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: Hello, hello. Welcome to the Financial Advisor Marketing podcast. If you're a returning listener, thank you so much. I am glad to have you back. If you're a new listener. My name is James Pollard, and I am the founder of TheAdvisorCoach.com. I'm just going to keep it real with you. If I can't help you grow your business, then no one else can either. I mean, let's just be honest, if I can't do it, then no one else can either. In this episode, I'm going to share one of the most effective methods I've ever used to help financial advisors set more appointments, but first, a quick little story. [01:03.5]
I'm always telling financial advisors, “Know your market. Know your market. Know your market,” because the more you can dig into your market and know their fears and challenges and aspirations, the better your marketing can become. This is one reason why tactics fail, financial advisors. Stop trying to chase the latest bright, shiny object or nonsense tactic. Instead, try this: listen to someone like me who gives you the real strategies and philosophies that enable you to run a business, no matter what your tactics are, because the tactics change based on your market. This is why there is no such thing as a magic button where you just press and money rains down from this guy. You must embrace strategy, because strategy informs tactics. [01:49.0]
For example, I have my “office hours” exclusively for my Inner Circle members a few days ago, and someone asked about the best social media platform to use to run ads. My answer was, it depends. And guess what? That is “the” right answer. That is not just me saying that or trying to give a cop-out answer. That is the right one, because if you're a financial advisor targeting, let's just say, an occupational niche, then chances are running LinkedIn ads is the right choice for you, because people literally put their occupations in their profile, so it is very easy for you to target occupations on LinkedIn.
However, to give you another example, one of my Inner Circle members wants to target parents who are interested in planning for their children's college. LinkedIn doesn't let you do that. There is no option for parent on LinkedIn. You cannot just exclusively target parents. It's just not even an option. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't.
But that is an option on Facebook. You can go to Facebook and target parents of babies, of young children, of teenagers, and more. You can also layer that with high income and geography, and whatever else tickles your fancy, because, again, it depends. You have to know your market.
I was reading about the mattress company, Tempur-Pedic. I guess it's more than a mattress company because they have pillows and just other bedding products, so bedding company, Tempur-Pedic. I personally love Tempur-Pedic mattresses, but my wife doesn't, so we don't have a Tempur-Pedic, but if I could have one, I would have one, because I think they're awesome products. [03:10.8]
Anyway, Tempur-Pedic became so successful partly because they dug into their markets. They did market research, and more importantly, applied that research to their marketing tactics and strategies. They started calling people and asking, “Thank you so much for buying our stuff. Do you remember what triggered you to buy?” Wow, what a concept, actually asking people what made them purchase, instead of guessing or trying to figure it out yourself, or following whatever some guru, coach, consultant or lead gen agency tells you.
What Tempur-Pedic heard over and over and over again was that people had neck pain and back pain, and after using Tempur-Pedic stuff, their neck pain and back pain vanished—so, Tempur-Pedic adjusted their entire marketing and entire business philosophy to reflect this. [04:02.5]
Depending on how old you are, you might remember the previous Tempur-Pedic marketing and commercials about how they could get you a better night's sleep. For a long time, that was their angle, getting a better night's sleep. If you remember, they had these commercials where someone would jump on the bed and there would be a glass of wine, and that wine wouldn't even move and they would say, “Even if your partner is tossing and turning all night long, you can get a better night's sleep.” That was the whole shebang, just getting a better night's sleep.
But then, in the blink of an eye, they pivoted and they started talking about how their products relieved neck pain and back pain. When they did that, their sales exploded. You have to find out whatever the neck pain is in your market. Whatever that is for you, you have to find it. No coach, consultant or guru can do this for you. I'm sorry, but you have to do it. It is your market. These people are your clients. Therefore, you need to talk to them and figure out what it is. [04:58.1]
All right, enough about that. I think that's a lot of value actually in that little story, but I want to deliver on what this episode title is all about, which is a technique I've used to set thousands of appointments, both for myself and for the financial advisors I help.
If you're a regular listener, you know I am all about simplicity. I often say that people dismiss solutions because they seem too simple. This is one of those too-simple solutions, so please don't dismiss it. Here it is. Here is what has enabled me to set thousands of appointments for financial advisors. Drum roll, please. It is pre-selling. It's one of those deceptively simple techniques that can revolutionize your marketing approach, so stick with me, because this can change everything for you, no exaggeration.
First, let me define what I mean by pre-selling. At its core, pre-selling is about communicating your value proposition, your expertise and your offer well before you ever ask someone to set an appointment with you. [05:56.2]
Think of pre-selling like planting and nurturing a garden. You don't just throw seeds on the ground and expect a bountiful harvest the next day. Instead, you carefully prepare the soil, plant the seeds, water them regularly, and tend to the growing plants over time. In the same way pre-selling is about cultivating. You’re cultivating relationships. You're cultivating what people think about you, the perception of you over time.
Now, here are five key aspects of pre-selling. If you're the type of person who likes to take notes based on what you hear in podcast episodes, then you want to write these five things down so you can remember them later. The very first aspect of pre-selling is establishing credibility. You should consistently demonstrate your expertise, knowledge, certifications, experience and all of that. [06:47.0]
Lots of financial advisors get this somewhat right, because so many advisors are addicted to teaching. They love to teach. They think that teaching and, quote-unquote, “giving value” will carry them all the way to an appointment—and, yes, teaching, and demonstrating value, I guess I should say, demonstrating value is important, but it's only one of the five aspects of pre-selling, so even if you max this out, it's still only 20% of the entire process. Truthfully, you don't need to teach at all, but it is a way to demonstrate your expertise.
The second aspect is addressing pain points. You proactively address common challenges and concerns that your target clients face, and again, you must know your target clients. You must know your market. It is your market, okay? Stop trying to look for a one-size-fits-all solution, because it does not exist. By doing this, you show that you understand their situation and you have solutions for them.
The third aspect is showcasing your unique value. This is where you clearly communicate what sets you apart from other advisors, what makes you different. This could be your specialized knowledge, your unique process, your client-service approach, whatever makes you different. [07:58.8]
This is huge, and it's one of the reasons why it makes setting appointments easier, because people know they can't get “you” anywhere else. They can always hire another financial advisor, but they can't get you, so you have to explain what makes you different.
The fourth aspect is building familiarity. This is all about consistent messaging across multiple platforms. I've said many times that multiple marketing strategies is the holy grail of financial advisor marketing, and this is one reason why people will become more comfortable with you over time, and therefore more pre-sold on working with you.
The fifth and final aspect is one I talk about all the time, which is overcoming objections. When you overcome objections in your content, on your website, on your social media profiles and your emails, and anywhere else, you make it easier for people to set appointments. Why? Because you are removing the reasons why they don't set appointments. [08:55.2]
This seems so obvious, but it gets missed all of the time. It is actually so easy for me to help financial advisors set more appointments by fixing this one thing alone, because if you have, let's just say, 100 people who are checking you out and only three reach out to you, then it is pretty much a certainty that at least three more would have set appointments with you if you handled objections properly. If you do that, if you handle objections, then you can legitimately double your conversions overnight. Again, can't guarantee results, don't know you, your specific situation. I'm just telling you what I've seen in the past and what is likely to happen if you do this.
To help you have an idea of what these five aspects look like, I am going to start by using myself as an example. I'm always the guinea pig for these sorts of things, right? For the credibility aspect, I would say something like this, I have been helping financial advisors get more clients since 2015. I have had multiple businesses throughout my career. I have been working in marketing for decades at this point. I have personally generated millions of dollars using my own advice, so I am living proof that it works. [09:59.1]
I have been featured in places like Forbes, Financial Planning Magazine, the Journal of Financial Planning, and more. I have an entire media page over at TheAdvisorCoach.com/media—again, TheAdvisorCoach.com/media—where I've been on different people's podcasts and whatnot. So, even if you don't trust me on this podcast, you can go find me somewhere else and see I'm the same guy everywhere. I don't try to pretend to be someone else. I don't put on this sort of hat for this person, do a little tap dance for another person. No, no, no, I'm the same person everywhere I go. You will hear the same message over and over. That's establishing credibility.
There's a lot more I could say, but I just want to give you an idea so you know how to model this in your business. [10:40.6]
Listen up, financial advisors. This is something special I'm doing exclusively for people who listen to this podcast. If you subscribe to the Inner Circle Newsletter over at TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching, I will send you a collection of seven copyright-free emails, personally written by me, that you can use right away to begin getting more clients.
I call these my “objection-busting” emails, because they are designed to overcome the biggest objections financial advisors face. All you have to do is send me an email letting me know you’ve subscribed and I will reply with a link where you can download them for free.
I originally offered these in the May 2024 Inner Circle Newsletter issue, and it was one of the most popular bonuses I've ever given away. Today, these seven objection-busting, copyright-free emails are only available to listeners of this podcast, because I'm not mentioning them anywhere else. Go to TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching to subscribe today. Now, back to the show.
Now, for the next two parts, I'm going to blend them together. In case you don't remember, in case you didn't take notes, the next two parts are the pain points and the unique value—the unique value that you provide and the pain points that you solve for your audience, because the pain point that I solve is obviously getting more clients for financial advisors and helping them grow their businesses. It is like breathing for me. But that sounds like B.S., doesn't it? Oh, who is this guy? He's full of himself, isn't he? He just says it's like breathing for him. [12:08.3]
Consider this. I am the only person in the entire world with this combination of factors. I have coached advisors one on one, meaning, face to face, belly to belly in their businesses, seeing their analytics, seeing their revenues, seeing their profits, and understanding what makes everything tick.
I have created multiple products for financial advisors solving various business problems. Anyone can create a course, okay? It's very easy. We live in a creator economy. Anybody can create a little course. You read a book about course creation, you make your little course over a weekend, and you sell it. Anyone can also create maybe two or three courses. I have more than a dozen, okay? More than a dozen different products and trainings, and videos and MP3 downloads and PDFs for financial advisors for sale that sell every single day. [12:55.0]
I have also been writing the Inner Circle Newsletter for years—not one year, not a couple months, not a couple weeks. Years—and during that entire time, I've allowed subscribers to ask me questions directly. So, I have, again, spent years talking directly with many financial advisors about their business problems, and again, seeing the real numbers and what really works and what really doesn't.
Finally, I get results. Heck, I just talked about the first office hours exclusively for Inner Circle members, and one of the attendees straight up said that he more than doubled his conversion rate using a headline that I included in the newsletter. I mean, right then and there, the people got enough value to pay for the newsletter subscriptions for the next 10 years, because they got an absolutely amazing headline that is proven to work. And that was what? In the first five minutes of a two hour long office hours? Come on, there's not another person on the planet who can produce these sorts of results and I've been doing it, say it with me, for years. [13:54.5]
Next, the next aspect of pre-selling is building familiarity. That's what this podcast does. That's what my emails do. That's what the 100-plus blog articles on my website do. All of those are free, by the way, $0.00. Sometimes people will say, “Oh, James is constantly selling.” Uh, yeah. But check this out. How many other people in the “help financial advisor” space have as much free content as I do? How many people have more than five years of podcast episodes? How many people have blog articles in the triple digits and thousands of emails, all for, again, $0.00? I'll wait. I'll wait. You just tell me. Let me know, who has that?
Finally, you have overcoming objections. That is the fifth and final aspect of pre-selling. I do this all the time, too. It's something you should do as well. If people tell you they don't have enough time, explain why they do have enough time before you ever meet with them.
If people think they don't have enough money to meet with you, explain that, how they do, or maybe that you have certain minimums and maybe they don't, I don't know. But you're just explaining all of this stuff to them to save yourself time and to save them time, and to save them intimidation. Do all of this before they ever meet with you. This stuff is not that difficult, but it does require a little bit of work. [15:10.8]
One of the best quick wins financial advisors can implement is mentioning their niche in their LinkedIn headlines. This is a way to pre-sell. For example, something like helping dentists plan for retirement is a super basic headline that can get the job done. Ideally, you dress it up a little bit and add some contact information, but I just want you to humor me for a second. The reason this is so effective is that it pre-sells dentists who see your profile. They think to themselves, Okay, this person helps people like me plan for retirement, cool.
Another way you can pre-sell is by talking about what you charge, especially, especially, especially on your website. You could put a “how we charge” page on your website that outlines your fee structure. You could say something like, “Our annual fee is 1% of assets under management, with a minimum fee of $5,000.” That way people know what to expect. You have removed a potential objection from the equation with this one page. You now make people more comfortable setting an appointment with you, because they are not going to be blindsided by whatever you charge. [16:14.5]
I do this all the time with the Inner Circle Newsletter. I'm constantly mentioning that it's $99 per month, which works out to be less than $3.26 per day. I mean, any financial advisor worth his or her salt should be able to see that the potential ROI on such a puny little investment can be humongous—especially when you consider that I now offer those office hours where I can help them right then and there on Zoom, meaning, I will literally work with them directly to ensure that they get their money's worth and then some, and that's exactly why talking about your prices is so effective. [16:47.6]
You see, here's a big mistake that advisors make all the time. They try so hard to explain their value and justify their fees, but prospective clients have no clue what those fees are in the first place. Instead, if you frequently talk about what you charge, then you can immediately justify it in a way that makes sense, because, again, people want to know what it is. They want to know what is going to happen, and you do this before people ever meet with you. That's why it's pre-selling, because it makes setting the appointment easier. It also makes converting the prospective client easier.
Content marketing should be pre-selling for you constantly. If you're doing any sort of content marketing, then you should be pre-selling. For example, if you specialize in retirement planning for small business owners, you might create a video series called the “Small Business Owners Road to Retirement” or something. Each video in that series could tackle a different aspect of retirement planning that's unique to business owners, and, yes, demonstrate your expertise and all that jazz.
By the time a prospect has watched a few of those videos, not the whole series, but just a few, that prospect should already be sold on your expertise and hiring you specifically over other financial advisors. A lot of the heavy lifting has been done for you in the content, or at least it should be done for you, and you could sprinkle in credibility and expertise and all that stuff in there as well. Just pre-sell, pre-sell, pre-sell. [18:09.3]
Now, you might be thinking, James, this all sounds great, but isn't it a bit salesy? You're talking about pre-selling. I don't want to be salesy if I'm selling. Here's the thing, when done right, pre-selling doesn't feel salesy at all. In fact, it feels like an excellent service. You're simply ensuring that prospects and clients have all the information they need to make informed decisions, because you're just trying to get them to make the right decision for them, even if that means not working with you. You just want them to make the right decision.
If you're coming from a place of service, where you truly and legitimately and genuinely care about your market and you want to serve them at the highest level, you have to be honest with yourself and say, “Sometimes it does not make sense for people to work with me,” and if that is true, then you are going to give them the right information no matter what. If you're unethical and you just want to take advantage of people, then, no, this is not for you and you should not do it. But if you come at it from a place of service, then it is super effective and important for you to do. [19:03.2]
Remember, people crave certainty. By pre-selling, you're removing uncertainty from the equation. You're saying, “Here's exactly who I help, how I help them, and what it costs.” This transparency builds trust and makes the decision to work with you much easier.
Let me share one final story to drive this home. An advisor I worked with, we’ll call him David—David was struggling to convert high-net-worth prospects. That wasn't his niche, but he had his marketing structured in such a way where people with multiple millions of dollars just reached out to him relatively easily. But during the meetings, he felt like he was always on his back foot. He was constantly having to defend his fees and his expertise, and just overcome this objection and that objection. [19:47.4]
He revamped his entire approach and entire marketing approach to incorporate a lot of pre-selling. This did not happen overnight, I just want to tell you. He has been an Inner Circle member for a long time, multiple years, and I don't think he'd be upset if I told you that I practically held his hand through a lot of this stuff. He would check in with me once or twice a month and ask, “James, what about this? What about this? What about this?” and slowly but surely, he got his stuff together and I'm proud of him.
Eventually, he was pre-selling, and all of his marketing assets and his conversion rate on initial consultations went from about 20% to over 50%. That is incredible. How did this happen? It happened because of the pre-selling, because prospects came into those meetings already sold on David's value. The meetings became less about convincing and more about determining if it was a good fit.
He also got more appointments—I mean, that's what this episode is all about. It’s about pre-selling to set more appointments—because people didn't need as much convincing to set appointments with him either, so he was doing better on both ends. Not only were people reaching out to him or more people were reaching out to him, but more of the people who reached out to him also ended up becoming clients. [20:59.8]
Here’s your action step from this episode. Look at every touchpoint in your marketing, your website, your social media, your email marketing, and even your business card, if you still have one of those. Ask yourself, “How can I use this to pre-sell my services?” because the goal is to ensure that by the time people are ready to have conversations with you, they're already mostly sold on working with you.
It might seem simple. I talked about this in the beginning of the episode. Don't dismiss things just because they're simple. This is extremely powerful, so do not just listen to this episode, nod your head and forget about it, because this isn't some complex tactic that just gives you a dopamine rush or something. I want you to embrace this. I want you to implement it, and I want you to watch your business grow as a result.
That's all for this week's episode. If you found this helpful, please share it with a fellow financial advisor, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep pre-selling—and I will catch you next week. [21:58.4]
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