This, that, and the other - A mix of issues and solutions for financial advisers

So grab a coffee , sit back and let's get ready to blast off . I'm your host , frans van der Toij .

Right , there's a what is topical for me as Franchois in the profession at the moment , things that might be bugging me , things that I'm really excited about , you know , and anything in between , and then , obviously , the things that I see and hear people talk about and conversations that I have with people as well .

So there's a couple of things that we want to touch on and , just to give you a brief idea , I want to talk a little bit about leveling up your virtual meeting setups . It's the one thing that annoys the living daylights out of me . I'll talk about that in a minute .

And then also the importance of titles in the financial advisory you know , profession or industry or whatever you want to call it . And then , a very important one as well the difference between marketing and prospecting . I often get people asking me about how do I market my financial services business or my practice ?

How do I market my financial services business or my practice ? How do I market , market , market , but there's also sometimes , I think , a confusion between that and prospecting , so I want to talk a little bit about that .

Then I'm going to talk about the next generation of financial planners , just briefly , and then also the power of community , which is an important part for me , because a lot of the things can be addressed through that as well . So let's get started and talk about your virtual meeting setup . Now , this is something that's incredible to me .

Let me say this that I know that it takes money to invest into these things , and it's not that everybody can have a major setup with which you can take over the world , which I completely understand , but there are very small things that you can do . That's going to cost you , if you do all of it , less than 5,000 grand in order to get a proper setup .

That looks great , that sounds great and that's an enjoyable experience for the person on the other end of the screen . Because the one thing that we never think about is , like what is the experience on the other end of the screen ?

And I often think about , you know , because here's the thing why it annoys me is that I often get to talk to people that work for big corporates and you look at their setups I'm not talking about normal meetings and things I talk about like I interview them for other things , for other shows and for other podcasts and for other productions and things that we do

for others and then like these people for others . Then , like these people , you see them everywhere but yet they're still only using the built-in features of their laptop , the built-in audio , the built-in camera . Like they sit in different places . It's really like you know , the sound isn't great .

None of those things are great , and my big question is why are the corporates not investing into proper virtual setups for people that represent their brand ? Like it goes beyond what I can really imagine or understand . Rather , for me , that should be like that's part of the brand , like this is not .

Like you're joining a meeting and we're having a meeting about what's our next strategy and what do we want to do , etc . This is somebody out there being a thought leader , sharing important information and views and opinions , but it doesn't look great . It doesn't sound great .

Um , you know often the background and the person is like one because , like everything's white or or that . So it's really not . Not not a great thing that I've seen before . Um , but also , then , the other thing that made me think about is like , what is your client's experience ? Because it's not about you know what your experience is with your client .

It's about their experience with you when they are watching you on a screen and you're not meeting with them in person . And the other thing is that none of these people from the corporates will show up to an in-person event , you know , not looking the part , not being well prepared .

And also the amazing thing is that corporates , when they do put on event , it's all , it's the whole show , it's lights and it's banners and it's colors and it's just everything's just amazing .

But yet when we do it virtually suddenly , nah , it's just , let's just use the built-in stuff , and that , for me , is really something that we need to to to take note of .

Um , it is important also just for in your business , for your experience with your client , um , what that does to to their experience and how long you could actually have a conversation with somebody virtually , um , you know , and and also think about it like , if you travel a lot , what , what is your setup ?

You know , I was watching a thing the other day that I did while I was traveling and it's that sort of the bare minimum setup you need . In any event , that gives you a great experience . Anyways , I don't want to waffle on about this , but it is quite important . So the first thing is just get an external webcam .

In certain instances , if you use certain types of laptops , they have built-in 1080p cameras already , and the camera is quite good .

The problem with that , though , is that often like this for example , if I had to look at my camera on my laptop , this is what you will be seeing because of where I'm seated and because the laptop screen is always lower than what you are , so you have to either lift the laptop or do things like that in order to get eye level , but whereas , if you've got

an external camera , you can put it on a tripod or on a stand or something , and or at the top of another screen that you may have , and you can just sit up straight and just have a look at that . So it's just a much better experience , but it's about the quality , it's about how clear it is .

There is a massive difference between your built-in camera and an external camera , right ? So so just think about those things . The other big thing that I'll talk about is not obviously , audio and lights and all those things are important , but probably the one thing that is more important for me is your background .

I'm not a big fan of virtual backgrounds , not saying don't use them , but if you want to use them , make sure that you either using a green screen or you are very well in the .

You must be , the lights must be great , um , for the virtual background to really work properly , because there's nothing more annoying than some the top of somebody's head going away or when they're waving , you suddenly see , oh , there's some stuff in the background , you know .

Um , so those are the kinds of things it's great to have your virtual background and have all of the things and you know , like your logo and all that good stuff , but ultimately , I think a proper background in your environment where you do your meetings or your presentations or your talks is actually more more useful anyway .

So , um , I want to step off of that because that I guess , guess you get my drift and why this is important . But just think about those kind of things . You can literally get a proper mic , a proper webcam that's 1080p and you can sort out your background for quite cheaply .

I'm pretty sure you can do that under 5000 and maybe , if you invest more , you can definitely have a fantastic setup under 10 grand um without breaking the bank . Um , so , yeah , just my , my thoughts on on that .

Then the second one is the importance of titles in the financial advisor industry and profession . Well , this is this is something that's also been close to my heart for a very , very long time . You know , there was the categorization paper that went nowhere with RDR and it was actually ridiculous , in my humble opinion .

Again around the types of advisors that want to be like product supplier , agent and like all these weird and wonderful things , right , weird and wonderful things , right . My question is always like what is in the mind of the client , what is it that the client understands , or what is it that makes sense to them ?

Um , that's really the thing , that that is more , more important . And ultimately , I was asking somebody the other day , like you know , do you think a client knows the difference between a financial advisor and a financial planner , or even a broker for that matter ? Is it all the same to them ?

Because it doesn't help us changing names and having titles unless they know and understand and it's very clear in their mind what the difference is .

The one thing I also learned recently is that , you know , talking about financial advice and financial planning in the UK means a little bit something different to what it means to us here in South Africa , which is also quite interesting to me . It's a small difference , but but still there's a bit of a different view around it .

So those are the kinds of things that I think when we start thinking about titles . And then obviously , there's the fourth part of it , where some of us come up with our own , like proprietary titles for ourselves , right , and some people go as far as to register them as as trademarks or so forth , and that's fantastic .

But then you do marketing around that to make sure that your target market knows and understands what that stands for and what that means . Then we have things like I'm a CFP professional on top of these things , or I'm an FSA , or I'm a like it's . You know , it's like all these designations . And again , you know , do the client really know what this is ?

Now , I'm not . I don't have answers for this here , but what I am can tell you is that we're putting together a big panel discussion around this specific topic . So if you're interested in in that and if it's something that you'll , you'll attend . It's going to be virtual uh , with some fantastic people on that panel .

Just maybe in the comments just say yes , please , uh , or or just yeah , just right , panel .

I'll know then what that is , um , but it's really an interesting thing because I do think that the big impact around titles is this it's the perception and the trust you know um kubas was talking about , about the importance of building trust with clients , and it is the foundation of everything .

But there's different points in the journey where we build trust and you know , what we call ourselves can definitely impact trust , I think , on the one hand , and then also , on the other hand , it can definitely impact the perception that people have of us .

You know , if you think about doctors and again I do not want to compare us to doctors because I think they've got a long way to go , actually most of them so when we talk about doctors , you know it's very clear like they're a doctor .

So we know a doctor is somebody that can make me healthy and then , within being a doctor , there's somebody that can help fix my knee . There's somebody that can help fix my knee . There's somebody that can help fix my back , there's somebody that can help fix other things .

So that's the sort of clear thing that they've done well in people's minds that people know what a urologist is . People know all of these kinds of things , but in our world , do they know what a financial advisor is ? Do they know what a financial planner is ? Do they know ?

So I think that's where we've got a lot of work to do , and it starts with our own practices and what we do inside with our own clients and how we educate our clients about what we do and what the difference is from people that do other things .

Not to say that I'm better than the person next door , because ultimately , every business has a specific client that they serve and that client has a need which they are very happy with , to work with that particular business , so somebody that that offers a specific value proposition , and we do something completely different . Those things .

It doesn't mean that the one is better than the other , right , it's just a distinction . And are we clear so that people are able to make a decision around ?

What is it that they actually need and want from us and which one of those two businesses will probably serve their needs the best Doesn't mean that your way is better doesn't mean that it's worse , so that's important . So , anyway , I just think this is really an important topic and something I wanted to leave with you just to think about .

You know what we call ourselves and what does it mean , and are we educating our clients on what it is that we do and what we don't do as a financial advisor , as a financial planner or as a broker , for example ? There's other things as well .

Then our third topic is around marketing versus prospecting , and I think this is really something that is confusing to a lot of people and again , like many things in the profession , we talk about things interchangeably , when we say marketing but we mean prospecting , or we talk about prospecting but we mean marketing , because we're not clear on exactly what the

difference is and sort of what that entails . But if I can sort of highlight this or let me say , not highlight this , but maybe define this in sort of a simple way Marketing is all about a one-to-many strategy .

It's about creating awareness , it's about building brand , it's about building a relationship and familiarity and making sure that people know what it is that you do and who you do it for . So that's a message that is sent out broadly , but maybe to a specific type of person . So if I say broadly , it means to .

Let's just say that you have an ideal client that you would really want to work with . Or maybe you just work with engineers , you just work with accountants , you just work with whoever business owners , and things like that then you may just talk to that , but in that segment you go very , very broad . So you want to reach all the business owners , for example .

Or you may say I only work with small business owners , or I only work with large businesses , or whatever that may be , but then you target all of them with your communications . So that's really what marketing is . It's really to make sure that there's an awareness and people know about you , what it is you do and who you do it for .

That's really the purpose of marketing . Prospecting , on the other hand , is actually going out and identifying specific clients and contacting those specific clients . So marketing is more of a let me attract people to me .

It's more like a magnet let I want the right people to come to me , and if I do my marketing well , it will be like a filter and we attract people to ourselves . The way prospecting is that we are in the driving seat and we go out and we go and identify people and we contact those people , who have a conversation with those people .

But it's very much a one to one approach in that sense . So when you go one to many you're throwing out lines and see which one bites . That's sort of bringing people in and then sort of the conversation starts from there . So marketing is more attracting people to you , the conversation starts from there . So marketing is more attracting people to you .

Prospecting is more going out and finding people and not let let you know , sort of just the river flows at its own time . What is really important for me as well when it comes to to marketing is that marketing is a long game . It's really something that takes a long time .

So you're not going to market today and tomorrow have a client , not that it's not possible . You might just find somebody at the right time looking for the thing with your offering at exactly that point in time and they might say , yeah , there's me .

But typically in our world people first want to see if they can trust you , if you are credible , you know , and whether you care more about them than yourself . So that's sort of the things that they might be looking for before taking the steps . So that's why it's a long game . It's a lot of content creation and webinars and events and things like that .

Then , on the other hand , you have prospecting , which is a short term game . So prospecting is more like look , we've got to earn revenue now . We need clients now . You know , we can't wait for somebody to read my article three years from now and then have a realization that they want to speak to me . We have to earn revenue today .

So you basically need both of these things , but there might be times where you prospect more and there might be times when you prospect less . There might be . In my opinion , a business should always be marketing . You never , ever stop marketing .

It doesn't matter how big you get , where you get , because it's that concept about out of sight , out of mind , and , at the very least , maybe you don't market outside to attract new clients , because maybe you're in a point in your business where you don't want more clients , but you definitely want to keep marketing to your existing clients .

That's the beauty , right ? So marketing never , ever stops . Prospecting depends on capacity and sort of where you are , et cetera . So , typically , as you build your business .

If I talk about the financial advisor curve and the practice curve as well , or the business maturity curve , if , as as you grow the revenue in the business and as it's more and more of a of a recurring nature and it's more predictable , etc .

You will do less prospecting , you don't need to do as much prospecting because you've already done that , you've already built the business . But marketing you've got to stay top of mind . You've got to make sure your existing clients know what you're up to , that you're still there , that you're looking at things . So that's a very important one as well .

So hopefully that helps . I've spoken in a few of the episodes this season around some strategies and things that you can follow , so you can find that on the channel as well . Then the fourth one is the next generation of financial plans . This is something that's very close to my heart .

I wish I had more time to just sort of think about solutions in this space or at least talk about this a lot more , but there's nothing that hurts me as much , as you know . Like I mean , this is very simple . So I equate it to the same thing here .

If I walk in a mall and you have this small shop that was there and then suddenly , just one day you walk past and they closed .

Then I always go like , and that sometimes , especially if it's within a year from from opening , you know , that's somebody that had a dream and a vision for themselves and they had a passion for the what it is that they do and they thought I'm going to make this work .

They maybe went out and borrowed money to do this , you know , maybe they had their own money , that doesn't really matter . The fact of the matter is the money is gone because this thing did not work , and there's nothing as heartbreaking for me as that .

Now , that same feeling I get when I think about the next generation of financial planners going through all of the motions to do NKF 5 , 6 , 7 , and 8 . And , trust me , I train those people . I know how much they go through . So it's really a long , long , long journey .

And then we get there and , uh , and then it doesn't work out because the support is not , uh , what they need . Maybe , maybe it's a misalignment of expectations . I mean , there's many , many reasons . Uh , often I think it was I or she what just wasn't got out for this business . It's not true . If we think about where we are right .

We're really in a , in a fortunate place where we have been around for a long time . We've built businesses that has clients of which we don't want to let go by the way . Um , so we've built these businesses , we in a , in a , in a . The most technology technologies that's ever existed is part of our businesses or it's available to us .

We know how to find clients . We've built relationships . We know how . To most of you , if I ask you like , what is your top prospecting tool , you'll say I don't prospect , I only get referrals . That's hard work that you put in .

It's hard work that is paying off dividends for you , where people are referring other clients to you , which is the place to get to . But yet when new people start in this business and they're 25 or 30 or whatever their age is , we expect them to go and find new clients themselves in a world where cold calling is dead .

I'm not saying it doesn't work , but it doesn't work the way it used to work . 10 years ago , 15 , 20 years ago , people were happy to get a phone call . Today we use true caller to say no , thank you very much . And if I don't know the number and if it's going to start with an 87 , I don't answer .

So those are the kinds of things that we need to think about when we bring new people into the business . If you look at , the things that they're really looking for is that they're looking for support . They're looking for mentorship . They want to know , because the one that they're really looking for it's that they're looking for support .

They're looking for mentorship . They want to know because the one thing they may have all the technical knowledge , they may be up to date with everything that's gone , because they've just finished and , trust me , they've gone through a process of passing their PCE to get to CFP . That's a process . They have knowledge . What they don't always have is the how .

What they don't always have is the how do I talk to other people ? How do I now relay this information to someone so they have the knowledge , they can apply it in practice ? But how do I communicate this ? You know , what do I say ? What don't I say ? How do I get to learn more about a client ? What should I be focusing on ?

What should I not be focusing on ? You know ? Do I want to be a paraplanner or do I want to be an advisor , you know , do I do want something else , and those are the things that are really missing from this point , and I think it's really important that we also understand that . Now , I believe any business's job is to market and prospect .

It's not the individual's business , right ? So if you're bringing somebody new into your business for succession or for whatever reason , just think about , like you know , how can you feed them with clients ? So , yes , there's a portion of your clients that you can just hand to them to start looking after .

Or what are you doing from a business point of view to keep marketing and to keep prospecting so that you can feed them clients that they can then see ? Do you have a set program and a set sort of process that you take new people through ?

You know , even if it's just that one , even if it's your only and first financial advisor that you want to appoint in your business , what is your plan to take them through to ? To get to , uh , in in a three to five year window ? That's so important . But what do we do ? We say welcome , yeah , fantastic , this is the most amazing profession .

But go find your own way . I don't know how that's ever going to work . So education can only take you so far . We really need to take their hands . I had this conversation with someone where she said 17 of the people there were a group of 17 that studied together that passed their CFP and their PCE .

This was the post-grad and their PCE that study together that passed their CFP and their PCE . So the post-grad and their PCE only three of them are still in practice . I mean what a waste , what a loss . It's really , really sad . So we need to do more from this point of view and happy to have more conversations around this .

My last point for this morning is around the power of community . Now , there's really three ways that we can do anything , and I did a poll quite a while back , maybe a year and a half or maybe even two years ago on LinkedIn and I just asked you know if you want to do if you have a problem in your business , what do you do ?

Do you go and learn how to do it yourself ? Do you outsource it ? What do you do right ? And one of the things that we learned is that a lot of people want to do it themselves . And again , you know , one thing that I've learned in my business is that maybe you're interested to learn how that works , but should you ?

That's not your primary job , that's not your primary function . You know , if you want to implement automation in your business as a simple example , some of you are very inclined to go and learn how to do that , like I did , like I learned how to incorporate and build these automations . But is that my job ? Is that my role ? No , it's not .

That is somebody who loves that and breathes and lives that . That is what they should be doing and we should be giving it to them . So there's the do-it-yourself part . Then there's the do-it-for-me part .

But what we're seeing from uh because a lot of times on the do it yourself part , uh , you know , even the do it for me part is that we somewhere lose steam along the way or we get distracted with something else and want to do other stuff . So very important that , uh , the one thing that is really working well is doing it with others .

There's there's something when there's accountability added to this or we're in a group , going through something together , and that's why people form study groups , right , so I'm not on my own , I go through this together .

We had some pce prep sessions the last two weeks for the , for the next sitting , which is in about two weeks time or something , and those people came to these sessions together . They are there together because together you can achieve more , and that's , for me , is the power of community . Now think about um .

You know that's basically what propulsion is , um , but think about this from your client's point of view . So do you have these individual clients , like 400 or 300 or 1000 or whatever of them , or what are you going to do to evolve this into a community ?

And the difference is where they do life together , they do business together , they get to know each other and it's much more than just oh , I'm a franchise client . That becomes a whole different ballgame Once you start transforming , if you will , your practice from a client base into a community .

So this , for me , is really really important from an advisor point of view . I've asked this question . I've spoken about this at the Global Financial Planning Conference three years ago .

You know I don't think people are paying attention yet , but this is really something that's very important from a financial advice planning practice point of view or business point of view , is how do you create a community ? And if you have a very large business , how do you create communities within that for different types of clients ?

Very , very important to just think about those things as well . Not mention earlier on in the announcements is that we are taking our mid-season break . So every year in the beginning of July , we take a two weeks break from the show . So there won't be a show for the next two weeks .

We will be back , however , on the 23rd of July , if my memory serves me right . So for the next two weeks there's not going to be a show . We might put out something that you don't just go cold turkey from not having a show .

But be that as it may , we will be back then in two weeks time and until then and I have a special guest back there which we at that time , sorry which we will announce anyway you see why I need a break . So , ladies , gentlemen , thank you very much have have a fantastic weekend , stay safe , be blessed and prosper and continue to raise the bomb .