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Sometimes the best way to improve your business as a financial advisor is to speak with people outside of that arena. While there are plenty of nuances to your business, you’ll find there are many common themes between successful business regardless of what type of product they’re selling. That’s why we’re turning to Liston Witherill on this episode of the Profitable Advisor podcast. He’s the creator of Serve Don’t Sell, which is an online sales training and coaching platform aimed to assist professional and business development. He does that by taking the focus away from traditional methods of selling and moving it to serving prospects. Doing so produces more trust with clients over time and helps you drive the business you know you should. As you’ll hear on the show, it’s not about reading from a script when selling and putting such an emphasis in closing. Like we’ve talked about quite a bit on this podcast, you have to be comfortable turning business away that doesn’t fit your business. And that’s the case with our profession as advisors. Many times we will value every prospect that comes into the office as someone we can’t afford to lose. That’s part of the problem. If you get to the point where so much is at stake with every prospect, it’s difficult to say no to a client. The solution for that is to expand your pipeline so that more leads are coming through the door. So how do you do that? Traditionally, ebooks or webinars have been a key tool for building lists, and webinars continue to have value during the pandemic. Witherill also uses podcasting and SEO to generate leads and he explains how he does that on the show. He also identifies what he calls ‘mega-assets’ as a key tool to leverage, and that’s something he gives examples of during the conversation. Ultimately though, whichever method you choose to use needs to lead back to the list you’re building and then you should sell strictly to that list. So as you go through the episode today, keep an ear out for some of these topics that we cover: You can’t serve everyone. Determine who your ideal client is. Figuring out your niche Creating more pipelines for prospect Techniques and strategies for list building His approach to using podcasting as PR A give-first approach   Learn more about Witherill’s services here: https://servedontsell.com/    For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.   What we discuss on this show: 0:44 – Meaning behind the name ‘Serve Don’t Sell’  2:57 – Choosing a niche or definition of your ideal client 5:17 – What makes a good niche?  8:35 – Be clear who your services are not for 14:11 – List building for email marketing 19:52 – Podcasting for PR 23:52 – Dan’s small business podcast strategy  30:00 – Providing good direction for people 33:16 – How to connect with Liston

The role of a financial advisor is as much about consulting clients as it is being a salesperson and pushing certain products. You build relationships with clients and garner that trust so that they will follow your guidance on how to manage their portfolios. While you might not always consider yourself a consultant in the literal sense, it’s important to understand what makes consultants successful so that you can apply the same strategies and processes in order to create the business you want to have. That’s why we asked Michael Zipursky to join us on the show. He’s a consultant’s consultant and authored the book ACT NOW: How successful consultants thrive during chaos and uncertainty. Can you think of a more appropriate book for the world we’re living in currently? So we want to provide the insight from that book for you and get some of the secrets behind his success. As you’ll hear during the interview today, it all starts with finding the right clients. Zipursky believes it’s important to make client selection a priority, which is something we talk quite a bit about as well. If someone isn’t going to implement the guidance and recommendations that are made, then they don’t need to be working with you. That will cause some pain in the near term but it will lead to much more success over the longterm. So how can you do this? Zipursky gives us three steps to making this happen and it’s all about preparation. From there, we have a great discussion on marketing. From automation to offline marketing, what methods does he see working and what strategies can be implemented to get results from these methods. As always, consistency is going to drive success and we’ll reiterate that on this show. And we’ll close things about by talking about the chaos and uncertainty of COVID-19. What has changed for businesses and what impact will it have on your business moving forward? So as you go through the episode today, keep an ear out for some of these topics that we cover: How to determine who is an ideal client Why marketing needs to be polarizing Being honest and straight-forward builds trust up front Strategies you’ll find from successful consultants Automation is killing marketing Does offline marketing still have a role? How COVID has impacted businesses What do things look like post-COVID?   Learn more about Zipursky’s services here: https://secure.consultingsuccess.com/act-now-consulting-book   Get his book for free here: https://secure.consultingsuccess.com/act-now-consulting-book   For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.   What we discuss on this episode:  1:52 – Beginning of interview 2:53 – How to consultants get clients to take action? 8:12 – Marketing that polarizes 11:36 – Steps to implement 15:14 – Strategies that successful consultants use 19:42 – Why he believes automation is killing marketing 24:45 – Is offline marketing dead? 30:28 – Impact of COVID now and going forward 38:22 – Free copy of his great book

Most businesses have turned to some form of social media marketing to promote their brand and increase their bottom line, but how effective is this method? On this episode of the Profitable Advisor, Dan welcomes Brian Hahn to the show to give you the turn on social media advertising. Hahn is the owner of Go Social Experts, which helps companies build a successful digital marketing strategy. More and more advisors are turning to social media to help attract new clients and drive people to their website. As we’ve talked about quite a bit on this show, your marketing wheel needs multiple spokes and social media can be one of those. What’s important to note as we dive into this conversation with Hahn about a variety of social advertising questions is the principals of marketing don’t change when you go from offline to online. You’re going to have the most success if you have a plan for following up with every lead and then maintaining communication over a long period of time. Many of the businesses seeing an increase over the past few months already built and nurtured a list. Now they’re seeing the fruits of that labor. It helps that they’ve also created fresh content like webinars to engage that audience, and we’ll also talk about how to get the most out of these alternative to seminars. So as you go through the episode today, keep an ear out for some of these topics that we cover: What you need to look for when determining whether social media ads are effective. Putting a plan in place to follow-up on your ads. Why you have to remain topical and keep the message fresh. Why list building continues to be so important. Live webinars vs recorded webinars Do’s and Don’ts of social media campaigns   Learn more about Brian’s services here: https://www.gosocialexperts.com/   For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.   On today's show: 0:39 – Why panic takes us to today’s conversation. 3:46 – Introducing our guest for the show.  6:26 – What’s the difference between between using social media correctly vs incorrectly? 9:01 – You have to have a plan for follow-up. 13:16 – Strategies for getting results, especially from webinars recently.  16:43 – Are clients able to pull in total strangers for webinars or are the successes coming from good list-building. 19:33 – How his approach is different than a lot of social media marketing companies. 21:45 – This is a long-term commitment. 23:10 – Should a webinar be live? 26:59 – What information do you try to acquire from the webinar signup? 31:09 – Can failed social media campaigns be the advisor’s fault? 36:22 – The Do’s and Don’ts 38:38 – Why people are getting good response rates right now. 44:23 – How to connect with Brian.

Every business wants to increase referrals but what methods are the most effective? On this episode of the Profitable Advisor, we want to tell you about advisory boards and why you should consider adding one to your practice. Full disclosure, this isn’t something we currently have in place but we are hoping to change that. We’ve asked Steve Wershing to come on the show to explain the methods and processes behind his Client Driven Practice. Wershing is a Certified Financial Planner that’s spent years helping advisors develop effective referral systems like this client advisory board. As you work to improve your customer experience and strengthen the relationship with clients, there might not be a better way to do that than with an advisory board. Think about it for a second. What the advisor thinks is important is not always what the client thinks is important. So what if you could tailor your message to truly connect with what your client thinks is most valuable? How much more effective could your marketing be? That’s the goal with an advisory board and why clients are a part of the process. Think of it as a long-term project that has multiple meetings over a number of years so that you have the ability to truly deconstruct the client experience. That loyalty you build with clients when you give them the opportunity to share their opinion and be heard leads to a better chance of referrals. Over time, you build up a strong referral system that can withstand times like we’ve experienced in 2020 when traditional marketing tactics are unavailable. A concern for a lot of advisors is what happens when they ask for something that you aren’t able to do? Remember, your commitment to the client is to listen and consider not to do everything they ask. The key is to be straightforward with them about how you’ve considered the feedback and they reasons why you can’t accommodate the idea. Also, you can offer up other ideas or options to show you’re serious about their feedback. So we’ll spend this show explaining everything about the advisory board and learning quite a bit from Wershing along the way. So as you go through the episode today, keep an ear out for some of these topics that we cover: The importance of an advisory board. How to find clients to be a part of that board. How often should you meet? Why the advisor should be a part of the meetings. How it increases your value to clients. Determining which clients you should work with. Referral marketing is a long game.   We also want to point you towards these websites to learn more about Wershing and how he helps advisors: http://advisorchecklist.com/ https://cabkit.clientdrivenpractice.com/   For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.   On today's show: 0:44 – Setting up today’s conversation. 2:40 – Beginning of our interview with Steve. 4:28 – Why advisory boards are important and what you get out of them. 8:59 – The value of an independent moderator. 11:07 – Planning fees 13:13 – Why you should have the advisory board? 15:44 – Your value becomes much more than year-to-date returns. 18:32 – Referral systems 22:14 – You have to actually mean it and be willing to truly help people. 25:35 – Determining which clients you should work with. 29:25 – Long-term marketing 32:15 – How to recruit people onto the advisory board. 34:58 – How often do you meet? 35:27 – Tips on executing the meeting virtually. 39:04 – How to connect with Steve.

Every business is searching for ways to separate itself from the competition and customer experience might just be the key. What if you took the incredible service techniques that makes Disney one of the greatest experiences in the world and apply it to your practice? Vance Morris used to work at Walt Disney World and now brings the lessons and strategies he learned to businesses across the country and helps add magic to the customer experience. We asked him to join the show and share some of the strategies he talks about in classes, books, and speaking engagements. This is a very valuable conversation for every advisor because we’re in challenging times for small businesses across the country. Performance is down across the board and everyone is searching for ways to stand out. Morris specializes in helping clients do just that and he’ll share some valuable insight on the show. Every business is a commodity and what separates you from your competition is the customer experience. If you can elevate that experience, you’ll be able to attract more customers and hang onto the customers you already have. If there was ever a time to try something new and create a version 2.0 of your business, it’s now. Let us help you do that with a great conversation that touches on a wide variety of topics, including a really detailed look at how Morris packages his version of the shock and awe kit and everything he includes. So as you go through the episode today, keep an ear out for some of these topics that we cover: Why to make the customer experience such a priority. Bringing out your personality in your business. How to see your business the way your customer does. What Vance puts in the kit he sends out to potential customers. What can you do in place of testimonials? The Disney classes and trips he offers. Marketing efforts should be focused primarily on retaining clients. Strategies for newsletters.   We’d also recommend his book, which we talk about during the show. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Systematic-Magic-Keys-Disnify-Business/dp/1721677178 More on our guest: http://deliverservicenow.com  For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.   Today's Show Schedule:  1:57 – Start of our interview 4:07 – Why are these strategies so valuable right now? 6:50 – What are some things financial planners can do to improve the experience? 11:43 – Ideas for attracting new clients. 18:07 – Little things that can improve an office. 22:38 – How to take advantage of our current state of virtual working. 27:59 – Vance explains what’s in the kit he sends to potential customers. 32:17 – Why Vance still includes an audio CD. 35:43 – What else is in this kit? 37:00 – What to do in place of testimonials. 40:43 – Strategies for newsletters. 44:18 – Ways to thank clients for referrals. 47:20 – The products and services Vance provides that could be of value to you.

Over the past few episodes, we’ve spent a lot of time on target marketing because we feel it’s such an important piece to building a profitable business. Today we’re taking the conversation a step further and introducing you to an advisor that’s built a national business focused strictly one on profession: dentists. It might seem like an extremely specific niche but it works very well, and there’s a lot we can learn. Meet Reese Harper, Founder and CEO of Dentist Advisors. He designed a powerful service platform called Elements which is used by dentists across the country for retirement planning. After working for a few years at Northwestern Mutual, he left to start his own firm in 2008 because he wanted to build something bigger than just himself. That’s exactly what he’s done. It’s a success story that didn’t come without a lot of time, sacrifice, and risk. During our conversation, we’ll discuss all of that and find out how this idea came to be. As you’ll hear, the target market came second to the platform he wanted to design and perfect first. There are a lot of takeaways from the podcast, but the common thing you’ll hear from everyone that makes the decision to focus on specific niche market is that you need to gain the knowledge of that profession before you attempt to market to them. If you don’t know your stuff, they’ll see that immediately and it’ll cost you credibility. So as you go through the episode today, keep an ear out for some of these topics that we cover: Building a business from the beginning. Creating systems Characteristics for choosing a target market. Regrets that he has through his career. How important events are to his business. How he uses his podcast to find advisors. For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.   Learn about the guest: https://dentistadvisors.com/   Today's show schedule:  2:32 – Why did you decide to go into this niche?   4:56 – He built out a spreadsheet to track the things that were important to him as an advisor.    9:24 – How marketing factored into the decision at the beginning.   13:37 – Choosing a target market. 18:52 – How they find clients early on.   20:20 – Events are a big part of his strategy. 26:22 – How has COVID impacted the business?   30:19 – They provided a lot of value to people during these challenging financial times. 32:43 – What would you have done differently if you could?   37:18 – How he uses his podcast.   

We’ve been talking a lot about target marketing in recent weeks so we wanted to continue down that path and speak with someone that’s been highly successful using this strategy. Natalie Schmook, MBA, CFP®, CVA®, is the founder and owner of Hayes Wealth Advisors, and one visit to her website will make it clear that she works primarily with optometrists. It’s a very niche area of focus, especially when you consider that fewer than a third of all optometrists own their own practice, but she’s built a very successful business with this specialization. We asked Natalie to join us for this episode of the podcast to have a thorough conversation about this strategy for advisors. Even with knowledge of this industry, she had to learn a lot about the profession, their needs, and their terminology. But that shows you that taking that leap can pay big dividends if you’re willing to put in the time and follow the guidance we try to lay out through our program. The very first thing we wanted to find out is which factors are you considering when you are deciding your target market, and she provided some great insight. First, how many people are out there to target? Second, who is your competition for this target audience? Third is figuring out if you have the ability to access that market. We’ll cover a wide range of topics during this show but some of the key areas to listen for are: -How she approaches professional conferences. -What strategy works for her newsletters. -How to work primarily in a virtual setting. -What value clients see in working with specialist. Along with the business and the operation, we will bounce some different marketing ideas and strategies around to get a better sense of how much they’ll work for different clients. We want to thank Natalie for being so gracious with her time. Check out her website to learn more about her business. For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.   Today's show schedule:  0:39 – Setting up our conversation for today. 1:39 – Our guest today is Natalie Schmook, founder and owner of Hayes Wealth Advisors 3:03 – Natalie’s practice is focused on optometrists. 4:23 – What are you evaluating when determining what’s a good target market? 7:25 – What is the value clients see in working with a specialist? 13:32 – What is the long-term health of the industry and should that play into the decision for who to target? 16:28 – The business is national in scope and virtual meetings are normal. 19:13 – How to approach conferences for a target market. 22:22 – Have your own event before the main event.  23:09 – She’s had success with newsletters. 25:32 – Consider what your own knowledge and experience is. 28:55 - Webinar success 32:44 - Using the webinar to build a list 36:16 - Specialization lowers overhead 39:17 - Some thoughts on Natalie’s website 43:12 - Charging fees up front. 46:57 - Speak the same language as they speak. 47:58 - If you pivot to a specialist, do you have to get rid of old clients?

Many businesses across this country are dealing with varying degrees of profit loss over the first and second quarter, which is to no fault of their own in most cases. That’s true for many advisors and it’s important that the second half of 2020 brings much better results. So we want to discuss how to make that happen on this episode of the Profitable Advisor podcast. We’re going to tackle this topic from multiple angles. First up, it’s important to reiterate the goal of profitability. For Dan, it’s always been to hit a ration of 60% and you should have similar goals. Let’s talk about the characteristics of businesses that are doing this and those that are not and provide some advice along the way. Pair this advice with Mike Michalowicz’s strategy in this Profit First book and you’ll be in a strong position. Next, we want to talk about using intelligent marketing tactics to help make up ground. One way to do this is through target marketing, which we’ll explain in detail on the show along with examples of businesses that have done this. By making yourself an expert among a certain group of people, you’re able to capitalize on this position and increase business. Finally, let’s talk about a new strategy to really take advantage of this tactic. Spoiler, it includes starting your own podcast. But not just any podcast. Dan will lay out the format for the show, which you can add to your marketing efforts immediately. We’re excited for the possibilities with this new idea and hope you see it the same way. But before we get all this started, Dan has an important announcement to make about the future of this show. For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.   Today's show schedule:  0:39 – An update on the future of the podcast. 1:47 – Format changes that we want to install. 3:21 – What we want to address on this show.   5:10 – Let’s start with the issue of profitability.   7:00 – The fact is your business has likely been impacted due to no fault of yours.   8:05 – Reiterating Dan’s thoughts on profitability. 8:46 – Dan’s typical recommendation is a profit ratio of 60%. 10:19 – What characteristics do businesses with small ratios usually have? 11:07 – As we head into the second half of the year, vendors will be pushing hard. 13:34 – A great year isn’t measured by revenue, it’s profit.   14:19 – Now it’s very important to be smart about marketing. So start with target marketing. 16:00 – Two examples of successful marketing. 18:52 – Steps to begin positioning yourself as that targeted expert. 20:30 – Here’s a great podcast strategy to use to build your target market. 25:19 – The goal of this podcast 26:00 – A great new service that Dan has found during his time traveling.   28:57 – Here’s what you’ll get from us moving forward.

The coronavirus outbreak has hit the financial world pretty hard and now is a crucial time for advisors as we help clients from making critical mistakes with their portfolio. It’s also a significant time for your business and operation as we move away from in-person communication and towards webinars. This episode is meant to serve a couple different purposes for our advisors. First, we need to all understand that we’ll get through this. It might be a time of high anxiety and worry, but we want you to know that we’ve been through this before and are here if you need to reach out. Along those same lines, it’s also important for you to know that your job is essential in times like these. Your clients will want to end the pain and sell, but that could cause irreparable damage to their portfolio. Be there for them and help them get through this downturn because there are things we can be doing with their plan to take advantage of a time like this. We’ll go through a couple of those strategies on this show. The second purpose of this show is to discuss marketing strategies as our culture is complete shifting away from in-person meetings and seminars. Many advisors have relied on these for years and years, but who knows how long it will take people to get comfortable around large groups again. It could be years and your business doesn’t have time to wait. We’ll discuss the future of virtual meetings and webinars. How difficult is the tech to use? What platform should you choose? And we even share a webinar that we’ve created and used that is available to you now. About 95% of the work is done for you so it can be implemented immediately. You’ll hear about it on the show but you can also find it at RetirementVirus.com. Take care, stay healthy, and remain strong. For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.   Today's rundown:  1:32 – We’ll be closing our office now and going virtual.   3:55 – If you’re struggling with anxiety right now, reach out to us or someone else. 4:53 – Financial advisors are considered essential. Just think back to 2008 and 2009.    7:09 – If you have your clients spread out, you know the market is coming back at some point. If you let them sell and finish the pain, you are doing them a disservice. 8:40 – Dan emphasizes the importance of taking care of your existing clients. Here’s what you should be doing.   10:01 – Now is the time to be rebalancing portfolios.  10:58 – Look at your client distributions. 12:42 – Don’t forget that we’ll get through this. The best advisors don’t quit. 14:29 – A former mayor of Chicago once said to never waste a good crisis. 17:27 – Let’s talk about strategies advisors can be using right now.   21:13 – An example of why having just one spoke in the wheel can really hurt you if that spoke breaks. 22:13 – The way people interact will be fundamentally changed for some time. We have to adjust. 25:31 – Webinars and web broadcasts will be the only way to get your message to a lot of people at once. 28:05 – It’ll be interesting to see if the type of technology we use to do our jobs changes. 30:42 – The tech isn’t difficult but choosing the right platform can be difficult. Here are some suggestions. 33:22 – Here are the strategies to follow for webinars. 35:15 – Here’s a seminar and strategy we’re using right now.   37:46 – We took that webinar and did 95% of the work for you. 42:10 – If you’ve been list-building over time, this will go even easier.

Recently someone sent us a link to another podcast for financial advisors that caught our attention. The show was about accelerated growth and featured an advisor who has taken an aggressive approach to spending in order to build the business in a short amount of time. Everything sounded great on the surface. This firm has grown to $200 million of AUM in five years by spending as much as $30,000 month in marketing. The revenue seemed to point towards a great return on the spending, but after listening a few times, we wanted to really dive into the business to determine just how profitable it really is. This isn’t a criticism of another advisor. Everyone has a method for running their business and it’s great to see people having success. Instead, we want to evaluate each area of the spending and see what changes could be made to maximize profitability. That’s the ultimate goal, right? We want to work smarter so let’s find ways to do just that. We’ll lean on Bond Girl’s marketing expertise to help us evaluate the strategies being deployed. Is everything being used effectively to reach the end goal? Would there be better ways to spend the money? What’s missing with this marketing plan? It’s always beneficial to examine other businesses to see what lessons you can apply to your own operation and that’s the goal for today’s Profitable Advisor Podcast. You can see the full list of topics in the rundown below. For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.   Today's show rundown: 1:10 –  An episode from Dan’s favorite TV show ‘The Profit’ about pricing relates to what we’re talking today. 2:41 – Someone sent Dan a link to a podcast featuring an interview with an advisor that took on a ton of overhead to grow his business rapidly but there was no talk of profitability. 4:09 – Let’s give some feedback on this interview and point out some things this advisor was doing wrong. 5:00 – So let’s break down the numbers to start. 5:53 – Bond Girl shares her observations from this advisor’s business. 7:08 – This was the most powerful sentence in this entire interview. 8:42 – Dan might irk some people with this statement on profitability. 10:17 – Applauding the fact that this advisor was essentially doing deficit spending was a problem. 11:11 – What bothered Bond Girl in the interview was the belief that you have to have a revenue growth goal to be successful. 12:17 – The infrastructure strategy to build before the revenue comes isn’t a good plan. 14:30 – Let’s talk marketing because that was a focus of the show as well. Here’s how the numbers break down. 15:43 – Here are Bond Girl’s takeaways on the marketing side of this business. 17:20 – We get why someone wouldn’t want to share their behind-the-scene numbers but I don’t think he even knew the numbers. 18:37 – If you’re going to run a profitable business, you have to know where your clients are coming from.   20:12 – Here’s where he was spending his money. It starts with SEO, which Bond Girl isn’t a fan of and she explains why. 23:01 – He also had a radio show in LA, a billboard, promotion at high school football games, and more. Most of this is ego driven rather than business driven. 24:50 – You can build a brand but it happens in the work you do.   26:39 – We see a lot of waste with larger practices because they feel like they can afford it. 27:36 – A couple things he brought up were very useful and became ‘aha moments’ for Dan.   28:36 – People often think their fees are too high but this podcast points out that planning fees more than covered marketing expenses. 30:07 – Of all the marketing, there was no list-building being done. 32:15 – In summation, this is an advisor that’s not afraid to take chances and is being aggressive with his fees but there’s some serious fine-tuning that can be done. 33:30 – Don’t chase numbers just for the sake of chasing numbers. 35:19 – Time to do some math on the show and see what he’s averaging per client. 35:56 – There’s a lot you can learn from examining other practices. 37:01 – You also need to keep in mind what level of service you’re going to give your clients.

How do you go beyond the common marketing tactics to really get deep and connect with clients? Sara Grillo is a financial advisor turned marketing consultant and has a solid philosophy on accomplishing this goal. She’s a special guest on the show to share her strategies and explain the program she offers advisors.     About the Guest:  Sara Grillo is a financial advisor turned marketing consultant and you can read all about her here.    About the Show:  Over the past few months, people have been sending Dan articles from the same person. As he began reading through them, it became evident that this person had a lot of the same beliefs as we do at Renegade Advisor. So Dan decided to reach out to Sara Grillo and have her come on the show to discuss these ideas a little deeper. As you know, we don’t bring on guests often so that should tell you how highly we regard her. You can read all of her stuff and watch here videos at SaraGrillo.com but we wanted to use this episode of Profitable Advisor to pick her brain on a few specific topics. First we wanted to discuss the idea of profitability and why advisors struggle so much with making that the priority. Many people assume that production automatically leads to profitability but that’s not always the case. Let’s talk about that and get Sara’s opinion on what advisors should be doing in their practice to make profitability the main focus. Then we move into a lengthy conversation on utilizing LinkedIn as a tool for getting deeper with clients. You might have heard Dan talk about the social media platform previously as something he hasn’t completely grasped as a tool, which is why he wanted to really drill down on this specific area. Sara shares some great insight into how to effectively communicate with people on LinkedIn, strategies you should implement, and why their messenger is so valuable. It's a great conversation and one we’re glad we had. If you haven’t checked out Sara Grillo’s content before, take some time to do so after you finish listening to the show. For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.   Today's Rundown:  1:50 – Some background on an article from Sara Grillo that I received from a number of you. 3:03 – After several months of reading her material, I wanted to bring her onto the show as a guest.   3:47 – Advisors start their year with production goals rather than thinking about profitability. Why don’t we think about profitability more? 5:10 – Our industry defines success by volume/revenue rather than profit. 6:17 – People are failing on a $35/month payments for a service and that undermines your own credibility.   7:23 – What should advisors be doing in their practice to move to a profitability focus?   9:22 – What we’ve found from people we work with at Renegade Advisor that end up costing advisors. 9:52 – It’s not about getting clients with huge a net worth but get all the money of a smaller client. 12:18 – If advisors began the year by determining how much they want to bring in and then work backwards, they’d be more successful. 14:12 – Lifestyle is such a valuable benefit to being self-employed but we don’t always pay attention to that. 16:08 – Sara has a strong philosophy about marketing on LinkedIn and she shares her thoughts. 18:54 – Why Sara decided to leave the financial advisor business.   20:22 – She originally had a YouTube channel that produced very well for her. 22:17 – Introverts make great sales people.   23:04 – Strategically, how should advisors be using LinkedIn? 25:25 – Focus on how you can help someone else’s business as much as what you will get out of it. 26:02 – If you want to be successful with people, you have to understand them. Regardless of the medium. 27:40 – How much time each day should advisors spend on LinkedIn each day? 29:19 – What about the tactic of sharing articles and videos you think people will be interested in? 32:21 – Is there a recommended number of times you should reach out to someone in a given month? 33:09 – Begin with a list of 20 33:45 – Do you wait for them to express an interest in your business or should you take that leap? 36:33 – These auto-messaging services can work but they will turn off a lot of people along the way. 40:05 – Don’t abandon other forms of marketing. Social media should supplement what you’re already doing and take the conversation to a deeper level.

Dan doesn’t bring on guests unless he truly values the information they provide, and that’s why he tracked down Gabe Lewit to learn more about his CRM system. Find out why this direct mail nurturing can be done more effectively, efficiently, and affordably using a new system created by Vision Financial Marketing, and find out how Gabe deploys a six-spoke marketing wheel.   About This Episode: We’ve talked quite a bit about the importance of lead-nurturing on this podcast and we want to take that to another level on this episode. Dan has been utilizing Vision Financial Marketing’s new direct mail and CRM system for a little while now and wanted to share what he’s learned with you. This platform provides financial professionals with an easy and automated way to grow your business. The best part of this is there is a completely free option that is actually useful and valuable. In order to learn more about it and provide you with a thorough description of what this new system is and how to best utilize it, we tracked down one of the creators, Gabe Lewit. He and his father, Steve, run a financial firm but recently started this new business to improve marketing. Dan became fascinated with the system after realizing that it masters lead-nurturing and follow-up by leveraging direct mail so he brought Gabe on the show to discuss this in more detail. You’ll learn quite a bit about this system, how it’s used, and the many features available, but Gabe also explains the six-spoke marketing wheel he uses for his business. If you want to learn about a system that has proven to work, this is a conversation you’ll want to play close attention to. Here are the six ways Gabe markets to potential clients: Seminars Educational workshops Direct mail drip marketing Email in combination with strong website Non-workshop based client events Client referrals That process will be a major focus of this episode along with this direct mail strategy so have a listen and find out why Dan is so excited about this new company. If you want to connect with Gabe, visit this link and he’ll be in touch. And for more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net. Here's today's rundown: 1:33 – Today we welcome on Gabe Lewit to the show.   3:52 – Here’s what got Dan excited about Gabe and what he’s discovered with the Vision Financial Marketing system. 5:51 – The first thing we want to get is the role of lead nurture. 9:09 – How it started for Gabe and his dad. 10:20 – After getting little results the first year, the formulated a new system.   11:32 – Gabe feels there are two keys to on-going success in nurturing. 12:15 – There are benefits to email, but how many people share their primary email address to marketers? 13:19 – The six-spoke marketing wheel Gabe uses. Here are the first two.    15:52 – Strategies for choosing workshop topics. 18:16 – The third spoke in the marketing wheel. 19:21 – Pay attention to this: you aren’t sending the same message to everyone. 23:32 – This seems intricate and time-consuming, but Gabe’s platform is built to make this automated. 27:03 – A real-life example of how efficient and cost-effective this can be. 33:39 – How to set up an account on VisionFinancialMarketing.com 34:31 – Dan describes his experience using just the free version of the platform. 36:51 – Here are the three levels and what the features are. 44:44 – Let’s go back to the other three spokes in the marketing wheel. 47:53 – The fifth spoke 50:00 – The final part of the wheel is client referrals.   

The start of a new year means an opportunity to assess your business and set fresh goals to strive for. Today we’re going to help you do that by looking at it from two different perspectives. The first will be profitability because that’s ultimately how your business will survive and flourish. The second is marketing, which helps drive the first goal. We’ll explore this entire idea of 2020 goals on this episode of the Profitable Advisor podcast so come along as we aim high for the new year.   Setting the Stage Let’s get things started with some background on the subject. Why are we dedicating an entire show to something we do every year? And why are we breaking it out into two different categories? Dan explains what the goals are for this episode.   1:09 – It’s time to start thinking about the new year. 2:26 – Let’s talk about this idea of setting goals from two perspectives: profitability and marketing     Planning for Profitability Most businesses use revenue to judge performance over a certain time period but we’re talking about why profitability better determines success. Since the latter actually puts food on the table, that’s what you should be basing your goals on and we’ll explain how to set that number. As the new year begins, you’ll also have to deal with vendors that are trying to set their sales projections for the year but keep in mind that they work for you. Dan would even tell you not to bother returning their calls when they are trying to track you down early in the year because their goals don’t align with yours. Once you reach your ideal level of profitability, your operation becomes more conservative and that’s not what others want to see for their bottomline. Another piece to understanding profitability is to get a grasp on your books. That doesn’t mean that you have to keep them yourself but know what your money is going and how much it costs to attract and service a client. Sometimes the quickest way to reach your goals is by maximizing your current business rather than having to go out and add a lot more on top of what you’re doing. 2:41 – Profitability first. Your vendors will be calling you to find out what you plan to do. 3:35 – The best advice Dan would give you for dealing with vendors. 4:39 – Truthfully, they don’t want you to be too profitable.   5:38 – 2020 planning needs to be based on profitability rather than revenue. 7:03 – You need to have an idea of how much wealth you need to be happy and you’ll have a number to target. 8:05 – Here’s the conversation Dan has with new advisors in the program. 10:01 – Figure out how many clients you need to hit that number and what you need to do to service them properly. 10:44 – If you don’t have a firm grasp of your books, that needs to be part of your plan for 2020. 12:43 – Goals are great but action is the key.       What About Marketing in 2020? As you know, goals aren’t much without action. So what’s your action plan going to be for marketing your business and generating new clients in 2020? Let’s lean on Bond Girl for her expertise on this subject, much like we did in our last episode on lead nurturing. She helps us break down the marketing calendar, where you should spend your money, list building, and nurturing. Remember that it’s not just about the first exposure to your brand. It’s about constant communication and turning that initial lead into a new client. That’s the best way to maximize the dollars you’re putting toward marketing because the nurturing process really only costs you time. And what about LinkedIn? This has become a trendy avenue for marketing but it’s not something Dan and Heather have embraced. Find out why they’d tell you to do as much research as you can before utilizing this platform as a primary marketing channel.   13:58 – No area is more impacted by action than marketing. Bond Girl stresses a marketing calendar. 18:23 – Build your budget first, then decide what you’re going to do with your money for marketing. 18:50 – Let’s talk about adding a 24/7 spoke into the marketing wheel. 19:33 – Map out your list building and work on how to keep adding people to that list. 21:34 – Why Dan wants to get hate emails. 26:28 – Should you use LinkedIn for marketing?   33:25 – How do we nurture our list once we get it built up? 36:08 – The only way to maximize your return is through the nurturing process. For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.

Building a marketing plan to increase business takes a lot of work and planning, but one of the key elements to every strategy needs to be nurture. That’s the focus of today’s Profitable Advisor podcast as we explore this topic and share the best ways to nurture your client database. Dan Didn’t Take His Planned Trip to Israel On the last episode, Dan told us about his upcoming trip to Israel and his goals to bring back business lessons and strategies he learned. Well, it turns out the trip never happened. Find out what went wrong. 1:51 – Dan updates us on his trip to Israel, which ended up not happening.   Nurturing Should Be a Part of Every Marketing Plan As we mentioned, follow-up is the focus of this episode and needs to be a focus in any marketing plan you develop. You’ve heard us talk about the importance of nurturing your relationships but let’s explain why it’s so important. Dan has a great example of how his plan to offer a pie during the holiday season to his list of clients resulted in him landing an appointment. The strategies have worked really well for us recently so let’s talk about why that is. One piece of that is the daily email communication, but it needs to be more than a generic news email. Show off your personality. The good news is we can help you with that part of your marketing. If you’ve considered adding a daily email to your marketing plan, we can help you with that for a very small cost. All the information can be found at AdvisorAssets.net 4:56 – Today we’re talking about how important proper and systematic follow-up can be. 5:08 – Nurture is should be a big part of any marketing strategy. 6:19 – A story about how nurturing resulted in a client for Dan. 7:47 – Our nurture system has had great results lately. 8:28 – We now offer the opportunity to tap into our daily email marketing copy writing system for the price of coffee each day.   Bond Girl Breaks Follow-Up Into Two Types One of the reasons we choose this topic for the podcast is the passion Bond Girl has for utilizing this strategy. She breaks down the follow-up into two streams: Situational and Long-Term. With situational, there are three types of people you are targeting: the people that attended your event and made an appointment, the people that attended but didn’t make an appointment, and then the people that didn’t come at all. 11:18 – Two streams of follow-up as Bond Girl sees it. The first is situational. 11:43 – Three categories of people you should be following up with immediately after an event. 12:41 – The second stream of follow-up is Long-Term. 13:04 – How do you treat the person that wants to come in for an appointment? 16:30 – Now let’s look at the messaging for the people that attend but don’t book an appointment. 19:52 – Give people the option to say no upfront.   Make it Personal There are a handful of communication methods you can choose and Bond Girl explains those, but the agree that everyone agrees is the voice you need to use in your communications. It’s always going to be more effective to be entertaining and informative. Don’t be afraid to pull back the curtain and show your personality. It’s a great way to differentiate yourself. 21:23 – That short-term follow-up can be in 5-6 different communication methods. 22:47 – The strategy for people that registered but didn’t come. 24:07 – One of the areas where advisors can get off track. 25:40 – Be entertaining with your frequent communications.   27:37 – Share a little about yourself in your copy. Pull that curtain back.   Follow-Up or Die We’ll wrap the discussion by talking about the types of follow-up and what we know about direct mail. In a world of digital everything, direct mail still resonates with people better than opening up an email. Bond Girl shares a great story about the $8 million postcard that will help you understand where to focus with direct mail. 29:20 – Let’s talk now about the types of follow-up 29:48 – Your brain actually connects to tangible things better than it does digitally. 32:11 – Let’s talk about using direct mail as a form of nurture and the strategies behind it. 34:17 – Some of the strategies that Dan has tried in the past to grab people’s attention. 37:28 – The $8 million postcard 39:20 – Wrapping it up, how long should we nurture a client?   For more on this topic and other strategies to growing your business, join us over at RenegadeAdvisor.net.

We all aim to build a business that runs efficiently enough that we’re able to enjoy significant time for ourselves while also generating strong profits. The key to getting there is figuring out how many clients you need to aim for while still maintaining a high-level of service. We’ll use a recent article on this topic to lay out a plan to get you to that optimal number.   In this episode:  A recent article about how many clients an advisor should have caught Dan’s attention because it shared many of the same ideals that he believes in and shares on this podcast. The article is Get 70 “Deep” Clients. Period. by Sara Grillo and it talks about how adding too many clients can become a ‘chaotic Picasso.’ You can read her detailed explanation in the article but it is the basis for this episode of the Profitable Advisor podcast because Dan disagreed with a few key points. First, her optimal number is lower than what we believe you can reach. Everyone’s situation is different but why not aim for a higher revenue number if you can manage it? Dan also talks about why every advisor should consider adopting an AUM model to grow revenue from $3,000 per client up to $5,000. We’ll detail how that’s possible but it’s comes down to handling all of your client’s money. This might seem like a time-consuming approach, but we’ll share the way Dan gets around that and still has plenty of time to spend with clients. Putting systems in place will help you grow your business to that ideal size so that you’ll be able to maintain the lifestyle you want while providing excellent service to your clients. To save you some time, we’ve highlighted the topics below. Just click on the timestamps to skip ahead in the episode or go back to something you want to hear again. 1:51 – Welcome in, it’s been a chaotic month. 2:47 – Dan is taking a trip to Israel in the next week. 3:56 – Today we’re getting into an article written by Sara Grillo: Get 70 “Deep” Clients. Period. 6:25 – Dan reads a little from this article to share a few excerpts about what she means by ‘chaotic Picasso’ 8:55 – I talk about this idea all the time but here’s where I differ. One is the number of optimal clients an advisor should aim for. 11:14 – Let’s hypothetically say 200 clients is the right number. How could you handle the workload efficiently, take a month off each year, live 300 miles away from your office, and make seven figures? 11:32 – The easiest ways to grow from $3,000 per client to $5,000 per client. First, adopt an AUM model. 15:54 – The challenge is to make sure we manage all of client’s money rather than just some of it. 16:58 – Second thing, managing money takes a lot of time so don’t manage it. Use a turnkey asset manager. 17:56 – The third thing is proactively connect with your clients using a group-type format. 19:20 – How often should we have review meetings with our clients? 20:22 – Systems are going to be the key in streamlining all of these things.

In recent weeks, Dan Kennedy’s health has taken a downturn and he has even recognized that his final days might be ahead. As tributes pour in for this incredible businessman, advisor, and mentor, we wanted to celebrate his life and what he’s taught us along the way. We’ll do that by sharing the books, products and lessons we recommend. IN THIS EPISODE:  As August came to an end, an emotional letter from Dan Kennedy was posted online for his company, friends, and family. In it, he shares a message of inspiration and hopefulness as he prepares for his final days. His health has deteriorated and it lead to much speculation that Kennedy passed away, but the last update to DanKennedyTribute.com says he’s still in hospice and enjoying the tributes that are being sent in. That might change at some point after this podcast has been published, but at the time of this episode he was still with us. His life compelled Dan Cuprill and Heather to share the things they’ve learned from Kennedy throughout their careers. From books to marketing lessons to funny stories, his impact on this podcast is very similar to the one he’s made on many people throughout business and entrepreneurship for decades. We hope you’ll be able to pick up something new during this episode and apply it to your life and career. There are a few book recommendations we’ll make from our personal collections. We’ll also talk about the top lessons we’ve been taught from Kennedy and still use. There will also be additional products that we’ll highlight along the way. We’ll close the show today with a message of gratitude from Dan for all that Kennedy has done for the small business community around the world. To save you some time, we’ve highlighted the topics below. Just click on the timestamps to skip ahead in the episode or go back to something you want to hear again. 1:51 – Dan Kennedy’s health hasn’t been great so we’re focusing our episode on him today. 4:33 – Discussing the things we’ve learned from Dan.    5:35 – The first lesson is time management. 8:15 – Putting my phone in the drawer serves me well in this. 9:09 – What Dan Cuprill thinks is the most important thing about time management. 9:42 – We often allow ourselves to get distracted. 11:32 – The second lesson is autonomy. 12:23 – Cuprill learned the Art of Curmudgeonry. 14:32 – The books he got us into. 15:47 – The third lesson learned is to not follow the crowd. 17:00 – He always talked about the importance of follow-up.   18:29 – Don’t be boring.   21:25 – Let’s now talk about his work and what he accomplished during his career.    22:01 – Heather shares her first favorite book that Kennedy wrote. 25:00 – Another product that Heather really likes - $252,000 Platinum Meetings. 26:40 – Another favorite book: Make Them Laugh and Take Their Money 28:13 – A great reference tools that Cuprill recommends. 28:42 – Cuprill’s top book recommendation: No B.S. Ruthless Management of People and Profits 31:09 – A Kennedy quote that Heather absolutely loves. 31:47 – How can financial advisors apply Kennedy’s teachings? 33:57 – Don’t use food to entice people to a meeting. 36:32 – Why it’s important to have marketing systems. 37:17 – Where you can find Kennedy products if you haven’t seen or heard him at all. 39:25 – One last message to Kennedy.