I’m on the road this week and hitting Toronto, Chicago, Miami and NYC. My first takeaway is that sentiment is really, really down. Particularly, money managers are feeling the downturn. I’m feeling a little sitting-on-hands, deer-in-the-headlights.
While I admit the situation is really tough, financial advisors can actually take advantage of this downturn by doing the following 4 things:
- own your geography: This is straight out of Seth Godin’s advice for real estate agents right now. If you, your co-workers, and employees have extra bandwidth right now, it’s time for you to start owning your geography by starting a local newspaper newsletter.
Godin suggests the following:
Interview a local business, a local student or a local political activist. You can do it by phone, it can be very short and it might take you ten minutes.
Get 20 households to ‘subscribe’ by giving you their email address and asking for a free subscription. You can use direct contact or flyers or speeches to get your list.
From here, you’re going to send out this newspaper via email. After just a couple of weeks, you will have built a serious email list, stayed relevant in your locality, and have met many of the small business leaders locally.
- bring new people through the door: Start planning relevant, straight-talking mini-seminars to help current clients and potential clients get smart about the state of the markets currently and what to expect in the future. If you’re confident of your capabilities, bring in accountants, fund managers, lawyers to address the same issue. Use meetup.com . You’re events will be pushed out to others in your community for free and just a few months into this process, you’ll have attracted many new contacts and prospects. Keep a list of everyone who attends and get phone numbers and email addresses to keep in touch.
- become an expert in something: Also out of Godin’s playbook but take these slow times to learn some new skills and position yourself as an expert. Times are slow and when they pick up again (they will eventually), you’ll be the tops in your niche. Maybe it’s investing in new technologies like clean energy or in new markets like China. Maybe it’s investing in different asset classes like high-yield bonds. Maybe it’s trading strategies like buy-write. Regardless, this is a tremendous opportunity for you.
- get social media: It’s possible that the face of the broker/financial advisor business will be substantially different as we make it through these shaky times. The effervescent Jim Cramer has paved the way to show that advisors can make big bucks by positioning themselves differently from the traditionally prospect-close-fees cycle of brokers. He’s done it through expert use of the media. Cramer chose TV and the web. There is a whole class of financial advisors using social media to bring in new business and build their network and expertise. Combined with the previous 3 steps, understanding and using social media will reinforce your positioning as a leader in your field. This doesn’t mean just putting up a Facebook profile — what it does mean is figuring out social media as a distribution channel to micro-target you perfect prospect.
Clearly, times are tough and may be getting tougher for stock brokers and financial advisors. Take the time to figure out who and where you want to be in the upcoming years. Then, using social media tools, start bringing new prospects through the door by reinforcing your expertise and owning your zip code.
