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Market Success

 

Independent Advisors need a strategy-led, systematic growth program.

The Financial Advisor SMART BOOK™ outlines the Revenue Architecture Methodology that financial advisors can use to add structure and predictability to their revenue engine. We introduce nine steps and advisor-specific marketing and sales strategies that are helping advisors capture client value.

The comprehensive guide helps independent financial advisors build a strategy-led, systematic growth program with 9 proven strategies. The goal is to help advisors:

  • Increase Volume: Generate More Visits & Inquiries
  • Increase Client Value: Get Better Qualified Inquiries
  • Increase Velocity: Increase your Conversion Rate
  • Increase AUM and Revenue: Optimize Engagement for AUM growth and Revenue Impact.

Having a vision and game plan for growth is essential for financial advisors to thrive in a challenging marketplace. The Smart Book™ outlines how you can achieve more predictable and sustainable revenue growth by establishing a Revenue Architecture that fits your firm. The key is to commit to a systematic sales and marketing process by following the 9 proven strategies to guide your approach.

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Professional Selling

Build a technology platform to support your go-to-market strategy.

 

We recently published an enhanced edition of the Financial Advisor SMART BOOK. This resource is a comprehensive guide to help independent financial advisors build an ‘independent difference,’ that is, a strategy-led, systematic growth program with 9 proven strategies. The goal is to help advisors:

  • Increase Volume: Generate More Visits & Inquiries
  • Increase Client Value: Get Better Qualified Inquiries
  • Increase Velocity: Increase Conversion Rates
  • Increase AUM and Revenue: Optimize Engagement for AUM growth and Revenue Impact.

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Brand Matters

Set yourself apart with an authentic and differentiated brand identity

We recently published the Financial Advisor SMART BOOK. This resource is a comprehensive guide to help independent financial advisors build an ‘independent difference,’ that is, a strategy-led, systematic growth program with 9 proven strategies. The goal is to help advisors:

  • Increase Volume: Generate More Visits & Inquiries
  • Increase Client Value: Get Better Qualified Inquiries
  • Increase Velocity: Increase Conversion Rates
  • Increase AUM and Revenue: Optimize Engagement for AUM growth and Revenue Impact.

[Strategy 4 of 9] Brand Presence: Craft a Distinctive Brand Identity and Digital Presence

Brand matters, but many advisors look and sound the same. You want your brand identity to tell a story and build trust in the hearts and minds of your prospective clients. Set yourself apart with an authentic and differentiated brand identity, collateral, and digital presence.

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A prospective client may assume that a financial advisor, when giving advice, is acting in their best interest.

Fiduciary Standard for Financial Advisors

Indeed this prospective client may have heard the word FIDUCIARY Financial Advisor bandied about by talking heads and journalists in the financial media and that is now a Rule of Law.  For an independent fee-only Financial Advisor (RIA), being a fiduciary will matter a great deal to your ideal client and can be a key if not prerequisite selling point. But they may not grasp the full meaning and intent.

Positioned right, being a fiduciary can be a major point of differentiation from broker/dealers claiming to be financial advisors, but who are associated with vertically integrated brokerage firms that sell products with ‘hidden fees’.

One advisor quoted in the article in a recent New York Times article said  “The fiduciary rule ultimately comes down to the fact that some people are making a lot of money at the expense of other people who have no idea how much their adviser is getting paid.”  A video from a large independent advisor, compares butchers and nutritionists.  Butchers push meat. Nutritionists advise you what to eat, because they have the best interests of the client at heart.  The latter is the fiduciary.  A Revenue Architects client says, “the professional fiduciary is expected to perform and advise you based on your best interests, even if it comes into conflict with the advisor’s own interests.”

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Recent studies indicate that financial advisors expect continued strong demand for their services in the next year.  Russell Investments third-quarter Financial Professional Outlook indicated that Advisors remain bullish about the capital markets looking out over the next three years.

Marketing Volatility and Investor Behavior

Source: Russell Investments

However, they worry about investors’ emotional response to market events that could harm their businesses and their clients’ well-being, The Russell Investments study showed market volatility to be the most common topic initiated by clients.  A Fidelity Advisor Investment Pulse Survey showed similar results.

“When investors make emotional decisions, they decrease the odds of reaching their financial goals,” said John Hailer, chief executive officer of Natixis Global Asset Management in the Americas and Asia.

How can financial advisors set reasonable expectations with challenges like volatility and low-interest rates?…how can they take the emotion out of investor conversations to set realistic goals and stick to them?

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Many independent financial advisory firms are at an inflection point, facing disruptive changes from technology and generational transitions.

Technology-Driven Transitions

  • Emerging “Robo-Advisors” who are seemingly adept at gathering assets from Internet-savvy millennials
  • Digital Nation: Increasing use of social media and mobile devices among all generations, and most effusively by millennials
  • Real-time access to almost anything

Generational Transitions

  • Generation X or “Generation Now”: Following on the heels of existing pre-retiree and retired clients is Gen X ages 30-45, who currently control nearly $3.5T in investable assets (Cerulli – Lodestar, 2012E.)
  • Generation Y:  77 million strong, on par with Baby Boomers, constitutes 24% of the US population (Nielsen)…clients of the future…the social generation defined by technology – always on and mobile.
  • 71% of affluent Gen Y investors report having $100K-<$250K in total investable assets and an additional 5% are already millionaires. (Cogent Research 2013)
Population by Generation

Source: Nielsen

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HNW Investors are Social

For financial advisors, social media represents a powerful addition to traditional marketing. Indeed high net worth investors are active on social media and expect their advisors to be also.  To wit,

  1. 87% use social media
  2. 52% of investors want to connect with advisors on LinkedIn
  3. 50% of high-net-worth investors want market, trend, and product information via social media

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To be competitive today, financial advisors should be using social media to engage connections and capture qualified prospects.

Digital Foundation: This strategy is underpinned by your Digital Foundation, that is:

  • Client and 1st degree connections on social networks, the three most important (e.g., LinkedIn, Twitter, FaceBook)
  • Contact database
  • Contacts in a CRM system (e.g., SalesForce, RedTail)
  • LinkedIn Connections
  • Alerts and monitoring

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RiA Stands for You: Halo Effect for Advisor BrandingRiA Stands For You

It’s simple, yet powerful.  Leverage the distinctive brand identity in the Schwab RIA Stands for You (RiAS4U) campaign to elevate your brand image and credibility with clients, prospects and influentials as a Registered Independent Advisor (RIA).

  • Align your brand with the RiAS4U messaging
  • Follow the branding standards and creative brief provided by Schwab Advisors

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Best Wishes for the New Year!

Consider adding these resolutions to YOUR list and increase your impact in 2013.

  1. Deepen Your Relationships… Use social media and filtering tools to deepen 1:1 relationships, retain and grow contacts.
  2. Earn Your Reach In addition to paid media, differentiate with quality content to drive reach with earned media.
  3. Hug Your Sales Team… Don’t let inbound marketing make you forget your valued selling professionals and partner channels.
  4. Enhance Your Revenue Systems… Use best practices in media management, marketing automation, CRM, and social media
  5. Innovate and Stand Out Dust off that strategy and use design thinking to create innovative digital experiences.

 

Team Revenue Architects
revenuearchitects.com
877.REV.EARN