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'm recording this podcast episode in the middle of January. I just finished writing the February Inner Circle Newsletter issue, which will ship on February 1. By the time you listen to this, it'll be way too late to subscribe in time for that issue, at least a month late, because I think this is coming out in the first or second week of March. But the theme for the February Inner Circle Newsletter issue is question and answer. [00:56.1]
The Inner Circle newsletter has always been written to answer financial advisors questions. That's just the way that I roll. But for the past year or so, I followed more cut and dry themes. For example, one issue was all about content marketing. Another issue was all about winning advertisements where I just showed financial advisors which ads work extremely well, and that issue worked extremely well.
I did one in 2024, I believe it was in November 2024, called “The Ad Extravaganza Issue,” and people went hog wild for it, and I did it again in December 2025. People went hog wild for it, so there's going to be an Ad Extravaganza Part 3, almost certainly in 2026. So, these are themes, right? Another was about pricing. Another was about systems. So, the systems theme, the pricing theme. Those issues are all designed to answer financial advisors’ questions about those topics—but I used to write the issues differently. I used to literally put financial advisors' questions in there and answer them straight up. I brought back that style for the February issue, and I think it's going to evoke a lot of nostalgia for longtime subscribers. [02:06.8]
One of the questions I answered in the February issue was something about benchmarks, like when financial advisors ask, “What is a good open rate?” or “What is a good click-through rate?” and stuff like that. I'm not going to give away my entire answer on a free podcast episode, but I will tell you something that I've said many times. This is nothing new. If you're a longtime listener, you've heard me say this before. The only thing that matters is dollars in versus dollars out.
I don't care if you have a high open rate, if you're not making any money. I also don't care if your direct mail has a horribly low response rate. If you're making money hand over fist, you have to optimize for the real goal. If your goal is to make money, then that's the main thing you should concern yourself with. [02:52.6]
My bank has never asked me or refused to deposit money on my behalf because it came from a marketing campaign with superficially poor metrics. They didn't say, “James, we can't deposit this check for you because your click-through rate was 1.5% and the benchmark is 2.5%. So, no, no, no, your money is not good here.” That has never happened. So, that is my big disclaimer.
Sure, all else being equal, better metrics can help you. I'm not naive. I'm not saying that metrics don't matter at all. But if your first thought about marketing is, “What is a good x?” whatever that metric is, good cost per lead or good open rate, then you are looking at it the wrong way, because marketing is not about those metrics. It is dollars in versus dollars out. It is economics, plain and simple.
Now, I understand why financial advisors want these metrics. They want a North Star, they want some sort of benchmark that they can use to see if they're doing a good job, and on the surface, that makes sense, because if the average cost per click is $2 and you're getting clicks for $1, then you're probably doing a good job. [03:55.9]
I am very guilty of this. I am not immune to this, because I talk about my metrics in my own campaigns all the time, but I also don't like to count money in public because I'm a very private person. I'm not going to come out and say, “Oh, this campaign made two bajillion dollars.” I like to play that sort of stuff close to the vest. I will say that all of these metrics can be good diagnostic tools, but they should not be your scorecard, because if you can put $1 into your marketing and reliably get $2 back, then you, my friend, have a business. Woo-hoo, congratulations.
If you put $1 into marketing and reliably get 50 cents back, you don't have business. You have a hobby, and that means if I say a cost per click is good, that does not mean an ad with a much higher cost per click will not work. I've seen ads where the dollar clicks lose money. I've seen ads with $12 clicks print like there's no tomorrow. So, just understand that I am not saying that metrics are bad. I understand that they can be good. I understand that they're diagnostic tools. I've been in marketing for a long time. This is not some new topic for me. [05:08.0]
With that frame in place, here are some rules of thumb I would like to give you, because when people ask for these metrics, they're usually asking, “What is a good rule of thumb for this?” so I'm going to give you some rules of thumb that you can use.
No. 1: Economics first, metrics second. I just alluded to this a little bit. Before you obsess over any vanity metrics, you should know these three numbers. Your average revenue per client, your average lifetime value per client—I would argue that your lifetime value and your revenue you could put in the same category. Your lifetime value is so much more important—and number three is your close rate from qualified lead to client. [05:48.5]
Let's go through them again: revenue, lifetime value, close rate. Once you know these, you can just reverse-engineer what you can afford. For example, if a client is worth $8,000 per year, and that client stays with you for 10 years, that's an $80,000 lifetime value. If you close one out of five qualified leads, then you can spend up to $16,000 to get a client and still be profitable. Suddenly, worrying about your cost per click seems silly, doesn't it?
Again, I'm not writing cost per click off or those metrics off completely, because all else being equal, cutting your cost per click can improve your profits. I understand that, profit is revenue minus expenses, and if you decrease your expenses while keeping your revenue the same or higher, yes, you increase your profits, okay? I don't need your MBA lecture. But there are so many financial advisors out there who are quibbling over literal pennies when they have client lifetime values in the tens of thousands of dollars. [06:49.6]
If your client lifetime value is $80,000, why in the world are you worried about a $2,000 direct mail campaign? Why are you worried about spending $1,000 on something like an ad on Facebook? Why are you worried about joining the Inner Circle for $199 per month? Do you honestly believe that with an entire year of newsletter issues, an entire year of Zoom meetings with me every single month, do you honestly believe that you can't get a single client in an entire year with those resources? If you believe that, then I don't know how to help you.
Rule of Thumb No. 2: Trust is built in layers. Lots of financial advisors want a one-shot conversion. They want this “Send one message, and people will beg to become clients” or “Do this one thing and get book-solid,” and that's what a lot of the guru claims sound like, but real life doesn't work that way, especially not in high trust businesses. [07:50.0]
Think of trust like bricklaying. Every email, every LinkedIn post, every direct mail letter, is another brick. A prospect doesn't hire you because of one great post. A prospect hires you after 20 posts, 20 bricks, whatever they may be. Not just post, I should say, the email here and the post here, and the direct mail letter here. That is where you build the wall.
This is another reason why you can't depend on vanity metrics, because there are so many exposures necessary to become a client, and if you remove a marketing strategy, it could indirectly impact another one. I see this happen when financial advisors stop emailing or running ads. They notice a drop in overall conversion volume, even if they shut off the ads in the first place, because they, quote-unquote, “weren't working.”
What was actually happening was that the ads were strengthening the other marketing strategies in their businesses, and I talked to Michael Kitces about this with the financial advisor marketing episode where I talked to Michael Kitces about his marketing report and I asked him why email marketing in the report. He said it works so poorly and I was taken aback by that, because for me, email marketing is the best appointment setting strategy for financial advisors bar none, and his answer is exactly what I'm talking about here. [09:08.2]
His answer was that email works in tandem with all of the other marketing strategies, so if you take email marketing out, then you could indirectly impact everything else and decrease your conversion volume—which brings me to the third rule of thumb, which is nurture beats novelty.
That is Rule of Thumb No. 3: Nurture beats novelty. I obviously love marketing. I love getting new people into financial advisors’ worlds, but it can be a huge mistake to chase new leads constantly while ignoring the leads you already have, because, continuing with this brick analogy and building a wall, if you already started building the brick wall for those prospects, why stop in the middle? Why just give up? Another analogy for this is that your list is a compost pile. You let time turn it into fertilizer, and that's what nurturing does. [10:01.0]
If you have 1,000 leads and you improve your follow-up, for example, you might double your revenue without getting a single new lead, and that was one of my secrets when I was coaching financial advisors one on one. I would have a guarantee that I would at least pay for myself or I would give them every penny back, and one of the ways I was able to do it was by improving follow-up.
I asked financial advisors about their follow-up, and if they told me that they weren't doing much of it, I knew I could come in and immediately jack up revenue. It was just so wonderful. I was like, Oh yes, oh goody. I rubbed my hands together and got to work.
Rule of Thumb No. 4: Frequency creates familiarity, and familiarity creates safety. Most advisors dramatically underestimate how often they need to show up. They worry about annoying people, being repetitive or overdoing it, but in the grand scheme of things, their prospects barely remember their names. [10:59.2]
From inside of your business, it feels like you're everywhere. From the outside, it feels like you're a faint blur, and you're competing with markets and kids, and work and stress, and news alerts and a thousand other inputs, all begging for your prospects’ time and attention. Familiarity is built by being present consistently.
That's why the advisor who sends a simple daily email often outperforms the advisor who sends out one beautifully crafted message every few months. The person who emails every single day becomes part of the prospect's mental environment. There's less friction when it's time to book a call because the advisor already feels known. Silence resets that clock.
Every long gap that you take forces you to rebuild familiarity from scratch, and even if it's not totally from scratch, it's pretty darn hard, so don't do it. Just be consistent. Keep showing up. [11:50.0]
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.
Rule of Thumb No. 5: Attention is rented, trust is earned. That's because platforms change. Algorithms change. Cost rise. Costs change. Costs can go down sometimes, but usually they rise, and what you control is what happens after someone enters your world. [13:08.0]
That's why I am so big on and I'm such a huge advocate of owned channels, like email lists and direct mail, because you can rent attention through ads or social media platforms, but if the goal is to get clients, then you want to convert that attention into something that you own. Once someone is on your list, then you can deepen the relationship over time without paying again for every single interaction. If I pay to get someone on my email list, guess what? I don't have to pay as [much.] I mean, I'm paying for the email software, but I don't have to pay per impression to send an email to someone on my email list. I'm not paying for those interactions.
Advisors who rely entirely on rented attention are always one policy change away from just complete and utter destruction, and I would lump YouTube into this category as well. I like YouTube. I don't do it myself because I have other priorities and other things that I'm doing in business, and honestly, I don't feel like doing that sort of thing anymore, but think about this. Google can just have a policy change. I mean, you're on rented land. [14:09.2]
Now, is it a fantastic distribution channel? 100%. If you're an author and you're selling books on Amazon and audible, is that a fantastic distribution channel? Absolutely. But don’t delude yourself into thinking that you own it. You do not own YouTube. You do not own Audible. You do not own Amazon. You do not own the rent and land. So, if you have them on stuff that you own and control, you can really ramp up your marketing efforts and you can really build a business on rock instead of sand.
Rule of Thumb No. 6: Marketing problems are usually sequencing problems. Not always, but usually. A lot of marketing problems are caused by doing reasonable things in the wrong order, and that distinction matters, because when the order is wrong, everything downstream feels worse than it should. So, costs become higher. Response becomes weaker. Confidence erodes. Advisors start questioning whether the marketing works for people like them and they really get in their heads. But the real issue is just the sequence. [15:11.0]
Think about how financial advisors usually arrive at marketing. They're busy, they want growth, and they feel this pressure to just do something, and that pressure often pushes them straight to tactics, tactics like, run ads or post more on LinkedIn, or redesign the website or send emails, or host a webinar, and none of those are bad ideas in isolation. Webinars are awesome. LinkedIn is awesome. You having a good website is amazing. But the problem is that with tactics, they assume prerequisites. When those prerequisites are missing, then the tactic gets blamed. Financial advisors say, “Oh, LinkedIn doesn't work,” or “Direct mail doesn't work.”
Take advertising as a clean example. Ads amplify what already exists, so if the underlying message is fuzzy or complete dog crap, ads simply spread confusion faster and at a higher cost. They simply reveal to the world that you're incompetent at a much grander scale. Advisors will say ads don't work, but what actually happened is that they paid to expose a weak or an unclear idea to more people. [16:10.6]
This sequence was wrong. Message clarity should have been the first thing that the advisor worked on, and amplification comes later. The ads are amplifying what already works. You want to have a proven concept. If people are not hiring you and people are not giving you money for the services that you offer, then, my friend, marketing is not your problem. You cannot market your way out of a bad situation like that. You need to fix your offer.
The same thing happens with appointment-setting. Many advisors jump straight to asking for meetings, because that feels like what they should do. It feels like the whole point is you want to book a call and fill the calendar and get the client, but the appointment request is not a neutral action. The appointment request has what prerequisites?
I want to ask you, financial advisors, if you're listening to this, what prerequisites do you think are required for someone to set an appointment with you? Let's see. Trust. Relevance, maybe, like you're the person who works specifically with people like them. Perceived safety, like if they think that you're a good choice or that it's a good idea to even hire a financial advisor in the first place and not super dangerous. [17:12.4]
Those are prerequisites, and when those conditions are not present, the request feels weird. It feels premature, which, of course, causes people to hesitate and not book the appointment, so your conversion rate will be horrible because your sequence is wrong. The advisors will interpret all of this mess as rejection when, in reality, the market is just saying you skipped a step or you're not doing this in order.
I'll give you one more example and I'll move on to Rule of Thumb No. 7. I see this all the time, too, with content creation. Advisors are told and sold this idea that they need to be content creators. It's just ridiculous. Content is awesome. I'm recording content right now. I like content marketing. But financial advisors are told that they need to educate and add value and share insights, so what they do is they start writing or recording content without ever clarifying what their market actually wants, what their market actually worries about, what their market's actual objections are. [18:13.5]
So, what happens is the financial advisors create content that is technically correct and awesome, and wonderful given the right situation, but they never put it in the right situation. It's emotionally disconnected from their prospects. It does not move people forward because it's answering questions nobody gives a crap about. Nobody is actively asking. Nobody cares, or at least not the people in their market, right? They're trying to fit that square into a round hole. The effort is real. They try. They try really hard with their content, but the order is wrong. It is a sequencing problem.
Rule of Thumb No. 7: Prospects borrow confidence from the future. Confidence is not something that most prospects bring with themselves into a financial decision. They borrow it, and of course, they do. If you think about this stuff, this is kind of obvious. This is not earth-shattering stuff. Of course, they borrow it. If they were confident enough to do everything, they would already be doing it. [19:08.1]
So, they borrow it from signals in their environment that suggest that someone else knows what is happening, that someone else knows what to do, has done this before, has a plan, that someone has got his or her stuff together, and that should be you. Structure is one of the strongest signals of that kind of competence.
Think of what happens when the structure is missing. A prospect books a call, but has no idea what will happen on it? Believe it or not, that happens all the time. Prospects are told that it's a chat or it's a no-pressure conversation, and that sounds cool and all, but it actually increases anxiety, because humans dislike undefined situations because they require vigilance. You have to kind of keep your eyes open and your ears open to see what's going to happen. The prospect starts wondering how long it's going to take, what they're going to be asked, whether they're going to be sold to, how to prepare. There’s all of this anxiety, and that uncertainty creates cognitive load before the relationship has even begun, and you do not want that. [20:02.2]
I know I only said seven rules of thumb in the title of this episode, but I'll give you a bonus one here. Bonus Rule of Thumb—your best prospects are often the lurkers, the quiet people, the not-enthusiastic people, and I see this in my business, The Advisor Coach, all the time. There are people who will follow me on LinkedIn for years in some cases, and never comment, never engage, but then one day, they join the Inner Circle.
Or there will be people who buy almost every product that I have. One day, I'll see the emails come in like this person spent $195 here, $195 here, $295 here, whatever else, the products I have, I don't know, $49 here, $2,000 here. They buy and buy and buy, and then they email me and say, “James, I've been listening to your podcast for years,” and these are people that I've legitimately never heard from before until the day they decide to move forward. [20:56.1]
High-quality prospects tend to be quieter for a reason. They're used to making consequential decisions carefully. They've been burned before, or at least they know what it cost to make the wrong choice, and this kind of prospect rarely announces himself or herself early. These sorts of people do not comment. They do not ask surface-level questions in public. They do not jump into your inbox asking for pricing or what you charge on day one. They are building an internal case before taking any visible action. That internal process is invisible to you. You cannot see it, and it makes it very easy to misinterpret silence as failure.
Advisors who are new to marketing, they often optimize for engagement, and I think that's a mistake when you're optimizing for those vanity metrics, because it's the only feedback they can see. They adjust their messaging to provoke those reactions, to get engagements, so they ask more questions, they add more, I don't want to say calls to action, but that's kind of sort of what it is. They chase controversy to spark comments, because they want that engagement. They're optimizing for engagement. [21:59.1]
But, unfortunately, over time, this trains the algorithms, the marketing, toward people who enjoy interacting, not people who are evaluating seriously, so the content becomes more performative instead of trustworthy—and that's why consistency matters so much, because quiet prospects need time. They need repeated exposure to build confidence. They need to see you again and again, because if you disappear, because your engagement seems low, then you just break the process right before it probably would have paid off. You're the metaphorical three feet from gold.
So, from a high-quality prospect’s perspective, you just vanished. You left and the relationship never finished forming. You never finished laying those bricks, brick after brick after brick—so, you have to ask yourself, what are your goals? What do you want to optimize for? I don't know about you, but I'd like to optimize for the best clients. [22:54.3]
All right, those are seven rules of thumb, plus a little bonus sprinkled on top for you. Good for you. If you enjoy this type of content, please share it with a friend as it's one of the best ways for the Financial Advisor Marketing podcast to reach more people. Obviously, I help financial advisors with their marketing, so if you know other financial advisors who are interested in marketing, then it probably follows that the Financial Advisor Marketing show is a good fit for them. So, share it with a friend.
Thank you so much for listening, and I will catch you next week. [23:24.4]
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