How Will You Do It?

Future Advisor

What Will It Take?

The Advisor in the Future will create demand for her/his services in the digital age of transparency by crafting a strategic foundation that showcases the relevance of her/his value. Remaining relevant has been the number one challenge for the entrepreneurial financial Advisor during the past three decades and will continue to be a genuine concern for the Advisor in the Future.

Setting and maintaining client expectations while creating the measurement of value over which the Advisor has the greatest control is of paramount importance. To fall into the trap of being measured by industry standards is a real danger for “the Advisor in the Future” and s/he will take special care to not fall prey to the status quo industry pitfalls that lie in waiting for all Advisors.

Build On Purpose

The strategic foundation of the Advisor in the future will be built with a cornerstone that is a client-centered purpose. This will work to the advantage of the client as well as the entrepreneurial Advisor moving forward in the digital age of transparency. The Advisor in the future will survive and thrive by creating a business that empowers her/him to do well by doing good…

In order to simply survive, the Advisor in the future will have to demonstrate in a tangible fashion that they have the best interests of their clients at stake ahead of their own… (this goes beyond fiduciary) or the Advisor will be replaced.

concept-of-successful-businessman_23-2147505617

In order to thrive, the Advisor in the future must have a system in place that is a progression which leverages their client-centered purpose within their business development model. Tangible Alpha is the model that empowers Advisors with that highly coveted progression.

In the digital age of transparency the Advisor in the future acknowledges that they are replaceable until they can prove in a tangible fashion that they are not.

Serious Advisors also realize that if they continue to measure themselves by the industry standards that have been handed down for decades that they will become  dinosaurs… Recognizing the opportunity disguised as a threat is critical when taking advantage of transparency by delivering a consistent message of authentic relevant value throughout multiple (but not all) digital mediums.

Promise What You Can Control

The Advisor in the Future will zealously demonstrate their expected behavior (what clients and prospects should expect from them)  which amplifies exactly what their client-centered purpose is… throughout multiple mediums. The promise of expected behavior will become the contract that forms a bond of trust for the serious Advisor and the serious investor. That bond will be quantified tangibly throughout multiple mediums in a 24 hour a day society in which expectations can be set and maintained rather than exceeded in quarterly meetings.

To step into the next dimension of business development that will make you relevant and irreplaceable the strategic foundation of Tangible Alpha has been constructed to not only create your digital voice but to create a proactive filter which aligns your solutions with ideal prospects (while constantly reminding your clients of your value). Your Tangible Alpha foundation and progression create a platform to exude your authentic relevant value while filtering in ideal trusted partners.

It is critical to make tangible… not what the client and prospect want to hear… but what you can deliver and promise (your behavior, not returns).

Learn about yourself before you try to implement any digital solutions… not doing so could be a costly mistake.

 

Introspection is the key to successful technology integration. 

The life of the Advisor in the future must be simplified by technology and not over complicated by too much information.  The Advisor in the Future will take advantage of different modern tools made available throughout the industry by first going through the Infinite Alpha Progression to discover and design her/his unique Tangible Advisor Alpha.

Keep It Tangible,

Grant

Are you in the future of financial advice?

Learn How

Three Reasons Sales Funnels Don’t Work Anymore

Sales Funnels Are Dead

 


Legacy sales practices are quickly becoming obsolete for financial advisors.


 
 

The three main reasons sales funnels don’t work anymore:

 

  • Time

  • Product Focus

  • Transparency


 
 

Time

There simply not enough time to try and be all things to all people in a sales cycle in which 50 no’s will render you one yes. Your website must become more than a mechanism to gather leads. You must design a user experience that overlaps the client and the prospective client journeys. Treating your engagement hub as a trap for gimmicky sales practices is a death sentence for your reputation. The marketing sales concepts that are being pushed on you (as an advisor) by marketers, are the same types of sales rhetoric you were probably taught in your rookie advisor training classes. The gimmicks they are peddling are built on a foundation of lies and opacity. You don’t have time to gather the metrics they need to justify their existence when they should be helping you discover the metrics you need to survive in a robo-world. There is no time for awareness, interest, decision, action… that mode of lead generation is no longer relevant because you are not selling products… which leads us to reason number two.
 
 

In a robo-world there simply isn’t enough time to compete in the arena of product sales for shrinking commissions.

 
 

 

Product Focus

You are not selling products in a vacuum behind a curtain of opacity surrounded by smoke and mirrors. The focus of the modern advisor must be on the services that he or she provides that are unique to the individual and relevant to his or her ideal audience. People can buy products from their smart phones Clients don’t need an advisor for that. They don’t need you to “sell” them anything anymore. What clients need is a trusted source of wisdom… which is what you are. Obviously, a trusted source of wisdom would never use anything as shady as a product sales funnel to convey their client-centered focus to their ideal audience. Because that would be impossible. Which leads us to why that would be impossible to pull off in the modern era of financial services… transparency… reason number three.

 


 

Transparency

 
In the digital age of transparency clients can see exactly where they are in the process of your sales funnel. They can see how full of shit you may or may not be… and they can see through your smoke and mirrors sales pitch as well. In a robo-world you have to become authentic. You must be able to convey your genuine concern for your clients 24/7.
 

 

Do you think you can convey that message?

In which you are using obvious sales tactics?

By using sales gimmicks from the late 1990’s?

Gimmicks to fill your sales funnel with leads?

 
They can see right through that… it’s not that hard to see your obvious lead generation and “sales marketing prowess” when you lock content behind gated walls on your website to gather email addresses.
 

The same transparency that is killing the sales funnel and traditional lead generation can make you irreplaceable if you understand how to leverage it for the good of your clients and for yourself.

Who you follow and what you like on social media is indicative of the type of services you offer your clients. If you are following sales gurus and liking their content, it is very simple for clients and potential clients to discover – what drives you is the commission – and not the well-being of the client.
 
It is this digital transparency that will be your end if you don’t walk away from the antiquated lead generation/sales funnel concept.
The same transparency will help you build filters to discover reputable digital marketing experts to guide you to the metrics you must gather to survive in today’s robo-word.

 

 


 

 

So What Can You Do?

Be proactive… be responsible… be yourself.

Your digital footprint tells your clients and your prospects exactly where you stand in relation to their well-being versus your sales commission. In a robo-world advisors must think differently and act accordingly, because sales funnels are dead. Advisors must first understand and identify their authentic relevant value before they can become and remain relevant to their ideal audience.
 

Right now we live in the greatest era of opportunity for financial advisors. WHY? Because… Your ideal audience is seeking a trusted source of wisdom… and that is YOU.

 
Discover more about how to shift your focus from sales to service, leverage your time efficiently, and take complete advantage of transparency to survive in a robo-world. You must become empowered to think differently about the value you provide. You must be able to rethink what might be considered as acceptable practices in the new era of financial services. Sometimes you just have to let go of the past to stay relevant.
 
 
One final thought from the author… If you don’t say goodbye to legacy concepts like lead generation and sales funnels, you can kiss your assets goodbye.
 
Keep it Tangible,
 
Grant

Your Future Awaits

Build My Filter

Are You A Trusted Source of Wisdom?

Content Curation

Advisor Why

Content Curation

In this blog I curate articles from around the world because there’s no sense in reinventing the wheel. There is no shortage of incredible content available for advisors that will help them achieve the big three…
  • amplify their value
  • control how that value is perceived 
  • maximize their relevance
What I do in this blog is simplify the process for finding that information. I make it categorically available for advisors so they can simplify their lives.
Read the article below and the notes that follow to add tangible advisor alpha to your business.

Curated Article

As an information scientist, one of the most depressing aspects of modern social media is the way in which it is reshaping our global society to focus on the what, rather than the why. From the sciences to the humanities to the arts, the underpinning of the scholarly knowledge that advances our collective society is the understanding of why the world is the way it is. Documenting the “what,” the state of the world, is a necessary and important component of that process, but without the synthesis of those observations into the “why” that describes how they came to be and explains their outcome, we can never truly understand our world. This raises the question of how to restore the “why” in a social media world that teaches us that all that matters is the “what.”

The social media revolution has turned everyone with a smartphone into a realtime embedded reporter, live chronicling their own lives and events they experience and commenting on events happening elsewhere across the world. When journalists and tech experts start seeing a strange survey from Facebook pop up in their newsfeed, their first reaction is not to turn to the company to learn more about the feature, to examine it through the lens of proper survey design, to consider the implications of its design in terms of limiting the insights it can provide or to ruminate deeply on what it means for Facebook to be asking such a question and its societal implications. Instead, they all respectively race to be the first to plant their flag in the Twitterverse of having been among the first wave of people to mention it. Speed matters over comprehension.
The realtime conversational nature of Twitter in particular is often touted as offering a global scale collective collaboratory that extends the realtime nature of environments like Slack to the entire planet, allowing adhoc teams to form across geographic, disciplinary and cultural boundaries. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead of the world’s citizens working together towards a greater good, cataloging all known information about an emerging event and trying to synthesize a basic understanding of its scope, scale and characteristics and bringing in experts from related fields to comment on the potential meaning of each element, the online conversation simply devolves into a bunch of users saying they saw it too and competing for the snarkiest or most meme-worthy response in their never-ending search for viral fame.

Knowing that Facebook is running a new opinion poll might be of interest to media strategists, investment analysts and government regulators, but just knowing there is an opinion poll is of little use without the why, the understanding of what Facebook intends to do with the collected information.
Similarly, in the physical world it can be of great use to first responders to get a realtime alert from a surge of tweets in a particular city block reporting a giant plume of smoke emerging from the roof of a building. The problem is that without knowing the why, it is impossible to know if that “smoke” is simply steam from a vent, humidity from an air conditioning plant, ordinary pressure exhaust from a liquid nitrogen storage system, routine maintenance sandblasting or simply a rooftop party featuring a fog machine. Focusing on the “what” can mean critical resources diverted for a false alarm that makes them unavailable for a real emergency elsewhere in town.

At least one can argue that having increased situational awareness can be of benefit to first responders in alerting them to situations they may wish to examine further. The same can’t be said, however, for the deeper implications of teaching an entire generation of people that relentless focus on speed over comprehension is what affords one success in life.
Perhaps most remarkable is the degree to which academia has embraced social media to discuss issues ranging from developments in their own fields to events and topics completely astray from their own expertise. In contrast to the general public, which might be forgiven for focusing on simplistic reporting of what they see in front of them, the scholarly and scientific worlds emphasize the search for understanding, that the why matters far more than the what.
One might assume therefore that academics would bring that search for understanding with them to the social sphere, lending a critical perspective to raging debates and seeking to explain why it is that everyone else is seeing what they see. Instead, much of the academic discourse on social media is little more esteemed that the rest of the billions of ordinary users they engage with.
Rather than the measured informed discourse and heavily cited and referenced exposition that would be found in an academic journal or the Q&A section of a conference, these same academics that ordinarily pepper their speech with “isms” and speak as though they’ve memorized Roget’s Thesaurus from front to back will suddenly devolve to one-line responses and petty flame wars where the most meme-worthy response wins and adherence to scholarly norms of debate, including sticking to factual statements and citing the source of all claims, goes right out the window.

Putting this all together, social media’s fixation on realtime updates and the unfortunate fact that it is the most entertaining comment rather than the most enlightening that tends to go viral and reward its author with fame in today’s world, means we are teaching an entire generation to focus on information in isolation, rather than spend the time to properly situate it in context. Indeed, this is one of the driving forces behind the ease with which false and misleading information spreads on social platforms. When even the academic world discards millennia of tradition that evolved to maintain the scholarly and scientific world’s focus on the why over the what, we run the risk that social media will ultimately permanently refocus humanity to forget the past, ignore the future and live in a world in which information no longer has any context and where all that matters is what we see before us at this moment, not the understanding of why it is that the world is as we see it. In short, for the thousands of years of human history that we have sought to understand our world, we stand today amongst the unimaginable riches of having all of human knowledge at our fingertips and a quarter of the world’s population just a mouse click away, but rather than harness this brave new world to reimagine how we understand ourselves, we have instead taught an entire generation that speed matters more than explanation, entertainment more than enlightenment. From the Age of Enlightenment to the Age of Entertainment.
Based in Washington, DC, I founded my first internet startup the year after the Mosaic web browser debuted, while still in eighth grade, and have spent the last 20 years…
Kalev Leetaru

 

Are You A Trusted Source of Wisdom?

Advisors must be more than social influencers to survive in a robo-world.

In a robo-world advisors must become more than simply social influencers. The seriousness of the undertaking of your calling must be made tangible within your own unique CliqPage.

Now more than ever your ideal audience is in search of a trusted source of wisdom.

This isn’t entertainment and it’s more than just enlightenment… this is about the quality of life, the dreams, the goals, and the aspirations of your ideal audience.

This is a serious business and the context of your meaningful digital engagement must reflect exactly how serious this business is.

The scholarly implications and the meanings in academia referred to in this article will all sort themselves out… my genuine concern is for advisors and their clients… my concern is for you… it is entirely up to you to create the meaningful context that will guide both you and your clients through the digital noise that grows exponentially in today’s robo-world.

You must be able to walk the talk.

You must promise your behavior.

Your clients must promise their behavior to establish a trusted collaborative relationship.

You must frame the relationship with your rules.

Your filters must be designed by you topically to lead to the value you can control the most.

Discover your why and make your what relevant.

This is how.

Promise Your Purpose

Learn More About You

Omni Channel

Always Connected

Omni-Channel The Next Big Thing…

I find it refreshing when technology supports  our branding message and our marketing solutions. 

 

Vendors aren’t necessarily evil…

This is why you may have to kill the messenger… if technology vendors don’t bring you opportunities to gather the metrics that matter to you rather than the data they want to collect for themselves (they call it critical feedback) disguised as ROI… You may want to kill the messenger and hide from technology. Before you run and hide or piss away your tech budget understand this, the endeavor of gathering quality ROI (Return on Investment) through omni-channels is entirely up to you… not the vendors.

The Medium is the Message

To remain relevant you must have a consistent message of value across multiple mediums. This is now known as an omni-channel opportunity. (I wish I’d thought of that because it sounds cool.) To remain relevant and become irreplaceable your “omni-channel”  message must be working for you in a tangible fashion to gather the feedback required for the sustainability of your business. It is up to you to have a designed system in place to gather the metrics that matter to you before you implement the tactical offerings of technology vendors. (Simplified: you need your metrics not their metrics) If you don’t have a defined strategic foundation in place (Tangible Alpha)  you are likely to fall into the trappings of tactical rhetoric disguised as strategic solutions. These tactics bring with them vendor measurements of your ROI  which are not consistent with  measurements required by you for your success.


Consistency of Message versus Technology…

The advisor in the future will craft a message of value that resonates tangibly throughout multiple mediums. By doing so, the advisor places herself in position to leverage technology.

 

Technology should be empowering you but often times it is tying you down and holding you back… Building a strategic foundation through intentional value design (Tangible Alpha) allows you to implement tactical technology solutions that help you gather the metrics required by you to create a sustainable business. By owning the words that define your value and building your Advisor Alpha through the Tangible Alpha progression you will be building a client-centered message of value that resonates throughout the omni-channels of our world.  Build your strategic foundation first, then you can more securely introduce “technology as a solution” in such areas as “omni-channel” marketing. (I’m doing air quotes for those last two… try it it feels good.)

 


Drop the “value prop”

The catch phrase vs. Tangible Alpha (branding for financial advisors)

You can’t afford to be associated with a company catchphrase in the digital age of transparency… In the 7 seconds your clients and prospects are giving you to impress them, the catchphrase (Value Proposition) is an automatic bounce. The catchphrase is a client experience killer and a nail in your coffin when prospecting potential clients.

Consistency of the message of the advisor’s client-centered value throughout omni-channels (multiple mediums) is a priority oveMediumr the types of technology the advisor will use to create her/his digital portfolio (footprint)… all of the technology in the world will not fix your clusterf%ck of a message when it has no consistency throughout multiple mediums (omni-channel). Advisors in the future understand that omni-channel branding isn’t just for prospecting… it is also for the 24 hour client experience (to the pocket), which is why your message is the medium “the medium is the message” and you must be able to extract as much quality data from your medium (channel) as the amount and quality of information the medium is extracting from you (information you are putting in the medium). Otherwise… it’s simply a waste of your resources. “Get your shit together” and drop the catchphrases (total contradiction). But seriously, get your shit together. Because tech is only going to get faster and more exponential as time marches on. 

 


The ROI on omni-channel marketing begins and ends with a consistent message of your value and that value begins and ends with a client-centered purpose.  

~I said that

 

Your Strategic Foundation

Without crafting a strategic foundation to implement tactical technology solutions that take you to the “next level” of omni-channel marketing, you will become hamstrung by the same vendors who are claiming to empower your business.

Without discovering defining and designing your Tangible Alpha, your ROI is no more than a wish… in which the metrics of success can only be measured by the vendor who sold you the pipe-dream. Build your own foundation… gather your own metrics of success… own your Tangible Alpha before you enter into any technological solution that claims to be a strategy. (Because technology is not a strategy… it’s simply a tactical concept keenly disguised as a strategic solution generally sold to advisors who have no idea what to expect in return.)


You must be able to walk the digital talk across all mediums and become more than a catchphrase… In the digital age of transparency you can and must do this by design.

~ I said that too

What are omni-channel tech vendors selling?

Vendors are going to try to sell you a Maserati with no engine… the engine (your Tangible Alpha) is an afterthought to the vendors of omni-channel tactical solutions… it’s not necessarily a bad thing… it’s just the way it is… there is a hot new buzzword that vendors will be selling you… they really have no clue how to make it work for you… and if you don’t get in now,  you will miss this opportunity… but you are smart… you know fear of missing out is an unnecessary risk. There must be a solidified reason behind implementing technology for the purposes of omni-channel marketing in the digital age of transparency.

I find it off-putting when technology vendors want to sell us something for the sake of technology.

The reason is this, there has never been a greater opportunity in the history of the world to become a successful financial advisor. Omni-channel marketing and the technology that comes with it shouldn’t scare you away from the greatest opportunity available in the greatest business in the world.

Transparency is the friend of the advisor in the future… by empowering your business with Tangible Alpha you will be creating a business development foundation that allows you to develop sustainable growth by leveraging transparency. You will become an Advisor in the future by collecting the metrics that matter to you.

Quick Recap…

Omni-channel is the new buzzword for marketing and branding… don’t fear technology… you may want to kill the messenger but you don’t have to… make your advisor alpha tangible to build a strategic foundation in which you  can leverage technology to gather the metrics that matter to you. Tangible Alpha isn’t the only way to accomplish success…  it is the simplest, most effective, proven (40 years in the making) way for advisors to gather invaluable data for the sustainability of their businesses.

(If you are unfamiliar with the man in the picture you are missing out Marshall McLuhan)

Keep it Tangible,

Grant

 

Are You Omnipresent?

Discover How

Advisor Cookie-Cutter Content

Own The Words

Why your cookie-cutter social media posts are killing your brand and your business

The Advisor in the future must demand more independence when it comes to sharing the behavior they can promise, the experiences they have encountered and their opinions about their profession.

To remain relevant and become irreplaceable the Advisor in the future can’t continue to rely on the cookie-cutter content that (literally) every other Advisor is publishing. Your content can’t be straight off the shelf.

If you continue to post the company message masked as your Advisor Alpha, the standard by which your value is measured will be controlled by the firm (the industry) and not you… this is a fatal mistake.

You can’t afford to become known for the company catchphrase.

Your very existence depends on your ability to differentiate yourself from your competition (in-house too). You must be able to remind your clients of your authentic relevant value while at the same time exuding your Alpha for ideal prospects to discover. This is a 24/7 endeavor.

You can’t continue to rely on industry standards to deliver your Alpha for this simple reason… your clients and prospects will never be able to differentiate you from your competition (Price becomes an issue in the absence of value).

In A Robo-World

In the digital age of transparency and in the era of the 24 hour client experience it is critical that your value is distinguishable as being special. This is your livelihood… if you get complacent with your reputation by trusting the industry to define your value then you will be replaced by the industry.

If they need you more than you need them you are irreplaceable. If you need them more than they need you you are replaceable.

You can make your Advisor Alpha tangible regardless of where your desk sits

If you can’t publish your beliefs about the industry, document your experience and make statements about the behavior you can promise then you will be replaced.

You must become known for the quality of your curiosity... This is about more than asking clients great questions… this includes asking your firm questions about compliance and the parameters of your business as it pertains to your brand. Don’t leave your reputation in the hands of others to define… Own the words, own your Alpha, own your brand and own your destiny.

 

Content That Matters

Own Your Destiny

This Is My Filter

My Digital Filter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my filter, it belongs to me.

It is not a sales funnel.

I do not sell products in a vacuum.

I am not interested in trying to be all things to all people.

I work only with ideal like-minded people.

This is my filter.

It keeps out the time wasters, the energy suckers, and the complaining riff-raff.

I am not here to interrupt.

I am not interested in a drip marketing or lead development.

I am here to educate and inform my ideal audience.

This is my filter.

I publish my purpose, principles, and opinions.

Prospects can’t get in if they don’t qualify… Nor would they want to.

This is my filter.

I make my alpha tangible for the world to see and hear.

I do well by doing good.

I have published my experiences and expertise.

This is my filter.

I promise my behavior and in return my trusted clients promise their behavior to me.

My experiences and my expertise have helped my design my model of wisdom available for digital consumption.

This is my filter.

I have a deep understanding of how my value makes my clients feel.

I am known for the quality of my curiosity.

This is my filter.

Clients that come to me for discounts will leave me for discounts.

I never discount my value.

This is my filter.

My wisdom and my value are omnipresent 24/7 for the world to consume.

I have an accountability model that earns trust quickly.

I work with great people, I fire bad clients.

This is my filter.

To remain relevant I am in complete control the perception of my value.

My value is defined by me, and nobody else.

This truly is, nobody’s business but mine… and this is my filter.

 

Do you have a filter?

 

I need a filter to survive in a robo-world