Good financial planning is typically built upon a personal relationship between the client and the planner, as trust is established to the point that the client is comfortable to share and engage with the planner, and take the advice that is given. Yet the reality is that while it takes time to build trust, it doesn't necessarily have to be built face-to-face. In fact, as personal finance 'celebrities' like Suze Orman have shown, a remarkable amount of actionable advice can be implemented even if the person giving the advice and the person receiving the advice have never met in person at all! So what does it take to begin to establish trust with a prospective client before ever meeting face to face? As Orman demonstrates, the keys are that people work with people, expert credibility is important but not alone sufficient, and trust is built over time through repeated exposure to the planner. And in today's world, the digital age is leveling the playing field; it's not just about being on television or having a radio show anyone, because any planner can begin to build trust with potential future clients, through blogs, e-newsletters, videos, social media, and other channels of the digital world!
The delivery of advice is ultimately built on a foundation of trust; even if the client is otherwise ready to make a change, if the client doesn't trust the advisor, the advice often won't be taken and implemented. And because most planners struggle and work hard just to establish client trust through in-person meetings and a one-on-one relationship, many are skeptical that advice will ever fully shift to a more virtual world where trust must be built at a distance and possibly without ever having the client and planner meet in person at all.
Yet there is a surprisingly visible demonstration of how trust can be built effectively in a "virtual" environment where the person taking the advice may have never met the person delivering the advice: the Suze Orman show. Does that mean planners have much to learn from the success of Suze Orman, who has built a virtual relationship with millions of people who are all willing to act on her advice, even while so many planners struggle to build trusted relationships one in-person prospective client meeting at a time?Read More...
As the financial planning world continues its journey into the digital age, marketing and growing a financial planning practice faces new challenges. Some firms suffer as methods no longer work the way they once did, while others struggle to implement new strategies like blogging and social media without any clear strategy or understanding of how to do it successfully. Yet through it all, recent marketing research on advisory firms has shown a new category of marketing that has quietly emerged as the marketing method with the greatest growth on an absolute and relative basis: online search, where the firm attracts clients through Google, Bing, other search engines, and social media sharing. While the rise of online search is still in a nascent phase, its prospects are bright as the world goes digital. Accordingly, the best firms are beginning to take the key actions now that will be necessary for success, from better defining target clientele, to creating relevant content and distributing it, to beefing up the raw aesthetic quality of their websites so they leave a good impression - so that in the future, they won't have to find new clients, because the new clients will find them!Read More...
The importance of making a good first impression has long been recognized - often influencing advisors regarding how they look, how they dress, and how they design their offices and conference rooms. Yet in an increasingly digital world, the reality is that by the time a prospective client actually shows up in your office to see it and meet you for the first time, the true first impression has long since been formed... by your website. And recent research shows it takes just seconds for clients viewing your website to form a first impression - one that may impact your relationship with your client, or worse, turn a prospective client away for appearing unprofessional. Yet advisors have generally spent little time and focus on the quality, look, and appeal of their website, and what time is spent is generally spent on the written content, which matters, but only if the website is already visually appealing enough to make a good impression! As a result, it may be time for many advisors to consider a website makeover, in recognition of the fact that looks do matter for first impressions, yet you as the advisor are rarely your client's first impression, anymore.Read More...
Growing a financial planning business through referrals has long been accepted as the top strategy for building a practice, and in recent years one study after another has validated the approach by showing that the majority of advisors generate the majority of their growth through referrals.
Yet an increasing number of studies are showing that a significant portion of growth-by-referrals is not really through any proactive referral marketing strategy, but instead is merely the result of passive referrals that show up on their own.
Which in turn means that if passive referrals are actually how a majority of advisors are generating growth, it may be more a testimonial to the ineffectiveness of advisors as marketers at all, rather than the benefits of a referral strategy implemented on a purely passive basis.
This doesn't necessarily mean a proactive referral marketing approach cannot be used to generate new clients... but it does raise the question: have we overstated how effective referrals really are in growing a business? Is referral marketing really a best practice, or simply the only result that's left in the absence of any other marketing best practice?
As financial planning firms increasingly incorporate the internet and their websites into their marketing, more and more practices are considering the use of a blog. Yet many are doing so without a clear understanding of why the blog is being done in the first place, beyond "everyone else seems to be doing it, so I guess I should, too!" In practice, it seems there are three primary reasons that most financial planning firms consider a blog: drip marketing for prospects, a communication tool for existing clients, or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) enhancement for your overall website. Fortunately, once you know which of these reasons matches the purpose for your blog, you can figure out what kind of content to create for it, to whom the blog updates should be distributed, and whether having a blog even makes sense for your firm in the first place! Read More...
One of the primary business virtues of comprehensive financial planning is the deeper relationship that is formed as a result of going through the financial planning process. The experience helps to engender trust between the advisor and the client, which in turn can aid in client retention, and make the client more comfortable referring the advisor to others. Yet at the same time, one of the primary challenges of being comprehensive and holistic is that when you do so much for the client, it's difficult for the client to explain what it is the advisor really does, in the process of making a referral.
In fact, a recent survey highlights this striking contrast - clients of holistic advisors were almost 20% more likely to provide referrals, and amongst those who didn't refer, clients still generally felt that holistic advisors were more likely to have earned the right to receive referrals. The survey results also paradoxically revealed that clients who didn't refer their holistic advisors were almost 30% more likely to state it was because they didn't know any referrals or were uncomfortable to make referrals!
In other words, holistic advisors were simultaneously more likely to earn the right to receive referrals, yet ended out making a significant portion of their clients less comfortable and less able to think of anyone to refer!Read More...
Over the years financial planners have had a love/hate relationship with marketing. In most of those years, though, it's more of a hate/hate relationship. The traditional methods of outbound marketing - from cold calling to traditional advertising - have had so little benefit for the overwhelming majority of planning firms, that most don't even have a budget for marketing in the first place. To the extent any business development occurs, it's strictly from referrals, and any "marketing" expenses don't extend much further than paying for social events with clients or centers of influence to cultivate more referrals.
But as the digital age reaches financial planning, an entirely new marketing opportunity emerges: inbound marketing. The basic principle: instead of blasting out solicitations hoping you happen to hit a prospective client like finding a needle in a haystack, create content that is useful, relevant, and interesting for your target clients, and let them find you.
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The common refrain from practice management consultants for years is that to survive and succeed, planning firms need to clearly define their target market. After all, if you don't know who you're trying to serve, you can't create unique value for them, and you can't focus your limited resources. The good news is that after years of this messages, a recent trend suggests that financial planners are finally getting it... sort of. Planners are saying that they've defined a target market in increasing numbers; the problem is, their target market is often defined as no more than "people who can afford my services" - and that is NOT a target market!Read More...
One of the strategies that many financial planners use to differentiate themselves is to communicate that they are fiduciaries: legally bound to put their clients' interests before their own. In fact, as the debate about the fiduciary vs suitability standards has increased in recent years, more and more advisors who are subject to fiduciary regulation are promoting it as a differentiator in the marketplace. Yet in reality, most people generally assume that anyone they're doing business with will treat them fairly - at least until proven otherwise. Which means that claiming you're a fiduciary isn't necessarily a differentiator - unless you actually go so far as to bash your competition and accuse them, implicitly or explicitly, of being liars and cheaters. Could this be part of why the fiduciary message doesn't really connect in the marketplace? Because it's turning into a giant negative advertising campaign where you bash the competition instead focusing on the value you actually deliver?
