Advice Line: Finding The Right Marketing Channel For Your Niche (Andrew McFadden)

Summary

Advisor Marketing Made Simple Episode Summary: Advice Line: Finding The Right Marketing Channel For Your Niche (Andrew McFadden) Release Date: November 20, 2024
Hosts: Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright
Guest: Andrew McFadden, Panoramic Financial, Fresno, California

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1. Introduction

In this episode of Advisor Marketing Made Simple, hosts Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright welcome Andrew McFadden from Panoramic Financial. Andrew seeks guidance on effectively growing his email list to attract more young physician clients—a niche his firm has specialized in since 2014.

2. Andrew's Background and Marketing Challenge

Andrew introduces himself and his firm, highlighting their focus on young physicians transitioning from training to attending roles. He explains that while Panoramic Financial has grown through excellent service and speaking engagements, they now aim to expand their client base through strategic marketing efforts, particularly email list building.

Andrew McFadden [00:25]:
"My big question today is how do you grow an email list? Well, love it."

3. Current Marketing Efforts and Struggles

Andrew shares that since November, Panoramic Financial has ventured into blogging and YouTube to complement their established channels like the White Coat Investor website and live speaking at residency programs. However, these new efforts haven't yet yielded significant email signups beyond their existing client base and residency attendees.

Andrew McFadden [01:33]:
"We decided to, you know, just kind of throw spaghetti on the wall as, as we all put it. And start a blog and let's start doing an email."

4. Evaluating Existing Marketing Channels

Taylor and Kendra provide feedback on Andrew’s current marketing channels, emphasizing the importance of a clear niche and the effectiveness of focused marketing strategies. They discuss how Panoramic Financial’s website messaging could be clearer to immediately convey their specialization in young physicians.

Taylor [04:02]:
"When I went to your website for the first time, I saw financial independence. I did not see the word physician. I didn't see young physician."

5. Local vs. National Marketing Strategies

A significant portion of the discussion centers on whether Panoramic Financial should focus on local residency programs or expand nationally. Taylor suggests assessing the realistic client acquisition potential within local programs before considering a broader approach.

Taylor [16:04]:
"Are there advisors that target mid career or late stage physicians and they could become referral sources to you who is focusing on the young physicians?"

6. Optimizing Email List Building

Andrew acknowledges the feedback and expresses his intention to enhance email capture strategies at residency programs by offering valuable lead magnets. Kendra and Taylor emphasize the necessity of providing compelling incentives for email signups, such as exclusive content or resources tailored to young physicians.

Taylor [20:17]:
"If you're talking to young physicians and you're like, you know, download this. Must have 12 point checklist that every young physician needs to have."

7. Exploring New Marketing Channels: Embracing Video

Andrew feels encouraged to potentially shift focus towards video content, noting his excitement and the support it can offer his marketing strategy. Kendra highlights the importance of committing to a single strategy initially to avoid spreading efforts too thin.

Kendra [26:39]:
"It feels kind of exciting to lean into video. You didn't... that element of hey, this feels kind of exciting. It's still a little scary."

8. Leveraging Existing Platforms and Networking

Taylor and Kendra discuss the benefits of leveraging established platforms and networking with other advisors targeting different segments of the physician market. This approach can enhance visibility without the need to build entirely new channels from scratch.

Taylor [24:37]:
"If you know some of these people personally or want a cold email or DM them, I think it's worthy of like it would be really valuable to have a conversation."

9. Actionable Next Steps and Long-Term Strategy

Andrew plans to focus on refining his video content and optimizing his email capture at residency programs. The hosts advise continuous learning from successful peers and possibly investing in paid marketing avenues to accelerate growth.

Taylor [23:51]:
"Learn from others, especially those that are ahead of you."

10. Conclusion

The episode concludes with hosts affirming Andrew’s progress and offering final encouragement. They emphasize the importance of staying focused on effective strategies, leveraging existing strengths, and being open to adapting marketing approaches based on ongoing results and feedback.

Kendra [28:11]:
"Let's think about how do we move them to a platform we own like email. So I think you're in some good places. I'm excited to link up a few of these resources and thanks so much for Andrew to coming on here."

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Key Takeaways:

• Clear Messaging: Ensure your website clearly communicates your niche to immediately attract the right audience.
• Focused Strategy: Commit to one or two marketing channels initially to maximize effectiveness and avoid spreading resources too thin.
• Valuable Incentives: Offer compelling lead magnets to encourage email signups, such as exclusive financial checklists or resources tailored to your niche.
• Leverage Existing Platforms: Utilize established platforms like the White Coat Investor and network with peers targeting different segments to enhance visibility.
• Continuous Learning: Learn from successful peers and consider investing in paid marketing to leverage existing audiences for faster growth.
• Local vs. National: Assess the potential of local marketing efforts before expanding nationally, ensuring scalability and realistic client acquisition goals.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew McFadden [00:25]:
  "My big question today is how do you grow an email list? Well, love it."

• Taylor [04:02]:
  "When I went to your website for the first time, I saw financial independence. I did not see the word physician."

• Taylor [20:17]:
  "If you're talking to young physicians and you're like, you know, download this. Must have 12 point checklist that every young physician needs to have."

• Kendra [26:39]:
  "It feels kind of exciting to lean into video. You didn't... that element of hey, this feels kind of exciting. It's still a little scary."

• Taylor [24:37]:
  "If you know some of these people personally or want a cold email or DM them, I think it's worthy of like it would be really valuable to have a conversation."

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This episode offers valuable insights for financial advisors struggling to identify and optimize their marketing channels. By focusing on clear messaging, committing to effective strategies, and leveraging existing platforms and networks, advisors like Andrew can enhance their marketing efforts and grow their client base more efficiently.

Transcript

[Kendra]

Hey, it's Kendra and Taylor, and we're here to make advisor marketing simple. Welcome to the show. We have Andrew with us today. We are very excited to have you because you have a great question a lot of advisors are asking us before we kick it off. Can you just let everyone know your name, your firm, where you're located, and that one big question that you'd love to dive into today?

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah, my name is Andrew McFadden. My firm is Panoramic Financial. We are located out of Fresno, California. And my big question today is how do you grow an email list? Well, love it.

[Kendra]

One of the things I'd like some clarity on from you. Can you tell us a little bit more about your perfect client? Who they are, their pain points, profession, assets, income?

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah, absolutely. So we specialize in young physicians, primarily those starting their attending careers out of training. So a lot of their questions revolve around student loans, starting, you know, their new job, and getting enrolled in benefits, making those big decisions because they're going from a smaller paycheck in training to a very large paycheck as an attending. You know, how do we save for a house safe for retirement? Just different things like that.

[Kendra]

Okay, awesome. Those are super helpful. And you mentioned that you've been doing a bit of blogging. You've been doing some YouTube work there. Can you let us know a little bit about kind of how you chose those two strategies and what's really working for you right now to bring you young physicians who meet that criteria?

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah. So we started blogging last November. And I mean, just a little background on my firm. We've been around for 10 years, serving clients, mostly virtually across the U.S. but we do have the greatest concentration here in California. But we have focused mostly on service and just providing good service and not a lot of marketing. And so over the past 10 years, the primary way we have been getting clients has been through the White Coat Investor website, which is the most widely read physician finance blog. But then also we do live speaking engagements at local residency programs. And that has helped us, you know, attain quite a few clients over the years. But that's all we've really done. We haven't really gone hard into any kind of marketing strategy outside of that. And so the firm has grown. There are two new advisors at the firm as of almost three years ago. And as they've trained up, they've been doing a great job. And now they're really ready to, you know, start taking on more of their own clients. And so that's kind of shifted My just focus on how do we bring in more clients outside of what we're already doing. And so we decided to, you know, just kind of throw spaghetti on the wall as, as we all put it. And let's start a blog and let's start doing an email. And so, yeah, we started doing that in November, started by just sending it out to clients. But as we've been speaking at these residency programs, we are adding those attendees to the list and that's what we've done so far. But it hasn't. I mean, I know it hasn't been a ton of time so far, but outside of just getting those people that are showing up for our speaking engagements, we aren't really attracting any new signups outside of that, really. So just kind of struggling there to figure out what other things we can be doing.

[Kendra]

That's super helpful to hear that background. How long have you been niched in young physicians?

[Andrew McFadden]

Since we started. So 2014.

[Kendra]

Okay, so friendly find here as I take a peek at the website. And then I'm going to bounce over to Taylor here because I'm sure he's got some questions popping up. When I took a quick look at your website, I actually almost missed that it was for young physicians. And you may be aware of our friend Chad Chubb. He runs a website called Wealth Keel and he like, his website is so niched in. And so I think it'd be a really interesting exercise for you to go section by section and see how, how does your top of fold look different, sound different than someone like Chad because he has a really similar niche. Because I almost missed it. Taylor, what's coming up for you?

[Taylor]

I 100% agree. When I went to your website for the first time, I saw financial independence. That's what I saw. I, I did not see the word physician. I didn't see young physician. So it wasn't until I read the notes that said you focus on young physicians. Went back site and like, oh, there it is. And even scrolling down like nothing else hit me around physicians. So, you know, this is like table stakes here before we start worrying about how to grow an email list. Like, let's ensure our home base, our storefront is really clear. The good news is like, those are pretty easy things to fix and you have great people like Chad out there who have done a good job getting really clear in their messaging. And one thing I want to highlight with Chad is like his tagline is not clever financial planning for physicians. Like, it's, it's pretty boring, but it's crystal clear now. Young physician, old physician, mid career physician. Like I don't know that yet, but if I'm a physician, I know I'm potentially in the right place. I'm going to scroll down, I'm going to learn a little bit more. How does Chad help? What's the difference? Blah, blah, blah. So that is certainly something that can easily be tweaked. One question I have, is your team, you mentioned other team members. Does everybody target the same niche? Is everybody going after young physicians or is each advisor doing something a little bit different?

[Andrew McFadden]

Yes, but the answer is yes. But we're also not all kind of doing business development. It's mostly something that's, that's kind of more of my focus while the younger team members are focusing more on client service.

[Taylor]

Okay. And then I know, like your core question here is how do I build an email list? I'd be curious to hear from you. Why? Like why do you want to build an email list?

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, we're just obviously trying to attract more potential interest in our firm. Right. We want to get more physicians aware of what we do so that hopefully we can have a sit down meeting with them, kind of go over our processes, the services, the value that we offer, and see if we have a good fit, you know, for a working relationship.

[Taylor]

Okay. You know, growing an email list, the activities to grow an email list is what I would call a top of funnel activity. So getting visibility and adding people to the email list is a way to bring visibility to you and who you are, what you do and your services and all that. Email list building is not the only top of funnel activity out there. It could be social media, it could be search engine optimization, it could be a booth at a conference. There's a number of different, like top of funnels to bring awareness to what you do.

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah.

[Taylor]

Why the focus on email versus some of these other channels? No right or wrong answer. I just, I want to know why email is the focus at the moment.

[Andrew McFadden]

Again, it's that just throwing spaghetti on the wall. I knew other people did it, so we're just trying things out and that's, I mean, that's the best answer I have right now.

[Taylor]

Yeah. And that's fair. You want to be careful about doing too many of these things at once. And you already acknowledged like throwing spaghetti at the wall. But if we're speaking at residency programs, if we have a booth there, we're also trying to grow an email list. We're also trying to write SEO optimized blog posts. We're also like playing around on social media. You are going to have this challenge of like, nothing's really working. And even if we give you, you know, the exact prescription as to how you grow your email list, it's going to be hard because you, you're doing all these other things. So we do have to be careful about trying to do three or four top of funnel activities all at once, because that top of funnel is only one thing. You could have the best list building activities in place and thousands of people could be joining your email list. But then what, what happens on your email list to ensure that those people are being nurtured? You're building trust with them and they are converting to clients. Just getting them to your list is one thing. Just like SEO, getting people to show up to my site through SEO is one thing, but what happens once they show up there? I could have thousands of people showing up, but then there's no clear direction for them. So it's like wasted traffic. So same thing with social, any of these things. So if we're going to put time and attention in email and building our email list, we also need to put time and attention to what happens when they join my email list. What's going to happen? What does that sequence look like? What does that process look like? How often am I going to email them? What am I going to email them? How often am I going to reach out with a call to action? What does that call to action? You know, list goes on.

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah, okay. And that's great feedback. And I guess like my question becomes, it's hard to know what to do. So I mean, like when you get to this point, like how do I decide whether that's the right avenue to go or if I should be focusing more on, you know, the blog or the video? You know, it does feel like on the blog end, while our content has been totally geared towards young physicians, that maybe that's not necessarily the thing that's going to energize us the most. And so that's, that's another reason why we've been looking into maybe doing more video. I went through a training course on that and we're starting to kind of put those things together. But yeah, like, what's the method I should be taking to evaluate whether these things are working or not or if I have too broad of a focus and I need to narrow down.

[Taylor]

Yeah, I think of the beginning stages. I mean, the answer is boring. And that is just what gets you excited. What do you really want to put your time and attention into. And if you're gravitating towards video and you like doing video and you've taken this course and you want to start to get better at video and like, really give it a fair shot, then I think you have to set email to the side. Just set email list building to the side. Maybe you commit to a monthly newsletter to your clients so they hear from you once a month or something, but it's not going to, like jeopardize your practice if you don't send a weekly email to your clients. Yeah. So you'll have to set these other things aside to really focus on YouTube. Now you might be thinking, yeah, but like, what about all the people watching my YouTube channel? Don't know I want to move them to my email list. Sure. Probably eventually. But if you get distracted with that right now, then you're going to have trouble with both again, you're going to have trouble growing your YouTube channel and also trying to get people to your email list. So let's get one of these things working really well before we start to, like, take the next step with it. So YouTube could be it. My mind also goes towards. Well, you mentioned speaking at residency programs. Is there an opportunity to lean more into that, to do more of that or do that even better? There's a lot of opportunity, I know, in this niche with speaking at different conferences, and I don't know enough about it, but there is opportunity there. Is there something there that can allow you to take things to the next level?

[Andrew McFadden]

Sure. Yeah. And I think that's where I'm just like trying to do everything, which is probably too much. But I, I mean, we have actually made really good progress over the last three months getting into a couple more programs just at our local, local residency by asking the chief resident, hey, can you send our stuff out to other people and see if anybody else is interested? So making a little bit of progress there.

[Taylor]

Okay. I don't want to distract you and give you even more ideas, but I just think, like, I almost get jealous when I talk to advisors that have a clear niche like this.

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah.

[Taylor]

Young phys, Certain stage of life, certain amount of money, a certain amount of debt, like, it is really clear. I get really jealous because marketing to me becomes really easy. One thought that comes to mind is Chad Chubb is a good example. But I'm sure you also know Tyler Olson, OlsonFP.com, on his website, Front and center financial advice and education for. Oh, he does say early in Mid career. I thought I just said mid career physicians. What I was gonna say is, are there advisors that target mid career or late stage physicians and they could become referral sources to you who is focusing on the young physicians. So networking with those folks and creating a process, a referral process for them to help feed you business is another avenue. Like the list goes on. So again, there's plenty of opportunity out there. Email list building could be one of them. I know that was your core question here, so I don't want to like steer you away from it, but it is, it is such a important, big, complex marketing activity that you're going to have to put a lot of time and attention into it in order to have success.

[Kendra]

Yeah, there's something that you said, Andrew, and I'd really love to zone in on it. You said, I'm trying to find like what's going to work, you know, best, what works best for everyone. And if you listen to the show, what you're going to find really quickly is something that Taylor and I have said, which is actually everything works, but there is something that works easier for you than other channels. So Taylor went right. Where my brain went to first was how can we lean into more in person events? And if I were thinking about answering your email question, are you doing email capture at your events? That's where I would start with the email list if we just wanted to plug it into what you were doing. The other thing that comes to mind for me and Taylor, maybe you disagree with this approach, but when I think about list growth, I think about, first, we have to have somewhere to get attention so you can have the best website in the world, but if nobody knows it exists, it's like having the Mona Lisa and lock it in your garage. You could think my website sucks and like, no, there's just not enough people coming to it. And same thing with like building your list. You have to find a way to get attention and then capture a bit of that attention. I think of it as what's going to be your traffic platform that plugs into email list building. So for Taylor, for example, he has a very specific, deep SEO optimized post on Irma. And when people come to that post, the big action he wants them to take, which is kind of moving into his middle of funnel so that the post itself, SEO is the top. The middle of the funnel for him is the podcast. He wants to get everyone on the podcast and then on the podcast his, you know, bottle of funnel action is, hey, sign up for a call Right. So for you, you know, I would be thinking about what could be your top of funnel. It might be in person residency. It actually sounds like you're having some really good traction there. I would lean into that, go further, go faster, get better. And then if you were to look at another platform, you know, I think that it sounds like you're a little more excited for video. And then that might be something like YouTube, and then you could plug that into email. But again, I think we just really need to dial in what's that good top of funnel for you, and then once you have that attention, then we can move them to the email list.

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah, that's good advice. Thank you. Yeah. One thing that I can acknowledge has been kind of confusing and just. I don't. I don't know the right word, but, like, you know, when we started our firms, that was the thing we were hearing is like, niche yourself so that you can work with people not just in your locality, but all across the country, which is great. And I think has really worked especially for young professionals because we didn't have gray hair on our heads. We, you know, and so we had to sell ourselves some other way, and that was our expertise. But I think what's kind of also, in a sense detracted me is when you're kind of marketing more on a national level, you start to think of those broader reach things and maybe minimize more of that local thing where, and I'm hearing this more and more lately, advisors that are doing local stuff are having a lot of success. Right. You're almost able to capture that better with, like, SEO and different things like that on a local basis, rather than getting ahead of yourself and, you know, jumping to the, let me try to have a huge national presence. So I know that's one thing that I've kind of struggled with. But more lately, I've been feeling that pull of like, yeah, why aren't we just trying to push more into this mocha market? It was kind of scary at first, but I think there's plenty of physicians here. So.

[Taylor]

Yeah, I mean, I do want to clarify that because I look at it a little bit differently. I think the more narrow your niche is, the more of a national approach you have to take. I think about my good friend Adam Schmela, who specializes in working with optometrists, private practice owners looking to sell their practice and transition into retirement. There's not a local market that has enough of those people for him to target. So he has to go national. I don't know Enough about your target market. It's hard for me to believe that there's enough young physicians in your local area to feed your growth goals. I might say you do have to go national. Let me ask you this. I don't know enough about this. So our residency programs, are those local programs?

[Andrew McFadden]

Yes. And so we do. I mean, we have actually three residency programs here in Fresno alone that have between four and five hundred residents. So it's pretty. Pretty large amount. And, you know, it's. There's other doctors working here, too. That's just the training program. And I guess from my standpoint is at least I need to be working to try to saturate that market. Right. Not saying that I'm, like, giving up on the national scale, but maybe it's a little bit easier to, like you said, lean into these local markets that we've already established.

[Taylor]

Yeah, I think it's an exercise to go through. If there's 400, you know, young physicians in this local residency program, realistically, how many are potential good fits, like, they're truly in a. In a place to be hiring you? You know, how many of those, realistically, could truly become a client in any given year? So I. I don't know if 400 is enough. I think that's an exercise to go through. I don't know there's an exact science to this, but some people say an ideal niche is somewhere between 10 and 15,000 people. Just because not everyone's going to hire you. Right. You could be the most amazing person in the world, but, like, only a certain percentage of people are going to jump through all these hoops to end up, you know, paying you a healthy fee for your service. So, you know, it could be speaking at multiple residency programs around the country. I don't know how often you travel or if you're willing to travel for these things, but I don't know if I'd be pushing you necessarily. Local. It sounds like there's some local opportunity, but is there an opportunity to take what you're doing locally really well and do that nationally? Or can you take what you're doing speaking at these residency programs and turn the topics that you're talking about into YouTube videos potentially? So, you know, kind of duplicating some of my efforts there to get that national reach that I want. But, yeah, I just. I did want to clarify that if I have a broad niche, if I'm just like, retirees, I might have to go local in order to kind of narrow things down a little bit. Just going out to the whole nation saying I work with retirees probably isn't going to cut it. So more broad, my niche is more local. I might have to go.

[Andrew McFadden]

Sure.

[Taylor]

So hopefully that resonates.

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah, it is.

[Taylor]

And then to Kendra's point too, if, if it's not YouTube and it truly is email list building, then yeah, think about what you're already doing and how that can support your email list building. I've looked at your website. You don't have really traffic coming to the website. So to build an email list from the website. Well, now I gotta think about how do I get traffic to my website. That's a whole other thing I gotta figure out now. But if you're speaking at residency programs in front of 400, 500 potential clients, how can you better leverage that opportunity to grow an email list? Or if it's YouTube, you know, introduce my YouTube channel to those people. Now there's a number of different, you know, tactics and activities that you can use to do that. So what are you already doing? And then how can you leverage those opportunities to build whatever it is you're trying to build? And the thing you're trying to build, in my opinion, is a middle of the funnel activity somewhere where you can continue to build trust with those people over a period of time and stay in front of them because they may not be ready to hire you tomorrow. It might take them a year or two years to get to know you before they're ready to hire you. So hopefully that makes sense. If you have any follow up questions on some of those comments.

[Andrew McFadden]

No, it makes total sense. I mean, and just further insight like the, We've been mainly speaking at the internal medicine program for UCSF Fresno. And so that gets us in front of, you know, 60 to 70 residents per year, but a lot of them can go on to fellowship here too. And so that's, you know, more exposure that we get throughout the, throughout their time. All the other programs we weren't in speaking, but we're, we just, like I said, started getting into a couple of these programs just in the last few months. So there is, there is a bigger opportunity and we have been like putting a QR code, say, hey, sign up for our email list, our blog, things like that. And so we were having success with that. We just weren't getting it in front of enough people, you know, or we just haven't done it long enough kind of thing. So we'll, we'll definitely make some efforts to, to expand more there.

[Taylor]

Okay. And really quick, I'm sure Kendra's mind is going there too. QR code. Great. You have to have something easy to convert people at a conference or, you know, when you're speaking, but a call to action. It's like, take a picture of this QR code to join our email list. Conversion rate's probably not going to be great, but if you're talking to young physicians and you're like, you know, download this. Must have 12 point checklist that every young physician needs to have. Whatever. I'm just, I'm, you know, sure got some nipple on here. But like something really desirable that really speaks to that person, you know, join our list or click here or take a picture of this QR code and we'll send it to you. Another popular one I think I've seen Kendra use this is, hey, you want the slides from today's presentation? Like take a picture of this QR code or go here to grab the slides. So nobody wants to join a newsletter, right? They want something in return before they're dumped into your newsletter that could be wildly valuable. But just like the idea of joining a newsletter is not at the top.

[Andrew McFadden]

Of everybody's list, right? Yeah, I mean, we've done a little bit of that, but we haven't done it consistent enough to where we're offering, trying to offer an optimized thing.

[Kendra]

So if you're getting in front of an audience of people who are really truly like great people, 60 to 70 of them, that would be a huge lever. I mean, getting something that converts in front of them, testing that out, you're already doing that and it's a really low lift. Another way to think about it is, could you give me an example of maybe one or two of the presentations that you guys do in person?

[Andrew McFadden]

Sure. I mean, one that's super popular is just on backdoor Roth IRAs. Physicians, as they go from trainees to attendings, can't do direct Roth IRA contributions anymore. And so we kind of educate them on how that works. Second is just kind of like, hey, how do I, how do I choose between my benefits when I start my attending career? Just because that's, that faces them front and center the first month that they start their new jobs. And most of them just don't have enough experience or knowledge to make those decisions.

[Kendra]

Well, okay, awesome. So, for example, like the backdoor Roth, what I would think about is if they're coming in and they want, they can't do the backdoor Roth anymore. Can you tell me what you teach in that real quick? Like in A in a sentence or two.

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah, we go over the process, but we also go over like the tax benefit of doing that versus funding just like a taxable investment account.

[Kendra]

Okay, awesome. So essentially we're talking about taxes and how to use that. Right. So if they already know about backdoor Roth, I'd be like, hey, here are seven other ways that you could lower the, you know, avalanche of taxes that you get that you're not even thinking about. And obviously you might have to wordsmith that a little bit. But when I think about a lead magnet, particularly on that presentation, I want it to either be a something that can take what you just taught and make it easier or faster, or an additional little piece that maybe you didn't have time for, or something that maybe speaks to that pain point, but a different solution. So if they're like, oh, I might want to do a backdoor Roth to reduce my taxes, what are a few other ways that maybe they could reduce taxes they're not even thinking about because they don't have your expertise? So that's the kind of when I start thinking about angles or topics for a lead magnet like that.

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah, that's good. Thank you.

[Kendra]

Is there any questions based off of kind of what we talked about here that could help us give you a little more clarity on maybe what to do next? It sounds like we've talked about, you know, optimizing your in person presentations for better email capture. We've talked about potentially going national And I think YouTube could also be a really good avenue for you to even to approach some of that national stuff. I also think speaking on stage and speaking on YouTube are so close that being on YouTube will make you better at being on stage, and being on stage will make you better at YouTube. They're, they're really similar from my experience. So as far as like, next steps, how can we give you. Is there any, like, lingering question for how to give you something really actionable to walk away with?

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah, I mean, I just all a lot of great advice here and it excites me to maybe push into video more, less reliant on the email list. Push into the things that are either exciting or are working right. And so that's. That kind of feels like goal number one, I guess. Like, you know, just like I've. I'm on the podcast today, like, as I run into issues, as I run into problems, like, what do I do to kind of like work through those? Because this is my first time going through this, you know, and thankfully for today I feel like I have another step forward. But what happens when I hit those, those roadblocks?

[Taylor]

I mean, this is a learning journey that you're going on. And I think step one, before you even worry about that, is committing to this next strategy. Committing to a YouTube channel, crafting the content calendar, committing to, I don't know how many videos you want to produce, but committing to that first. It's going to be hard work. It's going to be scary. It's going to be all those things. You're going to start to have some success eventually. And then once you do start to run into some challenges or how can I take it to the next level or now what? Then you can go down that path. And I mean, my advice at the end of the day here to you is going to be to learn from others, from both peers, other people, other advisors on YouTube that are targeting a similar demographic. It doesn't have to be even physicians. I was even thinking about Brian Hanks who focuses on dentists.

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah.

[Taylor]

And like what's Brian doing in his messaging? I don't know if he's on YouTube or not, but studying how these other advisors are having success with their similar niches on YouTube and how they're approaching things. If you know some of these people personally or want a cold email or DM them, I think it's worthy of like it would be really valuable to have a conversation. So I think learning from others, especially those that are ahead of you. And then second, it might be interesting to interview young physicians. This sounds like you have access to quite a few of them. Like you're at this residency program speaking like, could you grab five of them and like ask some questions and get curious? Like I'd be curious to understand what questions do they have? Where do they consume content, do they listen to financial podcasts, do they watch somebody on YouTube? Like what do they attract? I mean White Coat Industrial is one of them for sure. Better understand like where they consume content. Do they prefer fast paced short form video like TikTok style or do they want long, in depth 20 minute YouTube videos? Yeah, I think it might be helpful to better understand your actual target client. I'm not trying to sell you anything. I just want to learn, you know, blank piece of paper and ask you questions. But that could be a helpful exercise as well. Then the last thing I want to mention, last idea is, you know you're already paying for White Coat Investor. Correct. There's like a paid fee for that. So you know, if you do have marketing dollars, we all know that advisors don't like to spend marketing money on marketing. But if you do have marketing dollars, you could think about how do I spend some money to get in front of more of my ideal clients? And it could be sponsoring somebody else's newsletter. They've already built up a giant audience of young physicians and you could sponsor their newsletter. But there are paid avenues as well that you could go down to get more visibility with some of these things. It doesn't have to be completely organic and on your own. In fact, I did a podcast episode on this, on the Experiments in Advisor Marketing podcast about the best marketing activity. And the best marketing activity is leveraging somebody else's platform that they already built. And there are ways you can go about it. I share kind of some tips and ways to do it. But you don't have to build your own YouTube channel, you don't have to build your own email list. You can leverage somebody else's channel or email list that they've built. Do it the right way. It might cost some money, but it's a very quick way to success.

[Andrew McFadden]

Okay, cool. That's great.

[Kendra]

I love all those comments. The only thing that I would add there is just you said something that was very revealing and you may have missed it, which was this feels kind of exciting to lean into video. You didn't. That response did not come out when we were talking about blogging. So that element of hey, this feels kind of exciting. It's still a little scary. I still have no freaking idea what I'm doing. That's normal, that part. That's the price of admission, getting your work out in the world and reaching people that you want to work with. But that piece of this is kind of exciting. That's what you need. Because I think that's really unique about YouTube and I think this applies to all platforms. But it's going to take time. Even if you're really good at it, you're going to have to grow. And with YouTube particularly, they have like a one, I would call it like a one year Runway where they'll often throw you in YouTube jail. And you can look that up, you can get some really good info on that. But basically it's just like they don't really push your content out until you prove that you're putting good content out on a consistent basis that people like to click and watch and engage with. So the question that you should really ask yourself is what am I excited or a little bit scared to commit to for the next 12 to 24 months? And if you answer that question, which it sounds like on this, you know, conversation, maybe YouTube for you, that's gonna, I think, point you in the right direction. And coming back to what we, you know, Taylor and I talk about often is everything works, but something probably works easier for you than others, and we want to point you in that direction. Less energy, less effort. Still going to be hard, still gonna be challenging, still gonna take patience. But we wanna find the right platform for you.

[Andrew McFadden]

Cool. Thank you. It's all very helpful.

[Kendra]

Great. Well, we are so excited that you came on with us today. I really love the different angles that we took this conversation, and I think we covered some really great things. And I just wanna acknowledge you because I think that you have solved one of the biggest problem advisors deal with, and that is getting your niche clear. Honestly, this is a huge problem for so many advisors. You are rocking it. So let's just acknowled, have a really foundational piece of marketing that you've already cracked the code on. Stay clear on that. And let's look at where's the best way to get in front of these young physicians and just teach them how you transform their finances. So thank you for coming on today and being so open about everything.

[Andrew McFadden]

Yeah, thank you so much, Kendra and Taylor. Appreciate it.

[Taylor]

Thanks, Andrew.

[Kendra]

And if you are excited to come on the show and you want to talk a little bit more and you want to see how we might, you know, divert your attention to a different direction or help you double down on something that might be working or help you discover what platform would be the best choice for you, make sure you jump on the show notes, click on the link, you can jump into our email list. And that's where we announce the opportunity to get on here with Taylor and I. Come on. We'll be kind to you and we'll answer your questions just like we did Andrew today. Thanks so much for listening for everyone, and we'll talk to you soon. All right. We just had an amazing conversation with Andrew. I love that we were able to drill down on a few things, point him in a solid direction, and chat more about how to decide what might be the next best step for him. Taylor, what are a few things that came up for you as we were having a conversation with Andrew?

[Taylor]

Yeah, I don't want to put words in his mouth because I forget exactly how he said it, but I heard some version of like, he just kind of thought he had to do email marketing because that's just kind of what you do. Like somebody else is doing it. And it's something that's missing in our kind of marketing wheel. So I guess we just need to do email marketing. So how do I do email marketing? And so, you know, I'm glad I asked him. Why? Because it kind of uncovered that and then kind of led to, hey, maybe you don't have to do email marketing. You know, maybe there's this other thing that you should be or want to be doing instead. So I have to be careful of, of course, be careful about throwing spaghetti at the wall. I think there's a time and place for experimenting to a certain extent to figure out what we do want to lean into. But throwing spaghetti at a wall for a long period of time is a recipe for failure. And then doing things just because somebody else is doing them. We've said it a thousand times now, like, anything works. We just need to get really focused. And the other thing that came out, again, it was off the cuff, like I didn't really plan on going this direction, but you know, paid marketing versus organic marketing, as soon as we get stuck in, you know, we have to build our own YouTube channel or figure out email list building on our own. There's a lot of avenues to spend money to grow in this business. And our profit margins are generally pretty healthy. You know, long term value, the lifetime value of a client is typically pretty large. And so even if you had to spend 10 or 20 or $30,000 to acquire a client, you know, the numbers likely still crunch. So sometimes we get so stuck on like doing this ourselves and figuring out all the algorithms and all this time to create content when you could pay money to leverage other people's platforms. And he's already doing a portion of that with the white coat investor. I don't think that's a small investment. I think it's, it's thousands, if not like $10,000 per year, maybe even more to be a part of that. So it's just a good reminder for all of us that we can leverage other people's platforms and we can pay money to kind of advance, you know, our marketing a little bit.

[Kendra]

Definitely. And one of the best questions to potentially ask yourself is before I add a new thing, have I gotten the most out of the things I'm doing that are already working? We, we're seeing that pop up a lot. We think we need to add more. And what I've discovered from my experience in working with advisors over the years is that the ones that do the best actually do the least number of platforms. They have one or two Kind of what I call primary platforms. And then we move on down to. And they use that top of funnel and then we move on down to middle. And something that I thought was we just barely touched on this on the call, but the power of a different perspective because you and I hopped on his website already knowing who he served and we didn't even see. We almost overlooked the fact that he serves young physicians based off of the copy on the hero of his website. And that's such a simple change. And I don't know how much traffic he's getting to the website. So you know, if, if he's not getting much traffic then it's not probably having a downstream impact that I would think. But as that traffic does grow and even a few people come to the website, we want to make it clear because he's done the hard work, that advice many advisors don't know how to do, which is get clear on the niche. So let's leverage the fact that he already has that. So really looking to see if, you know, if you put that website in front of a couple physicians, just ask them, hey, what do you think? What do you see? You know, take a look at that. And maybe that would have popped up for him without our help. And then the last thing that I kind of thought about is just, you know, I think email is a important part of a strong long term strategy and on this call particularly, email was not the next best step. So you can get there but you need to have some kind of way for people to discover you before we dive into building an email list. So don't put the, you know, the cart in front of the horse there. Make sure there's a way that people can find out about you. A platform just to get your name out there and start educating people on what you do. And then let's think about how do we move them to a platform we own like email. So I think you're in some good places. I'm excited to link up a few of these resources and thanks so much for Andrew to coming on here. He was really open, he was really honest and we're excited for everyone to hear, you know, what we shared today. We hope you enjoyed today's episode to get the resources shared or sign up to join us as a guest on one of our advice line episodes. Check out the links in the show notes. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.