Getting people to ‘like’ you online – endorsement?

by Zack Miller on January 22, 2012

The financial community has been slow to adopt social media. One big fuzzy gray zone has been compliance.

But that process is evolving. Last week, a National Examination Risk Alert went out that called into question the Facebook ‘Like’ button.

Testimonials:  …The term “testimonial” is not defined in Rule 206(4)-1(a)(1), but SEC staff consistently interprets that term to include a statement of a client’s experience with, or endorsement of, an investment adviser. Therefore, the staff believes that, depending on the facts and circumstances, the use of “social plug-ins” such as the “like” button could be a testimonial under the Advisers Act.16…

Steph and I discuss this issue (and a lot more) on our AdvisorGo Podcast this week. Go to AdvisorGo to listen/subscribe via email or listen below:

Taking the Social out of Social Media by AdvisorGo

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Build a financial website for a fraction of the cost (or, 1 resource web designers would like to keep secret)

by Zack Miller on January 16, 2012

Advisors ask me all the time about their websites.

Most of the time, they’re asking for help in terms of optimizing their site’s performance: capturing more leads, driving new prospects, expanding their reach.

To be honest, building a website for most advisors (for most people, really) is an utterly overwhelming process.

Why building a website is overwhelming

It’s human nature: when we don’t quite understand something, we seek professional help.  That’s why your clients seek out your advice, right?

I’m guilty as charged, too. Here — and on my exclusive Advisor Insider newsletter – -I’m also trying to provide you with powerful tools, tips and technologies to help you build your financial practice.

But when it comes to something so far out of our expertise — like technology, website design, Internet marketing — we seem to slink away from making big, bold decisions and almost over-delegate to the work.

Most advisors will turn to someone who understands this stuff and empower them to get the project done. Without oversight, without true understanding of what’s going on technologically, without understanding design best practices — as advisors, we overpay on technology projects and frequently, get underdelivered on our results.

That’s just the facts.

A better way to get a better website design

Many designers — good, honest people — wouldn’t want you to know about the resource I’m going to give you next. It’s major competition for them (in a good way). It keeps prices competitive and standards high for designing awesome websites.

It’s www.99designs.com

With 99 designs, you can get a professionally-designed website for about $600 (not the thousands that you would normally need to pay).

Q: What is it? How does it work?

A: Essentially, you hold a design contest where thousands of web designers compete to design a site you’re 100% happy with — or, you get your money back.

So, for about $600, you get to plumb the ideas of designers around the globe, tweaking your site until you get an awesome design. The great thing is that this process is transparent, so you see the ideas designers are generating and you can build upon them to get exactly what you want.

By the way, you can get almost anything designed here — logos, stationery, book covers, etc.

How it works

Here’s how www.99designs.com works:

Why 99 designs is good for advisor websites

  1. competition is good: We’re in the investing game and we know competition is good for business. Getting multiple ideas and designs only makes the final product — your website — better.
  2. diversification keeps costs down: Getting numerous designers to compete for your business means you place less responsibility on a single service provider. You have less chance of getting screwed — or at least, taken for a ride.
  3. transparency is awesome: the contest is held in the raw — wide open for everyone to see. It keeps standards high and ideas flowing.
  4. cost: I know from speaking with friends in the web development business that they like advisors as clients. Because we don’t know a whole lot about technology or web design, we don’t ask too many questions. Costs aren’t always competitive. Designing a site via 99 designs ensures they are.

That’s it.  Check out www.99designs.com

Let me know what you think — I’m curious to see if this is helpful for you.

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The right way to ask for referrals (and why so many advisors bungle it)

by Zack Miller on January 2, 2012

Asking for referrals isn’t easy.

Alll the data show that as professionals, we are sitting on gold mines of referral value (!), just ready for us to unlock it to build a super practice.

Clients should be lining up, checks in hand, begging — pleading! — for us to manage their portfolios.

Yeah, right.

The truth about referrals in the financial business

The truth is that very few of us are able to fully leverage referrals.

Why is that?  Have you ever asked yourself that?

If it’s so easy – all you have to do is ask! — why aren’t we all managing $40B like Ken Fisher?

Well, the first thing is that it’s not.  that.  easy.

It just isn’t.  I don’t know about you but my clients don’t suddenly call tons of hot prospect friends when I pop the question.

It takes guts to work up the question.  Beyond that, who wants to sound like a sleazy salesman?

Second, I’m convinced that just asking the question is certainly NOT enough.  Maybe it used to be but there are plenty of reasons your clients aren’t manning the phones — right now! — dialing for dollars, hitting up all their friends to bring you business.

The real reasons clients aren’t referring you business

  1. referrals cost A BOATLOAD of social capital — by referring someone to a professional, you spend some of your social capital.  If your contact isn’t happy for any reason, that looks bad on you.  Rightly or wrongly (caveat emptor, right?), your contact will blame you for making a poor referral.

That’s it, one reason.  There has to be a damn good reason for your client to open his rolodex, risking his street cred with his friends and contacts. There’s too much at stake for you to screw up.

In other words, it’s risky — and getting riskier with social media — to make important referrals to a financial advisor.

You’re still TOO FAR OUTSIDE YOUR CLIENTS’ SOCIAL CIRCLES TO GET REFERRALS.

In fact, the more I think about it: asking the common referral question — hey, who can you refer to me? — is the wrong question.

One financial advisor found that he was able to grow his practice 5X by tweaking the question.

He went from…
OLD SCHOOL REFERRAL QUESTION: Hey, you know my business requires referrals from happy clients.  Who do you know who you could refer to me right now?
to…
NEW-FANGLED MONEY REFERRAL Process (2 parts):

  1. Hey,what are your hobbies? Interests?
  2. With this question, find some overlap with your own interests.  If they like PLAYING SQUASH, tell them you do too. Hey, can I get in to your weekly game?

Of course, this isn’t a direct plug for your client to open his Outlook and begin scheduling meetings for you with his wealthy friends.

And that’s the point — it’s an indirect referral process.

Let’s carry this SQUASH PLAYING example through

  1. So, you go to the game
  2. Hopefully, you can play squash well-enough to not embarrass yourself
  3. Get invited back and begin to integrate into the social circle

Once you’re in the social circle (how many times has this happened to you?), the referrals will happen naturally.  One of the regular players will come over (make sure he’s not sweating in your ice tea) and tell you about a money problem he has or a friend who’s looking for ‘someone good’.

By the way, research has shown that these crucial social bonding questions come in 4 flavors:

  1. hobbies
  2. interests
  3. lifestyle
  4. values

Why does this work?  Well, if making a referral means spending social capital, this puts everything on sale.  Suddenly, by integrating into your clients’ social circles (online and off), making that referral is less risky.  They have to spend less social cred to get you in.

Everyone wins.

Referrals aren’t about just asking for networking opportunities or some hoogie-woogie esoteric mindset.  Getting referrals is about creating an ongoing process to ensure that those opportunities present themselves to you.

Ultimately, it makes for good business — you’ve always got to listen to your clients and determine what gets them juiced.  If you can help them get juiced, they’ll help you, too.

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Use LinkedIn to network and prospect – with Wayne Breitbarth

December 20, 2011

LinkedIn is such a powerful tool for researching prospects and networking with professionals, I’m always surprised when I meet advisors who aren’t using it. Oh, and it’s free. Hard to beat that. Wayne Breitbarth, the author of The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success, joins me to discuss the power of LinkedIn and how financial and [...]

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10-step checklist for seminars that will energize your practice

December 13, 2011

If you’re been running successful seminars to help prospect for your business, you know how hard it is to get everything right. From getting your list, to creating engaging invitations, to finding a facility, to RSVP’ing your guests.   It’s a lot of details and processes. That works in our favor — getting a good [...]

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Stuff your pipeline with warm prospects via social media

December 5, 2011

Social media gets a bad rap for being ‘social’.  Many advisors with whom I speak see it as a noisy distraction — its social-ness getting in the way of doing real biz-ness. …stands on a soapbox: And that’s a HUGE mistake.  It’s precisely the social-ness of social media that’s able to identify your ideal prospects, [...]

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Convert prospects by delivering awesome presentations

November 22, 2011

This post is sent free to growth-minded subscribers to my weekly marketing and sales email, Advisor Insider. Subscribe (free) here. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Brokers aren’t used to creating their own presentations.  Compliance rules, you know.  Series 7s take stock presentations and add their names to personalize ‘em. I’ll let you in on a secret though: most of [...]

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The magic formula to growing your financial practice: use content curation to attract warm prospects

November 8, 2011

Building your expertise — your differentiated expertise — is key to creating a pipeline of warm prospects. By establishing your authority on a subject, you’ll soon find the users of your website begin to trust you. And we all know that TRUST is what closes prospects. TRUST is… what moves people through your sales pipeline. [...]

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Best actionable marketing links for financial advisors

November 4, 2011

Online marketing is really just beginning to take off in the investment management field.  I get asked almost daily from financial advisors and RIAs what they should be reading, what they need to learn, where they should spend their time to bring in new prospects. Like Stephanie Sammon’s recent LinkedIn poll of hundreds of financial [...]

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