The Practical Edge

Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Eric Ryles. I'm Alan Gross. I run things here at Judy Diamond Associates. And I lead the team at GSM Marketing. And we want to welcome you all to the second installment in our Practical Edge webinar series, where we hope to present ideas to you, the retirement community, that you can use in your everyday workflow. Alan, why are we here today? Eric, this is one of my favorite topics because it is core to my heart. It's part of my philosophy. It expresses how I see the world and it's a mirror to how I see what works and frankly often doesn't work in marketing. I expect that each of you joining us today have a sense this, and I'm going express to you why I have titled it the way that I have, why I regard it the way that I do. I don't think that you'll not understand the nod here this way. But I want to make sure that you're clear where this is going. This is not a knock on lead gen. This is really a discussion around why leading with what we think matters has more potential to help you be successful than you may be realizing. If there's the notion that says, hey, if there's one good takeaway here, if there's one really actionable idea that you can take with you and use now, then I hope you'll describe this as worth the price of admission because that's what each of these moments are in this series. These are not demos. They're conversations based upon what we've learned and what we hope can be helpful to you. When you registered for this moment together, we asked a few questions, one of which was just, hey, what's your role? Not surprising. Dominant response is from many of you as advisors and your marketing teams and executive leadership and others. We welcome you all because everybody has a role in this. If you think about what your brand is, your brand, as we like to express it sometimes, is not what we say it is. It's not the colors and logos and fonts and such. It's how others experience us. Well, frankly, in the house carries that opportunity and frankly, that's how the rest of the world sees us. You are as interesting as every single one of you may be, and that's part of where we're going with this. In addition to asking who's in the room, I asked you just this prelude question. Would you describe your approach to relationships as a personal strategy, a corporate strategy, an unintentional strategy, or maybe not really so much part of my strategy? The idea of the question was not to get into to to to the deep end of the pool, and I didn't give you any foundation or background as to why we were asking or or how you might interpret it, but thank you for playing along anyway. Clearly, three quarters of you regard relationships as a personal strategy. I assume that means, I hope that means a reflection of your personal brand. If so, great. And if it's a component of your corporate strategy, great. Question then is, are you living to it? That is you understand it, I think that's important. How you exercising it is why we're here. We'll talk in this session about three things. Well, why are we talking about relationship, Jen? What what about it, frankly, is so interesting that it would be resonant today? What does it mean to shift our thinking and our our activity in a way that's more aligned to it if it's not? And if it's appropriate, well, let's make sure we're leaving with some specific actions to take and not just say, hey, that was nice to talk about. Alan, can we can we start with a nice, concise definition? What is relationship gen? How does it differ from lead gen? The statement here, and you'll see a small trademark registration. We registered this ten years ago. Not to sell it, you'll find no products or services or consulting engagements that say buy this as a program. We did it just to protect the idea and then be able to talk about it freely the way we do. The distinction is this, lead gen is a representation of and a component of a particular process. We often see the funnel that so many of us know. It's the notion of identifying contacts, qualifying them, closing them. That close at the end is a transaction. It's where the meter goes to chain. There's nothing inherently wrong with it. It just doesn't happen to reflect the way most successful people I've ever met in this industry actually operate. What I'm talking about is this notion that says, if I ask, and I have hundreds of people, what's made you successful? I will tell you that somewhere between one percent and zero, and the one percent is just I'll I'll leave room for the possibility I've forgotten somebody who said something, but it's it's close to zero who said, we're just freaking awesome at lead gen. We're great at at at funnels and funnel management and these things. By the I'm not telling you you can't be successful with that. I'm just telling you my experience in this industry in particular for many years is that that's not the answer that I get. The answer is we really understand what it means to deliver on a quality of relationship. We say it, we talk about it, we live to it. It's part of our ethic, it's part of our personality, part of our promise. I say fantastic because we know and we said this in our last session and we'll probably continue to say it, Eric. There is some notion that this industry, and I hear advisors telling us all the time, we're fighting commoditization. That we have common services and we have common solutions and we have very much a common vocabulary. We look a lot alike to prospects. We sound alike. Our websites, you know, appear to be pretty similar. We're talking literally about fighting that idea. That's what this idea is about. Standing if you ask me, how do you help us stand apart from the pack? How do we differentiate? Well, I'm telling you, you have a meaningful opportunity. It's my assertion that you have a meaningful opportunity to do that if you focus not just your internal notion of this on relationships, but your external effort on it. It shouldn't actually be opportune. It shouldn't be possible. Everybody should be doing this. And if that was the case, it wouldn't be a differentiator at all. You would just be keeping up with the pack. The reality is, though, it's not the case. Let me explain. And and by the way, as I said, this is not an argument against lead gen. I'm not suggesting that you don't need to or shouldn't endeavor to source leads, source contacts, source opportunities that may become new clients for sure. I want you to hear it that way is that we're not talking about not exercising that idea. It's how you exercise it that I care about. RelationshipGen, and this, I hope will kinda put a bow on this, response back to Eric. That is relationshipGen is about aligning what you do in your in your marketing to how you deliver value and how others experience you. It's different than how we think about lead gen. Do you still have to do emails? Do you still need to do events? Do you still have to create content? Do you still have to do all the things that touch people? Yes. Yes. But what this has the potential to do is actually modestly to radically cause you to rethink, am I saying the right things in all of those moments? I still need to establish those moments to earn this opportunity. Am I saying the right things? The most the most obvious place for me to start describing what does it mean to be thinking about what is it we should be saying is to is to beg the question or the statement. It's really not about you. It's about them. We we will always talk about this. In the last session, the next session, probably every session, It's not about you. It's about them. Them being clients, them being prospects. Now that's that seems obvious, and I'm sure many of you are just nodding. Course, it's about them. That's why we're here. The challenges and the observation back to you is I can show you dozens or hundreds or thousands of websites in our industry that that don't express this. We're talking about ourselves. We're talking about our credentials. We're talking about experience. We're talking about the solutions we offer for individuals, for families, for companies, for others, the kinds of things that we can do for you. It's not talking in a way that expresses relationship value or why someone would be comfortable choosing you over somebody else. And it very often doesn't give them the information they need to know to create the clarity that leads to comfort, that leads to trust to take next steps. Owen, can I tell you how I have been thinking about relationships, Jim? Because obviously, I've known about the topic of today's session for a while now, and I've done some thinking about it. In the course of my professional career, I have been fortunate enough to have given a bunch of speeches in front of a bunch of different groups of people, including four zero one ks agents, advisors, insurance brokers. One of the things that I always asked during these sessions, which is either about how to use the five thousand five hundred or about what's going on in the industry. And one of the questions that always comes up is what's working for you, Mr. Or Mrs. Advisor, in terms of marketing, how are you getting clients right now? And it shouldn't come as any surprise to anybody that the number one answer every time is referrals. Referrals are how we get most of our biz always referrals, number one. And then number two can be any kind of lead list like a like a Judy diamond or one of our many competitors. And then it kind of goes down the line from there. But the idea of referrals being the most valuable is I think because in those conversations that you're having, the referral has already been made, you can be your most authentic self. You can present that value of the relationship to this new person because you've already been doused for a little bit, but you've gotten your foot in the door. And now when you're talking with them, you don't need to sell them on, Oh, well, let me tell you why we're so great. We have X actuaries and we have this Y program. We serve Z number of clients. You get to know the person. So it's kind of relationship gen to me is kind of like trying to do a referral based marketing, not actually having someone make the introduction. It's trying to capture all the strengths of referral without actually being referred. Does that make sense? Well, you saw a number of things that if I were to unpack at least a part of what you just said, obviously, you're right. And I think anybody would say that referrals would be the gold standard of anybody's idea of marketing. We our team has been been in this space for sixteen years. The vast majority of of clients we have ever had the pleasure of being able to serve came to us or was introduced to us by someone who trusted and had a good experience with us. That's profoundly valuable. When we talk about marketing, the overriding question I have is, are you getting what you want? That is, if you have a pipeline that continues to create enough opportunities to to sustain the growth that you want with the quality that you want, then I would tell you don't do anything else. And don't listen to anyone else selling you anything else. That is if you're stacked and say, hey. Yeah. We all we we're getting all we can handle. Great. That does by the way, there are some people I speak to who say, Listen, we're killing it. We're getting all we can handle. We're actually being selective of who we take on because we have to be at this point. Fantastic. If you're part of an enterprise that's growing or you have different needs and different concerns, then how you voice this, yeah, it does matter. And the choices you make and where to expend your energy and your money and time matters. So if we can help make this a little bit better, a little sharper, get you where you need to be a little faster with a little more confidence, that's incrementally positive. I hope if we can contribute to that idea, Eric, then we're serving the whole idea of why spending this time together. Thank you for those thoughts. You're absolutely on point. In fact, to the group, we're going to come back to this because while Eric has foreshadowed this notion of sourcing, we're gonna ask we're actually gonna poll you a little bit on that topic because I wanna get come back to that with a few more thoughts that I hope will help, clarify this further. So when we say it's about them, then it's reasonable to ask, well, what is it they want? And I say that not just to create a false, you know, kind of a starting point here. When we say, what do they want? That's a loaded question. We could spend thirty minutes with a title called what do they want? What do buyers really want? Only thirty? Only thirty? We could spend all day, and and and probably have room for tomorrow. What they want is complicated. What they want is not certainly singular. It's not homogenous, and it may not be what we're selling. Meaning, if I can offer you a financial plan, is that what you want? No. I want to have certainty in my future. That's what I want. Maybe what we're selling is a means to an ends or a vehicle to help you get where you're going, or the confidence of a guide who appreciates what you need and has your back. What they want is important. I'm not suggesting that you don't know these things certainly, or that you're not operating from a basis of excellence in doing so. What we keep suggesting here and what you've heard me say from the top is that in so many cases, what we hear advisory firms in particular talk about is on point in terms of this idea internally, but disconnected externally. That the website doesn't say this, collateral doesn't say this, pitch deck doesn't say this. We talk about relationships as foundationally important, but we're selling services and we're selling solutions over here in a way that frankly puts us back in the commodity box and it undersells the whole power of what we're trying to convey in relationship. A statement that I know that we've talked about previously and that I will reiterate because I have discovered it over and over and over. It continues to remind me how true it is. If you would do this with me, I'm not going to put this as a poll on screen, but I'll ask all of you. Finish this sentence, this next one, and I I know that you you you you will. When it comes to important financial decisions in particular, for fear of making a poor decision, most people will You know how to finish that sentence. Eric? Make no decision at all. Make no decision at all. That is the number one answer with a bullet. It's it's ninety percent plus. And the other ten percent is make no decision, but stated just slightly differently. As in we all get it. For fear of making a poor decision, most people will make no decision, even to their own detriment. And the fact they're making no decision doesn't mean they don't have a need. They do. Or that they don't want to solve the problem they have. They do. They're not ready. Now why they're not ready is is sometimes complicated. But the notion that they have to deal with and they have to get over their own fear of making a poor decision is is also complicated. There's risk. We have brand risk, reputation risk. We have operational risk. We have financial risk. Right? We have a number of different kinds of risks that matter in people's heads. These are legitimate risks. I'm putting my money on the line. I'm putting my brand on the line. I'm putting my reputation on the line and so on. There could be consequences financially for the decisions that I make for me and for others. So it's rational to to to contemplate them. How we get them over that hump to make a decision or the decision, by the way, is not necessary to buy. It could be even to invite a meeting to talk about it. It could be even just getting the first meeting. That's the it could be stopping at that step, and that's trust. Trust, I would argue with anyone, is not just they need to trust us. What I'm saying here is, I'm going back up for one, They need to trust themselves. They need to trust that they have the ability to make a confident decision. If they don't, they get stuck here. So we have a job of not just selling ourselves Yes, your credentials and your experience and your capacity speak to you have the chops to do this, but that may not be what they're looking for. It may not be enough to do. Here's an example of an idea. It has significant weight because it's a seven figure kind of a buy. Imagine you're you're responsible for making an investment recommendation on a new MRI for a practice. These are seven figure things. These are expensive. They're important technology, and there are many, many companies that make them. Well, imagine how you would respond to information that look like this, manufacturers' origins, their market share, their awards, their headcount, their headquarters, their patents, and so on, which by the way, you'll find information like this on every one of the MRI competitor sites. Compare that kind of messaging to reliability in terms of quality for patients and teams. The notion that you have a worry free solution and you have support where you need it, and that that we can help you create outcomes that expand your value and what you do. It's a difference between requisite information that maybe is well, I must say maybe is truthful, but doesn't help someone make a a confident decision versus understanding where they're coming from or, frankly, what asking the question, what are they buying? What do they need? What do they want? And how do you help them understand that you have a way of expressing it that perhaps your competitors don't? I can tell you in our space, you have a significant opportunity to sound different, to show up differently than an extraordinary percentage of qualified, capable firms who simply don't use this language. I think that's an important differentiator in terms of how you show up. Let's talk a little bit about leads because as I said, this is not an anti lead idea. Relationship gen is not anti lead gen. It's if we're going to address people, what is it we're saying? What are we asking? It poses a different question if my purpose is to think of it this way. So we've got a few polling questions, Eric. And if if we can just do them in sequence, and I realize where we are on time here, we'll just we'll we'll march through them. It won't take too much too much time. The first question asks, how do you source leads today? You know? And and and and if it all if this polling only offers you the choice of one, then then choose the one that that's most interesting in terms of how often you do. I have a different question, by the way, to follow, which is more effective, but which is the one that is the one that you do most? It looks like we've got a pretty even breakdown between cross selling referrals and other, a little bit less on hosting events. Okay. Very good. Let's move. And what I want to do is I asked you this question, but the next question I want to ask you is this one. We'll put this one up as a poll right now as well, which is we just asked you the question. Now I'm asking you about the same choices saying, okay, of them, which one is most effective? Because you may be trying several or you may have several of them in your mix. So as we discussed earlier, then, Eric, as you clearly alluded to, referrals is a gold standard. Certainly, we would expect that to be effective and an important understanding here. Thank you for that. All right. Yeah. So if anybody can't see the results, we have to hide the cameras we're being told by some people in the audience. That said, a real quickie breakdown. Sixty percent of you say referrals, number one, with cross selling about thirty percent and hosting live events, ten percent. Okay. The next one is the last one I'm going to ask you, which is what exactly is it that you think people are buying? Nearly two thirds of you said, what do they buy? You. Buy me. Right, they buy you. Followed by a retirement plan and consulting, not so much strategy and investment, and that could be in terms of how you present. The fact that the dominant answer is what do they buy is you. If that's what they're buying, could argue that's what you should be selling. That's if there's one sound bite for you guys to know what to take away from today's session, I think it's that one right there. Sounds so elementary. It may not even sound like, oh gosh, that was a light bulb. Thank you very much. I can tell you that when I was a neophy stockbroker a hundred and twelve years ago, seems, I was taught how to sell particular stocks, bonds, funds with research reports and papers and Q and A and how to overcome objections. It was to sell specific ideas. When I saw the most successful brokers on the perimeter of the office who weren't sitting at desks, they were actually standing with their headsets walking around back and forth against their windows talking to clients. If you listened in on them, you never heard them doing any of those things. It was quite clear that the relationship they had, and by the way, the word relationship was present there too, they had sold themselves. It was the first clue to me that clients didn't buy stocks, bonds, and funds. They buy brokers. They buy advisors. They buy people. They they can help them make those difficult decisions. Because once they get there, then they're in a place that they can get what they need. But the question follows then is, where do you differentiate best? Well, of the things we just talked about, you could argue that retirement plans are not well differentiated, 401ks or 401ks, within some range. Yes, there are some nuances in terms of whether we're talking plan design or optimization for owners or others. Yes, there are things to be talked about for tax strategy and whether they are qualified or non qual ideas, all true. But of all these things, only one of them represents an idea they can only get from you, and that's you. You are the unique opportunity. As a house, it's your house. It's what we sell here. It's who we are. There's a lot to be said for recognizing that people buy that idea. How often do you hear the notion people do business with people they like or they do people with people that make them feel good about these decisions? It is a people business. How many times have we said that? Nope. You cannot do that without recognizing there was a relationship component to that idea. I'm not suggesting that you don't understand this because I know you do. I'm inviting you to think about not just where you differentiate, but how you align your marketing to how you deliver value. Certainly lead gen, if it's a problem, it's this. It tends to be short term, it tends to be transactional in terms of our thinking, and it suggests that if we shift our thinking more to relationship gen, we get from this place, which is if you win one transaction, you get one win, to earn a relationship, you stand to win over and over. That a foundation for growth that's built in to what we're trying to get to. It's moving from a single event to long term value. Quickly, and with time being short, let's make this actionable. My recommendation to you is that, yes, of course, engage prospects on topics that speak to their success, not your services, not your features, and not the choices you can make, but what it is they actually want. The words about what you're trying to accomplish may be entirely secondary in terms of what you're selling. But here are the things to do. This is the takeaway from today's session. This is the action that I would invite you to take. If you want any help with it or if you'd like some feedback, even ask even if you'd like me to look at a website or or a piece of collateral that you have just just for independent eyes, just reach out. I'm happy to help. Assess the campaigns and content that you're running with. Identify and respect your differentiators. See how they're showing up or not. Think about what does it mean to create content that supports relationships by design, by intention, even using the words. What does it mean to personalize and customize content, which of course you know, and what is it to review and improve this? But the first one, number one here, assess what you've got. Look at your website if somebody else does. Most of us, we build we build things, we keep moving, and we don't often revisit them, as often as as perhaps we should. And we often don't look at them the way others do. That's the big opportunity on this one. Eric, final thoughts on this topic? I think we've only just begun to explore how important relationship gen is. We talked a lot last time about mirroring the kind of stuff, the energy that you get from the clients speaking in their language. And I think that I suspect that this will be a recurring theme for us as we explore the rest of our webinar series. The next of which I believe is three weeks from now. Obviously, like I say, I think we're on a two week cadence from here. I think it's at least a couple of weeks. It'll be on the website. Look for our invitation. This one absolutely speaks to how you tell your story. Let's fix your LinkedIn profile for good. Maybe that's a maybe that's a nod to wicked. Maybe it's something else for good. Was pulling up an alternate title to it, is don't post anything on LinkedIn, parentheses, until you fix your profile. Most of us have profiles that are literally not working for us, and we know what to do next. We know they're not great, we don't know what to do. In this session, I'm going make it super clear what to do next. You can join us for that two weeks from tomorrow. So Wednesday, September sixteenth, same back time, same back channel, two o'clock Eastern. We hope to see you guys there. Today's session, yes, was recorded. Thank you for the questions. And that recording should be posted by end of day tomorrow. On the landing page, there will be a post webinar email that goes out with a link to that session. And as always, thank you all for your time and attention today. Thank you even for staying with us five minutes late. I didn't see anybody leave. Fantastic. Thanks, everybody. I think that's a good sign right there. Take care, everybody. Have a good week. Bye bye.