Penny was quoted in Financial Advisor IQ, “Advice for FAs Navigating Their First Bear Market.” Her advice for new Financial Advisors: “Put our egos aside and leverage the people in this business…” Read the rest of Penny’s advice and the entire article below.
How to Acquire More Clients? Focus on More than Just UVP and Elevator Speech
#WednesdayWisdom Tip:
Your client acquisition and marketing plan needs to be about much more than just your UVP and elevator speech. It should be almost solely focused on the UVP of the client.
What are the takeaways?
Ask yourself and your team:
- Does the prospect receive touchpoints from us routinely throughout their life cycle, either digitally or in person?
- Does the client have the ability to get to know us — and our perspective of wealth management — before meeting us?
- Are we SURE we are what the client wants?
- Can the client imagine how they can grow and evolve with us?
The Industry Hasn’t Done Enough to Teach Advisors HOW to Attract Gen X & Gen Y
#WednesdayWisdom Tip:
Advisors need to repackage their service offering and translate it into the language of Gen X and Gen Z.
What are the takeaways?
- The industry has spent far too much time throwing statistics at advisors, and not enough time actually teaching them HOW to attract the next generation of clients. (Hint: it’s NOT by having an Instagram account).
- Yes, Gen Y is important, but we’ve forgotten about Gen X: the 40 something’s who grew up as latch key kids and need planning the most.
- Make the decision to either continue to build a lifestyle practice and ignore this, or build a multi-gen enterprise. If you want the latter, start by auditing and changing all of your marketing messaging.
Do Your Clients Really Know The Difference Between Wealth Management and Investment/Risk Management?
#WednesdayWisdom Tip:
Offering comprehensive wealth management service IS a unique differentiator… because most advisors aren’t actually delivering wealth management.
Many advisors dread having professional development conversations as it feels like a ton of work… for them. Advisors should create a culture of self-development, accountability, and self-awareness and encourage team members to own their own development.
What are the takeaways?
- The terms wealth management and investment management / risk management have become synonymous in our industry.
- Educate your clients about what wealth management actually is: investment management, risk management, cash flow & cash management, budgeting, philanthropy, estate planning, tax planning, family planning, emotion management, lifestyle management.
- If you realize you are still product and not advice oriented, completely change the way you run your initial meeting.
Advisors: The Only “Marketing Plan” You Need for Next Year
#WednesdayWisdom Tip:
Survey your clients to determine your marketing activities for next year.
Advisors often get overwhelmed with the thought of building a marketing plan and tracking its results. Rather than fret over the need to schedule marketing strategy sessions with your team, use your clients to determine the approach you will take on a quarter by quarter basis.
What are the takeaways?
- Survey your top 25 clients and identify themes from the results relating to what they are most excited about, worried about and proud of.
- Hold an intimate event and an educational event in Q1 that’s tethered to the top theme.
- Only put out content in Q1 that relates to that theme and only speak to COIs who are working with clients experience those thoughts and feelings.
17 Unique Client Gift Ideas for the Holidays
This year make it a point to send holiday gifts to your clients that are memorable, thoughtful and show your appreciation for their business and partnership. Below is our list of the 17 best and most unique holiday gift ideas that won’t break the bank and will have clients looking forward to another year with your firm.
- Be the firm that sends unique books as gifts each year. The “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series is a great place to start and has editions for clients of all types.
- Make a donation to a charity that is near and dear to your client’s heart.
- Send a gingerbread house-making kit with a note wishing your clients and their kids (or grandkids) a wonderful and fun holiday season. (Under $10 at Target online).
- Gift personalized piggy banks to your clients’ children or grandchildren. (Under $20 at personalizationmall.com).
- If you have a spouse or family member who is an avid baker, consider sending a box of homemade baked goods.
- For clients who celebrate Christmas, send personalized tree ornaments.
- Rent out a room every December at a nice restaurant and host an annual holiday party for all your clients. Make a small donation to a local charity on behalf of every attendee, and provide a thank you token as the “party favor.”
- Go organic for health-conscious clients; send a box of chocolates from companies like Hu Kitchen. (Think: unprocessed, vegan, environmentally sustainable and delicious!)
- Send a fun popcorn gift box set with different kernels and seasonings from sites like worldmarket.com or thepopcornfactory.com (under $20).
- Speaking of gift boxes, sites like gifttree.com feature unique gift box ideas like “The Man Can” (shaving kit for men in a painter’s can) or “Sweet Nostalgia” (old-time nostalgic candy in a tin lunchbox).
- Go traditional and send your clients a bottle of their favorite wine.
- Omaha Steaks offers great (and reasonably priced) gift packages for clients who love to barbecue, entertain and…eat meat.
- If you are gifting to a client’s office or business: send a K-Cup coffee sampler or candy tower for everyone to enjoy.
- For adventurous clients who are avid travelers, send personalized travel journals or notebooks for the upcoming year’s adventures.
- Send a collection of teas and/or spices that can be used all-year round.
- Share a bit of your culture with clients by sending a gift unique to your family’s background like Greek olive oil or Masala Indian spice sets.
- Windowsill herb kits or potted herb plants are beautiful and useful gifts. They can be purchased through a number of online retailers including homedepot.com, amazon.com and williams-sonoma.com.
Tips for making the gifting process simple and sustainable each year:
Be known for something specific. Create a repeatable holiday experience for clients through your gifting. Clients will begin to associate your gift or special gesture with your brand and will look forward to your firm’s trademark token of appreciation each year. (Almost all the ideas on our list apply!)
Utilize your team. If you don’t have someone dedicated to client service or marketing on your team, consider hiring a seasonal intern to help with fourth quarter activities including planning a holiday event, client gifting and getting organized for next year.
Have a repeatable system. It’s not practical to send a personalized gift to every client every year. Consider separating the gift ideas above, into segments: all top clients will receive personalized gifts, all second-tier clients will receive a book of your choosing or a bottle of wine, all third and fourth tier clients will receive a holiday card only, so on and so forth. Use your CRM to stay organized and plan ahead.
Your Brand Probably Isn’t Resonating with Next-Gen Wealth Holders
When most advisors think about today’s millennials, they think about seventeen-year-olds taking selfies and posting on Snapchat.
The reality is, most millennials are now in their early 30s and stand to inherit trillions of dollars over the next two decades from their parents and grandparents. While they may still be taking selfies and posting on Snapchat, they are double the size of the baby boomer generation, incredibly tech savvy, entrepreneurial and in-tune with their finances.
If you are truly building a sustainable business, then yes, you must build a multi gen-team and durable operational infrastructure (see: our other blogs!) but you must also ensure that your brand narrative can transcend generations. Most advisor business owners have over looked this last piece.
Here are some of the things millennials care about: Sustainability, transparency, leaving the world a better place than when they found it, price, ease of doing business, authenticity, and creating fulfilling experiences for themselves and loved ones.
Here are some things millennials don’t care about: The fact that a business has been around for 150 years.
This is a generation that will choose the no-name-brand-product over the much more popular and traditional brand, if the former adheres to ESG principles or has better pricing for similar quality. This is a generation that vets products and services, not based on the rhetoric of a single company, but based on the reviews and opinions of the general public (i.e. other consumers.)
How do you ensure that your brand will connect to the next generation?
1) Craft a story that incorporates what the next gen cares about. Speak directly to them in person and via all print, digital and social channels. Talk about how transparent your firm is, the impact-investing capabilities you have, and the fact that you want to help them plan for tomorrow, but also live for today.
2) Allow the personas of team members to develop. Make sure you are strategically connecting members of your team with your clients. Consider segmenting clients not by just assets or revenue, but by interests and commonalities; assign team members with similarities ownership over a segment.
3) Create authentic content. The only way to truly stand out in a world of ghost written articles and generic content, is to develop a bold, genuine perspective on whatever it is you’re writing about. Use your words and any medium you have (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram) to allow people to get to know YOU, your business, and your perspective on wealth management.
So, what’s your powerful next step? Engage the children of your clients (or your clients) in an honest discussion about your website, social pages, and marketing material. Ask for feedback on how you might be able to better connect to a different – but very important – sub group of clients.
Are You Building the Tomorrow Business?
Running an operationally efficient business today is exponentially harder today than it was thirty years ago. Technology and compliance costs have skyrocketed, wealth management services have become commoditized, and the current inheritors of wealth (women and millennial heirs) are leaving their benefactors’ advisors at alarming rates. Indeed, a bleak picture of what advisor-business owners are currently facing.
On the flip side, the advisors who are actively managing these challenges are positioned to thrive over the next 20 years — especially as wealth transfers and solopreneur advisors tire out. If you are one of these advisors, consider the following three powerful practice management initiatives for next year:
1) Evolve your service and fee structure.
The future holder of wealth looks, thinks and acts differently than the traditional wealth holder you are used to. I cannot stress this point enough. The one size fits all approach of “X% advisory fee covers all wealth management services” will no longer suffice. Advisors need to become more creative with how they hook younger-gen wealth holders who don’t have a lot to invest TODAY but have tremendous potential for tomorrow. Additionally, as fee transparency continues to be at the forefront of clients’ minds, providing simple-to-understand pricing structures that correspond to a clients’ point in the life cycle will be critical. Consider:
- Advice-on-the-go option: allow clients to pay you a retainer and fees each month (just like they would an attorney) for advice as they need it.
- Varying-levels-of-complexity: allow clients to fit into one of several tiers (1 to 5) depending on the level of complexity of their situation, as defined by your firm. Clients at the lowest tiers will pay the least but will move up in tiers as the complexity of their situation changes.
- Exclusive, comprehensive option: many advisors struggle to begin charging planning fees, in addition to money management fees, if they have never done so in the past. Begin to offer a comprehensive option that clearly lays out two payment structures: flat fee for discovery and creation of plan, and management fees and possible commissions for implementation.
2) Be mindful of the implicit costs of service.
Time and time again I have seen businesses plateau because of capacity issues. Bringing on new clients each year will always contribute positively to top line revenue, but almost always has an adverse effect on operating expenses. Identify the hourly rate you and other advisors / client relationship managers in your firm are worth. Assign talent to the various tiers of service accordingly. No exceptions.
And for the clients who are simply no longer profitable to the business – even marginally – consider moving them to a digital service option and charging them only for advice on the go.
3) Create multiple sources of revenue generation.
Most advisory businesses generate the majority of firm revenue from a single source: the founder and primary rainmaker. Create a culture of revenue generation by teaching others to business develop and incentivizing ALL team members to generate revenue. Consider your revenue as the derivative of four sources: prospecting in your target markets’ circles (including digital and social), introductions from current clients, introductions from centers of influence, brand marketing (advertising, content generated by your firm, etc.). If you are the owner of the first source, allow others on the team to take full ownership of the other three.
Introduce these three initiatives into your annual business plan next year and track progress on next year’s P & L.