There are varying reasons why many choose to become financial advisors. It may be that they have a penchant for working with numbers and people or perhaps they genuinely like to help others resolve their issues.
A career in financial advising is a diverse and flexible one. The profession offers choices: you can choose to specialize in a specific kind of advice such as mortgages or pension planning or perhaps investment advising. You are free to decide if you want to work for a large company, under a small firm, or independently.
Whether you choose to work under a company or on your own, the initial and essential step will always be finding leads and prospects that can eventually be turned into a steady flow of satisfying customers. Although there is no shortcut to achieving any goal, the following are some words of advice that may allow you to build your “Business books” the right way as a fresh financial advisor.
1. Know Your Target Audience Well
In some businesses you may be able to get away with targeting everybody everywhere, however, that may not be the case for financial advisors. As a rookie financial advisor, your resources may be limited and therefore you may need to target your audience well so you get better results in finding warm leads that would eventually become potential prospects.
Find out who your ideal client is, their age, gender, and profession. Since you are new to the business, you do not have a niche of happy customers to guide you yet, therefore, you need to look at examples that others may have set. Research the kind of values, interests, goals, and lifestyle choices that satisfied clients tend to have as shared by influential personalities in the industry.
2. Create “Buyer Persona” for Your Business
Once you have an idea of who your audience will be, you may further go on to create what is commonly now known in the business world as “buyer persona.” In simple words, it is a profile that you create through research to build that portrays what your ideal client is. It is possible you may even have multiple personas for your business.
In order to create your business persona, you need to conduct thorough research which will help you to understand and empathize with your future clients’ needs and concerns. Find out their demographics, their values, and their pain points, what their goals and challenges may be, and where they are located.
The best way to start is to create a list of questions for your potential leads. Furthermore, you should continue to gather information from your current prospect and client list no matter how small it may be. Once you have gathered enough information to create one or maybe multiple personas for your business, you need to carry on the steps to make efficient use of the gathered info.
Buyer persona would assist you in understanding your target audience and how to best make sure your clients benefit from your business. Although it may require you to make extra efforts, creating a buyer persona would allow you to ensure your marketing efforts aren’t falling on deaf ears.
Related: Why New Advisors should Run their Practice like a Business
3. Family and Friends Won’t Be Enough
Your family and friends are the frontbenchers in your line of potential leads. Not only do you have easy access to them, you even are well aware of the kind of buyer persona they may possess. However, this pipeline may dry up quickly since eventually, you would have touched them all. Now you may need to step outside and approach those with whom you aren’t familiar on a personal level.
To have a constant flow of potentials, you would need to approach various marketing techniques and referrals may just not be enough. Although there may be potential in the referrals, those referrals might still require you to use various marketing techniques for you to display what you have to offer.
John Anderson, managing director of independent advisor solutions says, “In light of the pandemic, most growth is going to be through referrals but a friend or family member isn't just going to call based on the referral. They're going to check out an advisor's website, social media, and any content they've created.”
4. Using The Digital Age To Your Benefit
In today’s day and age, digital marketing is the fastest, most cost-effective, and easiest way to create awareness of your business. Not only does it allow you to access a large group, but you can also even target your prospects better.
Make it so that your digital footprint is unique and that it sets you apart from all other financial advisors’ marketing strategies. If possible, hire a professional to assist you in social media design. Make sure you reach out on the various popular social media platforms and stay connected to the current trends to market yourself in a captivating way.
5. Step Out There
While for some businesses family, friends, and social media might create a constant flow of clients, as a financial advisor, you may be required to “step out there” regardless.
Find local groups that you can meet up with that share your education path, interests, or profession that you can often meet up with. Invite people to dinner seminars and instead of one-to-one sales meetings hold educated workshops to reach a larger targeted audience. You can further go on to attend or sponsor community events to spread awareness of your business.
Final Thoughts
Once you have chosen your career as a financial advisor, you need to realize that no career path is ever easy. A research at Investment Executive indicates that approximately one-third of financial advisors will leave their industry in the first two years of business.
Your journey may have you twist and turn, take detours and u-turns, or have you attempt removing hurdles that hinder your growth process but by trying to maintain constant growth through prospecting and increasing your potential client list, your goal and destination may become a little easier to achieve.
