Read The Transcript Of The Episode:

Speaker 1: 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 your hosts Bryan Sweet, who has more than half a billion dollars in assets under management. Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to hire, improve their operations, and company culture. And, Draye Redfern, who can help you systematize and automate your practices marketing, to effortlessly attract new clients.

Speaker 1: What do you say? Let's jump into another amazing episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast.

Brittany: 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. 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 too, let's get married."

Brittany: 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.

Brittany: Rather than going in bold and brazen, and asking for that sale right away, you really gotta give them a chance to figure out how you're going to fit into their lives. 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. That's what we're going to touch on today.

Brittany: One thing that I want to point out too is that, you really need to in your nurture, and in that communication, you want to make it clear how you can solve their problems, right? 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."

Brittany: This is why we're going to talk about the nurture sequence, this is why it's so important. Now, before we get in 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. 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.

Brittany: Now, our tagline at Sweet Financial is, "It's your dream, we'll help you get there." Right? It's all about them. It's, what does 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. What we did is we decided hey, out of all of our clients, we don't have that dream ideal painted for every single person. 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? How can we do that in a more automated way?

Brittany: 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 does your dream look like? You tell us, you paint this picture. What we found happening 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 looks like, into what their ideal retirement, into some of the activities that they want to be doing at this stage in their life.

Brittany: It's kind of amazing, when you have the right copy and the right sequence, the right messaging strategy at how you can get even your best clients to open up on a whole different level. 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, it's not only for that new person that you're dating, perse, 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.

Brittany: 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 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. There are a couple different ways that you can go about this. You can do like we did at 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.

Brittany: 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. There are different ways that you can go about this, to accomplish that same end goal.

Brittany: Bryan, 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 Sweet Financial Services. Bryan, 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.

Bryan: 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. 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 ... who it is, and how it represents us.

Bryan: One of the great things, Brittany, you alluded to earlier, that we do have some email sequences that we have as part of the coaching program. The neat thing about that is, they're already compliance approved, which is one of the issues that we always have to run into. Another thing I'll mention real quickly and then I'll get into some examples here is, we think this copywriting is such an interesting and needed thing, we're going to actually have our Copywriter on the podcast sometime, and I think you'll find that to be a really interesting episode.

Bryan: But, a couple of things. Brittany alluded to the lack of time to stay in touch. We use these nurturing sequences one, for our existing clients, and we just ... whatever the message is 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. It also saves our team in time, having to physically call the clients all the time. 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.

Bryan: The other is, we have all sorts of these nurturing campaigns for clients in the 60 mile radius that we're trying to draw new clients from. We have a program that we're offering, second opinion to your particular financial situation, and we run different versions of that. 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, saw something, read something from you, and that's when they can actually touch base.

Bryan: As we alluded to in a prior episode, it takes more than one or two times for a client to feel comfortable with you, and that was actually very creepy, Brittany, on the let's have one date and get married. But, it's a realistic thought as to if you really think about it, if you put a message out there and it's the first time clients have ever been introduced to you, it's going to take a while before they entrust you with all of their money, or all of their planning circumstances. You gotta find ways of getting the message out repeatedly, and if you're trying to do it without having to have lots and lots of man power, I've 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.

Bryan: Draye, what other thoughts do you have?

Draye: There's so many things, like wonderful things that you guys have just shared right then. I think what I would 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 not a reality. Maybe if it does happen, it's few and far between.

Draye: What these sequences can do is really warm them up over those more and more impressions to go from cold, to warm being they're most interested, to hot like they're really interested, and actually then hiring you, or engaging you for your services. One of the important distinctions that I like to make is that, many advisors see, like if someone says, "No." Or, "I'm not interested right now," as that's a no forever. 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 family issues. It could be one of 10,000 different things, and changing Financial Advisors is just too overwhelming at this minute.

Draye: No doesn't necessarily mean no forever, it just means no for right now. If you take that person whose most likely cold and move them to warm, and then move them to hot by sharing this information that Bryan and Brittany 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.

Draye: They also alluded to a few other things there that I'd 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 CTA's at the end of these emails. One of them could be, the email could be just basically sharing info and content. There 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.

Draye: Another one that Brittany mentioned is at the bottom of the email saying like, "Hit reply and let us know what your 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, or even to have to worry about it because it was done for you. That call to action, that CTA can alleviate some of that burden, start that conversation.

Draye: 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 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 our 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 few years," so on and so forth. Where then they can then book a guest spot for the day and time on your calendar.

Draye: That sounds super out there, and there's a ... "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 if you're interested in those sorts of things. I love it, I recommend it all the time. Largely because it does create a massive personalization with that potential prospect or client, that you can use to create a deeper rapport that makes it almost feel like you're communicating with them one to one, and not necessarily like you're sending blanketed emails.

Draye: It really helps 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, those CTA's at the end of your emails. 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.

Draye: Bryan, 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?

Bryan: 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 a long time ago. I've got so many examples over the last 40 years where you've touched base, and touched base, and you just kind of got to the point where you said, "Ah, 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. 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.

Bryan: I think the point of this whole episode is, you have to be in front of clients, and you have to be in front of prospects as often as you can. 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. I think that's really the call of the episode today is, do you do everything in an automated process? 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?

Bryan: That's why I think today was so important, because these are things we don't think about. As Brittany alluded to the prior episode, one of the top financial advising firms in the country, their website didn't meet their avatar. Until you go through some of these things, you just don't realize that. This stuff is all so important, and hopefully you go a lot out of the podcast today.

Bryan: 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. It is really kind of near and dear to my heart, it's how do you 10X yourself. I will tell you that, you normally hear 2X, and like to grow two times. I think what you're going to find is actually doing a 10X is easier than a 2X. I look forward to bringing that discussion to the next podcast, and wish everybody well, and see you next week.

Draye: Hey there, Draye Redfern here. Before you go we just wanted to say thank you for listening to this week's episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode then please subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or Spotify, and be sure to rate us five stars on iTunes because when you do you'll be entered into a monthly drawing for our Ultimate Advisor Coaching Program, which is a $2,000 value. If you would like to access more of the show notes, additional resources, and our free premium content, then please visit UltimateAdvisorPodcast.com.

Draye: We look forward to seeing you in the next episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast. We'll see you there.