Episode 215 – Marketing and Wealth Mastery with Industry Experts, Elyse & Angela

Episode Transcription

This is the Ultimate Advisor Podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful and scalable practice. Each week we’ll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals, your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets, and to create the advising practice that you’ve dreamed of. You’ll be joined by our hosts Bryan Sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practices marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let’s jump in to another amazing episode of the Ultimate Advisor Podcast.

Brittany Anderson 01:07

Hello, and welcome back to the Ultimate Advisor Podcast. I have with me today two special ladies who are going to share a massive amount of value and bring their talent to the table today. So I have with me, Elyse Stoner, and Angela York. They each have over three decades worth of supporting business owners, in their marketing in their strategy, and in really helping them cultivate opportunities in their business. So Elyse, and Angela, welcome to the show.

Elyse Stoner 1:41

Thanks for having us, Brittany, we appreciate it. Thank you.

Brittany Anderson 1:44

It’s a pleasure, it is my great pleasure to host both of you. Now we’re gonna, we’re gonna cut to the chase here, then we’ll back in a little bit more on your journey and kind of what got you to this point. But to pique the curiosity of our listeners talk a little bit about how you two have come together and what you’re now bringing to the advisor community.

Angela York 2:08

I’ll start I have been in the advisor community for a long time since almost the beginning. In my career, late 90s. I was in house for an advisory firm and decided in 2008 to consult in the space in the areas of marketing and event and when the pandemic hit everything changed. advisors had questions, how do we implement our marketing? How do we do our event. And at that time, at least I had been introduced by a mutual friend and vendor in the space. He really focused on the strategy, event strategy and strategic marketing, which we never really had in that advisor space. And listening to all the questions you should ask when planning and really taking events, what has worked in value really came into focus during the pandemic when everyone hit pause, and was really looking at what they needed to do with their marketing plans, their virtual events, all of that. And we started working together on projects. And fast forward, we have developed a strategic marketing plan for advisors for the last few years focusing on ideal clients. And really, as we like to say flipping marketing on its head in the adviser community is probably coming together.

Brittany Anderson 3:25

Elyse, anything you would add to that there?

Elyse 3:27

You know, it’s it’s a great opportunity to work with someone like Angela, who bring so much experience and knowledge for the world of the financial advisor. I don’t have that. And I come at it from a very unique and fresh side of things. My career, as you talk about those many decades, and I’ve watched them pile up and it makes me sweat a little bit. I came from the sports and entertainment world where we really it was how we were brought up right about who is the person who’s that person that’s going to be sitting in that seat for that football game, who’s that person that’s going to be sitting in that seat for that particular concert. You don’t talk the same way you don’t use the messaging the same way. When you’re trying to fill seats for a rodeo versus, you know, an Andre Bocelli. It’s so that combined with Angela’s experience, we can kind of bring that together and go, Okay, our dear advisor, friends, who are you really trying to talk to? And it appears to me that nobody’s really had that conversation in the advisor space. So just being able to come together and how people with these years of knowledge, I mean, that’s to me, that’s why we do it. We’ve got all this stuff in our heads and we want to be able to help people not be so confused and puzzled by marketing.

Brittany 5:16

You know, marketing as a whole can be. Or they’d like to say it’s like the sexy thing in the room. But the super overwhelming thing in the room. You know, we have one of our partners here at ultimate advisor coaching is Draye. Redfern. So our audience is very familiar with Draye, he’s helped a lot of advisors. And I would say that right aligned with what you’re talking about, one of the biggest struggles up front is advisors getting really crystal clear on who it is they’re trying to serve, and the lives that they’re trying to change the value that they’re set to add. So one thing that I thought was interesting as I was going through your more in depth bios, and really looking at the core of how you two are serving your advisor audience is there’s an I believe this is an Angeles, but it talks about how you use a strategic lens to identify advisors, actual ideal client, so elaborate on that a little bit on what that means. And what that looks like.

Elyse 6:12

Well, it sounds like and Angela can certainly fill in the spaces. This whole idea of ideal client and I use air quotes, it’s not new in the adviser space. And people have been talking about it for years. But what we’ve discovered in the work that we’re doing together is when we ask a new client, who is your ideal client, we get usually a pretty vague their business owner, there are five years from retirement, like a very vague idea of who that ideal client is, what we are able to do through our experience and methodologies, you know, back in the lab, is really getting to know more about that ideal client to really hone in because the say business owner, I’m a business owner, Angela is a business owner. Draye is a business owner, Brian’s a business owner, we may have a lot of things in common, but I’m going to guess we have a lot of things that are very different. And our needs are very different. And we’re really excited that advisors are really beginning to understand the fact that it’s okay to niche down, it’s okay, to really understand who that ideal client is. And in that statement, oftentimes, it’s not who the advisor really thinks that it is,

Brittany 7:33

yeah, I can definitely see that kind of journey, right. And I think a lot of times what happens is when it I think this is where some of the strategy that both of you bring to the table comes into play. And I don’t want to speak for you on this, but I just think about in our brief interactions, you know, a lot of times, the advisor doesn’t know what they don’t know, and how they’re best set to serve and who they’re best that to serve, they may just not have been asked the right questions. You know, I think about a lot of advisors in our community, they have coaches or consultants or, you know, marketing experts or people that they’ll consult with over the years, but they just haven’t had it drawn out of them quite right. So I would be curious to know from each of your perspectives, when you think about the work that you’ve done with advisors, what is the biggest opportunity being left on the table that you’ve witnessed as maybe a certain cadence or a continual effect in the work that you’ve done?

Angela 8:30

I laugh on that, because it’s always follow up. I know, we were talking about ideal client. And there is a strategy to really honing in on your ideal client, and it’s not necessarily who you think it is. And we say that because the Advisor may say, Oh, my clients are retirees. But when you really break down the data of how that client came to them, they came to them when they were in their 40s or 50s, or, or sending a child to college or buying a home. So that’s what we say it’s not who they think it is. And then fast forward to what are they leaving on the table, it’s connecting with those ideal clients, in their follow up, their follow up on their meetings, or follow up on their events, their follow up on really any marketing or touch points that they’re doing. What we’ve seen time and time again, is it’s a lot of work that goes into the the meeting planning the event, and you don’t know if it’s human nature, or just the way everyone has been trained when you set the door and take the tablecloth off, and that’s it back to business, I have 50 emails, I have to go check and the follow up is less than is left on the table. And that’s where the magic happens. That’s where the connections happen. That’s where the trust is built for the clients and the prospects to really feel a connection with the advisor but more assets under management to bring an account to them. That’s where the magic is and when follow up doesn’t take place. And it’s a lost opportunity. And honestly, a waste of marketing dollars.

Brittany 10:05

You know, I think there’s so much to be said there. And Elyse, is there anything that you wanted to add to before I spend this little?

Elyse 10:11

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so Angela’s gonna laugh because I am usually the follow up queen. Like that’s to me like, that’s the big deal. The other thing I’ve discovered is actually the front end, which is the unique selling point of the advisor. People don’t spend the time really understanding what makes them different and unique from the advisor, downstairs, down the street, around the corner, and are again aren’t trained right there, they are stepping forward going, I have this product, I have this tack, I have this this. But really what’s going to build the relationship in that niche with that ideal client is who you are as a human. So we spend a fair amount of time with our advisors, learning about them, like, what did you do before you became an advisor? What is that there’s usually something there? And like, why did you become an advisor? And what’s your favorite part about being an advisor? What are your? What do you do when you’re not advising? What are your hobbies? And, and how can you use all of those to find those people that not only you want to connect with, but they need you? You know, we’ve heard these statistics recently of like how much money is out in the marketplace? And how many how few people I want to say was it less than 25%, I think was the statistic we heard at Jones a couple of weeks ago, less than 25% people actually have a financial plan, that’s 75% of the population who has money that doesn’t have a plan, there’s enough for everybody. So figure out who you are and who you want to connect with and what value as a human being you bring to those other human beings and take it from there,

Brittany 12:08

You know, I can’t help but think about, you know, I think about our strategy. And within any of our businesses, you know, we’ve got multiple different businesses and different kind of facets and industries. But the one commonality that we really try to focus on when we’re creating marketing plans, or any sort of communication in general, is what problem are we solving for. So I think that’s where, in my opinion, you know, you get advisors, we’ve worked with hundreds of advisors over the years, and had to or had the opportunity to kind of peek behind the curtain at what they have structured. And I think sometimes people get stuck. It’s almost like that step where they’ve identified their avatar, and they might get to that point where they know who they serve, they know maybe some of the value, but they get lost in the articulation of it, where they’re so focused on talking about what who they are and what they do that they forget to solve the problem on the other end. So do you have any commentaries around that? Or how an advisor might be able to avoid that trap of getting stuck?

Elyse 13:11

So again, as small business owners, put ourselves in that same place, right, how, how are we helping advisors solve their problem? And we spent a lot of time thinking about that as like the hero’s journey. And what does that client really, what are they trying to solve? And I think you’re right, it’s so much about, well, it’s almost taking it one step further, like, here’s the problem, here’s the solution, but you’re not really showing them the pathway and building that know, like trust to help people get there.

Brittany 13:50

No, I was just gonna comment that No, like trust Yes, I hope everybody and that we’ve heard this a lot lately. So know, like trust, I want to pull that out and push on that button for a minute. Because that is something that people need to remember as they’re crafting anything. So keep going.

Elyse 14:03

Yeah, well, I think again, it’s it’s right again, it’s for those who are on the podcast, I’m a pan talker. So I apologize, right. You’ve got your you’ve got your problem, you got the person who’s providing that solution. But like if I was an octopus, I would have one hand with one problem and seven tentacles with different providers who can provide that solution. It’s finding the the right connection, it’s finding the love connection, right? Like, and how are you going to do that and share that. And there’s other there are people out there who are going to say yes,

Brittany 14:40

Angela, anything you would add to that?

Angela 14:42

I would when one thing we like to tell our advisors is they get caught up in the day to day and the business working on the business and in the business. And we often tell them when they’re asking about how do I connect with the client? How do I look at my business and goal so It’s usually as to increase AUM not losing AUM have the generations stay in house but we always will tell them put yourself in the client’s shoes putting their money their life savings their children in your hands and your expertise. Look at it from a family members that you’re you know, pretend you’re a family member, you’re a human being you’re empathetic, you’re in their court so that you’re not the sale doesn’t doesn’t seem salesy and a lot of advisors, this is just natural for them. They have that caring, empathetic mannerism and bedside manner where they don’t have to worry about it. So they build that know like, but if, if an advisor is struggling on how do I bridge the gap, to really bring it full circle between the problem and the solution, putting yourself in the client’s shoes, and what would I want from an advisor and a partner and a new family member, many advisors we, many clients have advisors we speak to so I think that’s a very important piece for an advisor to consider is really be personable who you are, and be a friend, and the rest of all follow.

Brittany 16:07

Hey, Brittany here, stopping and pausing for a moment to talk about something that we’ve had so many of you inquire about, and that is our ultimate advisor, mastermind. Now, I’m going to start by saying if you are not a growth minded individual, if you are not somebody who’s focused on taking your business to the next level, if you’re not focused on engaging your team, and helping them to help you in turn, level up the business, the service model, how you provide that wow experience to clients. If those things are not your focus, just fast forward right now, because the ultimate advisor mastermind would not then be for you. However, if you are looking to take your business to the next level, if you want to experience exponential growth and feel supported along the way, if you want to start working smarter and not harder, if you want to help your team members to work within the God given talents that they were provided, and use those skill sets in a way they haven’t yet to help support you in your business, to help them realize their biggest goals, their biggest dreams. If you want creative approaches to marketing, I know that can be an intimidating word. But we’re not talking here about the fancy Facebook stuff, or you know, the latest and greatest, but rather looking at how you can market what you do, how you can express how you’re different, and how you can truly differentiate yourselves in a crowded market space. If those are problems you’re looking to solve, then you absolutely want to go check out ultimate advisor mastermind.com To learn more about how we can help you on your path and journey to growth. And I have to pivot this because I believe you have a certain skill set in the event space as well. So I know a lot of advisors that have will just go to separate ends of the spectrum. They’re either absolutely killing it with events, and how they’re drawing up prospects and how they’re getting introduced and in front of people. Or they’re on the polar end of the spectrum. And they’re going I have to basically beg and bribe that’s not true, like please compliance wise, like don’t take that literally people to come to their events. And it’s frustrating. And it’s lackluster, and they feel like they’re hitting their head against a wall. So can you talk a little bit about maybe an effective framework for an event to be able to help grow your business and increase your reach?

Angela 18:59

Absolutely, it all boils down to the ideal client that we were speaking about a few minutes ago. You need to know your ideal client and their preferences, their likes, their interests, and you build the event around that, then you can determine who you should invite to that event. Because how many times have you been an event or a wedding. So when you know, the ideal client and you know the event personality, it helps you dictate the location or people coming from work, or they can make from home. If your ideal client are stay at home moms, you’re not going to host an event during lunchtime or nap time. So you really need to know all those pieces. And it also helps you in in the follow up. So you ask what would be the right framework to create an event that can produce what we call worth was that event worth it? It’s knowing your event personality knowing your ideal client and speaking to them. We actually just did presented on this at the job conference in Vegas a couple of weeks ago.And one of the examples that we spoke about was an advisor we worked with, that likes to do events for women, and a women’s group, and they like to get together community and we take their preferences, they like to bring friends, they like to bring adult children, they like to be near the freeway, they like personal events, they like wine, and you put all that together, and what happens, they start bringing friends, they start bringing adult children, and it really just adds to the know, like, draw and help build your relationship. And that makes the events worth it. So you go full circle, you look at the planning, you target the planning to what they do quite once they come, there’s not be events with it. And you’re not saying oh my gosh, I just spent $10,000 on an event. And I didn’t get anything for it,

Elyse 20:43

that, to me, that’s the biggest mistake that most people, not just advisors, but most people make with their events, they look at ROI, and sorry, financial people, it doesn’t apply in the event space, like the cost of the meal, the cost of the rental chairs, the cost of the venue, like those things are fixed. So if you’re sitting there going, I’ve spent X and I’m expecting to make why it’s a bad equation, it’s never equal. So what we talk about is when you think about your event, think about it as a moment, right? It’s this opportunity that you’re creating. So create your measurables based on the ROI M the return on the moment, instead of the ROI, I have your return on the investment. Because you could say you know what I want to throw an event that’s just going to, or not just that’s going to thank my client, and if people feel gratitude, and this is also where follow up comes into play, right? Because when you’re talking to them afterwards, and you know, what your goals were you ask, you know, on a scale from one to 10? How, how did you feel you were thanked? Right? Or were you looking to get up and dance or whatever, again, those things are those all kind of fall into, like we threw a really great party, because we want our clients to come and have a great time. Those aren’t the same things you’re going to measure when you’re doing a lunch and learn for COI eyes or an economic summit. So to simply just look at ROI and go yes, this one was worth it. No, this wasn’t there’s a lot more to it and a lot more value, that I think people have a tendency to overlook.

Brittany 22:29

Yeah. And, you know, I think there’s so much is that, first of all, I think you’re completely right, that anything worthwhile, you have to put time into it. And I think that one of the misconceptions in our industry can be in especially when you look at, you know, some of the hungry up and coming advisors, those advisors that are like, I have big vision and a big future. And I want results, I want to see that progression and an almost immediacy, that there could be this misconception that an event has to lead to, you know, X number of calls and X number of, you know, transition clients. And a lot of times, it’s just a way to facilitate relationships, and to get that presence known. And again, to target that exact demographic that you’re trying to serve. So I think there’s so much value in what you share there. And I want to pivot this a little bit. Because anytime we have a guest, it’s very intentional. Anytime we have a guest, you know, we believe that anybody in the, you know, business world, the entrepreneurial space, but there are so many lessons that we’ve learned over the course of our experience, some really good lessons, and some really frustrating lessons. So in hopes of helping people not reinvent the wheel, what is one of the most difficult lessons that you personally have learned? It could be in business or life in general, that has really helped shape you know, how you pursue your future

Elyse 24:00

For me to asking for help. I’m really bad at it. And over the years, whether it’s personal, you know, I have a sick child, I need some help, like, I’m just really bad. But what we’re finding and even as we grow our business, what are the things that we’re really good at? And how can we ask for help from other people to help move us along? When it I don’t want it to sound like an advertisement. But it really is one of the core tenants of what we do, which is when people ask us Who’s your ideal client? It’s that person who recognizes that it does take a village, that you’re a financial advisor, you’re an amazing financial advisor. You don’t have to be a marketer. You don’t have to be a business operations person. You don’t have to be a lawyer. There are people out there who want to help you just like we’re talking about ideal client and know like trust. It’s finding those people that you can link arms with, to move forward. I think that that is one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is I have to, we have to ask for help. We can’t do this alone.

Brittany 25:11

Absolutely. Angela, what about you?

Angela York 25:12

You know, I’m a mom to a special needs son. He’s high functioning autistic. And so he’s 19. Now and I, not that our job is ever done as a parent, but I spent years and years and years fighting and advocating for him and didn’t just wait for things to happen. And I took that the ability to not take space, not take no for an answer to research and really ask for help. And go one step further. Well, this isn’t working, I have to figure this out and go to the next opportunity isn’t going to work. And putting all those pieces, you know, as we say, when we talk about marketing, when stone, a river is made up of many stones, and you have to take one stone to the next stone to the next to get to the other side. And I have taken that the ability to realize we can’t all be perfect, might have made some mistakes. But we’re going to get to the other side of that dream, and ask for help. But also research and, you know, take a little bit from this book a little bit from their podcast, or webinar and put it all together and make it your own. And that’s what we transfer to our advisors is you develop your unique selling point, take a little bit from what you read and what you hear and what is a value to you. And help your business, your personal life and your clients life get from one stone to the next to the next wall gets the other side.

Brittany 26:48

I love that. And I love both examples that you shared. And I think a as one overachieving woman to to others about that resiliency and not asking for help and sometimes help us all that we need. And I can appreciate Angela too, when you talk about you know that advocating and how you spent your time and how that shaped you, I would bet that our listeners can literally tune in. And while they don’t have the same shared experience, I’m sure they can relate at some level of their own about how those different moments and what you both shared play out in their own lives. So that was so valuable. Thank you both for sharing those those particular elements. So before we get to our last question, if somebody wants to reach out to you and look at how you might be able to help them craft that really intentional marketing, and you know, maybe create some opportunities in their business, how can they get ahold of you?

Elyse 27:44

The easiest way is through LinkedIn, we do have a business page, Custom Strategic Marketing for Wealth Advisors, we also have our own individual pages. But that’s probably a really great place to start, we spend a lot of time on LinkedIn so they can learn more about who we are and our unique selling points, both professionally and as individuals, and to join that community. That’s probably the best way and the easiest way to start.

Brittany 28:16

Excellent. Highly encourage our listeners to engage. And if nothing else, follow what Elyse and Angela are doing, because I think there is massive value to come. You know, the end is never right here. And there’s so much more that we’ll be seeing from these ladies. So as we round out, you know, one of the notes that we’d like to leave on is just a great singular piece of advice. So if I said to take all of your knowledge, all of your experience, and you had like three sentences to share with the advisor community, what piece of advice would you leave them with?

Elyse 28:51

I would say, if your strategy is that’s the way I’ve always done it, it’s time for a fresh perspective, perspective. And we can certainly help you with that. Times have changed, people are changing. You need to meet your people where they are not where you’re comfortable being.

Brittany 29:11

So good. Angela, what about you?

Angela 29:19

I would say gone are the days of being the advisor that your coaching program your compliance. Everybody wants you to be you need to stay in compliance. Don’t get me wrong, but you want to be you you need to be you if that means you’re wearing golf shirts every day or Hawaiian shirts that you if that means you want to work in a certain have a certain environment for your clients or have certain types of marketing that really speak to you, be you because that’s the point to attract your ideal client because we hear many, many times especially advisors that are mid career and looking at the second phase of their business, you know, how would they develop the setting for success and planning, how are they setting their own personal life. And we often hear, we just want to work with clients, we like we don’t need to work with everybody that causes a mirror now. So we want to really set the advices for success be you. And I know it’s a very overused word, I say this here, we can pick you because who you are and everything will fall into.
I love that. And that is such a great note to end on when our advisors are thinking about their, their path and their vision for the future. Having yourself incorporated into that and really be that Guiding Light. I think it’s so powerful. So thank you, ladies, for the time that you spent here with me today. I know that our listeners got a ton of value.

Brittany 30:22

I love that. And that is such a great note to end on when our advisors are thinking about their, their path and their vision for the future. Having yourself incorporated into that and really be that Guiding Light. I think it’s so powerful. So thank you, ladies, for the time that you spent here with me today. I know that our listeners got a ton of value.

Elyse 30:44

Thank you. We can’t wait to share more of who we are and how we can help and we look forward to conversations with you Brittany, and with your listeners.

Angela 30:52

Hey, thanks so much for having us. We’re always thrilled to share our knowledge and connect with advisors and let them know that marketing does work. Like we said we flip it on its head and if it’s not working for you look into that strategic lens and with a few tweaks that will

Brittany 31:09

Awesome. Well now we will wrap up. So thank you again ladies. That wraps up today’s episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast. We’ll catch you back here next week.