May 29, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments
Highly successful advisors have long determined that the traditional shotgun approach to prospecting using blast emails no longer works. They have found that prospecting with a more targeted approach, focusing more narrowly on clearly defined ideal client types based on a readily identifiable market segment or niche, increases both efficiency and results. These segments or niches are identified by demographics, businesses, careers, interests, or shared financial concerns that distinguish them from others.
We’ve written about the many advantages of niche marketing, including the more efficient use of resources, the ease of establishing one’s authority within a niche, and the built-in networking apparatus of well-connected clients residing in a niche.
However, the most significant marketing advantage is the ease of conducting research to gather intelligence about your market. Through market research, you can uncover critical information enabling you to develop more effective communication methods that appeal to your target market while honing your value proposition to touch their pain points.
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How Newer Financial Advisors Can Build a Solid Client Base
July 10, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments
There’s never been a better time to build a financial advisory practice. More people than ever are clamoring for quality, objective financial advice to guide critical life decisions. It’s also a very challenging time for newer financial advisors as the competition for quality prospects is fierce.
However, unlike fledgling financial advisors of yesteryear who worked with little more than a reverse phone directory to find clients, advisors building a practice today have the advantage of years of hindsight along with some cool technology to get them over the proverbial hump.
Rather than applying a dated “all of the above” approach to prospecting that included endless cold calls, direct mail, and even blast emails, newer financial advisors can systematically and incrementally build a solid client base using a proven marketing and sales framework fit for the digital age.
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5 Essential Lead Generation Tools for Financial Advisors
July 3, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments
A common mistake many advisors make is to look to lead generation as a short-term solution to a dwindling pipeline, with bursts of activities such as cold calls, direct mail, email blasts, or scheduling webinars. While these can sometimes work to fill the void temporarily, they can be very time-consuming, inefficient, and unpredictable.
To ensure a constant flow of qualified leads, lead generation must be built into your daily practice as a machine continuously attracting leads to your pipeline. Fortunately, with digital technology tools, generating qualified leads is easier than ever.
Here are the essential tools available to any advisor seeking to create a systematic process for generating non-stop qualified leads:
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Best Referral Sources for Financial Advisors
June 26, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments
Any financial advisor who’s been in business for more than a minute knows the best way to grow a practice is through referrals. We’re taught from the very beginning that the best source of quality referrals is from clients. Advisors who focus on differentiating themselves by delivering exceptional, highly personalized services to their clients are often rewarded with referrals.
But clients aren’t the only source of referrals. Many highly successful advisors create a comprehensive referral marketing strategy that taps multiple sources. While building a fruitful referral network can take time and effort, it is the one sure way to establish a steady stream of qualified prospects.
Here are five of the best referral sources financial advisors can develop.
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Four Imperatives You Must Embrace to Achieve Sustainable Growth in Your Practice
June 19, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
As you might already know, the key to achieving sustainable growth in a financial advisory practice is to focus on your core business of business development and client management. From a practice management standpoint, that requires developing business processes that enable you and your team to gain greater efficiencies while increasing productivity by doing more with less. In other words, turning your practice into a well-oiled machine.
But what about you? As the guiding force of your practice, what are you doing individually to ensure its sustainable growth? Business processes are essential for scaling your business and expanding its capacity for growth. But there are certain things only you can do to drive its growth.
Here are four imperatives financial advisors must embrace to achieve sustainable growth for themselves and their businesses.
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Niche Marketing: Narrowing Your Focus to Attract More Quality Prospects
June 12, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments
In recent years, the commoditization of investment advice has forced an increasing number of financial advisors into offering more comprehensive financial planning as a way to add more value to the client relationship. As a result, the financial planning space is becoming much more crowded, making it difficult for financial advisors to stand out.
That is why many practice management consultants recommend that financial advisors establish a niche to more quickly build their businesses, focusing on a more targeted market they can dominate rather than a broader market they can vanish in. The key to differentiation in a crowded field is to become more focused and specialized to become recognized as the best-of-breed for a specific type of clientele that can be served profitably and effectively.
Successfully crafting a niche is not without its challenges, and most advisors avoid attempting it for fear of narrowing their field of prospects. However, any advisor who has found success in a niche will tell you that, while you may narrow your field of prospects, you increase the likelihood that a higher percentage of prospects in the niche will choose to do business with you.
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Developing a Business Process for Your Advisory Business
June 5, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
Advisors embarking on the challenge of growing an advisory business understand that the key to sustainable growth is to be able to specialize in their core business of business development and client management. However, with that growth comes increasingly complex operations in all facets of the business, which can consume resources and hinder growth.
Smaller advisory businesses are disadvantaged by the lack of scale and resources, so they must rely on clearly defined, repeatable, and well-documented business processes to optimize their resources.
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How to Turn Data Collection into a Process Your Clients Will Appreciate
May 22, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
Financial advisors love data—until it’s time to collect it from a new client. Advisors know that data collection is an essential component of the planning process, without which they can’t get an accurate picture of their client’s current situation. But mining all the critical data needed to connect current circumstances to future aspirations can be tedious—for both advisors and clients.
It can also be a point of tension in a new advisory relationship, as new clients may still be working through trust issues. Advisors must understand this and continue working fervently to earn their client’s trust by expertly shepherding them through the process. While getting the data is important, advisors need to use this moment as another opportunity to engage their clients on a deeper level, focusing as much on the qualitative side as the quantitative side of data collection.
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Goal Setting: Not Just About the Numbers. It’s About Emotional Connections.
May 15, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
Goal setting is the second step of the client data-gathering process —unquestionably the most critical step in solidifying the client relationship and the key to setting your clients up for success. Beyond offering the technical expertise to help clients navigate the complex realm of financial planning, the most valuable service financial advisors bring to the table is helping them align the use of their resources with the things that are most important to them.
Yet even though advisors are well-positioned in this stage of the relationship to have these critical conversations, encouraging their clients to discuss their financial goals and understanding on a deeper level why those goals are meaningful to them, is a significant challenge for many. They then wonder why the client later chooses to abandon their financial plan or the relationship.
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How to Get the Most out of the Client Data-Gathering Process
May 8, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
Next to the initial meeting with a prospect, data gathering is the most critical step in the relationship-building process. Of course, it’s also the most vital step in the financial planning process, without which advisors can’t analyze a client’s situation, make proper recommendations, and implement them. That’s well understood by most advisors. Less understood is the critical role the data-gathering step plays in increasing client engagement, building trust, and solidifying the advisor-client relationship.
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