Polished Print Pieces

Even in today’s technological age, financial advisors tend to rely on a lot of print pieces for their communication and marketing efforts. Examples include welcome packets, brochures, business cards, and even annual review paperwork for their clients. We’ve helped financial advisors with their marketing and branding for a long time, and have found that polishing a client’s print pieces is essential to establishing consistency. All of your printed materials should feel like they were made by the same graphic designer, and they should all follow the same brand guidelines (fonts, colors, spacing, creative elements, photography, etc.). The cohesiveness of your print marketing materials can impress clients and encourage them to trust your services, and can also create confusion and distrust just as quickly.

While every financial advisor’s branding is unique, the same graphic design principles apply when establishing consistency. It’s essential to designate a specific color scheme and use those same shades across all of your print pieces. Additionally, you’ll want to ensure everything from your posters to your business cards use the same logo and fonts. A more subtle yet impactful way to promote consistency is by using the same creative design elements across your pieces. For instance, you might create angular watermarks to complement your firm’s triangular logo.

Yet another way to make your print pieces cohesive is through your photography style. Try to use images that have consistent compositions, color tones, or feature similar subjects and styles of subjects. If your brochures feature images of smiling families, you should use similar photos in your other print materials as well, versus using something like cityscapes.

Optimized Online Presence

Our recent blog post on the importance of optimizing your website gives key tips for establishing consistency online. Your messaging, graphic elements, layout, and photography style should be cohesive across every page. These components should also match the style of your print materials to create a truly consistent experience for your clients. By implementing this approach, your client will feel at home even if they’re not on your homepage.

However, it’s important to note that your online presence as a financial advisor doesn’t end with your website. Your various social media profiles also need to look like they belong, so it’s important to get them up to speed. A simple way to start is by optimizing your descriptions across your social media profiles. Keep the same overall message without using the same wording on every profile, as repeating content can affect your performance in search engines. For instance, if your website uses aspirational copy to highlight the importance of retirement planning, your descriptions should reflect this same sentiment. This is a great way to leverage your strategic brand messaging to help create consistency.

Continue your efforts toward consistency through the use of photography. Use photos (both in your header/cover areas and on your posts) similar to the ones on your website and print materials, and consider creating custom header photos. If your brand doesn’t use much photography, you can create images that rely on cohesive color schemes and graphic elements.

Cohesive Client Experience

The biggest and most important place to worry about consistency is in the physical space — your office and your virtual backdrop (key for a Zoom-heavy world!). Imagine a client sees your minimally designed, modern brochure and website before visiting your office, only to find your space under-decorated, dated, and a bit cluttered. This disconnect can cause confusion and make it challenging for the client to feel comfortable with your brand.

Create a truly cohesive experience for your clients by ensuring your office matches your overarching brand identity. A minimalist office atmosphere would be ideal for a financial advisor with a modern website featuring lots of white space. You might opt for a cozy waiting room and fun decor if you have a more relaxed clientele. In a future blog, we’ll further explore the importance of the client experience.

The bottom line is, establishing a brand identity isn’t enough. You have to ensure every aspect of your firm — from your print materials and website to your office — reflects your core brand identity. This consistency subconsciously assures clients of your ability to work toward their financial goals.

Mistake 1: Use Your Logo to Tell Your Story

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but that doesn’t mean your logo needs to express your entire brand story. The fact is, it can’t. Your logo is just one image, and while you can make it meaningful and interesting, it shouldn’t be complicated or confusing. You probably have a lot of great things to say about your business, but that doesn’t mean you should try and say them all with your logo (that’s what strategic messaging is for!)

Your logo doesn’t need to include a lot of complex artwork to make an impact or be visually appealing. Something clean and simple can pack just as much (or more) of a punch—just think about the “F” logo for Facebook, Rolex’s golden crown, Nike’s swoosh, the Target bull’s-eye, or the “C” used by Chick-Fil-A. They’re all memorable and unique—yet simple.

Not only is a minimalist logo easy on the eyes, but it’s also easy to use in your marketing collateral. Focus on simple shapes and a limited color palette that will make it easy to incorporate your logo in a variety of materials (think branded t-shirts and pullovers, mugs, business cards, your capabilities deck, website, etc.).

Mistake 2: Make Your Logo Hard On the Eyes

Like the last point—complexity is not a friend of logo design. Viewers should be able to digest your logo in an instant, so if it’s difficult to see the icon or decipher the text, that means it’s too complicated.

Here are some guidelines:

• Use no more than 3 colors
• Don’t use more than 3 fonts (two is better)
• If you’re using both an icon and words in your logo, pay attention to proportions. You don’t want the text to be illegible when the logo is scaled down or for one element to overpower the other.

Prospects and clients might only glance at your logo when they visit your website, read an email from you, or sign a document, so you need something impactful and memorable, yet uncomplicated. 

Mistake 3: Cut Corners

You’ll use your logo almost everywhere, including your website, printed collateral, social media profiles, and promotional swag. It’s usually the first visual impression people have of your business, so it’s important not to skimp when designing your logo.

For starters, hire a professional. Freelance websites that make super cheap logos run the risk of being, well, cheap. Sometimes they’re produced using clipart or stock icons of some sort, and they can end up looking unoriginal. Truly custom logos require time and creativity, so they typically cost more. But creating a second logo because the first one didn’t hold up also takes time and money, so you’ll thank yourself for doing things right from the beginning. 

And customization is important—your logo represents your brand, and your brand represents your practice. It should look and feel like you, not a competitor. You want your logo to be just as professional, unique, and polished as you are.

Mistake 4: Forget About the Big Picture

As we’ve said, you’ll use your logo almost everywhere, and that means it should look good everywhere—on a shirt, business card, office sign, email signature, social media profile. Big and small, narrow or wide; your logo should be adaptable. So when you’re reviewing designs, consider how the colors and shapes will transfer across various platforms and materials.

To make this work, you’ll probably need a few different versions of your logo. For example, if your logo is an icon next to your name (making the entire logo long and flat), you’ll want a secondary version where the elements are stacked. It’s also important to have high-resolution files of just the icon or image associated with your logo, as this will be best for things like a watermark or social media profile photo. (If you opt for a words-only logo, stylized initials of your DBA often work just as well.)

You’ll also want a few variations of your established color palette so you have something that works against different backgrounds (transparent or black, dark or light, etc.). 

When you step back to look at the big picture, make sure you’re stepping back from your timeline as well. For example, if you used your initials as a logo but later added a partner to your business, would that logo still work as well?

Updating your logo is definitely doable, but preferably, you want something that stays with you for the long haul, so clients and your professional network can develop visual brand recognition.

Mistake 5: Overthink It

When you’re designing a logo, there are ways to do it “wrong.” But there are also plenty of ways to do it right. Lots of people get caught in a trap of trying to be super creative or clever with their logo. And while it should be unique to you, it doesn’t have to be the next Nike swoosh. Don’t let your creative and ambitious mind keep you from creating a simple, memorable, and versatile logo that will look great everywhere you use it.

If you’re stuck in the decision phase and trying to choose from several versions a designer has given you, step back from the project for a few days so you can give the designs a fresh look.

And if you want a second opinion, keep your “logo advisory team” to one or two extra people so you don’t end up with too many voices nitpicking over details. As long as it’s clean, professional, unique, and easy to use in your marketing collateral, you likely won’t go wrong.

1. Consider When the Site Was Built

When was the last time your website received a comprehensive overhaul? If you can’t remember, it’s probably been too long.

Website design trends change over time, much like fashion or interior design. And just like you wouldn’t show up to your first client meeting with a Farrah Fawcett hairdo or suspenders (unless, perhaps, your clients are hipsters and you wear them ironically), you also don’t want a website that screams “I’m from the 90s!” (Or even the mid 2000s). In fact, as a best practice, your website should be redesigned every three to five years, because that’s how quickly website trends evolve. 

If your website is outdated, it can make you look outdated. When you land on someone’s site and it’s formatted like a Word document, or it simply doesn’t look like the rest of the internet (and not in a good way), it’s hard to imagine that person’s financial planning technology will be easy to use, or even that their advising methods will be fresh and innovative.

Something else to consider— if your firm undergoes a major change like targeting a new niche or rebranding, that’s also a sign it’s time to redesign.

2. Evaluate Your Overall Message

In our last blog, we discussed the importance of well-crafted messaging and how it helps you attract the right kind of clientele. It can also help you weed out prospects who may not be the right fit, so if you find yourself getting referrals that aren’t quite the type of client you’re looking for, this could be part of your problem.

Go to your website and read the content from the point of view of your ideal client. Let’s say you love working with busy, up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Do you talk about how you save people time and take things off their plate? Do you talk about helping business owners minimize their risks and maximize their opportunities?

Your website messaging should speak to the core desires of your clients, whether those desires are to stop worrying about their retirement, spend more time with their family, enjoy their success without guilt, or all of the above.

Lots of advisors used the canned content from their broker, but if you rely heavily on this, it can send the wrong message. After all, your clients are not the same as every other agent’s; your strengths are not identical to every other advisor’s. So you need to think about what makes you special, what your clients want, and why they love working with you—and say that on your website. 

Granted, this can be a challenging task. If you’ve never gone through the Strategic Messaging process with an agency and had them do a deep-dive discovery to create powerful, custom content for you—I promise, that will be one investment you’ll never regret making. Experienced agencies will work with you to learn about your passion for the business, how you serve clients, who you’re trying to attract, why you’re great at what you do—and they’ll use that to write compelling content that turns your website into the conversion tool it’s meant to be.

3. View Your Website From Multiple Devices

Today, people access the internet from all kinds of devices, like phones, tablets, laptops—even TV screens—so modern, user-friendly websites need to adapt. If your website is hard to read on certain screens or doesn’t display correctly, it’s not only frustrating to a potential client, but it’s another thing that can make you appear out of touch with technology.

That’s why it’s important to have a screen-responsive website. This means your content will conform to fit any screen without adding awkward features like horizontal scrolling or tiny menu buttons.

To find out if your website is responsive, check it on as many screens as possible—a laptop, your smart TV, different sized phones. Cell phones alone come in so many different sizes and orientations, so your website needs to be programmed to adapt to pretty much anything. Have your friends or family (or better yet, your marketing agency) check for you if you’re not sure. If your website doesn’t adapt to all types of screens, you’ll need to update it.

4. Check for a Streamlined Layout

Finally, your website needs to be easy to use. You can have a cutting-edge, screen-responsive website that says all the right things—but if a prospect can’t find the information they’re looking for, you’re missing out on valuable referrals.

People don’t spend much time “exploring” websites, and if they don’t find what they need quickly, they’re likely to leave. They also won’t click on a page if they don’t know what they’ll find there, so your page titles need to be easy to interpret. This is one place that “being like everyone else” can work in your favor. Internet users have learned to click on a company’s logo to return to the homepage; they expect contact information to be easy to find (whether it’s in the main navigation, footer, or a sticky button in the bottom right corner). If they want to learn more about you, they’re going to look for your bio on a page titled something like, “Your Planning Team,” “Our Staff,” “Our People,” or something similar. When you try to be too clever or unique, it can confuse people, which never works in your favor.

You also don’t want to overwhelm people with tons of content, but that doesn’t mean you can’t provide great information. Certain target markets want to know more before they contact you (not to mention that custom content is great for SEO), so the key is to organize your content well and divide it into different sections. This way, it’s not visually overwhelming, but users can find what they need by scanning headlines and page titles.

The Bottom Line

If you want to know if your website is working for or against you, look at it through the eyes of your ideal client. Does it speak to their needs and desires? Is it modern and easy to use? Can you find important information (like the advisors’ bios and contact information) quickly? If not, it’s probably time for an update.

Your Brand Story, Unpacked

So what does a brand story look like?

There are several components to a brand story, and you’ll use each of them in various ways in your marketing. You’ll use some components on your social media profiles, some for one-pagers, and most on your website. Here are the elements that make up your brand story:

Brand Promise: This tells what you do and who you do it for in a short, powerful sentence or phrase. It’s sometimes called your unique value proposition, or UVP, and it’s often used in places like a website’s homepage (as the main headline) or the title slide of a capabilities deck. For example, if you spend time educating business owners and helping them make better financial decisions, you might say something like this:

HELPING DRIVEN BUSINESS OWNERS TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR FINANCIAL FUTURE

You can also use a combination of a headline and sub-headline, writing one powerful phrase that explains what clients get from working with you, and then following up with a clarifying statement, like this:

TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR FINANCIAL FUTURE
Comprehensive wealth management for successful professionals and entrepreneurs

One of the most important objectives in all of your messaging, and particularly in your brand promise, is to speak to your clients’ core desires. (In fact, did you notice how the two examples above don’t focus as much on the advisor as they do the client?) You’re not just telling them about yourself; you’re confirming you can give them what they really want out of life. If you work with a lot of retirees who just want to know they’re “okay” and that they can enjoy their future, make sure your brand promise offers the same assurance, confidence, and peace of mind that you do when working with clients.

Firm Overview: This is typically a paragraph or two of content that explains who you are and what you do, and it essentially summarizes what clients experience when they work with you. It paints a big-picture overview of what their life will be like if they choose you to be their advisor. Like your brand promise, it should speak to your target market’s core desires, but this is your chance to explain a little more about how you help clients. It’s not super detailed, but it should highlight what makes you different, your approach to planning, and the ultimate benefit of working with you—and it should do so in a creative, compelling way. You can check out some examples in our website portfolio.

Unique Points of Differentiation: Your brand story is all about sharing what’s unique and special about your practice, and oftentimes there’s more to say than will fit in your firm overview. Maybe you have a set of core values you operate by, or there are three things your firm does really well that you want to highlight. You can take those elements and briefly describe them in a separate section with a title like “Our Values,” “Our Difference,” or whatever fits with the content you write. You might use this verbiage on your social media profiles, as part of your welcome packet, or on a page of your website. The point is that you have the chance to say everything you need to say without overwhelming readers by trying to fit it into one piece of content. Which brings us to our next point…

Say What You Need to Say

When it comes to website content specifically, the trend is “less is more,” but the amount of verbiage you use can vary depending on your style and target market. If you work with extremely busy entrepreneurs, you probably want to keep things short and sweet. If you work with retirees who like to take things slow and ask a lot of questions, a little more content might be good. Most people are looking at your website to vet you, so you want to give them enough information that makes them feel comfortable reaching out to you, but not so much that it overwhelms them. Whatever you need to say, the key is to make it feel like a small amount of content. You can do that a few different ways:

• Separate verbiage into smaller sections with headlines so people can easily skim and scan.
• Break up content with graphics.
• Write “teaser” sentences with “read more” links. These links can then expand the page or section to reveal the rest of the content (we call that an “expando”) or direct the user to a new page. The link could also open a pop-up with the rest of the verbiage.

How Your Brand Story Increases Referrals

Refining your brand story can increase your referrals and conversions in several ways:

• It helps you clarify who you are and what you’re not, which allows you to focus your marketing efforts on the right people.
• It helps you weed out prospects who aren’t the right fit. If you’re a holistic advisor who primarily works with successful business owners, you can say that in your messaging, and young families or professionals looking for a “quick fix” will see you’re probably not the best fit for them.
• It gives current clients a clear message to share with friends and family members who ask for a referral. It helps them articulate why they love working with you and the difference you make in their lives.
• It helps convert prospects who are vetting you—when you describe a situation much like their own in your core message, and when you mention a type of client they relate to, you confirm that you understand them and can help them solve their problems.

Here’s an overview of the three elements of your brand identity and how they impact your practice:

Visual

The visual components of your brand are fairly easy to identify—they’re the elements people see that represent your firm, like your logo, website, and company documents. But there are other visual elements that play an equally important role in representing your brand—like your office décor, the way you and your team dress, and your building’s signage. All these things create a direct and immediate impression of your brand, so that impression needs to be A) positive and B) cohesive. If your website is sleek and modern, it makes sense that your stationery and office décor would have a similar look. If your clients are used to meeting you in a suit and tie, your entire team should uphold that standard with the way they present themselves in the office. 

Verbal

Verbal elements include everything people hear or read associated with your brand. That could be anything from the words on your website to the way your receptionist answers the phone. 

When it comes to written and spoken communication, your firm should have one “voice.” That means if someone follows your Facebook posts, reads company emails, and visits your website in the same day, they should feel like they’ve been interacting with the same “personality” every time. If you talk a lot about building close relationships in your website messaging, then calling your firm should feel like having a conversation with a friend.

Sometimes it helps to think of your brand as an actual person with a specific personality—when you have a brand persona in mind, you can determine the kinds of things your brand would or wouldn’t say. 

One of the most important verbal elements of your brand is your brand story, or what we call your “core message.” This is the written content that explains who you are and why you’re different from other firms. (We’ll talk more about your brand story and how it can help your referability in our next blog.)

Experiential

The experiential component is what it feels like to interact with you and your practice, and it’s an extremely powerful element of your brand. Creating a strong experiential brand is about going above and beyond for your clients, and when you succeed, you leave a positive, memorable impression that makes you irresistibly referrable.

Ask yourself this: Do I proactively follow up with clients, or do they reach out to me when they need something? Do people feel welcomed and special the moment they walk into the office, or do they stand around waiting for someone to greet them? Do I make it easy for clients to navigate and update their accounts, or do they often get confused and frustrated?

These little experiences create huge impressions that greatly impact your referability. Make people feel welcome, cared for, and thought of, and they will become raving fans. Make them feel forgotten, ignored, or even nothing at all, and you may not lose a client, but you won’t get a referral. 

Search Engine Optimization: Be Seen

Facebook is one of the most widely used platforms on the internet, and Google knows that. Consequently, when you search for a person, company, or brand, their Facebook page is one of the first results Google will show you. Search engines recognize Facebook as a reputable, popular site, and as such, they deliver its listings as one of their top results when you search for a person or company.

That means when one of your clients refers you to their cousin and that cousin googles the name of your firm, your Facebook page (if you have one, and even more so, if it’s active), will be one of the first results they see.

This principle holds true not just for Facebook, but for other widely used social platforms like LinkedIn. Test it out—search a few of your favorite brands and see which links appear—most likely, Facebook will be one of the top results, with LinkedIn or Twitter following close behind. In some cases, LinkedIn will even appear at the top of the list, outranking a company’s website. This is especially common if you’re an advisor with a template website from your broker, or you’re not allowed to have your own website. For this reason, LinkedIn profiles can be an incredibly valuable asset for advisors.

It’s also important to note that LinkedIn is a strategic choice for advisors because it’s “business social media.” If someone wants to check out your credentials and education after they’re referred to you, it makes sense for them to look there. Maintaining an active LinkedIn profile can also be a great way to build connections with COIs or joint work partners, display your expertise and build credibility by sharing relevant information, and meet new prospects in your target market industries.

That said, Facebook is still the most popular social media platform and consequently a search-result powerhouse—so it’s important to maintain company profiles on both sites. Both Facebook and LinkedIn represent valuable internet real estate you can control—you decide what your profiles say about you, and maintaining active pages increases your opportunities to share your specific value with prospects. Which brings us to our next point…

Say the Right Things

When prospects vet you, they usually research in more than one place—meaning after they’ve found your website, they’ll also likely check your social media profiles—especially if those profiles are showing up at the top of search results or are linked from your website. So when it comes to your online presence and the things you say about your brand, the messaging on your social media profiles is just as important as the messaging on your website. Your business profiles are another opportunity to tell prospects who you are and answer the question, “Can this advisor help me?”

Here’s something to think about: roughly 1.91 billion people use Facebook daily,¹ and as of 2019, more than 600 million of its users were visiting business pages every day. LinkedIn has roughly 810 million users² and reports that 55 percent of decision makers use thought leadership (like content shared on professional profiles) to determine the kind of companies they work with³.

What does that tell us? Tons of people use social media, and not just to connect with their friends. In 2016, a study of nearly 1,000 consumers revealed that 20% of them used social media to discover a brand, service, or product, and 14% of them leveraged social media during the vetting process.⁴ Imagine what those statistics are now, after the pandemic.

So, the information on your profiles matters. Having company profiles matters. Your prospects are very likely viewing your social media pages after they’re referred to you and it’s your job to reinforce all the good things your clients say about you. The content on your profiles should express how you help your clients and what makes you stand apart from other advisors, and it should be cohesive with the messaging on your website. That way, when prospects vet you, they feel confident that you’re the advisor that can help solve their problems.

Show Referrals You’re Still in Business

How many times have you heard about a restaurant, store, or business, searched for them on Facebook, and found a page with just a few posts—all from three or four years ago? What’s your first thought?

Are they still in business?

It might seem like a drastic conclusion to assume no posts equals no business, but that’s what goes through many people’s minds when they see an inactive Facebook page—which is why we recommend creating a Facebook page only if you’re going to be diligent about sharing content regularly. (LinkedIn, on the other hand, does not share this phenomenon, and a static page with up-to-date company information will generally suffice.) Lots of people use Facebook to check that someone is still in business or to find their contact information and hours of operation—so if the information (or posts) you have on your page is outdated, you’re creating room for doubt.

Instead, make it clear when someone inevitably lands on your page—tell them, “We’re here, we’re staying on top of what’s important to our clients, and we can help you solve your problems.” You do that by maintaining an up-to-date profile that reflects your brand identity and regularly posting information relevant to your target market.

Social Media Matters

So next time you think your social media profiles aren’t working for you, take a moment to consider the referral process—are your profiles appearing at the top of search engine results and helping people find you? Are the messages on your pages reflecting your brand identity and reiterating your brand promise? Are you sharing timely information that could boost your credibility with referrals? If so, your social media presence probably has a lot more impact than you realize. And remember this: it can make or break a referral before you ever meet that person.

A strong social media presence can boost your search engine results, help referrals find you easily, and prove to them that you’re relevant, knowledgeable, and can help solve their problems. That’s why it’s important to not only have a presence on social media, but to maintain it regularly. Make sure your pages match the branding on your website and that you’re sharing content your target market cares about.

If you want to integrate social media into your financial firm’s marketing plan, you need to understand how it works—and more importantly, how it works specifically for an advisor’s business. When it comes to advisor marketing, there are 3 primary ways to use social media:

• To build relationships and increase referrals and retention
• To increase conversions by creating a positive impression during the vetting process
• To reach new people who are unfamiliar with or unconnected to you

The first two goals are driven by organic (i.e., unpaid) social media, while targeting strangers requires a paid strategy. In a previous blog, we discussed how advisors can use their personal profiles to build relationships and increase referrals—and in my professional opinion, this is the most important way for advisors to leverage organic social media. You want to use your personal online presence to connect with people because as you do so, you can enhance your client relationships—you become more like friends, which increases referrals, retention, and the amount of business they do with you. Simply put, this strategy is too simple and too beneficial not to incorporate into your marketing plan.

Lots of advisors (and business owners in general) start using social media because they want to reach new markets, and while this is certainly doable, it requires a somewhat aggressive budget—and patience. We’ll discuss how to leverage paid social media in a separate blog, so for now, it’s important to understand the other purpose of organic social media—making a great impression during the vetting process after someone is referred to you.

What an Advisor’s Professional Social Media Presence is Actually For

Contrary to what some people think, posting a steady stream of content (without paid ads) isn’t likely to attract new business to your firm. Instead, maintaining an active social media presence for your practice does the following:

1. Improves your search engine results and perceived viability during the vetting process
2. Builds credibility and authority with current clients and prospects (hello, thought leadership content)
3. Helps you stay top of mind with clients and prospects

All of these things impact the vetting and conversion process, which is why your professional profiles are so important–even when you can’t “see” them working. And to grasp the importance of the vetting process, you have to understand how referrals work…

How Referrals Work

Despite what some might assume, when someone is referred to you, their first step is not to call or email you. It’s to vet you—they’re going to research to determine if you’ll be a good fit for them, if they should call you. Consequently, lots of advisors get more referrals than they realize—they just don’t always “pass the test” when someone is deciding whether to call them. 

That’s why the vetting process is so important—you have to make a great impression before you even know someone is looking at you. And your professional social media profiles play a big part in that process.

How Successful Advisors Become Great

In its simplest form, the role of an advisor is to help people grow, protect, and manage their money. They learn about people and their financial situations, discuss their short- and long-term goals, and create plans to accomplish them.

But the best advisors are much more than that. They’re the trusted confidants clients come to when they have to make an important financial decision. They’re wise counselors in difficult seasons of life. They’re valuable resources for business advice. They’re friends.

How do these advisors get to that point? They spend tons of energy making sure their clients are cared for, comfortable, and stress free. They talk to clients—whether that’s via in-person meetings, Zoom meetings, or phone calls. They spend time getting to know them as individuals, not as numbers in a database. And when they do discuss business, they don’t just blithely assure clients that everything will be okay; they explain why and how. They educate clients, talk numbers, and proactively reach out to adjust their strategies when needed.

And they did all this before the pandemic.

In short, they’re there for their clients, not just waiting for the phone to ring, but proactively and intentionally building relationships. Rather than prospecting to grow their business—spending countless hours “getting out there” and meeting people—they’re serving the heck out of the people they already work with. And it’s paying back in spades.

Why This Strategy Works

I don’t have to tell you that this is a hard time in our world. We’ve been on this pandemic train for a long time, but people are still worried, scared, and uncertain. Life has changed drastically, and our country has experienced unprecedented turmoil and dissension—so it doesn’t matter who you are, how much money you have, or what your political views are—this is a hard season to walk through. And people are looking for stability. They’re looking for comfort, peace, reassurance.

People want peace and reassurance about their finances all the time, but they need it now. So when the pandemic hit and they had an advisor who provided reliable knowledge, stability, and comfort, it meant the world to them. They may have liked their advisor before; now they love them. Now they’re a raving fan. Because while the rest of the world is in a panic and wondering if their financial future is stable, they’re okay. They’re taken care of.

And as these great advisors spend so much time with clients—reviewing portfolios, asking how they’re doing—they’re not only giving their clients peace, they’re creating opportunities for growth. They’re identifying needs that need to be met, problems they can help solve. In doing so, clients become more confident and comfortable, which often prompts them to move more of their assets under that advisor’s management. It’s a trust snowball that keeps growing, picking up more and more opportunities to help clients (and, consequently, build the advisor’s business).

The Referral Gold Mine

Now imagine all the people who didn’t have an advisor when the pandemic hit. Suddenly they’re furloughed, their portfolio is out of whack, the news is delivering frightening statistics, and they’re lost. They don’t know what to think.

You know what they realized?

I really need to meet with somebody.

So those golden opportunities—those “Hey, who do you work with?” questions—are happening now more than ever before. The pandemic created the perfect referral storm for relationship-centric advisors—not only are their clients exceptionally happy with the work they’re doing, but those clients’ friends and family members are asking to meet them. And those contented, satisfied clients are responding enthusiastically, “Yes, you have got to call my guy.”

That’s why advisors who focus on serving the heck out of their clients and making them feel cared for are not only “getting by” during this tumultuous economic season—they’re growing like crazy.