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Somewhere in the deep recesses of the Internet, a crafty little marketing consultant figured out how to make a small advisory firm look bigger than it is. I’ll show you a few ways to present the scale of your business based on your true merit.
But first I’ll go over a few commonly used and slightly-less-than-scrupulous tactics that you should avoid.
Combined experience
You’ve seen this before: You add up the years of experience of an executive team. For example: “Our management team has a collective 100 years of experience.”
100 years my foot!
It’s a ridiculous statement.
If three members of an executive team each work for three years, it doesn’t add to nine years. That’s like me saying that in 2017 my work counted for two years because I had two computers in my office, an HP and a Dell, that I used at the same time.
There’s no room for creativity in mathematics. Math is governed by incontrovertible logic and rules. Twisting them like this is what makes people distrust the financial industry.
Yes, three times three is nine, but you aren’t getting the benefit of the sum of the years. You’re getting the benefit of the average of the years.
Think about it; if there’s one person with 30 years of experience and two people with 10 years of experience, you have 50 total years. However, the 30-year person is going to be the one calling the shots, not the 10-year people.
That leads me to my next point about how combining experience is not valid. Many firms state the amount of collective experience but they don’t disclose how many people are included. If you total 100 years of experience over five people, that’s a totally different scenario versus if it were three people. That’s a 13-year difference per person.
Not insignificant, wouldn’t you say?
Now, before all you advisors get mad at me and beat me up on APViewpoint, I’ll preface this section by stating that this doesn’t apply to all firms. Let’s say I’m not talking about those of you reading this; I’m talking about your competitors. Fair enough?
The board of directors…
Have you ever seen this?: There’s a one-person firm that doesn’t even have a receptionist, but it has a board of directors (a.k.a. board of advisors). On the website you see the picture of the advisor, and then in the panel below it you see pictures of random people who don’t work there but are supposed to be external advisors who are a source of strategic guidance.
Right.
When I was a little girl I used to have imaginary friends, too. One was a robotic dog named K9 that I based on the dog on the show Doctor Who.
Who are these people, anyways? It would be one thing if you were getting your business advice from Bill Gates, but they look more like people you met on jury duty. I’m almost always underwhelmed by these boards of directors. If you have such a board on your website, please log on to Wordpress and click the “delete” button after reading this article.
Why would a prospect care from whom you get your business advice? If they’re not part of your firm, how can it be a real relationship? I follow Gary Vaynerchuk on YouTube because he gives wonderful advice on Facebook advertising. Do you care?
Who cares? Hit me on APViewpoint if you care.
Now, just to save myself from being ganged up on by all of you, there are times when this isn’t ridiculous.
What you actually can do to make yourself look bigger
I’m a one-person firm (intentionally, by the way) and that’s never gotten in the way of someone wanting to work with me.
Count the things that matter
At any given time, I know exactly how many clients I have, how many I have worked with over the history of my company, and how many blogs and articles I have written since starting my firm. I don’t just say, “I have hundreds of clients.” I say the precise number.
How many estate plans have you reviewed? How many IRA rollovers have you done? How many tax seasons have you been through?
Those are the numbers that count.
Have a big following on social media
I have about 7,000 people following me on LinkedIn and another 4,000 on YouTube. This gives me a tremendous amount of “street cred” because it shows influence. For whatever reason, people were interested enough in what I say to click the follow button.
Now, as I’ve said in other articles, social media works like an IRA account not like a cash register. It takes time and commitment to grow your following.
Display a visible calendar
When someone asks me for a meeting, I send them a link to my calendar where they can see the open slots. Last week someone commented, “Gee, Sara, you’re awfully busy in the mornings.” To which I replied that mornings are typically when I have weekly calls with my clients.
I didn’t intend for this calendar to be a marketing tactic, but it made my business look big in his eyes. The first thing that showing your calendar does is to automate an administrative task. People like that. It makes you seem high-tech, professional and high-powered. Showing proper use of technology takes the risk of being perceived as understaffed off the table.
In addition, using a calendar app shows people that you’re accustomed to having to schedule meetings and it implies that your time is in demand. This goes way further than merely saying how busy you are (and remember everyone loves to claim “I’m so busy!”); it shows this is a fact.
Calendly has a free two-week trial. Try it and see if you like it.
Sara’s upshot
Look, I get it. Nobody wants to look like Tom Thumb — you’d rather be King Arthur. If you market yourself correctly, being a small operation isn’t the end of the world. Quality, not quantity; how you present yourself plays a bigger part in how you are perceived. Any questions? You know how to reach me.
Sara Grillo, CFA, is a top financial writer with a focus on marketing and branding for investment management, financial planning, and RIA firms. Prior to launching her own firm, she was a financial advisor and worked at Lehman Brothers. Sara graduated from Harvard with a degree in English literature and has an MBA from NYU Stern in Quantitative Finance.
Read more articles by Sara Grillo
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.