distinctly different Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

The Halo of Ringlets

/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself, Storytelling, analogies and power phrases / 0 comments

I hope by now you’ve done a business plan. A business plan is how you’re going to hit your goals. You’re driving from Bangor, Maine to San Diego, you’re going to pass mile markers along the way. Those are your goals.

Inside your business plan has to be your marketing plan. It’s not enough to go in the morning and hunt, kill and eat.

Listen to this audio podcast or read the transcript below to hear the ‘halo of ringlets’ analogy and an idea on narrowing down and attracting your target market or markets.

Financial Advisor Branding—Elements to Focus On

/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments

One of the most significant challenges facing financial advisors trying to grow their practice is it takes time, resources, and a well-conceived marketing strategy to get their stories out to the right audiences. While it involves strategically utilizing digital marketing and producing targeted and relevant content, the path must be paved by building a solid brand and reputation.

Keys to Building Life-Long Loyalty with Clients

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

Successful financial advisors know that client retention is vital for sustaining and growing their business. Replacing a client who leaves with a new client is expensive and hard work, costing five to 25 times more than retaining an existing one. Success at retaining clients enables advisors to focus on delivering value to them instead of having to pursue new clients.

However, advisors who shoot for a high client retention rate, as crucial as that may be, might be falling short of the mark. Building client loyalty is much more critical. Is that a difference without a distinction? What does it mean when you have a client’s loyalty?

Many clients stick around for various reasons:

Digital Marketing for Financial Advisors: It’s Time to Start a Blog

/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments

For financial advisors competing in a digitally wired world, thought leadership is essential for those who want to stand far above others in a crowded field. Financial advisors who are thought leaders are viewed as authorities in their field and recognized experts– traits that have become table stakes for advisors hoping to attract the attention of high-net-worth clients. An increasing number of financial advisors are finding that blogging is an affordable way to establish themselves as a high-profile authority and a credible source of financial information in a highly competitive arena.

Using Client Personas to Attract Your Ideal Client

/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments

Most financial advisors are familiar with the concept of creating an “ideal client profile” used to identify the type of prospects they want to target. However, that may not go far enough to attract and directly engage with digitally savvy high net-worth investors in the digital age. Emerging-affluent millennials, in particular, are cautious about who they engage with if they can’t see what’s in it for them.

In a digitally wired world, financial advisors need to be able to identify with their target market and communicate in a way they can identify with you. That requires taking the ideal client profile to the next level by digging deeper into who they are, what they do, how they think and communicate, and why they might want to engage with someone like you.

9 Must-Haves for Your Financial Advisor Website to Attract Prospects and Clients

/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments

Most Advisors today have a professional website to represent themselves online in front of potential or current clients. In a post-pandemic world where even meetings are conducted online, it’s not really a matter of if you should have a website, but a matter of what website you should have.

Should it be one of those static pages filled with general information, serving as your online business card? Or should it be an engaging piece of online real estate to keep your prospective and current clients hooked and looking for the phone to call you for more? Or should it be somewhere in between?

Here are a few things you must have on your website if you want to stand head and shoulders above other Advisors.

Creating Your Financial Advisor Marketing Plan

/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments

The biggest growth challenge for financial advisors is finding qualified leads. But before that can happen, advisors must be able to attract enough of the right people who might become qualified leads. That’s what marketing does for you. It doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It can’t happen by aimlessly wandering around. Most advisors have enough trouble managing their time between being an advisor, running their practice, and prospecting. What’s needed is a marketing plan.

Financial Advisors: What You Should Be Doing During the Holidays

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

First things first: Use the Holidays to spend time with friends and family. That’s what you want for your clients; That’s what I want for you. Recharge your batteries, and remember why you’re working so hard: To provide a better life for the people you love.

Besides: The immediate return on investment (ROI) of generic cold calling techniques tends to decline after Thanksgiving. Not that it doesn’t pay off eventually. I’m a hard-core prospector, and I hope you are, too. Smart prospecting always pays off in the long run. But it’ll take a little longer to pay off at the end of the year, because you’ll get a lot of people saying, “call me again after the Holidays.”

So, if you’re going to take some time off to be with the family, the Holidays are as good a time to do it as any!

Then, here are a few more holiday marketing ideas if you’re spending time at the office after all.

Six Ways Financial Advisors Can Establish Trust in Today’s Virtual World

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

You can have all the technical and market skill in the world. But if people don’t trust you, you’re not going to open new accounts.

It’s just a fact of life in sales: If people don’t trust you, their defensive mechanisms are going to be up during the entire sales process. If you’re lucky, they’ll tell you. At least that way, you get to face the trust issue head on. That might give you a fighting chance.

But more often than not, you’ll be met with polite silence, and the dreaded “we’ll give you a call if we decide to do anything.”

If you hear that, chances are you whiffed on the trust issue.

After all, if you had their trust, they’d be looking for ways to talk themselves into doing business with you!

Now Is the Time to Take Your Video Marketing to the Next Level

/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments

As a result of the covid19 pandemic, both advisors and their clients have discovered the benefits of virtual communications. For clients, it has resulted in more convenient, expeditious, and personalized communications from their advisors, which they value tremendously.

For advisors, it has resulted in greater efficiency, more visibility, and more opportunities to connect with prospective and current clients, which translates into more growth and profitability. To a great extent, advisors have been able to turn an obstacle into an opportunity by adopting video conferencing and webinars with great success.

However, with the adoption of virtual communications, advisors have only scratched the surface of technology’s potential to transform their business. Imagine what could happen if advisors take full advantage of the technologies available today that have increased visibility, customer satisfaction, and retention, and converted more leads in other industries for several years.

Let’s take, for example, how tech-savvy Financial Advisors are turning to video marketing and live streaming as a way to get their message out.

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