Everything supposedly changed post-pandemic except the financial advisor’s role and how they drive new business.
The contrarian view was part of a keynote session titled “Growth & Client Acquisition in 2022 & Beyond” at the Retirement & Longevity Summit in San Diego on Monday morning.
Presented by high-profile industry personality Penny Phillips, President and Co-Founder of Journey Strategic Wealth, she implored attendees to keep it simple when navigating new business realities.
More specifically, she delivered two key points.
No.1: Intentional Rhetoric
“I want to provide a different viewpoint for advisors who are practitioners, but also building and growing a business,” Phillip said in a pre-session interview. “There’s a lot of rhetoric in the industry over the past couple of months about how much has changed. Life, society—everything has changed because of the pandemic. And the opening message of the presentation is that fundamentally nothing has changed about how advisors drive new business to their firms.”
She added that when advisors leave the session, she wants them to feel a sense of excitement about the value of their role and that there has never been a more critical time to be a financial advisor.
“It’s the most important role someone can play in a person’s life, maybe only behind a doctor,” Phillips explained. “But what is changing, and what has changed about the business? I encourage advisors in this presentation to double down on the things that we’ve known to be changing for decades—demographics and the role of the financial advisor in a person’s life.”
It’s achieved in two ways; using “intentional language” and focusing on the psychographic profile of the client. She emphasized that it means speaking with them in language that resonates and in layman’s terms that eliminate industry jargon.
“Posting information on social media for retirees when your target market is female, Millennial entrepreneurs obviously will not resonate,” Phillips said.
No. 2: Simple Explanations
Her second point—don’t be fancy in describing what you do—sounds simple enough, but advisors too often attempt to differentiate themselves using detailed (and confusing) explanations of their services.
“I’m a former coach and consultant, and we’re obsessed with teaching advisors fancy ways to say straightforward things,” Phillips noted. “My message to advisors is to say you’re an advisor. You don’t have to tell people that you help them sleep better at night. You need to teach people about what a financial advisor does, so it’s about how to simplify language, which is a deviation from much of the training many advisors receive throughout their careers.”
That simplification can also be added to how advisors approach organic growth. As a coach, she would constantly hear advisors need the “perfect” marketing plan template or perfect marketing coach, however they’re defined.
“The reality is that the best in the business have been garnering business the same way for decades. They know their core client,” Phillips concluded. “They’re very clear on the difference between wealth management and investment management, and they drive business through relationships and through creating referral experiences. We can bend it and make that sound as fancy as we want, but that’s the reality. They’re obsessed with their business. They talk about it constantly. And they don’t need to ask people for referrals because their entire client experience is a referable experience.”
Phillips has spent most of her career coaching and consulting financial advisors and institutions. Before founding Journey, Penny founded Thrivos Consulting, a practice management coaching company. She has worked in various leadership positions across the financial services industry and has authored multiple practice management training programs focused on helping financial advisors prepare for the next generation of wealth holders.
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With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
