The Financial Advisor’s Guide To The Internet

Plan · Play · Profit | October 2010

Welcome to the October edition of our Plan · Play · Profit  E-Newsletter.

AdvisorWebsites.com is writing an E-Book called The Financial Advisor’s Guide To The Internet.

[ Important Message to attendees of;

• Great West Life Insurance And Investment Strategies 2010 Congress – Montreal
• Hub Financial Days – Montreal, Toronto, London, Calgary, Victoria & Vancouver
• London Life Insurance And Investment Strategies 2010 Congress – Montreal

Please click the Advisor.ca Logo on the right to vote for Advisor.ca’s Visionary Contest and click the links below for follow up notes from my presentation via some of my latest thinking on;

• Delegation
• Information And Time Managment
• InspirTechnical
• Marketing & Niche Marketing
• Referrals
• Segmenting Clients
• The Client Engagement Process

end ]

I felt fortunate to be interviewed by Bart Wisniowski & Kevin Sehra of AdvisorWebsites.com on
October 4, 2010 and here are the questions that they asked along with my
answers;

You might think that I am cheeky by using The Financial Advisor‘s Guide To The Internet as the title
for my October E-Newsletter. Please note that I asked Bart Wisniowski of AdvisorWebsites.com for permission to use the title as it is smart on-line marketing as it gets his title out there on the web in advance of the launch of their E-Book.

Before I go, here is one more friendly reminder to click here to Vote For Advisor.ca’s Name That Visionary Contest.

Thank you for the opportunity to be of service.

Simon Reilly
The Financial Advisor Coach
1 877 248 6019

1. What types of on-line marketing and promotional techniques have you seen financial advisors using recently?

[  A note to the reader - I am not a web marketing expert. My experience is drawn from marketing financial advisor and investment advisor coaching, speaking and training workshops through my web site, daily blog and monthly e-newsletters that started in December of 2004. Since that time I have written nearly 1700 blog posts and 71 monthly e-newsletters. ]

Non-Web 0.0

To answer this question, let’s go back to the Non-Web 0.0 promotional techniques to remind us of what has worked in the past;

Advertising;

• Ads; Print & Radio
• Advertorials
• Data base marketing
• Direct Mail
• Fax broadcasting – you may scoff, nobody is doing it anymore and a professional fax will get traction
• Newsletters
• Telemarketing

Asking For Referrals

Sending Cards;

• Birthday – some say don’t send baby boomers a card to remind them of yet another birthday
• Thanksgiving – cards remind them to give thanks that they are still alive!

Client Appreciation Events;

• Cooking Classes
• Dinners
• Movies
• Plays
• Sports attend  / give free Tickets
• Wine Tasting

Community Service Work;

• Associations
• Charities
• Clubs
• Church
• Politics

Events;

• Conferences and Tradeshows; Attending, Exhibiting, Networking
• Lunch & Learn and Seminars

Networking;

• Networking Centers Of Influence
• Networking Community Service
• Networking Events
• Sports Events

Public Speaking

Web 1.0

Web 1.0 marketing includes; web site, newsletters, and blogging using key words and search engine optimization.

Web 2.0 marketing includes using or linking the big three of FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter to your Web 1.0 actions.

To do Web 1.0 and 2.0 right, you are going to need a team because your job is still STP – See The People – because the financial advisor and investment professions require a consultative sales approach combined with Web 1.0 and 2.0.

The team looks like;

• Graphic designer
• Web designer
• Video producer
• Social media manager

If the investment of this team frightens you, your vision isn’t big enough.

FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter are considered to be pull marketing versus the Web 0.0 push marketing of the past which included; direct mail, fax broadcasting and cold calling. I suppose that one can use push web marketing by using Google to search for prospects but then you are right back to push marketing, and that is all you will ever do is push. Doesn’t it make more sense to invest in great web marketing and have prospects come to you? In the October 2010 world of Leading Advisor I’ve had invitations to coach, facilitate workshops and speak from Sydney, Australia through to Boca Raton, Florida.

It amazes me how many financial and investment advisors don’t have cutting edge Web 1.0 marketing engaged while Web 2.0 marketing is skyrocketing.

But skyrocketing where?

It is likely skyrocketing with the twenty or thirty something’s that are still working to create their wealth and they might inherit the wealth from their baby boomer parents.

For now, the wealth may not be on-line as demonstrated by this quote;

“What’s more, there was the additionally sobering and confounding fact that an online consumer continued to be worth significantly less than an offline one.” – Michael Wolff -Wired Magazine, September 2010

Having said that, consider this; while some traditionalists and baby boomers may be on the fence about Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 marketing, it is said that “if the heir’s of your client’s estate can’t find you on-line or on FaceBook or on LinkedIn or on Twitter, you don’t exist.”

Here is an excellent example of a financial advisor web site from a Google search of “Financial Advisor Vancouver” that uses key words and search engine optimization – meaning that they are not using pay-per-click;

http://www.rogersgroup.com/

I say excellent because they are on the first page of Google and their site has all the components of a great website.

Web 1.0 marketing has other steps.

Out of curiosity, I Googled “financial advisor blog” and “financial advisor blogs” and I’m almost sorry to say that Leading Advisor came up number one on page one of Google as an unsponsored link
and here are the very few that I found;

• http://www.you-first.com/blog/
• http://wheredoesallmymoneygo.com/
• http://russellbailyn.com/weblog/index.html

Why so few?

One reason is that blogging is really on the Web 2.0 side of things.

Another reason why is the same reason why 90% of financial and investment advisors don’t ask for referrals; they have not found their voice, they don’t know what to say and they don’t know what to do.

Another reason is that while some financial advisors and investment advisors may be blogging, they might be doing a poor job of using key words and search engine optimization.

Click here to read a great story about how a financial advisor is marketing outside of the box office combined with using their e-newsletter for marketing.

Web 2.0

Financial and investment advisors are using LinkedIn the most because it is perceived to be more compliant, to some FaceBook has a bad rap for having security problems and baby boomer financial and investments advisors view Twitter as “Tweets are for Twits” because they don’t understand Web 2.0 marketing .

I believe financial and investment advisors are in early days with Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 marketing.

One can’t have Web 1.0 marketing without Web 2.0 marketing because Web 2.0 marketing is the viral engine that drives the traffic and network to Web 1.0.

My evidence for this, you could be reading this e-newsletter because;

• Leading Advisor uses key words and search engine optimization
• You are subscribed to our e-newsletter
• You read my blog
• You saw the link to my e-newsletter on FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter

That being said, don’t even bother with Web 2.0 marketing if you don’t have Web 1.0 marketing in place.

Again your Web 1.0 on-line marketing includes a web site, newsletters and blogging using key words and search engine optimization.

These must be built on one – three specialized niches so that you can drive your marketing roots deep into these
niches or your Web 2.0 marketing roots will be spread too thin and your message may be fragmented and your energy will be the same as you cannot be effective marketing to anyone and everyone.

Your niche must be built around; you have identified a group that has problems and you have the solutions to their problems. For more on creating a niche click here for The 19 Rules Of Niche.

2. What are some of the benefits of using the internet as a financial advisor?

First and foremost it challenges the financial and investment advisor to get over their fear and find their voice to write the following items that are not limited to;

• Bio
• Vision
• Mission
• Purpose
• Brand
• Bi-line
• Tag Line
• Purpose
• Brand
• Bi-line
• Tag Line
• Unique Selling Proposition
• Elevator Speech
• Product Offer
• Investment Philosophy
• Client Engagement Process

Marketing is the process of elimination and clients are going to like you or they are not. A web site, e-newsletter and blog will give them plenty of opportunity to get to know you well in advance; in essence the internet helps to qualify the clients so that the unqualified ones will not waste your time.

The internet also gives you the opportunity for proactive reputation management. You are either proactively managing your reputation or someone else is or you could run the risk of losing your reputation without getting a chance to vote.

Two recent examples come to mind.

Tony Robbins’ Breakthrough Reality TV Show went off the air this summer after two shows because of poor ratings but you would have had a hard time finding out about it on Google because Tony Robbins owns his name when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. In other words, all of Tony’s web content drove all media stories way down in Google.

BP not only helped to create one of the worst environmental disasters, they also created one of the worst PR disasters because they fell victim to a fake Twitter account, BPGlobalPR that attracted ten times the followers that the real page BP_America did.

If you have a strong on-line reputation you will be given the benefit of a doubt if something negative were to happen whether it is true or not.

3. How should a financial advisor start utilizing the internet as a first step?

Ask yourself, “do I need this right now?”

There is no point in having a poor web site because you lack a vision and business plan.

A business plan will help you to answer these five questions;

1. Vision             What are you building?
2. Mission           Why does this business exist?
3. Objectives       What result will we measure?
4. Strategies       How will we build this company?
5. Action Plans   What is the work to be done?

The foundation of your vision and business plan will help you to create your web site, e-newsletter and blog.

A financial or investment advisor is going to need content to get ready for their web site, e-newsletter and blog.

At the same time, remember it is best to serve a niche market, become a recognized expert versus a master of nothing trying to serve any and everyone.

To help you to ID your niche, make a list of all of your clients and then code them by the type of business that they are in.

The niche markets that you are already serving should become quite evident.

Remember that the following are not niches;

• Entrepreneurs
• Families
• High net worth clients
• Women

While I loved working with financial advisors along with fortune 500 CEO’s, importers, investment advisors, IT professionals, movie stars, photographers and realtors … it was impossible to market to them all at the same time.

After close examination in 2004, financial and investment advisors made up 70% of my coaching practice and Leading Advisor was born.

I made a commitment to the niche of financial and investment advisors versus just being interested.

Your niche could look like: accountants, lawyers, IT professionals or medical professionals.

Your next steps are to interview your niche clients with the following questions that will cause you to do the research to find solutions to their problems leading you to become a recognized expert;

• What do you like best about working with me?
• What do I do for you that you didn’t expect?
• What are the three biggest improvements that you want to make in your business and personal lives?
• What are the three biggest roadblocks that you are facing in your business and personal lives?

The answers to these questions will inspire you and cause you to research out solutions to serve and provide you with content for your web, blog and e-newsletter.

Share a copy with the clients that you have interviewed.

Ask - Do you know anyone else that is in the business of ____________ that would
appreciate a copy of my blog and / or e-newsletter?

You are on your way to Web 1.0 and 2.0 marketing.

Then go out and tell 10,000 people in your niche.

4. How has the internet impacted the financial services industry and the way that advisors are interacting with
their clients and prospects?

High Net Worth financial and investment advising is a consultative relationship which is still built by a combination of face to face and on-line activities.

It is said that one of the reasons that Barack Obama won the US election was because of his on-line presence.  Just because he won the election, he still has to be out there pressing the flesh. Look at what Sarah Palin is doing with pressing the flesh and pressing the keyboard on the other side of the aisle with her Social Media presence that is all interconnected.

Not having a web site, e-newsletter or blog is like showing up at an event without business cards.

Having a web site, e-newsletter and blog interconnected to FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter gives your clients and prospects a chance to get to know you on many different levels giving them the opportunity to see you as authentic, transparent, warts and all.

A web site and blog interconnected to FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter provides a low cost marketing engine.

At the same time, Web 1.0 and 2.0 marketing has to be managed, no different than the old days when one had to schedule time to make cold calls.

Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 are all about information and time management. If you are running your practice, you will make the time, if your practice is running you, you will not create the time.

There are all kinds of ways that you can work with Web 2.0 social media and I’m taking this opportunity to create a check list to bring myself up to date and to keep myself focused [ this is given that our blog, FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter are already interconnected ]

• Block the time
  • Complete the following in advance of 2011 plan;
  • Provide excellent coaching service
  • Complete 12 financial advisor speaking presentations
  • Re-brand Leading Advisor with Plan · Play · Profit
  • Update website
  • Upgrade coaching products and make them scalable
  • Upgrade enrolment process
  • Complete iOrganized
  • Complete data management
  • Complete high net worth marketing plan
  • Create a new referral system
• Update my FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter Profile
• Gather and categorize articles from blog and e-newsletter and re-blog theme of the week
• Create vlogs around theme of the week
• Add FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter Profile addresses to business card, e-mail and referral card,
• FaceBook;
  • Add value
  • Create a Leading Advisor fan page
  • Create a community
  • Friend CEO’s
  • Post blogs and e-newsletters
  • Ask questions / start conversations
  • Ad campaign
  • Offer events
  • Offer free assignments
  • Offer free conference calls
  • Invite fans to introduce their fans
  • Get recommendations
  • Post product offers
• LinkedIn
  • Start a group
  • Make recommendations
  • ( as above )
• Twitter
  • Search for persons, tags and topics
  • Search followers for person, tags and topics
  • Follow those of interest
  • Reply to / thank followers
  • Remove followers that are not relevant
  • Tweet, ask opinions / questions, join conversations
  • ( as above )

Having said this I am looking for a Social Media Manager to clarify and add to this plan.

5. How would you compare and contrast the
marketing and prospecting process for an advisor today vs. the advisor of 15
years ago.

The advisor of 15 years ago was advising and active with Non-Web 0.0 promotional techniques and the tried and true is still true today.

The advisor of 15 years ago just barely had the internet and bandwidth to make it possible to send an e-mail like this one that I sent to follow up a referral introduction to NAIFA-Iowa from Matt Anderson of The Referral Authority;

Hi Michele,

I’m writing you in follow up to Matt’s introduction and I’m very excited about the
prospect of being able to add value by speaking at your NAIFA-Iowa Sales
Caravan.

Please find my following e-mail introduction complete with Testimonials, Speaking
Overview and Video.

Please note that I can make your November 9-12 dates in Iowa City, Des Moines, Sioux
City and Waterloo.

Laura Reilly I will follow up with you on Monday to set up a telephone conversation
to discuss the specific message that you want to get across in the speaking as I customize my presentation to suit.

Thank you the opportunity to be of service.

Simon Reilly
Simon Reilly E-Mail Introduction

I’ve delivered my Clear Your Roadblocks financial advisor speaking presentation to nearly 20,000 financial advisors at over 150 financial advisor conferences and events over the past five years to rave reviews.

I was a speaker at the Vancouver 2010 MDRT where I met Matt Anderson.

Please see the event planner ( left ) and attendee testimonials ( right ) here;

“I was very pleased with Simon’s presentation.  He has fantastic energy and his
material is very well packaged. His material is a mix of old and new, and
certainly has the most complete and informative material, and he is the best
presenter that I have seen deliver to our MGA in the last 24 months. He
delivered value and excited the crowd. Simon delivered exactly what I expected,
and I was pleased to see the number of people who responded by purchasing his
book, that shows me that having Simon speak was a huge success.”

Michael Williams
BFG Financial Inc.,
President (2010)

Toronto, ON

“The Sales Congress was one of the better ones we
had. Finishing off with you definitely put the icing on the cake. It made for a
very worthwhile Sales Congress. I just came from a presentation with Bill
Clinton, and you are a better speaker and you have much more energy and
emotion. I was very impressed with your energy level, and how you related to
the advisors and how you connected with them in a very short period of time. I
personally know most of the advisors who were in attendance and this was
confirmed by their comments, their attention to your speaking, and their
written testimonials. In hindsight, I would have had you speak for the full
morning. Your insights about “defining your values”, “emotionally retired” and
“reinvention” captivated me, and I’m looking forward to reading your book. Next
time you are out to speak, you definitely will be one of the 3 speakers I book;
if not just Simon Reilly for the entire Sales Congress!”

Tony Joyce

Freedom
55 Financial
Advocis Newfoundland and Labrador President (2009)
St. John’s, NL

For reference, my 2010 speaking calendar is filled with some of the best Main Stage
Conferences.

My Clear Your Roadblocks speaking presentation is the missing link and addresses the core issues that many financial advisors are facing today that include not having a vision and business plan, not delegating and building a team and not
asking for referrals.

I’ve coined the phrase Inspirtechnical combining both an inspirational and technical approach to helping financial advisors understand and clear their roadblocks to success and you can read more about the science behind my approach here.

Here are two video clips that demonstrate the speaking style that I have that segways with Inspirtechnical;

• Plateauing Out Syndrome
• The Missing Link

Thank you
for your time and I’m looking forward to our conversation.

Simon Reilly

6. Where do you see the future of how
advisors will need to market and promote themselves 5 years from now?

Given that FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter didn’t even exist 10 years ago, it is anyone’s guess.

An example could look like something that is probably happening right now where a financial or investment advisor with Web 1.0 and 2.0 marketing, Smart Phone and an App could be introduced to a prospect at meeting by their client and after rapport is quickly established the financial or investment advisor could ask the prospect;

“This probably isn’t the place for me to fully introduce myself and I would like to
stay in touch with you; can I have your business card so that I can send you a
link to my ( Smart Phone ) App that includes my Blog, Newsletter and Video?”

Note that I answered the question with “introduced to a prospect at a meeting by their client” because I still believe that financial and investment advisors are still going to be using Non-Web 0.0 promotional techniques working with high net worth clients in conjunction with Web 1.0 and 2.0 marketing.

The successful financial advisor and investment advisor five years into the future will be seen as an expert at solving problems within a niche and marketing themselves through meeting face to face, speaking, and on-line writing.

7. Are there any pitfalls any advisor should avoid when using the internet?

What goes around comes around. Don’t use the internet in a negative way. Remember the golden rule “if you can’t say anything nice about someone or something, then don’t say anything at all”.

To stay in the good books with compliance officers, don’t give financial advice – the financial and investment advisor profession is a consultative and specific profession and everyone’s situation is unique and different and financial advice should be offered after doing a client needs analysis.

8. What are your thoughts on the increasing popularity of social media?

It’s going viral and we will see 1 billion subscribers with the big three of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

While some traditionalists and baby boomers may be on the fence about Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 marketing, it is said that “if the heir’s of your client’s estate can’t find you on FaceBook, LinkedIn or Twitter, you don’t exist.”