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How would you answer this question, “What makes you different and unique from everyone else who does what you do?”
There is no right answer, but there are wrong ones. The key to this question is the word “unique.” If your answer sounds much like all the other financial advisors you know, then you’re not unique – answers such as, “I give the best service in town,” or, “My fee structure is very competitive,” or, “I’m a fiduciary,” or, “I grow 100% by referral.” Those answers lose you in the sea of ordinary advisors. When you’re ordinary and too similar to everyone else, standing out as an expert in anything becomes that much more difficult.
One decision can put you on the path to expert status.
Making the decision to pursue a niche will pull you away from the pack instantaneously. When you focus your practice to serve an exclusive audience it will have a magnifying ripple effect that will ultimately give you the right to claim expert status.
In Bob Veres’ recent Advisor Perspective’s article, Fearless Forecasts for 2022, he discussed how important it will be in the near future for financial advisors to specialize by serving a niche. Knowing that COVID19 has forced us all to adapt to working with our clients and each other virtually, prospects will be looking for you through a wider lens as well. Bob emphasized the need to niche as a way of offering more specialized services to make yourself more attractive to prospects. His example of a real estate agent being more drawn to an advisor serving real estate agents was spot on.
How will this one decision impact your practice?
One of the easiest ways for me to answer this question is to share my story. My firm, Productivity Uncorked, made the decision to specialize its work by focusing on the niche of financial advisors (with a special emphasis towards female advisors). This decision first impacted our messaging. We changed how we spoke about our services and how/where we showed up on LinkedIn. We modified our website to resonate with our audience using industry language and images that clearly portrayed our audience. Our networking efforts became driven by where our audience is engaged and what’s important to them. We became members of our local FPA chapter and served several years on its board. We sought out and built relationships with our own COIs who also serve financial advisors but for other reasons. Our speaking topics and conferences shifted towards the wealth management industry, taking us to the stages of NAPFA, NAIFA, Schwab IMPACT, Finlocity, Women Advisors Forum and FPA to name a few. Our mailbox and inbox became full of industry publications, newsletters, and resources to keep us in touch with the needs, concerns and desires of financial advisors. Our writing efforts lead us to publications such as Advisor Perspectives, NAPFA and FPA as well as writing our Amazon Best Seller, A Woman’s Way: Empowering Female Financial Advisors to Authentically Lead and Flourish in a Man’s World.
Making the decision to have a niche is a full commitment. You need to become students of your audience, immersing yourself on every level. I know financial advisors better than they know themselves. You need to adjust your efforts to become attractive to your niche audience. When you resonate with them, they appreciate your understanding and feel heard.
Will having a niche improve your bottom line? The short answer is “yes” and here’s how.
Experts make more money because they can charge more for their specialty. You see examples of this everywhere as a consumer. And if someone is looking for an advisor, like the real estate agent mentioned in Bob’s article, when compared side by side, the expert wins.
Closing your niche prospect will be easier than ever before, meaning your closing ratio will rise, increasing your bottom line.
Your marketing efforts become highly focused, as you saw in my example. Focused marketing has a much higher ROI than general marketing. General marketing brings you prospects who don’t fit your niche. Niche marketing attracts your niche audience. This will save you money and time.
Building relationships with COIs who also serve your niche audience builds in a natural reciprocity that could develop into collaborations, creative services, partnerships and even new revenue streams. The enhanced synergy you gain from COIs aligned with your niche positions you to bring greater value to your clients.
You can profit greatly from serving a niche and can easily establish your expert status and uniqueness. I know of financial advisors who serve physicians, dentists, Gen-X, LGBTQ community, airline pilots, teachers, equestrians, military families and even some that specialize in serving employees from a specific company. As Veres pointed out, the trend is surrounding you. There are people already leading the pack and others, like me, who are skilled at helping you get there.
You can't help everyone, but you can help those who are attracted to and aligned with your expertise. Don’t let fear or uncertainty keep you from being unique. That will keep you in the average category.
Make the one decision that can make you an expert…carve out your niche and reap the benefits of being unique. If you need guidance, let's talk.
Michelle R. Donovan owns Productivity Uncorked LLC where they help financial advisors to be more productive and be more profitable. The partners at Productivity Uncorked have helped many advisors to find and flourish with a niche. Michelle’s books have become Wall Street Journal best-sellers, Amazon best-sellers and published in seven languages. Email Michelle at [email protected] or connect with her on LinkedIn.
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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.