This Could Be You

You may have said something like this: "The only thing I lack in my financial advisory practice is marketing to develop a prospect flow; then I could double my practice easily." Or, perhaps, you said, "I know I need to specialize, but I am not sure where to start." You see yourself as just another look-alike advisor, with an all-things-to-all-people approach.

Or you may fall into the category of many advisors who try to select marketing programs or tactics before they understand their market or grasp the message that will resonate with their audience. As a result, you are stuck with a hit-or-miss marketing program that wastes your resources.

Or, possibly, you count on only one way of reaching your market, which can derail your chance of achieving your goals.

Or you may expect branding — your logo, company name, and a slogan — to kindle your marketing momentum.

You may have spent years or even decades building your practice up to this point, and you are looking for a smart road map to double assets under management. You may feel that you are throwing money heedlessly at marketing, and you don't want to squander your resources on trial and error.

We Wrote This Book for You

We unleash our experience over our combined 46 years in marketing to give you a streamlined system that propels you to your desired results. The cost-effective strategies and time-tested tactics you discover here will eliminate the frustrations of random, unpredictable marketing. They prevent time-wasting dead ends and detours.

To help you to get off to a fast start we organized the book around the 3 P's of Planning (and its seven steps), Packaging (your core communications that tell your story), and Promoting (high-gain marketing tools). The chapters on "Getting Into Your Growth Groove" enable you to build a sound foundation for the growth you are looking for.

Our goal is to unlock the power of marketing leverage through a clear-cut system you can call on again and again. This system takes you directly to the strategies and tools that will make the most difference in your practice. You receive exactly what you need when you need it to boost your flow of new prospects and "A" clients. Above all, we want to inspire you as you go along your personal path to a more rewarding and fulfilling practice.

What's Behind the System?

Over the years, some individuals have brought particular expertise in marketing to the advisor growth challenge and the problem of attracting a stream of ideal prospects. They may have carried out primary research through numerous interviews on what is working for high-growth advisory practices.

Others have sought solutions from other industries and introduced those to financial advisors. And others have followed in detail what worked for a single practice over many market cycles, created a playbook, and shared that with others. Still others have gotten in the trenches with individual advisors and worked on their behalf to transform their practices, forming a storehouse of case studies with their results.

Well, what if you did all of the above and focused on distilling this activity and experience into a marketing system for financial advisors? That's what you will find here.

We thank the financial advisors we have worked with for investing their hearts in making a difference in their clients' lives and for dreaming about their own future. We are grateful for their readiness to try out the principles, strategies, and tactics that you will discover in this book.

We chose stories that would demonstrate that you don't need any special advantage to take your practice to the next level. Through their examples, our clients encourage you to break out into new areas of growth. We have changed their names to respect our clients' privacy.

Planning to Boost Production — Emily's Story

As a client, Emily came to us with an underlying grasp of what she'd like her financial advisory practice to be. Yet her focus and her actions were scattered.

Our job was to listen so that we could pick out the threads of her desire for her practice. Then we helped her weave those strands into the special experience she wanted to create for clients and prospects.

Now Emily's Story In Her Words

The Problem: "Developing my marketing was a big task, and sometimes it seemed overwhelming. All these ideas were swimming around, and I didn't know whether they were good and worth pursuing or a waste of time.

"I just reacted to ideas without having any clear direction."

The Action Taken: "Sometimes I felt that what I did was no different from every other financial advisor. Then I began to work with the Hansons. They helped me pull the pieces together and gain real differentiation. Now my unique positioning is generating true excitement."

The Payoff: "Equally important, having my differentiation gives me clarity. The marketing ideas that weren't worthwhile just fell away. Now I have a focused system, and my production is up a bunch in only a few months!"

Producing Powerful Packaging for Growth — Jeff 's Story

The Problem: Jeff and his partner had a promising practice in a large, competitive city. They wanted to direct their practice away from a heavy reliance on insurance to gain a majority of their work from financial planning (both have CFP® certification along with other credentials). While they had deep experience in their field along with years of visibility in their community and they went to extraordinary lengths for their clients, they weren't sure how to create a motivating message.

The Action Taken: We recommended generating their growth foundation first: identifying their target audience and refining their differentiation before creating their communications. Then they focused on packaging their practice (communicating their unique story) with a capabilities deck, a custom website, and a brochure.

The Payoff: Here's how Jeff summed up the outcome of building their growth foundation and creating the packaging that followed. "Our assets have doubled in 2.5 years, and much of the growth can be attributed to...