Everything you do has an end goal, and thus you should begin your client acquisition journey with the onboarding of your new client in mind. Confused? Let’s simplify the thought.
You can’t hop into your car and drive, hoping you’ll reach your destination when you don’t even know where you’re going. Even your GPS needs some input, and your map requires a pin. So you must at least have a general direction, whether north or south, east or west.
And as fun as the drive may be, when you waste time with general directions rather than specific coordinates, that time cannot be recouped. Instead, your GPS will get you to your destination faster, the map will outline the recommended route, and if vigilant, you won’t miss that turn-off that could cost you hours.
Similarly, most financial advisors know that their end desired result for all marketing activities is client acquisition, yet many advisors chase this end result with only general inputs at best. The keyword there is, of course, chase. Sure, the chase is part of the client acquisition journey but it is not the end destination. Your journey only ends when the client is onboard beyond the introductions and the planning.
Keep that top of mind. It becomes important later.
You see, there’s a ripple effect when you get your digital marketing done right, but it doesn’t happen by accident, and most of all, it isn’t easy.
However, acquiring new clients with your digital marketing can be simple when thought out and implemented with intention and consistency.
It will take work and effort, but if you know the steps and begin with the end in mind, you reverse engineer exactly what you need to drive in new clients.
Once you have your steps in place, you can systematically work through each one to achieve your desired result.
For inspiration
While discussing this topic on LinkedIn, I spoke of my friend, Jason Wenk, who brought in approximately $70 million in assets in one year, alone, just by writing a blog. This is both mind-blowing and inspirational. You can read more about this here.
Although I’ve never brought in $70 million in one year, I have been able to bring in over $1 million a month consistently, all virtually from clients I’ve never met in person across the country. Part of my success was simply creating content. For example, my LinkedIn posts in 2021 were seen over 2 million times, and my advisor-focused blog was ranked #37 on the top 100 blogs for advisors. But these results are by-products of a series of steps, steps taken in order with an end result in mind.
How Financial Advisors can Reverse Engineer Client Acquisition
The following steps are what I and many others have used to create the success we desire. Although each advisor will customize based upon their style, wants, etc., these steps hold true time and again.
The steps are in reverse order, starting with the end and working backwards. Here you go!
Yes, this is supposed to look easy, but don’t underestimate the thought, planning, and work needed to implement all of this to make it work.
Digital Marketing is An art and a science
Digital marketing, at least good, meaningful, and effective marketing, is so much more than boosting a post, placing an ad, or sending automated DMs.
Most of the steps above can be either done once, outsourced, or automated. But none of them will happen if you don’t take the time to go through each step methodically.
My advice?
Put good in, get good out.
Don’t skip over the early steps in the process, as they will exponentially impact the rest. Also, a time will come when you simply won’t have the time, energy, or desire to be doing all the heavy lifting for your digital marketing. These efforts simply become too much, at which time you can then outsource the lion’s share so you can focus on doing what you do best, serving your clients.
Help your digital marketing team help you
If you’ve worked through all, or at least the first four steps from the beginning, then you will be able to empower any digital marketing team you work with to thrive and take the baton from you. Instead of starting the race over, they can now take you over the finish line.
Take your first step
Where should you start?
Well, this will be different for all of you.
My suggestion is to get an idea of where you think you are in the process above, assess what you have done and if it’s working, and then go from there.
After having helped hundreds of advisors through Conneqtor, I have learned that most of them skipped the very first step of defining their own hopes, dreams, and goals. How can you build the rest of your advisory practice if you don’t know what you want from your business and if you don’t know who you are and best positioned to serve?
It’s akin to playing darts without a dartboard. How’d you think that will work out for you?
Make 2022 the year you take your digital marketing to the next level. It begins with taking the first step.
Cheers,
Derek Notman
