How to Be an Uncomparable Advisor

I have found that the best way to become uncomparable is to own a niche. When you work with a niche, you become an expert in the one problem all the members of your niche face. And everything you create, from your business model to your marketing, revolves around solving that problem.

Because few other advisors, if any, are serving that niche, you become uncomparable. The word about you gets out, and niche members want to work with you. They’re not worried about whether you’re better than other advisors. They know you are the advisor who can help them. This gives them comfort and confidence.

And it makes you successful.

Specifically, there are five components that a firm can address to make them uncomparable. These are:

1. Niche: The narrow set of clients who all share one specific problem that you solve;
2. Position: The simple message that communicates the problem you solve and the transformation that prospective clients can anticipate;
3. Expertise: The breadth of knowledge and experience you develop that shows you know how to solve your niche’s problem and lead them to transformation;
4. Community: The people, groups, and places where your niche interacts; and
5. Business model: The services, process, experience, and pricing you design to solve your niche’s problem.

Using this framework, let’s look at two examples – a generalist advisor and an uncomparable advisor focused on a niche.

Generalist advisor

Company name: San Diego Financial Partners;

Target client (we can’t call it a niche in this case): Anyone with $1 million+ AUM within 30 miles of our office;

Position: We are a fee-only, fiduciary advisor helping individuals and families achieve financial peace of mind;

Expertise: We have a team of CFP® professionals to help you achieve your financial goals;

Community: The greater San Diego County region; and

Business model: We employ a team-based approach to implement comprehensive wealth management services following the seven-step financial planning process. We charge fees based on AUM.

Uncomparable advisor

Company name: Aviation Capital Management.

Niche: Commercial pilots who have irregular income streams.

Position: We help commercial pilots stabilize inconsistent income from having multiple jobs and self-employed gigs so that they can stop stressing about money and live more like a normal 9-to-5 person;

Expertise: Not only have we spent 20 years serving more than 500 pilots, but our founder is a former airline pilot herself;

Community: Airports, flight schools, and aviation organizations across the country; and

Business model: We offer guidance on the following: funding flight training, minimizing taxes as a 1099 contractor, choosing the right disability insurance, creating cash flow strategies for fluctuating income, and investing in the right retirement accounts. We charge an annual fee of $5,000, paid monthly, which includes managing up to your first $500,000 in investments. We then offer low-fee investment services beyond $500,000.

Each of these five areas clearly differentiates the second advisor from the first. When you combine the unique offerings in all five areas of the framework, it is nearly impossible for another advisor to replicate, thus making the second advisor uncomparable.

You don’t have to complete the entire framework to start seeing success with your niche. Executing on just a combination of the components will get you there. And you will see more success as you implement each additional component and become clearly differentiated from other advisors.

Final thoughts

By adopting the framework in this article, you move away from being a generalist advisor trying to be “better” than every other generalist advisor. Instead, use this framework to be uncomparable. Establish your company name, niche, position, expertise, community, and business model so that you stand in a field of one. Your marketing will become effortless as your ideal clients seek you.

That is the power of being uncomparable.

Kristen Luke is the President of Kaleido Creative Studio, a marketing consulting firm that positions Registered Investment Advisors and their employees as experts in a niche, making them uncomparable to other advisors. Over the past 16 years, Kristen has consulted with hundreds of financial advisory firms and shared her marketing expertise via industry conferences and publications nationwide. This article is an excerpt from her upcoming book, due out in 2023.

Read more articles by Kristen Luke