First of all, to explain what is meant by inbound or content marketing… Most importantly it is not about selling, instead it is about creating engagement with your target audiences. Marketing has evolved, the days are over of only trying to hit people over the head with a constant stream of sales messages through advertising, sales campaigns and other traditional sales methods. While these methods still have a place, consumers today want to be engaged, to be warmed up and to be made aware of why they should deal with you. This is where inbound marketing comes in.

The aim of this engagement is that your audiences will view you as someone worth listening to and in time, will ultimately seek you out for your professional expertise. This is done through inbound marketing – providing your target audiences with insights, ideas, tips and commentary in relation to personal finance matters. In time, this will make them far more open to your sales messages that will follow at the appropriate time.

This approach delivers a number of benefits for financial advisers. First of all, it enables you to stay in touch with existing clients by putting interesting insights in front of them and keeping them aware of the breadth of the product range that you can advise them about. It also helps you to establish yourself as a thought leader and someone to be listened to, among both prospective clients and the wider public at large. Finally fresh content on your website is a critical component of a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy.

So what are some of the elements of a great content marketing strategy?

Know your audience

Know who your target audience is. Is it local business owners, particular occupations or particular age groups? Who are you actually writing that new website page, blog or email newsletter for? Write for this audience about topics of interest to them. Try to put yourself in their shoes and think about what they will want to read. If your audience find it interesting, they’ll view you as someone to listen to and will seek out your content…and hopefully in time your advice in relation to their personal finances.

Make sure it looks good

First of all, your content has to look engaging. Use a solid design and layout. I always tell financial advisers to “Think Apple”. For any of you who have bought an Apple product, you’ll know what I mean – the excellent quality, yet simple packaging that really impresses you as you unpack your phone or iPad. Your blog / newsletter should have the same impact. It should look very professional, enticing people to read it. At the end of the day, you want to portray the professionalism of your business in every single touch point with your clients, both online and offline.

Have a plan

I know from talking to some advisers (and from my own experience too) that lack of time to update the website or write a newsletter is often just an excuse for a lack of structure or ideas. There’s nothing worse than relying on your brain kicking into action every month or so when you’ve no idea what you’re going to write about! So what happens is you find something else to do and satisfy yourself that you’re just too busy to write the content.

The way to deal with this is to develop a content calendar for the year. Spend a few hours at the start of the year brainstorming ideas that you’ll write about, either as new pages on your website or as newsletter articles. Once you get a few ideas down, I promise that the creative juices will start to flow and more topics will come to mind. As potential topics come to mind now and at a later stage too, drop them into the calendar with a few bullet points of what the article might cover.

Now you’ll have a structure to ensure you don’t lose potential content ideas as you go along and it will also give you a starting point every time you sit down to write that article. You’ll actually find after a while that you’ve too much content and now can actually start being selective in what you write about.

What do you write about?

You’ll be glad to know that everyone sees this as one of the biggest hurdles! However, with a bit of thought, you will quickly realise how relatively easy it is to overcome this particular challenge. You absolutely need a helping hand to come up with the topics to write about. So here are a few sources that will help prompt some ideas for you.

First of all, listen to your clients. Probe them about areas of interest to them and areas where they they’d like more information. Are there particular challenges they face in relation to their personal finances where they would like some general advice? If you ask a number of customers, I’m confident that themes will start to emerge for you.

Secondly, keep your content schedule at the back of your mind when you go to a presentation, read the newspapers or indeed just go online.  These are each great sources of ideas, which can be used by you as prompts for you to develop your thoughts and position on – not to copy and paste but for you to set out your viewpoint and flavour on these topics.

Some financial advisers take a short cut and rather than writing their own content, they only share out links to other websites through LinkedIn and Twitter. This type of shared content has its place, however I think it can only sit alongside some original content that you are writing yourself. It’s great to share content that is of interest to your audience but they also want to know what you think! Using the content of other people, while better than doing nothing, is not enough on its own.

So yes, content marketing needs to be an integral part of the marketing plans of financial advisers today. Once you start to really engage your prospective and existing clients, they will soon realise your expertise and the added value you offer. In time, some of your audience will hopefully want to talk to you about their wider financial affairs…and their product needs.

Have you any thoughts in relation to content marketing? If you do, please leave them below.

Co-marketing is where you find a business that provides a complimentary service to your own, one that is aimed at a similar target market. For financial advisers, this more than likely will be an accountant, a tax consultant, a legal firm or some other form of business consultancy. You then agree a programme of shared marketing activities that will be aimed at both of your client bases, promoting both of your brands. The ultimate aim is to increase each partner’s sales opportunities with the other’s clients.

How is this different to how many advisers currently work with, let’s say accountants? Well from my experience, most existing relationships currently operate in a one-way direction. The accountant refers a client; the financial adviser sells a product and may compensate the accountant. Co-marketing is different. It is shared activities.

So why would you do it? As stated in the title of this article, you can first of all significantly increase the reach of your marketing efforts by opening up your marketing activities to your co-marketing partner’s clients. This shared activity also gets both you and your partner onto the radar of a whole new group of clients. Also by partnering with another strong brand, this will reflect positively on your business and give you added credibility. So obviously it is important to find the right co-marketing partner!

Once you find the right partner, what sort of activities can you roll out together? There is a wide range of potential activities and here are some that might be the easiest and quickest for you to implement together.

Shared content

The first area to collaborate on is sharing content. We all know the effort that goes into writing newsletters, blog articles or other expert pieces. Co-marketing is a great way to get this content to a wider audience. Post each other’s content on your website & in your blogs as guest posts. Give each other a “guest corner” on your newsletters, increasing your exposure. This will make each of your website blogs or newsletters more engaging, will reduce the struggle for new content for both of you and will hopefully also result in some new client enquiries from your partner’s clients.

Videos

If you use video on your website, co-marketing offers a great opportunity to move away from the monologues that so often feature on sites. Pick a topic that is relevant to both organisations’ propositions and have a discussion about it. Apart from being a different and more engaging format, this approach will also increase the breadth in which a topic can be covered, hopefully resulting in some enquiries from clients.

Seminars

Client seminars are a great form of co-marketing as they offer a whole range of benefits. First of all, you can examine a topic from different angles. For example, an accountant might talk about pensions as one important strand of tax planning while you might discuss different pension investment strategies. One topic can very seamlessly segue into another.

Seminars also offer the opportunity to actually meet your partner’s clients, as you will both invite clients to the event. Both of you get exposure to new potential clients with the opportunity to present to them…and impress them.

Of course another benefit is that you’ll share the cost of the seminar!

A joint brochure

A number of advisers that I’ve worked with have developed corporate brochures and then try and encourage any accountants who refer business to them to hand out the brochures to their clients. While this makes sense of course, unfortunately the brochures are unlikely to stay right at hand in the accountant’s office…. However if the brochures have a shared message and feature your co-marketing partner equally prominently, they have a good chance of gaining pride of place in their office too.

Co-branded sales propositions

While this one will definitively take a little bit more work, the potential rewards are very significant. This is where you develop an actual sales / advice proposition, delivered by both parties and demonstrably packaged as a single proposition. For example, it might be a wealth transfer proposition in which the partner would bring their tax / legal expertise and combine this with your advice in relation to life cover for inheritance tax purposes, ARFs etc. This offers a very clear demonstration of your partnership in actual practise and can directly result in actual revenue for both parties.

These are a few ways in which you can co-market successfully. Are there other activities that you’ve carried out that have worked well for you, maybe an event or a particular campaign? Please share your thoughts below!

1. Be realistic

First of all you have to be realistic about the value of your business to the buyer. While you may have an emotional attachment to this enterprise that you sweated over and built up lovingly, to them it is a transaction… While they will want to retain the positive features of your business, the numbers will tell the main part of the story about the value of it. So no matter what valuation model you use in running the numbers, be realistic.

In relation to valuation methods, buyers may value your business using a number of methods. The oldest model is probably the multiple of revenue model, with this being replaced now by buyers using a multiple of the profitability of the business (usually excluding the business owner’s earnings) as this takes account of both revenues and costs within the business. However there is now a move towards using predictive models in relation to future cash flows with greater weight being given to cash flows that are seen as more “stick-able” than others.

2. Have a clear business proposition

A buyer will want to believe that he is getting more than his money’s worth when running the rule over your business. A very compelling business proposition will help to provide this comfort. For example, this may be strengthening the buyer’s position in their chosen market or indeed giving them access to a new market. It may be a unique expertise that your business offers or strength in attracting a particular target group of clients. If you’re not clear about these unique factors about your business, how can you expect a potential buyer to place value on them!

3. The level and persistency of business are important drivers

Of course the size of your business is a main factor. But so equally is the persistency of your revenue. Lapse rates have become a major issue for life companies and advice firms alike, so obviously persistency will significantly impact the price someone is willing to pay for your business. There is little value in a firm that can’t demonstrate an ability to build up a steady and durable revenue stream.

4. The quality of your client base is key

We all know that your clients are at the core of your business. They also are a key determinant of the value of your business. Can you demonstrate that you have been able to successfully infiltrate your chosen markets and that you have really engaged both these existing clients and indeed potential clients in the particular target group? A buyer will look for clients who are engaged by your organisation and indeed target groups who, while they may not be clients as yet, are aware of and potentially open to your business.

To achieve this, you’ll need to ensure that your sales and marketing processes really stand up to scrutiny.

5. Your service and compliance systems must be excellent

Potential purchasers also want to minimise the headaches involved in a purchase! They want to buy a well run business, that looks after its clients in a professional and engaging way and is compliant in everything that they do. In fact better still, they want to buy a business with potentially better processes and systems than their own! Who doesn’t want to buy best practices? So there’s a real opportunity to make your business more attractive to a buyer through utilising excellent business processes.

6. The quality of your staff is very important

While your clients are at the core of your business, your people are the heart and soul of it. They have the strong relationships with your clients, the expert skills that potentially are sought by a buyer and the capability to deliver brilliant service to attract and retain your clients and valuable income stream.

Or are some of your staff not an asset to you as you get into discussions with a potential buyer? If you are looking to sell, it might make sense to have that difficult conversation with your Great-aunt Maud who has been with you for the last 25 years and scares the living daylights out of everyone… A potential buyer may not appreciate her particular skills so you may need to have solutions in place for them in the event of a sale.

These are just some of the factors you might think about as you prepare your business for a potential sale. If you have any comments in relation to the above or indeed can identify any other factors, please leave your thoughts below.

Getting found
According to Search Engine Land in January 2013, 26% of searches on Google are now carried out on mobile devices. Research has also shown that in general, people searching the web on a phone are seeking out specific information; a phone number, other contact details, product information or maybe a price. They are not usually idly surfing the web. So what?

Well, this creates a real challenge for you. If a potential client searches for a financial adviser on their phone and clicks on a link to your site, let’s say looking for your contact details, what will they find? Will they find a web page where it’s not that easy to find what they are looking for, as it is your normal website “in miniature”? Are they likely to scroll around, resizing the page in order to be able to read it, to eventually find what they are looking for? Or are they likely to go to a more mobile friendly site?

To demonstrate the point, I’ve included screen grabs below taken from a phone, first of all of my own full website and then my mobile equivalent of it, that you actually see when searching on a phone. While the mobile site is not as attractive, the aim of it is to provide an easy route to the likely information being sought; an overview of services provided, my phone number etc.

If you landed on the full website, are you likely to bother resizing the page and searching for what you want? A growing number of advisers have recognised the need for a mobile friendly version of their website, or at a minimum a very large and clear phone number on the homepage of their website that make it easier for clients to contact you.

Present yourself professionally!
Tablets are great for presenting to clients in 1:1 meetings. They are so much better than laptops as they they can be put on the table between you and the client, and a presentation can then be flicked through. This is so much better than both of you huddling around a laptop screen! I strongly suggest that you prepare a short, visual presentation demonstrating how you add value to your clients and load it onto a tablet. This is a great way to introduce yourself to prospective clients at that all-important first meeting and gives you the opportunity to demonstrate how you are different to other advisers.

The process of doing this is very straightforward. Most people prepare the presentation on their desktop and then transfer it to their tablet, which is very easy to do.

Apps to engage your clients
A growing number of financial advisers have recognised how a well-thought out app can help you to engage your clients and establish yourself as a fixture on their phone or tablet. Some have developed great calculators to show for example pension shortfalls or amounts of protection benefits needed. These can be delivered with news feeds of relevant personal finance news. Others are using apps that provide policy information for clients. There are a range of ways in which apps can be used to support a financial adviser’s proposition.

One of the challenges to consider here is how you distribute your app with over 700,000 apps available now for both Apple and Android devices. It’s very easy to get lost. As a result, there is a growing trend in the development of web apps, which are apps for your mobile device that can be downloaded from your website.

Apps to help you work better
There are hundreds of apps that fit this category. Obviously a good place to start is with the the Apps developed by a number of the product providers and fund managers. These offer you useful calculators & good information at the touch of a button. I know advisers who swear by the Bloomberg app too. Other apps that are worth checking out are Retirement Dashboard Plus or the whole range of apps developed as loan calculators or present value of money calculators. Also check out goalGetter. It’s a bit raw but a very simple concept of working out how much you need to save to cover future expenses. Could you use this to help get clients thinking about future expenses?

In terms of more general apps specifically for business, there are probably 6 apps that make life a lot easier for me. These are,

• Dropbox: I use this to sync all my files across all devices and store them in the cloud. This makes life so much easier. However you need to be very security conscious using this, to ensure you keep your data safe.
• Pages: the iPad equivalent of MS Word. This article was created in Pages.
• iBooks: I use this for all my presentations which I save in iBooks as .pdf files
• iMindMap: I use this a lot, particularly when brainstorming and planning with clients.
• Reeder: I use this to quickly flick through all the content feeds that I monitor on the web.
• Pocket: I use this to store all the articles I want to keep for later to read – or to include in the “Around the Web” section of my newsletter.

I hope this article gets you thinking about the impacts mobile devices might have on your business. If you’ve any thoughts in this area or indeed have found any great apps for business, please leave your comments below.

The products…
Indeed, when it comes to protection products, a number of the product providers are helping advisers in this regard with the emergence and growing acceptance of new commission models that offer attractive spread commission options without the dreaded commission clawback in the event of policy lapses. This allows advisers to build up their ongoing revenue stream. Once the client continues to require (and can afford) the cover, and the adviser ensures that the cover in place continues to be the best available, the adviser stands every chance of this revenue continuing.

The situation in relation to pensions and investment is a bit more complex. Historically ongoing income only came from regular premium products in the form of renewal commission. However this situation has changed significantly in recent years with many advisers moving away from large upfront commission payments on both regular and single premium business, towards lower upfront payments (by commission or fee) and a share of the ongoing annual management charge (AMC) by a trail commission.

While building up revenue through trail is challenging in the early years while asset amounts are lower, this basis is obviously more attractive in the long run as the adviser’s funds under management grow. Trail also removes the dependence on future premiums for future remuneration. Trail is also easier to explain to a client as it aligns the interest of the adviser with that of the client. Both gain from growth in the funds.

Observations from abroad
While the UK market certainly doesn’t dictate what happens in Ireland, there are often changes in this market that are worth observing. It’s interesting to note that trail commission is outlawed on business written since the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) came into effect on 1st January this year. While this was done as part of breaking the link between products and adviser remuneration, time will tell over the next few years whether this was taking a hammer to crack a nut.

However a lesson that I believe we can certainly take from the UK is that to justify ongoing remuneration, be it by adviser charging in the UK or by trail or fees in Ireland, the client will rightly expect something back in return. In short, trail commission will have to be earned. In fact (with my final reference to the UK, I promise!), there was a case taken by a client against a wealth manager who had been paid £10K in trail, but who the client claimed had provided no value. Could this happen in Ireland? The answer is, why not. So you need to ensure this doesn’t happen to you by delivering and showing your ongoing value to the client.

A clear ongoing advice proposition
To do this, you need to have a clear ongoing value proposition for your clients. Ongoing work needs to be a core part of your proposition, not a “by the way” 10 second conversation at the end of the initial product implementation. Clients do not want to feel “sold to”. This is exactly how they will feel if you don’t have a strong ongoing advice proposition to offer them. Delivering this is a natural move for those advisers who are shifting their focus from a product sale approach to an advice based offering.

Apart from obviously reviewing a client’s financial plan and product portfolio to ensure they are still on track to achieve their objectives, a structured and well thought out review approach offers you a great opportunity to remind your clients where you’ve added value to them over the year. This is where you can remind them of the growth they’ve achieved in their investment portfolio that you put together for them, the tax they saved as a result of the retirement plan you designed for them, the money they saved by you restructuring their protection portfolio and health insurance etc. Indeed one of the great benefits for those advisers who provide future cash flow modelling for their clients is it creates a natural and very valuable engagement with the client every year.

Benefits for you!
You as an adviser also benefit as a structured and well thought out review will surface any cross-selling opportunities that may exist. However the critical benefit to you is the strengthening of your relationship with your client, increasing your chances of retaining the client as their assets under management, and in turn your trail commission, increase. Surely this is a better approach than just hoping the client won’t be tempted away by another adviser who simply undercuts your trail commission amount?

And of course one of the main aims of many advisers is to build up value in your business. This is best achieved by being able to demonstrate a strong, stable revenue stream. Now is the time to develop your ongoing advice proposition to help you build up this valuable revenue stream.

What do you believe are the critical factors to help you build up your ongoing revenue stream? All your comments are very welcome below.

While there are undoubtedly some who haven’t changed their sales development practices to reflect this new world, there are many advisers who have really dug in and changed their approach to maximise their opportunities. So what are these advisers doing differently today than they were doing 5 years ago to maximise their potential sales in this extremely difficult trading environment? Here are a few ideas;

Get active!

One feature in common of all the brokers I’ve spoken to, who are best dealing with the new sales environment is how pro-active they all are. Each of them have spoken to me about how they’re working harder now than they ever did, trying different activities to drive sales. They are not sitting in the office, sending off the odd email and making a few phone calls! These people are out putting themselves in the way of traffic; meeting people for coffee, networking, attending events, organising events, as well as putting their effort into a whole range of marketing activities.

Plan your activities

Another feature of these successful brokers is they are planning out their sales activities, not just going about them in an ad hoc fashion. Most of them have pretty limited financial resources for their sales activities so they are putting in the time and effort to plan in order to ensure they maximise their bang for buck.

These advisers are getting very clear on the target groups of new customers they believe offer the greatest opportunity for them and in relation to their existing clients, are identifying those individuals that offer the best chance of success. They are then mapping out the optimal set of sales activities for each and then religiously recording and measuring as they progress.

Be valuable

Another characteristic of advisers who succeed in this difficult market is that they’re seeking out every opportunity to add value. Typically this is through investing their time in order to build new relationships or further cement existing ones. These people are putting their hands up to speak at conferences, to give presentations to Chambers of Commerce, even in situations where there is no obvious benefit for them. They are also seeking out all opportunities to refer their clients to other clients. They are working on the premise that “what goes around, comes around”.

One adviser that I’ve been working with used to host a golf day for clients each summer. He has now replaced this with more informal games of golf, spread throughout the year. He fills the fourball with 3 people who potentially will transact business with each other. This has been really appreciated by clients, who recognise him as working in their interests and not his own. This approach costs less money, but does take up more time. However the goodwill to be gained makes it very worthwhile.

These people look to add and show value at every opportunity. When meeting with clients, communicating with them and when trying to build new relationships. They don’t focus on products or their own services; instead they are working out the issues their clients are grappling with and helping them address these. Their own sales opportunities inevitably follow.

It doesn’t have to cost a fortune!

These successful advisers are also putting their time into low cost but effective marketing channels. There are now loads of examples of brokers who are using email marketing and social media really effectively to get their sales messages out there. There are now thousands of financial advisers in Ireland with a presence on LinkedIn. However only a very small number are actually using it and getting value from it. There are also a growing number of examples of brokers who are using Twitter effectively, connecting well with hundreds (& sometimes thousands) of people who are following their insights. If these large groups of people find your musings valuable, there is a better than even chance that they might consider actually doing business with you in the future.

At the end of the day, it comes back to your deep desire to actually make it happen. Are you one of those whose energy is dropping in line with the economic environment or are you out changing your world yourself? Thankfully most of the advisers I meet are in the second camp!

If you’ve any thoughts or comments, I’d welcome them below.

While this approach of course will not work for everybody, there are very few who will disagree with the attractiveness of it, assuming that the adviser can build a strong enough revenue stream around it.

However before you can decide whether you and your business are the right fit for this attractive segment of the market (either to concentrate exclusively on it or as part of your client base), you need to understand some of the drivers behind this group of people. This article sets out some of the characteristics of HNW clients, what they look for and some thoughts on engaging successfully with them.

Who are they?

Well first of all, as a result of the economic turmoil, there are fewer HNW individuals around today as many have seen their investments decimated and of course, some now are saddled with significant personal debts.

However there is still a great swathe of people who fall into this category. While there is no strict definition of this group, a good rule of thumb might be individuals with between €100,000 and €1m in investible assets and a net worth of between €500,000 and €2.5m. Their investible assets will usually be held in a mix of pension funds, shares, property investments and some cash too.

While this group recognise that they have well-above average wealth, they usually identify a recurring number of financial challenges;

• They don’t feel wealthy: Yes, they have assets but they actually still recognise the financial challenges ahead and don’t take these lightly.
• Educating their children is a recognised challenge: Many HNW people will desire a private school education for their children (at least in secondary school) followed by a minimum of an undergraduate degree. With doubts about college fees in the future, many now recognise the need to plan for education fees for each child for a minimum of 10 years. A not inconsiderable sum.
• They worry about retirement: This is probably their biggest financial concern (and an obvious area of opportunity for financial advisers). They have a realistic sense of the asset base they need to build up in order to be able to maintain their desired lifestyle throughout their retirement.
• They want to leave an inheritance: On top of the above, they want to be able to leave an inheritance behind them, recognising the need for building their asset base, as well as having the required levels of life assurance in place.

What do they look for?

First and foremost, HNW people need to absolutely trust you. This won’t be achieved by messages on your website of honesty and integrity, instead it will be achieved by what others say about you, what you say and how you act, and your business proposition. They won’t want to deal with you if they feel they are being “sold to”.

Indeed in addition to the above point, they want someone who will recognise them as an andividual by getting a clear understanding of their financial goals and objectives, building a financial plan based around these and then implementing this plan in a transparent and collaborative manner.

Developing a financial roadmap for the client as opposed to simply recommending some products is a critical approach with HNW people.

How do you engage HNW people?

Picking up on the above points, there are a number of requirements in dealing with HNW individuals.

• Build trust: Spend time at the outset gaining their trust. Have client references that they will value, focus on testimonials, and show case studies of approaches you’ve used in the past to develop innovative solutions for other HNW clients. Show them how your business proposition places them at the core of how you advise and that products are merely a part of the solutions.
• Concentrate on financial planning: Very clearly divorce the development of the financial plan from the product sales piece. Spend time clarifying their financial objectives and structure the plan clearly around these. Jumping into products will only drive these people away.
• Recognise their concerns and address them: One of their big concerns is outliving their assets in retirement. Show them what this means in terms of the war chest they need to accumulate. Build into this picture their other concerns of funding education and leaving a legacy. Show them the size of the challenge – they will appreciate your candour!
• Be knowledgeable: HNW people are usually quite smart and have knowledge of a broad range of areas, as well as an ability to research topics on the Internet etc. They need to feel they are dealing with an expert. If there are highly technical areas in which you are not an expert, you need to build up your own trusted network of experts that you can seamlessly tap into for specialist advice, to ensure you are the conduit for your client gaining a holistic solution.
• Add value: Add value to them, when you are not “on the clock”. If you see an article that would be of interest to them, send it to them. They will appreciate your ongoing and continuing interest in their affairs.
• Be transparent: HNW individuals will expect full transparency from you in relation to all areas of their dealings with you. If they feel you are not being 100% open with them, they will quickly lose trust in you and will go elsewhere for advice.

These are a few thoughts in relation to increasing your chances of success with this important segment of the market. Is there anything else that you’ve found? Please feel free to leave your comments below.

Think Engagement

“Audiences everywhere are tough. They don’t have time to be bored or brow beaten by orthodox, old-fashioned advertising. We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in & be what people are interested in.”

Craig Davis, Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide, J. Walter Thompson (world’s 4^th largest ad agency)

The world of marketing for financial advisers is evolving in response to changing business and customer environments. Traditional marketing methods such as advertising, sponsorship, seminars, entertainment and direct marketing are no longer enough on their own.

“…as you’ve noticed people don’t want to be sold . What people do want is news and information about the things they care about.

Larry Weber, author of “Marketing to the Social Web”.

Inbound Marketing (or ’permission marketing’) looks at new marketing methods that earn the attention of’ prospects or customers. The aim is no longer to talk ‘at’ your customers. Now it’s important to engage customers, primarily by producing ‘content’ (often online) that customers value.

“If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing. If you’ve more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing”.

Guy Kawasaki, former Chief Evangelist, Apple.
So, the learning from these quotes for financial advisers is that you can’t always be in sales mode. Your marketing efforts need to look to engage your prospects, existing customers and other contacts to earn you their ear as someone to be listened to. If they view you as a financial advice expert, they are then more likely to consult you as their own financial advice needs emerge.

Clarify your Proposition

One of the areas of greatest opportunity I see for financial advisers when it comes to marketing is in clarifying and communicating their value proposition. To my mind, you have to nail your first meeting with a client. You’ve got to be able to show them and leave them in no doubt that you are the only financial adviser for them.

You won’t do this by diving into the fact find! Instead, you’ll win their attention by taking time to walk them through your points of difference and the methodology you are going to use to improve their financial health. Show this visually, take time over it, prove your worth to them.

Capture your Data Religiously

Your data is the enabler of your marketing efforts. Without relevant data, you are restricted in the activities that you can carry out and then unable to measure the success of activities. I see poor data among some Financial Advisers in two areas in particular. The first is not having email addresses for all of your clients. This really limits you in your marketing efforts as email offers a very effective, easy and low cost way to get messages in front of your clients. If done well, email marketing can be very effective.

The second area of poor data that I encounter is in relation to the source of leads. Many Financial Advisers feel that they intuitively know where their leads came from but cannot back this up with hard data. Often when data starts to be recorded, the results really surprise them! Recording the source of leads is really important, as it is a strong guide when trying to decide which marketing activities to repeat in the future.

Develop a Stockpile of Quality Content Ideas

Another challenge that many Financial Advisers face (who have bought into the merits of Inbound Marketing) is developing a consistent stream of quality content for their repeating marketing activities. This arises with websites, newsletters, blogs and other social media activities. Also, fresh content is a core requirement for a successful Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy. We’ve all seen the first issue of a newsletter that is really very impressive but that is just not followed up by future editions. Often this is as a result of the author struggling for ideas for content for the subsequent issues.

I suggest that you should capture the titles and key points of your first 5 or 6 editions before you start the activity at all. This will help you to avoid “writer’s block” when you sit down to pen the future editions of your communication.

Finally, put the effort into ensuring the quality of your writing. Put the effort into writing engaging content, but more importantly, make sure your grammar and spelling are 100% accurate. Otherwise, get someone to do it for you.

Harness the Power of LinkedIn

Social media has exploded onto the scene over the last few years. Central to this for Financial Advisers is LinkedIn, which offers great opportunities for them to connect with existing and prospective clients. Financial Advisers who aren’t on LinkedIn are at a serious disadvantage in terms of the missed opportunities to research potential clients and to connect and add value to prospective and existing clients.

For those who are using LinkedIn, make sure it doesn’t just become a glorified address book! LinkedIn offers so many opportunities to engage your contacts through sharing value-adding content that will keep you top of mind with them in relation to financial matters. So, complete your profile fully, build up your connections and then add value those connections to stand out from the crowd!

I hope these few, simple ideas were useful to you. Please feel free to leave any comments below or share the article with others.

B2B selling requires a different skill set than that needed to successfully advise consumers.  This article attempts to identify those skills needed. Hopefully they will help you re-awaken some of your own dormant skills or indeed might help you if you are hiring someone to develop your business client base. Also, excellent account managers working for product providers, promoting their products to financial advisers, also demonstrate these attributes.

So what does it take to build up your corporate client base?

Research capability

Good B2B salespeople will never approach a potential customer without carrying out detailed research of the company. While it might be ok (but certainly not preferable) to meet an individual and know little about them, this won’t work with companies. As there are so many rich sources of information now with websites, LinkedIn profiles and company reports available, you need to use them! As you set out to impress a potential company, you had better be able to confidently articulate how your proposition will be an excellent fit to meet their needs. To do so, you need to know their business.

Be a good listener

However I’m not suggesting in the previous section that you arrive with your pre-prepared solutions to the company’s problems because you’ve first of all got to find out what they are. Don’t dive into solutions! You need to start with strong questioning and close listening to ensure that the solution you eventually propose will address the right problem. Lots of “Open” questions needed here!

Ability to interact at multiple levels

Financial advisers who are dealing with business clients will typically begin a corporate relationship through CEOs, business owners, finance directors or HR directors. These people will share some common characteristics. First of all they usually have pretty good knowledge of their financial services needs as they will have covered the subject areas previously or indeed will have researched the areas themselves. Secondly they have very little time on their hands and they don’t suffer fools gladly! So if you want to be successful, make sure you are on top of your game when it comes to your advice proposition and product knowledge and get to the point – be professional and business-like at all times.

However this is not about being high-brow. If you gain a business client, you need to be able to engage with people right throughout the company, to empathise and build relationships at all levels of the organisation. Your relationship with the company will ultimately fail if you get on great with the finance director but no one else wants to do business with you. So deal appropriately with everyone throughout the company.

Be a problem solver

Company clients will expect you to make their lives easier, to add value both in terms of financial benefits for them and also in terms of addressing any problems quickly. They will expect you to proactively address any issues they might have with any financial institution and to solve these problems quickly and effectively. So basically you need to be more than a salesperson. You need to be a service agent too who will add value to the relationship on an on-going basis. If they feel that they have been left to manage issues themselves, they will question your value and ultimately replace you.

Corporate clients will expect you to be resilient, to manage stressful situations and then to come back looking for more problems to solve!

Use technology and innovative solutions

Business clients will typically use technology in many areas of their business to help them reduce cost and improve efficiency. They will expect no less from you. They will value access to key information online and the use of technology to make on-going servicing easier. And they will expect you to continue to seek out more innovative solutions for them, both in terms of your actual advice and product propositions and also in terms of your service to them.

The best financial advisers dealing with B2B clients realise that this area is not just the responsibility of product providers but an area in which they can actually differentiate themselves.  I’m seeing this in systems being used by advisers to identify the emotional factors influencing individual investors, risk profiling tools, fact finding tools and of course CRM tools.

Highest ethics and integrity

Most companies place huge store in their reputation and actively seek to have a positive impact on their employees, customers and community. While this is of course the right thing to do, they also recognise the benefits they gain through better engagement with these groups, which ultimately will yield financial benefits. As an example, Corporate Social Responsibility programmes are very important processes within a lot of companies today.

The last thing these employers will want is to introduce an adviser who doesn’t share these aspirations. So never let your high ethical standards slip.

These are some of the characteristics I’ve seen in the best B2B salespeople I’ve encountered in both financial advice firms and in life companies. I hope they describe you to a tee!

Are there other characteristics? Please feel free to leave comments below.