I love financial advisors and have been helping them grow their businesses for more than 20 years. This blog contains all sorts of proof to the value of a financial advisor – feel free to use it to add just a few more nuggets to your significant value.

Money, money, money. No matter who you are, it just seems to make everyone unhappy. 

According to Thriving Wallet, 90% of Americans are stressed about money. Yikes.

And it’s not any better if you have someone to lean on, as 1 in 5 couples say that money is their greatest relationship challenge and 44% admit to arguing with their spouse about money at least occasionally, according to a study by Fidelity Investments. 

If money alone spikes everyone’s blood pressure, just imagine what the more complicated concepts of investing and financial planning can do.

But financial advisors can not only take that stress away but also improve their clients’ outlook and outcomes. You have the power to make your clients’ lives better, because those who work with a financial advisor are reportedly about 3x happier than those who don’t. 

THAT’S RIGHT!  —- 3 times happier!

The financial services space is definitely not short on sports references. 

“Investing is a marathon. Not a sprint!”

“Your financial advisor is your financial quarterback.”

But have you, as a financial advisor, ever tried taking a cue from the sports world and using it for yourself? Here’s what I mean.

Over the past couple years, the college sports world has been transformed by the changes around name, image, likeness (NIL). They can use their name, image, and likeness for their own monetary benefit. I’ve been personally involved in the effort at Oklahoma State University through our business school and athletic department partnerships, The Brand Squad, and I wrote a textbook for educating student athletes.

In more ways than one, NIL is the perfect recipe for building a personal brand, shaping a marketing strategy, and helping student differentiate themselves in a crowded space; here’s how you can take a page out of the student-athlete playbook and use your own name, image, and likeness as the basis for financial advisor marketing.

What if your clients reviewed every interaction they had with you? That may seem like a frightening proposition to financial advisors because of what it might reveal. But isn’t that the point? 

Reviews are nothing to fear, even the critical ones. Because sometimes it takes a few critical reviews to achieve that consistent level of service that produces raving fans.

Hiding the most relevant pieces of a story within other distracting information is called burying the lede and can be fatal in advisor marketing. The phrase “don’t bury the lede” was originally coined in journalism to teach writers how to grab the attention of their audience, but has since been adopted in marketing for the same reason. 

All too often financial advisors suffer from burying the lede when describing who they are, what they do, and why others should work with them. They lead with irrelevant information or jargon that causes their audience to tune out and miss the most valuable parts of their offer.

What is your ideal prospect doing when they land on your LinkedIn profile page? Hopefully, it’s staying and reading through. But how can you be sure?

Here’s the problem: if you have a Linkedin profile, it’s one of the top results people will see when they Google your name or start researching you or your business online.