Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep. 11: Doug Fritz: Blending Technology and Marketing to Help Drive Growth
6 Plays7 months ago
Fintech has been instrumental in improving advisor efficiency. But that increased efficiency hasn’t necessarily led to meaningful growth. As the wealth management industry continues to evolve, RIAs looking to redefine their value and tell their story more effectively have decisions to make. As they think about tools to help grow their businesses, can marketing technology (martech) help advisors stand out from the competition? In this episode, Doug Fritz, Co-Founder and CEO of F2 Strategy, joins hosts Bill Coppel, Chief Client Growth Officer at TradePMR, and Ryan Neal, Senior Editor at TradePMR, to dive into the question. Listen as they explore: Ways to translate increased efficiency into business growth What can be gained by pairing marketing technology with wealth technology How curated content can help attract prospects and retain clients Subscribe now, and connect with us on social media: YouTube LinkedIn Facebook Get the transcript for this episode, with sources, at https://synergizepodcast.com/. About Doug Fritz: Doug is the co-founder and CEO of F2 Strategy, a wealthtech management consulting firm serving RIAs and other financial services providers.
Previously, he was the Chief Technology Officer of First Republic Bank and a Senior Vice President at Wells Fargo Wealth Management Group.
He is a recipient of the 2021 ThinkAdvisor Thought Leadership and Education LUMINARIES award. Doug Fritz and F2 Strategy are not affiliates of TradePMR. More About Doug: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougfritz/ Website: https://www.f2strategy.com/team/doug-fritz If you want to join the conversation or connect with us, please visit us at synergize.advisorevolutionsciences.com. This content is provided for general informational purposes only. The views expressed by non-affiliated guest speakers are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TradePMR or its affiliates. TradePMR and its affiliates do not endorse any guest speakers or their companies, and therefore give no assurances as to the quality of their products and services. This channel is not monitored by TradePMR. TradePMR does not provide investment advice, tax advice or legal advice. TradePMR is a Member of FINRA and SIPC. Trade-PMR, Inc. is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB). TradePMR provides brokerage and account services to registered investment advisors. Custodial services provided by First Clearing. First Clearing is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, Member SIPC, a registered broker-dealer and non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company. Copyright 2024 Trade-PMR, Inc.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Synergize Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to Synergize, unscripted conversations where we explore the evolving role of the financial advisor in an emerging AI-driven world.
00:00:11
Speaker
Join us as we bring together thought leaders across a range of disciplines and industry experts, sharing insights designed to help RIAs thrive in the industry of tomorrow.
Hosts Introduction and Topic Overview
00:00:22
Speaker
Hi, this is Bill Capell, Chief Client Growth Officer at TradePMR.
00:00:26
Speaker
And I'm Ryan Neal, the Senior Editor at TradePMR, and welcome to Synergize.
00:00:31
Speaker
Okay, so Ryan, what are we going to talk about today?
00:00:33
Speaker
We're going to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is technology.
00:00:37
Speaker
Technology has done a whole lot to improve efficiency in wealth management, and it's likely to do that, continue to do that, but we want to talk about what advisors are doing today to translate that new efficiency into actual growth.
Tech in Wealth Management: Efficiency vs Growth
00:00:51
Speaker
You know, I couldn't agree with you more.
00:00:52
Speaker
You know, as an industry, we've adopted a lot of technology and it's really been aimed at efficiency.
00:00:57
Speaker
Advisors are not having to do a lot of the back office work they used to have to do.
00:01:02
Speaker
However, my question is, how is this newfound efficiency translating into meaningful growth?
00:01:10
Speaker
The answer to this question among other technology related topics are what we want to explore with our guest today, Doug Fritz.
00:01:18
Speaker
And I think the other kind of thing we're seeing, which is a great level of just change and just maturity is how much firms are thinking about their technology experience and their spend as it lines up with differentiation in the marketplace.
00:01:31
Speaker
I think that's one of those key things about growth is it's often not
00:01:37
Speaker
you know, follow the same thing another firm is doing, it's going to lead to growth, it's going to be, what's my brand?
00:01:42
Speaker
Why do clients choose to work with me?
00:01:44
Speaker
What is my team value?
00:01:46
Speaker
What are some of those experiences that come through working with my firm?
00:01:50
Speaker
And how do we take technology and make those experiences more evidence both to current clients that refer us more and out of the marketplace that we're really attracting the type of client that's going to be really well suited to work with us.
Guest Doug Fritz on Tech and Growth
00:02:02
Speaker
Doug is the co-founder and CEO of F2 Strategies, and F2 is a wealth tech management consulting firm serving RIAs as well as broker-dealers and other financial service providers.
00:02:15
Speaker
So Doug, thanks for joining us.
00:02:17
Speaker
Hey guys, great to be here.
00:02:19
Speaker
Let me start with this question.
00:02:21
Speaker
You've been around this industry quite a number of years, and you've seen the industry evolve.
00:02:27
Speaker
What are some of the themes that are emerging around growth
00:02:31
Speaker
And what's been the reasoning with firms that you're working with as to why this is working for them?
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question.
00:02:40
Speaker
I was trying to clock the other day how many years I've been in the industry, and I think I said 25, and then I had to think, I'm like,
00:02:48
Speaker
No, that's actually 27, which is a shockingly large number.
00:02:52
Speaker
But I think that what I've seen the most in that time is how much more mature we are as an industry, all firm sizes, large and small, with using technology in focused ways.
00:03:07
Speaker
Specifically, here we're going to talk about growth, but by and large,
00:03:10
Speaker
I'm always amazed at how much more mature firms are, specifically executives at firms, like how much they know about technology and technology themes and vendors and kind of ways to make things
Rising Tech Spend in Financial Services
00:03:21
Speaker
happen.
00:03:21
Speaker
So it's been pretty amazing.
00:03:22
Speaker
I think the other thing we've seen, this is a trend,
00:03:26
Speaker
Firms are spending more money on technology than they ever have before.
00:03:29
Speaker
When we started F2 about eight years ago, the average spend on technology was around 3% to 4% of revenues.
00:03:37
Speaker
Maybe faster-growing firms were putting in 5%, 6%.
00:03:40
Speaker
Now averages are more like 7% to 8% of revenues.
00:03:43
Speaker
So it's basically doubled.
00:03:44
Speaker
Tech spend's about doubled in the last...
00:03:47
Speaker
eight years.
00:03:48
Speaker
And I think the other kind of thing we're seeing, which is a great level of just change and just maturity, is how much firms are thinking about their technology experience and their spend as it lines up with differentiation in the marketplace.
00:04:02
Speaker
I think that's one of those key things about growth is it's often not
00:04:08
Speaker
follow the same thing another firm is doing that's going to lead to growth.
00:04:11
Speaker
It's going to be, what's my brand?
00:04:13
Speaker
Why do clients choose to work with me?
00:04:15
Speaker
What is my team value?
00:04:17
Speaker
What are some of those experiences that come through working with my firm?
00:04:21
Speaker
And how do we take technology and make those experiences more evidence, both to current clients that will refer us more and out of the marketplace that we're really attracting the type of client that's going to be really well-suited to work with us?
Marketing Tech and Wealth Tech for Growth
00:04:33
Speaker
So in that work that you do with advisors, what can you share with us about what decisions with technology have been working and maybe what decisions with technology aren't working as well?
00:04:45
Speaker
Like what can other advisors out there learn from the stuff that you're doing with your clients?
00:04:49
Speaker
I think and this goes back to the like 27 years of experience.
00:04:54
Speaker
But but really what's working is when people are thinking about technology as as a service to the business.
00:05:02
Speaker
And so we're spending money on tech.
00:05:04
Speaker
What is it doing for our business and how does it line up with with who we are and what are what our goals are as a firm?
00:05:13
Speaker
And also, especially in the last couple of years, we're starting to really see that marketing technology coupled with wealth technology, that's been really working as well.
00:05:24
Speaker
So you see an upspring of a couple of new vendors and a lot more spend on marketing integrated into things like CRM or your prospect and business.
00:05:35
Speaker
proposal generation systems, that's when it really, really works.
00:05:40
Speaker
Marketing plus wealth tech has to kind of come together.
00:05:44
Speaker
And firms that are doing that, we see that working really, really well.
00:05:47
Speaker
And I think also what's also working well is just when firms are knowing those differences between them and their peers and what they want their focus client segment to be.
00:05:59
Speaker
Because different segments of age, sources of wealth, geography, and sort of other nuances of individuals could be professionals, could be people that are entrepreneurs.
00:06:12
Speaker
If they know what that segment is, firms do a much better job of lining up on marketing to them.
00:06:19
Speaker
And it sounds like everyone does that.
00:06:21
Speaker
And it's very rare that a firm has a focus on who they want as a client and it goes after them with technology.
00:06:26
Speaker
Then things that maybe answer your other part of that question, like, Ryan, what's not working?
00:06:33
Speaker
We still see firms less, thank God, but less chasing the super fads.
00:06:39
Speaker
They're not out there, see some new vendor at the T3 conference and they're calling them up and put them into the platform without really thinking about how it integrates into the business.
AI and Tech Fads: ROI Concerns
00:06:51
Speaker
And we see it a lot with AI right now.
00:06:53
Speaker
AI is definitely the super fad of today.
00:06:56
Speaker
Robo and ESG, direct indexing, were all kind of super fads in the past.
00:07:00
Speaker
They've all made their way in one way or the other.
00:07:03
Speaker
But when people chase super fads as a way to be innovative, it fails like nine times out of 10.
00:07:12
Speaker
And a way to think about that is if you really can't articulate... You got to get over your own excitement sometimes.
00:07:17
Speaker
If you can't articulate...
00:07:18
Speaker
But the clear ROI is going to be of that investment and you hold yourself accountable to both measuring it and achieving that ROI.
00:07:27
Speaker
Almost certainly, it's not going to work.
00:07:28
Speaker
It's not going to be a good payoff for you.
00:07:31
Speaker
And I think the other thing that kind of does not work is we still are seeing firms that are pursuing marketing strategies and hiring marketing teams internal or externally.
00:07:41
Speaker
that are just marketers.
00:07:44
Speaker
They're really good marketers.
00:07:45
Speaker
They're not thinking about the advisor experience, not thinking about the day in the life when an advisor wakes up and like, what is she using?
00:07:52
Speaker
How does she sort of become part of that process?
00:07:54
Speaker
And we still see firms that have a bifurcated marketing and core advisor technology tech stack and sort of themes.
00:08:02
Speaker
That's a really inefficient way to spend money on marketing.
00:08:07
Speaker
It's that kind of when they come together, that MarTech team,
00:08:10
Speaker
move that really starts to accelerate growth.
00:08:13
Speaker
Those are great points, Doug.
00:08:15
Speaker
I want to pull on that fad thread a little bit that you
MarTech's Role and Quality Content Impact
00:08:20
Speaker
mentioned.
00:08:20
Speaker
We used to joke in our industry, firms have been really slow in the past to adopt new technology, right?
00:08:29
Speaker
So a lot of our back office systems are running on 70s technology.
00:08:33
Speaker
And they've been feeling the pains for that.
00:08:36
Speaker
And so
00:08:37
Speaker
To your point, firms that are jumping on these new fads kind of without really thinking about it and how it's going to impact their ability to project their value, you're putting out a sort of a sign of caution there.
00:08:53
Speaker
So Doug, help me understand something.
00:08:56
Speaker
What is the intersection between a traditional marketing agency and what you're talking about in terms of this MarTech approach using technology to communicate, part one.
00:09:06
Speaker
Second part is what role does content play
00:09:09
Speaker
And third, how does this begin to approach this notion of personalization that everyone's talking about?
00:09:15
Speaker
There's some really cool things that are going on here today.
00:09:18
Speaker
And I would say even more cool stuff that we can do as an industry.
00:09:22
Speaker
So we're really stoked on focused, curated content, quality content in this space.
00:09:29
Speaker
Having a marketing agency, proper marketers, if you don't have anybody that's a marketer in your firm, gives you a lift.
00:09:36
Speaker
It gets you to think about your brand and your message and how to get that branded message out to the world.
00:09:43
Speaker
Where it often falls down, what we've seen is when pure play, external marketing agencies that don't really...
00:09:51
Speaker
know our industry very well, is it's really hard to kind of build a message upon which an internal existing employee, an advisor, a planner, even people in BDO roles can then take that inbound message and make the first conversation resonate with that.
00:10:10
Speaker
So you often get a speed bump from what I read online to what I see when I walk into the office or what I see when I do a Zoom call with this advisor.
00:10:20
Speaker
You want to break that down as much as possible.
00:10:23
Speaker
That doesn't mean you have to necessarily hire your own person, but it does mean you need to work with an agency or a firm that understands the needs of wealth management.
00:10:32
Speaker
The other part of that question, Bill, was,
00:10:36
Speaker
examples of customization, how does it work?
00:10:38
Speaker
And where is that going?
00:10:40
Speaker
I think I'll use an exact example because I am one of the people that are being focused.
00:10:45
Speaker
So I know this is happening.
00:10:47
Speaker
But Mercer Advisors is a good example.
00:10:49
Speaker
You know, I'm not like a,
00:10:51
Speaker
you know, TikTok kind of guy, you know, at 50 with my gray hair and everything.
00:10:55
Speaker
But I'm on Instagram because my mom's on Instagram and like, like see pictures that drink kids.
00:11:00
Speaker
And, and I will get Mercer advisors focused ads and videos on, on Instagram.
00:11:09
Speaker
And that's pretty cool.
00:11:12
Speaker
They are focusing on me as a profile, my profiles on Instagram.
00:11:16
Speaker
Not probably specifically.
00:11:17
Speaker
I'm pretty sure that Dave's not specifically looking at that for me.
00:11:20
Speaker
But probably business owner, my age, my demographics and information.
00:11:25
Speaker
And they are focusing content to me about things that are pertinent to my age.
00:11:30
Speaker
You can see what they know about me because of their marketing.
00:11:32
Speaker
That's fantastic.
00:11:33
Speaker
Right.
00:11:34
Speaker
I can, I can like and share.
00:11:35
Speaker
It's really good content.
00:11:36
Speaker
It's very high, high quality content.
00:11:38
Speaker
Uh, they're not the only ones.
00:11:39
Speaker
Um, but that's a good example, right?
00:11:40
Speaker
So it focuses on a message to a specific cohort.
00:11:44
Speaker
Um, you know, there's a, um, uh, there's a, uh, tool called Reddit, which is a, you know, it's like a, a place to go where people that don't know anything provide a lot of insight to other people, uh, in some cases, but, uh, so you can also do, um, proper focused SEO.
00:11:58
Speaker
Uh, it's fascinating to see some, some, uh, I always ask someone like, you know, when was the last time you Googled, uh,
00:12:02
Speaker
You know, wealth management, you just go see the firms that are popping up.
00:12:05
Speaker
That's all sponsored, you know, sponsored search criteria for that.
00:12:09
Speaker
There are people in our industry who actually, you know,
00:12:12
Speaker
they've bought or they've bid on over the firm that someone may be looking for, it isn't necessarily the first firm that pops up.
00:12:20
Speaker
So if you search for a large wealth management firm, there's a chance that a different wealth management firm has bought the rights to that firm's name and they become the search result.
00:12:29
Speaker
And so that's not necessarily focused, but it's those types of themes that people can pursue.
00:12:36
Speaker
There's two paths here.
00:12:38
Speaker
I'm going to go to one step deeper than you probably wanted to go.
00:12:40
Speaker
But we acquired Sky Marketing F2 in February, and it's adding all this marketing content-focused marketing capability to F2.
Engaging Clients with Content and SEO
00:12:51
Speaker
And so I'm learning a lot in now having a marketing agency inside of my own company.
00:12:55
Speaker
But there's two branches of this, of content-focused content marketing.
00:13:00
Speaker
One, you're kind of marketing to your current clients.
00:13:03
Speaker
It doesn't make always a lot of sense why we do that.
00:13:06
Speaker
But if you can give your clients pride and content and information on social channels, and also just your website or emails or text messages or whatever, but content that is shareable with their network.
00:13:20
Speaker
Because what that client may find interesting, they may pass on forward or share or echo on to other people in their network that may also be encountering the same kind of question.
00:13:32
Speaker
And that just is phenomenal amplification of a brand.
00:13:36
Speaker
It sort of acts as a very light referral kind of a concept.
00:13:39
Speaker
And as those...
00:13:41
Speaker
links are picked up and people click on them and read them, it does a couple things.
00:13:45
Speaker
One, it can say it can, if you architected the technology right, send a signal back to your advisory business to that, hey, this 10 people that you didn't know before are now liking and possibly sharing your content.
00:13:56
Speaker
Good to know because they may be prospects.
00:13:59
Speaker
And it also gives your clients some sense of pride and a nice experience to be able to share.
00:14:06
Speaker
That's one path.
00:14:07
Speaker
The other path is using it for net new prospecting.
00:14:09
Speaker
So it could be ad buys, it could be list buys, it could be things like that that you're sending out custom content to.
00:14:16
Speaker
But part of organic growth is both going out and getting people that you don't know with messaging and content and also getting your clients to echo and like and be advocates for your brand.
00:14:26
Speaker
No, Doug, I love what you said about sharing content because that's exactly what I came here to treat BMR to do for my career as a journalist is a big initiative on creating new content for us and sharing it.
00:14:38
Speaker
No, content is king, man.
00:14:40
Speaker
Content is... It is hard...
00:14:44
Speaker
it's hard to explain to someone how different quality content is and what that means until you start looking at... LinkedIn is a good place to find... I follow every financial service company in the world, but your clients are out there on social media.
00:15:00
Speaker
And go look at some regional bank...
00:15:03
Speaker
You know, some regional bank that probably has a very low marketing budget and has like someone with a GoPro maybe and they're self-editing and they're just like putting a camera in front of the executive and they're just like talking at the camera versus a firm like Crescent, right?
00:15:17
Speaker
That's actually got like high production value quality, like engaging content with music and stuff.
00:15:23
Speaker
Like it's night and day.
00:15:25
Speaker
And I think five years ago, maybe I didn't notice.
00:15:28
Speaker
Maybe our clients didn't notice.
00:15:30
Speaker
But the industries outside of wealth management are training these people to really pay attention to and gravitate towards higher quality content, not just video production quality, but meaningful content.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:43
Speaker
Well, so I want to dive into that.
00:15:45
Speaker
When you're talking about more tech and bringing that on, do you think that's now a big differentiator for firms in terms of technology?
00:15:54
Speaker
Have firms gotten the table stakes stuff out of the way for the most part now?
00:15:57
Speaker
Financial planning, CRM, portfolio management.
00:16:00
Speaker
And now, if everyone has that, they need to find a new differentiator, right?
00:16:05
Speaker
Is marketing and MarTech, is that the new way firms are finding that way to separate from the crowd?
00:16:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's the next new thing.
00:16:14
Speaker
I mean, it's the next thing to bring in.
00:16:15
Speaker
And it's so unlike CRM and planning tools and workflow automation and sort of efficiency creating technologies that maybe we had, maybe we didn't have, but a lot of firms have...
00:16:29
Speaker
have got them and they're adopting them and they're moving up the capability and adoption chains.
00:16:35
Speaker
But firms, not every firm, most firms had some level of marketing before.
00:16:40
Speaker
I think that the real shift now, the Martech shift is that
00:16:45
Speaker
these aren't separate islands.
00:16:46
Speaker
You know, these aren't like, there's a marketing department with its own marketing budget.
00:16:50
Speaker
And then there's the CTO with her own mark, with her own CTO technology budget.
00:16:54
Speaker
And the tech doesn't combine, right?
00:16:57
Speaker
Advisors have no idea when there's a, an Instagram post going out and who are they curating and how many of their clients have clicked on it and shared it.
00:17:04
Speaker
Right.
00:17:05
Speaker
Or who, who is logged into the, the, the,
00:17:08
Speaker
corporate portal, the behind-the-login portal, the public portal, and read and shared on content or commentary or
Bridging Marketing and Advisor Tech
00:17:17
Speaker
research content, right?
00:17:17
Speaker
Like, who's done it?
00:17:19
Speaker
And if you have those worlds separate, there is no bridge of that.
00:17:23
Speaker
And so...
00:17:24
Speaker
It's shocking.
00:17:25
Speaker
There's very large firms where the marketing team is so distinct from technology that they're not even capable of integrating different standards.
00:17:34
Speaker
They have their own marketing CTO.
00:17:37
Speaker
It makes it really, really hard to become efficient at
00:17:42
Speaker
at arming advisors with great actionable relationships.
00:17:47
Speaker
It's almost more about what the world thinks about the brands, but individual prospecting and client engagement is not even thought of.
00:17:54
Speaker
The MarTech bridge is starting to bring that closer and closer to the point where marketing tech and advisor tech really just becomes one single seamless
00:18:05
Speaker
experience for advisors.
00:18:06
Speaker
And it's an amplifier of branding and differentiation and client and prospect reach out for growth-oriented advisors.
00:18:14
Speaker
So, Doug, you mentioned Reddit.
00:18:16
Speaker
And I want to make sure our listeners have an opportunity to understand exactly what you're saying here.
Using Reddit for Client Engagement
00:18:20
Speaker
Just expand a little bit more on what advisors are doing relative to the questions that are coming up on Reddit.
00:18:27
Speaker
The classic way we think about
00:18:29
Speaker
clients calling us around, hey, I made a bunch of money, or I'm really unhappy with my current advisor.
00:18:36
Speaker
I'm going to ask all my friends who they use, or my estate attorney, or my tax guy, or my pastor, whoever, and I'm going to get a referral, and someone's going to tell me
00:18:46
Speaker
to go call you.
00:18:47
Speaker
That's just that's how I grew up in the industry.
00:18:49
Speaker
That's how we want a ton of new clients.
00:18:51
Speaker
That's kind of the general path.
00:18:53
Speaker
But in 2024 and beyond, because this podcast will live for many decades after this night, people are not necessarily doing that.
00:19:02
Speaker
They're going to places like like Reddit, right?
00:19:03
Speaker
This is sort of social
00:19:05
Speaker
Place you can ask questions, join groups of people that have similar questions, read a whole bunch of perspective and input from people that have the same question.
00:19:14
Speaker
And so not just young people are going to read it like people with material wealth are going to read it, asking questions about taxes and estate plans and trusts.
00:19:23
Speaker
And, you know, things that advisors should absolutely be in that in that area.
00:19:29
Speaker
in that conversation.
00:19:30
Speaker
And so there are prospects to be had on Reddit.
00:19:34
Speaker
There is a conversation that qualified fiduciary advisors should be in that conversation that are not.
00:19:40
Speaker
And I think that people listen to this podcast that just, A, want to know what
00:19:45
Speaker
like how people are asking questions in the market, what questions people have about financial advice.
00:19:50
Speaker
And more importantly, a very free, basically, way to market your brand is go into those organizations or go into those threads and respond.
00:19:59
Speaker
So part of my suggestion is go see what they're saying.
00:20:03
Speaker
But the second part is like find a couple of themes.
00:20:06
Speaker
Remember, we talked about, you know, be a different brand.
00:20:08
Speaker
Find out what your brand is.
00:20:09
Speaker
Why is your brand different?
00:20:10
Speaker
Well, if there are differentiated prospect ideas
00:20:14
Speaker
It could be selling a business.
00:20:15
Speaker
It could be a year, a second generation, you know, recipient of wealth, whatever those things are.
00:20:20
Speaker
Go to Reddit, find out who's who's asking those questions and those threads and own that.
00:20:24
Speaker
Right.
00:20:25
Speaker
Be in there every day answering those questions and make sure that every other knows who you are, what firm you work for.
00:20:31
Speaker
But I also want to say that Reddit is one example.
00:20:33
Speaker
That's just one of a growing list of things that are just different than the way we used to think about how clients would find us.
00:20:41
Speaker
Don't just do Reddit.
00:20:43
Speaker
You got to get in the minds of your clients and the next generation and think, how do I get my message and be the place where people would want me to be?
00:20:50
Speaker
What that made me think is even if you don't engage on Reddit necessarily,
00:20:54
Speaker
it can be a springboard of content ideas.
00:20:57
Speaker
If you're sitting there, as we talked earlier about how content is king, and you are struggling to come up with ideas, what do I write about?
00:21:04
Speaker
Go on Reddit, find what people are asking, because that means they're going to Google and typing in those questions.
00:21:10
Speaker
What are RMDs, for example?
00:21:13
Speaker
Answer that question in the form of a blog.
00:21:15
Speaker
You can write that out, put it on your website, SEO juice.
00:21:18
Speaker
And now, you know, you'll probably be further down the list, but you work on that, you get started and Google starts recognizing your firm as, you know, a trusted answer of those questions.
00:21:28
Speaker
And that can only lead to good things, right?
00:21:30
Speaker
It can't hurt.
00:21:31
Speaker
Nailed it.
00:21:31
Speaker
And we make it sound so simple too, don't we?
00:21:34
Speaker
We make it sound like every old 50-year-old dude can figure this out, right?
00:21:40
Speaker
It's hard.
00:21:41
Speaker
It's hard.
00:21:43
Speaker
But once you get going, it's not really that hard.
00:21:46
Speaker
The norms and themes that are displayed there and kind of how you engage with how people engage with, it's not that different than the things we do in our social life.
00:21:53
Speaker
It's just we have to...
00:21:55
Speaker
Maybe that's another point.
00:21:55
Speaker
We have to kind of bridge the social construct of like, who am I and who is who's what's the firm I work with, breaking down some of those walls into those more social personal experiences like Reddit and places like Instagram and things like that.
00:22:12
Speaker
Which I think is really important for our listeners to argue is the fact that this is across all age cohorts.
00:22:18
Speaker
It's not just young people.
00:22:19
Speaker
And I've actually been on Reddit and I've seen the questions and I've actually seen no
00:22:25
Speaker
People, they're contemporaries of mine that go there for ideas.
00:22:29
Speaker
They go there for answers.
00:22:31
Speaker
It's quite remarkable, and I think it's a great point you're making.
00:22:34
Speaker
So, Doug, we've covered some interesting ground today.
00:22:37
Speaker
And as we wrap up the conversation, I want to ask you this.
00:22:41
Speaker
What are the three things firm leaders and advisors can start working on today to leverage technology to more effectively grow their
Strategies for Differentiation and Growth
00:22:50
Speaker
business?
00:22:50
Speaker
I think...
00:22:52
Speaker
The thing you can do today, because you can't really implement a whole bunch of new technology and things in one day, but anybody listening to this podcast, like today, you can start doing a few things.
00:23:04
Speaker
Number one, figure out what your differentiation is in the market.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:10
Speaker
As we move to content and organic growth and really trying to get our brands and our messaging out in the public space so that new clients we don't currently work with find out about our brand and engage with us, we have to be different.
00:23:24
Speaker
You can't just be in a sea of sameness.
00:23:28
Speaker
And it's the same thing for clients.
00:23:29
Speaker
Really know what your clients and your brand should be.
00:23:34
Speaker
It's hard, but pick one.
00:23:36
Speaker
And don't just say you're a fiduciary and you're, you know, something super generic.
00:23:40
Speaker
You need to be very specific about both those things.
00:23:42
Speaker
That's one.
00:23:44
Speaker
I think the other thing is just really look at your spend.
00:23:47
Speaker
If you've got marketing spend that does not end up connected to the advisor desktop in an actionable way.
00:23:54
Speaker
You need to stop that.
00:23:56
Speaker
You need to get that spend moving that marketing spend back to the advisor desktop and back to something that's actionable that really leads to both current client and net new prospect curation.
00:24:08
Speaker
That's two.
00:24:10
Speaker
And I think the third one maybe is the thing that's maybe the most fun of these three would be for me is just find out what good looks like.
00:24:18
Speaker
Who's the best customer?
00:24:20
Speaker
at doing this right now and find out, you know, of the of the maybe competitors locally, and it could be large competitors, small competitors, you know, what are they doing?
00:24:29
Speaker
And talk to your prospects.
00:24:31
Speaker
You know, how did you hear about us?
00:24:32
Speaker
Who else did you look at?
00:24:33
Speaker
And go find out what those what those organizations are doing for for for marketing and for organic growth.
00:24:40
Speaker
Where are they going for where those prospects and maybe your clients as well?
00:24:43
Speaker
Where are you going for financial advice?
00:24:46
Speaker
There's a whole new crop of investors that are going to Reddit with their questions about financial advice.
00:24:51
Speaker
Go to Reddit today and search things like, what should I do with my first bonus check?
00:24:56
Speaker
And go see what advice younger and up and coming investors are getting.
00:25:00
Speaker
And use that content and use that message to curate how you go into the market and possibly start
00:25:06
Speaker
and deploying people in your friend to go to Reddit and start answering some of those questions yourselves.
00:25:10
Speaker
Those are the top three belts.
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's smart because I was going to kind of follow up there was, you know, you can go and find out what some of the best out there are doing it.
00:25:18
Speaker
But some people are just are good, right?
00:25:19
Speaker
Some people are good at marketing.
00:25:20
Speaker
Some people are good at media, being on camera or writing blogs or podcasts or whatever it may be.
00:25:26
Speaker
And others aren't.
00:25:27
Speaker
Some people are just not another skill set.
00:25:28
Speaker
That's what's going to follow up.
00:25:29
Speaker
But that makes sense.
00:25:30
Speaker
Something like Reddit, that's something that everyone can do.
00:25:33
Speaker
You can log on to that.
00:25:34
Speaker
You can read what investors are talking about.
00:25:36
Speaker
And you can answer people's questions.
00:25:38
Speaker
So I really like that.
00:25:40
Speaker
So I guess to sum up, number one, figure out your differentiator.
00:25:43
Speaker
Number two, look at your spend and do it smartly, right?
00:25:47
Speaker
Make sure it's driving a new business, new growth.
00:25:50
Speaker
And three, go find out what others are doing and figure out how you can do that as well.
00:25:57
Speaker
Yep.
00:25:58
Speaker
Nailed it.
00:25:59
Speaker
Great.
00:25:59
Speaker
Well, thanks, Doug.
00:26:01
Speaker
Thanks for joining us and for everyone listening.
00:26:02
Speaker
We hope you enjoyed today's conversation.
00:26:05
Speaker
If you like what you heard, please take a moment to like and subscribe.
00:26:08
Speaker
Follow us on social media.
00:26:10
Speaker
And be sure to tune in to our next episode where we're bringing more insights and actionable ideas to help you grow your business.
Listener Engagement and Call to Action
00:26:18
Speaker
And remember, the challenge is yours to capitalize on what the future offers.
00:26:28
Speaker
If you want to join the conversation or connect with us, please visit us at synergize.advisorevolutionsciences.com.
00:26:36
Speaker
This content is provided for general information purposes only.
00:26:40
Speaker
The views expressed by non-affiliated guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Trade, PMR, or its affiliates.
00:26:48
Speaker
Trade PMR and its affiliates do not endorse any guest speakers or their companies and therefore give no assurances as to the quality of their products and services.
00:26:58
Speaker
This channel is not monitored by Trade PMR.
00:27:00
Speaker
Trade PMR does not provide investment advice, tax advice, or legal advice.
00:27:05
Speaker
Trade PMR is a member of FINRA and SIPC.
00:27:09
Speaker
Trade PMR Inc.
00:27:10
Speaker
is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board.
00:27:17
Speaker
Trade PMR provides brokerage and account services to registered investment advisors, custodial services provided by First Clearing.
00:27:24
Speaker
First Clearing is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, member SIPC, a registered broker dealer and non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo and Company.
00:27:34
Speaker
Copyright 2024.
00:27:36
Speaker
Trade PMR Incorporated.
00:27:38
Speaker
For a transcript of this episode with sources, visit synergize.advisorrevolutionsciences.com.