who's this?” to “Where do I sign up?” [03:17.0]
Now moving on to the next treasure, blog articles. Imagine pouring out your wisdom and your expertise into a blog post. It's not a one-time effort, though. Once that article is up on your website, it's like a beacon attracting prospects and nudging them closer to you. Even though you only put the effort in one time, it's working for you again and again and again. It is putting up the effort now. Even though your personal involvement only happened once, the effort isn't just a one-time thing. It continues to work every single day, whether you're busy meeting clients, playing with your kids or even getting in your daily run. It is your voice echoing across the internet, drawing in people who are eager to hear what you've got to say. [03:57.4]
But, hey, don't stop at just one article because each new article is another asset. It's another beacon, another piece of the puzzle that draws prospects closer to you. With time, if you stick to a blog strategy, you will have a whole collection of articles, each one a marketing asset that works for you around the clock.
The beautiful thing about blog articles is that you can weave them together. You can put internal links into each of your articles. At the end of the article, you can have “Do you want even more? Read this. Do you want even more? Read this,” and people can just keep going and going and going. You can also put internal links to your contact page, which is amazing. You can put internal links to your email opt-in, also amazing. You can put internal links to your About Us page, which should explain about you, your experience, your certifications, your hobbies, and just, again, build that relationship. I'm going to say that a lot in this episode because that's what it comes down to. Marketing is about building relationships, at least for financial advisors. [04:52.8]
Podcasts. I'm doing a podcast right now. Podcasts are also marketing assets. Like our friend, the blog post, a podcast episode is a fantastic way to reach prospects. Your voice, your ideas, your insights, they flow directly into people's ears. It's intimate. It's personal. It's incredibly powerful. And once you've recorded your episode, it's out there, again, working for you 24/7, no matter what you're doing. Who knows what I'm doing right now when you're listening to this? I may be outside. I may be watering some plants. I may be cooking. I may be sleeping. Who knows?
Let's not forget, what's another marketing asset? Webinars? Webinars are like the showstopper at a grand feast. A great webinar can engage, educate, entertain, and convert like nothing else, because people can engage with you if it's live. They can ask questions if it's prerecorded.
That's one thing that I think financial advisors don't understand about webinars. I love automated prerecorded webinars that just constantly go out no matter what, so if somebody gets to your website on Saturday, that person can still sign up and go through your webinar. But you should still have an option for that person to ask questions or engage with you somehow, because you can get back to that person through email and answer the questions. [06:11.1]
How powerful do you think that would be when someone came to your webinar and you were just honest with that person and said, “Look, this is a prerecorded webinar. This is not live. However, I still invite you to ask any questions you have in the box below and I will respond to you personally”? You’re trying to, what’s that again? You're trying to build what? You're trying to build a relationship, and you can do that. Once you've recorded your webinar, it becomes an asset, ready to be dished up to new prospects, whenever they're hungry for you wisdom.
Each of these assets is like a member of your marketing team that never sleeps, never stops and never asks for a raise. They're out there day in and day out, drawing people closer to you and building that relationship. So, what is a marketing asset, again? Simply put, it's anything that promotes your business, your brand, your services, and attracts new clients while you're doing other things. It operates independently of your time. Just like a rental property will continue to build equity and send cash flow to its owner no matter what the owner is doing, marketing assets will continue to work for you. [07:18.8]
What it all boils down to is this. You're only one person. You only have 24 hours in a day. You can't clone yourself and you can't work nonstop. Trust me, I've tried. So, how can you possibly keep up with the constant demands of marketing your business? By creating and leveraging assets, because when you do so, you're multiplying your efforts. You're extending your reach far beyond what you could possibly achieve on your own. You're making time your ally, not your enemy.
Let's say I own a bunch of Dividend Aristocrats stocks. I can't possibly be in, I think, Lowe's, and Lowe’s may be a dividend king. I can’t be in Lowe's, selling paint brushes and cans and lumber, but Lowe's will still pay me because I have ownership in that asset. [08:10.4]
Now, this is critical because you're not just in the business of managing wealth as a financial advisor. You're in the business of managing time, and marketing assets are your ticket to a time-rich, low-stress life. You won't be out there doing everything all the time. You're not going to be in that metaphorical Lowe’s, slinging paint brushes. You will be able to get off the hamster wheel.
It's an amazing feeling, too, because when you begin thinking like this, you begin thinking in terms of assets instead of actions. You think in terms of ownership. What marketing assets does your business own? Because the truth is that wealthy people typically become wealthy and stay wealthy through ownership. They own businesses, either directly or indirectly. They can have their own LLC, their own S-corp, their own C-corp that they work, they have and they put employees in, or they could own stocks. Stock is ownership in a company. If you have Apple stock, you are a part owner in that company that you are entitled to a share of its profits. Wealthy people own real estate. They own other people's labor. These are all things that enrich them without them necessarily lifting a finger. [09:17.5]
Now, could they continue working? Absolutely. Can they make that choice? But the point is, they have options. There are financial advisors who subscribe to my Inner Circle Newsletter, who have lifestyle businesses where they get to a certain point and then they just take time off, and they spend time with their family and they go do whatever they want. There are also financial advisors who hit their goals with marketing assets and they just lock it in and they continue going.
For example, if someone has a goal to make an extra $200,000 in the next two years, that person could hit that goal with marketing assets like a webinar that sends inbound leads and they talk to the leads and they book them as clients. I mean, that's how this whole thing works. They get that done and it's working for them no matter what. They have all this free time. They take that free time and invest it in more assets, and they just keep going and going and going. So, you can make that decision. [10:07.7]
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.
But the reason I'm talking about this on the podcast episode is because I wonder all the time, why can't financial advisors do the same thing with their businesses? Why can't they build assets that work for them around the clock, generating leads, building relationships and enhancing their personal brands? The truth is they can and they should, because if they're really serious about growing, about scaling to new heights, they need to start modeling the wealthy, because you can't get wealthy by modeling poor people. [11:02.4]
Now, of course, I'm the last person to tell you to go a hundred percent inbound. I recognize the importance of both inbound and outbound marketing strategies. My number one marketing tip that I can possibly give you is to embrace multiple marketing strategies, and that means combining both inbound and outbound marketing.
However, I also know that inbound marketing is usually built around marketing assets, like blog articles, podcast episodes, webinars, e-books and more, and all else being equal, the more assets you own and control, the more inbound leads you will receive. If you eventually want to stop outbound marketing, then the path to get there is through building those assets.
Now, lots of financial advisors dream about building a lifestyle business, but they don't have any plan to get there. I'm telling you, if you can sit down today and begin mapping out which assets you will build in your business, you can reach that lifestyle business goal a lot faster than you might think. Instead of trying to think, How many clients do I need? and this is something that is not necessarily within your control, you start thinking about things that are within your control, because you can control which assets you build. [12:09.7]
Many of my Inner Circle members have already done this. Some of them are just playing the game for fun now, like I mentioned. They want to see how far they can take it. Even better, these marketing assets don't just attract new clients to you. They can make your meetings easier, too, your initial prospect meetings.
Picture this. You are in your first meeting with a prospective client. This isn't just any prospect, though. He's the cream of the crop, the kind of client you've spent hours preparing to meet, strategizing and mentally running through whatever scripts you may have. As you sit across from him, the high-backed leather chair slightly cool against your back, you feel it. That familiar knot, that an anxious coil winding tighter in the pit of your stomach, a tangible manifestation of the nerves dancing beneath your cool exterior. It's a feeling you've encountered a thousand times before. Yet it never gets any easier. [13:01.2]
Despite your best efforts to maintain a steady composure, your palms are slightly sweaty. Mom's spaghetti is somewhere. No, I'm just playing with you. Your palms are sweaty, though, a physical betrayer of your adrenaline rushing through your veins, so you casually try to wipe your palms on the fabric of your meticulously-chosen suit when the prospect isn't looking. The last thing you want to give is a hint of your anxiety. After all, this is a high-stakes game of impressions. The room buzzes with electric tension and you're acutely aware of each ticking second on the clock and the weight of the prospect’s gaze as you try to steer the conversation to convince him of your expertise.
Now, what if I told you there was a proven way to untangle that knot in your stomach, a method to dispel the tension thrumming through the room like an overstrung guitar string. Picture a scenario where your prospective clients enter the first meeting already brimming with a sense of familiarity. Imagine them feeling as if they've been on a journey with you, even before they've stepped through your office door. They've already built trust with you, that elusive and precious commodity before you've even exchanged your first handshake. [14:08.3]
That happens when they've watched your videos or listened to your podcast episodes, or read through your LinkedIn profile, which is a fantastic marketing asset that I think all financial advisors should use. I'll give you an example using one of my inner circle members. Let's call him Tom. That's not his real name. We'll just say it's Tom.
Tom is a financial planner who had his business for three or four years, I think, and he basically had tried a bunch of stuff. He hired LinkedIn agencies to spam everyone and get no results. Because why would you, if you're doing something like that? He paid for leads and got no clients. Because, again, why would you? Because they go out to multiple financial advisors and they're absolute dog you-know-what. He signed up for all these services that promised amazing things and he was disappointed. [14:54.8]
Then he found me and I told him, and I may have been the very first person to tell him this that he actually had to work, gasp, work. He had to put in some effort. He had to think independently. Shocker. If only 1% of the population is willing to do the excruciatingly hard work of thinking independently and putting in effort, then you can be a one-percenter if you just do that. But that's a topic for another podcast episode.
Anyway, Tom was struggling. He was burning the candle at both ends trying to get new clients and manage his existing ones. He was on that marketing hamster wheel, running and running, but getting nowhere fast. We got to emailing back and forth, because Inner Circle members get direct email access to me, and he was skeptical. Rightly so because he had been burned so many times. He said something like, “James, I barely have time to sleep let alone create a bunch of marketing stuff.” But I convinced him to give it a try and invest some of his precious time into creating something that will keep working for him even when he wasn't. [15:53.2]
Even though I personally am just a “Go hard, go hard. Keep going, do work” intense kind of guy—I will say things just like, “What are you doing? Why are you watching TV? Get up, go hard. Never stop, grind—but I understand that it might be a little bit slower for some people. It might take some time. You don't have to have these assets by next week. You don't even have to have them six months from now if you don't want to have them. You can go at your own pace.
Tom started with an e-book, which I thought was ambitious. I mean, here he was saying, “Oh, I don't have time,” but then he goes into something that takes more time than a LinkedIn profile or status updates and that kind of thing. I kind of thought he would start with something easier, but he wrote the e-book.
Now, this wasn't a War and Peace tome, mind you, but a compact, insightful guide for his niche. It was filled with hypothetical examples, stories and insightful tips, and he tried to give it away to everyone who visited his website, and that got some downloads but not any clients. [16:55.0]
Then I told him to use the e-book to begin building an email list, because that's what I would do from day one anyway. I would begin with email marketing. So, he did, and that's when he started getting some new clients on autopilot. He crafted a sequence of personalized emails that welcomed every new prospect who signed up to his mailing list and then kept in touch with them, providing content for them along the way, sharing his expertise and building trust.
And here's the kicker. He didn't just talk about financial matters. Sure, he shared his expertise. He gave some insider tips on planning for retirement, investing wisely, and dodging those pesky financial pitfalls, but he didn't stop there. He showed them who he was, the man behind the financial advisor title. He talked about his love for hiking, shared stories about his two mischievous puppies, and even his passion for barbecuing. He was genuine, authentic and real, and that's how you build a connection. That's how you build a what? A relationship. [17:51.7]
But he didn't just send two or three emails and call it a day. He crafted a series. That's why it's called an autoresponder series, a sequence, a journey that each new subscriber has taken on. He provided content and stories and these sorts of things consistently. He answered common financial questions. He debunked some myths and he offered insight into things that people wouldn't really think about. I'm trying to be kind of vague because I don't want to give away his entire life story, because he wants to remain private.
The result was trust. Every email, every piece of content, every shared story built more trust between him and his prospects. They felt like they knew him. They felt like they trusted him, and when it came time to pick a financial advisor, guess who was at the top of their list? That's right, our barbecue-loving, puppy-owning, hiking-enthusiast financial advisor friend, Tom.
Now, you, my financial advisor friend, too, need to start seeing your marketing efforts through this lens, the lens of an asset owner. Look at everything you do in marketing and ask yourself, “Is this a one-off rodeo or is this something that's going to keep riding with me long after I’ve left the arena?” [19:06.2]
You advise your clients on the importance of owning assets, right? The same holds true for your business. Start building your assets, an email autoresponder series, a library of e-books or maybe just one e-book, a roster of engaging webinars or maybe just one webinar, blog posts, so on and so forth. Each of these is a valuable asset that keeps working for you, even when you're not. Just like my buddy Tom, who leveraged that email autoresponder sequence to build trust and rapport with his prospects while he was out hiking with his pups while perfecting his brisket.
So, my call to action for you is this. Step off that hamster wheel. It's time to start investing in marketing assets. Start thinking long term. Start thinking leverage, and start thinking about how you can separate your time from your business.
I wish you nothing but the best, and I will catch you next week. [20:00.6]
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