Advice Line: How To Turn LinkedIn Success Into Client Growth (Joe Marshall)

Summary

Advisor Marketing Made Simple: Episode Summary

Episode: Advice Line: How To Turn LinkedIn Success Into Client Growth (Joe Marshall)
Release Date: October 30, 2024
Hosts: Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright
Guest: Joe Marshall from Coastal Capital Advisors

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Introduction

In this episode of Advisor Marketing Made Simple, hosts Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright welcome Joe Marshall from Coastal Capital Advisors based in Santa Barbara, California. Joe seeks advice on diversifying his marketing strategies beyond LinkedIn, where he has experienced significant success but feels overly reliant on a single channel.

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Joe Marshall's Current Marketing Strategy

Joe outlines his existing marketing efforts, primarily centered around LinkedIn. Over the past two years, he has concentrated his efforts on connecting with tech professionals, especially those with equity compensation from his former company, Procore. His weekly activities include:

• Sending approximately 150 connection requests via LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
• Posting content Monday through Friday.
• Writing a blog once or twice a month and an email newsletter twice a month, which he reposts on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Notable Quote:

Joe Marshall [01:00]: "A lot of my marketing success is tied up in one channel, and that feels risky."

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Identified Challenges and Risks

Joe expresses concern over the dependency on LinkedIn, questioning the sustainability and effectiveness of his current approach. Although he receives 10 to 15 leads monthly, many do not convert into paying clients, leading to conversations with unqualified prospects.

Notable Quote:

Joe Marshall [02:36]: "Most of them are qualified, at least for our purposes. Or our field, they either aren't going to make enough if I'm incanted to pay our minimum fee or don't have the assets to hire us."

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Kendra's Initial Takeaways

Kendra commends Joe for recognizing the risk of over-reliance on LinkedIn and emphasizes the importance of converting social media traffic to owned platforms like email. She suggests that before adding new channels, Joe should focus on building a robust conversion strategy for his existing LinkedIn audience.

Notable Quote:

Kendra Wright [01:59]: "before we even just dive into these questions, is I see a lot of advisors using channels like LinkedIn... and they're not being thoughtful about converting that viewership to a platform they own, like email."

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Taylor’s Insights on Enhancing LinkedIn Strategy

Taylor dives deeper into Joe’s LinkedIn strategy, highlighting the need for improvement and refinement. He suggests that Joe should obsessively refine his LinkedIn presence by:

• Investing time in LinkedIn marketing courses and resources.
• Considering hiring a LinkedIn consultant for an audit.
• Enhancing content quality to better engage and convert followers.

Notable Quote:

Taylor Schulte [04:49]: "Could I hire a LinkedIn consultant to come in, like, audit what I'm currently doing with my LinkedIn strategy and provide me with ideas and tips for taking it to the next level?"

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Implementing Mid-Funnel Tactics

Taylor emphasizes the necessity of establishing middle-of-funnel activities to bridge the gap between LinkedIn engagement and client acquisition. He proposes leveraging webinars and white papers as tools to further educate and nurture prospects, thereby increasing conversion rates.

Notable Quote:

Taylor Schulte [06:50]: "Maybe you have a strategy to DM people, inviting them to visit this landing page and download that white paper."

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Leveraging White Papers and Lead Magnets

Joe admits underutilizing his existing white paper tailored for Procore employees. Kendra recommends maximizing this asset by creating a dedicated landing page and promoting it consistently on LinkedIn. She advises transforming it into a lead magnet to capture email subscribers, thereby strengthening his owned marketing channels.

Notable Quote:

Kendra Wright [14:28]: "Maybe one, like, what was that white paper written for? And if it's not on your website and you're not really doing much with it... let me share a couple of ideas I have there."

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Refining the Client Acquisition Funnel

The discussion shifts to optimizing the client acquisition funnel. Taylor and Kendra suggest Joe refine his website’s messaging to better filter out unqualified leads. Implementing conditional logic in scheduling forms can help streamline the process, ensuring that only compatible prospects engage further.

Notable Quote:

Taylor Schulte [25:28]: "The messaging needs to speak to them, those pain points need to speak to them. That, you know, going to schedule an introductory call needs to be really clear about who this is and isn't a good fit for."

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Kendra’s Additional Strategies for Content and LinkedIn Optimization

Kendra offers actionable tips to enhance Joe’s LinkedIn presence:

• Content Quality: Elevate post quality to differentiate from generic advisor content. She suggests unique angles, such as addressing counterintuitive ideas or highlighting lesser-known financial insights.
• Profile Optimization: Improve banner copy, about sections, and outreach messages to better resonate with the target audience.
• Consistency and Mastery: Emphasize the importance of continuous learning and mastery of LinkedIn strategies to stay ahead of competitors.

Notable Quote:

Kendra Wright [22:23]: "When social can't get your attention, where do they go? They go to email."

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Final Takeaways and Recommendations

As the episode concludes, Taylor and Kendra summarize their key recommendations for Joe:

1. Double Down on LinkedIn: Continue to refine and enhance the existing LinkedIn strategy by focusing on content quality and engagement tactics.
2. Leverage Existing Assets: Fully utilize the white paper by turning it into a lead magnet with a dedicated landing page.
3. Optimize the Funnel: Refine website messaging to better qualify leads and reduce unproductive client conversations.
4. Expand Owned Channels: Gradually build and nurture an email list to diversify marketing efforts beyond LinkedIn.
5. Invest in Expertise: Consider hiring experts or consultants to audit and improve key marketing channels.

Notable Quote:

Taylor Schulte [36:32]: "Don't fool yourself into thinking just because something's working it means you should go do something else. It might mean, it usually means like, okay, how can I get better at this thing?"

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Conclusion

Joe leaves the conversation with a clear action plan: focus on refining his LinkedIn strategy, fully leverage his white paper as a lead magnet, and optimize his client acquisition funnel to ensure higher quality leads. Taylor and Kendra reinforce the importance of mastering existing successful channels before expanding into new ones, providing Joe—and listeners—with a strategic roadmap to transform LinkedIn success into tangible client growth.

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Closing Remarks:
Taylor and Kendra encourage listeners to assess their current marketing assets, identify half-finished projects that can be completed to enhance their strategies, and consider each social platform as a micro sales funnel aimed at driving traffic to owned channels like email.

Notable Quote:

Kendra Wright [30:01]: "You've already got that asset, so let's rock that thing. Let's, let's put that in there."

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This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for financial advisors seeking to maximize their LinkedIn efforts while building a sustainable and diversified marketing strategy. By focusing on conversion tactics and leveraging existing content assets, advisors like Joe Marshall can mitigate the risks of channel dependency and drive meaningful business growth.

Transcript

[Kendra]

Hey, it's Kendra and Taylor, and we're here to make advisor marketing simple. All right, welcome to the show, Joe. We are so excited to have you today. If getting started here, you could just share your name, your firm, your location, and that one big question you'd love to dive into with me and Taylor today.

[Joe Marshall]

Yeah, my name is Joe Marshall. I'm with Coastal Capital Advisors, and I'm here in Santa Barbara, California. And my big question is, you know, what else could or should I be doing? And to kind of dive in a little bit deeper. You know, I've had some decent success on LinkedIn the past two years. We focus on working with tech professionals with equity compensation. And as I think about marketing, you know, it's kind of similar to what I help my clients with. You know, a lot of all their wealth is tied up in one stock. Well, all my marketing success is tied up in one channel, and that feels risky. So that's my big question. What else could or should I be doing?

[Kendra]

I love that. I love where your head's at. And one point that you bring up that I think is very valuable, before we even just dive into these questions, is I see a lot of advisors using channels like LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, things like that that they're building their marketing traffic and awareness on, and they're not being thoughtful about converting that viewership to a platform they own, like email. It's a huge risk. So I think your head's in the right spot. And I'll be curious to see where Taylor goes with this. But my thought process isn't necessarily about adding another platform. I would first start thinking about how do I start to convert some of that traffic to a platform you own. So we'll dive into some more details. But I love where your head's at. I just saw that risk right out of the gate, and I was like, oh, you're. You're really onto it. You're really thinking about it. So the first thing I really want to dive into is when you're talking about getting these prospects from LinkedIn. You know, right now, on average, how many prospects are you getting per month from LinkedIn and how many would you like to get? I just kind of want to understand.

[Joe Marshall]

Where you're at well past part of the issue. I don't probably have the best data. I would say probably I hear from about 10 to 15 people a month. I would say, depending on the month, 5 to 10 actually may have a prospect meeting. Probably not. Most of them are qualified, at least for, like, our purposes. Or our field, they either aren't going to make enough if I'm incanted to pay our minimum fee or don't have the assets to hire us. And so I'm actually okay with the numbers we've, we've had, but it does feel like we're having a lot of conversations with people who never were going to hire us.

[Kendra]

That makes sense. And can you just give Taylor and I a quick hit list on the marketing activities you have in progress right now? You've got LinkedIn, what else do you have?

[Joe Marshall]

So LinkedIn is primary. I write a blog once or twice a month and I write a email newsletter twice a month and then I repost and put on LinkedIn on Twitter. But I would not call Twitter really active strategy.

[Kendra]

Okay, great. And for your LinkedIn piece, are you doing any kind of active strategy on there to reach out to your ideal avatar, which I believe is tech professionals, correct?

[Joe Marshall]

Yeah. And specifically I work with a lot of clients at my former company Procore. I mean, main reach out is I send 150 connection requests or whatever LinkedIn lets me each week to get more people seeing my stuff.

[Kendra]

Okay, awesome. Taylor, what's coming up from you straight out of the gate on some questions you'd love to get from Joe to give you some clarity.

[Taylor]

Yeah, a couple things. One, Joe, what percentage of your existing clients are Procore employees? So for those don't know, procore is a company, right? A local company to you, Joe, Although I'm sure they're got national presence. But what percentage of your existing clients are pro core employees? And then what percentage of your clients would you like in the future to be pro core employees?

[Joe Marshall]

I'll say current and former pro core employees because there's a lot of turnover in tech, which I'm fine with. I would love all of my clients to be Oreo. I would. Man, I think that mix is good. But I mean endearing more just because it makes it easier from a planning and marketing perspective when everything's what company.

[Taylor]

Okay. And then share with us a little bit more about the LinkedIn strategy. It sounds to me based on what you've shared. You know, whenever I hear like I write a blog one to two times per month or you mentioned in your notes, like my email is kind of scattered, like, so to me it tells me like there's not a lot of time and attention put on those marketing activities. It's like if I have time, those are the things I'll do. But LinkedIn sounds like the thing that you do put a Lot of time and attention into. So what does that strategy look like? Not just like posting daily, but, you know, you're sending out connection requests. I actually have a question there. What are you doing to send out 150 connection requests? Are you using a separate platform to help you do that? And if so, what is that platform?

[Joe Marshall]

I have a bunch of lists built out in Sales Navigator.

[Taylor]

Okay.

[Joe Marshall]

Kind of, yeah, I could do clean those up, but they're generally the people I want to target. Hey, somebody who's been at Protocore three or more years, you know, 10 years of experience overall. Another list would be, you know, VPs and directors of different tech companies that I know have a presence here at Santa Barbara. And so I pull open Sales Navigator. I've got like 10 or 15 lists and it says, hey, there's 14 new contacts on this list. And I just open it up and I just click send send. So I mean it only takes me about 10 minutes. And I do that pretty much each Monday. Okay. And then I post Monday through Friday and try to interact on, you know, a couple posts each day that seemed algorithm seems like that. So that's the main, that's the main strategy.

[Taylor]

Okay. And then for advisors listening, they've caught on to. You're limited to 150 new connections per day. You mentioned Sales navigate. Oh, per week. Sorry, yeah. You mentioned Sales Navigator, which is a LinkedIn service. LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which I'm guessing you have to pay for. What is the, what is the cost of using Sales Navigator to send out 150 connection requests?

[Joe Marshall]

Probably somewhere around 75 to a hundred bucks a month. I don't know the total cost, but maybe at most a thousand dollars a year if you pay yearly. Okay.

[Taylor]

So the great thing about LinkedIn or any social media channel is that it kind of serves as both your top of funnel and your middle of funnel. It's a way to, for people to find you and see you and get visibility on Joe through making those connections and just posting. And then you're middle of the funnel. You're posting daily and interacting to build trust with people and nurture and show your expertise. So that's one of the great benefits of a social media platform. What are you posting about? And then what's the process of moving people to schedule an introductory phone call with you? Is it just, well, I hope they like my content and they click to my bio and then they click to my website? Or is there something more tactical than that that's getting people onto your calendar?

[Joe Marshall]

I think something that's worked really well for me is instead of just making it like traditional education on stuff, you know, I'll write about things that are relevant to tech professionals, but I'll tailor a lot of it to what is Pro Core specific. So instead of, hey, you know, this will happen in your RSU vest, I know every Pro Core date pretty much like the back of my hand. So, hey, your RSU is best on Wednesday, for example. This is what you need to watch out for. And that really seems to resonate. Or earlier this year, hey, they had a big change to their 401k program. So I wrote a bunch of posts on that. Then some personal stuff too, which people seem to like. But you know, it's, it's just tailoring typical tech professional, but with a lot of Pro Core specifics in there. And then most people just DM me like I never have heard from them. Kind of my goal is that, you know, occasionally I'll put out a we're taking on new clients, but I don't have a very active strategy for how to get them either to the newsletter or to our website. Occasionally I'll say we're taking on new clients, but probably not very, I'm not very consistent. And so most of our success has just been, hey, somebody I've never heard from has been following along for six months to a year. And finally there's a compelling reason for them to reach out to me.

[Taylor]

Okay, I have some additional thoughts and like, ideas to take action on, but before we go there, I'm curious to better understand some of the key pain points of the Pro Core employees that you're targeting. I love that you mentioned, you know, in these daily posts that you're addressing things that are happening directly at the company. You've got that inside knowledge, you know everything about the company. So to be able to say, hey, this event is happening, here's what it means and here's how to respond. I think that's really valuable content. But, you know, there's other content that we want to address. Some of these, these bigger, you know, pain points of this person, maybe not company related, but stage of life, the amount of money they're making, the amount of, you know, taxes that they're paying, whatever it might be. What are some of those key pain points of your ideal Pro Core employee?

[Joe Marshall]

Big one is they probably have a lot of companies stocked and they have no idea what to do with it.

[Taylor]

Okay.

[Joe Marshall]

For a lot of people, it represents the majority of their wealth and they've never sold a share or sold very little of it. And I think the. What a lot of people shared is it's monopoly money, except it's not. It's hundreds or hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. And, you know, it's like, so that one's huge. Getting killed on taxes, you know, kind of a. Kind of goes with a third one is a lot of people have started making a lot of money or a lot more money than kind of ever had thought. So a lot of our clients are kind of mid. You know, kind of your classic millennial mid, late 30s, early 40s. And over the past five to 10 years, they've gone from making a decent living to really good money and, you know, just all the complexity that brings. Okay, those would probably be the big ones.

[Taylor]

Okay, awesome.

[Kendra]

I have a quick question about Procore.

[Joe Marshall]

Yeah.

[Kendra]

Is that company. Because I'm not familiar with Procore, is that company large enough to have enough employees that you could hit your growth goals if you just focused on that particular client?

[Joe Marshall]

Uh, yeah, they have about 5,000 employees.

[Kendra]

Okay.

[Joe Marshall]

Not all necessarily in the U.S. but I think I could. At least for now. I don't think that's a. That's a lifetime strategy, but the next five year strategy, it probably could.

[Kendra]

That makes sense. And so the other. You said 50% of your current clients are procure employees, and then are the other 50% just people in tech?

[Joe Marshall]

No, we were not super focused our first two years. So we have a smattering of clients kind of in different categories or all over the place.

[Kendra]

Okay, great. That gives me some good background info, and I have some thoughts. But, Taylor, if you have something you want to jump into, because I feel like you were headed in a direction there, go for that, and then I'll follow up with a few things.

[Joe Marshall]

Okay.

[Taylor]

Yeah, I mean, I love. I love Kendra. What you said in the beginning, you kind of alluded to it that, like, hey, this. If something's working, maybe it's not. What else should I be doing? But how can I do this one thing better? And, Joe, I mean, you and I have talked offline, you know, about some of your marketing stuff that you're working on. And so I know that Procore is an important niche for you. I know that LinkedIn is working. And so my mind does go towards, well, how can we just improve what we're doing on LinkedIn? Like, how can we better stitch that funnel together? How can we up, you know, the quality of the content that I'm publishing? To Kendra's point, how can I start to maybe move my ideal followers from LinkedIn to a platform that I own. So I do think setting some of this other stuff aside, setting the blog to the side, setting SEO to the side, you know, maybe setting email marketing to the side for a moment and really just like, spending a significant amount of time thinking about and working on LinkedIn. And when I say, like, when I say, like, thinking about one thing, I mean obsess over this one thing. From taking LinkedIn marketing courses to attending conferences and, you know, webinars about Linked, like, everything is just all LinkedIn. Reading books, talking to other advisors or other people having success on there, just obsessing over what am I not doing that I could be doing or what could I, you know, really improve on in my LinkedIn strategy. So to me, that's where I'd start to put my attention and I would go as far as, like, could I hire a LinkedIn consultant to come in, like, audit what I'm currently doing with my LinkedIn strategy and provide me with ideas and tips for taking it to the next level? You know, it's that, like, who not how type approach here. It might feel like I'm doing everything I possibly could. But you'd be surprised once you get somebody who has more experience and success on a platform, the value that they can add. I mean, I've gone as far as hiring a voice coach on the podcast to help improve my voice. If you go back to, like, episode one of my retirement podcast and today my voice sounds entirely different. So that's what I mean by obsessing over this one thing. You'd be surprised what you might be able to learn and how to improve what you're already doing. Second to all of that, thinking more about this funnel, Joe, and again, it's great. LinkedIn's awesome because it serves as this top of funnel. You're doing a great job of getting attention on Joe and your firm and your service model. It sounds like you're doing a great job with posting daily. You've got consistency, you've got some great topics and pain points that you've identified and that you address. To me, the missing part is like, well, then what? And it's challenging to go from followers on LinkedIn who like my content to scheduling an introductory phone call. There might need to be another kind of middle of the funnel activity where you take the followers from LinkedIn, you convert them to this other thing, and then from there it's likely much easier to convert them into a prospect and then, you know, into a client. So I know, you've mentioned offline and also in your notes that you've considered webinars. So moving those LinkedIn followers to join you for an upcoming webinar. Webinar. You're going to further educate and nurture them and show your expertise. And then at the end of the webinar, you know, if this is you, if you need professional help, go here to take action. Maybe before we discuss webinars, one thing I want to hit on, because it doesn't sound like you have a clear strategy for moving LinkedIn followers anywhere. Sounds like they just kind of DM you out of the blue here and there. That's not systematized or, you know, it's hard to predict that sort of activity. You mentioned in your notes that you've got this white paper for pro Core employees that you feel like is really great, but you haven't really done much with it. And so maybe one, like, what was that white paper written for? And if it's not on your website and you're not really doing much with, like, where. Where does it live? Like, what's. What's its purpose at the moment, then I'll. I'll share a couple of ideas I have there.

[Joe Marshall]

I think it's a big miss that we have leveraged it more. I mean, you know, I've posted on LinkedIn a couple times, and then, you know, whenever somebody reaches out to me or somebody scheduled a meeting, I always send it. And there's not really an excuse why, like, why I'm not dming, you know, pro Core executives with it. Say, hey, I wrote this IPA for Pro Core employees. Check it out. Yeah. Or something along those lines. But, yeah, there's no. There has been almost no strategy with it, which is not very smart.

[Taylor]

Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to do all these things all at once, all while trying to run your business and serve your clients. I mean, I wouldn't beat yourself up there. I've got lead magnets and white papers that are sitting in a folder somewhere too. It's like, I could be putting this stuff to you. So don't beat yourself up over it. But webinars are pretty heavy lift, right. To do a webinar consistently and do it really well, there's a lot of pieces to put together there to create a good webinar strategy. Not that you can't do it, but a smaller lift might be to better leverage this amazing white paper that you put together and that could just be your focus for the next three months. Is, I've got this amazing white paper. Maybe you go through it again and make some improvements. So it's like truly just an amazingly valuable white paper for pro core employees. And then start to think, okay, like how can I leverage my LinkedIn audience to get them to download this, you know, called a lead magnet, this, this amazing white paper. Now they're on my email list and now I can think about some sort of, you know, sequence now that they're on my email list to educate, nurture them and then ultimately convert them from my email list. That is a lighter lift than probably webinars. Not that it's easy, there's still a lot of work to be done there. That's probably a lighter lift if you're looking to take action sooner. And when you think about this white paper, I think one of the first steps is creating a great landing page for this, this white paper. And there's plenty of tools that you can use. I don't know your email marketing platform, but ConvertKit has an easy way to create landing pages. LeadPages is a separate platform that you can use to create landing pages. Or just go and hire someone to do this for you since it's probably not the best use of your time to figure it out. But a great landing page for this amazing white paper that you wrote. And now you've got this link to a landing page that you can start to share in a number of different ways on LinkedIn. Maybe if you're posting daily on LinkedIn, extremely valuable content, maybe once per week, you know, you've got some copy that's pre written that you use to publish on LinkedIn once per week to remind people of this amazing white paper. To your point, maybe you also have a strategy to DM people, inviting them to visit this landing page and download that white paper. But it's a step in the right direction to start to pour gas on something that's working and just start to move people to the next stage of your funnel. Because I do think it's going to be challenging. Just like I hope somebody DMs me, you know, I don't really have a clear call to action. And they don't really know who I am. They just kind of like my posts here and there. I think there's got to be like another stage there to further get to know Joe and how Joe can help them.

[Kendra]

Awesome, I love that. And you know, really, Joe, what you're asking is, you know, how do I take my firm to the next level? And one of the things that I think about with LinkedIn and really any social platform and content is right now you have the consistency dialed in, you're posting consistently, but the next step becomes quality and the third step becomes conversion. So I'm looking at your LinkedIn and I think you're doing a solid job. However, the posts could be 10x better. I think you're already doing a great job as just a general advisor, but when I look at what it takes to crush on LinkedIn, exactly what Taylor said, you have to be obsessed. So a really good resource that I love is Justin Welsh. He has a LinkedIn course. I don't know if you've taken that one. That guy's a total gangster on LinkedIn and he really talks about, you know, dialing in, turning your LinkedIn to more. When I look at LinkedIn and any social platform, really, I like to look at that as its own funnel. So when we think about LinkedIn becoming a mini funnel for you, I start to look at what does your banner copy at the top look like? What does your copy and your about page look like? What kind of messages are you sending on outreach? So, for example, when you're sending messages to connect, you can test copy there. That alone, you could hire someone, a killer copywriter, and be like, hey, here's who I'm targeting, here's what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to start a conversation. How do I get a conversation going? And then exactly what Taylor said. Now you build this landing page and then there's different ways to slowly move people off of a platform like LinkedIn to a platform you own, which email is a great one. A simple way to do that. The first one is just in. If you turn on the creator profile, you'll have the opportunity to add, you know, those featured resources up top. And I would put your new white paper there, you know, and then I'd put Call booking there. I put those two there. I don't add a lot. I go for less is more. I want them to take one or two of those actions. So those are a couple of things I think about on the turning your LinkedIn kind of ecosystem into a funnel. And then there's a lot of really granular tactics around how to convert, you know, by sharing your landing page in the comments and things like that, you get really deep into LinkedIn strategy. And that's where I'd love to see you go. Because the thing, Joe, that I love is you're already having success, so you're halfway there. If you can just Stay focused and get obsessed with LinkedIn. You know, I would set a goal for yourself. Hey, once I start adding, you know, let's say 25 to 50 people a month to my email list, then I'm going to start. I'm going to start taking my email marketing seriously. That's where I'd like to see you go next. Nurturing those people as far as on the LinkedIn front and how you would, you know, kind of then transition to your next strategy, which I think would be email. The one thing I'd like to say, though, about converting social followers into email subscribers is it's hard. These platforms are built for the opposite. They do not want you to take their eyeballs off of their platform. So do not be discouraged. Be curious when you start to work on this process. I do this for a living and it is very hard. It is very hard to do. And just because it's hard doesn't mean you're doing a bad job. You just need to look at a lot of different angles, a lot of different ways, diversify your approach. And then on the content strategy, you know, a couple of things popping up for me on your content pieces, like how you could make some of those posts better is here's what I think about top three things is what are your favorite clients asking you? One question, one post. What should they be asking you that they're not asking you one question, one post. And also, what are you doing behind the scenes? What's interesting? And I want you to think about all the advisors, you know, and all the stuff they talk about. And I want you to avoid talking about everything they talk about. Like, just don't even go there. Like, that's one really simple way to stand out as an advisor. And you'll see this. Like, if you look at the way I post on LinkedIn is like, someone's like, email marketing is good. And I'm like, duh. We all know that. But what I would post, like, this is a post I haven't written, but it's in my head, is why email unsubscribes are a good thing. It's totally counterintuitive, but it's true, right? And so I want you to think about that as an advisor is what is the opposite? Like, think about everything everybody else is saying to your ideal client and don't say any of that. Like, where could you, like, swerve outside of the obvious and talk about things that are interesting or the things they should be asking you? What do you know that they don't know, because we know that most people hire an advisor. One of the biggest things they want to do is find out, what do you know that I should be working on or planning for or preparing for in my finances that I don't know. And if you can point that out, all of a sudden they're like, well, what else does Joe know that I don't know? So those are a couple of tips. When I think about how to turn LinkedIn into a little mini marketing ecosystem. Double down, obsess, get curious, try a bunch of different things. But the way you do that and then is it just takes that really lasering in on that and then add on to that the email piece. Once you hit a certain number of subscribers a month till you get there, it's going to be a waste of your time. And you'd be better served just focusing on, how do I become a total.

[Taylor]

Gangster at LinkedIn, Joe, if this will resonate with you. But every single day, I pay attention to, like, how I respond to things, whether it's on a marketing thing or I'm being onboarded by a new service provider I hired. Like, I'm always paying attention, like, how do I respond and feel about things? So I want to highlight, you know, as we're talking about this LinkedIn strategy and, like, what more you can be doing there. Think about how you ended up here right now. It was a LinkedIn post that took you to a landing page that resonated with you. You know, Kendra and I have built up some trust with advisors in the industry. You resonated with that landing page. Something struck a chord with you. You put your name and email in that landing page. We then sent you an email inviting you to join us here on the show.

[Joe Marshall]

That's.

[Taylor]

That's a little mini funnel right there. That, again, you responded well to. And you think through, like, you know, how, how and why did that work for me and why did that kind of, you know, why. Why did that resonate and strike a chord with me? The same thing. Like, you know, Joe's LinkedIn takes somebody to a landing page, really strikes a chord. They join the email list. I take them through an email funnel. I invite them to, I don't know, a webinar or schedule an intro call. Like, we respond to these funnels every single day. Sometimes we don't realize, like, oh, gosh, yeah, it did come from LinkedIn. It was a landing video.

[Kendra]

Like, I see them. I see masterminding here.

[Joe Marshall]

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, yeah.

[Taylor]

So, and then before we Run out of time. I know one of your, your key questions was, you know, what else should I be doing? And what about SEO? And I think SEO is great, but I think there's too much, like, good stuff going right now. I mean, this white paper is just sitting there in the basement doing nothing. Like, I would ignore SEO for right now. It could be a potential strategy down the road, but I mean, you're going to spend a lot of time and a lot of money on SEO in the beginning and then it's going to take, you know, one to three years to start to see any sort of success there. So I don't want to discourage you from considering it, but I think you've got enough things that are going really well right now to spend your time and energy there. And I will second Justin Welsh. He is just one of a handful of amazing people on LinkedIn strategy. Like, I would go buy his course tomorrow, consume all of his content. He's done some great interviews. I know he's done one on Jay Klaus's podcast. Be well worth a listen to. But people like him outside of our industry I would pay really close attention to. And maybe Joe, before we do part ways, we're happy to spend a little bit extra time here, but we've been talking a lot. Like, what questions are on your mind as you hear all this? Like, are there any additional things on your mind that we can help chat through before we part ways?

[Joe Marshall]

One is super helpful because I think I have a tendency to try to go do 40, 70 things and this is like, hey, just keep, just refine and get better at what's already working. So I think that really resonates with me. I think the only other not concerned, but I, you know, well, I guess maybe if it really works, do I just continue meeting with people who aren't cut target fit? You know, I still kind of have that problem of meeting with a lot of people and so I'm, I'm wondering if I need to not wondering. I think I need to clean up like maybe some of the website and some of the language or when people book a call to help themselves select out. For lack of better word.

[Taylor]

Yeah, no, you, I mean, you absolutely have to take ownership over that. It's not their fault, you know, that they're scheduling and they're not a fit. That's the last stage of your funnel there and I'd be totally fine with you starting there. Before you do anything else, let's clean up that, that bottom of the funnel. Because when those people ultimately land on my website because they will right through your funnel some shape or form, they're going to end up on your website to go and schedule that call. That messaging needs to speak to them, those pain points need to speak to them. That, you know, going to schedule an introductory call needs to be really clear about who this is and isn't a good fit for. I've been down this journey. I've documented and shared a lot of it. Right now, if you go to the landing page on our website, the free retirement assessment page, which is where you go to schedule a call, you'll see a brand new form that we worked really hard on that has conditional logic built in. We're already telling them who is and isn't a good fit, but we acknowledge not everybody reads everything or remembers. So that conditional logic takes them through the form and if they're not a fit, there's a nice message just like, hey, it's not you, it's us. We don't have the right expertise to help or, you know, our fees are pretty high and doesn't sound like you have the right complexity, doesn't make sense type thing. And then here's some other financial planners to consider who might be a better fit. So that might be a good place to start knowing that, like you're going to start to drum up more prospects by throwing gas on LinkedIn. Maybe you do start with the website and the. And the schedule call funnel.

[Joe Marshall]

Awesome. That's super helpful.

[Kendra]

Yeah. And just for some practical pieces on how we drill down into the execution of that, you know, there's a tool called Jotform. There's a ton of tools out there that you can use. And I think as an advisor, when you're getting a decent amount of calls and a large chunk of them are not qualified, you have reached the point where creating some kind of conditional logic flow is a good use of time. Because what I've seen is I've built these conditional logic flows and you can cut out, you know, let's say 50% of your calls, you get that time back, and then all of a sudden you can reinvest that back into your marketing efforts that are winning. And like Taylor said at the end too, you don't have a couple of those resources and then you don't have to feel like a terrible human because they're just left high and dry and you're continuing to educate and things like that. So I think that's a great use of time. The other thing I would think about, just as Far as, like where my brain goes on, if I got to build your Lego pieces and where you went next. You know, I think the prospect form is great. Doubling down on LinkedIn, once you get to a certain amount of success and you're pulling, you're moving people from LinkedIn to your email list, let's just say 25, maybe 50 subscribers a month would be great. And then the other thing is your website. I do think you have a lot of opportunity on the website, but I don't want you to go down a black hole. There are three key pages that make the biggest impact when it comes to designing a website that converts. The first is a homepage. The second is the about page. The third is your services. Unless you list your fees, that one's going to pop right to the top. The other thing to think about when it comes to improving your website is remember that great copy can save bad design, but great design will not save bad copy. And all that means is the words that you write on your website are the most important thing. It doesn't have to look beautiful, but if it sounds and it's written in the language that your customers use and it's answering questions they actually ask in your customer's words, not your words, you're already 50% of the way there. So don't be discouraged about having to rebuild a website. Just start with a homepage. Once you get to that point, that's where I would go. The form Double down on LinkedIn. Once you're getting people off LinkedIn, work on your email and you know, work on that website after that.

[Joe Marshall]

Awesome. Thank you so much. This is incredible.

[Kendra]

Yeah, any, any follow up questions that are just lingering for you or anything we can clarify to make sure that you can walk away and take some clear defined action?

[Joe Marshall]

I don't think so. Not at this point. No. This is super helpful.

[Kendra]

Well, Joe, I just want to let you know that I'm really impressed with what you're doing on LinkedIn. I know a lot of advisors are trying to find a way to get attention there, talk to great people, you know, discuss the kind of work that they do and you're already winning there. I do think you have some opportunities at the website, but honestly, I think your LinkedIn is where I would invest time, energy and any marketing dollars that you want to spend. I'd hire, you know, Potentially consider some LinkedIn experts, maybe designer on your banner, you know, make sure you got that new lead magnet that you have. And I'd also just like to remind you, like You've already got that, that asset, so let's rock that thing. Let's, let's put that in there. And you don't have to worry about jumping into SEO maybe one day, but right now you're doing a great job.

[Joe Marshall]

Awesome. Thank you too, so much. Really appreciate your time so much.

[Kendra]

All right, everyone, we hope you enjoyed that conversation with Joe. We dove into a couple areas that were really fascinating, particularly around how you take viewers on channels like LinkedIn or other social media platforms and you start to move them to channels that you own, like email, or you start to encourage a call booking or a conversation. So as we wrap up here, a couple things are really coming to mind for me. And the first one is what do you have collecting on your marketing shelf that is halfway done? What's that low hanging fruit that, if you could just drag that over the finish line, could be an amazing marketing asset for your firm. Because all the time and energy and attention and money that we put into building resources like the white page that Joe has, which is probably pretty awesome. None of it matters until it's out in the world and we're getting feedback on it. So Joe could share this new white paper. And it's amazing. Joe could share and it's terrible. He could get terrible feedback, but he has no idea. So I would love for you to consider, what do you have half done that you know, could potentially make an impact and get that out into the world? Before you start building more, I want you to ask, what have I already have half built? The second thing that's really coming to mind for me is when we look at channels like LinkedIn and Twitter and YouTube, these other places that we go to get attention from people and eyeballs, I love to think of them as their own little micro sales funnel. So as Joe was sharing, he has all this good content going out and he has some opportunities there to level that up. But how is he turning that into a process that organically and gracefully moves the attention from LinkedIn to a platform he owns? So if you have a Twitter account that you're publishing heavily on or a YouTube channel, I want you to think about what's my next step for moving this viewer to a platform I own and just start to think of it as a little micro sales page. What, what can you improve? What can you tweak? What can you try and really build that into its own little marketing ecosystem? Taylor, what's coming up for you after a conversation with Joe?

[Joe Marshall]

Yeah, I mean, I just want to.

[Taylor]

First acknowledge, like, hopefully Listeners can hear how much easier the marketing conversation becomes once the niche is clear. Joe knows that you know what type of pro core employee he's targeting. He wants more of them. He's very familiar with the company. He's identified a handful of pain points that he knows his ideal client at Procore is up against. So, like, that hard work that's been done makes these marketing conversations much easier. It's like, okay, I know where Procore employees live and consume content. I can use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to target them. I can, you know, post daily about things that I know resonate with them. Like, it just starts to become a little bit easier. There's obviously still a lot more work to do, but I'm hoping the listeners here that these conversations become a little bit easier and to me, more fun once that, you know, that stuff is nailed down. Also, consistency. I mean, it's great to hear that Joe is really consistent with LinkedIn. Every Monday he uses LinkedIn Sales Navigator and that he's posting daily. So I think he's doing some things that are really, really well. One of the things that I really like that you said during the conversation was, I think you just kind of alluded to this is we might think that we're doing something really well. We might think that we're great behind the microphone and have a great podcast. And that might be true. But that doesn't mean that you can't 10x exit. That doesn't mean you can't get better. Just because something is working and subscribers are growing and the podcast is growing and maybe your firm is growing as a result. It doesn't mean you can't continue to improve. So want to be careful about, like, okay, I'm doing a good job on LinkedIn. I'm being consistent. I've got followers, I'm getting some DMS. To me, that's a signal. It's like, okay, it's working, but how can we pour gas? How can I get even better? How can I learn from people that have been doing this longer, these experts inside and outside of our industry? So don't fool yourself into thinking just because something's working it means I should go do something else. It might mean, it usually means like, okay, how can I get better at this thing? How can I improve? And there's so many different ways you can go about it from Justin Welsh and the courses he's produced and the content he's produced around LinkedIn. I mean, again, there's 10 other Justin Welsh's that are out there. There are great consultants that you can hire, so the list goes on. And then lastly, I do think that moving people to your own platform is really, really, really, really critical. You could have a massive following. I think about, although I know he is, he's smart, he knows what he's doing here. But I think about my friend Jeremy Schneider, personal finance club on Instagram, you know, 500,000 or more followers on Instagram. Fantastic. To my knowledge, Jeremy hasn't done a whole lot to move that audience to his own platform. Although I know he's got a community on his website. I know he is selling courses and so know that those are now some platforms that he owns and he can better target and, you know, speak to his audience. But if Instagram goes away tomorrow, right, he loses a very large percentage of his audience. So moving people to your own platform is something to really pay attention to. It really hit me. I've been running my podcast for I think five or six years now, and it hit me that, gosh, like my entire audience lives on the other end of this microphone and I have no other way to really reach out to them other than hit record and publish and hopefully they respond. And so two years ago I made it a point to start to move listeners to my email list. And it's been a huge focus of mine and now we're creeping up just in two years on over 5,000 people that have joined the email list, mostly from call to actions from the podcast. So very intentional about that strategy to start to move people. Now we talk about, you know, one of our prior conversations today about repurposing content. Well, let's say that I do go and start a YouTube channel, right? Well, now I've got not only my podcast audience that I can go to and be like, hey, check out my YouTube channel. But now I have an email list of 5,000 plus people that I can also invite to subscribe to my new YouTube channel. Now it becomes a lot easier for me to repurpose content or start a new other platform because I already have an existing audience over here. So a lot of great things that Joe is doing, I we didn't get there, but I love the idea of doing webinars, taking LinkedIn audience and inviting them to quarterly webinars. It's just another way to again, get to know people. They see you, they hear you, build trust, show expertise. You have a lot higher conversion rate from, from webinar participants to intro calls than straight from LinkedIn to intro calls.

[Kendra]

And I love about the webinars that you didn't say this is a bad idea. You just said it's not the best idea to put your energy into. Now, it's a great idea, but you're actually winning because if you build up more of your LinkedIn following interaction, when you do launch those webinars, that you're going to have a better response. The other thing that comes up for me too is, you know, I talk about this every once in a while, that, you know, people, the way that social platforms work is sometimes people quit social media. They don't quit email. You know, a platform can get shut down. You know, there's. There's just different dynamics. There's, you know, certain platforms we know people are moving to and from. You know, LinkedIn has had a bit of a resurgence. Twitter, or X, depending on what you like to call it, is a little bit. And like the not, you know, it's a little bit testy right now. Facebook, you know, also has gotten a little bit of a different rap. You know, just over time, things change.

[Taylor]

Right.

[Kendra]

But what I find is interesting is when LinkedIn or Twitter. Twitter wants you to know something, what do they do? They email you. They say, hey, Taylor Schulte commented on your post, Right? And so it really shows you that when social can't get your attention, where do they go? They go to email. And so that's one of the things I think about when it comes to bringing those eyeballs and that attention off of a platform that you don't own to one that you do. And the other thing that you said that I really loved, and this is a perfect example of what we have talked about today, is just mastery. You said, I hired a voice coach for my podcast. Taylor Salty hired a voice coach. That's amazing. And also, when would you have been able to really think about the minutia of podcasting if you hadn't really gotten focused on being an excellent podcaster? Not good, not great. Excellent. And that's how you really start to stand out. Because what's interesting about these different platforms, people feel like they're competing against all, you know, let's just say on LinkedIn, oh, there's a ton of people posting on LinkedIn. Two, you know, 18 months from now, 95% of the people that you're competing against on podcasting or LinkedIn, they're not.

[Joe Marshall]

Going to be there.

[Kendra]

They're going to give up. So you're actually not competing against a ton of people. You're actually just competing to outlast them and put good content out there. So I know it feels noisy, but I think that mastery piece is one of those ways that you stand out and stay consistent over time.

[Taylor]

One thing that hits me, as you say, all that is, you know, I didn't hire a voice coach on day one. I didn't, like, hired the voice coach before I launched the podcast. Right. I think it can be really easy to get distracted by these things before you actually go and do them, before you actually go and hit publish or begin creating this process to write on LinkedIn. So there's a reason why we're telling Joe now to go buy Justin Welsh's course, right. Or go consume content about getting better on LinkedIn. It's because he's already doing it, he's consistent with it. He has a good process. He's seen some success. Now we're saying double down, triple down, right? So I'll share this. Kendra, for our listeners here, I think this podcast right now that we're doing is a great example of this. We don't even have a name for this show. We don't even have cover art for the show. We don't have a website for this show. Right. We're doing the hard work first, which is let's get some guests on the show and let's hit record and let's hit publish on this thing. The other stuff is the fun stuff, the easy stuff. But it's so easy to get distracted with that stuff in the beginning. You know, choosing the name, choosing the COVID art, choosing the logos, building the website. That's all fun stuff. Hiring the voice coach, those are avoid sometimes, you know, avoidance, you know, activities. So I just want to highlight that, like, this stuff is great, but, you know, there's a time in place for it that we want to do the hard work first, you know, get some time under our belt, build those processes, be consistent, and then we can go hire these people to help us take it to the next level.

[Kendra]

It reminds me of this quip I heard once that was, if you want to be a runner, you can't just read a running magazine. You have to run.

[Taylor]

Yeah, but I'd rather read the magazine.

[Kendra]

Of course, we all would. We'd all rather buy the shiny thing. We'd all rather, before we start the podcast, get the voice coach. Oh, if I'm going to be a podcaster, I need a voice coach. The way I like to look at it is okay if I get to X amount of episodes, the way I'm going to reward myself is was a shiny thing, you know, so that's a good way to leverage the things you want to do, but make yourself do that hard, scary work first. So I love that. I love that you shared the background background of the voice coach. And again, you wouldn't have gotten to that point if you hadn't put the hard work in first. So I think everyone listening today is going to get some great stuff out of it. I learned some great things. And for everyone listening, if you would love to be on the show, you'd like to get a chance at the next slot. So we're going to link in the show notes, a landing page that you can sign up for and you can jump on just like Joe or shoot us your question. It'll be really easy to reach us if you sign up for that email list. You can hit reply to any email that we send out and send us your question. Or when we release the next round of interview opportunities, you can take advantage of those. So thanks so much for listening today. We're excited for you to hear it and we'll talk to you soon. 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 weekend.