Advice Line: How To Focus Your Marketing When You're Overwhelmed (Charley Edson)

Summary

Advisor Marketing Made Simple: Episode Summary

Episode: Advice Line: How To Focus Your Marketing When You're Overwhelmed (Charley Edson)
Release Date: August 13, 2025
Hosts: Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright
Guest: Charlie Edson from WealthBeingAdvisors

---

1. Introduction

In this episode of Advisor Marketing Made Simple, hosts Kendra Wright and Taylor Schulte welcomed Charlie Edson, a solo financial advisor from WealthBeingAdvisors. Charlie recently transitioned from a 9-to-5 job to running his own practice, generating approximately $15,000 in revenue with just under a million in Assets Under Management (AUM) in his first year. His goal is to scale his business to $500,000 in revenue and manage $50 million in assets. Faced with the overwhelming task of choosing effective marketing strategies, Charlie sought guidance on focusing his marketing efforts to drive substantial growth.

---

2. Identifying the Core Challenge

Charlie’s Dilemma: Charlie expressed feeling overwhelmed by the myriad of marketing options available as he aims to grow his business. Transitioning from word-of-mouth to more structured marketing strategies, he sought advice on honing in on efficient and precise marketing moves to deploy with full commitment.

Notable Quote:

Charlie (00:31): "I'm feeling very overwhelmed with all the different potential ways I can market. So really trying to hone in on and get the most efficient and precise on what should my next marketing moves be and how to attack that with a hundred percent energy."

---

3. Defining the Ideal Client

Initial Assessment: Kendra reviewed Charlie’s intake form and website, noting his target audience included "busy professionals" and specific mentions of working with dental professionals like dentists and dental hygienists. However, the broad statement "serving everyone" on his website conflicted with the need for a more defined niche.

Clarifying the Avatar: They delved deeper into defining Charlie's ideal client, ultimately identifying "busy professionals" in their 30s to early 40s—referred to as "Henry's Millennials." These individuals are juggling increased responsibilities like marriage and children, requiring more sophisticated financial management.

Notable Quotes:

Kendra (02:04): "Tell me more about your ideal client and who you want to build this practice around."

Charlie (02:24): "The people that I found that I can provide the most value to are busy professionals. Let's call them Henry's millennials..."

---

4. Establishing a Profitable Client Base

Fee Structure: Charlie detailed his current fee structure, charging $300 per month or a 1% fee on AUM, aiming for a minimum of $500 per month per client to achieve his revenue goals.

Taylor’s Input: Taylor suggested rounding up to simplify, equating the fee to approximately $5,000 per year, emphasizing the need to clearly define the income level of his ideal clients to ensure they can comfortably afford his services.

Notable Quotes:

Charlie (03:24): "I have done the analysis in terms of my growth and everything. I want to end up at about $430 a month or on, let's say, 500,000 minimum in AUM."

Taylor (03:49): "So let's just call it 5,000 a year."

---

5. Niche Selection and Focus

Current Niche Exploration: While Charlie has had some success with dental professionals, he hasn’t fully committed to this niche, leaving him uncertain about specializing further.

Strategic Advice: Kendra and Taylor highlighted the importance of niche selection, noting that defining specific professions (e.g., dentists vs. dental hygienists) affects messaging and service offerings. They advised choosing a path that either excites him or feels manageable, emphasizing the complexity of serving multiple niches simultaneously.

Notable Quotes:

Kendra (04:14): "Does it excite you or does it feel heavy?"

Taylor (10:12): "I'd just recommend focusing on busy professionals."

---

6. Enhancing Website Copy and Branding

Website Evaluation: Kendra praised Charlie's website design but critiqued the copy, emphasizing that good design cannot compensate for poor messaging. She suggested incorporating a personal touch by replacing generic images (e.g., mountains) with photos of Charlie himself to leverage his personal brand advantage.

Taylor’s Reinforcement: Taylor agreed, advising against further investments in website design until the copy is optimized. He recommended focusing on clear, targeted messaging that speaks directly to the ideal client’s needs and pain points.

Notable Quotes:

Kendra (05:14): "Don't waste your time or money. Your brand looks great."

Taylor (16:46): "Very thoughtful about that and then the offer to pull them off a short form video also has to be compelling."

---

7. Developing Effective Marketing Strategies

Content Marketing: Charlie expressed interest in writing, considering blogs and newsletters as primary content strategies. Kendra and Taylor discussed the challenges of content marketing, such as attracting readers and maintaining engagement through an effective funnel.

Leveraging External Platforms: Taylor suggested leveraging existing platforms by guest appearing on podcasts or writing guest articles on established blogs to quickly gain visibility. This approach helps in reaching a wider audience without solely depending on creating his own traffic.

Notable Quotes:

Taylor (18:01): "It just become a lot of work to make that happen."

Kendra (20:20): "If you had to pick one where you're like... really leveraging this medium specifically, what would that look like?"

---

8. Behavioral Finance and Life Planning

Incorporating Behavioral Insights: Charlie mentioned his interest in behavioral finance and money psychology, aiming to integrate these aspects into his unique selling proposition. However, Taylor cautioned against overcomplicating his messaging, ensuring it aligns with the needs of high-earning professionals seeking efficiency and expertise rather than basic budgeting help.

Kendra’s Clarification: Kendra emphasized the importance of framing life planning in terms of solving specific pain points that resonate with the target audience, avoiding jargon that clients may not understand.

Notable Quotes:

Charlie (29:07): "I hear all the time, I make all this money and then at the end of the month, I don't know where it goes."

Kendra (26:03): "They know the problems that life planning solves and those pain points are super hot."

---

9. Final Recommendations and Strategies

Focusing on Core Activities: Kendra and Taylor advised Charlie to prioritize actions that directly address his defined target market’s needs. They recommended creating case studies, optimizing his website copy, and building a robust marketing funnel tailored to his ideal clients.

Continuous Learning and Adaptation: They encouraged Charlie to remain patient and committed to foundational marketing principles, ensuring his strategies remain adaptable to future changes in platforms and client needs.

Notable Quotes:

Taylor (34:20): "It's going to take some time to think through and build that strategy out."

Kendra (40:21): "Get clear on who you want to serve and how you like to educate. That can inform the funnel."

---

10. Conclusion

The episode concluded with Kendra and Taylor reiterating the importance of clarity in defining the ideal client and selecting appropriate marketing mediums. They emphasized building a sustainable and focused marketing strategy that aligns with Charlie’s strengths and business goals. Encouraging him to take actionable steps based on the insights shared, they assured that establishing a clear foundation would pave the way for effective growth and client acquisition.

Final Thoughts by Hosts:

Kendra (42:47): "We can build a strategy that is not specific to one channel over time. These are core fundamental challenges that many advisors struggle with."

Taylor (42:17): "Thank you, Charlie, for joining us. There's a lot of advisors who are in a very similar place."

---

This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for financial advisors like Charlie Edson who are navigating the complexities of marketing their practices. By focusing on defining their ideal clients, optimizing their messaging, and strategically selecting marketing channels, advisors can effectively overcome feelings of overwhelm and drive meaningful growth in their businesses.

Transcript

[Kendra]

Hey, it's Kendra and Taylor and we're here to make Advisor Marketing simple. Today's guest is Charlie from WealthBeingAdvisors. In his first year running a solo practice, he's brought in about $15,000 in revenue and he has just under a million in AUM. He wants to grow to $500,000 in revenue and 50 million in assets. Welcome to Advisor Marketing Made Simple. Charlie, what's the big question you want to dive into today with Taylor?

[Charlie]

And I so recently left my 9 to 5 job and gone full full time in my company. So previously was just doing word of mouth marketing. As I approach this next challenge of marketing and growing my business, I'm feeling very overwhelmed with all the different potential ways I can market. So really trying to hone in on and get the most efficient and precise on what should my next marketing moves be and how to attack that with a hundred percent energy.

[Kendra]

This is a great question because a lot of advisors have this in the beginning and later so it doesn't actually matter where you're at in your marketing journey. It's a very common feeling and we can definitely help you address that. The first thing I want to say here, I looked at your intake form and we asked you, you know, who your ideal client could look like and I saw some comments around busy professional and then I also saw that you mentioned you've been working with some dental workers and that looks like, you know, dentists and potentially dental hygienists. Then I went over to your website and I looked at some copy on there and it says who do we serve? And it says we are fee only financial advisors and wellbeing coaches. Serving everyone Again, serving everyone. We're going to come back to that and who want clarity and ease in every area of their wealth. So I want to really start here because this is going to keep you very overwhelmed as you really start to think about the kind of people you want to help. Tell me more about your ideal client and who you want to build this practice around.

[Charlie]

Yeah, it's a great question and there's a backstory to all that. So happy to get into that as well. It was built in different phases but.

[Kendra]

Or maybe the better question is right now with where you're at, do you have any clarity around who you may want to serve? Like even not even if we don't look backward going forward, who do we want to serve?

[Charlie]

Yeah, as I, as I speak with and, and grow my client base, the people that I found that I can provide the most value to are busy professionals. Let's call them Henry's millennials. Anywhere from 30s to early 40s and just starting to live busier lives and know that they, you know, they can't be live in their 20s mentally with their finances in their 30s. There's people that they're looking after. They're, you know, getting married, having kids. And so they really need to, I'll say, like, habitually or mentally grow up in terms of their financial management and realize that they may not have the expertise. So that's where I come in. You know, they're busy, they don't want to manage it. They have other stuff. And that's kind of my target audience, if you will.

[Kendra]

Okay. And have you thought a little bit about what a profitable client looks like for you? Is there a certain fee amount that you need this ideal client to be able to afford per year?

[Charlie]

Yeah, I have done the analysis in terms of my growth and everything. I want to end up at about $430 a month or on, let's say, 500,000 minimum in AUM. Currently where I'm at is charging 300amonth for current clients. Or if they reach 300,000 in AUM, then it's a flat 1% fee.

[Taylor]

So let's just call it 5,000 a year.

[Charlie]

Yeah, okay. Would be. Would be the goal, but obviously that would be like the minimum fee.

[Taylor]

Awesome.

[Kendra]

And when we think about, you know, when we're talking about busy professionals, we're talking about Henry's. Is there. Have you seen any deeper layers, like any particular professions you want to go deeper on or any kind of types of clients there? Or is this the deepest that we've gone so far?

[Charlie]

That's the deepest we've gone so far. It's funny, my fiance is in the dental field, so she's a dental hygienist. And I have, because of that, been introduced to several dentists who I've started to work with. So kind of that niche. But I haven't, like, marketed that or gone much deeper in that. And I'm still not sure if, like, that's what I want to do, but, you know, I'm open to anything, really.

[Kendra]

Okay. I do think that's a kind of critical turning point because depending on who we want to attract is going to change how we message the website. So when you think about even a dentist versus a dental hygienist, very different pay scales, very different problems.

[Charlie]

Absolutely.

[Kendra]

That's like a fork in the road as well. My personal opinion is like, does it excite you or does it feel heavy? So if you're kind of like, like, I'm talking to these dentists, but I'm not quite sure I want to work with dentists. That's a feeling to pay attention to because you're going to spend a lot of time with your client. So something to consider there. And I'm sure Taylor will probably have a couple additional questions on the avatar. I want to talk a little bit about how you really enjoy educating people about the problems that you solve with financial planning. So do you like to write? Do you like to speak? Are you really great at building relationships within your community? Like, what feels exciting to you, something that you could really do over the next two to three years that you would be open and excited to get amazing at?

[Charlie]

Yeah, that's. That's a great question. I like my investment philosophy and you guys are probably going to hate this, but I like to be a little diversified in terms of like, that skill set. I'm very good at building relationships and just, you know, meeting, talking to people. The issue with me is as soon as I put a sales lens in, that is where I start to get those skills break down a little bit, let's just say. So I've been trying to improve my messaging. So I've been trying to write a newsletter, gone through several iterations of that, but haven't really picked up any traction. I've just added contact, like personal contacts onto that.

[Kendra]

Okay, and right now, how much time do you have to spend on marketing per week?

[Charlie]

As much as I need to right now.

[Kendra]

Okay. And as far as mediums, you really like relationship building, are there any others or is that kind of the one that you really feel like, man, I could do relationships and my local community?

[Charlie]

Well, no, actually I would probably prefer LinkedIn. I've been really eyeing that as, as a viable source. LinkedIn blogs or newsletters, just in terms of an efficiency and time, you know, percentage of time, like, it's just much more scalable. That being said, I want to do all that, but then also layer in the community and relationship building as well. But I think I want to like first focus on the LinkedIn email marketing type. Just from my background and just, just my, my philosophy on that, I think just like the. I'll get like the most bang for buck.

[Kendra]

Okay, let's talk a little bit really quickly about LinkedIn. So when you think about marketing on LinkedIn, do you like to write? Do you like video, like still in the medium format? Like, what would work for you?

[Charlie]

Yeah, it's a great question. Probably writing. I've thought about doing video as well.

[Kendra]

I want you to. I want you to pause for a moment.

[Charlie]

Yeah.

[Kendra]

And I want you to ask yourself if all these mediums and all these channels worked well. There's not a right one. There's definitely one that probably is easier for you and more natural for you. What kind of pops up?

[Charlie]

I would say writing.

[Kendra]

So the way that you like to communicate and educate people is writing.

[Charlie]

The one that has the least amount of fear is in writing. But I would say that I. The way I show up best is. Is video in person. Okay, great.

[Kendra]

That's very helpful. Taylor, what's coming up for you?

[Taylor]

So I don't mind that you want to cast a wider net. Maybe part of it is, you know, you are a little fearful of really niching down or you're not exactly sure sure who you want to work with. So I'm okay with that. To Kendra's point from earlier, we're gonna have to get a little bit more clear here. It can't. Like, when I come to your site and it's just like we work with anybody. It just doesn't make me feel really good, like I'm hiring somebody who can help me solve my problems. So we're going to have to get a little bit more narrow here. It doesn't have to be crazy, but it does make me think of. We've been talking about this a lot today. The who, not how question. Like, who out there is having success working with the people that I want to work with and how are they positioning themselves and, you know, handling their messaging on their website? So I was. As Kendra was talking, I was looking up a few people that came to mind. Unfortunately, I don't have any amazing examples, But Eric Robert with Beyond your Hammock has a firm that specializes in working with people kind of similar to you. It's buried on his website, but on one part of his website, it says, couples in their 30s and 40s with $500,000 of household income seeking clarity and structure, blah, blah, blah. That's just. That's kind of what I'm looking for here. You mentioned your. Your fee structure. $5,000 per year. Let's just round up to make it simple and say $6,000 per year, because that breaks down to $500 per month. It takes a certain level of income to be comfortable to spend $500 per month on financial planning. Right. And so I don't know what that number is necessarily for you or in your mind, but I think that's a good starting point to say, what sort of income does a household or an ideal client need to have in order for me to be comfortable saying, like, spend 500 per month on my services. So you don't need to necessarily answer that today. But that is one example of getting a little bit more clear that we can say, hey, if you're making over $250,000 per year, I specialize in helping people just like you solve these three problems. How's that sound to you?

[Charlie]

No, that sounds good. And on my website, I'm working on improving a lot of the copy there. But to your point, I think I want to nail in on focusing on busy professionals making over 250,000. Pause there. That's kind of, I think, where I want to start now. The number. Let's, we can, you know, But I.

[Taylor]

Mean, you just wrote most of your headline right there. I specialize in helping busy professionals. Let's just choose an age that might be one missing factor over age 30 with household income of 250 or more. That's my headline, my subtitle, my next section might be I help them solve these three things, or these are the five biggest questions that people come to me with that I help them answer. Like that alone is night and day from where your current site is. Like, if I came to your site as someone over 30 making that much money and those pain points, those questions that you have high level, like, oh geez, like this person is speaking my language here now, I mean, not everyone's going to hire you, but at least you're starting to connect with that person. So the next layer you mentioned, busy professionals, you mentioned having some success here with dentists or some connections with dentists, hygienists, things like that. You don't have to go all in on dentists or hygienists right now. But one decision that you do have to make, is it going to be working professionals, busy professionals, or is it going to be entrepreneurs, business owners? Because those are going to be two separate paths, two separate business models that's going to get into trouble if you're trying to serve both of those. So it sounds like it's more the working professional than it is any business owner, entrepreneur, is that correct?

[Charlie]

Yeah, it's funny because I actually have an entrepreneur and slash business owner, client and it's, it's been a challenge in terms of how, how to like plan for all that. So I, I've been, and I have busy professionals as well. I think to start Like, I would love to work out both because as I like to do things that I'm kind of going through personally as well. And as an entrepreneur of a small, you know, small business owner myself, I'd love to help them. But if I had a pick, probably right now where I'm at is focusing on busy professionals.

[Taylor]

Okay, great. Yeah, I would highly, highly recommend not trying to work with both of these people. I, look, I'm a business owner as well. It's great to have these conversations. You can have those conversations with them, you can help them out, go have beers, whatever, like, but you don't need to take them on as clients because it is going to really complicate your service model. Very, very different. I mean, advisors who specialize in this niche and do it well will go as far as saying, I only work with W2 employees. Right. Like if you've got 1099s, K1s, like, I'm not LLCs, I'm not going to work with you. Like, I only work with W2 employees. So I would try to get comfortable again, age, income level, certainly minimum fee, and then distinguish, you know, I don't know if you want to go as far as W2, but you could just start with busy professionals. Working professionals. And I would get comfortable with. If an entrepreneur reaches out to you about what I do. I, I, I, I do not specialize in working with you. Happy to chat. I'm a business owner myself. You know, I can share some ideas, but here's somebody else for you to talk to. Like I would try to get comfortable there because it's going to become really challenging. So busy professionals again. Now it can be dentists, it could be a hygienist, it could be attorney, it could be a, you know, a tech professional at Apple, Amazon, intel, whatever. And you can start to build some case studies out of these busy professionals because like, what does a busy professional mean? I don't know. Let me show you a case study. This busy doctor who you know is in his or her 30s or 40s and these are the things that I help them solve. How does all that start to like, feel in terms of getting a little bit more clear with our target market?

[Charlie]

It reduces a lot of the overwhelm and helps to focus everything and creates a lot of like, actionable steps for me to be able to say, okay, here's who I work with out of my client base. I currently have eight clients out of who out of them can I model a case study out of from there? How do I then Turn that into a big challenge for me is how do I convert my website. I built it myself and did all the branding, everything. So currently working with a consultancy company on just like rebranding everything.

[Kendra]

Hey, I would stop you right there. Your brand looks great. Don't waste your time or money. I actually came to your website and I was like, hey, this looks pretty good. So you can get all that time, all that money back. If anything, you need to work on who you're going to serve and your copy, which is what we're doing right now. The text. Yeah, the text. I mean, like here's the thing about copy and design. So let's say your website looks beautiful, but the copy is terrible. You're actually in a worse place than a website that looks ugly as hell. But the copy sounds good and here's why. Great design cannot save bad copy, but good copy can save bad design. Now your branding looks good. I think something like this feels like it's something that needs to be massaged. But like I have seen some ugly ass websites and they convert, man, you're, you're good there. So I would say take that off your to do list. I think the next step, once we get clear on who you're serving, which we just talked about, you're working with essentially people in their 30s and 40s who are high income earners, at least $250,000. You help them solve ABC. That's where the best use of your time is. Once we have that, we put on the website, we clean that up a little bit with some copy pieces, then we start to move into how do you want to attract more of these people? Now we're starting to move towards a marketing funnel. So I just wanted to throw those comments in there to save you a lot of time and money and heartbreak.

[Taylor]

Charlie, there, there's a person that Kendra and I both know that all she does is just copy. So I don't know who you're working with right now and exactly scope of work and services, but Kendra absolutely nailed it. I would not touch the design of your website again. There might be a few things that you can optimize or swap out some pictures or something. But like, I would not spend your time and energy there unless, I don't know, you're just passionate about that. Take that time and those dollars and hire someone and you can email us separately and we're happy to provide her information. Yeah, but it's not crazy expensive and we're just talking about text and a person like that will tell you and help you strategize and determine what text needs to be changed, how to rewrite things without disrupting your branding.

[Kendra]

One thing I would say is, like, with your website right now, I can see above the header, you've got a picture of the mountains. I would change that to a picture of you. Like, because the one thing that you have that is competitive advantage as a smaller solo advisor is that it's more of a personal brand. Like, leverage your face. Because when I work with larger advisors, I have to pit them against you. Because. Because you can build that familiarity as a human, as a person. You can say, in my firm, you're not just a number. I don't have hundreds of clients. You're gonna. You're gonna pick up the phone, you're gonna call me, and I'm gonna answer. So when I work with bigger firms, I have to market against that. I have to say, hey, we solve the same problems you have for hundreds of people. And the reason why I tell you this is because that's a competitive advantage you can leverage by just changing the image above the fold. So I would make that change, but I would worry more about the copy.

[Taylor]

Yep. Yeah. If you don't want to make your site about you for whatever reason, I'm not going to say Eric's is a perfect example. But if you go to Eric's website, you know, he's got this, like, kind of techie, you know, technology, net worth, like, kind of image there that certainly resonates more with your target market than a picture of the mountains. So, you know, you could do. You could do one or the other, but, you know, stay away from stock photos and choose something that aligns with them. So before we start talking about maybe some of the marketing tactics here, one thing I just wanted to call out is Kendra had asked you, how much time do you have to spend on marketing? And you said, as much as I need to. Um, but then you started sharing some of the marketing activities you were drawn to or. Or playing around with. And you had said, like, they're just like, easy and super efficient. And so those two things, like, I'm having a hard time reconciling, like, if you have all the time in the world, we should be choosing some marketing strategies that do take a lot of time and are really hard work, but there's a really big payoff if we're just sometimes doing this and sometimes doing this and this is easy. So I'll do that. Like, we're just not going to have a lot of Success. So the benefit for you is you only have eight clients and you have a lot of time. So let's choose some marketing activities that are hard and are time consuming that advisors, you know, like me, maybe don't have time to do.

[Charlie]

Yeah, I, I'm all ears. I'd love to hear some, what you would recommend in that, in that field.

[Taylor]

So you had, Kendra asked like kind of what you enjoy doing, right? Writing, video, whatnot. So I, you know, it's interesting you had said, I think you, I think you said, tell me if I'm wrong, that you, you wouldn't be opposed to video, but it just, you're a little fearful of it.

[Charlie]

It's just something I haven't done. But I think in terms of just personal growth, I would, that's something that I would be very interested in doing just because it's something that I never really saw myself. And to be quite, quite honest, I haven't been on social media in about seven years. I kind of not on any personal socials, but I recognize that for building this, I do need to get back on them, for lack of a better term, potentially.

[Taylor]

You don't have to, you know, my firm, we built a $250 million business with, with no social media whatsoever. So you don't have to leverage social media. I'm also thinking you're targeting busy professionals. Are they on LinkedIn all day, scrolling, reading content I don't like? I don't know. That may not be the most effective way to reach a busy dentist. So we have to again, once we've solidified who we're targeting now how do I get in front of more people like this? So it might be social media. That's certainly possible. But don't fool yourself into thinking I have to do social media because I've neglected it and I've just heard that, like, I have to be doing social media.

[Charlie]

Yeah, that's a great point.

[Kendra]

If you haven't been on social media in seven years, it's very telling to me because I know a few people who haven't been on social media for a long time and social media is not required. What is required to market a financial firm well or an RIA is you need to know who we're talking to as clearly as possible. And we need to find a medium that you're excited to commit to. And we can use the medium like speaking or writing or video to then narrow down some of these options. And so we kind of pair these two pieces together and I don't know if advisors catch this on the show. But we do it all the time. We don't, we don't tell you where to go first. We ask you, like, how do you want to get there, who are you trying to find and how do we want to reach them through what medium? So it's a little bit unclear to me what medium you're really excited about. You've mentioned you like building relationships. You mentioned you kind of interested in LinkedIn. You mentioned writing, and then you kind of mentioned video. So for the purpose of today, if you just had to pick one where you're like, you know what, I could spend the next two to three years really leveraging this medium specifically, what would that look like?

[Charlie]

Yeah, non exclusive. I would probably say writing. But I know, Taylor, you mentioned the hard thing, so I'm curious, like, what your thoughts are on that. And maybe that's another thing to think about. I'm open to any of them. But yeah, I definitely recognize without, absent that probably writing just to narrow in.

[Taylor]

And when you think of writing, and we're going to think of this through your own platform that you own, because like, writing on LinkedIn is great, that is part of a strategy, but you don't have control over LinkedIn necessarily. So when you think about writing long term, are we talking. I'm going to be writing blog posts, you know, new blog posts every single week, every Wednesday. Is it going to be an email newsletter?

[Charlie]

Something I've been thinking about for a while is a blog. And then obviously that goes hand in hand with the newsletter. So either an email marketing list or kind of blog newsletter, email marketing, kind of repurposing the content among those three.

[Taylor]

Okay, let me, let me ask you this. How quickly do you need to grow? You have eight, eight clients. What if you had eight clients for another 12 months?

[Charlie]

I've done the calculations of my Runway and I have several years. That being said, right? Like, I not like I need to grow immediately, but I would, I would like to, but I'm, I'm willing to be patient and water the seeds now to have, have bigger fruit in the future.

[Taylor]

Okay. Because, you know, like, your website is so fresh, your business is so new that if you are going to commit to writing weekly, amazing weekly blog posts, do you then have to think about how are people going to find these blog posts?

[Charlie]

Right.

[Taylor]

And that's a big challenge, especially in today's world with the world of AI like SEO is changing by the day. So you could write these amazing blog posts every single week and nobody's reading them. So we have to solve that kind of top of funnel activity, which might just require a lot of time, a lot of dollars or, or both. And then you have to also think about, now I've got people reading this amazing blog and to your point, now I have to stitch an email newsletter onto all of this and I have to write an amazing newsletter every single week. So it does start to become a lot of work to make that happen. So it just kind of hit me again like you're relatively new, eight clients, you probably do want to see more growth. I, I do start to think about leveraging somebody else's platform here to help you grow. And again, it could be through writing, it could be guest writing for somebody else's blog that already has traffic. So that would be a way to think about it. The way you would own that ecosystem or own some of that traffic is having that email newsletter some sort of capture to bring them into your ecosystem. So there's a strategy there. If you wanted to get a little bit more outside of your comfort zone and experiment with something else. You know, you've got a great niche, right. Of like high earning professionals. I love the Henry acronym. It always lands with those people. Is guesting on other people's podcasts, like, where are these young people listening? Like what shows are they listening to? And can you find your way into these shows to share your knowledge and expertise and again, move a percentage of them into your ecosystem somehow? But I might encourage you to start thinking about leveraging somebody else's platform. Again, we can't be guessing on podcasts and trying to write guest articles for somebody else's website, you know, and writing blogs on my website, you can't do all these things. But I think leveraging somebody else's platform could be a really good avenue for you.

[Charlie]

Yeah, that's a very interesting piece. I'm going to have to do more research into specifics there. But either through, you know, again to your point, maybe part, I don't know if what types of partnerships are legal in terms of, of that. But yeah, finding podcasts. There's I, I listen to many podcasts for like health, wellness, growth, everything like that. So maybe some more upstarts in there could be a brand alignment in that sense.

[Taylor]

Yeah, and that'll certainly take some time and some thought and some strategy. Again, like you can't expect every podcast host to be like, yeah, Charlie, come on on, like, you know, come and, and talk to my audience. So it'll take some time. But if you dedicate yourself to pursuing that like it can absolutely work. And again, you're not showing up as Charlie this financial planner that helps everybody. You're showing up as Charlie that specializes in working with these specific people, solving these specific pain points and you're sharing extremely valuable information about just that thing. You're going to sound and feel much different than just Generic advisor shows up on the show to talk about, you know, money management 101.

[Charlie]

Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I've been working on is my, my unique selling proposition is incorporating a lot of behavioral finance, money psychology. Money means that whole line of work into this and helping kind of almost too from a coaching perspective. So that's something that I'd like to put in the marketing as well.

[Taylor]

Yeah, you have to think about that in terms of, of an actual pain point because like we had this conversation with somebody else where life planning done well is, is amazing. Like doing amazing work, but nobody wakes up in the middle of the night being like, gosh, I need a life plan. You know, I need to talk to somebody who could do some life planning for me. What are the pain points that people are big questions. People are asking challenges they're faced with that life planning helps to solve for. That's, that's what we're leading with in our messaging. Not like, hey, I do life planning, you should hire me.

[Kendra]

I'm about to get fired up over here because I have a whole bone to pick on life planning and.

[Taylor]

Let's hear it. I haven't heard it.

[Charlie]

Let's hear it.

[Kendra]

Oh man. So I get really frustrated. I cannot tell you how many times I have googled life planning and what it means because I'm a messaging nerd. And here's what I've discovered. I already knew that nobody knows what the hell life planning means unless you're a life planner. But they know the problems that life planning solves and those pain points are like super hot. So to me, this is how you describe life planning in a way that a non advisor would understand it. I'm going to make up some really general broad ones. Life planning looks like something. For example, I'm going to help you use your money to prioritize time with your family now while your kids are still young. People know what the hell that means. People that got kids that are busy and they're, they've got, you know, the next two to three years are really important to them. You're talking their language. Another example could be this. And one of my clients actually does this really well. That's why I'm so intimately familiar with it is I'm going to help you use your money to leave a high stress job and, and transition into something more meaningful or less stressful. Do not say life planning, say these kinds of things. But what's really important here. And this kind of goes back to what we were initially talking about. What are the life planning problems that people in their 30s and 40s earning at least $250,000 a year? What are those questions? Because life planning for a dentist or life planning for a marketing agency owner like myself, totally different description copy, that's all you gotta nail. Who are we talking to? And then I love this concept of integrating life planning. But don't say life planning on your website because nobody will know. Dial these kinds of things in to really explain that. So, like, let me give you an example of what a headline would look like if you were selling to me with life planning. So this is easy for me to do because I'm so intimately familiar with my avatar of running a really demanding marketing agency. So for a marketing agency owner, a headline might look like this. Running a marketing agency is hard. Your finances should be the easy part. And if you wanted to incorporate pain points that someone like me would understand from a life planning perspective, we talk about things like this. We help you plan for lumpy revenue so you're not constantly stressed about cash. We help you use your money to buy back your time, and we help you find creative ways to reward and retain your top talent. Now let me explain these bullet points to you so you can see how I'm taking not just financial planning topics, but I'm turning them into like life planning, you know, pain points for agency owners. We get, we have such lumpy cash flow and it's very stressful. So I'm speaking to that. And then also with like the talent piece, like finding smart, amazing people who are willing to like saddle up in a high stress business and stick with us so we can train them, retain them, and help, you know, serve clients. It's really hard, but you can see how like we're, we're putting an emotional spin on it, but we have to understand who we're speaking to first. So I am a massive advocate of life planning, but I am not an advocate of how it's described. People, people don't understand it. Does that make sense?

[Charlie]

Yes, a hundred percent. I've done some work in terms of, I mentioned behavioral finance and one of the pain points is I hear all the time, I make all this money and then at the end of the month, I don't know where it goes. And that can be rooted in potential poor financial habits, behaviors, and then how do we uncover those and then help those. So that's like trying to incorporate that aspect in there through a pain point to, to your point. So I, I love your angle and perspective there and I 100% agree with you.

[Taylor]

So just, just be careful here because this is where you can start to get taken off path a little bit. Where there's a lot of great things that life planning, behavioral finance helps to solve for. But Remember, you're charging $500 per month and if someone's making a lot of money and spending it all and they have no idea where it's going, are they the type of person that's going to go and spend $500 per month with you and are you excited to help them figure out? Like, I don't want to help, I don't want to help somebody figure out how to, how to budget their money. Like when, when I was targeting younger, busy Henry type clients, it was, I make a lot of money. I have too much money. I've done all the basics. I don't have the time to figure this out. Like, Charlie, help, help me figure this out. Not like, I make a bunch of money and spend it all. Charlie, fix my problem for me. So again, you got to think about this. But it, some of this can get you into trouble where you start to venture outside of your, your target market because you get latched on to some of these behavioral finance concepts. It's like, whoa, wait a second. I don't want to attract people that spend all their money. I want to attract people like they're saving too much. I don't know how to optimize these things.

[Charlie]

That's absolutely a great point. I haven't thought about that. So that's, that's definitely something I need to think through more.

[Taylor]

Yeah, I think I like Kendra's first example of life planning. To help somebody leave a stress free job and find like purpose in their career may not be who you're trying to reach. But again, like you could get distracted with something like that. But it sounds like you're trying to talk to like dentists who make a lot of money and love their job. Right. They, they are very fulfilled. It's more of like, I don't have time for this or I don't know how to optimize these things for taxes or I've done all the basics. Like what more should I be doing? Like it's probably a different set of questions than help me find a less stressful job.

[Kendra]

That's why the avatar matters so much. Because if you are going to incorporate, you know, more life planning, we got to make sure that life planning matches who we're trying to target because it's going to sound very different. And I gave some of these examples because it's kind of top of mind, you know, how to leave a high stress job and, and transition into something less stressful or more meaningful is like for a client of mine that works with really high earning tech execs, very different. Right. So I know we've thrown quite a bit your way. You know what's kind of coming up for you here, Charlie?

[Charlie]

Yeah, you guys. To be quite honest, you guys are causing me to rethink a lot of my, the avatar stuff. But I think one thing that hit me was I am someone who was leaving a prior to a. A job that I just didn't have much passion for and wanted to start my own thing that I had this goal for a while, but I don't even know if that's someone who I'd want to work with. It's more someone who has a lot of passion for their job, loves their job, just doesn't have the time to do it. And thinking back, a few clients of mine, those are my favorite avatars because they have high paying jobs, they love it, they, they want to spend all their time and energy on that and they don't want to spend any of their time and energy on finances. And then that's where I would come in. So I think that new approach is, is really key to think through more.

[Kendra]

And I feel like you lit up when you talked about that. Follow that signal that, that feels exciting. I love that you really connect with that because someone who loves their job versus someone who can't wait to escape. Two amazing people you can serve through financial planning. Very different kind of approaches.

[Charlie]

So I'm, I'm curious if we take that path. Someone who's loves, committed to their job just doesn't have the time then thinking about okay, what are the strategies to going after them if they are, you know, some people, you know, can be been doom scrolling at night. But I'm curious, is there a particular medium or strategy that you guys would think that might attract them the most?

[Kendra]

The thing that actually came up for me is I would actually consider who you might already know who fits this avatar who is in their 30 to 40s, they're earning, you know, quarter million dollars plus per year. They love their job. Could you have, you know, five, seven, ten conversations with people that fit this avatar and really try to understand they. Here's an important point too. They know getting their finances in order is important. They just don't want to handle it because we also don't want to talk to people who like, don't prioritize their finances because some people could fit that and they don't think that finances are important. But I think given kind of that structure you have there, could you get a little bit clearer talking to. Or maybe it's looking back at some of your notes with your current clients who fit this and really start to kind of dial that in a little bit and understand people that have found their calling and are high earners in their 30s and 40s. What kind of financial problems are they bumping up against? That's kind of what's coming up for me initially. Taylor, what about you?

[Taylor]

These are always challenging when there's kind of a blank slate. Like you're getting more clear on who you want to serve, which is fantastic. I think we made a lot of progress there and you've picked up a lot, which will be really helpful. I say blank slate because you only have eight clients. You have all the time in the world. You can be doing all these things and that's great. But it's also dangerous as well because you can start to. I, like, I heard you earlier, whenever I hear somebody say, like, I'm trying to do this and I'm trying to do this, like just a lack of focus. And that's the trap. And I found that exact trap as well when I started. Cause like, I have all this freedom and flexibility and time and I can do anything. So it is a little challenging because anything is going to work. Assuming you're get, you're. You're reaching your target market. So everything. And again, I'm thinking about leveraging somebody else's platform because you're going to find potentially find quicker success there. But it could be strict, like a strategy of reaching out to advisors like me who work with retired clients to refer younger clients that reach out that we don't specialize in serving. Right. You can build, you could build an entire business for. From referrals from other advisors. I know advisors have done that. I think they've even shared their story either in kids's podcast or X, Y, P, N. So that's a strategy. But we can't be doing all these other things and doing that. It's going to be like, no, I'm dedicated. I've got a list of 500 advisors that are in my area focused on retirement planning and I have a strategy for connecting with them to build this referral strategy. It could be existing client referrals or your existing network and building a true referral strategy. We talked about Dan Allison earlier. I don't know, maybe it's going through Dan Allison's course to learn how to build a referral strategy to ask clients and people in your network for referrals. I don't know if that feels authentic and comfortable to you. You mentioned short form video. I think short form video is a great way to reach these busy people. They don't have a lot of time. Yeah, they might be doom scrolling at night after a hard day's work and they just want some entertainment. They want to learn a little something really quickly and efficiently. That could certainly be effective. But we have to understand short form video and how it fits in the funnel because it's not just going to do a bunch of short form videos and hope people call me and hire me. We have to think about that as a top of funnel activity, get awareness. But what's going to happen once they get that awareness? I need to pull them into again, potentially an email newsletter. So I have to think about what's the lead magnet that's going to be compelling enough to get them off of social onto my email newsletter and then what am I going to be writing every single week to continue to nurture and build trust. So that's going to take some time to think through and build that strategy out. I don't want you to think I can just go publish a bunch of short form videos and my phone's going to be ringing off the hook again. Guessing other people's podcast could be a strategy on its own. Writing guest articles for a money the Money Under 30 blog. You know, like all these opportunities are out there and unfortunately I don't have exact prescription for you. It's going to be doing some research and then we've talked again a lot about this who, not how. Who are some people like this? You know, Scott Frank does a lot of life planning. Like how has he built his business? Eric Robert is targeting a very similar demographic to you. A company called Stash wealth that I followed for a long time that specializes in working with Henry is like what are they doing? How, how do they build their business? So it might be taking the next month just like doing some research, the who not how kind of process and trying to land on the one thing that you want to commit to doing. And Kendra's idea is great too. Like go pick five to 10 people in your network, no strings attached. I'm not looking for your business, I'm not asking for business. I just want to ask you some questions. I'm, I'm a new business owner. I'm finally doing something I love and I'm passionate about trying to grow my business. I just have some questions because it's going to help me, you know, better strategize. So I know we're throwing a lot at you and not giving you a lot of direction necessarily, but again, that's the challenge of having this blank slate.

[Charlie]

No, I, I very much appreciate all of that insight. I think that's a great list to start to ponder off of. The thing I think that to me resonates is short form video and then creating a lead magnet. You know, here's from the conversations I have with five to seven people, create their pain points, create a white paper around that as a lead magnet. And then one thing I do love to do is just I kind of get out my ideas in terms of, you know, how to save money. How does, you know, whatever it might be talking to those pain points within the email marketing, which I could write weekly and bring them in and then have cta. So that, that's potential idea but ironic.

[Taylor]

Keep, keep in mind here a busy working professional doom scrolling in the evening because they had a long day sees your really captivating, really well done short form video. Maybe there's some humor in there, right? Yeah, probably doesn't want to go and download a white paper, right? Like there's a disconnect there between interesting, compelling, maybe humorous short form video that captured my attention to like go download this white paper. So we have to think like again, be thoughtful not only about how we approach that video because that short form video is not easy. It's a very specific type of video. So being intentional about how we approach that and then the offer to pull them off a short form video also has to be compelling. So you know, I don't know exactly what it would be but I would imagine have to be like really short, simple, effective, like a one page tax cheat sheet for people just like you. Right. Like something of that nature. Yeah, I just, I have a hard time believing someone's going to go download a white paper. Maybe you don't call it a white paper, you call it something else, an ebook or whatnot. But again, it's hard to move people. Kendra and I talk a lot about this. Hard to move somebody from an audio only podcast to like a written document. People like to stay where they're at and these platforms like TikTok are really good at keeping people there. So to move somebody from short, fast video to go and download something, you have to be really thoughtful about that. That offer that you provide.

[Kendra]

I've got a resource.

[Taylor]

What you got?

[Kendra]

All right. So one thing that's really interesting about your avatar, that, that Henry, that high income earner, I was thinking about Nate Hoskin because he built actually a financial planning firm around this using short form video. And I went to his website. He's actually no longer accepting clients. So to the nod that Taylor gave earlier about, hey, you could just potentially pair up with other advisors, but if you were going to do short form video, you could essentially study what Nate has done.

[Taylor]

You can also hire Nate. That's who I've been working with.

[Kendra]

Yeah. So at the end of the day, my takeaway from this conversation is let's get clear on who you want to serve and how you like to educate. And that can inform the funnel because we could drive all over planet earth with a thousand different strategies. But we need to make sure we're attracting the right people through a medium that you are genuinely excited about, that you're willing to stick with over time. And we can set a lot of things aside. Now, one thing that Taylor pointed out here that some advisors listening may have missed is we did talk about borrowing audiences. And what's kind of unique about there's two ways to really build an audience. You can build it like Taylor has done with a podcast, or you can borrow it. You can go on Taylor's podcast. So usually we're recommending borrowing an audience if your marketing Runway is short. So, you know, maybe you have a year, and if you don't grow your firm, you're out of business. Well, you might need to borrow an audience versus build it. And if you want to hear more about that specific strategy, we have a whole episode on how to borrow someone else's audience. But this scenario is unique because you actually have Runway. But I think also it's a new firm. You might want to, you know, borrow an audience to get some additional visibility faster so it can apply in that scenario. So there's a lot of different strategies we've given you. I think the most important piece for you is to get really clear and much clearer about who you want to serve now going forward in the medium you want to use. And then we can plug A lot of options in there. So I know we've thrown a lot your way. Taylor, do you have any kind of closing thoughts here on, you know, what to share with Charlie?

[Taylor]

I don't think, I mean, closing thoughts. We have thrown a lot at you, Charlie. A lot to digest. Of course you can relisten to this, you know, and take down some notes and digest it. I just want to say, you know, thank you, Charlie, for joining us. I know it's not easy probably to come on a show like this where a bunch of your peers are listening and acknowledge that you feel a little bit stuck and you're just starting out and growing your practice and, you know, struggling a little bit. So I just appreciate you coming on and bringing these questions to the table and being vulnerable. There's a lot of advisors who are in a very similar place. And so, yeah, just really thank you for, for joining us.

[Charlie]

Yeah. Taylor, Kendra, pleasure to be on. Thank you so much and, and very appreciative of all your help. So thank you very much.

[Kendra]

Definitely. And the one thing I want to point out here is it can feel like we're slowing things down to dial these pieces in. But Charlie, what we see a lot of times on the show is we see Charlie five years from now, 10 years from now, and they're still coming back to these foundational, fundamental elements of marketing. The platforms, how we reach people, you know, those are going to evolve. But what will not change in marketing is who are we excited to serve, what are those problems they're willing to pay us to solve, and how do we like to educate the world? Because, for example, there might be a new video platform. If you like video, then there's probably going to be five more of those in the next five years. But if you know who you want to reach, you know the problems you want to solve for them and the way you love to educate, we can build a strategy that is not specific to one channel over time. So these are core fundamental challenges that many advisors struggle with. And I just appreciate you coming on, being open, you know, letting us help you kind of fill in the blank slate. As Taylor said, for advisors listening, one of the big elements here that is really important is the marketing funnel. We can talk about who you want to serve, how you want to reach them, and then we earn the opportunity to build a well working funnel. If you're feeling a little bit lost on that piece, make sure you check out our marketing funnel episode. We go very in depth and talk through top, middle and bottom of funnel and what that looks like and we demystify it and cut out a ton of jargon. So check out that episode and we'll see you here again next week. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. To get the resources shared or sign up to Twitter 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.