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 hope you're doing well. I have been feeling kind of nostalgic lately. Sometimes I really wish we could just go back to the 1990s. I really missed the ’90s, man, maybe minus the Furbies and the Beanie Babies, and just the crazy stock-market boom that eventually collapsed. But aside from that, I've been reading books from the ’90s, watching ’90s TV shows and listening to ’90s music. [00:59.0]
This might sound kind of weird, this is very specific, but I love seeing old computers in movies and TV shows, mainly because I had those computers, and even though the ones I have today are far more capable—my computer at home is tricked out. It is extremely powerful. I love that thing—but there's just something about playing that pinball on the old computer and having those cool screen savers that I just miss. We used to have those big entertainment centers where we put the keyboard and the computer right there in the middle. We had those pull-out trees where we would put the keyboards in. We used to respect the computer, gosh darn it. We gave it his own little house and everything. What happened to us?
Let's see what else? I recently spent some time in Southwest Florida. That was nice. I had one of my Inner Circle members ask me if I was down there for the beach. I just told him, “I've got enough beach at home.” I've been to Florida maybe 10 or 11 times in the past few years, something like that, and I have never been to the beach down there. I'm not knocking the beaches. The beaches are awesome. They're beautiful. I love Florida beaches, but just keeping it real with you, I have enough beach at home. [02:08.6]
Anyway, in this episode, I'm going to talk about 25 things I do if I were a new financial advisor, meaning, if I had no list, no referrals, and no warm market. These are the things I would do to get clients faster and market smarter based on what actually works in the real world. That's what makes me different from a lot of people. I talk about stuff that actually works in the real world.
I originally shared this list of 25 things in one of my emails and it did extremely well. I also posted it on LinkedIn and it ended up getting tens of thousands of impressions. People apparently liked it, and since people liked it, I'm going to expand on it in this podcast and talk about it. I love talking about these sorts of things, because I have more room to explain and give detail and tell you what I mean. [02:51.4]
But before we get into it, if you're a new financial advisor and you haven't gotten your first year as a financial advisor yet, make sure you get that. It is a 124-minute MP3 audio download that goes into great detail about the things that can help new financial advisors be more successful. If you want to get that, go to TheAdvisorCoach.com and click on the New Advisors tab. If you go right there, if you go to the home page of TheAdvisorCoach.com, or anywhere, really, one of the tabs is New Advisors. Just click on that. It's $49, which is one of the lowest-priced things I offer, simply because I recognize that new financial advisors aren't rolling in cash.
Now let's dive into the 25 things.
No. 1, I'd stop trying to educate and, instead, I would start articulating problems. I discussed this concept in the March Inner Circle Newsletter issue, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it here, but the gist is that many financial advisors mistakenly believe that educating and teaching is the way to create successful marketing, and it absolutely is not. I get so much pushback on this whenever I bring it up, whenever I say, “Stop educating. Stop teaching. Stop giving value,” in the sense that you're just teaching like you're listing things on a whiteboard or a blackboard. [04:04.1]
Marketing comes from your market. That's why it's called marketing and the key to successful marketing is knowing your market. If you know your market, then you can articulate your market’s problems. That is so, so, so essential.
No. 2, I build a simple, clear niche and begin dominating it. It used to be a running joke on this podcast that I was legally obligated to talk about niche marketing in every single episode, and I don't think I've upheld that obligation in the past few episodes, so I'm going to do it here. Having a niche makes everything easier, and if you're a new financial advisor, you don't absolutely have to niche, simply because I understand that you will have a bigger pool of prospects in the beginning if you do not niche.
If you don't niche, then it's because you're trying to get clients from everywhere, and if you're a new financial advisor, then that kind of might be advantageous. However, if there's any way that you can have a niche, then you probably should have a niche. [05:02.3]
I actually did a podcast episode about this a while back and the basic message of that podcast episode was this: things can either be difficult in the beginning and easy later, or they can be easy in the beginning and difficult later. You just have to choose which one you want. If you're a generalist, as a new financial advisor, getting clients is a little bit easier, because you can tap into your network, if you have one, and you can shake a few trees and see what comes down, but eventually, that will dry up and you'll be forced to do something different. If you choose a niche now, it will be more difficult for you, but it'll be easier later, because your marketing will get more and more effective as you know more about your market. Again, marketing comes from a market.
No. 3—I'd use language that my market already uses. I would use words that my prospects use. One of the fastest ways to build trust is to mirror the language your audience is already thinking and speaking. If they say, “I'm worried about running out of money,” do not say “longevity risk.” Use their words. This isn't just about empathy. It's about connection. The words they use reveal how they think, how they frame problems. [06:09.0]
This is one of the fastest and easiest ways to improve existing marketing. I've seen conversion rates increase in everything from LinkedIn profiles to LinkedIn messages to online ads to websites to webinars to seminar presentations and titles, simply by changing the words to reflect the words that prospective clients are using. It is just so cool to see the difference.
No. 4—I craft a compelling lead magnet, like a PDF download, which is my go-to for a lot of financial advisors, or a video or a webinar, just a thing that people get in exchange for entering your world. In a lot of cases, this is all about building your email list, and you need something to trade for attention and email addresses. [06:51.4]
A good lead magnet solves a specific problem for a specific person, not “Five Tips for Retirement” or “The Ultimate Guide to Roth IRAs,” but instead something like “Seven Tax Mistakes Real Estate Investors Make Every Year.” That kind of specificity gets results. It also increases curiosity, which leads to downloads. People are simply more curious to learn about the things that are related to them. They want to think, Wait, what are these mistakes? Am I making the mistakes? I'm very curious. Therefore, I'm going to enter the financial advisor’s world.
No.5—you've heard me say this a ton. I would create an email sequence of five to 12 emails designed to be sent automatically when someone subscribes to my email list. I have entire podcast episodes about email marketing. Email marketing is one of the things that I'm most known for, simply because I've gotten tremendous results with email marketing for financial advisors and I've been sending my own daily emails since 2017, so I've been doing this literally for years. I have literally been writing emails every single day for years.
The reason I say five to 12 is because the majority of conversions happen after five touchpoints. That does not mean five emails. That means five touchpoints. There's a reason why I said that instead of emails. That could be on LinkedIn. That could be direct mail. That could be a handwritten note. That could be a phone call. Whatever you're doing, if you get to five, then the chances of you converting a prospective client into a client is just significantly higher. [08:13.1]
The reason I say five emails is because, if that's the only interaction they ever have with you, then you at least get to five. The reason I say five to 12 is because, after 12 touchpoints, the conversions tend to drop. Do they fall off a cliff? Kinda sorta. If someone has not responded to you after 12 incredible touchpoints where you are building trust, credibility and rapport, then chances are that person is not going to convert.
Can that person eventually become a client? Yes. So, are there exceptions to this? Yes. I have heard from financial advisors and I've seen it myself in my own business with the Advisor Coach and with all the other businesses that I've had over the years, there are people that come back after months or years. These are way beyond 12 touchpoints. However, if you are interested in maximum efficiency, then that is how you want to think. [09:03.3]
No. 6—I would install tracking tools on my website and my calendar-booking page, and basically everywhere that I am online, wherever I can, so I can track my activity. This could be as simple as installing Google Analytics or it could be as complicated as installing a fancy tracking software so you know where every single person came from. You know how many website visitors you're getting. You know how many people are visiting certain pages. That way you can calculate your conversion rate. If you can measure it, then you can improve it.
If you know that 100 people visited your contact page this month and only one person set an appointment from the contact page, you now have a conversion rate of 1%, so next month, you can try to get two, or over the next two months, you can try to get three, and then it will be an improvement. You can double down on what's working. You can cut what is not working, but you have to track them.
No. 7—I make my calendar links ridiculously easy to find. Don't make people hunt for a way to book a call. They're not going to do it. At least, most people are not going to do it. Put the link in your bio. Put it in your emails. Put it on your website. Put it in your lead magnet. Put that thing everywhere. You want it to be easy for people to set an appointment with you. [10:16.8]
A few years ago, in August, I did website reviews for financial advisors, and I was shocked. I was gobsmacked. I was flabbergasted at how difficult it was to find a scheduling page or a booking link in many of these financial advisors’ websites. If I am a prospective client and I go to your website, and you are good enough to generate some interest from me, then I should be able to take the first step with you without feeling like I'm doing an Easter egg hunt.
No. 8—I would use stories and metaphors in my marketing, because stories are how human beings make sense of the world. Metaphors allow people to understand abstract concepts in concrete terms. I just used a metaphor. I talked about the Easter egg hunt. I said it should not feel like an Easter egg hunt. That is a metaphor. Stories and metaphors make things visible. They make things memorable. You can feel and see what is going on. [11:05.8]
I've also seen tremendous conversion rate increases here. I've seen them increase simply by changing the words that financial advisors use into stories. I've seen improvements to a financial advisor’s About Us page by changing it into a story. I've seen online ads convert like crazy when they are written as stories. The same is true with email lists. You know I tell stories all the time, if you're on my email list. I use metaphors all the time, because they work.
No. 9—I would study copywriting and marketing more than finance. Oh yes, I know, I know, so bad. Marketing is the multiplier of your skills. You could have the best financial advice in the world. You could be the most credential, most experience. You could have TheBomb.com in terms of financial advice. But it does not matter if you cannot get clients. [11:52.4]
Learning how to persuade, how to write, how to position yourself, how to communicate, is arguably more valuable than your certifications. That's why I'm making the argument here. I know that might make some people upset and I know it's a harsh reality that some people don't want to deal with, but it's the reason why less credentialed and less experienced financial advisors can do extremely well, while credentialed and experienced financial advisors can still struggle. It's because the credentialed and experienced financial advisors haven't fully understood that marketing is the key to growth.
No. 10—I would follow up more than I'm comfortable with. I actually, legitimately just got an email about 20 minutes ago from a financial advisor who is in my Inner Circle talking about how he just got a new client from following up. Legitimately 20 minutes ago, in my inbox. I checked my email before I started recording this podcast episode. He was like, James, thank you so much. I just got this client because I followed up. Thank you for helping me follow up.
Most advisors give up way too soon. Meanwhile, the advisors who get more clients, they know that this is cheesy, it's cliché, I know, but the fortune is in the follow-up. Because people are busy, they forget, they delay. It's your job to care enough to keep in touch. [13:03.3]
No. 11—in my marketing materials, I would call out my ideal client by names or by how they would identify. For example, “Attention! High-income real estate investors!” This should be self-explanatory, because the level of clarity that you give here does two things: 1) it attracts the right people, and 2) it repels the wrong ones. Both are good. If you say, “Attention! Real estate investors!” then guess what? Real estate investors are likely to pay attention and, even better, people who are not real estate investors are likely to not pay attention. [13:36.4]
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.
No. 12—I'd make sure my LinkedIn headline mentioned my target market. This is because, and I say this all the time in my office hours because it's one of the most impactful things I share with Inner Circle members. Your headline follows you around everywhere you go. Your LinkedIn headline is on your post. It's on your profile obviously. It's in your messages. It's everywhere you go on LinkedIn. [15:00.7]
If you're a financial advisor who helps tech professionals, then you want to make sure that tech professionals is in your LinkedIn headline, because when tech professionals see it, they'll realize that you work specifically with people like them. This is not complicated stuff. If they don't see tech professionals called out in your headline, they will be uncertain about whether you work with them. But if they see tech professionals in your headline, take a shot. Every time I say “tech professionals,” am I right? If they see it, then they'll know, “Oh, this is a financial advisor for people like me,” and that's where the magic happens.
No. 13. Wow, 13—I would spend 90% of my content marketing time, and actually almost all of my marketing time, on distribution, because you don't need more content. You don't need more and more and more stuff. You need more people to see your stuff. Most people in business, and this is not just an advisor-specific problem, but most people in business think they don't have enough content. They don't have enough stuff. [15:55.6]
That can be true. There is a threshold where having enough content and stuff in marketing assets can be a tipping point where you just really start to get a lot more results, but most of the time, it's not true. The real issue, most of the time, is people, quite simply, don't have enough people looking at what they already have. Writing and creating is Step 1. Promoting it is Step 2, and that is the step that actually builds your business.
No. 14—I'd launch a direct mail campaign, which is arguably the fastest way to get new clients. I do remember the podcast episode about this. It was called “How to Get Clients with Direct Mail,” and it was released in November 2024. If you want to listen to that, go back. As you can see, I am not very creative with titles, which is why the MP3 audio download I mentioned earlier was called “Your First Year as a Financial Advisor.” That's about as obvious as I can make it.
If you want to learn more about how to get clients with direct mail, again, go back to the podcast episode from November 2024 and listen to it again. It's titled, “How to get clients with direct mail.” [17:00.0]
No. 15—I would create a short “Why I Do What I Do” video, and I would use it on my website, my social media, and more. Basically, it would be a marketing asset that I use to get people to become familiar with who I am and what I do. People don't connect with a menu of services on a website somewhere. They connect with stories, so even a simple 60-second video sharing why you became a financial advisor and why you chose your target market can instantly build trust and resonate with people.
Use your phone. Just take your phone out, record a video. Keep it raw, keep it real. You don't need a high-production-value video. In fact, those videos typically do worse than the videos that are shot on a phone in a real room with real lighting, with a real person, instead of the whole “lights, camera, action” and makeup. It just doesn't look real. It has to look real.
No. 16—I try to speak at small events in my niche. Large events are cool, but you can build better bonds with people at small events. I discussed this a little bit with my Inner Circle members in the March office-hours session, because Inner Circle members were asking about webinars and seminars and events, and I explained that despite what they may believe, having smaller events can actually be better because people are more likely to become clients. [18:14.6]
The reason they're more likely to become clients is because you can build real relationships with them and you can engage with them throughout the event. If you have 10 people at a webinar or a seminar, then you can talk to all 10 people individually. If you have an event with 100 people, then you're probably not going to build the same level of connection with all 100 people.
Is it better that more people are seeing your content? Yes, you can make that argument. However, in financial services and financial advice, specifically, building that bond and having that connection with people one on one is one of the best things that you can do.
No. 17—I treat marketing like a system and not a one-off campaign, because marketing is a process. It's not an event. [18:57.5]
No. 18—I begin building my list in a good CRM. This is one of the things that I had in my toolbox when I was coaching financial advisors one on one. I would make sure they were tracking all of their interactions with prospects and clients in a CRM. This is critical, because it allows them to know exactly what they did and when they did it.
They could also keep notes about the things that are relevant to prospects in their clients. For example, if a client is really into golf, then the financial advisor can review his notes or her notes and do something golf-related for that client. That's just one of many examples. The sky is the limit with this sort of thing, but that's more of a client-service example, but it can apply to marketing, too. Just track your interactions and have notes about every single person that you meet with, because the notes are extremely valuable.
No. 19—I would attempt to build relationships with people who already have access to my market. Instead of going one-to-one, go one-to-many. Build relationships with CPAs and influencers, and attorneys and real estate agents, and coaches and everyone who already serves your audience. That's how you build referral systems. That's how you build leverage into your business. [20:09.0]
If you've been through my How to Get Clients with LinkedIn program, then this strategy is already familiar to you, because it's the bedrock of my network-amplification method that works wonders for financial advisors—and speaking of LinkedIn, No. 20 is I would post consistently on LinkedIn, which is one of the most underrated places to get more clients.
I don't think I've ever seen such a large disparity between financial advisors who are doing extremely well on LinkedIn versus those who are not doing well. The ones who are doing well are focusing on building real relationships and they are posting consistently. This is the go-to strategy, because when you build relationships with people, they are more likely to see your content in their feeds, and if they see your content in their feeds, that is a form of follow-up. Guess what? Follow-up builds trust. It makes it more likely that people will convert into clients. [21:00.4]
It's a lot easier also, just to point out to you. It's a lot easier to tell your story over 10 different pieces of content that get parceled out piece after piece than trying to hammer it all at once in an inbox or something. You don't want to vomit up your story in this long, long, long message and that's not going to work as well as content given a little bit at a time where people build a relationship with you over the course of a few weeks or a few months.
No. 21—I memorized a handful of stories about how financial planning, how financial advice, changes lives so I could tell them during my discovery meetings. My newest training that I released recently is how financial advisors can have better discovery meetings and this is one of the things that you can do to have better discovery meetings. If you want to check out the entire four-part video program, then you can go to TheAdvisorCoach.com/meetings. Once again, that's TheAdvisorCoach.com/meetings. [21:58.4]
This is a brand new product. It is a four-part video series with two-and-a-half hours of content all about how to have better discovery meetings. As you can see, again, I am not very creative with titles. I wanted to create something that financial advisors can use to have better discovery meetings, so I titled it “How Financial Advisors Can Have Better Discovery Meetings.” Wonderful title, I know.
No. 22—I block off at least an hour a day for pure prospecting with no distractions, just client-generating activity. Sometimes I hear from financial advisors who tell me they don't know what to do with their time because they don't have that much to do. Listen to me, if you have free time, then you should fill it with marketing and prospecting. Why would you let more days go by than necessary to reach your goals?
We are all getting closer and closer to death. We only have a finite amount of time. I would rather get more stuff done. I would rather get 10 items done in a day, if I can and if I can breathe and if I can see, if I can hear, than to get one thing done per day for 10 days. It's not because I'm especially motivated or driven, or anything like that. It's because I realize I only have so much time and I want to make every day as good as I can possibly make it. [23:14.4]
I want to get as much out of the day as I can to push me towards my goals. If I was starting over, if I was 18 years old. I would rather reach my goals at 25 instead of 30, or I would rather reach my goals at 45 instead of 60. I would rather compress that time.
No. 23—I treat objections as information and not rejection, because every no reveals how to improve your approach. I know it's hard. I know it sucks to get, quote-unquote, “rejected,” and it is, but you can use it as information to improve your marketing.
I'll give you an example. I have an entire email marketing sequence written that shows financial advisors exactly how to handle objections, and the emails are written for advisors to plug and play into their own email marketing system, meaning, they can use it to get more clients right away. I talk about it in the midroll in the middle of every single podcast episode. By this point of the episode, you already have heard it, or at least I have in the past couple dozen episodes. [24:11.0]
You have to be an Inner Circle member in order to get it, so if you subscribe to the Inner Circle, let me know, I will send that over to you. It is an entire email sequence that you can plug and play to begin getting clients right away.
No. 24—I would shift my mindset from being a financial advisor to being a business person. Most advisors see themselves as technicians, and that's fine, until you realize you're running a business. You have to think like a business owner. You have to think in terms of marketing and systems and leverage and management. Your job isn't just to do the financial planning. It’s to build a business that delivers financial planning. You have to think like an investor also.
That's because I believe that being a good business person is very much like being a good investor. I always think it's sad when financial advisors look at things in terms of being expenses rather than investments in themselves and in their business, because I like to think in terms of alternatives, meaning, if I have $100 and I invested it in the stock market, and I expect an average rate of return of 8% per year, then, generally speaking, just for easy math, my $100 will turn into $108 after the first year. [25:16.3]
What if I took that same $100 and invested it in marketing and advertising? If my marketing and advertising generates a 20% rate of return, which is kind of bad, not going to lie, then that is simply a better decision for me to make with my money. I would reach my financial goals faster if I did that, and that's why I'm saying we're getting closer and closer to death. Why would you make decisions that stretch out these long learning curves? Why would you take longer than necessary to reach your goals?
If I invest my money in things that give me a better return, then I am a better capital allocator, and one of the things I talk about on this podcast and with my Inner Circle members is you must develop the skill of capital allocation if you want to be a better business person, because that's really all it is. You are allocating your human capital and the human capital of other people. You're allocating dollars, you're allocating your energy to make decisions, to get maximum results with the time that you're given. [26:12.5]
Finally, No. 25—I would invest in mentorship, coaching or content to help me. I would invest in myself, because you can try and figure everything out on your own or you can shortcut the process. Whether it's my Inner Circle newsletter, whether it's a course from someone else, whether it's a book, whether it's coaching, whether it's . . . anything, really, I want you to invest in yourself. It's not just me.
I'm not just trying to tell you to buy the stuff that I offer over at TheAdvisorCoach.com or just subscribe to my newsletter. No, ideally, I want you to do something rather than nothing. But if you're really aggressive and you really want to grow and you really want to be successful, then then get my stuff and get other people's stuff and get as much as you can. Get as much information, as much help as you can to shortcut that process. [26:54.7]
We only have so much time on this planet, so again, why would you not want to shorten your learning curve? I don't want to spend 10 years trying to figure out something that might only take one year if I got a little bit of help. I don't want to spend six months being frustrated about something when I could ask someone for help and get it solved in a single day.
But that's enough for this podcast episode. I hope that got you thinking. If you liked it, please share it. Let other people know, because that's the No. 1 way that podcasts grow. I'm extremely thankful that so many of you give me such great referrals. I love them. I would not be where I am today without you, so thank you, and I will catch you next week. [27:34.3]
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