[INTRODUCTION]
Brad Johnson: Welcome back to Do Business, Do Life. I’m Brad Johnson, and today we’re going to dive into a marketing framework I’ve shared with hundreds of the most successful financial advisors over the years. But before we get into that, I want to tell you a quick story. You see, a few years ago, I sat down with this advisor. He was a CFP. He was super sharp, built incredible plans, and had a heart to serve. But you know what his biggest problem was? A blank calendar. He was the best-kept secret in town. Nobody knew he existed. And that’s when I realized something most advisors don’t like to admit. It doesn’t matter how good your advice is if you have no one to give it to.
That conversation stuck with me because the more I looked around the industry, the more I saw the same thing. Talented advisors, incredible planners, stuck in a business that wasn’t growing because their marketing strategy was operating on emotions, not math. So, today we’re flipping the script. We’re breaking down, number one, why understanding the math when it comes to marketing is the difference between an expense mindset versus an investment mindset; number two, why realizing you need to look to build marketing funnels that factor in both high ROI and high frequency matters; and number three, why the shift from one-to-one versus one-to-many might be the single greatest leverage play available in your entire business.
So, whether you’re trying to scale your business exponentially, free up more hours on your calendar, or both, this episode will give you a proven framework to fill your calendar with appointments more efficiently. Okay. Let’s dive in.
[EPISODE]
Brad Johnson: Okay. So, let’s dive into number one, math over emotions when it comes to marketing in your business. And for this one, who doesn’t love a good whiteboard? I know all of us do in finance, so let’s pull this bad boy in. Okay. So, as we dive into number one, math over emotions, this is one of the foundational principles that is so important to know as a financial advisor. One of the things I’ve seen get in the way of advisors growing and scaling their business is making emotional decisions when it comes to marketing in their business.
So, we are going to imagine that we are entering an imaginary casino, and in this casino, we always win. And so, I want to draw the analogy between slot machine A, slot machine B, slot machine C, and I want to think of these as three different marketing funnels inside of your financial advisor business. Okay. And on slot machine A, B, and C, we have three different odds. So, on this first one, $1 in, $2 out; on slot machine B, $1 in, $3 out; and on slot machine C, $1 in, $5 out. So, logically, if we walk into this imaginary casino, we would always, always, always play slot machine C, right? Because the more money in, the more efficiently, I should say, the same amount of money in, the more efficiently the money out comes.
Every $1 in, every time we pull the handle, $5, $5, $5. Here, we would have to pull the handle more frequently to get to the same outcome. Here, we’d have to pull it over twice as much to get to the same outcome as slot machine C. So, the first thing when we talk about math versus emotions, one of the biggest disconnects I see, I’ve heard this over and over in finance, “I’m done with seminars. They’re horrible. They don’t work.” Well, you know what’s interesting? Being a guy that has had the opportunity over the last 20 years to have a 30,000-foot view of the most successful, fastest growing, fastest scaling financial services firms in the entire country, I can tell you something that works over and over and over: public events, educational, dinner seminars, referral events.
And here’s the thing I heard said one time, and sorry, I don’t mean this disrespectfully. I once heard an advisor say, “Seminars aren’t broken. You’re broken if they don’t work.” So, as we look at this marketing funnel, we want to start to look at it mathematically, not emotionally. And the beautiful thing about numbers is numbers never lie. We can start to look at the analytics. We can start to look at the true ROIs, and as you start to track your numbers across your marketing funnels, those could be seminars, radio shows, TV shows, podcast, YouTube channels, all kinds of opportunities there. That’s what I love about finance. You have this blue ocean of marketing strategies in our industry.
We want to start to look at how we efficiently deploy dollars. And if we know the math, now we can flip from this mindset of, “Ugh, I have to spend $100,000, $500,000, $1 million on my marketing this year,” and you can start to flip to a mindset of investment. Because think about this, if I walked into this imaginary casino I have here behind us, at what point would I stop putting money into these machines? I double my money every time I do this one. I triple my money, 5X my money. Here, you would say, “I’m feeding money into the slot machine until they shut the thing down and pull me out of the casino,” and you would just be feeding money into the slot machine, pulling the handle as frequently as possible.
So, that is the first place we want to start when it comes to marketing, understand the math so you can get out of the emotions, and that is what allows you to shift from this expense mindset that is now like, “What’s the least I can do?” to an investment mindset of, “How do I put more fuel into the machine that allows me to grow and amplify my business, and get appointments on the calendar?” At the end of the day, as we said at the very beginning of this video, if you don’t have people to help, it’s really hard to give them advice. So, we’ve got to start to think about how we efficiently fill the calendar. So, remember this when it comes to math over emotions, all of us, every human suffers from primacy and recency biases. That is, we remember the first thing and the last thing.
And that is one of the biggest things I’ve seen get in the way when it comes to a marketing mindset that creates scale is we’re not going to do that funnel, whether it be A, B, or C, whether it be a dinner seminar, whether it be an educational event, whether it be whatever you’re doing to fill the calendar because the last one didn’t work out as well as you would’ve liked. And what I can say is when it comes to marketing, you want to start to look at not just one example, but what are trends of multiple. Because as much as we would love for it to be a science, it is still a bit of an art when it comes to marketing. And you don’t want to let your own mindset get in the way of proven strategies when it comes to real-world ROIs.
Okay. Let’s get to point number two. We’re going to stick with the slot machine analogy here. We’re going to stick with the same ROIs. Now, what we’re going to start to think about is not just the highest ROI, but what is the frequency that we can perform that marketing funnel inside of our business. So, if we look at an entire year, so sticking with the same slot machine analogy, we’re going to keep the ROIs the same, two to one, three to one, five to one. But now what we’re going to change is the frequency. So, let’s say slot machine A, it represents S for public seminars here, where slot machine C, we’re going to put an R there for referrals.
Now, if you think about a calendar year, a marketing calendar, which by the way, if you haven’t already checked out the pin comment below, we’ve made available an example marketing calendar that, if you don’t have one, you can use that as your very first version of this. Can’t recommend this highly enough. As we start to think about this, let’s say the seminar, the frequency, we can pull this handle on this slot machine monthly. So, as we look at a calendar year, let’s say we can do this 12 times. And over here, the referral, think about it this way, real life, if you’re doing some sort of referral strategy, many of our members might do things like wine tastings. They might do things like car shows, movie nights with the grandparents.
There’s all kinds of opportunities here, but if it’s some sort of a bring-a-friend event, you can’t do that too often. You will burn your clientele out. And so, let’s say over here, this is a quarterly experience. So, this slot machine, we can pull that handle 12 times a year. This slot machine, we can only pull it four times a year. However, it is the highest ROI. If you think about real-world math, it is much more affordable for your clients to bring their friends and essentially clone themselves when it comes to your business model. So, typically, the ROI on referrals is substantially higher than what I would call cold marketing, sending out a mailer to strangers.
So, if we think about this, this is where a lot of advisors don’t think about as I plan my year, what are the marketing funnels that I can turn the volume up on? So, think about this one here. Public seminars, 12. Yes, it’s a lower ROI, but would I rather have no people to see? As you start to grow and scale your team, let’s say you go from a solo advisor firm to a five-advisor firm. Now, there’s 5X more appointments on the calendar. So, I would rather have a two-to-one ROI than an empty calendar for one of the advisors on my team. So, this one, public seminars, educational events, as long as you live in a market that’s big enough to turn up the volume on that marketing, that’s a no-brainer.
Now, granted, as we go left to right here, we want to start to prioritize the highest ROI. So, let’s say there’s actually opportunity on the referral events on your calendar. Say, you know what, we could take those from quarterly to monthly. Let’s cross out the four, let’s take that to 12. This 12, we could double that to 24. So, there are going to be constraints. There is such a thing as burning out your mail list. Typically, we recommend rotating your seminar zones, your mailer zones, so you’re hitting those every 60 to 90 days. So, you can basically have a central hub, start to rotate around that, but you want to make sure you don’t burn out your list.
That’s important in all marketing that you do. But what’s really key here is we start to look at what is the maximum frequency, what are the most scalable marketing funnels that also marry with the highest ROI when it comes to maximizing your marketing spend. Added bonus. There’s another opportunity here. I use the example of seminars and client events on purpose. There’s such a thing as cross-pollinating your marketing funnels. So, I’ve seen some of the best in the business will do something like this, “Hey, as a client of our firm, one of our goals here is not only to create incredible plans that help you navigate not just to retirement, but through retirement, all of the changes, all of the life stuff that happens along the way. But also, we want to help you have some fun now that you’ve done all the hard work to get to retirement.”
So, think about all of those fun client events that you can do, wine tastings, beer tastings, golf events, movie nights. I’ve seen client workouts where maybe it’s yoga, maybe it’s Pilates. The opportunities are endless here. But now we have that going. Let’s just say that’s a monthly cadence. Over here, on the seminars, so these are people you know, the referrals. These are people you don’t know. So, now we’re doing maybe dinner events at a high-end steak house, so you can maximize getting people to show up, maximize the return on your mailer. So, now imagine if that public seminar, you did a little preview of what it might look like if it made sense for them to become a client, and he said, “Hey, we’ve got this calendar of events. You did all the hard work to get here. We want to help you have fun now that you’re a retiree. We’ve got a community of like-minded retirees.
So, by the way, for anybody that takes us up on coming in to explore whether or not it makes sense to work with our firm, we’re going to give you a special guest invite to a client event. Although these are typically reserved for our clients, you’ll get to see some of the great retirees in this area we work with, make some friends. Also, you’ll get a little preview of what it could look like if you were one of our clients. So, you think about that.” Now, you are dangling a bit of a carrot that’s going to give them another reason to check out to see whether or not your firm makes sense.
On the flip side, one of the biggest struggles I’ve heard from a number of advisors out there, you do these amazing client events. Say it’s a bring-a-friend event, family movie night, we have a number of our firms that will say, “Hey, be a rockstar grandparent on us. We’re renting out this movie theater. Bring the grandkids. By the way, if you’ve got other retiree friends that have grandkids, bring them along as well.” What you don’t want to do is make that a sales pitch. So, you might open with something like this, “Hey, tonight is all about enjoying an evening with your grandkids. We love that we’re able to facilitate events like this. By the way, I know a number of you out there in the audience are not currently clients, but you were invited by our clients because you’re their friends. So, we want to make this a fun experience for you. We’re not going to talk about much about what we do tonight.
However, at the end of tonight’s movie night, when you walk out, you get a special VIP invite because you are a friend of one of our clients to next Thursday’s educational event, which we’ll explain a lot more about why your friends, our clients, chose to work with us when it comes to their retirement. So, because of that, we’re going to give you a special VIP invite. And by the way, make it a double date on us. Bring your clients that invited you along, and we can’t wait to show you why they chose us when it comes to their retirement.” So, if you look at the psychology there, we’re using these two marketing funnels to cross-pollinate each other and give them a reason to want to be a client, and also not turning a client fun event into a hidden seminar sales pitch, which nobody likes, but now you’re giving them the avenue to get to the education side or the seminar side of the equation.
Okay, let’s get into number three and the concept that one-to-many is more efficient, better leverage than one-to-one. So, as we go back to the slot machine analogy here, we talked about the ROIs, knowing the math, then we talked about the scalability, being able to turn up the volume, the frequency. Now, if we look at kind of the old school version of being a financial advisor, especially if you’re just getting started, which could be some of you out there, or maybe you’re crushing it, and you’re just looking to build marketing that allows you to scale to multiple advisors. So, the old school like go door knocking, or how I started, cold calling, that is a one-to-one result.
What’s required there is how many hours of time do I, the individual, have that equates to how many individuals I can speak to or connect with when it comes to marketing appointments that I can put on the calendar. And it’s better than no appointments, one-to-one, but if you truly want to scale a financial services firm without exception, the largest, most scalable businesses in finance all have one-to-many marketing funnels. So, what’s the difference? One-to-one would be, I built my business by working the country club. I go, I play golf, and I connect one-to-one and hope that I convince them that they can come in for an appointment with me.
What would be more efficient? What about I go, and I pay for a mailer, and I get in front of an entire room? And most advisors, most members at Triad, they’re going to have their primary marketing funnel be a one-to-many. So, if you think about a seminar, I’m in front of an audience, a room full of prospects, I can have one conversation that impacts 20, 30, 40 people in the room. Psychologically, a lot of advisors think of that as a one-to-many first appointment. You’re really talking about here is philosophically how we build a plan, how we help serve our clients. Here are some of the problems or gaps they may have that might lead them to want to come in and see us. So, that is what I would start to think about if you want to build a scalable firm.
The most precious commodity we all have, whether you’re a financial advisor or Elon Musk, we all have the same amount of hours in the day. So, how do we leverage those hours of time to maximize results, maximize the number of clients we can serve? And so, as we start to think about this whole concept, we’re really going to think about how do we focus on making sure one or multiple marketing funnels we have are one-to-many.
Okay. Now, I’m going to go into the next phase of thinking about this. You might just be thinking about your calendar. In fact, I did a prior episode on the Ideal Financial Advisor calendar, and this comes from kind of combining some of Dan Sullivan’s coaching at Strategic Coach, as well as years and years in the trenches with some of the most successful financial services firms. There’s a great model, we’ll probably link to it in the show notes, link to it down below in the description, where we talk about how to avoid the Swiss cheese calendar. The Swiss cheese calendar is having all kinds of random holes in your calendar and not having structure. So, think about it in three ways, working in the business, on the business, being off.
Ideally, the weekends you’re not doing any work, so you can recharge, but stacking Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and go we’ll get into detail into that if you go check out the other episode on the ideal calendar for an advisor. But if you think about that concept, you start with your calendar, one of one, now, let’s say you take appointments Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Let’s say you have five appointment opportunities a day. So, now we have 15 first appointment opportunities or second appointment opportunities, or review appointment opportunities for the week. But now, as we start to add additional advisors to the team, second advisor, now we have 30. Third advisor, now we have 45. Fourth advisor, we’re up to 60.
And so, now what we can start to do is if we’ve got one-to-many, we can start to scale the marketing, to fill the calendars for multiple advisor teams, so that you can continue to scale and grow a business bigger than you. So, that’s the thing to start to think about. Besides the ROI, besides the frequency, how do I focus on one-to-many? Okay. Last little bonus tidbit here. Traditional marketing versus digital marketing. Right now, as you listen or watch this, you’re either seeing it on YouTube or you’re listening on potentially a podcast player. Traditional marketing in finance, let’s go to old school, TV, radio. What do you have to do every single time? You have to keep showing up.
I have to record a new episode, and then I hope they happen to be there to listen to it. Even if you have DVR, how many people are watching your show like it’s an episode of Friends back in the day, right, where you didn’t want to miss an episode? Very few. Here’s the difference when you think about today’s version of marketing and how it’s evolved. YouTube, podcasting, it’s on demand. So, now they can find that content when they have a question. You think about YouTube, it’s the video version of Google. Every time I have to clean my espresso maker, which is about once a month, what do I do? I forget. Go out to YouTube, “How to Clean Breville espresso maker,” and it’s there on demand.
So, think about a retiree. They’re coming up to retirement. “What should I do? At what age can I roll my 401(k)?” So, if you’re out there creating content that is not only one-to-many but on-demand one-to-many, you’ve now unlocked a new level of your business. I like to make the analogy, it’s like going to the gym, working out one time, and being shredded for life. Who wouldn’t want that, right? So, start to think about what is the marketing you want, how do we start to create leverage for the hours of time you have in a day, and maximize the return to you as an advisor to fill the calendar in the most efficient way possible.
Okay. So, hopefully this was helpful today. Did get a number of comments on The First Thing I Do as a Financial Advisor, an episode we did that really hit home with a lot of the audience, and one of the big questions was, “What about marketing, whether I’m just starting out or I’m a seasoned advisor that is just looking to take things to the next level?” So, we wanted to do a deep dive on marketing. And so, hopefully this served you all as a reminder. Today, we hit the importance of thinking through marketing, number one, math over emotions; number two, not just ROI, but actual frequency, being able to turn up the volume on that marketing; and number three, how one-to-many trumps one-to-one if you can do it in an efficient way that serves your clients.
So, hopefully, you got a lot out of this today. By the way, if there’s something I missed, as always, throw it in the comments below. We read all of them, and that’s where we get a lot of future episode ideas from. And also, if you haven’t already, special request from me, please subscribe and hit that little bell that notifies you when we drop a new episode. It really helps the show get found, whatever the algorithm is out there on YouTube. It helps it serve to others that we can serve here at Triad and with the show.
So, other than that, last thing, if you don’t have a framework, an annual marketing calendar, we’ve got something down below in the pinned comments, a link to be able to download a sample version of that to be able to fill in the blanks, so that not only you can make sure the highest ROI marketing funnels are on there, but also what’s the frequency that we look out throughout the year, and then obviously focusing on those that can be scalable, the one-to-many versus the one-to-one. So, thanks for tuning in today. Appreciate all of you, and we’ll see you on the next one.
[END]
