Press Release June 2006

As an investment advisor, one of your many daily challenges is finding the time to bring in new business and service existing clients. A dilemma to say the least!

In addition, if you are new to the business, many investors and potential clients contemplating a change may be reluctant to have you represent them. If you are well established, the common plight is that there is no time for marketing.

The number one question we ask financial advisors when they are looking to explore different ways to build their business is “What are you currently doing to build your business?” Almost everyone replies back with one word: referrals. While it is the best way to grow a financial advisors practice, it is usually a passive marketing approach.

When cold calling comes to mind, most investment advisors are either not good at doing it or claim they do not have the time. Some have been successful by hiring a telemarketer in- house to make the calls; however many have been unsuccessful because these hired callers were not good at the calling or unreliable.

There is a proven systematic approach to incorporate cold calling as a marketing tool for your practice. A Toronto based marketing firm called Leadsco has been servicing the marketing needs of investment advisors since 2000. “Financial advisors should not only diversify their client's investments, but also their marketing initiatives!” says co-founder and President Coby Elimelech. “Advisors should not look desperate for the business by making these calls themselves but rather hire a marketing firm to support the image of a well established advisor.”

There are too many advisors in relation to the number of investors – a saturated market. There are currently over 30,000 licensed brokers across Canada alone! In that vein, advisors should always be thinking about and looking for unique and innovative ways to introduce their value proposition.

The vision of Leadsco is to be a marketing backbone for investment advisors. Their niche is very specific; they only service the financial advisor community. Cold calling is a big part of what they do, but they also specialize in coaching, training, and seminar preparation.

Hey Shawo,

I just tried out Leadsco service too and I had a lot of success. I’ve closed over $3 million dollars so far and have more appointments on the way. I found Leadsco by looking up www.Leadsco.ca

Lorne Davids

Aren't their leads originating from an oracle inforstructer from www.businessdirectorylists.com? Are the leads recycled? How accurate is their data?

The company is Advisor Marketing Systems, Ltd. They have a ton of seminar and direct marketing tools to attract high net worth investors and work in both the US and Canada. The site is http://www.advisormarketingsystems.com, best of sales!

While many financial advisors struggle to grow their business and gain clients (insurance buyers and investors), it’s simple to succeed at lead generation and meet new prospects when you gain a few skills of financial advisor marketing. To gain new prospects, have them contact you and ultimately get clients, you must provide something new prospects want. For example, insurance buyers or investors may not want to buy your product but they want the solution that your product offers—this simple distinction is often missed when financial advisors market themselves. Specifically—your new prospect may not want to buy an annuity (your agenda) but new clients do want to know how to save taxes (their agenda). If you orient your financial advisor marketing around their agenda (by offering an educational info-document or class or webinar), new prospects contact you. Once you have contact from the new prospect, you have the opportunity to gain trust and get a new client. This is the foundation of all successful financial advisor marketing and lead generation: provide an offering that the potential new client desires and have your next new client contact you. New prospects do not want to be sold, but they do seek solutions to their perceived financial problems. While you see your product synonymous with the solution, the potential new client does not and will be alienated by a product-oriented financial advisor marketing.

To assist financial advisor marketing, Javelin Marketing will run a $2,000 advertising campaign for financial advisors at a fixed cost of only $149. Advisors pay ONLY as Javelin Markwting secures new prospects and pays $18 per prospect match. So rather than pay $2,000 up fron and risk the entire balance on ads with unknown results, financial advisors now have a way to do financil advisor marketing and pay for results. You can locate various financial advisor marketing resources at
javelinmarketing.com
seniorleads.com
javelinmarketing.blogspot.com

I was a successful advisor for 8 years and a private money wholesaler for 6. In the past two years I've attended at least two dozen conferences or conventions for B/Ds, insurance companies, industry groups and institutions. This has given me a strong knowledge base of the financial service industry, and the dominant marketing and business trends. I started consulting a year ago to teach advisors about the best practices I'd discovered during my travels. Here's what I think:

In the early stages of your career- you are a commodity. You utilize a top-down approach because you need to sell product to pay the mortgage. When I say 'top-down' I mean that you are taught features and benefits of the products that your particular firm sells, and you go find people to sell them to. Training for this kind of sales revolves around uncovering a need, revealing a solution, disturbing a prospect and closing. You utilize marketing to find people who will listen. You then repeat this process as often and as fast as your business model allows. Many advisors stay in this rut. They might jump from one marketing program to another, learning new features and benefits to new products along the way.... but the model remains the same.

The benefits of this model are: the model is relatively predictable: large numbers of people doing similar marketing approaches provide security by demonstrating success in a duplicatable process. B/Ds and Agencies support this model because it provides predictability and if you have ever had to meet payroll for a work force, you place a high premium on predictability. This is the model which is generally supported by wholesalers, and 'marketing' companies. If you have ever heard of the Pareto principal or the 80-20 rule: this is it. You will soon find yourself with a book of business which takes more and more of your time to service, until you finally max out.
Look around your office and you will see advisors losing their hair, putting on weight, and three-times divorced as a result of trying to keep up with this treadmill. The treadmill never stops, and it speeds up and slows down no matter how hard you work because it is connected by a power cord directly to the economy which changes pace without regard to the people on the treadmill.

My advice at this stage: find and partner with a small number of good people. A good wholesaler (Read Nick Murray to understand what this means), a good B/D (don't be afraid to hold them accountable), and good staff / office will do wonders. Kurt Wright taught me to stay focused on these questions: What works, what makes it work, what would be ideal, and what resources do I need to make it ideal? Stay away from, ignore and avoid people, managers, and business models that stay focused on 'What's wrong'. This simple habit alone can almost guarantee you success.

Ask around and find someone with a predictable, duplicatable marketing model that is working in a different city. This is easy- just look at your B/D's top producers and call one who practices in another geographic location. Don't be afraid, but don't waste their time. Politely tell them who you are, and that you would like their advice. Ask them what they do to market, and how it works, and if they think it would work for you. Decide if you need to call others producers and find one that has a model that resonates with you. Then try it. As you begin making money- DON'T SPEND IT. You will need it to leverage yourself to the next level.

The next stage occurs when you begin to realize that success isn't measured by your gross production, it is measured by your net. As you break down your book of business, you will find that the most profitable clients are the ones that you either got lucky with, or were the ones that you had a unique value proposition for. What made your value proposition unique wasn't the products, or how well you knew the features and benefits, or uncovered a need. It occurred because you were working with busy intelligent professionals who make good decisions when presented with accurate information. You will learn at this stage the primary skills you need to cultivate are: organizing, prioritizing, summarizing, and presenting information efficiently.

When these skills become natural, then your entire marketing focus can change. You now have the ability to charge for value you provide, as opposed to the commission attached to a product. This is where the game changes. At this level, I believe a 'bottom-up' approach works best. This means that you identify a niche with a strong demand, an urgent concern and an ability to pay for help. You re-organize your business model so that you are fairly compensated when you work with these people (for both your time and your product sales). For some, that means switching broker/dealers, and for others it means opening your own RIA. There are many resources out there, and I've seen all sorts of advisors successfully make the switch. Don't be afraid to research your options.

Once you find a suitable niche, your marketing becomes informational and targeted. You need to flip the 80/20 rule upside down, and begin focussing ONLY on the 20% (or more likely the 9%) of the prospects that make best use of your unique skill-set. This may require you learning some new complimentary skills (like how to apply your financial service knowledge to a certain profession, or a certain industry or situation), and will require that you begin organizing the information in ways that your prospects can relate to. You begin making part of this information available to them for free. If the niche has strong demand for an urgent enough problem- people will make unsolicited calls to you for immediate guidance. Yes- I said UNSOLICITED CALLS to you seeking immediate guidance. I've made this happen in less than 90 days.

A sufficiently researched campaign should generate strong repeatable business with as few as 250 leads.
A decent computer and color laser printer can generate all the materials you need. Partnering with the right people will get your materials through your compliance department. Stuffing envelopes or leveraging internet marketing campaigns can easily and inexpensively put you in front of the right people at the right time.

I suggest reading or watching several experts:

Tim Ferris "The Four Hour Workweek" http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/
The "Long Tail" by Wired magazine's Chris Anderson. A good video summary is here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LlAZ9t2m7-E

Rethinking information organization from deductive to inductive is a key concept in providing a high level of value. This video illustrates the futility of trying to manage excessive information by analyzing and categorizing it. Too much data is the problem for most executives. Summary and synthesis are the tools to this problem. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM

An excellent niche business model I recommend is Exit Strategy Planning. The best application connecting advisors to this market is taught by Pinnacle Equity Solutions at www.pinnacleequitysolutions.com

I hope you find these opinions useful. Remember to focus on what works, what makes it work, what would be ideal and what resources you need to make it ideal.

Best,

Stephen Burk
StoneArch Advisors
stonearchadvisors.com
stone_arch@me.com

Good post. Nice information has been given. Good message is shared about the financial advisors. Thanks for sharing this information. Financial advisors are doing a good job by doing a guiding their clients to get success in their business. They give many good tips and useful information.

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