Episode Transcription 

 This is the ultimate advisor Podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful and scalable practice. Each week, we’ll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals, your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets and create the advising practice that you’ve dreamed of. You’ll be joined by our hosts, Brian sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practices marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let’s jump in to another amazing episode of The Ultimate advisor podcast.

Brittany Anderson here. Welcome back to The Ultimate advisor podcast, we are going to start off on quite the note today I’m going to take you on a little walk. So imagine that you are on a blind date, you’ve been set up by a trusted friend. So there’s some credibility behind this person, you’re on this date, things are going well, you’re getting to know each other, you’re feeling pretty good about it. And at the end of the date, the person that you are with says, You know what, this has gone so well. I really like you, I’m just a great person to Let’s get married, I think you might be a little bit creeped out. That’s a little awkward, it’s presumptuous, it’s just plain weird. Well, that, my friends is one of the biggest mistakes that people make in their marketing, you have to date your prospect, you have to get to know them, you have to solve some of their problems, you have to let them have time to get to know you. So rather than going in bold and brazen, and asking for that sale right away, you’ve really got to give them a chance to figure out how you’re going to fit into their lives. So that is what we are talking about. Today, we’re going to talk about the benefits of a nurture sequence, we’re going to talk about how you can nurture your prospects and your clients alike, to really warm up that relationship. So then when you do come in, and ask them to engage with you fully. It’s not weird, it’s not that awkward first date marriage proposal. So that’s what we’re going to touch on today. One thing that I want to point out too, is that you really need to, in your nurture in in that communication, you want to make it clear how you can solve their problems, right? So we touched on that in the last episode, about automating your avatar, how you really identify who it is that you work with best. And then you put different solutions in front of them. So when the time comes, they raise their hand and say, Hey, so And so Mr. Financial Advisor, Mrs. Financial Advisor, they’ve got my solution, right, I have this problem, they’re able to help me work through it. So this is why we’re going to talk about the nurture sequence. This is why it’s so important. Now, before we get it, I want to actually give you a real life example of something that we’ve done at Sweet financial services that has been really impactful just in recent months. So as we mentioned, in the last episode, we hired a copywriting company to come in and go really deep with us on our avatar, get really deep on not just what we’re putting in front of prospects, but also our existing clientele. Now our tagline at Sweet financial is it’s your dream, we’ll help you get there. Right? So it’s all about them. It’s what is your dream retirement look like? You paint that picture? Because it’s your retirement, it’s not ours, but then we’ll help you bring that to life. Right, we’ll help you make that a reality. So what we did is we decided, hey, out of all of our clients, we don’t have that that dream ideal painted for every single person. So what’s something that we can do aside from having those face to face conversations when they’re in for reviews? What’s something that we can do to really go deep with them when we’re not in front of them? Right, so how can we do that in a more automated way? So something that we did is we put questions into our nurture sequence into the weekly emails that we send out to our existing client base that poses things like Hey, what is your dream day in retirement? What is your dream look like? You tell us you paint this picture. So what we found how
Funding is that people who we have had long standing relationships with who we thought that we knew the bread and butter, the bulk of what we needed to know about them, all of a sudden, they’re responding to these automated emails, giving us a deep dive into what their ideal day looks like, and to what their ideal retirement into some of the activities that they want to be doing at this stage in their life. So it’s kind of amazing when you have the right copy and the right sequence, the right messaging strategy, and how you can get even your best clients to open up on a whole different level. So that is one thing I wanted to point out before we kind of go into this deep dive is that a nurture sequence is not only for that new prospect is not only for that new person that you’re dating, per se, right? It’s also about your existing clientele. It’s about how you can go deeper with the people that you already serve. But again, in an automated way, because the bottom line is, is you only have so many hours in a day, you only have so much time, you can’t necessarily be picking up the phone, asking every single one of your clients to describe their ideal day number one, you’re going to catch them off guard. Number two, that could go into a very lengthy conversation. So you want to figure out how you can get that same message as that same message put together, how you can get that same message in front of people, but do it in a very automated way, so that you’re drawing that data out. So there are a couple of different ways that you can go about this. You can do like we did it sweet financial, you can hire one of the best copywriters out there to help really draw out some of that content to really go deep. As part of our coaching platform with ultimate advisor coaching, we do have email sequences that we can help you with, they’re a little bit more templated. Because in order to do a really custom job, you have to hire somebody that does that every single day, we do have something built, though within our program that if you wanted to just get started, get your feet wet with it, we do have a sequence built out. So there are different ways that you can go about this, to accomplish that same end goal. So Brian, I thought that you would be a great one to kick us off just to give some examples of kind of what you’ve learned, by doing the deep dive with our copy by changing some of the ways that we communicate with our clients and prospects at suite financial services. So Brian, I’m going to kick it off to you and have you go touch on a little bit of that, and what we’ve done at Sweet financial.

I would tell you that that’s really interesting. And a couple of things as it relates to copy is it’s amazing the difference, just the use of the correct word in a sentence makes in the response that you would get. And I would tell you that the reason we hired a copywriter is one we wanted to get our true feel of who we are out. But we also wanted to make sure we were giving the message the best representation of how
you know who it is and how it represents us. And one of the great things Brittany, you had alluded to earlier that we do have some email sequences that we have as part of the coaching program. neat thing about that is there already compliance approve, which is one of the issues that we always have to run into. And another thing I’ll mention real quickly, and then I’ll get into some examples here is we think this copywriting is such a
interesting and needed thing, we’re going to actually have our copy writer on the podcast sometime. And I think you’ll find that to be a really interesting episode. But a couple of things. Brittany alluded to, you know, the lack of time to stay in touch. So we use these nurturing sequences, one for our existing clients. And we just whatever the message is, we with our three niches that we have, we have an ongoing information campaign that we send out periodically, it’s all automated, once it’s created, it just gets sent out without us having to do anything. One, it keeps our name in front of clients, it might notify our clients of a new service or a new area that we haven’t worked with them. And it also saves our team and time having to physically call the clients all the time. And it’s just a great way of maximizing the amount of information that you can get to a client in the least amount of time. The other is we have all sorts of these nurturing campaigns for clients in this 60 mile radius that we’re trying to draw new clients from. And we have a program that we’re offering second opinion to your particular financial situation, and we run different versions of that. And it’s just a great way to get your name out. And once again, get the information out so that when they’re ready, or when that problem comes up, they remember that they heard something, they saw something, read something from you. And that’s when they can actually touch base. And as we alluded to, in a prior episode, you know, it takes more than one or two times for a client to feel comfortable with you. And that was actually very creepy, Britney on the, let’s have one date and get get married. So, but it’s a realistic thought, as to if you really think about it, you know, if you put a message out there, and that’s the first time clients have ever been introduced to you, it’s gonna take a while before they entrust you with all of your all of their money or all their planning circumstances. So it’s just, you got to find ways of getting the message out repeatedly. And if you’re trying to do it without having to have lots of lots of manpower, I found that this to be an exceptionally easy way of doing it. And it’s a great way for you to be able to scale your company without having to hire dozens of people for just staying in touch. Draye what other thoughts do you have?

There’s so many things like wonderful things that you guys have just shared right, then I think what I would like just like to more or less weigh in on is what these nurture sequences can do is really take your prospect from cold to warm to hot as a lead because no one comes in just wanting to immediately roll over their entire portfolio just because they met you once or they saw a billboard ad or saw your ad in a magazine or wherever. It’s just it’s not a reality. And maybe if it does happen, it’s, you know, few and far between. So what the sequences can do is really warm them up over those more and more impressions to go from cold to warm being they’re more interested to hot, like they’re really interested in actually then, you know, hiring you or engaging you for your services. One of the important distinctions that I like to make is that many advisors see if someone says, you know, no, like, I’m not interested right now as that’s a no forever. And that’s not necessarily the case, because someone may have just had someone who passed away, they’re dealing with a business crisis or challenge, they’re having a family issue, it could be one of 10,000 different things. And changing financial advisors are just like, too overwhelming at this minute. So no doesn’t necessarily mean no forever, it just means no for right now. And so if you can take that person who’s most likely cold, and move them to warm, and then move them to hot, by sharing this information that Brian and Brittany have have talked about with you, it really goes a long way. And it’s automated. So you don’t have to manually follow up with all of these people, it just takes a lot of that burden off of your plate. And they also alluded to a few other things there that I like to unpack of the ways that you can actually get to know these people better, whether they’re existing clients or prospects by having very distinct call to actions or CTAs, at the end of these emails, and so one of them could be, you know, the email could just be basically sharing info and content, there’s no may be no call to action. It’s just like, I hope that this adds value to your life. Maybe the call to action is you click on this link to go read more at this blog post. Great. Another one that Brittany mentioned is, you know, at the bottom of the email saying like, you know, hit reply and let us know what your, you know, top 10 dreams or ideals are for retirement so that you create more of an engagement and more of a conversation using this automated email, which when they reply, then you can obviously manually have that conversation with but you don’t have to spend time, waste energy or follow up without having to even worry about it. Because it was done for you that call to action that CTA can alleviate some of that burden, start that conversation. You could also have a CTA at the end there that would be schedule a 15 minute discovery call if they’re a prospect or if it’s early on in that sequence, or if they need help or support. Or maybe you haven’t, you know automated for an annual review, you could have that call to action at the end of that email, go to one of your calendar automation pages where basically you could send them to a page, there’s a personalized video from you saying, Hey, this is Draye I’m really looking forward to our annual review on a review we’re going to go over your goals and talk about how we can best support you and your financial goals over the next year. So on and so forth, where then they can then book a spot for the day and time on your calendar. That sounds super, you know out there and there’s you know, I don’t know where I would even start. You don’t have to know that’s actually one of the bonuses that we give away in our ultimate advisor coaching program. Iif you’re interested in those sorts of things, and I love it, I record, I recommend it all the time, largely because it does create a massive personalization with that potential potential prospect or a client that you can use to create a deepening or deeper rapport that makes it almost feel like you’re communicating with them one to one. And not necessarily like you’re sending in a blanket and emails. So it really helps, you know, take that process to the next step. And the next level, largely by creating more of that personalization in these nurture sequences with specific, customized and altered call to actions, though CTA is at the end of your email, so you have more of a distinction, you’re taking them through cold to warm to hot, and you’re really creating more ways that they can engage with you interact with you, and then really tee up that relationship for the next level. So, Brian, any sort of closing thoughts there, as we round out some of that automation side of things, if there’s any gaps you want to fill in.

I would just say that your concept of people saying no is not permanent, was something that I guess I should have probably alluded to long time ago. It I’ve got so many examples over the last 40 years, where, you know, you touch base and touch base. And you know, you just kind of got to the point where you said, they’re probably never going to do business with me. And all of a sudden, some circumstance came up in their life, and the phone rings. And it’s just keeping front of mind with them until that right moment. And you have no control over what that right moment is or when it will be. And so I think the point of this whole episode is, you know, you have to be in front of clients, and you have to be in front of prospects as often as you can. And it’s really difficult to do that, unless you automate that process and have something going on where that message gets out the same message the same time delivered the same format. And I think that’s really the call of the episode today is do you do everything in an automated process. And if you don’t, would that be helpful to your practice to get your message out more often in a similar format that hits your avatar more correctly, with the proper copy that’s written specifically to their needs and their issues. And that’s why I think today was so important, because these are things we don’t think about. And as Brittany alluded to the prior episode, you know, one of the top financial advising firms in the country, their website didn’t meet their avatar. And, you know, until you go through some of these things, you just don’t realize that. So this stuff is all so important. And hopefully, you got a lot out of the out of the podcast today. And that, with that, I’m going to close but I was going to introduce a little bit about what we’re going to do next week. And it is really kind of near and dear to my heart. It’s, you know, how do you 10x yourself. And I will tell you that you’re normally here to x and like to grow two times. And I think what you’re going to find is actually doing a 10x is easier than a 2x. And so I look forward to that, bringing that discussion to the next podcast and wish everybody well and see you next week.

Hey there, Brittany Anderson here. If you are loving what you’re hearing on our ultimate advisor podcast, don’t keep us a secret. Share us with other advisors that you think would benefit from the messages that you are hearing. The easiest way to do that is to simply send them to ultimate advisor podcast.com. And if you want to learn a few other ways that we could potentially serve you as an advisor, go check out ultimate advisor mastermind.com. As always, we are so happy to have you here with us as part of the ultimate advisor community and we look forward to a continued relationship