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I often hear from the owners of financial advisor firms that they are solely responsible for “rainmaking” activities and that they would like other advisors in the firm to be equally responsible for bringing in new business. But those other advisors are usually focused on servicing clients and less interested in business development. In order for a firm to grow and succeed beyond the owner’s capabilities, marketing and business development must become a company-wide responsibility.
The first step toward implementing a fully integrated firm-wide marketing strategy is to get all advisors to start contributing in some small way. Activity begets activity, so the key is to start the activity. I help advisors do this through a quarterly marketing activity plan (QMAP). This tool helps advisors set realistic goals and then tracks accountability on a quarter-by-quarter basis.
The QMAP is simple with the goal of getting advisors to participate in marketing activities by starting with the basics: referrals, networking, speaking engagements and writing.
Solo financial advisors can use the QMAP as their entire marketing plan.
Here are two preliminary steps to take before developing a QMAP.
Step 1: Analyze current client-acquisition trends
To set your advisors up for success, take advantage of your firm’s client acquisition strengths. Identify the lead sources for your clients. If you haven’t been tracking this, examine where your clients came from over the last six months. If you have acquired fewer than 10 clients in the last six months, examine the last 10 clients. Include how much in assets each client brought with him or her, and determine which sources have worked best for you (e.g., referrals from John Doe client, TD Ameritrade AdvisorDirect program, networking through ProVisors).
Understanding this information will give direction to your advisors on what has traditionally worked best. While these same strategies may not work for your advisors as they have worked for you, it is a good starting place.
Step 2: Identify time distribution
The purpose of the QMAP is to start generating activity. In order to set your activity goals, you need to know how much time you have for business development. Start by identifying what percentage of time is spent on management, servicing clients and business development. From there you can calculate how many hours a week you have to accomplish your activity goals. If an advisor is not currently spending any time in business development, a good starting goal would be 10% to 15%.
Once you know how much time you have, you can begin developing your QMAP.
Develop Your QMAP
When developing your own QMAP, include the following:
Target/niche market. Define your ideal types of clients. The more focused the definition, the more effective the marketing will be. All marketing activities should directly relate to this market. Examples could include retirees, business owners, women in transition or people requiring Social Security planning. If you are a firm owner with multiple advisors, consider having each advisor choose a specific niche for their QMAP (unless, of course, you have a firm-wide niche market, such as doctors).
Quarterly goals. Before you get to the specifics, identify the overall activity goals for the calendar quarter. Goals should be broken down into five categories:
- Center-of-influence (COI) referral activities (lunch meetings, baseball games, golf, etc.)
- Client referral activities (lunch meetings, baseball games, golf, etc.)
- Networking activities (association meetings, social mixers, etc.)
- Workshops, presentations or speaking engagements
- Blogs or articles
Your goals should stretch you but still be attainable. You also do not need to have goals for all five areas. Starting with two or three is acceptable. Focus on activities that you are most likely to accomplish. For example, if you are not a good writer, do not set a goal to write blogs. Use the following goals as a baseline and adapt depending on time and interest:
- COI activities: 6/quarter
- Client referral activities: 6/quarter
- Networking events: 6/quarter
- Speaking engagements: 1/quarter
- Blogs/articles: 3/quarter
Targets COIs and clients. Identify 12 to 24 specific clients and COIs you want to develop and strengthen relationships with who are able to refer the types of clients (target market) with whom you want to work. This will be the list of people you use to center your client and COI marketing activities.
Target networking groups. Identify the associations and groups where you are likely to meet your target market or the COIs who can refer prospective clients to you. This list will help you identify the events to attend as part of your networking activities.
Marketing activity calendar. This section details the specific activities that you will do each month of the quarter. For each month of the quarter, include the following:
- The names of the COIs or clients you will be meeting with and the proposed date of the activity
- The names and dates of the networking events you’ll be attending
- The date, topic and location of your speaking engagements
- The topics of the articles you’ll be writing and where they will be published
If you are not sure what you will be doing throughout the quarter, start with your best guess. The specifics of the activities can be adapted throughout the quarter. Detailing a specific plan at the beginning of the quarter improves the chance of successfully achieving your goals.
Innovative ideas. Focus first on the five core areas (COI referral activities; client referral activities; networking events; workshops, presentations and speaking engagements; and blogs and articles). Once you have demonstrated success in these areas, reward yourself by experimenting with other marketing ideas.
Implement
At the beginning of each quarter, each advisor in your firm should create their own QMAP based on realistic goals given their time constraints. Then each advisor should share their overall goals with the group. Encourage your advisors to start with realistic goals, and then increase activity from quarter to quarter as they evaluate the success of each type of activity and how much additional time they can commit.
At the conclusion of each quarter, have each advisor report on how they did for the previous quarter. In addition to announcing where they met their goals, put forth the following questions for group discussion:
- What worked?
- What didn’t work?
- What successes did you have? How many referrals were given? How many prospect meetings were set?
- What challenges did you face?
Having these group conversations will help each advisor hone their activities for the next quarter.
Build a firm-wide marketing plan
After implementing the QMAP for six to 12 months, you should begin seeing activity trends. Analyze these trends to develop a firm-wide marketing plan to support the advisors’ efforts. For example, if your advisors are having success with taking clients out for golf, host a firm-wide golf tournament. If your advisors are having success with CPAs, develop a continuing education program for the advisors to present.
By having your advisors share their successes, they’ll be able to contribute to developing the overall marketing plan.
The outcome!
Your first instinct when taking the steps toward a firm-wide marketing approach will be to implement a firm-wide marketing plan. But by starting with a QMAP, you will gain buy-in from your advisors, which will increase the likelihood of successfully implementing a marketing strategy. Then, when it is time for a firm-wide marketing plan, you’ll have much more insight as to what will work before making the investment, and you will have the support of the advisors to implement successfully.
Kristen Luke is co-founder and chief innovation officer of Kaleido Inc., a practice-growth agency helping financial advisory firms break through growth barriers to build brilliant businesses. For more information, visit www.kaleido.net.
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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
