If nothing else let this inspire you to create your own cool videos for your website that help your clients and potential clients understand in entertaining, simple ways what you do differently and why they should trust you.

Enjoy,

Jason

Then he hit me with this:  What are the 5 most important questions to ask at that initial meeting?

It was a great question and so I thought I’d share the reply here.

1. Is there anything about your investments right now that you don’t fully understand?
2. Is there anything about your investments right now that bothers you?
3. Is there anything about your investments right now that you think could be done better?
4. Do you know exactly what your current investment plan costs per year?
5. If you were able to do better with your investments is there anything that would change in your life?  Like giving more to charity, helping family, traveling/indulging a little?

In reality there are more questions you need to ask when meeting a new prospect for the first time, but those are the most important. Why?  Well as an advisor your job is to help clients manage their money better so they can enjoy a more fulfilling life without financial worry.

By getting honest answers to these questions you’ll gain a better understanding of what really bothers potential clients about their financial life and what motivates them to improve it.

Getting honest answers isn’t always easy though.

To make sure prospective clients don’t just brush off these questions with half hearted answers be sure to repeat the question with their answer and then follow it with, “is there anything else that specifically [insert question]?”

So if I ask question #1 and they say, “well, I think I understand my investments pretty well but maybe they could be more clear.”  You’d follow with, “okay, so you think you understand your investments well but they could be more clear – is there anything you specifically don’t understand about your investments?”

Give them a second and see what they say.  Usually you’ll uncover that most people aren’t fully honest with their first answer so asking it twice gets them to divulge more, trust you more, and prepare you more for a second meeting.

Finally, once they fully answered the question restate their answers/answers and ask, “is that all?”  Get them to verbally say “yes” before you move on to the next question.

Having a process like this opens up your prospects much better than a bland fact finder sheet and keeps you listening and taking notes twice as much as talking.  I’m sure you’ve heard that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason, right?

Follow these steps and you’ll find your meetings flow better and your closing rate will increase.  More importantly you’ll truly understand your prospects better and be able to provide more value – which should always be your primary objective.

Best,

JW

Like the post?  Have comments, feedback, or suggestions?  Use the comment box below and keep the dialogue flowing!

I’ve removed the senders name to protect privacy.  Here goes their email to me, and my reply back:

J,

I really appreciate the feedback thank you. How does a new advisor go about finding their place and standing out? I am not sure what my niche should be yet or my defined target market. I am still learning a lot about the business.  I have had success with professionals that have switched jobs a few times and have several stranded 401(k)s, etc. that need help getting their financial house in order. Is this something I could develop a niche from or is that too broad? I get that the best have a very defined niche that they are a master at and that is what I want to be. Maybe I need more experience to figure this out? What do I need to do to get on the path to find my niche and target market? Thank you for your time. I have learned a lot from your videos and blog.

My reply…

Hi H,

There’s no right or wrong way to find your place.  That’s where science and intuition seem to diverge.

My take is to think about what your ideal life looks like.  Where do you live, what do you do in the AM, lunch, PM, etc.  Do you travel?  How often, to where, with whom?  Are you charitably inclined?  What really drives happiness in your life?

Sort of cheesy – but helps you figure out what kind of business you need to build to support that lifestyle.  Once you know how much you are willing to work, who you’ll get the most satisfaction helping, and how much money you’ll need to make – you need to quantify if that’s possible.  In other words: how many people can you really serve, how much are each of those clients worth, and do the two allow you to live your ideal lifestyle while still providing massive value to your clients.

If that all checks out then you know your target market.  For some it’s helping widows whose spouse passes early.  Others pro athletes, others young professionals that recently changed jobs and have an old 401k that needs to be managed.  Some it’s college planning, others executive life insurance/risk management – the list goes on and on.  Sometimes you can have 2 or 3 fairly aligned target markets that you “specialize” in.

I think someone who does a good job of this is Michael Zhuang (http://investment-fiduciary.com/).  He clearly knows who he works with, what value he provides, and why his market should choose him above others.  Might be some good inspiration for you to find your way a bit.

After you know who that market is you need to figure out the best ways to reach them.  The ways are endless – you just need to commit and execute.  For Michael it’s by positioning himself as an expert in his marketplace via blogging, article writing, community involvement, and social media (for referrals).  I know other advisors that use seminars, some that use cold calling, some that use center of influence marketing, etc.

What you  mention – about helping busy professionals keep their financial house in order – is definitely something that could be branded around.  Plus since those people are in constant motion there are a lot of opportunities if done right for referrals/introductions to people in similar situations.

Keep plugging and best of luck.

Regards,

J

Have a great week all -

JW

You don’t need to hypnotize clients with your ninja sales skills.  You don’t need to dupe people into believing they need shit products that get you rich and don’t work worth shit for the client.  You don’t need more leads, more appointments, or more time.

You need to be a heretic.  You need to start a movement worth following, then arm your Tribe with ways to passionately help you to grow your tribe and grow the movement.

—-

Rant done, so now check out this video of Seth Godin (author of Tribes) explain Tribes:

I’ve been brewing this idea for awhile and now we’re getting close to building out the first ever completely automated online marketing suite for financial adivsors.  It’s all pretty hush-hush right now – but if you want to know when it’s ready make sure you check this out:

www.TribeFarm.com

Register for updates and we’ll let you know as soon as we’re ready to help advisors crush it with automated online marketing.

Cheers,

JW

PS – this image below is just what the registration site looks like.  Check it out by going to www.TribeFarm.com

Sadly, there is no secret sauce.  But there are a bunch of tools I use everyday to make this business happen, automate mundane tasks, and essentially free up time for ultra high profitability activities.  In this post I’ll share some of these tools and how I use them.

Blogging:

All my blogs (4 of them currently) are hosted via WordPress.  WordPress is a free blogging platform that also can be used to completely run any website.  In fact, all of my websites are also running WordPress for content management.

This makes is super easy to change content, add videos, and have a super polished, professional online presence without forking over huge dollars.

Website Design and Hosting:

As mentioned, I power all my content with WordPress.  But WordPress can’t design your sites and make them all pretty and functional by itself.  If you need an domain name (like www.AdvisorControl.com) but still want to power your site with WordPress you’ll need a couple tools to make that happen.

For hosting I use Bluehost.  Bluehost allows me to buy domain names (over 50 at last count) and host them for super cheap ($7/mo).  What’s really cool is I can literally have hundreds of different websites running on my Bluehost account and the price never goes up.  Plus it has a push button integration with WordPress so after I buy a domain it takes me only 5 minutes or so to actually have the site up and running with content.  Click here to check out Bluehost.

For the design part I use two different methods.  When I want something truly custom I turn to my friends Andy and Jon at Concept A Studios.  They are world class designers and do awesome work.  But if I don’t want to pay the extra price of 100% custom work I just use something called a theme.  A theme is a ready made design that can be used with WordPress with just a few clicks of a button.  There are thousands of great themes out there and I get all of mine from ThemeForest.  ThemeForest allows me to see exactly how my sites will look and function before spending a dime.  Plus most themes cost less than $50.

So it is possible to have a killer website for about $60 upfront and around $10/year.  Just don’t tell all those fancy $50/month financial advisor website design companies.  How’d you think they actually make money (uh, ripping you off).

Automated Email:

I’m sure you’ve gotten emails before that are all sequenced out.  They sort of look like personal emails, but in reality they are part of an autoresonder sequence.  So if someone signs up for something on your site you start to get a string of automatic emails over the course of days or weeks without the sender actually ever having to touch a button.

This is super easy and very effective for financial advisors, yet almost none of them actually do it.

To automate all my follow up, as well as send out “blasts” to my email lists I use a tool from Aweber.  Aweber is easy to use and even has a “plugin” to WordPress.  So again, just a few clicks and I can have a great web form on my site for visitors to “opt into.”  This allows me to build a list, nurture it, and convert those visitors into clients.  Simple, cheap, and ultra effective.

CRM:

I’ve been a user and raving fan of Redtail Technology for about 2 years.  Since I have a background in coding in my early years I used a custom build Microsoft based CRM system.  But eventually it got old, and companies like Redtail came along with better technology for super cheap prices.  I use Redtail everyday.  It manages my calendar, keeps track of all my clients, automates follow up, stores all my electronic documents, and archives all my email.

It’s one of the most vital things in my practice and allows me to work effectively from any location on the planet just like I’m in my main office.

Portfolio Reporting:

If you’re a smaller shop you’ve probably only ever used the regular statements provided by your custodian.  Well, in this day and age that’s just not enough.

You need to offer consolidated reporting of all your clients holdings and do so with simple, easy to understand reports and/or online portals.  Currently I use 2 services for this, 1 that is somewhat costly, and another that is uber-cheap.

For print reports and in-depth analytics (GIPS compliance, etc) I use Orion Advisor Services.  Orion is truly a turnkey solution that works like a champ.  I would highly recommend it for firms that manage at least $50 million or more.

For online portals I’m using a newer service called Blueleaf.  Blueleaf could be a complete game changer for our industry.  The pricing is absurdly low for how sophisticated the software is.  It’s a web based application that basically allows advisors to offer a “mint.com” to their clients.  This means the clients can see everything they have, including held away accounts (like bank accounts, CD accounts, 401k plans, Schwab, Fidelity, etc.).  It also allows the advisor to see all that information and really puts you in the drivers seat as the one and only financial advisor your client will ever need.

Blueleaf works very well for larger firms like mine, but also is priced so that even a startup independent can offer billion dollar firm technology without breaking the bank.  They’re still a fairly new company so I’m sure as time rolls on there will be more developments to the platform – but it’s already rock solid, easy to use, and at the best price point in our industry.

Online Video:

I believe online video is already crucial to advisors success.  Whether you want to admit it or not your clients are online right now and finding financial advice videos.  Don’t you think they should be your own?

The cool thing is that making videos is super easy and very inexpensive.  Plus it allows you to educate your clients, gain trust from prospects, and control mis-information.  All you need is an easy way to record the videos and a simple place to upload them.  Here’s how I do it.

To record videos you basically have two options:

1. Screencasts – where you record what’s on your screen while narrating the audio while doing so
2. Live video – where you record yourself and whatever content you feel the need to share

For Screencasts I use Camtasia for Mac (there’s a Windows version too for PC users).  It’s simple, cheap, and works.  You just open up the program, select the part of your screen you want to share, then record.  When you’re done you can upload directly to YouTube if the video is less than 15 minutes or you can host the video directly with Camtasia (for a few extra bucks per month).

For live video I either use a simple Flip HD recorder or the built in camera on my iMac.  Once these are done I just import the video (trust me, super easy to do) to iMovie (for Mac users) and then upload directly to YouTube.  If the video is longer I upload to Vimeo.  Either way once the videos are online I can easily post them on my website or just provide links directly to my YouTube or Vimeo channels.

If you want to get all fancy you can do that too.  You’ll just need some additional education on using video online.  Here’s some easy, cheap e-books to build up that knowledge:

Video Traffic Academy – a dude from right in my hometown created this training program that shows how to use YouTube within your business.  A little cheesy, but effective training if you know nothing at all about using video in your business.

Education:

I’m a big believer in always advancing knowledge as both a business person and a financial advisor.  Here’s some of my favorite books on the topics -

The Ultimate Sales Letter – Dan Kennedy.  This is a must read intro to effective copywriting.  If you want your letters opened, your seminars attended, and clients calling you looking for help then this is a great place to start.

Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill.  An old standby in getting in the right frame of mind and surrounding yourself with the right people.

The Millionaire Messenger – Brendon Bruchard.  The definite expert in spreading your message as an expert of any topic, including financial advice.

The Four Hour Work Week – Tim Ferris.  A little out there, but rock solid advice on managing your time and getting more out of each ounce of effort you put into your business.

Purple Cow – Seth Godin.  One of my favorite authors and a cornerstone of why I do what I do.  Basically calls out everyone who is shipping average products/advice when it should be great.

Tribes - Seth Godin.  Want to build a raving fan client base that eliminates your need to ever spend a dollar on marketing?  Read this book, then hustle.

More to Come

I hope this helps you out.  If there’s more you want to know about how I run a muti-million dollar business from over 2,000 miles away from most of my clients just ask away in the comments section.  Wonder how to do that with literally only spending 8 weeks in the office all year?  Again, just ask.  I’ll expand this list as a working resource checklist of the essential items.  For now this should give you a pretty good start on the tools of trade to a highly efficient and profitable financial advisory business.

Best,

JW

PS – If you happen to buy certain things from some of the links on this page I may get paid an affiliate commission.  Just some full disclosure.  This makes up about 0.01% of my income, but want to be 100% open and upfront about it.

The video is a bit long (44 minutes) but the back half I actually walk through the model and framework one advisor used to bring in $90 million the first 11 months of this year.  Once you see how I break down the framework you’ll realize what he’s doing is actually very simple and replicable.

Enjoy – and make sure to use the comment feature on the blog to keep the discussion flowing.

Cheers,

JW

I’m in the planning process of launching a few new ideas into what I believe will be one of the best products for financial advisors in many years.  To cut to the chase, I believe that within just a few short years the number one way to get new clients, keep clients engaged; and get massive, effortless referrals will be with the utilization of smart technology and utilization of the internet.

This is probably happening already.

Shortly I will be releasing ways for my blog readers to get first in on some of these tools and do so at absolutely no cost.  But first I have a quick 4 question survey I’m hoping you can help me out with so my focus is on the tools advisors actually want – not just what I *think* they want.

If you can take 5 minutes and complete this survey I’d be eternally grateful: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WP7DTRD

My goal is to build an easy to use suite of automated online tools that help advisors generate leads, build their brand, automate their follow, easily convert the leads to clients, then automate strong relationships and effortless referrals.  If this sounds like something you’d like to beta when ready – just shoot an email expressing interest to support[at]advisorcontrol.com.

Thanks,

JW

So what do you think?  I’m thinking:

1) I will not accept this follower request
2) Even though it’s for sure a spammer – they should think about a different hook

I think I will buy the domain www.worstfinancialadvisorever.com and use a profile like this:

“Er, I’m only sort of stupid and only filed personal bankruptcy 3 times.  But I’m geting better and now started putting $10/week into a savings account at the local CU.  Please let me manage your dough.”

I bet it would sell like hotcakes.

Cheers -

JW

In this post I’m going to dissect one that is kind of like a step-child to our industry, but the people behind it are making more money than 99.9% of all financial advisors.  And they’re doing it without:

• Ever having to meet with a client in person
• Ever having to talk to a client over the phone
• Ever having to make a trade
• Ever having to do paperwork

What I’m talking about is Porter Stansberry and his company Stansberry Investment Research (SIR for simplicity this point forward).  For those not familiar, SIR is a financial newsletter company with over 100,000 subscribers all over the world.  For some perspective on what that means revenue wise, consider their cheapest newsletter service is $99/year and they go up to $5,000/year.  Here’s their product lineup per the SIR website:

So doing a little third grade math, I would venture they have revenue in the neighborhood of $20 million per year (100,000 subscribers at an average rate of $200/year) as a somewhat conservative estimate.  I could be wrong here, but if what they publish regarding their subscriber base is accurate – they could be pulling in much more than that.

Now what can we learn from how they built that business and how close is it to what we do as advisors?

The latest marketing effort by SIR is their “End of America” campaign.  And it is pretty sweet when you break it down.

First, they pull in leads to a simple video only webpage (you can see it at www.endofamerica2011.com).  The video is about an hour long and you’ll notice the video is pretty much text only with a voiceover.  It could easily have been made with just PowerPoint and Camtasia with a total cost of less than $100.  The webpage itself is also super simple and could have been put online for less than $100 too.

To get the leads they have a few lead generation ads that show up on sites like CNBC.com, Google Finance, Yahoo Finance, StockCharts.com, etc.  Basically places where investors might “hang out” online.  The text ads are pretty simple and basically offer a free video that explains there will be a catastrophic collapse of the US economy in 2011 and give free tips on how to prepare for it.

They also have been running ads on CNBC television.  The ads, to say the least, are brilliant.  You can check one out by searching for “End of America Ad” on Youtube.

Now whether or not you agree with the message of the ads or the video, it is pulling like gangbusters.  In fact, in a recent survey I did of all my regular blog readers (of individual investors) the biggest fears they have is Government spending, massive deficits, and a potential stock market collapse.  So I’d say SIR has done their research and knows precisely what is motivating investors to take action.

The SIR Offer

For any marketing campaign to be profitable and get you (or a newsletter company like SIR) new clients you need to have an Irresistible Offer.  In the case of SIR their offer is a 1 year membership to one of their $99/yr newsletters for just $49.95 along with 4 “bonus” reports.  He also includes a 4 month free trial so if you’re not happy you get your money back but keep the bonuses.

All of that is pretty standard for good direct marketers and online marketers, but not so standard for financial advisors.

So How Can You Copy the SIR Offer and Get New Clients?

It’s actually quite easy and something I’m testing heavily in my own practice right now.  Like most things I write about, it’s important you understand the framework to his winning client getting approach (scientific wording, I know).  I encourage you to take a look at the whole sequence, but here’s how I break it down:

1. Target the right market.  In SIR’s case, he’s going where the his potential customers are – all the websites and the TV channel I shared above.
2. Make a bold, painful, timely prediction/statement and offer a free solution.  For SIR it is…”End of America – This year economic events will unfold that will change the lives of Americans forever.”  Sort of hard to ignore that.
3. Identify yourself as an authority.  For SIR this is hundreds of thousands of subscribers, called 2008 correctly, 3rd party verification.
4. Massive, convincing backing to claims.  This is the data and stories shared in the video.
5. Offer a partial solution.  For SIR he offers some very general advice on things that will help some and is pretty honest about it only being a partial solution.
6. Warnings about things you could mess up if you try to fix things on your own.  Porter covers what could go wrong if you take his general advice but buy things from the wrong places; or just don’t know how to implement his suggestions with 100% confidence.
7. Irresistible offer.  In the SIR offer you actually become a customer, but for a very reduced fee and with no risk (the 4 month free trial).  He also throws in the bonuses, and assures the viewer that the partial solutions become whole.  Although his offer today is just 1/2 off, he used to do 2 years for $49.95.  My guess is he needed a little more upfront to break even on the marketing so after testing moved it to 1 year.
8. Back-end up-sell.  For SIR they have a bunch of newsletters that are much, much more than $49.95.  So once you become an initial customer you get solicited to check out the additional services of their company.  Also, since his service is a subscription I’m sure many of his customers stay for multiple years – and in those subsequent years the cost goes up by 100%.

To recap

This guy (and his company) are targeting our clients and getting them to buy.  I’ve already had 3 clients subscribe and then ask me about the newsletter.  It’s also shown up on my facebook a bunch of times with people asking others about the video – so it’s gone viral.

One of the cool things about his marketing campaign is it is likely paying for itself.  In other words, because he’s making a small amount on each sale he knows exactly what he can spend to keep his funnel going with zero risk perpetually.  Imagine if you could generate customers for no net cost.  How fast could you grow your business if you knew it cost you $50 to get a customer that would be worth $100 next year?  Would you dump $100,000 on marketing knowing you would make it up in 30 days and then have $200,000 on the books for next year?  I know I would.

At the end of the day this is just one example of how simple it really is to get new clients using modern technology.  The framework hasn’t changed from years ago when newsletter companies would just do tons of direct mail knowing they would get some type of return on the dollars by having a strong marketing message – just the mediums used to get the message out.  And this new medium is faster, easier to track; and has a much, much broader reach.

If you’d like to see how I’m using this framework to generate leads/clients online I’ll be covering it en masse via MM1 Method.  If you’re not familiar with MM1 Method – it’s the training program I created for advisors that shows them how to make as much money as they want, work whatever schedule they want, and love the lifestyle they’re able to create by helping clients they enjoy working with.  You can learn more at www.MM1Method.com; where I actually have a few really good free video lessons for financial advisors on marketing, time management, sales process, etc.

I hope you enjoyed this post.  If so, please help get the word out to advisors you know in this business by sharing it.

Cheers,

JW