Episode 38 – 4 Questions to Discover Your Advisor Story



Kirk and Matt know the importance of a good story in branding. Together they’ll walk you through the 4 main questions to create your own branding story – building your credibility and trust.

WANT A BETTER ADVISOR BRAND? DON’T DELAY. GET IT RIGHT…NOW.

BRAND MASTERY COURSE  | ADVISORU


Episode 37 – Death By Referrals (Part 3/3)



In this episode Kirk and Matt dive into the final component of Death By Referrals – How to inspire referrals. In order to get referrals two things need to happen – you need to build trust and you need to be online. Whether it’s a blog, podcast, social or a standby white paper, get yourself accredited on the internet. This will give you the momentum to start Intriguing, Engaging, Influencing and Attracting your ideal clients.

DOWNLOAD PAPER, “DEATH BY REFERRALS” HERE


Episode 36 – Warrior Advisors Have Laser-Like Focus w Olympian, Paul Kingsman



Kirk and Matt are joined by Paul Kingsman. Paul wrote the book, “The Distraction Proof Advisors”. He speaks to, writes and coaches top advisors on how to pursue and achieve a laser-like focus. Paul shares four common ways advisors get distracted and how that distracts them from generating more revenue, more profit, more client time, more personal time and more fun in their practices. Paul also shares his experience competing in the 1988 Olympics and how it shaped his coaching business.

PAUL KINGSMAN ON LINKEDIN | BOOK, THE DISTRACTION-PROOF ADVISOR” | WEBSITE


Episode 35 – A Letter from an Advisor to a Wholesaler with Frank Maselli



Frank Maselli joins Kirk and Matt to review commentary Frank shared on LinkedIn a few years ago that went viral in the finserv industry. They discuss why it went viral, how it changed Frank’s career and how Frank’s view of the  Advisor-Wholesaler relationship defines what financial services should be about – helping one another succeed. There are some great lessons for advisors and how you communicate/work with your clients.

FRANK ON LINKEDIN | FRANK’S WEBSITE | FRANK’S LETTER | KIRK’S LETTER


Episode 34 – Death By Referrals (Part 2/3)



Kirk and Matt discuss five ways Advisors may be killing their practice with referrals. They aslo get into the key reasons clients refer and how this impacts an advisor’s referral-mindset, and how they attract more referrals, especially ideal ones. This is Part 2 of a series of 3 podcasts.

DOWNLOAD PAPER, “DEATH BY REFERRALS” HERE


Episode 33 – Death By Referrals (Part 1/3)



Kirk and Matt reflect on the importance of referrals in an advisor’s practice. They get into how to embrace a new referral mindset, “the pursuit of referral happiness”, the fundamentals of good referral marketing, and what it takes to turn the referral tap on and get the best leads. This is Part 1 of a series of 3 podcasts.

DOWNLOAD PAPER, “DEATH BY REFERRALS” HERE


Episode 32 – How To Leverage Impact Investing In Your Practice with Sonya Dreizler



Sonya defines Impact Investing (also known as SRI, ESG…) and it’s growing role in an advisor’s practice. Sonya breaks down the jargon and acronyms popping up in this new area of responsible investing and steps advisors need to consider to begin understanding, talking with clients about and implementing into their practice.

LINKS: LINKEDIN | WEBSITE


Episode 31 – The Demise of Prospecting



Referrals are down, or at least that’s what a recent report is suggesting. Why? Kirk and Matt get into the dirt with advisor prospecting. Advisors are at a critical stage of their careers and practice maturity; how to attract ideal prospects, be more profitable and have more fun. Kirk and Matt redefine what a “referral” is, the mindset needed to inspire and attract, and tactics you can use to get more.


Episode 30 – Why Women Leave Their Financial Advisors



Did you know 80% of women leave their fiancial advisor when they lose their husbands? Judy Paradi and Paulette Filion join Matt and Kirk to discuss four reasons women leave their advisors and then list simple ways to engage women to grow a stronger, woman/friendly practice. What’s interesting too is that the characteristics of a woman-friendly practice/relationsip also apply to having a better practice in general.

LINKS: JUDY PARADI | PAULETTE FILION | STRATEGY MARKETING WEBSITE


Episode 29 – 5 Questions Advisors Ask About Connecting with HNW Prospects (w John Frankot)



Matt and Kirk chat with John Frankot of Triple-R-Media about five common questions advisors ask John about connecting with and attracting high net worth prospects. John defines what a true HNW prospect is and addresses advisors’ insecurities about working with the HNW. We also discuss simple tactics to find, approach and engage the HNW market most advisors aspire to work with.

LINKS: JOHN FRANKOT | LIFE REFINED MAGAZINE 


Episode 28 – Why Advisors Should Care About Behavioral Finance



Prasad Ramani, founder of Syntoniq, joins us to discuss the simple and compelling applications of behavioral finance in an advisor’s practice and a client’s life. Prasad discusses: why is BF important, how does it impact client investment behavior, why is it a factor when it comes to business development, and how BF can be used to develop and strength relationships with new and existing clients.

LINKEDIN | BIO | WEBSITE | TAKE BF ASSESSMENT


Episode 27 – The #1 Selling Mistake Keeping Advisors From Earning Serious Money w Jimmy Lyons & Jeff Tompkins



AdvisorConnects’s Jimmy Lyons and Jeff Tompkins join Matt Halloran for a discussion on ways advisors can adopt technology to make their practice and lives better. In the age of digital fatigue, advisors need to find how to connect technology to simplify how it works, how much it costs and how it can give them more time, not less.

LINKS: AdvisorConnect.co | LINKEDIN (Jimmy) | LINKEDIN (Jeff)


Episode 26- 5 Excuses That Kill Your Marketing Success



Dear advisors, you’re amazing. But…but, you need help overcoming decisions, situations and thinking that has you stuck in ineffective marketing and prospecting. Respectfully, Kirk and Matt help you analyze and overcome five key obstacles and situations that are killing your marketing. If you’re marketing isn’t highly effective and easy to manage, you need to listen to this podcast. We’ll clarify how to move past simple and common obstacles (excuses) that are stealing your focus and success. We’ll help you uncover how to co-brand, the value of simple marketing and more.


Episode 25 – The Mental Side of Marketing



Dr. Jack Singer has worked with professional athletes, Olympians and advisors. We’ll talk about how advisors need to have mental toughness just like athletes. Dr. Jack will also share tips on how to enhance your mental toughness to be more successful.

LINKEDIN | WEBSITE

GUEST BIO:

Dr. Jack Singer is a world-renowned psychologist, author, trainer and professional speaker. Dr. Jack has been in private practice and consulting for 33 years. He has worked with many professional athletes, teams, and olympians. In 2008 Dr. Jack started working with financial advisors: creating programs, speaking and one-on-one coaching.


Episode 24 – How to Leverage Talent in Your Practice



Amy Kizer shares her experiences helping advisors hire good people to work in their practices. Amy gets into common mistakes advisors make when hiring, obstacles that keep them from making good decisions for their practice, and how to conduct a job interview (your questions and process for hiring).

GUEST BIO: TALENTLINK | LINKEDIN

Amy Kizer has spent her career supporting companies, managers and advisors with hiring decisions. Amy co-founded TalentLink Solutions in 2014. TalentLink provides consulting and direct hire services to financial companies including advisorys practice and BDs.


Episode 23 – How to Start Your Own Financial Podcast



Podcasting has been steadily growing for years at a rate of 10-20%. It’s not a fad. In 2016, 112 million Americans listened to podcasts. Matt and Kirk discuss their experience getting a quality podcast off the ground. The reasons to start, the benefits to your business, the hardware and software equipment you’ll need and how to launch your podcast to your target audience.

SLIDES | PAPER, “A Complete Guide to Starting A Podcast”


Episode 22 – John Anderson’s “4 Ways to Create Positive Client Experiences (and get more referrals)”



John Anderson joins us again to talk about creating positive client experiences in your practice. John starts with a reality check for advisors with a few critical questions. John shares insight on the need to address how you approach referrals in your practice. He also discusses why it’s important to focus on what you can control and how you can do that by changing your focus.

We recorded this show live at SEI’s Strategic Advisor Conference in Chicago in May 2017.

GUEST BIO:

John Anderson is the creator and lead author of Practically Speaking blog and Managing Director of Practice Management Solutions for the SEI Advisor Network.

Original Blog Post is here.


Episode 21 – Kirk Lowe’s 10 Favorite Marketing Tools



Episode 21 will knock your socks off. Kirk shares the marketing productivity tools he’s researched and tested that make his days go smoother and advisor marketing more productive. Good tools allow you to pursue marketing you either can’t afford, or don’t have the expertise or time to create and implement. Listen to the whole podcast for clear insights on how to leverage each of the these tools and possibly change your practice forever. Or…you can just hire Kirk’s marketing team at TactiBrand.


Episode 20 – “5 Communication Faux Pas, Missteps and Mistakes” by Renee Walker, Marketing Strategist



Matt, Kirk and Renee talk about branding, marketing and how to help advisors improve marketing communications. Renee shares her “5 Communication Faux Pas, Missteps and Mistakes”. Advisors need to avoid making these mistakes to enhance their marketing success. Renee has an interesting background having worked with politicians for years helping them with marketing communciations and branding.

GUEST BIO: Ensightium  | LinkedIn

Renée T. Walker has earned many titles: brand whiz, business and communication strategist, entrepreneur, author, speaker, business and executive coach, accredited public relations pro. Her wisdom and insights on strategic communications, brand building and reputation management help her growth-stage clients accelerate results and solve complex business challenges.


Episode 19 – Get to Know Doug Heikkinen at IRIS.xyz



Doug chats about his incredible financial content and media platform (IRIS.xyz) – and how and why he got started. Doug talks about the advent of financial planning too- great story. IRIS is an incredible platform (community) for advisors to learn and share their content. You’ll want to listen to this podcast then check IRIS out.

GUEST BIO:

IRIS.XYZ | LINKEDIN

Douglas Heikkinen brings over 25 years of experience as a marketing and communications professional and a client-side procurer of information and services to the financial sector and others. He is a defector from the corporate world, taking with him a thorough understanding of the mindset of capital business.


Episode 18 – 5 Clues Your Marketing May Fail (with John Anderson of SEI, Practically Speaking Blog)



“Too often, I meet with advisors who think of marketing as an afterthought or a “nice to have,” instead of a “have to have.” Marketing is seen as an expense, rather than an investment. Even worse, marketing is something that starts and stops for these advisors, sometimes on a whim or after a client loss. Mostly, I see marketing that has an inconsistent message or misses the target audience (if there is one).” – John Anderson, SEI

GUEST BIO:

John Anderson is the creator and lead author of Practically Speaking blog and Managing Director of Practice Management Solutions for the SEI Advisor Network.

Original Blog Post is here.


Episode 17 – Top 9 Advisor Marketing Insights from SEI Conference 2017



Matt and Kirk attended the SEI Strategic Advisor Conference in May 2017. They recorded the top 9 marketing insights they heard from advisors dialoguing with them at the TactiBrand Kiosk.

SEI ran a fantastic conference and the advisors were very engaged. Great group of professionals. Thanks to you all for a great experience – and for listening to our presentation, kiosk rants and now this podcast.

Go to SEIC.com for more info on this great company with a robust investment and practice management offering for advisors.


Episode 16 – 270 Days to a Better Practice; Better Clients, More Fun, More Time and More Money



In order to get to the point where you enjoy better clients, more fun, more, money, more time, and essentially a better practice, you have to put in the time necessary. Taking shortcuts and not establishing the foundation for good marketing will just hurt you in the long run. These 270 days can be separated in 90 days each and they will guide the marketing you build and how it plays off one another. Realistically, it won’t really take you exactly 90 days but these concepts show that it takes some time to build everything up.

“If you want to build anything great, you’ve got to break it into incremental steps.” – Kirk Lowe


Episode 15 – Get to Know Susan Bradley & Sudden Money Institute



Susan discusses her journey to being the foremost expert on transition planning. She relays the importance of advisors’ role in helping people with sudden money and describes the “Financial Transitionist” role, training and credential.

LINKS:

SuddenMoney.com | Book, “Sudden Money: Managing a Financial Windfall

GUEST BIO:

Susan Bradley is the founder of the Sudden Money® Institute (SMI), a resource center for Life Transitions and Good Decisions. The Institute trains financial advisors and other professionals in Financial Transitions Planning, a unique set of process and tools for managing the human dynamics of financial change.  Susan is the author of Sudden Money: Managing a Financial Windfall (Wiley 2000).


Episode 14 – How 4 Frogs and 1 Elephant Can Help You Attract Ideal Prospects



Marketing is often the weak link in an advisors practice and it’s almost always the first “expense’ that gets cut or the first “task” that falls off the plate. There are simple strategies and tactics that often get started and stopped over and over. It’s a cycle of marketing misfortune. We discuss these 4 simple tactics and 1 big strategy to move your business forward.


Episode 12 – 9 Outcomes of a Great Advisor Brand



Branding separates you from the pack – the sea of sameness so many advisors swim in daily. Branding makes every marketing tactic more effective and your overall marketing strategy more efficient – less is more. A good advisor brand pays in many ways. Here are nine outcomes you should expect from a good brand.


Episode 11 – 5 Steps to Creating Great Content



The right content is critical to creating trust, influence, and inspiring new business opportunities. In my experience, it’s taken over as the key online marketing strategy. Yet, so many advisors lack the time, ability and/or resources to pull it off and achieve the results they expect. The most obvious obstacle impacting financial advisors struggle with content creation is that they don’t have a process. Advisors need a process to be better at producing expert financial content. A well-thought out process can help you on your journey to become a financial influencer and inspire lots of referrals (ideal prospect leads).


Episode 10 – Get to Know Robert Sofia & Snappy Kraken’s Marketing Platform



Advisors can’t build good marketing while considering how to make “compliance” happy. It’s better to start with what will work then work backwards to get compliance on board or to make small concessions. Lots more financial marketing and success nuggets throughout this podcast.

Robert launched a platform to help advisors automate many parts of their business (prospecting, client experience, client communication, prospect mgmt) so advisors can focus on the only thing they can’t outsource of automate, meeting with clients. Lots of great insight into Snappy Kraken’s platform.

Mentions: Robert Sofia, Snappy Kraken

GUEST BIO:

Robert Sofia founded Snappy Kraken, a SaaS marketing solution that helps financial advisors personalize, automate, and track marketing campaigns and business processes. SnappyKraken.com


Episode 9 – 7 Keys to an Ultra Effective Advisor Website



Your financial advisor website is an opportunity to make a series of impressions with your audience. What eludes most advisors regarding their website design is the winning formula to make it better than the average advisor website. We discuss seven must-haves for a more effective website. Featuring marketing expert, Kirk Lowe |WOW Website Formula


Episode 8 – Getting to Know Sheryl Brown of Ash Brokerage



Sheryl shares her passion for business development, life, financial literacy and a better world. She talks about how Advisors are too often caught up in finspeak (financial industry jargon) to truly connect with, engage and influence the masses of seemingly uninterested investors, how important listening is to selling, and how Advisors rarely adopt and adapt to the what the leading thinkers in this industry are talking about, doing and succeeding at.

Peer book Sheryl referenced: Flirting With The Uninterested

GUEST BIO:

Director of the Business Development Analyst Team at Ash Brokerage. Passionate business development and social media expert. Helps financial professionals expand their influence and grow their businesses. Connect with her on LinkedIn.


Episode 7 – 5 Big Marketing Mistakes Advisors Make



How to get out from the failed marketing that got you to this podcast. Successful marketing starts by having a better marketing mindset – a framework if you will. The first failed marketing practice is trying to do what others are doing assuming it will work for you. Listen to four more massive marketing mistakes advisors make.


Episode 6 – The Importance of Making Small, Cummulative Impressions



There are many opportunities, certainly more than one, to create an impression with clients. These days it’s a collection of “impressions” that develop the ONE important impression. This is why a brand and great marketing are so important, you’re always on the clock trying to make small impressions to eventually lead to that ONE BIG impression, to get you to “you rock”.


Episode 5 – The Real Scoop on Inspiring Referrals



Advisors have been misled by the promise of a referral program to boost their referral engagements. Referrals don’t happen authentically when you ask; and no client these days is falling for the BS tactics and scripts. If you want more referrals you need to, first and foremost, earn them. Secondly, you need to find ways to inspire people to want to refer you. Make it fun, professional and super easy to do so. In this episode we also talk about why clients refer – it might not be what you think.


Episode 4 – The Pursuit of Absolute Engagement w/Julie Littlechild



Human beings aren’t equipped with unlimited battery backs. The growth of our businesses goes hand-in-hand with our personal wellbeing. How does personal vision fit into business vision? How do you build a business that supports the life you want for yourself? Why is audacity necessary in achievement and action? On this episode, author, speaker and coach talks about her book The Pursuit of Absolute Engagement and gives insight on the principles she wrote about.

To pursue absolute engagement is to be intentional about structuring your business in a way that supports meaningful growth. Julie Littlechild

Guest Bio:

Julie Littlechild is a speaker, writer and the Founder of AbsoluteEngagement.com. She helps successful professionals and entrepreneurs design businesses that support the lives they want to live and to create lives that fuel their capacity to do just that. Julie has worked with and studied top producing professionals, their clients and their teams for twenty years. She is a recognized expert on driving deeper engagement and growth and the author of a popular blog. To get in touch email jlittlechild@absoluteengagement.com. To learn more about her book or buy it www.AbsoluteEngagement.com/book.


Episode 3 – Get Quoted: Tips & Tactics to Become the Most Quotable Financial Advisor In Your Market w/Veronica Dagher



Reporter relationships help advisors gain exposure and build brand awareness. When it comes to maintaining these relationships, interviews, pitching and being on camera, what are the most common mistakes advisors make? On this episode, Wall Street Journal wealth advisor Veronica Dagher gives us tactics, tips and ideas to make it easier to work with the press.

If you’re being vague and not specific, you’re not going to get quoted and it’s not going to help the editors or readers understand. -Veronica Dagher

Guest Bio:

Veronica Dagher is columnist focused on wealth management, financial advisers, personal finance and philanthropy for Wealth Management at WSJ.com. She also hosts, writes and produces videos on those topics and more for WSJ.com and frequently appears on Fox Business, Fox News Channel and nationally syndicated radio. She also hosts podcast, Watching Your Wealth.


Episode 2 – Top 5 Keys To Working With the Press To Grow Your Advisor Practice w/Matt Ackermann



Advisors aspire to be an asset for the media, and someone journalists want to interview. What increases your chances of building that kind of relationship? On this episode we share insights on the top 5 things advisors should know about when it comes to working with the press. We talk about knowing your interviewer and building conversational relationships with Investment News’ digital content director Matt Ackermann.

Guest Bio:

Matt is the director of digital content at Investment News.  Follow him on Twitter @acketyack.


Episode 1 – Sales vs. Marketing



Many advisors were trained with the mindset of selling but is this method the best way to build relationships and get new business? In this episode, we discuss the key differences between sales and marketing, and a marketing blueprint that will help you adopt marketing as your mode of communication and business growth.