There are two basic reasons: (1) Neither Financial Advisors or ‘Marketers’ understand how to properly calculate the ROI from marketing and (2) Fear and lack of innovation around working with your Compliance Department/Service Provider to get marketing approved that creates what you really want.
Truth #1: All you really want is appointments.
You can call them anything else you want (leads, referrals, opportunities, etc.) but, you and I know what you actually want: appointments with prospects that want to meet with you about what you do.
Truth #2: You don’t know how much an appointment is really worth. The reason you hate, or at least intensely dislike ‘marketing’ is because you cannot attach a valid ROI (return on investment) to most of what you have been told that you need to do (website, social media, events, referrals). This is because you and the person you are paying too much money for marketing advice don’t understand how to do the most important part of a marketing plan after identifying the target market: calculate the true value of an appointment.
I am continually amazed at how bad the disconnect is between marketing types and folks that have to produce results from in person meetings (financial advisors closing business). You can’t create an effective marketing plan if you don’t have a target (WHO – your target client), but, the real problem is being able to figure out WHAT to do (marketing strategies).
You have to have a way to align and prioritize the multitude of options to reach your target market and that alignment tool is the value of an appointment. Here is why it isn’t working for you right now:
- Do you and your marketing guru know how to calculate the actual value of an appointment? Hint: closing percentage on appointments, initial revenue, retention rate and average client relationship length (how long are they a customer) are parts of figuring this out. One of my clients recently did the estimation portion of this process and came up with an average appointment value, after all factors, of $37,500 per prospect appointment.
- Is every discussion about marketing founded upon this one key question: How does this help us generate appointments?!? If not, meaning they are talking about branding, visibility and the other terms bad marketers use to avoid being held accountable for actual results, perhaps you need to make a change. Don’t let ‘design’ and ‘branding’ cost you $1,000’s of dollars for little to no value. You are a financial advisor and your time is worth far more per hour than most marketing types can even begin to understand.
- You and your marketing expert are shackled by compliance. I have had a series 7/66/24 and I get compliance and I understand where we need to operate within specific parameters and, most importantly unlike experts that have never asked someone to trust them with $1,000,000.00 to invest…I know where we can exploit your unique value and get creative in ways with marketing that will get you appointments.
- You and your marketing expert think that ‘hope is a strategy’ when it comes to #referralmarketing. Any marketing plan for a serious #financialadvisor has to explicitly include referrals, both giving and getting, into the entire process. If your ‘expert’ isn’t including tested and proven referral techniques that you can predict and easily scale…they aren’t an expert in your industry. Referrals are the ‘game changer’ for financial advisors and they need to be adjusted personally to each advisor and advisory team. People are different and real referral training adjusts for that reality and creates systems that you and your team love working.
At the end of the day, the real reason your marketing sucks is you aren’t logically and emotionally engaged in it. You have been told you have to do some marketing things, but, you haven’t been shown how it actually moves the needle for you and your clients and you aren’t bought in. That is like having a client that sort of believes that the portfolio you designed for them is going to work…they are never truly bought in and when the going gets tough they are going to have problems and/or leave.
Don’t let bad marketing hamstring your business.
I help financial advisors free themselves from the ‘burden’ of marketing by developing marketing plans that they believe in, know that they can successfully implement and that reward them financially and personally through the integration of real referral systems.
The first step is having a conversation about how you have grown your practice and how you wish to grow in the future. From that meeting, if we both like each other, we will begin by developing a better #marketingplan that includes the power of referrals. After all, you do financial plans for your clients? Why don’t you get the same help for your business.
All the best,
Mike
Originally published at: www.valuesbasedmindset.com
Are you ready to grow consistently and profitably? There is a path to growing your financial services business that is simple, fun to execute upon and highly profitable for both individual advisors and teams of advisors: A customized marketing plan for you and/or your firm.
We help firms grow through referral and digital marketing consulting that designs powerful systems and provide the coaching and training to make those systems work better and faster. Don’t hesitate to reach out for a chat, ask to speak with a client that is already on the path, or, to just get a few questions answered. We love helping financial services professionals love their job and love their life.
How to reach me:
mike@valuesbasedmindset.com, or, 540.314.5665 (cell)