Advice Line: Finding Your Perfect Client Before Building Your Funnel (Andrew Zoll)

Summary

Advisor Marketing Made Simple: Episode Summary

Episode: Advice Line: Finding Your Perfect Client Before Building Your Funnel (Andrew Zoll)
Release Date: April 2, 2025
Hosts: Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright
Guest: Andrew Zoll, Riley Wealth Management

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Introduction to the Episode

In this episode of Advisor Marketing Made Simple, hosts Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright welcome Andrew Zoll from Riley Wealth Management. Andrew seeks guidance on optimizing his marketing efforts, specifically addressing challenges with his current ad campaign and landing page performance.

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Andrew’s Marketing Challenge

Timestamp: [00:22]

Andrew Zoll introduces himself and outlines his primary concern:

"The big question that I want to tackle today is dialing in an ad campaign that goes to a landing page that has not been performing at all." ([00:22])

He details his current strategy:

• Platform: Facebook Ads
• Target Audience: Conservative business owners in Texas
• Budget: Approximately $100
• Results: 204 link clicks to the landing page via Constant Contact, but zero submissions.

Andrew's offer on the landing page is an ebook titled "Seven Money Mistakes Every Business Owner Should Avoid."

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Understanding Andrew’s Client Avatars

Timestamp: [02:28]

Andrew elaborates on his three-tier client model:

1. Coach Class Clients:

   • Profile: Youngish couples with small businesses, likely homeschooling families.
   • Needs: Starting to build a legacy, focused on the next life stage.
   • Example: Mid-40s, mid-sized manufacturing company owners in Colorado, dealing with complex planning and tax optimization.

2. Business Class Clients:

   • Profile: More established business owners seeking advanced financial strategies.
   • Needs: Tax reduction, college savings, business growth strategies.

3. First Class Clients:

   • Profile: Individuals aged 60+, often retired corporate executives or business owners preparing for retirement or business exit.
   • Needs: Advanced planning, tax reduction, distribution strategies.

Most of Andrew’s current clients fall under the Business Class and First Class categories.

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Advice on Focusing the Target Market

Timestamp: [04:25 – 18:00]

Kendra and Taylor provide candid feedback on Andrew’s marketing approach:

1. Eliminating Low-Paying Clients:

   • Kendra: Suggests cutting out the Coach Class clients to focus resources on more profitable segments.

     "You're not the person to help someone who doesn't have enough money to pay you right now." ([04:25])

2. Clarifying the Ideal Client:

   • Taylor: Questions why the First Class profile includes retired executives rather than active business owners, prompting Andrew to clarify that these clients are often exiting businesses.

     "Retired from a company that he owned." ([05:28])

3. Narrowing Down Further:

   • Hosts emphasize the importance of a focused target market to streamline messaging and improve ad performance.
   • Taylor:

     "You can't be trying to do this in person networking, referral thing while also trying to build this amazing Facebook funnel." ([12:40])

4. Understanding Client Pain Points:

   • Importance of identifying specific challenges that resonate with the target audience to drive engagement and conversions.

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Strategies for Finding and Reaching Ideal Clients

Timestamp: [18:00 – 36:42]

Market Research and Client Interviews:

• Kendra: Recommends interviewing 10 qualified conservative business owners to uncover their financial pain points.

  "Obsess over interviewing 10 highly qualified, totally awesome conservative business owners and obsessing over what they care about in their financial future and what's keeping them up at night." ([32:11])

Optimizing the Marketing Funnel:

1. Lead Magnet Refinement:

   • Andrew is developing a new lead magnet titled "Three Money Mindsets Every Christian Business Owner Needs to Adopt," focusing on specific financial philosophies relevant to his niche.

2. Facebook Ads Optimization:

   • Taylor: Suggests hiring a Facebook ads expert to enhance ad performance or testing different ad elements in less competitive markets to gather data.

     "Building a Facebook ad strategy is really complex." ([19:11])

3. Leveraging Existing Relationships and Platforms:

   • Utilize networks, such as a friend who coaches CEOs, to gain insights and reach the ideal clientele.
   • Taylor:

     "Leveraging other people's platforms that's going to be a much quicker path to success." ([34:43])

4. Content and Email Marketing:

   • Simplify email strategies initially, focusing on high-quality lead delivery without extensive weekly content until the funnel is optimized.
   • Taylor:

     "Something's better than nothing... set a threshold. Email doesn't matter until we hit this number." ([30:50])

Alternative Marketing Tactics:

• Creating a Facebook Group:

  • Engage directly with the target audience by establishing a community space.

• Guest Appearances and Podcasting:

  • Appear on platforms frequented by conservative Christian business owners to increase visibility.

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Insights on Funnel Building and Email Marketing

Timestamp: [27:27 – 36:42]

Focusing on the Funnel:

• Kendra and Taylor: Emphasize the necessity of first refining the client avatar and understanding their pain points before building out complex marketing funnels.

• Andrew: Acknowledges the need to prioritize market research over immediately expanding the funnel components.

Email Content Strategy:

• Andrew's Approach: Prefers story-based emails to entertain and build trust.

• Hosts' Recommendation:

  "Simplify it as much as possible... create that simple delivery email where they get that landing, that lead magnet... set email aside until we tackle those couple of things just higher up in the marketing process." ([30:32], [31:35])

• Utilizing Third-Party Content:

  • Leverage services like Money Visuals or Snappy Kraken to handle email content initially.
  • Customize third-party emails to better fit the target demographic.

Building Trust and Nurturing Leads:

• Taylor: Suggests engaging with email responders to build rapport and gather more insights into clients' challenges.

  "What's keeping you up at night?" ([33:06])

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Actionable Takeaways for Andrew

Timestamp: [37:46 – 40:40]

1. Conduct In-Depth Market Research:

   • Interview qualified conservative business owners to identify specific financial pain points.

2. Refine and Focus Client Avatars:

   • Narrow down to a single, well-defined target segment to enhance marketing effectiveness.

3. Optimize the Marketing Funnel:

   • Strengthen each funnel component—ads, landing page, lead magnet, and email follow-ups—based on the insights gathered from market research.

4. Leverage Existing Networks and Platforms:

   • Utilize relationships and platforms where the ideal clients are already active to increase reach and credibility.

5. Simplify Email Marketing Initially:

   • Focus on essential email communications, such as lead magnet delivery and initial engagement, before expanding into more complex email strategies.

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Conclusion

Throughout the episode, Andrew Zoll gains valuable insights into the importance of a focused target market and the necessity of understanding client-specific pain points before scaling marketing efforts. Hosts Taylor and Kendra provide actionable strategies to refine his approach, emphasizing market research, streamlined funnel development, and effective use of existing networks. By narrowing his focus to First Class Clients and methodically optimizing his marketing funnel, Andrew is well-positioned to enhance his marketing effectiveness and drive meaningful business growth.

"The riches are in the niches." – Andrew Zoll ([17:05])

"You are not behind, you're actually ahead." – Kendra Wright ([38:32])

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Notable Quotes:

1. Andrew Zoll:

   "The big question that I want to tackle today is dialing in an ad campaign that goes to a landing page that has not been performing at all." ([00:22])

2. Kendra Wright:

   "You're not the person to help someone who doesn't have enough money to pay you right now." ([04:25])

3. Taylor Schulte:

   "You can't be trying to do this in person networking, referral thing while also trying to build this amazing Facebook funnel." ([12:40])

4. Kendra Wright:

   "Obsess over interviewing 10 highly qualified, totally awesome conservative business owners and obsessing over what they care about in their financial future and what's keeping them up at night." ([32:11])

5. Taylor Schulte:

   "Leveraging other people's platforms that's going to be a much quicker path to success." ([34:43])

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Final Thoughts

Andrew Zoll exits the conversation with a clear path forward: focus on a well-defined target market, engage in thorough market research, and methodically optimize each component of his marketing funnel. Hosts Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright commend his proactive approach and encourage him to continue refining his strategies to better serve his ideal clients.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Dan Sullivan’s "Who Not How"
• Services like Money Visuals by Ashby Daniels and Snappy Kraken

Connect with Hosts:

• Advisor Marketing Made Simple Website
• Taylor Schulte on LinkedIn
• Kendra Wright on LinkedIn

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and advice provided during the episode, offering actionable strategies for financial advisors seeking to refine their marketing approaches.

Transcript

[Kendra]

Hey, it's Kendra and Taylor and we're here to make advisor marketing simple. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today we are excited to chat with our friend Andrew. And before we get started here, could you just give everyone your name, your firm, your location, and that one big question you'd like us to dive into today.

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, my name is Andrew Zol. I'm with Riley Wealth Management, and I am located in Pueblo, Colorado. But we're a remote firm, so we primarily serve clients all over the country. And the big question that I want to tackle today is dialing in an ad campaign that goes to a landing page that has not been performing at all.

[Kendra]

Okay, awesome. Can you give us a few details about this ad campaign, what platform it's on, who you're targeting, you know, what your results have been so far?

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, so I set it up last week, dropped about a hundred dollars on it just to see what kind of results we'd get targeting Texas business owners, typically conservative, you know, higher income folks, and kept it narrowed to Texas. Ideally, once we start getting some success, I'd like to open it up to some other states because I primarily target conservative business owners. And, you know, we spent almost $100 on it. We got 204 link clicks to our landing page on constant contact. But when I look at the statistics of the landing page, we had zero submissions from those link clicks.

[Kendra]

Okay, awesome. And what's the offer on that landing page?

[Andrew Zol]

The offer on the landing page is a little ebook we put together called seven Money mistakes every Business Owner Should Avoid. Yeah.

[Kendra]

And is that audience a cold audience or a warm audience? And what platform?

[Andrew Zol]

It's a cold audience and it's through Facebook ads.

[Kendra]

It's all good. And for those ads, who is running those ads? Are you doing that yourself? Have you hired a outside contractor or agency?

[Andrew Zol]

Doing it myself.

[Kendra]

Okay, awesome. So a few questions here. I want to just zoom up a little bit higher before we jump into the ad campaign. You mentioned that you are targeting conservative business owners. And when you sent in your form for the podcast, you mentioned you actually have a couple different types of conservative business owners that you're looking to help. Could you tell us a little bit more about your avatar? If you still have those three kind of versions of the avatar, what does that look like before we jump into the results on that ad campaign?

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, so the three different avatars, I like to call them my coach class, my business class, and my first class ideal client. The coach class type client is people that I just enjoy working with and want to help because they need it. And then you get started. So they'd be a, you know, youngish couple that have a small business probably in Texas, running a small successful business with a couple of kids, married, maybe likely homeschool. And. And they're just focused on getting started and starting to build a legacy and consider what's next for themselves in the next stage of life. Starting to, to build a legacy for their kids. My coach class would be, you know, kind of my, my minimum client that's going to be profitable, not like a passion project for me. They be, you know, mid, mid-40s, maybe in Colorado, somewhere in there, midsize manufacturing company, something like that. Probably both work at that point. Older kids in the home, couple teenagers, three teenagers, four teenagers somewhere in there. And just thinking through complex planning, optimizing their taxes, reducing how much they pay to the government, and then worried about college savings and their business growth. And then finally kind of my first class client portfolio would be, you know, six, you know, 60 plus, probably looking to retire sometime soon, near, you know, somewhere in Florida, something like that. Corporate executive, retired, married, with grown children, starting to have grandchildren. And then they need advanced planning, tax reduction strategies, distribution strategies. And I forgot to give you the two, the three tier, kind of our 250,000 for my coach.

[Kendra]

One quick question. Your current clients that you're solving or that you're serving, which tier do they fall under? Do they fall under the coach, which is more of the getting started? The business class, which is kind of that mid professional or the, the first class, which is the retirement?

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, most of them are falling under business class and first class.

[Kendra]

Okay. Can we be super frank and straightforward with you on this call?

[Andrew Zol]

Yes.

[Kendra]

Okay. First, mentally, unless you're going to go all in on coach, which is the getting started, like I love to help these people. I would first just cut those people completely out. Like you can help them with content or things like that in other ways. I mean, actually, let me back up. I would just say, like, you're not the person to help someone who doesn't have enough money to pay you right now as far as like a business element goes. And we really need to streamline this so that we can flow the right information down to your ad campaign. Does that make sense?

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, that makes total sense.

[Taylor]

Okay, maybe I'll jump in really quick just so I can better understand here. I'd like to hear from you why you're targeting three different groups of people. Why is that important to you?

[Andrew Zol]

Just because I have a passion for homeschooling families. And I know, you know, the, the homeschooling families are going to be the younger ones that are going to fit into coach but don't have the money. But I want to help them. But as she said, they're not people that are going to be able to pay my full fee and make it worthwhile monetarily to help them.

[Taylor]

Okay. And then also I've heard you say a number of times and in your messaging and in the form you submitted to us this, comments about business owners. How come the first class client profile, which is I'm assuming like the people you really want to work with are paying your premium fee, premium service. Why aren't they business owners? Why are they retired corporate executives?

[Andrew Zol]

I should have said corporate executives or retired business owners or they're, they're selling the business, exiting the business, things like that.

[Taylor]

Okay. And we're just going to pepper you with questions here so we can really understand all the moving parts here. And then we'll, we'll drill into these in more detail so we won't leave you hanging. But my last question here on just the target market is what is a conservative business owner?

[Andrew Zol]

Somebody that holds to conservative values and principles typically is going to be pretty right wing, is going to resonate with, you know, with a right wing platform kind of message. Also, typically when I target, I try to layer in psychographics of Christianity just because I'm a former pastor and that's who I drive really well with.

[Taylor]

Do conservative business owners owners or even, you know, conservative Christian businesses, like, do they have different challenges than other business owners?

[Andrew Zol]

No, but I'm trying to make sure that my, my audience is a little narrower.

[Taylor]

Yeah, no, I can appreciate that.

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, they might have, I mean, they're going to have different considerations. I think a lot of stewardship language, you know, a Christian business owner is going to be thinking about, you know, why am I building a business? The ultimate purpose of a business is to honor God and to leave a legacy and to make an impact on the world that builds up the kingdom that's not my own. And so a lot of stewardship language would go into targeting those types of business owners.

[Taylor]

Okay. So I mean, you, you did uncover one, what I'd call maybe a pain point or a challenge that they want help solving, which is leaving a legacy. Right. Probably a lot of business owners out there that don't care about leaving a legacy. I don't know what leaving a legacy means to you or your clients, whether it's like legacy to my heirs. Or a legacy to other business owners or charitable giving. But I think that's a really good example of one thing that's very specific to your type of client. That's not going to apply to every business owner. So that certainly helps. And I would, I would urge you to maybe drill a little bit deeper on that and also uncover, you know, one or two others that are specific to those types of people. Because I think it's, I think it's great that, like, hey, I want to work with people that are like me and we have similar values. Like, that is really important. But at the end of the day, these people need financial help and they have to have certain challenges to, to lead them to, you know, pay you, you know, your fee for your services and become a really engaged client. It can't just be like, I'm a conservative business owner, you're a conservative business owner. Let's work together. Like, there has to be something.

[Andrew Zol]

Sure.

[Taylor]

More there. And you've already hit on at least one. But I would definitely, you know, try to uncover a couple more there.

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah. Well, and I'm working on a new lead magnet because I don't know that this, this offer is getting the results I want. So I'm working on a new lead magnet called three money Mindsets. Every Christian business owner needs to adopt. And it talks about giving generously, leaving a. The idea of, you know, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children and his children's children. And the idea that you need to live a purpose. The idea, at least in the Christian life, retiring to go on permanent vacation is just patently unbiblical. And so needing to have a purpose and a reason for doing what you do.

[Taylor]

Awesome. All right, we'll come back to the lead magnet stuff and landing pages. Kendra, what's on your mind here?

[Kendra]

So you said something I thought was really interesting is you said, I'm creating a lead magnet. And I don't want to go into the lead magnet topic, but more of like who it serves, which is for Christian business owners. So, like, when we look at kind of the, the two tiers that you're. We're really talking about, which is like kind of that mid-40s, mid level entrepreneur versus someone who's in their later years and is considering retiring, maybe selling a business. I guess my question first actually is for Taylor. Do you think that the targeting would be deep enough to be like, Christian business owners or like, I'm really trying to like, zone in on who he loves to serve and if what that looks like because that's where my head is a little bit fuzzy still.

[Taylor]

Yeah, well, I think it's worth backing up to and first sharing or state stating hopefully the obvious. But if it's not obvious that the reason the ad campaign and the lead magnet are not working very well right now is likely because the target market is not clear and therefore the messaging is not super clear. And so we're not hitting on those pain points and we're not driving people to take action. So Andrew, that's, that's why we're spending a lot of time here and trying to understand who the target market truly is. Because if we're going to set up one ad campaign and one landing page and one e book for all three of these people, it's not a surprise to me that it's not working. So you know, by all means, if you want to try to target three different demographics, go for it. But you're going to need three separate ad campaigns, three separate landing pages, three separate ebooks. Like it's going to be a lot of work. So there's a lot of power in getting really focused here. It'll allow you to do a lot better work for your clients, but it'll also make your marketing a lot easier. So you can decide for yourself whether you want to get this focused or not. Kendra, to your question, I think the answer is yes, but I still think needs to be like slightly narrower. So for example, you mentioned the first class client profile, retired corporate executive. You clarified that. Well, retired from a company that he owned. So to me the an example of a pain point for somebody like that would be I've built this successful business. I'm a conservative business owner. I check all these other boxes. I built this successful business. Andrew. I don't know like how to sell this business and use it to fund my retirement. Like to me that's the pain. Christian business owner built successful business doesn't know how to make this transition into retirement. To me that's a really viable niche. It doesn't have to be the only like characteristic or pain point or challenge. But it's not just Christian business owner. It's like Christian business owner with successful business needs to sell it, use those proceeds to fund retirement to meet all of his or her other goals. Which leads to the who not how. There's a great book, if you haven't read it by Dan Sullivan, who not how. I was kind of thinking as you're talking through all this, like are there other, I'm sure there are other advisors out there that have targeted and had success with a similar niche. And what can you learn from how they position themselves, their messaging, their marketing, not to copy them, but to use it as inspiration to maybe better, you know, get more clear with some of this.

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, that's. I wish I had a great answer, but I don't know. I'm sure that, I'm sure there are, but I haven't seen any.

[Taylor]

Yeah, so I would. We shared this recommendation with another advisor who joined us that I think a really easy, actionable takeaway for you is to spend the rest of this month, the next month, I don't know, the rest of the year, whatever you decide, obsessing over what other people are doing in the space, like doing research, finding podcasts, YouTube channels, blogs, looking at their websites, looking at their landing pages. The awesome thing about Facebook ads is you can see the ads that other people are running. So if there's another advisor running ads to your similar demographic, you can see the ads that they're running, check out their landing, like become a student of this demographic to really try to understand how can I better position myself and improve my messaging. I think it's often the one thing that advisors forget or anybody forgets is like we can, you know, there's other people that are doing the same thing that we're doing and having success. We can learn from them. So that's free and available to you. And so I would highly encourage you to do that.

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah.

[Taylor]

Another follow up question here. Do your prospects and clients know that you bucket them or call them a coach client or a business client or a first class client? Is that like part of your messaging and marketing? No. No. Okay, so that's just like internally how you're segmenting people.

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah. I don't think anybody would feel good about me calling them a coach client.

[Taylor]

Okay. Okay. And is there any part of you that makes you nervous to say, all right, I'm going to push the coach and the business to the side and I'm just going to focus on the first class clients. Like, is there a part of you that like, does that spook you?

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, a little bit. Because I know that, you know, the first class clients are going to be who everybody in the wealth management basis is targeting without the specialized knowledge that I would bring to the table for that specific situation. Whereas most companies are not going to be as aggressive going after the five hundred thousand dollar client.

[Taylor]

Yeah, I hear you. I mean, you've already got, you know, more of a niche than most. So you already have a leg up I mean, I would argue like, I'm in the most saturated space. Retirement planning for people over age 50. Are you kidding me? Like, so I'm in a really saturated space. I'm having no problem with marketing or growth. So you have a leg up on me. I would seriously push that to the side and get, you know, get rid of that. It's not real. You might have to improve your messaging again and get more clear with some of this stuff. But you're not venturing. We just, I mean, you just said, I don't know who else is in this space who I could learn from. It's going to take you to actually do some research to find them. Probably. But I think it's worth highlighting like, it's very real, this fear of getting specific and not working with, you know, other demographics. I know one of the common ones. I'm kind of hearing this through. What you're saying is I like to help people, you know, and maybe that's part of your Christian values, is like helping these younger people, you know, get started and get ahead and give them professional help early on. And I can absolutely understand that. So this doesn't mean that let's say hypothetically you do get rid of the business class, not get rid of them, but like you stop marketing to them, your business class, your coach, client profiles. It doesn't mean you can't help these people. We tell all of our clients if your kids, grandkids, anybody in your life, your neighbor, your friend, if they have questions, if they need help, like, we are happy to schedule a phone call with them. There are some clients where we have one hour meeting with their clients one time per year. They're high earning, young professionals are not in our demographic. They just have like questions from time to time. So we'll just schedule one hour zoom meeting, spend some time with them, answer their questions, and then set them free. Like, we're not managing assets, we're not billing anything, but it's just a courtesy to our existing clients. So I will, we will happily talk to anybody, but we're not talking to them to try and, you know, earn their, earn their trust, you know, for them to join as a client. So there are other ways that you can help people through courses, through writing books for them. I mean, there's all sorts of things.

[Andrew Zol]

So it's more about whether you know, how you're spending your focus and your outbound energy as opposed to not being unwilling to help people that just come to you.

[Taylor]

Absolutely. And also, look, I mean, the needs and Pain points of Jason and Carolyn, who are 35 and running a small business are way different than your first class client. They're entirely different. And I would argue, I know you're a smart guy. I would argue that there is no way that you're able to do the best possible work for the coach clients and the best possible work for your first class client. There's just no way. I've joked for a long time that if a 30 year old with $50 million walked into my office and wanted to hire me, I would send them to somebody else down the street because we don't have the expertise to help a 30 year old with a $50 million windfall. Like we don't. And it happened. An old contact of mine Messaged me on LinkedIn. Same exact situation, 30s. I mean it took me, you can look at the timestamp on my LinkedIn DM. It took one minute for me to hit respond and say, not my expertise. Go talk to this person. They'll help you out. So I truly think that you're doing these. I'll just speak for myself. I'm doing those people a disservice if I try to work with them. So I know that I'm doing my best possible work for one type of person and that's it. And so it's up to you whether you want to be a generalist and you want to work with everybody. It is going to make your marketing harder. Or who do I really love working with, who do I really have the expertise to help? I'm just going to focus on them. Sure. Other people in my life might have some questions and need help. I'll make myself available. Maybe you. I know Kendra and I both have a good friend who holds phone calls on Saturdays. Just like opens up his calendar on Saturdays and lets people phone calls with them and ask questions. I mean that could be another opportunity. Right? Just part of your, your values and something you want to do to give back. But it doesn't mean you have to like grow your business with all these different types of people. That's fair.

[Andrew Zol]

And in the, you know, the riches are in the niches.

[Taylor]

Right.

[Andrew Zol]

Harder is easier once you get more specific. Oh yeah.

[Kendra]

I have a client actually who is a financial planner and they do like pro bono workshops in their community. So she does it for her triathlon group, like how to do financial planning to pay for triathlons. She does it for a women's group which is around like I like how do you plan for the finances? Around ivf. Because that's obviously very expensive, but we don't target those clients. So a great question I would have you ask yourself is if I wanted to help, you know, this coach client, but I couldn't serve them through my firm, what are other creative ways I could give back to my community? And I know that this particular advisor I'm talking about spends, you know, 20 to 25 hours a year just holding these workshops. Giving back. It's like pro bono planning that she does on purpose. But we don't target them in the firm because I think it is really valid to say, hey, I want to help these people and it's also part of my values. So how can we meet that need in a way that can help you also stay focused with the firm?

[Andrew Zol]

That's a great suggestion.

[Taylor]

This first class client profile, let's just, if you're okay with it, let's say we're going to really focus on these people. How do you feel about that, just for today's conversation?

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, that's totally fine. I think it makes sense from a business perspective too. You're right. And my partner's always harping on me about it too, so.

[Taylor]

And I don't want this just to be, you know, a selfish business monetary decision, like, yep, you know, I'll make more money working with those people I want. You, like, true, truly love working with these people. Right. And sure, I can charge a higher fee, but I'm going to deliver more value in a higher level service too.

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah. Well, and it's also about, you know, the oxygen mask. You can't, you can't make a huge impact in your community and serve other people until you've got your own oxygen mask on first. Which means really dialing this in, right?

[Taylor]

Yep, 100% agree. But I'm not discounting how hard of a decision it is. So I know you've got to digest all this and create a plan for how to move forward here, but let's just pretend, okay, like you're, you're finally comfortable with, we're going to go all in on this demographic. In thinking about this first class client profile, forget about everything you've done up to this point. Where would you find these clients? Like, what marketing activity would you, would you do to reach them? Would it still be a Facebook ad type strategy?

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, I think it would still be. It would still be Facebook ads and then leveraging existing relationships. Like one of my good friends is, is a coach for CEOs. He just gets CEOs in a group and helps them Solve their problems. So he's, he would be the first person I go to to ask questions about how specifically to target this demographic. What are the pain points? Because they're telling him things that they're not telling anybody else. So that's where I'd start.

[Taylor]

Okay. And I always harp on people whenever they use the word and, or, or to explain what they're going to do for marketing or their niches. So you know, you said Facebook, you know, advertising. And I'm also going to do this other thing. I would probably urge you to focus on one of those things. You know, I'm going to focus on in person networking, leveraging my existing relationships to create a marketing strategy, a systematized marketing strateg to reach my first class clients. And once that's in place, the wheels are motion. I'm seeing success and I can start how, you know, start to think how else can I reach these people? Let's go back to this Facebook ad strategy thing.

[Kendra]

I got a question here too. Like why Facebook ads?

[Andrew Zol]

I think it's the most efficient way that you can spend marketing dollars if you're willing to spend them and do it. Well, if I'm mistaken or incorrect, I'm happy to be corrected. But that's just the first place that I go. I don't come from a wealthy background myself and so my personal network isn't that, isn't that huge. So leveraging that to meet new people seems like a good use of my money.

[Kendra]

And when we talk about like the most efficient way. How did you come to that conclusion? That, and I'm not saying Facebook ads work or don't work. I'm just trying to understand the path of how we got here a bit more. How did you decide that Facebook was efficient as well?

[Andrew Zol]

I've been listening to a lot of, a lot of James Pollard, okay. Talking about email marketing and leveraging that. And so the lead magnet to the top of the funnel down through email marketing is kind of the way that I, I think I want to do business or at least I want to get that inbound market marketing going before I really focus on outbound marketing.

[Kendra]

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So based off of what we've talked about here so far, here's what I'm following. And Taylor, I want to know if you agree. First we dialed in who you're going to serve and also then as you kind of know that market, then potentially talking to the resource you already have, who has access to qualified CEOs, Christian business entrepreneurs. Correct. Yeah, that, that looks like the path first and then really flushing out and understanding their big biggest three pain points. They would, that they would pay someone to solve. That's a key word because people have different pain points. They're not willing to pay a financial advisor to solve all of them. Then I think you choose the channel. Personally, I think Facebook ads can work. I think it takes. It's a different beast than other avenues. So if you're down to jam on Facebook, that's great. But that's kind of my thought process. Then we look at what are we putting out on Facebook. Taylor, is that kind of what you're following as far as like our strategic guidance so far?

[Taylor]

Yeah, and I definitely want to address the Facebook funnel because to your point, like it's not that it can or can't work. As we say, like every everything works. We have to have the right strategy and the right approach and we gotta be really focused. So I do want to come back to that. Knowing that, that you know, he has interest in building out that funnel. I thought you laid that out really well. Kind of like in stages here, how to address this. You know, one other thing to consider in addition to your friend who has this group with, you know, CEOs is interviewing maybe even existing clients that are, you know, meet your first class profile or just people in your network. You're not. The intention is not for them to become a client, but conservative business owners that fall into this first class client profile or close to it and even just like a coffee, you know, I want to learn more about. I've got some questions to ask. I'm working on my business. Would you mind, you know, I guess business owner or business owner, you know, can I just ask you some questions and try to better understand some of these, these key pain points and big questions that they have because that will directly help influence how you message things and how you market. So it sounds like you tell. I mean correct us if we're wrong, but it might be worth some time uncovering this niche a little bit more to help improve your marketing. Would that be fair to say?

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, that's totally fair to say.

[Taylor]

Okay. So it doesn't have to be existing clients. People are in network. The CEO person, you know, I think there's a little bit of research that can be done also other advisors or even financial influencers or financial coaches in this space that target, you know, a similar demographic. It doesn't have to be absolutely perfect, but conservative business owners, higher net worth. I think it's worth studying what they're doing and better understanding that. And then, yeah, to Kendra's point, okay, like, we have a really clear understanding of who we're want to market to and who we want to grow with. Like, how are you going to reach them? And we can't be building multiple funnels all at the same time. So we do have to choose one. Knowing you have this interest in this Facebook funnel, one suggestion here is, well, one. I mean, if you're going to go all in on this, it might be worth hiring an expert to help. I know the world of Facebook ads is pretty complex. Writing copy is complex. Building, you know, creating the right images or videos to include in your ad is challenging. So it's possible it's worth spending some money to help have somebody help you build out these ad campaigns so that you truly are getting the best bang for your buck there. And then also, an interesting tactic I learned about recently is initially advertising to cheaper, even like third world markets on Facebook to test how different images perform or different headlines perform. Again, we're not looking for these people to like, join our email list or anything like that, but just like, what image performed better, you know, and you could pay like pennies to get this data. What image performed better? What headline performed better, what got more clicks? And testing some of this stuff in these, like, cheap third world markets. So just. And again, it might be a little bit more challenging given that your niche is so focused here. Conservative business owners might be hard to test in different countries, but there might be a way to do that to start to test some of this stuff. But building a Facebook ad strategy is really complex. It's really hard from there. They're going to go to a landing page. Building a landing page on its own is really challenging. So it might be worth getting some copywriting, landing page expert help there because we don't want to pay for these Facebook leads and they show up to our landing page and they don't like what they read or what they see, it doesn't resonate. The copy is not great. So they're not converting. So that's wasted dollars. Next is the ebook. Haven't seen the ebook, but you know, that's for you to judge whether it's super high quality and they're going to download that like, oh my God, this is the most amazing thing ever. We want to build trust really quickly with those people. So let's make sure that's dialed in. If you need help with a writer to help improve that, something to consider. And then we're still not done. Once they go through that funnel and they get to our email list, now what? Now we have to nurture and we have to build trust with those people for probably a long period of time because these are total strangers from Facebook. Now you do have a pretty focused niche, so that's going to work in your favor here. They probably aren't coming across a lot of advisors who work with Christian business owners or conservative business owners that have these pain points. So they're probably going to take action sooner than someone like in my niche. But these are total strangers on Facebook that now ended up on your email list. So now we have to nurture and build trust and show expertise for a period of time. How are you doing that? What kind of emails are you sending them? How often are you sending those emails? And then finally what are we going to do to move them to the bottom and convert them to actual prospects and actual clients so you can see how many stages there are and how important each stage is, which should hopefully reinforce our comments that you can't be doing a bunch of things at once. You can't be trying do this in person networking, referral thing while also trying to build this amazing Facebook funnel.

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, fair enough.

[Kendra]

How does that sit with you, Andrew? What sounds good? Is there anything that's, you know, confusing or, you know, we've given, we've given you quite a bit to think about there.

[Andrew Zol]

I don't think any of it's confusing. It's already what I've been thinking about is building that funnel. It's right, that's, that's the first priority is build the funnel. Do it well, have the right lead magnets in place, send the right messages.

[Kendra]

So wait, I want to back up. The first priority is actually not building the funnel. The first priority is actually jumping back to your avatar and connecting with either your local group or interviewing qualified candidates so that then when we go to build the funnel, we can really dial that in and there's a lot of pieces here.

[Andrew Zol]

Find the pain point to build the funnel. Yeah. So that all makes sense.

[Taylor]

Before I share a couple of other things for you to consider. Any follow up questions, anything else that's like on your mind. I know, know we've thrown a lot at you. You threw a lot at us before this and we've thrown a lot back at you. Any questions or, or clarifications before we maybe try to talk about some action items?

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, what do you. So the way that I'm thinking about emails that people are going to receive, it I typically want it to be story based so that. Because people want to be entertained, not informed in email. And in my opinion, stories build trust faster than information does. What do you think about that?

[Taylor]

That. What I think is I'd probably, right now, if I were in your shoes and I'm going to run with this Facebook ad strategy, I'd probably try to solve the email content really simply at the moment because again, there's a lot of work to do before they even get there. And right now you're telling us nobody's even getting there. So I would almost, you know, could I leverage some third party content that sure, it's not going to be wildly entertaining, it's not going to be conservative, Christian, business owner, hyper specific, but can it be something that's good enough so that when somebody shows up, it's high quality and they're not unsubscribing? Because again, there's a lot of work to do in the other layers of the funnel before we even get there. And I don't want you to spend too much time on these emails and crafting these emails and then neglecting these other areas of the funnel. So I would suggest something like either hiring a copywriter or ghostwriter of your own and working with them to help help write this content. Leveraging a service like Money Visuals run by Ashby Daniels or Snappy Kraken has their Timely Insights emails that you can use. Because email is not my primary middle of the funnel, I leverage Ashby's Money Visual service. I don't just copy and paste his emails that he provides as part of this service. I spend 30 minutes to an hour on each email, making it my own. So for example, he'll often use the word financial planning in his emails. I'll change it to retirement planning. Right. Because I'm focused on retirees. So you might start to change some of the language in those emails to refer to, you know, conservative business owners instead of retirees or something. So it's not just a straight copy and paste. We're going to make it our own, change some verbiage, make sure it speaks a little bit to our target demographic. But it's going to be a much simpler, more cost effective way to start to get some content going there so that you don't have to stress about it right now while you work on the other layers of your funnel. Now if you hire somebody to tackle all the other layers of the funnel and all you want to do is commit to writing these weekly emails, now we're having a different Conversation that makes sense.

[Kendra]

And the way that I would look at that is if I were going to simplify it as much as possible, I would just write the lead magnet delivery email and I would call it done until you get your landing page converting. You know, at least let's just say 25 people a month. Like, let's just set like I like that even when I work with clients, we could be doing different marketing funnel activities. And if we don't have a threshold, I set a threshold. Email doesn't matter until we hit this number. So we could basically just create that simple delivery email where they get that landing, that lead magnet, which you may already, I imagine have done, and then just set email aside. You can take it off the list until we tackle those couple of things just higher up in the marketing process.

[Taylor]

I think that's a really good point. I think something's better than nothing, hence my comments about using a third party service. So if you were worried. But I think Kendra makes a really good point that if people go through the funnel, download the lead magnet, the lead magic magnet is really valuable now they're on your email list and let's just say they don't hear from you for a couple months. Like it's not the total end of the world. Sure, you lost out on some time where you could have been building trust with them and continuing to educate them. But like it's not like they're disappearing. Right. So it's not, they're not like completely lost. So that is a good point is like we could dial in everything else, have success and then, okay, and I've got, Now I have 250 people on my email list. Let's start to think about what sort of content I'm going to start to send them because, because everything else is firing like the rest of the funnel is firing. So now we just focus on what are we going to send these people. So that's a great way to kind of break it up.

[Kendra]

Yeah. And I think if Andrew, if I were you and I got to put the Lego pieces in front of you that you would build first. The majority of the focus that I would have right now is I would set a personal goal to interview 10 qualified conservative business owners over a certain income amount, a certain age, like really try to, you know, dial that in. And I would just, just literally just really understand, like, hey, what are the struggles they have with their finances and what problems would they be willing to pay you to solve? And I wouldn't ask them that, but I'd Be like, hey, what are the problems with your finances or your financial future that keep you up at night? Like, what questions do you have that feel a little bit too complex to go and get answered on the Internet? Or maybe your friends who just really haven't built up their assets high enough. Like you've outgrown advice to ask about these kinds of questions. Like, those are the kind of questions I would ask. I would be like, you know, hey, what would you pay me for? But that's what I'm really trying to understand is like what is a pain point that they really care about, that they would love to have someone who, who is skilled and understands conservative business owners and the problems they face. And I would just obsess over that. Because once you know that, that'll actually probably change the lead magnet you offer on Facebook. It'll change the landing page, it'll change the follow up email. So really, if you want to fix the funnel, I would obsess over interviewing 10 highly qualified, totally awesome conservative business owners and obsessing over what they care about in their financial future and what's keeping them up at night.

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, that's good. Market research is important.

[Taylor]

That last comment there, Kendra, what's keeping them up at night? Is a great example. Actually, Andrew, if you were to be okay with okay, I'm not going to be sending weekly emails just yet. I'm going to get the funnel working first. When somebody joins my email list through a lead magnet, the very first email that they get, it's called the confirm email. The subject line is what's keeping you up at night? Hey, thanks so much for joining my email list. Really appreciate it. You know, there's a couple other things while I have you. What's keeping up at night? Like what's the biggest retirement challenge that's keeping you up at night? And it encourages them to hit respond and hit reply. I can't tell you how many people hit reply to that email and just, I mean some people will throw paragraphs out there so you could not send anything else. And just the confirm email is an invitation to share what's keeping them up at night. And just take inventory of those responses. Sure. Engage with them, go back and forth via email. I mean, so as people start to find their way in your email list now you're getting some replies, you're engaging with people and that's only going to further influence and help with your further with your additional marketing efforts. So I love that. A couple other quick things. Want to give you some tactical ideas to consider. I don't want to overwhelm you here, but you know, Kendra pushed back on you a little bit or asked, you know, how do you determine that Facebook ads are an efficient way to market? As you can tell. Hopefully it is a pretty complex funnel. It does take a lot of work. It's going to take money as well if you want. Wanted to further simplify things, I'll give you an example of a much simpler, more cost effective funnel that doesn't take you too far off track. Number one, it does require you to have some sort of offer. So you mentioned ebooks. I'm just going to run with that for now. It doesn't have to be. You could change it in the future. But let's say you have this amazing ebook for your first class clients. I heard you say something. What was the title of it? Like three. Say it again.

[Andrew Zol]

Three money mindsets every Christian business owner needs to adopt.

[Taylor]

Okay, so it is not terrible. I wonder if you could get a little bit more specific to hit on a more specific pain point. Like it's just an ebook. This is not a 200 page book. It's just an ebook. So could you pick one single pain point to write an amazing ebook about? So for example, earlier you mentioned leaving a legacy was really important. Could it be like, you know, the five critical things Christian business owners need to do to leave a legacy? There's a better way to write that. But like we're just gonna focus on this one single. We know that leaving a legacy is wildly important, right? So can we just hit on that one pain point and have an amazing ebook just about how to leave a legacy? So a little bit more work to do there, but I might think about getting a little bit tighter in the subject and the title for the ebook. So let's just say we have this awesome ebook. The best, most efficient, most cost efficient marketing strategy in my opinion, and I did a whole podcast episode on this, on my other marketing podcast is leveraging other people's platforms. So you have this amazing ebook. Could you find your way into leveraging other platforms? It could be in person through this, this group that you know. It could be being a guest on podcasts where your conservative Christian business owners are living and listening. It could be a Facebook group that you join and moderate and ask questions to. Could be a private community where you go in and host some sort of session where what other platforms are out there where your ideal clients are consuming information. I promise you, you're out there out there. And I promise you there are simple, easy, cost effective ways for you to leverage those platforms. You go in as the expert. You do your thing. By the way, I've got this amazing ebook for people just like you. Go here to download it. Way more efficient to me than trying to build a Facebook ad strategy. Not that Facebook ads can't work, so I don't want to completely steer you away, but to me, leveraging somebody else's platform that's already built is going to be a much quicker path to success.

[Andrew Zol]

That makes sense.

[Taylor]

Yeah.

[Andrew Zol]

I could probably start a Facebook group even.

[Taylor]

Sure.

[Kendra]

Yeah. I. My stepdad. I just realized as you were talking, Taylor, my stepdad is your man. He is conservative. He is a business owner. And do you know where he likes to post all his comments? Facebook. And I'm not saying Facebook is the only place there. There's so many different ways to reach everyone. I think most platforms are big enough that you can reach just about everyone. I think the better question to ask is, where do you like to hang out? And where would you like to commit your time to for the next 12 to 18 months when it comes to digital marketing? Because digital marketing takes time even when you're doing it well. And so if you're like, hey, I actually like hanging out on Facebook and my people are here, my family is here, like, I'm comfortable in this ecosystem. I think a Facebook group for conservative Christian business owners could be a strategy. But you can see how really dialing in who you love to serve, you know, what their pain point is, the example around the legacy and then what platform, what channel that you want to leverage based off of where you're interested in going. Like all those pieces click together.

[Andrew Zol]

Yeah, 100%.

[Kendra]

Yeah.

[Andrew Zol]

I got a lot of work to do to get everything.

[Taylor]

I know we've thrown a lot at you. There's. There's a lot to talk about today. I appreciate you, you know, know, going with us here and following along. Maybe share with us some of your big takeaways from today. Like, what are, I don't know, 1, 2, 3 actions that you plan to take to start to kind of move things in a better direction.

[Andrew Zol]

We'll do market research. That's. I think that's really important. It's a good point. But doing the, you know, having a clearer client avatar to speak to, not trying to speak to three different people, but. But narrowing it down to one of those and not being, you know, I think that's, that's a good point that, that I can still help these people, but I really want to target the people that are going to make it so that I am free to help these other type of people.

[Kendra]

Definitely. And the one thing that, that I want you to know, Andrew, is that you are not behind, you're actually ahead. Because if you dial in who you love to serve, I guarantee you most advisors out there right now that haven't jumped on this call to be open and transparent, they don't realize they're talking to multiple different people and why their marketing funnel isn't working. So I know that doing research feels like you're taking a step back, but I actually think it's you taking a step forward. This is you taking the marketing to the next level with clarity, intention and because you do want to serve your community, you want, you want to be resourced so that you can give back. And I think there's a lot of beautiful ways to help your community. So in my opinion, this is just Andrew 2.0. This is not Andrew point five. We're not stepping back, we're moving forward.

[Taylor]

I could agree more. I'm really glad you said that, Kendra. Andrew, I'm, I'm jealous of you. I'm jealous that you have this narrow of a target market. I don't have that. I've got a good friend who specializes in working with speech language pathologists, SLPs. I don't even know what SLP was. I'm so jealous of like him and his target market, how easy his marketing is because it's so specific. I know there's a guy out there who works with Chick Fil A franchise owners is amazing. So I'm actually jealous about how specific and narrow you've been able to get. Yes, there's some work to do. But to Kendra's point, you are well ahead of most advisors I talk to. Most are like, I don't know, I serve everybody right. So I agree. I'm excited for Andrew 2.0.

[Andrew Zol]

Maybe 1.8.

[Kendra]

Hey, 1.8 is good with me. Well, thank you so much, Andrew. We really appreciate you coming on and being transparent, sharing with us, you know, who you want to work with. And just really workshopping with us live takes a lot of courage. And the fact that you're willing to jump on here and chat with us, it tells me that you're well on your way because all these things we talked about today are part of the marketing process that most people don't even realize they're doing out of the wrong order. So now that you have it, you are well on your way.

[Taylor]

To Andrew 1.8 Hey, I appreciate it.

[Andrew Zol]

Thanks so much.

[Taylor]

Thanks Andrew.

[Kendra]

Thanks so much for joining us. 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.