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- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's Kendra and Taylor and we're here to make advisor marketing simple. Are you a financial advisor thinking about hiring marketing help, but you're not quite sure where to start? Well, you're in the right place today because by the end of this episode, I hope that we can give you some clarity on some signs when it is time to hire some marketing help. Maybe some of the best alternatives if you're not ready to hire and a few like red flags to watch out if you're considering hiring a consultant or, or an agency or maybe even someone in house. Plus, I'm going to share with you, if you stick around to the end, a couple killer questions that you should ask everyone before you hire anyone. And this is a little bit of insider baseball. So I'm pretty excited to share a few of those. All right, so the first thing that I want to dive into here with you, Taylor, is signs that it's time to hire some marketing help. So the first one that I really think about is either a growth plateau or you're in major growth mode. Because sometimes advisors are actually already doing what they need to do to grow at the rate that they want to grow. Like, not everybody is on a major growth trajectory. What do you think about that?
- [01:10]
B
Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. You say that I recently hired a compensation consultant to help with our team structure here at the firm and better kind of formalize job roles and responsibilities and descriptions. And part of this kind of exercise or this project we're working on is also thinking about the growth of the firm and how we're growing. And right now I'm primarily responsible for all the growth, like I do most of the marketing. And she was sharing with me some different org structures for different firms as you get larger and as you start to get larger, that you know, firm owner is no longer able to do everything. And typically, well, one of the next hires is some sort of like marketing manager. It doesn't have to be internal, it could be a third party agency, but someone to start to come in and help support those marketing efforts. As you get bigger, as you hire more people, you need more growth to support those people. So definitely strikes a chord there. When you're in major growth mode, like, yeah, you may not need to hire maybe, you know, you're not looking to grow that much. But you know, if you are in major growth mode, you likely need to hire some marketing help because you can't do it all yourself.
- [02:13]
A
Definitely. And I think the other other things I think about too, as far as like when it's. It's time to potentially hire is one. This is probably an unexpected one. But you're patient. Marketing does not save your firm overnight. You know, like marketing, especially in the digital landscape, takes a lot of time. I think offline does too. But it just, it takes time. And so you're ready to hire when you are aware of the expectations and the timelines that it takes. I often tell someone who comes to work with me is like, hey, do you have a year to give me your trust? And that's kind of scary for me to say because I want to say, hey, I'm going to get you results, you know, right away, quickly as possible. It's just not true. You know, even as hard as I try, and I try very hard, it just takes time. So I think if you're patient, that's a really important ingredient. And the last one I would say is like needing some really specialized skills. And this doesn't particularly refer to like an agency, but something really hyper specific. And you give a great example around like compensation. Right? Like, that's a very specialized skill. So when I think about hiring marketing help, like say you are working on something like a YouTube channel, if you need some really specialized skill around, like how to write better thumbnail copy or how to write better hooks, something hyper niche, hyper specific, I think that can be a really good time to hire.
- [03:28]
B
Yeah. Your comment around patience is absolutely critical. I say this a lot in our recording schedule, recorded this podcast, that there's a lot of parallels between marketing and financial planning. So know, just imagine if prospect came to you and they're behind on saving and they're hiring you with the expectation that you're going to solve other problems in a few weeks. Right. We know that, you know, achieving financial goals or retirement goals takes a lot of time and commitment and patience and marketing is the same way that if your expectation is that somebody's going to magically give you leads tomorrow, you're probably in the wrong place. And there's a lot of those type of agencies out there that promise, you know, hundreds of leads showing up at your, you know, at your firm every single day. It's probably a sign that's like, probably not the right person to work with. That would be like you telling, you know, a potential client that you can solve all their retirement problems in a few short weeks as well. So patience is huge. And it's one of the first questions I ask advisors when they have some marketing questions or they're struggling. I said, well, how long Is your Runway like, what if you didn't see a single prospect for two years or three years, or a single, you know, new client for two or three years, like, would you be able to survive? And it's like, no, I need new clients, like tomorrow or within the next six months or have to shut my firm down. Well, I mean, that. That changes a lot of things. So knowing that you have a longer Runway to be patient will help you succeed with your marketing.
- [04:42]
A
Definitely. And I think if your Runway is short, the first thing I look at is, where are you already winning? You know, like, what can we double down on? And, like, there are some strategies, you know, that can be more effective quicker, and you're probably already doing them. You know, I think about, you know, internally working on your client referral process, maybe your coi, something like that, that's a little. A little bit easier and a little more, like, you could put a little more hustle muscle into that. Whereas, like, digital, there's a lot of things to really dial in there. Whereas, like, cois, you probably already have some experience there. You may already have a network, and you could just do a lot better job there.
- [05:13]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [05:15]
A
So, you know, when you are thinking about hiring, a couple questions that I think are really helpful for you to ask yourself. First one is like, what are your marketing goals in the next one or two years? And it's not because of the reason you think. The reason I want to know the answer to this question is I want to understand your expectation as a marketer, and then I can tell you if you're completely bonkers or if I could get you results. If someone tells me a goal that is just astronomical, I'm going to have to bring them down to earth. And you also need to have a little bit of clarity on what are the expectations you have on this hire, so they can tell you if that's achievable. So that's, you know, a marketing. You know, what are your marketing goals in the next one or two years that you hope will be supported by this hire that you might make? And then also a second one I think about is, do you have a budget that you can sustain for 12 to 18 months? And the reason why that's a really good question to ask yourself is, I have a current client who I adore and love to work with, and they've been with me for a few years now, but they came to me maybe five years ago, six years ago, and they came in with a budget that was just too high for them to sustain over the long term. And they worked with me for six months and then they left. It was all amicable, and then they didn't work for me for a couple years. And they came back now and they had a higher budget. And we really got them dialed in on a budget they could stick with for 12 to 18 months. And they're, they're crushing it right now. And I'm not saying that's all because of me. There's a lot of things happening in their marketing kind of ecosystem that we built over time. But I just think about, like, man, if I could have had that client just stick with me for that, that year and a half gap, I can't even imagine where they would be. And so it's taught me a lot about sustainability. And if we know that it's going to take a while, I would rather you be at a lower budget that you can sustain than a higher one that you're going to have to back out in six months, nine months.
- [07:02]
B
What's a good starting point for thinking about what my budget should be? I'm not even sure where I might begin. I know we've probably all heard the advisors spend less than 2% of their revenue on marketing, so it probably should be higher than 2% of revenue. But what are your thoughts on trying to identify what my budget might be before I go out and try to find the right person to pay and help me?
- [07:24]
A
Yeah, so when I think about marketing budgets, I think of it in three completely different categories. So the first one is consultant, and that one I look at on more of an hourly basis because you could hire a consultant in a much lower risk fashion. And I would say, like, on average, I would say 100 to $300 an hour. And it can be all over the map. Someone could charge $1,000 for an hour for all I know. But typically I would say, like, most consultants are like 100 to $300 an hour from an agency standpoint. This one is a range I would say on the low end, you're looking at for someone who's probably, you know, if they're giving you multiple services, you're probably looking at around, you know, 1500, $2,000 a month on the low end. And then you can go up to, you know, five figures easy, like depending on how many different pieces are brought in there. But I would say on the agency front, if you're in the two to five a month, you're in agency world, that's kind of like the lower end. And then obviously it goes up from there and then a full time hire, I mean that's can be, you know, fifty to a hundred thousand dollars depending on the complexity in their experience. What I think is really interesting that people won't realize there's two things here. One, and this is me going to put myself out of a job really quickly is that I think most advisors could get by with just hiring ultra specific consultants as needed. Like 90% of them could really get by with just being hyper focused, dialing in a few things and like hiring consultants as needed. Agencies really kind of come to the forefront when you are in big growth mode. You know, that's where you start to spend a lot more money. And then the thing that's really interesting about a full time hire is they can actually be a little bit cheaper, but they're a bigger risk. So when I look at, you know, just different people on my team, it's like even on the labor side it's like, oh, a consultant or a support could be much higher, but then I only have them for a few hours. And so there's. I don't think people realize that a full time hire, if you want someone who is going to be thinking about your business all day long every day, you're going to want a full time hire.
- [09:19]
B
Yeah, I completely agree with you in terms of hiring people, people for ultra specific tasks or like ultra specific consultants. The trap you can fall into, I'll say the trap that I fell into was not understanding where these activities or you know, these consultants, whatever they're doing, like how they're supporting my growth goals and how they're supporting other marketing activities. So for example, this was several years ago, struggling to grow and trying whatever I, I could. And I'm like, I lived next to this, this Harvard grad nerd that was a Facebook ad specialist and he was like, dude, I will help you. I will run these Facebook ads to this landing page and your phone's gonna be ringing. So I hired this Harvard Facebook nerd. I spent thousands of dollars more money than I probably should have and really had to spend at that time for this ultra specific thing to run Facebook ads to help get my phone to ring. And it didn't work. And it didn't work because one, I didn't have the whole funnel in place. I was just focused on like this one little thing, right? Just having this person do this one little thing. Also, this person didn't really understand our business. If I was in the business of selling annuities or selling life insurance or selling a book or, you know, something more transactional, I think. Absolutely. This little, you know, this, let's call it like a little mini funnel this person, you know, created for people. I'm sure it could work, but, like, I needed more than that. I needed, you know, we talk a lot about marketing funnels here in the show. Like, I needed it to support other areas of my marketing funnel. So I want listeners to first understand the marketing funnel and then understand where they need help. Okay. Like, I need search engine optimization to help get more eyeballs on this awesome blog post of mine. But I don't know how to do SEO. I don't even want to learn SEO. All right, go find an amazing, you know, SEO agency to help solve that for you. You know, that, that what they're going to do is going to support your, you know, get more eyeballs on your awesome blog that you're writing every week.
- [11:17]
A
Yeah. And you really described it well there. And the way that I would summarize it is the mistake that you made was choosing an activity before you chose a focus.
- [11:26]
B
Correct.
- [11:26]
A
So instead of saying, I have identified, I need SEO help, you said, oh, here's the person, I can do Facebook ads. And it wasn't actually connected to what you were doing. And so you just kind of randomly shot from the hip, which everybody has done many times. And so I love that clarification because I really think it comes back to what are you trying to solve. And if it's an SEO problem, then you're choosing someone who is specifically skilled in that or, you know, bundles that as a part of their service, you know, with their agency. And that's an area that they're very specialized in.
- [11:58]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [11:59]
A
Awesome. So let's talk a little bit about what I think are actually some alternative solutions to hiring. And this first one I think is so obvious, but might be a bit surprising, at least to me is a lot of times people come to me and the first thing I would say is, you actually don't need to hire me if you just stop doing so many darn things.
- [12:18]
B
Yeah.
- [12:19]
A
Like instead of hiring someone, first cut how many marketing activities you're trying to do first, like right off the top. And then the second thing I think about too is again, leaning into a bit of the specialty is like, is there a very specific or high quality maybe course that you could take? So when we think about something like LinkedIn, there's a Justin, well, she has a LinkedIn course called like LinkedIn Operating System. It's like a two hour course and it's one of the best courses I've seen on LinkedIn marketing. Instead of hiring a LinkedIn marketer, if LinkedIn is a big core piece of your funnel, I would just buy that course and then you can hire, you know, a LinkedIn consultant to support that. And the other thing I would think about too is like, could you hire someone in a reduced capacity and not a big retainer if you're in major growth mode? I think that's a different conversation. But for most advisors, like, you don't have to like buy the whole enchilada, you know, like straight out of the gate, especially if it's new for you too.
- [13:12]
B
Yeah, so I agree with the cutting out of marketing activities and sometimes advisors, when I say most advisors really struggle to know what to cut and then they're afraid if I cut that, then I might be missing out on opportunities. But to your point about purchasing a specialized course, let's say that you're trying to market on Twitter, on Facebook and on LinkedIn all at the same time. Well, now you're not just buying Justin Welsh's course, but you're buying somebody else's course for Facebook and somebody else's course about Twitter. And now, like, it becomes really challenging to try to master all three platforms all at the same time. But if your focus is on LinkedIn, you've built a great funnel around LinkedIn and you just want to improve what you're already doing. Like, you just need to go continue to master LinkedIn and just buy one single course and just get better at that one thing. So when we think about cutting out activities, like, are you doing too many things? And then are those things complimenting each other or are they kind of redundant? And is it hindering your success with them? And just try to focus on again, going back to the funnel, what's the, you know, a couple things that you're going to focus on and then obsessing over those. And I think purchasing a course like that is a great idea. We do have to start to think like, is it a good use of my time? Right? I would say, like, agreed, as a financial planner is the best use of my time to go take an SEO course to learn how to do SEO. Like, maybe not. Maybe it's a better use of your time to actually pay an expert to go and do that for you. So I think it's worth, you know, taking that into consideration. But there are, you know, use cases for, especially if you enjoy it, like, hey, I really do want to learn this thing and I Enjoy it. But yeah, be careful not to spend too much of your time on these things, especially if you're a full time planner and have clients to serve.
- [14:42]
A
A hundred percent agree. And I think that that concept around is this the best use of my time? I also think certain strategies are a little more complex than others, so it's, it's worth evaluating. I'm just really surprised sometimes when advisors come to me and they think hiring will fix the problem. And I think focus would fix a lot of their problems before they bring someone in. Just having things tightened up a little bit because a lot of times when someone hires me, the first thing I do is cut a bunch of stuff and I refine and continue to basically put up a bumper guards and be like, no, we didn't. We talked about doing these things year over here. Get back between the bumper guards. You know, like at one point I clients like, hey, we've agreed that these are your marketing activities. You can't ask me questions about other marketing activities.
- [15:25]
B
I like that.
- [15:26]
A
Like we can put those ideas in a folder or something, whatever we want to do. But like, if we agree that, you know, LinkedIn is one of your primary marketing channels, you're not allowed to ask me about YouTube, like, quit reading it. Stop. And it's so funny because I think it gives them like a part of their brain back. And sure they can, they can read YouTube things. And you and I have talked about how we can put that in an idea file or an idea garden so that when YouTube does become the next best step, we have some ideas. But 99% of the time you'd be better served just sticking to the primary platform. And sure, go deep on that. Learn as much as you want there.
- [15:58]
B
But I think you should punish them every time they ask about another marketing activity. You add like $1,000 to their monthly. No, that will stop them from, from asking. I think that's a great idea though. I do think it's important to have a place for those things. Like, hey, YouTube's great. We're going to put that in this folder over here and when the time comes, we'll pull YouTube out and we'll talk about it. I also like what you said about, about focus. Focus is really important. And again, like, think about yourself and, you know, potential clients reaching out to you. What do you do when a new client hires you and they have hundreds of individual positions in their investment account? You're probably looking to help get them more focused and start to cut those positions and create a more simplified portfolio. Right. Or if they have accounts all over the place at all, a bunch of different financial institutions, you're probably looking to cut and start to get them focused and start to get them organized. The same thing with your marketing. We're doing the same thing here. The other thing I'll mention too is collaboration.
- [16:47]
A
Right.
- [16:47]
B
We can't just hire Kendra or hire an agency and just turn the other way and just, you know, pay you to do your thing. Like, you need to be involved in this process. You're going to be heavily involved in this process. Just like your financial planning, clients need to be involved with you and creating their financial plan and taking action and monitoring things and making changes. They can't just hire you and turn around and walk away. So collaboration and focus, I think are really important when you're hiring somebody for help.
- [17:11]
A
Yeah. And it's interesting because the collaboration piece, there's a very specific question I ask anyone I am mutually interested in working with, which is, how many hours a week could you give me? 3 hours a week of your time? 3 to 5. And essentially I don't think, I think that amount of time can change based on what you're doing and everything like that. But to me, you know, I still need an advisor to review, look at things, make sure I'm on brand, on voice, like, give me their domain expertise. So a lot of times if someone comes to me as an agency owner and they're just like, I just want to outsource everything, I'm like, I'm not the person for you. Like, because I still need three hours a week from you. And if you think that I can just, you can just solve this problem by just pushing it all onto my plate, you're going to push most of it on my plate. But we're still going to have to collaborate. And I think people get really surprised. And this happens across the board, whether you're hiring a consultant, whether you're hiring an agency, or whether you're hiring a full time in house person is like, they still need you to take a peek at things. And over time you will improve that. They'll need less of your input, that will get better. But there is, there is some collaboration that does need to happen. It isn't just like, cool, this is your problem now, you know.
- [18:18]
B
Yeah, I understand how you can feel that way. Like, I'm paying this person $5,000 a month. Why do I need to join all these meetings? Why do you need to, you know, play this big of a part or big, this big of a role? So I can understand that, like I'm paying this person a lot of money to do their thing, but I hopefully it makes sense that you do need to be a part of that process, especially with somebody new. Like you said, like they still need to get to know you and understand you and your ideal clients and what's working and what's not working. I mean there's a lot of kind of get to know you that that has to be done in order to have a successful marketing plan.
- [18:46]
A
Totally. And what we're thinking about, you know, let's talk a little bit about some hiring solutions. So I really think about like when I look at marketing hires, there's really three core buckets and we've kind of touched on them, but I want to make sure this is clear. So a consultant is like what I would call like the entry level. And that could be someone you hire on a project basis or hourly basis, very low risk, usually month to month. An agency is multiple services and that is a much, you know, obviously bigger investment. And typically while you will have some kind of ongoing arrangement which could be month to month or you know, quarterly, things like that, it's a bigger kind of, you're biting off a little bit more there. And then a full time hire, very obvious, you know what that takes. But I kind of think of like different hires. So if I were, if I'm an advisor, I would be looking at, you know, from a consultant standpoint, do I need a handful of hours per month? From an agency standpoint, do I need, you know, dozens of hours per month or multiple services or a full time hire, do I want someone I can tap on the shoulder daily, maybe multiple times a day. A marketing hire could also be woven in with a few other things. You know, when I was a standard employee, I still did a few non marketing things. So you can kind of nudge a few things on their plate but eventually as it grows like they won't be able to do a few extra things there. So that's kind of how I think about the different paths as far as like levels of marketing help and levels of risk and level of need. So a couple questions that I think would be brilliant for advisors to ask if they're considering hiring marketing help. The first one is will the work be custom or template based? And the reason why I say this is because unless you know what you're looking for, you might not realize that some of the work you're getting is template based like a website. It could be really hard to spot. And I'M not saying it's good or bad. I think templates can be a little bit more cost effective. But I think you should know if someone is using like a template or canned content or just different things like that. So that's kind of the first thing I think about when it comes to like just really understanding what kind of work is going to go into this. Are they working from things they've already created before or is it going to be more customized to my firm? The more customized it is, obviously the more expensive it's going to be.
- [20:54]
B
Yeah, I think that's a really great question to ask upfront. Yeah. And to your point, like, a templated process is not necessarily a bad thing and it truly might be a good place to start again, depending on your goals and the state of your firm and revenue and what your budget is. I think one of the mistakes I made was out of the gates when I first started my firm, hiring a full service website branding agency to bring my company and my website to life. Like, I spent way too much money. I didn't have a clear vision of my firm. I didn't, I didn't do, you know, enough of the hard work in the beginning to justify spending that much money on bringing my firm and my brand to life. I kind of wish I would just had, you know, built something a little simpler, a template. You know, once you get going, you know, and start to grow your firm and get more clear on some of these things, then I think you can start to double down and triple down and hire people to maybe build things out in a more custom format.
- [21:43]
A
100% agree. And I think so many advisors at multiple points just make that mistake. So it's pretty common. If you've done that before, it's okay. We're all learning together here. So one thing too that you could consider in the process is I think a great question is, hey, tell me about a advisor or client like me that you helped. What did that process look like? And also what parts were you responsible for and what parts were they responsible for? This is kind of a multi part question, but here's what I'm really looking for at a core level is like, hey, tell me an advisor you built a website for and what did it look like? You know, how much of that did you build? How much of it did they contribute? And really what this is going to tell me is their level of ownership, how organized they are, and can they break down the steps and responsibilities. Because when it comes to collaborating with marketing help, it gets pretty Fuzzy, pretty quick. If you're not working with someone who can think clearly in a kind of ownership way and be like, hey Taylor, I'm going to build you a website and I need you to do these pieces and I'm going to do these pieces and here's how this process is going to look. You should have a little bit of that. It's going to tell you so much about the way that they think. If you ask them these questions.
- [22:54]
B
Yeah. And if they don't answer this question very well and provide you enough information, that tells you a lot too. Right. You know, hopefully they can give you detailed information about their process and what you're responsible for and give you examples. If they won't provide that answer or it's a really short answer that doesn't give you enough information, I think that's telling on its own.
- [23:11]
A
Definitely. And I would say skew with a bit more details than not because you can back out of details. But if someone doesn't know how to think in a, or like a steps oriented way or a clear path, that's really hard to work with. So yeah, I definitely would like to see their process. If you're looking at working with an agency, this is a question you should ask and it's going to make them cringe. So I would ask them, hey, I'm thinking about working with you. Who will I be working with if I hire you? And the reason why is because the way that a lot of agencies are kind of structured is they will bring in the big guns, the charismatic strategist who has all the answers and then they may pass you off to another team inside the agency that you've never met. Now I'm not saying it's bad, it's good, it's whatever. They could have a really talented team. You just don't know who you're actually signing up to work with. So I would like to know if I were an advisor working with an agency, who am I going to be working with and can I have a couple conversations with them? Particularly if you are starting to get into the, you know, three to five to $10,000 a month, you need to know who you're going to be kind of in this marketing, you know, game with marketing is it's a lot of work. So I always like to see it as like marketing is kind of like going to war. I want to know who I'm like fighting beside. You want to know who you're going to be working with?
- [24:28]
B
Yeah. I also think I'm not sure exactly how to ask this question, but I know there's a lot of agencies that kind of white label their services. So for example, they're a marketing agency, they have SEO services, right? But they're actually paying a separate SEO agency to do the SEO work for their clients. So they're kind of outsourcing the work to somebody else. Of course there's going to be people behind the scenes, you know, that you're going to have an SEO expert on your team. But I would like to know, like, are you farming this out to a whole separate agency and you're just kind of the middleman here, or is it truly you and your team, you know, your internal people that you've built? I don't mind if they're contractors necessarily, but I do think you have to be careful in the marketing world of things getting farmed out to somebody else. You don't even know who is, you know, doing the work behind the scenes. So again, I'm not sure exactly how to answer that question, but I think it does go along the lines of like, who am I going to be working? Like, who's my point person and who's in the background? And, you know, kind of how is your team structured?
- [25:25]
A
So the question I would ask to get that answer is say it as if you already understand it. So I would say, hey, I understand that one of the ways agencies work is they white label other talented people. And I just love to know what services or parts of your team are white labeled and how do you interact with them and manage them. On my projects, that'll give you a little bit of an understanding as far as, like, who they white label with and how they manage them. Because I think that, you know, white labeling can be very effective if you have a really good strategist who's overseeing that person. That's really, really important. You know, we have a few different contractors on our team and I work so heavily with them, probably much more than most agency owners do. But with the right person in the right seat, there's amazing international talent that can be leveraged. So I think that's an excellent question. I also think something you might not be thinking about is I think about who is going to be logging into the back of my sensitive accounts, like my website, you know, so I want to be knowing who's logging in and things like that. And one random thing that just comes up, and I see advisors make this mistake often, is if somebody creates something for you, like a Google Analytics account, it needs to be created in your name. So if that agency or that contractor ever leaves, you actually own it. So analytics accounts, a good example of this. The other thing, oh, like an ads account, like a Facebook ads or Google, like just make sure that when people are setting these up for you, you reiterate that you want the ad accounts and the logins and things like that. You want it set up in your name. And you also want to limit what you log into with your own personal email accounts so that you don't have to give any of that information to somebody else. So if you sign up for a new account, you want to sign up with your email address, you don't want to log in through like Gmail or Outlook or any of that.
- [27:15]
B
That's a really good point.
- [27:16]
A
Yeah. So another one that I think is just really important to ask is essentially what you're going to say is, hey, if we, if we don't like working with each other, what's going to happen? And the way that I like to say this is, hey, I'm really excited to potentially work with you, but if for any reason one or both of us decide that we don't want to work together, what is your cancellation clause? So you want to understand like what length of time do they need for you to give them a heads up that you don't want to work with anymore? Is it 30 days? Is it 90 days? Is it longer? I've seen, I think it's rare, but I have seen some like 12 month contracts and that's kind of terrifying to me. I don't think, I don't even think I want to be hitched to a client for 12 months. Like to me it's just like that's kind of scary. So you just want to understand what that looks like. If for any reason, and it could even just be that you change your mind, you decide that, hey, we've been doing this and we're not going to do that anymore. It's not that you suck or we don't like you or you're not good people, but things change. So I like to ask those hard questions upfront and then the one last question I think is really important is, hey, if we agree that you're going to do X and Y for me, but I also need you to do A or B, what does that process and pricing look like? Because it can get really tricky on how in the agency world we call it out of scope fees. This is details that, these are some things you want done that are not actually in our original agreement on pricing and so you just want to know.
- [28:38]
B
You don't want to be surprised.
- [28:39]
A
Yeah, you just, you don't want to be surprised. And the thing that I think would surprise a lot of people is you don't want to hire the cheapest person. And here's why. Because if you under resource them, they will underperform. So a lot of times, you know, when we think about paying someone and that also doesn't mean paying them well equals them being awesome either. I think you have to do your due diligence. I think it can go both ways there. But we do need to pay people a decent amount. Sometimes I see certain marketers like they have published their prices and I'm like, wow, that's terrifying. Like how are you able to resource yourself, you know, on the back end to perform that? So it's not about getting the cheapest person. It's also not about getting the most expensive person. You want to ask questions like, hey, tell me some projects like mine that you've done. What are those step looks like, what do you own? What do I own? Those questions really illuminate a few things for you.
- [29:31]
B
Yeah, I always say that, you know, if you get a quote from a marketing agency or consultant for that matter, and it seems like a good deal, you're probably in the wrong place. Like you should have a little bit of sticker shock when you're looking around. It shouldn't be that easy. Just hire them. So you know, be careful if you see an advertisement or somebody's website that like, oh, that sounds like a really good deal to, you know, get 100 people to, you know, to schedule introductory phone calls for that much each month, like that sounds like a no brainer, probably a signal that it's not the best fit.
- [29:59]
A
The way I like to say it is a cheap marketing agency can cost you a lot of money.
- [30:04]
B
Yeah.
- [30:04]
A
So when we do think a little bit about hiring a couple, you know, I'd love to talk a little bit about some of the red flags. I know Taylor, you've hired a few people over the years. Do you have any thoughts around any kind of red flags advisors should look for as they're considering hiring marketing help?
- [30:18]
B
I mean, I think what I just said is certainly a red flag. If there's some outrageous claims, if it kind of sounds too good to be true or if their fees sound like a really good deal to me, that's always a red red flag. Doesn't necessarily mean that I'll, you know, run away. I just might want to do some extra Due diligence there. So that's certainly a big one. Maybe. I don't know if someone would call this a red flag, but I think a lot of advisors are looking for agencies that specialize in helping advisors. And I don't know that's necessarily, you know, a key ingredient there that you can look for agencies outside of our profession and that could be a good fit for you and your goals. So I think you necessarily have to, you know, narrow your search to marketing agencies or marketing experts that are specific to, you know, financial advisors. Again, not necessarily sure if that's a red flag or not, but I think sometimes those other agencies get excluded from the search because they have no experience working with advisors. Sometimes I find that that's actually a better fit. They kind of come in with a different angle or a different approach to things.
- [31:19]
A
Yeah, I hundred percent agree. And ironically, I feel like I learn most of my best strategic insight from outside of the industry. I talk about this pretty often. Often. And then I come in and really try to apply it in a compliant, friendly way. But I 100% agree with you. They don't have to be, you know, financial services focused. When I think about a red flag, if I were going to hire someone, I'd pay really close attention to how they talk about their past clients. And a good question I'd ask them is, why do most of your clients leave and just shut your mouth, just listen. Because if they talk poorly about their past clients, they'll talk poorly about you. And I really want to see like, what was the reasoning? And do they own if they just like, if there's like, hey, this person was really crazy and whatever. You know, I think even when I've had clients leave or I've fired a client, I played a role in that process. I think when I fire a client, nobody wins. I don't win because I'm bummed. They don't win because they're bummed. And even if they weren't a little bonkers, I still played a role. And I think that's really important. And I think about this, when I have someone talk to me, I pay attention how they talk about their last marketing person. So if someone talks poorly about prior clients, I think that's a little bit of a red flag.
- [32:29]
B
Yeah. I also think something you brought up earlier too, which is actually relatively common, is kind of getting locked into their ecosystem. Right. You're in this kind of like captive environment. Maybe it's, you know, how they build their websites is in their kind of own captive Environment. So if you want to leave and move your website somewhere else can be really challenging. You mentioned kind of protecting how you're opening up accounts, you know, using your email address and not theirs. So I think that's something to certainly pay attention to is like, you know, is it easy for me to take whatever we do and move it somewhere else? And again, I always kind of draw parallels back to the financial planning profession. It's something that clients care about too. Like, hey, if you're not a good fit for me, like is it easy for me to move my account to a new advisor? Like most people want to know that. So, you know, in addition to being, you know, locked into maybe a long term agreement that you not sure you want to commit to something that long, but like knowing that if something does change, it's really easy for you to move somewhere else or just kind of take things, you know, in house on your own.
- [33:25]
A
Yeah, and I think that that is an element that would really sneak up on people. They don't realize if you build my website, then I'm in your ecosystem or your template or your hosting or whatever. And so just really understanding how those pieces are built. And if you choose to leave, you know, will you own that? I see this happen sometimes with funnels. Like there's a few people that they tout that they have these proprietary, you know, funnels and they'll build them for you and install them for you and, and maybe they work, maybe they don't, I don't really know. But I'm like, wow, I would pay you X amount per month and then you still own my funnel. That to me, ethically, I feel, I would feel terrible about that. And I think it can be a way for it to be a little bit more sticky and that to me, ethically, it just feels out of alignment for me. It can work great for them, it could work great for you. I don't know. You just need to know what you're signing up for. That's all.
- [34:13]
B
I want to ask a question here and I know you may not be prepared to answer it, but I do think this is probably going through advisors heads right now listening, which is okay, all this is super helpful but like, how the heck do I find somebody to hire? Like where do I go? I know it's really challenging to find good marketing agencies or find good consultants. So just top of mind here, like, what sort of advice would you give somebody? Like I don't even know where to even begin this search.
- [34:36]
A
First, this is a lame. I'll give you a lame answer and then I'll give you a little bit more credit. First is like, just ask the people you trust who they trust. You might be surprised. They could be in the industry, they could be out of the industry. You know, just like people find financial advisors, a lot of times through their friends, people find good consultants. The other thing I would say is be careful of someone who's, who's available right away. I think marketers are like hairstylists. You don't want the one with the open books. So be a little careful about someone who is like, too wildly eager to jump on the phone with you. The other thing I would look at is if you can get specific around what kind of services you're looking for. So, for example, if you were looking for SEO services or maybe like Google Ads, you could start Googling SEO for advisors, for example. Or then you kind of know you can start looking in those ecosystems to look for specialized service. And again, there's always like lists and things like that. But I really think first start with who do the people you trust trust? And also, if they don't have anyone, ask them, hey, do you have anyone you think I could talk to? Maybe someone who is kind of savvy on the marketing front? I would start, I would ask around there.
- [35:43]
B
Yeah, I think that's really good advice. And I know it's not like, hey, here are three agencies to go and consider type thing. It is going to take a little bit of work and a little bit of due diligence on your part. I do think asking other people is a great way to begin that search. I mean, I am regularly on the hunt for really smart people to hire, and so I'll often respond to cold DMS in my inbox. In fact, I responded to one the other day. This guy, this marketer Messaged me on LinkedIn completely cold sharing how he has strategies to help grow my podcast. You know, it sounds like, pretty outlandish. Like, I'll respond like, all right, like, show me what you do for me. Yeah, and he recorded a pretty lame loom video that gave me no information. And so I'm like, all right, well, you know, so, you know, long story short, like, I will entertain a lot of people along the way because you just never know who you're going to bump into. And I do find some of the best people just through kind of casual networking and asking questions and like, hey, who did that for you? And hey, how did you know? Have you had success with this person or this agency or on this project. So it is challenging, but it is possible. And I do think the best way is to start asking and learning and doing that due diligence.
- [36:45]
A
Yeah. And in that same vein, I think if you see another advisor who is doing a really great job at something, you're really trying to, like, crack the code on. Like, you, like, for example, if they are doing YouTube and you see their videos are edited really well, I'll just reach out to them via direct message. Hey, I love your YouTube videos. They look really great. I would give them specific compliments. Hey, I love this about them. And this. Would you be open to sharing? Who helps you with that? So that's a good way of just seeing who's already doing, you know, work that you appreciate and like, and you can see the output. That's a good way of kind of sleuthing and finding behind the scenes who they might be working with. So. All right, Taylor, so we have dove into a lot of things on the hiring marketing help front. Is there anything that you want to share with our listeners as we wrap this episode and what they should be thinking about as they look forward and potentially consider maybe bringing in a little help to help them with their firm?
- [37:35]
B
Yeah, I think just reiterate something that you said in the very beginning, which I think is really important before you begin this journey is just knowing who your ideal client is, knowing what your goal is with hiring marketing help. I remember I was sitting down with marketing person in our industry and we're just having a beer and just a casual conversation. But remember saying to him, gosh, like, I'm really kind of struggling right now with growth. Like, what do you think? Like, what should I be doing? And his first question back to me was like, well, what's your goal? And I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, well, how many new clients do you need or want every month? Like, that's interesting. I've never thought about exactly how many clients per month I'm targeting. You know, then we took it for, like, well, how many, you know, prospects do you need in order to get that number of clients per month? And so just, like, starting to understand what your goals are and what your needs are is really important before you start to just dive into hiring help. And then lastly, I think you made a good point about your budget and knowing what your budget is and what you can commit to for a long period of time before you start picking up the phone and getting quotes from people and then having sticker shock. And, like, I can never pay that. I think understanding what your budget is in addition to knowing what your goals are and who your ideal client is.
- [38:39]
A
Definitely. And if there's some ways that you could maybe test working with someone or get some examples of their work and things like that, I'm a big fan of that. And also again, I agree. You know, if you don't know who you love to work with, it's going to be really hard for marketing support to bring more of that awareness and attention to your firm. So if you are thinking about hiring marketing help, get as clear as you can on who you love to serve, what kind of growth goals you have, what that timeline may look like in your budget. And I think you're going to have some really core pieces that will help you determine what bucket of help might you be looking at? Are you looking at a consultant, looking at an agency or maybe an in house hire? Thanks so much for joining us today. We hope that you love this breakdown on marketing and a few different ways that you can assess whether it's time for you to hire. Maybe a few alternatives if you're not ready to hire and a few red flags to watch out for in the process. If you want to come on the show and help us look at your marketing and understand where you could use a little more marketing help, make sure you sign up for the email list and you'll get a personal invite to your inbox when we are bringing more advisors on the show. Thanks for listening and keep doing the great work that you do.