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: I want to kick off this episode by giving a shout out to my Inner Circle members. I've been seeing an uptick in success stories lately, so we are firing on all cylinders. I can't believe it's been over a year since I've introduced the monthly office hours, or at least at the time this episode comes out. I am so glad that I kept them casual because I definitely wouldn't want to do presentations or lectures or anything like that, at least not every month. It is just so cool that we get to hang out and talk about how to make your business better. That is awesome to me. [01:03.0]
I also love office hours because they take away every single excuse from advisors who choose not to do the work, and the way the Inner Circle is set up is super fascinating, because not only is it the newsletter, but it's also direct email access to me for your questions and the office hours.
I designed the Inner Circle to fill in the gaps that pure information cannot provide and that masterminds alone cannot provide, and coaching cannot provide—if you get the information in the newsletter right, that's awesome. There are pros and cons to that. If you meet with other financial advisors and you talk shop about business and life and everything, that's cool. There are pros and cons to that.
But a lot of the cons of pure information can be solved by meeting with a coach or a consultant, or other financial advisors, and a lot of the cons of meeting with a coach or consultant or financial advisors can be solved with pure information—so, when you combine the newsletter with the office hours and with the direct email access, you get this absolute amazing resource that is changing lives, left and right. So, it is absolutely cool. [02:10.6]
Only a small percentage of advisors email me with questions, which is fine, and only a small percentage of advisors show up to the office hours, which is fine, too. I don't mind that. I understand that lots of my Inner Circle members are successful. They view it as a fire extinguisher, and I think that is the right way to view it. If you practice good fire safety by implementing the marketing material in the newsletter, aka the pure information component, you'll probably never need the fire extinguisher, but if you do need a little extra help, then it's there for you and I would rather have it there if you need it.
As a business person, I like the way that the office hour sessions have improved the actual offer of the Inner Circle, because the way I've always framed it is as a cut-and-dried return on investment type of deal. That's really what it is, by the way. [03:00.8]
Let's say a financial advisor is currently making $150,000 per year. In order for the Inner Circle to deliver a 100% ROI, then it needs to increase that advisors income by 3.2. That's it, and it's always been so wild to me that people who literally give financial advice for a living have trouble understanding that. They will gladly rush to put their money in stocks and bonds—which I love. I have a lot of stocks. I have a lot of bonds. Not a lot of bonds because I prefer stocks and they make more sense over the long run because of inflation—but the truth is that the ROI potential is nowhere near as high, and that doesn't even include the fact that for many advisors, their companies could reimburse them for the Inner Circle.
It also doesn't include the fact that if you're running a real business, the Inner Circle is likely tax deductible for you anyway, which decreases the actual net cost to you. That makes it even easier to see a tremendous ROI. But I digress. [03:59.3]
The reason I bring up improving the offer of the Inner Circle is because if the Inner Circle is positioned as an ROI play, which it is, then the fact that you can legitimately hop on a Zoom call with me is a way to force the ROI. If you're in real estate investing, then you know that you can force appreciation onto a property. You can go in and improve it. You can add different streams of cash flow. There are ways in business to force ROI—this is one of those ways—or at least, greatly improve your odds.
If you can't get a positive ROI with me right there helping you, then truthfully, the problem is you. You are the problem. I know that might sound arrogant or cocky, or whatever. I know people might get upset with me saying that I don't mean it in an arrogant or cocky way. I mean it in the same way that a plumber or an electrician would talk about their trade. Marketing is my trade.
If an electrician wired your house and you started running around, snipping all the wires and plugging 15 different things into an extension cord, the electrician would not get blamed for the failure. You would, because you're the one who is messing up the electrician’s work—the electrician is a master at his craft, at his trade, assuming he's wiring your house correctly and doing all the things—if you come in and screw it up. [05:14.7]
Same thing with plumbing. Plumber plumbs your house, puts all the pipes in. The water is running. There are no leaks and you come in and start tinkering with things, and you start breaking things, of course, you're going to get blamed for the failure because it is your fault. It is not the plumber’s fault. It is simply a trade. That's the way that I view it.
The longer I've been doing this, the more I realize that many people truly have just crazy limiting beliefs and they unconsciously sabotage themselves from seeing any real success in their lives, but that's a topic for another time. Right now, I want to share a proven three-step formula for creating content that generates leads. You can use this pretty much anywhere you communicate with prospective clients. You can use it in email, social media posts, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, direct mail letters, and more and more and more. [06:04.6]
The three-step formula is called “The Star Story Solution Formula,” and it goes like this. First you introduced the star. This is a person, idea or character that your audience can relate to, which grabs their attention. Next you have—can you guess what it is? The story, and the story details the challenges, the emotions, the struggles that the star is facing in order to build connection and curiosity. Finally, you have the third part. Can you guess what that is? It is the solution, showing how the problem was resolved and hinting at how your audience can achieve a similar outcome.
Let’s dig a little deeper into each part. The star is your main character. Without a star, your audience doesn't have someone or something to connect with, and a lot of marketers make the mistake of thinking their stars have to be them, that the story has to be all about them. That is not true. Your star could be an anonymous client, a public figure, even a fictional character. [07:05.3]
I actually prefer fictional characters, because you can outright say that it's fiction and you're making it up and it's hypothetical, and compliance generally doesn't have a problem with that because you're explaining that it has no basis in reality. You could come out and say, “This is 100% fiction. This is hypothetical. I am making all of this up. Do not assume that anything I'm telling you is real. I am just making up the story.” That's a heck of a disclaimer, but it's something that people do frequently.
A star might be like this Joanne, a 52-year-old business owner who was terrified she wouldn't have enough to retire, or it could be Warren Buffett, or like I said, it could be someone you made up. The story is the part where you include the details. You talk about the problem. You talk about the emotions. You talk about what's at stake. You just tell a story. [07:55.3]
You can continue with the Joanne example that I just gave and you could say, “Joanne had built a successful business, but she never really thought that much about retirement. She reinvested everything back into her company, and when she finally stopped to look at her numbers, she realized she was way behind on saving and investing, and she felt embarrassed and overwhelmed.” So, that is the story, or at least the beginning of the story. You can fill that in however you want.
You can make your story as detailed as you want or as simple as you want, but the key is to make it relatable. The more specific you are about the emotions and the struggles and the consequences—just the “more” stuff, right?—the more your audience will see themselves. You don't want to just say, “Joanne was worried about retirement.” That's flat. What you want to do is paint the picture. Say, “Joanne, she was lying awake at night. She was running numbers in her head. She was wondering if she'd be working forever. She hated the idea of selling her business, but she didn't see any other way to plan for retirement. Every time she thought about it, a wave of anxiety hit her stomach like a brick.” That's the level of detail that pulls people in and makes them care. [09:00.0]
Here's the thing, the story doesn't always have to be dramatic. It doesn't have to be a life or death situation. It just needs stakes. You need something meaningful that your audience, again, can relate to. The relatability is key. I cannot stress that enough. For financial advisors, it might be running out of money in retirement. That's one of the most popular ones that I tell my Inner Circle members to choose. It could be paying too much in taxes. It could be as simple as not being able to travel as much as you want in retirement. The stakes are what make the audience lean forward and think, I don't want that to be me. If you're making bad choices now, this is what's going to happen, this is what is at stake. Or if you don't embrace the solution, this is what is at stake.
That’s actually a good segue into the solution, because that's where you bring everything full circle. This is the happy ending, so to speak, although I guess it doesn't always have to be happy a solution. You could talk about bad solutions. You could talk about how they tried to DIY instead of hire a financial advisor, and things screwed up, and that could be a potential solution that didn't work well. [10:03.4]
I think the biggest mistake that people make with their solutions is they go into a hard pitch. Don't do that. You're not saying, “. . . And that's when Joanne hired me, and I'm the best financial advisor in the world.” Instead, you want to show the resolution in a way that's natural and aspirational. I guess sometimes it could be a hard pitch if it absolutely a hundred percent makes sense, but amateur marketers and people who hear of this concept for the very first time, when they try to apply the Star Story Solution Framework, they usually dig a little too deep into the hard pitch. Let’s continue with that example that we've been running with for this entire episode. [10:39.5]
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Let's say, “Joanne decided to sit down with a financial advisor and build a real retirement plan. They mapped out exactly how much she needed to save, adjusted her investments and built a tax strategy for selling her business—and for the first time in years, she felt a sense of relief because she could see the finish line.” [11:58.8]
Notice how that solution there is coming up without hammering the audience with the sales pitch? You're letting them connect the dots they see, Oh, okay, if I'm a business owner like Joanne, then maybe this is something that I need to do, too. So, if Joanne can get help and find peace of mind, then I can do that, too.
That is the beauty of this framework. It doesn't feel pushy. It doesn't feel self-serving. It feels helpful. It feels natural. Let’s continue with some more quick examples of Star Story Solution. These are going to be very short because I just want you to get the idea, but if and when you use this information, you can make it as long as you'd like, assuming that it's relevant and interesting to your audience.
Example No. 1 here is about taxes and retirement. The star is Mike. “Mike is a 60-year-old executive. He's getting ready to retire. The story is Mike has done a great job saving, but he didn't realize how much of his retirement income would be eaten up by taxes. He's got a lot of money that is going to get taxed. He felt frustrated because he thought he did everything correctly, but he could see thousands of dollars slipping through his fingers every year.” [13:03.1]
The solution is, “After working with a financial advisor, Mike learned how to strategically draw down his accounts, use Roth conversions, and minimize his tax burden—and he felt like he finally had control again and he could retire without worrying about writing massive checks to the IRS.” So, that is the Star Story Solution.
Let's give another example. I'm going to give you three. We have one here about college planning. The stars are Lisa and David. They're the parents of two teenagers. The story is that “Lisa and David both knew college was expensive, but when they saw the actual tuition numbers, they panicked. They saw that six figures, they were like, Oh my gosh, how is this so expensive? They were torn between draining their retirement accounts and saddling their kids with huge student loans. Neither option felt right, and the stress was taking a toll on the whole family.” [13:55.0]
The solution was, “With the help of a financial advisor”—ding, ding, ding—“Lisa and David set up a clear college funding plan that balanced saving, financial aid strategies and 529 plans,” just all the college stuff that you know about. “They went from feeling overwhelmed”—something a lot of people feel—“to feeling confident”—something that financial advisors, quote- unquote, “sell”—“that they could help their kids graduate debt-free, without sacrificing their retirement, without sacrificing their future.” That is a great solution to the problem.
One more example here. Actually, you know what? I'll give you another one, but I'm going to make the last one about me, okay? We have one about retirement income planning. Let's say the star is Karen, like that darn Karen. She is a 67-year-old widow and she's about to start retirement. The story is, “She had a good amount saved. She had a little bit of money, but she had no idea how to turn that nest egg into steady income. She worried about running out of money. She wasn't sure which accounts to draw from, and every decision felt perilous. It just felt like it could be a costly mistake and she didn't want to unnecessarily give away or lose the money that she had.” [15:08.8]
The solution is or was, “A financial advisor helped Karen build a structured income plan that balanced her Social Security payments, her investments and her required minimum distributions. She now knows exactly how much she can spend every single month. She can feel confident that her money will last as long as she does.”
So, this formula, Star Story Solution, is one of the most powerful ways to connect with your audience and move them to take action. Why? Because it taps into human psychology. People don't remember all the facts and features, but they remember stories. They remember how something made them feel. When you introduce a star they can relate to, when you share a story that mirrors their own challenges, and then you present a solution that feels attainable, you create a powerful emotional connection, and that is largely what marketing is about. [16:01.6]
I rarely get tactical with these podcast episodes, but this is a tactic. You can use this right away to get better results in your marketing, and like I said earlier, you can use it almost anywhere you communicate with prospective clients, because it's the way people prefer to consume information, and they remember it better, too. They like stories. They like stories about characters they can relate to and they like stories that solve problems that they have. This is what it's all about.
But there are some mistakes people make when using this formula. Specifically, they either skip steps, which is crazy, because it's not the Star Solution Formula. It's not the Star Story Formula. It is the Star Story Solution Formula. Or they rush through them. They do it too quickly. They don't tell enough of a story. They don't dig deep enough into the solution.
I think the first mistake that people tend to make is they make the star too vague or too unrelatable—and I'm very guilty of this when I talk about certain things that I do and I understand that, and I feel like maybe this is a way that I sabotage myself unconsciously. I will talk about things that are just legitimately unrelatable to my audience and I need to get better at that. [17:12.2]
If your audience can't see themselves in the star, they won't stay engaged. For example, saying, “A client wanted to retire and came to me for help,” is way too bland. Who is this person? What is the person struggling with? You need details to help the star feel real, even if it's just complete fiction.
The second mistake is going too fast with the story, glossing over it, and I know I went quickly with the stories in this podcast episode, but I just want to give you those examples. I wanted to give you the ideas. But when you build your story in your marketing materials, you want to build tension, create an emotional connection, and do all that stuff. But so many advisors rush through it. They'll just say something quick, like, “She was worried about retirement, so we helped her,” and then jumped straight into the solution. That does not work because the audience hasn't felt the problem yet. [18:02.0]
The deeper you go into pain, fear and frustration, the more powerful the solution will be. That's what makes the star Story Solution Framework work. It is that the story is about the pain. The story is about the problem. It's like, Here's where I was, here's what I did, and here's what happened. The “Here's where I was” needs to be built up and up and up, because that is what makes the solution very impactful.
Finally, I guess the third mistake—there are a lot of mistakes financial advisors make, but another one—is turning the solution into a very pushy sales pitch. Now, there are times where having a sales pitch makes sense, but if you are too pushy or it's too abrupt, or it doesn't feel right, that is not going to work. You want the audience to be able to connect the dots and think, If that person got help and that person solved his or her problem, then maybe I can, too.
Let me give you one more example, and since this is my show, I'm going to use myself as the example. The star here is Mark, okay? I'm making this up. This is a hundred percent fiction. I'm taking my own advice here. [19:05.0]
Mark is a 38-year-old financial advisor. He's been in business for five years. He was a solid financial advisor. He had happy clients, but his marketing was all over the place. He was posting random stuff on LinkedIn. He was running a few small ads here and there. He tried Facebook and it didn't really work, and he tried to do stuff with LinkedIn that didn't really work. He would send the occasional email newsletter. Maybe he would do a weekly email or a monthly email. Nothing was consistent. Nothing was really working.
His pipeline was dry. He was tired of constantly worrying about where his next client would come from or if everything would just fall apart one day, and he admitted he spent hours going through free advice online. He listened to free podcast episodes. He read blog articles. He followed all the marketing influencers online and he may have even read a couple books about marketing, but he saw contradictions. He felt like, This book said this and then this influencer said this, and they're not the same thing, and he felt like he was throwing spaghetti at the wall and wasting time. [20:01.6]
At 38 years old, he knew he had to get his stuff together. I mean, he had a limited window to make a bunch of money and plan for his own retirement and secure his financial future, and he knew he needed a real system, but he did not know where to start—and that's when Mark decided to join, drum wall, please, the James Pollard Inner Circle Newsletter issue and office hours and direct email access.
Each month, he received a paper-and-ink newsletter breaking down proven strategies. He had access to tools and resources he could implement right away, and within the first 60 days, he tightened up his LinkedIn presence. He revamped his email marketing, among other things, and started generating steady leads. Six months later, he added multiple new clients, which means he paid for the Inner Circle many, many times over. His revenue was up significantly—and, most importantly, he finally felt in control of his marketing. He felt like he was the captain of his ship, finally. [21:00.0]
Instead of stressing about where the next client would come from, Mark had a reliable system. He was able to turn away people that weren't good fits. If someone seemed like he or she was going to be a pain in the butt, Mark could say, “No thanks, see ya,” and that was just an amazing feeling. He loved the peace of mind that came from being the guy in charge of his future, where he knew if he made a marketing decision today, within an acceptable range of variance, that it would lead to a certain outcome, and it was awesome.
So, that is it, the Star Story Solution Formula. I hope you use it, because it is a proven winner. Thank you so much for listening, and I will catch you next week. [21:39.3]
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