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When it comes to gaining clients, many advisors harbor this fantasy: Your phone rings and on the line is a qualified prospect with a million dollars, asking if you’re available to meet and talk about the possibility of working together.
For most advisors, there’s only one way to make that happen, and that’s to become the recognized, go-to expert for people in a defined target community. Since you work extensively with members of this group and are an expert in their needs, you’re able to serve them exceptionally well and are seen by clients in that group as the “safe choice.”
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In this recent article, I argued that advisors can learn from doctors, accountants and lawyers who specialize and earn twice the income of generalists. But specializing and narrowing the focus of the clients you serve doesn’t just allow you to charge a premium for your advice – it also changes the fundamental dynamics of acquiring clients. Ultimately, specializing allows you to magnetically attract clients, where they make the first contact. But even early on in the process of specializing, when you still have to take the initiative, this approach dramatically improves the response when you talk to prospects and turns cold calls into warm calls.
My previous article touched on the first two steps to build your practice around a specialty focus – picking the right target and ensuring that you have the appropriate knowledge and capabilities to serve that community in a way that few other advisors can. There are two final steps to successfully building a specialty focus – establishing a profile within your target group and converting that profile into clients.
These two steps are essential to achieve your goal of building word-of-mouth referrals from your group and getting prospects to call you. Today, I will focus on building credibility; a future article will highlight how to use that credibility to get in front of prospective clients.
Building credibility first
Some advisors believe the key to building a dominant position in a target community is through awareness alone. That misses the key point: to become the “safe choice” within a community, it’s credibility that matters – I’ve talked to advisors who advertised in publications serving doctors or paid for booths at tradeshows for business owners, with nothing in the way of results.
On the other hand, I’ve had conversations with advisors who’ve built great practices serving public company CEOs, wealthy retirees and owners of McDonalds franchisees without spending a penny. One advisor who works with physicians told me about going to a convention that featured a number of booths from competitors – he commented that he would never advertise or be at a trade show booth, because that would position him as a supplier trying to sell something. While other advisors tried to engage doctors from their booth, he was on the program for two breakfast sessions – one on the tax and estate implications of setting up professional corporations, the other on how physicians can get the best from their support staff.
Building credibility sets you up as a trusted expert, allowing you to confidently approach prospects with the key words, “ I specialize in working with your group, you may have read my article or heard me speak.”
This doesn’t take money but it does take time; if you want to dominate your target community, first invest two hours a week for six months so that you can point to links on your website that set you apart as someone who truly understands your group’s needs. That initial investment of time is the foundation of credibility on which all of your marketing rests.
here are the three most common ways to build that initial credibility:
- Write articles in publications your target constituency reads;
- Get quoted in those publications; and
- Get invited to speak to your group’s meetings as an expert in their needs.
Writing articles
This is the starting point for many advisors. First spend a couple of hours reading past issues of the key publication for your group. Then contact the editor, explain that you work with a number of members of that group and ask if she’d be open to your submitting an article on the key financial challenges for this target community. If the answer is yes, ask about guidelines for column length.
By the time you’ve selected this group, you’ve done the research on their particular problems and needs. Rather than writing an article themselves, for as little as $250 you can hire a freelance writer to interview you, take your ideas and turn them into a column. Take a look at sites like Elance.com, freelancer.com and guru.com to find freelancers, this link provides an overview of sites where you can find freelancers.
It’s important that you get this initial article right – before submitting it, run it by a couple of members of the group to get their suggestions.
Let’s assume the publication runs your article. Your next step is to follow up with the editor to explore her interest in a follow up piece, with the ultimate goal of becoming an ongoing contributor. Don’t expect the phone to ring when those articles appear. Remember, the reason you’re doing this is not because people reading your article will call you, it’s to be able to post a link to your site as a credibility builder and enable you to proactively reach out to members of the group.
As an example, one advisor I talked to specializes in working with the faculty members at a large local university who retire and are able to convert their pensions. Fifteen years ago, he started with one client in this group and spent the time to understand the intricacies of the retirement options. He then approached the person responsible for the quarterly newsletter for faculty and since then has had a quarterly column appear in that publication. That column has been instrumental in making him the safe choice for faculty at that university, who today represent over half his clients.
Getting quoted
Spend 30 minutes each week reading the publications that target your group. Not only will you learn more about their issues, but you will see articles that touch on financial or business topics. Drop a note to the author commenting on what they’ve written; your goal is to make a positive comment but also point out something they may have missed.
Once you’ve been published, you can attach the article you’ve written. The author of the article may be an employee or a freelancer who does ongoing work for the publication; in either case, your goal is to position yourself as a resource that he or she can talk to and quote for future articles. If the writer lives in your city, suggest connecting over a coffee to talk about the challenges that the group faces, based on your experience. And again, you’re going to post links to any articles in which you’re quoted on your website.
An advisor who specializes in retirement planning for people approaching retirement and in the early stages of retirement has become the go-to source for journalists in his city on this topic. Whenever he sees an article on retirement issues, he contacts the journalist responsible. Because he’s knowledgeable and works on delivering pithy quotes, over time, he’s become the safe choice for journalists in his city writing on retirement planning issues.
Secure speaking opportunities
Some advisors have succeeded in building a profile through talks on topics in which they’ve chosen to specialize. Consider starting small with a local chapter, perhaps via an introduction from a client or acquaintance who’s a member of that group to the program chair. Once you’ve done one talk that’s been well received, ask the program chair if you can use him or her as a reference in talking to other chapters.
Your goal is to minimize the risk that a program committee will be embarrassed by inviting you to speak. Five years ago, one advisor in his thirties wanted to focus on business owners but was concerned that his age would limit success with older entrepreneurs. As a result, he decided to concentrate on younger business owners, staring with a client who was a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), the leading organization for people under 40 who run their own businesses.
The client arranged to have the advisor deliver a 30-minute talk to 12 other YPO members with whom the client meets each month; the advisor’s topic was what entrepreneurs in their 30s and 40s should do to position themselves for the ultimate sale of their business. The advisor got permission for a student from the media arts program at a local college to video his talk and to post that video to his site. With this video as a starting point, he contacted other YPO groups and secured several other opportunities to speak to similar groups. He ultimately got on the program for the YPO chapter in his city and has made younger entrepreneurs a thriving part of his business.
In all three of the cases outlined above, it took time for the advisors to see results. But if you’re willing to invest two hours a week for the next six months, you will begin building a position as the safe choice for clients in your target community.
conducts programs to help advisors gain and retain clients and is an award winning faculty member in the MBA program at the University of Toronto. To see more of his written and video commentaries, go to www.clientinsights.ca. Use A555A for the rep and dealer code to register for website access.
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