Here’s why you should lay the groundwork before kicking off any marketing

So here’s what I would advise a new advisor looking to reach their first 100 clients: Build your business online. But first, there are a few things you should figure out before you start building content or running ads. Unfortunately, I see a lot of advisors out there throwing content against the wall to see what sticks and mostly getting poor results.

To help advisors better understand what they want out of their business (and life), I created a workbook called Advisor Influence. That’s where I think all advisors and entrepreneurs should start. It provides some key insights into what really matters in life and how your business should be structured to help get you there. It also helps clarify your unique value proposition, who your ideal client is (usually a fairly defined niche), and what resources will be most useful for you to reach them.

You can grab a copy of my workbook for free here.

Start by attracting clients broadly

Until recently, it was pretty hard to be found by people in your own community looking for financial advice. Now, it’s pretty easy. 

Here are three ways you can do it:

Get listed 

If you’re a member of an organization that supports advisor listings, be sure to sign up and optimize. I know advisors who occasionally get clients from their NAPFA, CFP board, or XYPN listings. However, I wouldn’t count on this being a huge source for new clients, but it could give you a little jump-start on your journey to 100.

Launch a website

Most advisors overthink this. Your website doesn’t need to have bells and whistles—keep it simple. When someone visits your site, they should know within a few seconds: who you work with and what problems you help solve. Here’s an example of keeping it simple and to the point: Financial planning for commercial real estate property owners; minimize taxes and maximize liquidity.

Once your headline explains who you work with and what problems you solve, you can add pages about your company/team, how you work with clients, and how to get started. Although your blog could be on a separate domain, if done right, it doesn’t have to be. Simple is almost always my preference.

Also: Make it look good and avoid a non-differentiated, cliché logo (like a boat or compass).

Register your business with Google

Samantha Russell from FMG Suite + Twenty Over Ten has many articles on best practices for Google My Business. Devour them and get your new RIA found via local search. The people who are searching locally aren’t always piping hot leads, but if someone sees your business description and is in your niche, that’s a different story. This is low-hanging fruit and doesn’t take a ton of effort. All RIAs should be doing this.

As you acquire clients, you’ll also be able to have them leave reviews (depending on your state —make sure to do your own compliance diligence before embarking on testimonials). Once you have great reviews, you’ll rank higher and get more clicks, leads, and clients.

Four ways to find your ideal clients

Now, let’s dig into how to find your ideal clients. While it’s great to take on any new clients, it’s even better to acquire the type of clients you love working with and provide the most value to. It’s also easier to convert them from website lurkers to happy clients. Here’s how to do that.

Start blogging with intention

Writing can be hard for many of us, but using a framework to develop your content makes it easier.

Start with a list of the biggest challenges that your prospects face. Ideally, these are the things that genuinely worry them and maybe even keep them up at night. Using the example from my previous post—an advisor for commercial real estate property owners—here’s a list of topics they could blog about: 

• Rising interest rates
• Legal changes on things like evictions, taxes, rent control, etc.
• 1031 exchanges
• Depreciation
• Selling and how to invest when they want to get out
• Estate planning

Once you’ve created a list like this for yourself, build a calendar to help you commit to writing about the top 5-6 areas of concern/opportunity for your niche audience. A potential schedule could look like a 2-hour block, once a week.

I’d suggest this framework for writing about your topics:

1. Identify the problem
2. Agitate the problem
3. Offer a solution

The length of your post should be determined by how much you meaningfully have to say. Longer posts are totally fine if you have a lot of valuable information to present, but don’t pad your content with anything unnecessary or clickbaity.

Make sure you follow best practices for search engine optimization (SEO). Hubspot has a post with some solid and easy-to-implement steps.

Lastly, don’t worry about the quantity of traffic. Instead, focus on quality. I had a single blog post from 2012 that ranked #1 on Google for a specific fixed index annuity product. It only received about 100 visitors a day, but it generated around five new clients per month and nearly $70 million/year of new business.

Launch a YouTube channel

Creating your own YouTube channel helps with outreach similar to a blog. You can also combine your videos with your blog to double the impact.

I use the same formula for creating videos as I do for blog posts (the three-step framework in the previous section). If you need the steps on how to set up a YouTube channel, here’s a handy guide from Twenty Over Ten.

As for the videos themselves, the most important thing to remember is to follow the framework and provide value to your viewers. Production quality never hurts, but it’s not the most important factor.

What is important is to remember why you’re making the videos. If you want to be an entertainer, don’t expect to get tons of actual results. Rather, be personable and knowledgeable, and make sure to follow the formula. Don’t forget your CTA (the “offer a solution” part), but don’t overdo it. A good rule of thumb is to make your content (blog posts and videos) 95% educational and 5% CTA.

Launch a podcast

I wouldn’t expect to get a ton of direct lift from a podcast. That said, a niche-focused podcast can help with SEO and credibility, especially if combined with a YouTube channel, website, and blog.

Over time, it’s possible that your podcast can drive new business, but while you’re on your startup/scale-up journey, it’s mostly there to provide more value to your ideal clients and boost your credibility.

Here are a few more tips on creating your content from my colleagues at Altruist. Lastly, here’s a solid step-by-step guide to the logistics from Carson Group.

Pay for marketing on social media

I’ve had great results running ads on Facebook and Instagram. It’s very easy to target a specific audience and learn quickly what message they are interested in (which is also useful for blog/video/podcast topics). The conversion time is longer than organic traffic, but you can build a list pretty quickly and affordably, and with good targeting and CTAs, you can generate appointments.

To see entire campaigns in action, Facebook/Meta has something called the Ads Library. Just plug in the companies you think are doing well with their marketing, and you can see all of their ads, landing pages, CTAs, etc. It’s a great way to learn—just don’t copy. It’s illegal and dilutive.

Companies that spend millions there and are generating new clients for <$1,000/each are White Glove (they use sub-brands like “Social Security 567” and others), SmartAsset, and Fisher Investments. There are probably more, but if someone is spending many millions and running the same general ads (or same general frameworks) for years, there’s a good chance they’re working.

Nurture clients, gain trust, earn referrals 

As you start to gain clients, you will have a new source of prospects. Happy clients are the best sources of referrals, so it goes without saying that you should actually be great at your job and deliver real value.

Assuming you’re doing your part, here are a few ways to help those happy clients help you get more clients.

Create a client email list

This may be obvious, but you’ll want all your prospects and clients on your email list. There are plenty of easy-to-use email services out there, such as Mailchimp, that can keep your followers informed of new blog posts, videos, podcast episodes, or events.

Be sure to include a CTA in your emails, and make it natural. Remember the 95% educational, 5% CTA ratio.

Ask clients for feedback

A lot of advisors don’t take the time to solicit feedback. Even something as simple as an automated NPS survey sent every 6 months is better than nothing. This would allow you to measure just how happy your clients are, catch issues before they get too big to fix, and potentially help you gain some referrals.

If you’re unfamiliar with NPS, here’s a quick primer from Hubspot.

We use Churn Zero at Altruist, but many tools are available (AskNicely.com is pretty cool).

If allowable, ask clients for reviews

Testimonials are still not legal for all advisors. But, if they are for you, then it’s a great time to get as many Google Reviews from your clients as possible. If you are doing great work for your clients and they tell the world about it, it will likely result in prospects being more likely to click on your Google Business listing, complete your CTAs, and ultimately hire you as an advisor.

You can buy prospects or leads, but be careful

There are a few services out there like SmartAsset and Zoe Financial that can help you get meetings with prospective clients. I’ve heard mixed reviews on both, as they depend a lot on the quality of the leads and how hard you work them. But, if you need to get some meetings on your calendar before all the organic activities discussed above start paying off, these sources do exist.

You could also outsource some of this work to marketing platforms such as Snappy Kraken, Advisor I/O, or Twenty Over Ten. Each company has different offerings, so you’d want to ensure it meets your niche’s needs and your budget.

I would caution you to be careful with any service asking you to pay 20% (or 20bps) or more of your revenue for new clients. Over time, that will become very expensive and also make it hard for you to provide maximum client value. Lead programs can be a helpful way to grow your business—just be smart about the economics over time.