Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
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Dear Bev,
What should we expect from our marketing firm? We have a firm on retainer to update our website, create materials when we need them and help us write blogs and articles. But we are not getting any new leads. Isn’t the purpose of marketing to increase awareness and bring in prospects? It’s not cheap and I would like to see some new fee revenue associated with what they are doing to offset the cost.
A.E.
Dear A.E.,
Your question has so many different aspects to it. I want to cover them all but it is probably too much for one column!
When you ask what you should expect, the answer is that it varies on what you hired the firm to do in the first place. There are so many flavors of marketing firms – those that focus on branding and promoting your message, those that build websites and create materials, those that help with target marketing and finding your niche and messaging to the, those that specialize in social media and increasing your online brand and presence, those that offer direct marketing to help solicit new leads, and, of course, those that might do all or a combination of these things.
You want to be sure you’ve been clear what you have hired this firm to do. If you are hoping for lead generation, and they are writing blogs and articles, there could be a disconnect unless the blogs and articles are a means to access a certain audience for you. The actions they are taking could be a means to an end, or they could be a disconnect between what you need and what they are doing. It’s hard for me to know without understanding more about the relationship. Just know that “marketing” encompasses many different things so it is incumbent upon you, as the hiring firm, to set your objectives and confirm if they are meeting them or not.
When it comes to marketing, it is hard to link a direct ROI as you are attempting to do with these activities. Marketing is a companion to the selling process, but it rarely ever stands alone, and, even when it does (i.e. when you are doing a LinkedIn ad, or promotion and driving people to your website), you can never be sure where a person might have heard about you, or read about you. It takes several imprints for someone to take action and respond to marketing activities, so all of the things you are doing work in companion with one another.
I also find people confuse sales activities with marketing activities – it is best when these work in concert with one another. So, for example, if your firm is writing some good blogs for you, are you and/or your team members posting them to your own social media accounts? Or, are you sending out as a direct link to an email list? Or, are you sharing the material with prospects? Often people think marketing alone is going to do something. But you have to use your marketing as a direct conduit to the people with whom you want to work.
Be sure you have identified the right kind of firm for your need. You may need to engage with two or more firms to cover everything you desire.
Dear Bev,
Is it possible to change a client’s mindset about the planning process? We have many clients who hired us as investment experts. Now we have hired two CFP®s to create plans. We’ve invested in a planning system and I know that many of our clients have outside assets we could be managing if they would let us do the planning for them. They are adverse to the process and one even hung up on me when I was trying to outline why it is important – and said I should have known better than to ask! Is there something we can do to help clients see the value in planning?
R.O.
Dear R.O.,
There is a flag in your note to me that raises concerns – you want to engage in the planning process with them because you are hoping to obtain their additional outset assets. Who is the process benefitting – the client, or you? What is the value to the client for working with one of your planners? Reframe not only the discussion with your clients, but also the way you are thinking about this process. If it is simply a way for you to expand your relationship by gathering additional assets, clients will see through this – in what you say, and how you try and convince them – and they will be wary (and perhaps rightly so).
In addition, education needs to take place. These clients see you one way – you are their investment firm. They don’t associate you with the planning process where they share information with you that you have never obtained before in working with them.
This change is going to require a mind shift on the part of your clients – just because you see the value in the change, and know why you have done what you’ve done remember that clients have not been involved in your discussions. They don’t understand why, how and what you are doing differently. This is a great opportunity to do some proactive marketing and talk about why this change is valuable and how it can help them.
Realize that you will still have clients who hired you for a certain reason and don’t want to make this shift with you. You can’t push them, you can only open the door and continue to reinforce the benefit over time.
But before you do anything, be clear on the value for the client and not simply focus on what this change could mean to you and your revenue stream.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. In 2008, she co-founded Advisors Trusted Advisor to offer dedicated practice management resources to advisors, planners and wealth managers. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Leadership & Social Responsibility. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
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Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
