Why Do Great Financial Advisors Fail to Get New Clients? (Video)

Financial Advisor Prospecting

Are you curious about top advisor marketing results? Well, I just got off a call with a veteran advisor that has been a client of ours for about 3 months. He was blown away that he is currently onboarding 6 new high-net-worth clients. He’s been an advisor for 35 years and always had a successful firm, but he’s never gotten 6 new highly qualified clients in the same month!

The conversation led me to wonder what he had been doing wrong for all those years. Although he had a decent website and was getting the occasional referral, he wasn’t proactively marketing his firm.

Since this advisor signed on with our team, we have put out three articles for him:

• Why I Became a Financial Advisor
• How to Manage Your Finances in the 2020 Crisis
• What We Do and How We Help

But there’s so much more that we did as part of the setup process to help an advisor focus on whom they want to serve and create a compelling story to reach that audience: 

• First, we defined the one urgent problem he solves for a specific group. 
• Then we added an easy way for people to get started on his website 24/7. 
• Next, we did a full SEO package to get him to show up higher in search results and get more traffic to his site. 
• Then we set up and optimized his social profiles so that his content gets more exposure and his audience is always seeing his firm online.
• Finally, we told his story in a way that’s memorable, compelling, and authentic. 
• Each month, we deliver valuable and relevant content to his audience through all channels.

All of these pieces work together to create a marketing presence that drives awareness, referrals, and more new business. That’s the way marketing should be done, with a long-term strategy aimed at delivering unique and valuable content to the specific group that you serve. 

I thought it would be helpful today to review the most common marketing mistakes that great advisors make and what makes a successful marketing strategy. 

Why Do Great Advisors Fail to Get New Clients?

In all my years of marketing, I’ve come to find that many great financial advisors still struggle to get new clients because they’re making some of these marketing mistakes:

• They don’t know who they are trying to reach.
• They can’t articulate the one urgent problem they solve.
• They haven’t put themselves in the shoes of their ideal client.
• Their marketing focuses on what they care about, not what their prospects care about.
• They haven’t told their story in a compelling and memorable way.
• Their marketing isn’t consistent.
• If they do create content, they don’t share it in a way that gets strong exposure.
• They don’t have a clear call to action.
• It’s not easy for prospects to get started working with them online and after hours.
• They start and stop their marketing as they have time.
• They don’t track the same marketing metrics each month.
• They send too many marketing messages, then stop altogether.
• They send sales messages that aren’t valuable or helpful.
• There’s no differentiation in the eyes of their audience.
• They don’t stick with a good marketing strategy over months or years.
• They expect marketing to work after one or two emails.
• They don’t understand that marketing (like investing) is a long-term strategy with a long-term ROI.

Watch this four-minute video for an even deeper dive into why great financial advisors struggle to get new clients—in Claire’s own words!