Advice Line: How To Grow Your Brand When Marketing Isn't Your Passion (Ryan Brueck)

Summary

Advisor Marketing Made Simple

Episode: Advice Line – How To Grow Your Brand When Marketing Isn't Your Passion (feat. Ryan Brueck)

Hosts: Taylor Schulte & Kendra Wright
Guest: Ryan Brueck, Clear Wealth
Date: September 17, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this “Advice Line” episode, Taylor and Kendra coach financial advisor Ryan Brueck, co-founder of Clear Wealth in Iowa, through the challenges of marketing a growing firm when marketing isn’t your passion. Together, they explore the realities of building brand awareness on a limited budget, clarify the difference between serving multiple client types and marketing to one, and identify next steps for advisors who want to grow but don’t enjoy marketing tasks. This candid conversation is packed with practical tips, encouragement, and tough-love truths for any advisor struggling with growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Clarifying the Growth Vision and Ideal Client

• Ryan’s Goal:
  • “I am trying to grow the brand to be a well respected, well known brand, the Clear Wealth brand across eastern Iowa… I think clearwealth can definitely be one of those independent firms to break through.” (01:02)
• Defining Ideal Client Profiles (ICPs):
  • Young high earners (income $300k+)
  • Windfall recipients (inheritance, divorce, life insurance)
  • Pre-retirees/retirees
• Current Client Mix:
  • 20% high earners, 50% retirees, 30% windfall (02:28)
• Kendra’s Guideline:
  • “We can serve many. But we market to one.” (04:59)
• Taylor’s Nuance:
  • “Windfall feels more like a pain point than a full ICP… a lottery winner is very different than someone with an inheritance or a divorce settlement.” (06:08)

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2. Brand Awareness and Organic Growth So Far

• Ryan’s Efforts:
  • Tried Facebook ads, Instagram videos, LinkedIn; never went “all in” on one channel, no consistency. (09:00)
  • “Word of mouth has been a big differentiator for southeastern Iowa.” (09:43)
• Obstacle:
  • Marketing feels like a chore; prefers client work: “That’s not something that fills my bucket… working with people fills my bucket. Not the marketing thing.” (11:50)

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3. The Solo (and Disconnected Team) Dilemma

• Structure at Clear Wealth:
  • Two independent practices under one umbrella. Ryan is in growth mode; Lance (co-founder) is near capacity. (13:11)
• Taylor’s Observation:
  • “It’s very clear to me…it’s kind of this disconnected practice. It doesn’t feel like this united firm and team…It just becomes this really complex problem here. Somebody has to be responsible for growth and somebody has to be responsible for serving clients.” (14:15)
• Internal Challenge:
  • Need for clarity: “Are we growing Ryan or are we growing this brand?” (16:31)
• Ryan’s Realization:
  • “We want to grow the brand, but Ryan doesn’t like marketing. Lance isn’t doing the marketing…Who, how are we gonna grow it?... We gotta put the work in to do it.” (17:04)

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4. Marketing for Advisors Who Don’t Love Marketing

• Alternatives to Classic Marketing:
  • Referral platforms (SmartAsset, Zoe Financial): can be costly; do most heavy lifting up to the intro call. (15:47)
  • Community involvement, education-based marketing (adult classes, workshops): an authentic way that doesn’t feel “salesy.” (17:36)
• Taylor’s Key Distinction:
  • “There’s a giant difference between owning the business and owning a financial planning business and being a financial planner all day long.” (21:01)
• Advice:
  • You can do both roles up to a point—but the business needs someone focused on growth for scale. (21:47)

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5. Practical Steps & Next Actions

a. Time and Budget Constraints

• Current Marketing Capacity:
  • “10 to 15, maybe 20%” of time per week (20:17)
  • No clearly defined marketing budget; $1,500/month marketing platform “would be a significant investment.” (20:55)
• Kendra’s Framework:
  • “For a lot of advisors, when it comes to marketing, you have time and you have money…a good starting point is coming up with a time budget.” (23:20)

b. Choosing a Channel and Medium

• Kendra:
  • “If you like relationships…the way I like to think about how to choose a channel is, I like to start with a medium first… If you like relationships…hosting in person educational workshops, networking with COIs, presentations at churches.” (24:08)

c. Systematizing Client Service to Free Up Time

• Taylor:
  • “Step one is systematizing your client service model so you have more chunks of time to dedicate to marketing and growth.” (25:09)
  • Shares their process of “surge meetings” and client communication—suggests 24 households is manageable for block scheduling and systematization. (26:20)

d. Niche Down and Message Consistently

• Taylor’s Real Example:
  • “Every other advisor would come in and just be this generic advisor. And I came in and said I specialize in working with Henry’s…that stuck.” (27:21)
• Advice:
  • Pick a single ideal avatar—your language at every community event should reinforce that focus. (27:53)
• Ryan’s Agreement:
  • “Step one…systematizing…Step two, yes…I need to continue to niche down and get involved. I really like the idea of just getting involved in the community.” (28:53)

e. Intentional Community Involvement

• Taylor’s Warning:
  • “Just be sure if you’re going to do these kind of boots on the ground marketing activities…you do have a marketing strategy to it…not just hoping people refer you.” (30:00)
• Guideline on Niching:
  • “I don’t want you to leave here feeling like you have to get so narrow…age, income, handful of pain points…covers a wide range.” (30:43)

f. Communicate Client Service Standards

• Taylor on Documentation:
  • Describes “client engagement standards” and annual service calendar: “The client engagement standards reads like a client agreement…a systematized client service model…an annual service calendar should demonstrate you’re doing certain things at a certain time every month for the client.” (33:36)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Kendra: “We can serve many. But we market to one.” (04:59)
• Taylor: “Windfall feels more like a pain point than a full ICP.” (06:08)
• Ryan: “All I had to do was just turn on the camera and hit record? That sounds a lot easier… but that’s not something that fills my bucket.” (11:31–11:50)
• Taylor: “There’s a giant difference between owning the business and being a financial planner all day long.” (21:01)
• Taylor: “You can do both for up until a certain point. For me, it was about 50 households where I’m like… I need to start thinking about other people.” (21:30)
• Kendra: “If you like relationships … there are things you can do in your community, in person educational workshops, networking … presentations at churches.” (24:15)
• Taylor: “Every other advisor would come in and just be this generic advisor. And I came in and said I specialize in working with Henrys… and man, did that stick.” (27:21)
• Ryan: “Step one…systematizing… Step two… niche down and get involved. I really like the idea of just getting involved in the community.” (28:53)
• Taylor: “Make sure when you’re doing what you enjoy doing, you still have a marketing strategy to go along with it.” (30:00)

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Actionable Takeaways & Recommended Resources

• Systematize your client service process to create time for growth activities.
• Pick a single client persona to focus your marketing (even if you serve more types).
• Choose marketing channels that align with your strengths (community involvement for “people” people).
• Develop and communicate clear client engagement standards and annual service calendars.
• Ensure all brand-building activities in the community have a defined strategy and are targeted to your chosen persona.
• Remember: Building a recognizable firm requires either passionate, sustained marketing by you or hiring/outsourcing that function.
• Resource Episodes:
  • Ep. 44: How to Drive Predictable Leads Online for Your Firm (feat. Devin Watts)
  • Ep. 33: Should You Narrow or Broaden Your Marketing Niche? (feat. Jason Koh)
  • Interview with Tiffany Charles – strategic, intentional boots-on-the-ground marketing

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For Listeners Who Haven't Heard the Episode

This episode serves as an honest, encouraging, and practical roadmap for financial advisors facing the all-too-common struggle: wanting to grow, but not loving marketing. Ryan’s challenges and the hosts’ advice will resonate with any solo advisor torn between serving clients and building brand awareness. Whether you’re overwhelmed by options or unclear where to start, the episode offers clear next steps and real-world encouragement: start small, focus on one ideal client, systematize your business, and use your natural strengths to authentically connect in your community.

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Skip the guesswork and pressure. This episode proves that marketing success doesn’t require loving every part of the process—but it does require clarity, consistency, and a willingness to try new things until you find what fits you.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, it's Kendra and Taylor and we're here to make advisor marketing simple. Today's guest is Ryan of Clear Wealth. They've been in business for three and a half years. They have two advisors serving clients and their current revenue is 90,000 with 21 million in AUM. Ryan, what's that big marketing question you want our help with today?

[B]

Yeah, I am trying to grow the brand to be a well respected, well known brand, the Clear wealth brand across eastern Iowa. You know, so I'm right on the Mississippi. We got major cities along the Mississippi, Dubuque is north of us, Burlington south of us, and then Iowa City, Cedar Rapids to the west and even out to Des Moines. And I would say that the popular or most dominant type of advising out there is from those big traditional wealth management firms. And I think that there is a place for independent firms to gain some of that market share. And I think clearwealth can definitely be one of those independent firms to break through and give people, you know, more service than, you know, what we typically can see through those traditional wealth management services. And so I just trying to figure out, okay, how do we grow the brand, how do we grow my practice, my partner's practice? Bring on potential other advisors underneath that Clear wealth umbrella and make clearwealth a well respected company firm brand across eastern Iowa and western Illinois.

[A]

All right, awesome. So you want to look to grow the brand and the business. So before we jump into the funnel, I'd love to really get clear on who we're trying to attract. When you submitted a few details before the show, we asked you who your ideal client was and you gave us three answers. Number one, young high earners with an income over 300k. Number two, those with a windfall think like inheritance, divorce settlement, life insurance and number three, the retiree market so close to or in retirement. Where I'd like to start is of your current practice. What percentage of those are, you know, high earners versus like retirees, you know, 50%, 30%. Give me some ballpark numbers.

[B]

Yeah, the high earners is about 20% and then about 50% retirement folks and then the rest those windfall.

[A]

And for the windfall, do those ever tend to actually fall under the bucket of high earners or pre retirees?

[B]

Sometimes, yeah, you know, solid incomes, maybe not. And you know, when I think of the, the high earners, you know, I'm thinking maybe like a, a surgeon or people that are, you know, mid level executives of some sort that have a really high income compared to, you know, These windfall people, they might have corporate jobs and they're making a good income, but they're not having facing the same problems that, you know, Those people earning 300,000 plus as a household could potentially see.

[A]

Okay, and as we start to look at growing your brand and business across eastern Iowa, if you had to choose, you know, one of these that you feel really excited to build a funnel around, which one would you choose?

[B]

Probably the windfall one because, you know, as babies, boomers, you know, continue to pass away and leave inheritance to their children. You know, a lot of times people get that and they're like, okay, what do I do with it? I've been managing my money on my own, but now I have this and I don't want to mess it up or out of respect to the person that, you know, gave this money to me, you know, I want to make sure that I'm doing it the right way. And you know, one thing that I pointed out with the, you know, my ideal clients is I like working with good people. And so oftentimes if they, if you know, they have earned or not earned but received an inheritance and, you know, they don't want to mess it up out of respect back, you know, that right there checks that box. Okay, They're a good person. They have the self awareness to be like, hey, this family member or someone gave this money to me, I don't want to mess it up. So I'd say, you know, the windfall or even those that's in the inheritance side, but you know, who have had maybe a spouse pass away and got some life insurance or have gone through a divorce, they're going through this transformational financial experience and lifestyle experience that, you know, they could use some support and a helping hand to get them through the tough times that they're going through. And so out of the three, I would say the windfall I feel most excited about, but I like working with all three. And you know, for many independent advisors, you know, they, most of their clients fall in those three categories as well. So it's not much of a niche. But yeah, windfall is okay.

[A]

So a couple things here for you and the advisors listening. One is that when we're talking about choosing an ICP to build a marketing funnel around specifically, you can serve, you know, multiple ICPs, you know, ideal client profiles. But when we build a funnel, it's hard to market to many. So if you're going to actually go out there and build a channel on something like LinkedIn or, you know, YouTube or really any of the channels. We want to get a little bit more clear around that. Now there's a lot to, to discuss around that specifically, but we can serve many. But we market to one. A couple follow up questions here. One we think about your ideal client. I really resonate with the I like good people. But when we think about marketing, that's not something I would use in marketing. That's just something I would filter on the back and forth. I share that with you, Ryan. So when we think about those painful, you know, problems that people have, that's where we want to start thinking about that with your icp. Taylor, I actually have a question for you. So when we think about this windfall kind of ideal client, sometimes to me really a windfall feels more like a pain point of someone than a full icp. But I could be wrong there. Like what do you think about that?

[C]

Yeah, I think, I think windfalls are challenging because you know, Ryan, you had mentioned inheritance, right? Baby, we were passing away, leaving money behind. How you might attack that situation and help that client who just had this windfall is likely different than a divorce settlement, right? A woman who's coming out of divorce, this windfall of money, you know, potentially money that she or he has not in the past had to oversee and manage and budget and invest. And so like those two things are very different to me. So I think we have to be careful of maybe categorizing this all as windfalls. If it's, I work with this, I don't know, gen X generation, these high earners, they're in the middle or late stage careers. They, they also have baby boomer parents who are likely going to leave them a pot of money. There's probably something there to work with. But I think just categorizing this as like windfalls could be a little bit challenging. I mean you could think about like a lottery winner. It's going to be very different than someone who just settled a divorce or just received an inheritance. Like you tackle that problem much differently. So Kendra, I think you're right. It's a problem, a situation, a different kind of pain point. I just think the how you would attack that client is just different. And so it's just going to become hard in your marketing to target people who just won the lottery or just received a large inheritance as well as people who also just received a divorce settlement. Does that make sense, Ryan?

[B]

Yeah, it does.

[C]

I'm curious to hear, you know, you mentioned windfalls, like how many of your clients have, have gone through these Windfalls or what percentage of clients have actually gone through these windfalls.

[B]

So, just for context, I. I don't manage a ton of households right now, so I. I started a couple of years ago and just have been growing organically. So I have about 24 households that I work with right now, and of that, about 30% of them are what I would consider that windfall. They fall in one of those categories.

[C]

Okay, I've got more thoughts. But, Kendra, what other questions do you have?

[A]

Yeah, I think, you know, I'd love to hear what your questions are. I think this is, you know, a big part of what Ryan wants to answer and some of the, you know, questions he submitted beforehand. And so many advisors struggle with getting clear on their icp. So, Taylor, what's coming up for you?

[C]

Yeah, I'm going to set the client avatar to the side for a moment because I'm kind of stuck on this. Ryan, you saying, you know, we want to build something big, right? We want to be recognizable in Iowa and maybe even Illinois, and we want to attract more advisors to our firms. Like, we really want this, like, brand awareness and brand visibility ability. I'm curious. Up until now, I recognize you're a newer firm and you're in growth mode right now, but what have you done up until now that's worked well to build brand awareness in your geographic region?

[B]

I will say not a lot. We have not done. I mean, we've done Facebook ads, you know, Instagram videos when I first started out, LinkedIn stuff. We've kind of cast a large net. But I've never really stayed consistent and gone, like, 100% into one avenue. And I've just struggled with the consistency and, you know, how to get going on picking one avenue and sticking with it and going all in. And so that's kind of why I reached out and applied for the podcast, is to be like, okay, I need to. I need to move forward and do something to get this going, because I haven't really done any of that yet. But, you know, in. Especially where in the southeastern Iowa area, it's a. It's a smaller town area. And so, you know, just word of mouth has been a big differentiator for southeastern Iowa. But as we get into the bigger cities and the bigger markets, the Quad Cities, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Dubuque, we haven't really stuck out yet, and that's what we're trying to do.

[C]

Why do you think you haven't stuck with these marketing activities that you've. You've tried and Ditched.

[B]

So I've done like short form video. I've done some of those things, and I'm not a big fan of doing it, you know, and it feels like a pain to do it on my end because I'm doing it all, you know, I. I'm writing the script, I'm recording myself, I'm editing it, and it's very time consuming and was not very fruitful. And so I felt like I was spending a ton of time on it for not the best results. And so I've been writing on my blog and trying to repurpose that content and doing Facebook ads and those things, but I'm just kind of, you know, tried different things and never stuck with them because you get busy being a solo advisor, trying to, you know, prospect and get. And get more clients. Okay, I get a new client, spending a ton of time on this, serving my current clients, all those things. I just feel like I get a little overwhelmed or finding the time to set aside to do the marketing stuff since I am doing it all. And again, you know, I. I don't really enjoy recording the videos.

[C]

I was gonna say, what if you didn't have to do any of that? Like, what if all you had to do was hit record on a video that was already scripted and send that video to your editing team to do the rest? Like, literally all you had to do is just turn on the camera and hit record? Like, does that sound fun to you?

[B]

Sounds a lot easier and a lot less time consuming.

[C]

Sure. I mean, it's. Yeah, I mean, it's obvious that it's easier and less time consuming. It was like, would you look forward to coming to work every day and hitting record on camera with that system set up for you? Or if you're still like, yeah, it's easier, but, like, it's not really what I want to be coming to work and doing every day.

[B]

Yeah, I. I would say more. So it's not. That's not something that fills my bucket. You know, working with people fills my bucket. Not necessarily the. The marketing thing.

[C]

Okay, that was my next question. Is like, is this marketing in general? Like, every piece of marketing is like, yeah, I can do it, but, like, it's not really what I want to be doing. Even if you had some people supporting you in the background. So is that accurate? Like, marketing is really just not what you want to be doing.

[B]

Right? Yeah. Okay, that's fair.

[C]

I mean, I think it's really important to acknowledge that. I know it's challenging because, you know, it's a double edged sword. Like you want so badly to serve clients, but you also have to market to get those clients. And so it's, it is challenging as a solo advisor, you know, to kind of solve that puzzle. My next question is just again, I'm kind of stuck on you saying we want to build this brand awareness. We want, you know, to be known in our geographic region. You even mentioned we want to bring on more advisors. So I'm just thinking about this through this lens. On your website, it looks like there's another advisor at your firm. When I come to your meet the team page to learn about you guys. And I guess it's more on the services and fees page, I think it feels to me kind of disconnected, like Ryan's doing his thing and Lance is doing his thing over here. Is that accurate? Like, how much are you guys working together to, to build this brand awareness in your geographic region?

[B]

So we have separate practices. So like, I don't work with any of his clients. He doesn't work with any of my clients. We are, you know, both under just that clear wealth umbrella and so working together to build the brand. Not, not a whole lot. He has a pretty established practice. He founded the firm. He brought over his, his book and his clients. And he is near capacity. He does bring on a few clients every once in a while. But, you know, the, the growth mode is definitely more on my end now. He might want to be. Well, he's, you know, we want to bring other advisors into the fold in the future and build that clearwealth brand and that's maybe where he comes into play more. But the client acquisition, like bringing on many, many, many clients, like what I'm trying to do is not necessarily his goals and priorities right now.

[C]

Okay. And is Lance more or less in the same boat as you and that like, he really prefers just to serve clients all day long and really doesn't love the marketing side of things? Kind of.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Okay. Do you kind of see where I'm headed with this? That like you guys have separate practices under this umbrella? Like, it's very clear to me with a fresh pair of eyes, it's like kind of this disconnected practice. It doesn't feel like this united firm and team with this, you know, very desirable service model that every single client that comes through the door, you know, goes through and experiences. And you've got two phenomenal advisors who love serving clients but don't really love marketing. It just becomes like this really complex problem here. Somebody has to be responsible for growth and somebody has to be responsible for serving clients. So I'm not sure if I, you know, I have the exact solution for you. This is probably more of a, you know, internal team conversation like where do we really want to take this, this company? Right. Like if we want to double triple 5x 10x this company, I think there's some real business planning that needs to occur to really determine what roles we're going to play in this firm. And if there's a lot of overlap between Ryan and Lance and what they're good at and what they like to do, we need to think about maybe bringing somebody else on who can complement your guys skill sets to really help you reach this goal of, you know, being very well known in a geographic region. Now again, I know it's challenging when you have, you know, 24 households and maybe not a lot of revenue to commit to marketing. So again, it just becomes this really complex challenge here. If you have a marketing budget but you can't afford to, you know, hire someone to kind of fill that void in the firm, you have to start to think about marketing strategies that don't really require any skill. So I think about things like Smart asset for example. You know, they do everything and people just reach out to you or maybe they give you the information, you pick up the phone and call them. So they're handling the entire funnel up to that know, prospect introductory phone call, which I'm confident, you know, you could certainly handle that part of it. But you know, you start to think about programs like that, you know, Zoe Financial, there's a number of them out there to kind of handle a big chunk of the funnel for you. Now you, you pay for that, right? And so the cost becomes, you know, potentially a barrier for that. But I don't know, I guess I'm just like I, I really fascinated to hear from you. And this is more of like a, a practice management conversation all of a sudden. But it's just fascinating to hear. Like we, we want to be well known, we want to grow this thing. There's an opportunity here in Iowa and I 100% agree with you. We were talking before we recorded. Like I'm familiar with Iowa, I actually know a couple of other advisors in Iowa who, having a lot of success. I recognize the opportunity there that, that you recognize. But in order to capitalize on that, I think there's some business planning and internal conversations that need to happen if we're going to really grow this, this brand. Like are we growing Ryan or are we growing this brand?

[B]

Yeah, just some things that I had thought about is. Okay, pointed out we want to grow, we want to grow the brand, but Ryan doesn't want to. Ryan doesn't like marketing. Lance isn't doing the marketing. Okay, who's gonna, who, how are we gonna grow it if we're not, we're not doing this? We got, we gotta step up and, and do it. If that's what we ultimately want to do, we gotta put the work into. To do it. So maybe it's just, you know, saying it out loud is, is kind of the light in the fire of okay, yeah, we, this actually you gotta put the work in to do it.

[C]

Yeah. And maybe you haven't experimented enough with marketing to find something that you do enjoy and that you are good at. You know, there are so many avenues that you can take and you might find one that feels more authentic to you. Maybe it is old school, shaking hands, getting involved in your community, you know, getting your hands dirty, you know, participating in community events, meeting people and you know, also at the same time while doing that, being very clear about who you do your best work for. Which we can dive back into here in a second. You know, I know a number of advisors that have a ton of success in these kind of smaller rural areas. Teaching classes. Right. Going to community colleges, teaching retirement focus classes or financial planning, taxes classes or tax planning classes. You know, that can prove to be a great funnel for something we call education based marketing. So it doesn't really feel like marketing. I'm just, I'm educating, I'm teaching people how to do things. And it feels a lot less, you know, salesy and just feels more natural and authentic. So the list goes on. Like it doesn't have to be short form video, it doesn't have to be launching a podcast, doesn't have to be search engine optimization. There are a lot of other effective, very efficient marketing strategies that you could pursue, but it is going to take time, it is going to take some resources and it does need to feel good to you. And if it doesn't, I don't know, maybe have to kind of shift some of the goals of this, this business. Mm, I'm curious. You mentioned 24 households. Like that's a solid number of households. Where, where did they come from? You said organically, but like, so, yeah.

[B]

I mean, finding me on CFP.net or XY Planning Network, find an advisor th those things. Actually, some people have reached out and said they found me on ChatGPT, which is cool. And then just kind of Word of mouth of, you know, people that know me in the community, that, you know, they're talking with, with friends that know me in the community, they're talking about finances and they're like, hey, you should reach out to my friend Ryan. And so they'll reach out, something along those lines. And then I, you know, worked at another firm for a number of years and was able to bring a couple of clients over from, from that firm as well that I had established relationships with. That's pretty much primarily how I have gotten all my clients and then referrals from those clients as well.

[C]

Okay, maybe my last question before I kick it back over to Kendra and see what's coming up for her. What percentage of your work week do you think you can dedicate to marketing, Business development, education, something that department that will contribute to this growth and potential brand awareness. Like what percentage of your time per week do you think you have right now?

[B]

I would say, you know, 10 to 15, maybe 20%.

[C]

Let's call it. 20% is a nice round number. What is your, your marketing budget? How much could you theoretically spend on marketing every month and commit to for, let's say, three years?

[B]

I don't have an answer to that.

[C]

So if there was a marketing service out there that the funnel was very fitting for your ideal client, they did a lot of the heavy lifting for you, uh, so you didn't have to worry about it. You know, you did have to handle the kind of the sales process part. Once these people start showing up through that funnel, um, if this solution is out there and it costs, let's say, $1,500 a month, like that's an absolute.

[B]

No, it would be a significant investment based on current revenue.

[C]

Yeah, no, I, I mean, I think this is for you and for others that are listening. Something that hit me really, really, really hard shortly after I started my firm that no one really told me was like, there's a giant difference between owning the business and owning a financial planning business and being a financial planner all day long. Like, these are the challenges where, you know, you look at a lot of other startup companies, they reinvest heavily. So why a lot of companies are not profitable for a long period of time because they're reinvesting so much into the company in the early days to achieve that long term growth. There's just this giant difference between owning the business and just being the day to day practitioner. I think you're, you're running up against some of these challenges. Maybe not. You can certainly disagree, but I Think it's just worth acknowledging that these are two very different things. And you know, you so badly want to be this day to day practitioner serving clients, but the business needs somebody to focus on growth and development. And look, I started my firm as a solo and I share the challenge of like, it's hard to, to do both, but you can do both. Up to a certain point. You just have to recognize what that point is. And for me, it was about 50 households where I'm like, I can't do this by myself anymore. I need to start thinking about other people and developing a growth path for this firm. But you can do both for up until a certain point. For me, it was just different because, like, I, I enjoyed both. Like, I enjoyed working with clients and seeing clients, but I also enjoy, really enjoyed the marketing side. I really enjoyed like the internal business challenges. So I enjoyed all of it, thankfully. But I do wish somebody kind of warned me and prepared me for, hey, dude, this is not just day to day financial planner anymore. You are now CEO, business owner. You also handle all the compliance and tech support in your office and just making all these decisions that wasn't used to. So I'll stop there. But I, I think that's part of the challenge you're running into.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Brian, do you have any thoughts or questions on that feedback?

[B]

No. I mean, it is something that I am aware of that I need to, you know, spend the time and focus on the marketing side of things. Just like what you said of, you know, hey, you're, you're part financial planner, part business owner. You got to be both. And so, yeah, I just need to get involved and do that.

[C]

I have a few ideas for you to start chewing on. I'll share them in this conversation, but ideas for you to chew on after we part ways today. But Kendra, what's coming up on your end?

[A]

Yeah, I think for a lot of advisors when it comes to marketing, you have time and you have money. And so for advisors who are either early in their journey or they just don't have the cash flow yet, you know, you might not have a marketing budget that you feel comfortable committing to, but I think a good starting point is coming up with a time budget that you feel comfortable committing to. So if it's, you know, five hours a week or something like that, I do think my hesitation is if you don't really truly enjoy marketing, you're going to have to look at, you know, some of these channels that could potentially deliver leads to you. But if you also don't have the budget. It's kind of a catch 22 there. One thing that you did say that stuck out to me a little bit is, is that it sounds like you could really enjoy being involved in your community and connecting and networking with people in your community. Correct. So if you like relationships, the way I like to think about how do we choose a channel is I like to start with a medium first and use the medium to narrow the channel. So what that means is, you know, for example, if you like to write, you know, SEO, optimized blog posts can be a good option. You know, long form LinkedIn content, you know, Twitter threads, if you like to speak, you know, a podcast, hosting workshops, things like that. If you like relationships for someone like you, you know, there is different things you can do in your community, like hosting in person educational workshops, networking with COIs, you know, doing presentations at churches. Like there are a bucket of things that can fall under like that relationship category. Also referrals fall into that. But because you're a little bit newer, you might not have enough quite momentum yet. But I like to kind of think of the medium first and use that to narrow your channel. So that's kind of what's coming up for me as well. You know, as far as that, when I kind of think of next steps. Taylor, what's. What are you thinking?

[C]

Yeah, I think, I think Ryan, to kind of round out this conversation and happy to, to answer any additional questions that you have. But if I'm putting myself in your shoes and really trying to get unstuck and start to work closer to, to some of these goals that you've shared with us today, I'm almost thinking like step one is, and maybe you've already done this, so correct me if I'm wrong or let us know if you've already done this. But step one, I think is systematizing your client service model so that you have more time, more chunks of time, big chunks of time to dedicate to marketing and growth and business planning. So I'm sure you're familiar with surge meetings. I always argue like every advisor does surge meetings in some way, shape or form. Whether it's just like I do year end meetings with my clients or I meet with my clients every quarter, just, it's just a, to me, Surge meetings is really just a systematized meeting process. And so for us, we have those in the spring, in the month of May, and we have them in the fall, in the month of October, before the holidays are in full force. And so those are our Dedicated client review meeting seasons. Now in between those meeting blocks, I think some people assume we just don't do anything, that we just have all this free time and we're going on vacations, but that's not true. We're working on other areas of the business or there's new clients being onboarded. Of course clients have things that come up in between those meetings, but you only have 24 households, so that's going to be fairly limited. So step one, I think is if you don't have it already or maybe you can be tightened, just a really systematized client service model, developing that and communicating it properly to clients so it's very clear to them what the model looks like and what they can expect from you. And I think step two, once that's in place and you start to feel like you've got more block time and freedom for some of this business development, growth oriented things is just, just choose one single ideal client. Maybe you're open to serving other clients if they trickle in organically, that's up to you. But choosing one single ideal avatar, being really clear about who that is and then getting involved somehow in your local community, whether it's teaching classes, getting involved in organizations that you enjoy, there could be a referral marketing process in there that you could develop. But the point is that when you're doing these things or pursuing one of these kind of boots on the ground marketing activities, you're only talking about one ideal avatar. You know, you meet somebody at a networking event like, hey Ryan, what do you do? Like, I'm a financial advisor. Oh, like tell me more. Oh, well, I'm a financial advisor but I specialize in high earning professionals in their 40s, you know, that have these three pain points. Oh, that's really interesting. And that's it. And you just say that over and over and over and over and over again and all of a sudden Ryan becomes that person. When I was doing some in person marketing years ago and I was targeting multiple demographics, I did commit to focusing on high earning young professionals in the networking groups that I was involved in and man, did that stick. Because every other advisor would come in and just be this generic advisor. And I came in and said I specialize in working with Henry's. And everyone's like, what are Henry's? And mind you, this is like 10 years ago. So Henry's wasn't a really popular acronym. Like oh geez, what's Henry's? Oh, high earners not rich yet. And everyone's like, oh, like that's me, all these attorneys and CPAs and you know, other professionals like, oh geez, like I've never heard that before. Again, every other advisor is focused on retirement or just this generic person. So it does work. You just have to like repeat it over and over and over and over again. All of a sudden you start to become that person in your community. Now there's a lot of other like things to tackle there to stitch the whole funnel together, but I think those three things are a good starting point. But you do have to get clear on that avatar at least when you're out and about talking to people and in some of your marketing messaging. It can't just be, I work with all these different kinds of people.

[B]

Yeah. Well, good news. Step one. I spent a ton of time first quarter of this year systematizing and getting a process written down so I wasn't have to reinvent the wheel and creating the technology around it, all those things. So step one is done. That's good news on that end. Step two, yes, I, you know, I've always been told, you know, niche down, niche down, niche down. And you know, I have always struggled to do that. And so yes, I need to continue to niche down and get involved. I really like the idea of just getting involved in the community. That, that has definitely been the thing that resonates with me the most is you know, getting involved in the community, being well known in the community that I serve and figuring out how to become well known in the community is, is going to be what I try to tackle and spend, spend time on and. But it all starts with finding that one single client avatar that I want to dive fully into. And I heard it many, many, many times.

[C]

A couple things there in, in response. One is, you know, just be sure if you're going to do these kind of boots on the ground marketing activities, getting involved in the community that you, you do have a marketing strategy to it that you're not just like getting involved and like hoping people ask about you and hoping people refer you or hoping people reach out to you. Like there does need to be, you know, a clear marketing process while you're doing these things that you enjoy doing. Maybe a good example and you don't have to go this route for referral marketing. But Tiffany Charles we had on the podcast not that long ago, I'd listen to her episode and just hear how intentional she is with this boots on the ground marketing activity that she's not just like going to coffee with CPAs and like hoping that they Refer to. She's very intentional about how she approaches those relationships, but it's still very, very authentic to her. So just be careful that you're not just out there goofing off and, like, hoping, you know, clients show up. The second is, yes, niching down is important, but I don't want you to leave here feeling like you have to get so narrow. Like, again, if we just choose an age group, an income level, and a handful of pain points. So, you know, hiring professionals in their 40s in Iowa that make over $300,000 per year, and they're worried about not having enough time to, you know, work on their financial plan. They're worried about paying too much in taxes. You know, one, two more pain points there. Like, that's going to cover a pretty wide range of people. So you're not really niching down, right? You're not, like, you're not going so deep. You're not only working with, you know, physicians at this hospital or something. So. But it does cover a lot of different professionals, a lot of different people. So I. I just think it's a safe, comfortable way to start to move closer to a niche or at least getting more clear in your marketing and messaging. And then the last thing to say about your service model. So it's awesome that it sounds like you. You wrote down the service model. You work hard to, like, build it out, but we still have to implement it and communicate it to clients. And. And I'll just share this. I think I shared it once before publicly. But when we built our service model, and mind you, before this, my practice was chaotic, meeting with clients all over the place, driving to their homes like it was not systematized at all. I developed what I called client engagement standards. And I documented kind of the new service model in these client engagement standards that I expected clients. It documented what I expected from clients and what clients could expect from me going forward. So what? One by one, I went to each client with this physical client engagement standards document. And I went to them and said, like, look, I hired a business coach. I've been working really, really hard on my business that I can better serve you. And here are some of the. The improvements that I'm making to my practice and service model. And one of those was these formal meeting blocks in the spring and the fall and demonstrating to them how it actually allows us to do better work for them. And so I used that document to have that conversation, and it worked really, really well. Instead of just springing on everybody out of the blue or Sending a mass email. I like to have those one to one conversations. And you have the ability to do that because you only have 24 households or you know, maybe I only had 50 households at the time. So just a few follow ups there for you to think about.

[B]

Would you consider that your client engagement standards, would you also consider that like a, like an annual client service calendar of something? Like, would you consider those the same thing or those totally different? Like, hey, this is my engagement standards. This is how I see a year of our, you know, relationship going and then we kind of reset again next year. How would you compare the two of like an annual service calendar compared to that client engagement?

[C]

Well, the client engagement standards is, it reads like a, like a client agreement. Like this is a formal document that we all sign and commit to. So it's just documenting again what I expect from the client to have a good relationship and what the client should expect for me to have a good working relationship. And it's documented on paper and we're all agreeing to it. A systematized client service model, Surge meeting service model, I think you could call that an annual service calendar. If you're going to document an annual service calendar and share it with a client, it should demonstrate that you're, you're doing certain things at a certain time every month. You know, in the month of January, client I'm going to do this. This is what you can expect from me in the month of January, in the month of February, this is what you can expect from me. Or Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, or for us it's like, here's what you can expect from us in the spring and here's what you can expect from us in the fall. And here's what's going to happen in the middle of the year and here's what's going to happen in the beginning of the year. So we're very clear about what's happening all year long and we're committing to that. So you could call it an annual service calendar, but there's something that we are doing for the client at that designated period of time. It's not just this, like, oh, in the month of January, we're just, we're starting to like plan internally about, you know, tax changes for the year. It's like, no, the month of January. We're actually, you know, documenting all the tax forms that you're going to receive from the prior year. And we're sending you a one sheet piece of paper that illustrates and documents exactly what those tax Forms are. And by the way, we're also going to send a copy to your cpa like that's an actual deliverable and a thing that we're doing and that would fit into an annual service calendar. So I guess these things should be like really tangible things that you're doing for them. And if it is monthly, that's great, but that could be a little bit too overwhelming.

[B]

Yeah, definitely. It's it, it's not monthly. I typically go quarterly with that.

[A]

And Ryan, what's kind of ironic about this conversation is sometimes it feels like you're taking a step back when you're looking at some of these pieces around systematizing your client service model or clarifying your ideal client. But what's ironic is new firms and mature firms have to figure this out and there are firms who are, you know, five years ahead of you, you know, the Ryan of the future who are calling Taylor and I and we are coming right back to a lot of these same fundamentals so that we can help you build a profitable and intentional practice that you're excited to run and doesn't drive you totally bonkers. So it does feel like, you know, hey, we came here to talk about marketing. How do we get over here in this lane of, you know, CL client service model and also back into the lane of icp. But these are the fundamentals of where all great marketing starts. And so I also want to give you and a few of the advisors listening a couple episodes. That would be really good resource as you start to look at, you know, working on the icp. And I think what Taylor said is like if you even narrow it to just Henry's earning 300k plus who have these three problems. And then you use that as you go into your community and you work on, you know, a strategic approach to building connections in your community that's going to get you a lot closer to driving real leads to your firm. Because as we started the beginning of this conversation, we were talking about three different potential ideal clients. Those Henry's, those windfalls, those pre retirees. So we would, that would change your language a lot to say I work with high earning professionals earning over 300k and they have problems like this. That's a really good improvement in your marketing and you don't have to go spend a ton of time doing that. Now two episodes that will be really helpful for you and for our listeners. Number one, we actually had a very similar conversation with Devin Watts live at Joel. We actually talk about marketing to Henry's and what that sounds like. That episode title, which is number 44, is how to drive predictable leads online for your firm. The additional episode, I think that would be really helpful because you get to hear us talk just a little bit more through that. That ideal client is episode 33, where we talk. The title is should you narrow or broaden your marketing niche? We did that with Jason Koh. So those are a couple good resources for you and the advisors listening. But the next steps for you are pretty simple, really. Working on systematizing that client service model, getting a little bit clearer on that icp, which I think we did some good work here today. And then number three, going into your local community and getting involved with a very strategic approach. And there are advisors that do that out there. I check out that Tiffany Charles episode too, just to get an idea of what intentional and strategic looks like. So thank you so much for joining us today, Ryan. We appreciate you swinging open the back doors of your firm, letting us take a peek inside and being so open and coachable.

[B]

Yeah, thank you both for the opportunity. Is my first podcast appearance ever, so that's exciting. But yeah, thank you both for inviting me on. I learned a lot. I have some things to to work on. You gave me plenty to digest and work on to make actionable steps forward. So thank you very much.

[A]

Awesome. Thank you for joining us, Ryan.

[B]

Yes, thank you.

[A]

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.