Advice Line: Why No One Is Showing Up To Your Webinars (Ross Blount)

Summary

Advisor Marketing Made Simple: Episode Summary

Title: Advice Line: Why No One Is Showing Up To Your Webinars (Ross Blount)
Release Date: June 25, 2025
Host/Authors: Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright
Guest: Ross Blount, Springbok Wealth

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Introduction

In this episode of Advisor Marketing Made Simple, hosts Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright welcome Ross Blount from Springbok Wealth. Ross, a seasoned financial advisor with 13 years of experience, recently launched his solo advisory firm and is currently generating $160,000 in revenue. His goal is to scale to $500,000 in revenue within the next five years. Ross seeks guidance on increasing attendance for his webinars, which have so far failed to attract live participants despite having registrants.

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Understanding Ross's Current Clientele and Marketing Efforts

Identifying the Ideal Client Profile (ICP): Ross initially targeted business owners for retirement and exit planning. However, after nine months with minimal traction, he pivoted to focus on pre-retirees and retirees. Currently, about 10% of his clients are business owners, while the majority are pre-retirees.

"When I first launched my business, my whole focus was working with business owners. So I really wanted to help them with retirement planning, exit planning, et cetera. But nine months into launching, I was not getting much traction at all. So I went back to what I knew previously and working with pre retirees and retirees."
— Ross Blount [00:37]

Current Marketing Channels: Ross relies heavily on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Local Service Ads, investing around $2,000 monthly on an SEO agency and an additional $1,500 to $2,500 on Google ads. Most of his leads come from online searches such as "financial advisor near me" or "retirement planning."

"So majority, if not most of my leads that come in or prospects that come in are actually finding me on Google."
— Ross Blount [02:45]

He also promotes his webinars primarily through Facebook and LinkedIn ads, along with email invites to his existing (albeit small) list and referrals from Centers of Influence (COIs).

"So on the webinars, it's mostly been through Facebook and LinkedIn is where I've been promoting those."
— Ross Blount [05:04]

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Challenges with Webinar Attendance

Despite multiple attempts, Ross has struggled to garner live attendance for his webinars. He has hosted three to four webinars with registrations hindered by bots and a lack of genuine participants.

"All three of them haven't had anyone attend. I've had some people sign up, but no attendees, unfortunately."
— Ross Blount [00:33]

He mentioned issues such as "bots" infiltrating his sign-up process, resulting in registrations from non-serious prospects.

"There were bots. Well, what I figured were bots because there were no names, you know, incorrect phone numbers, strange email addresses."
— Ross Blount [07:44]

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Hosts' Analysis and Recommendations

Focus on Niche and ICP Refinement: Kendra and Taylor emphasize the importance of clearly defining Ross's target audience. They suggest narrowing down his ICP beyond just "pre-retirees" to specific professions or demographics to create more tailored and compelling webinar content.

"Start with what are the three to five pain points that you're really excited to solve and you're really good at helping them solve...then backing into who has these sort of pain points."
— Taylor Schulte [10:18]

Platform Optimization: The hosts recommend evaluating the effectiveness of different advertising platforms. They point out that LinkedIn offers more precise targeting options, such as job titles, which might be more effective for Ross's audience compared to the broader, interest-driven targeting on Facebook.

"Facebook is more interest driven so that even the platform can really change. So you're really looking at a couple things here on the paid ads front for webinars. One we touched on is who are we targeting? Then I think, which platform are we going to run ads?"
— Kendra Wright [22:19]

Investing in Expertise: Both hosts stress the value of hiring specialists, particularly those experienced in webinar marketing for financial advisors. Taylor recounts his own experience of learning the intricacies of YouTube marketing only after hiring experts, suggesting Ross could benefit similarly by investing in a webinar-focused marketing agency.

"I do think it would go a really long way to go and find and interview, you know, three or four webinar focused agencies...because it, it is a heavy lift and it is easier to go hire that expert to help you go through this process."
— Taylor Schulte [26:40]

Content Strategy: They advise creating a content calendar centered around a few core topics that address specific pain points of the target audience. Repeating and repurposing these topics can build familiarity and trust, leading to higher engagement over time.

"I don't think you need to challenge yourself like every single week I have to come up with like a new, a new topic...you lay out a three-month content calendar and just rotate those topics."
— Taylor Schulte [34:10]

Leveraging Existing Channels: Ross is encouraged to maximize his successful SEO efforts while reallocating funds from underperforming strategies to enhance his webinar marketing funnel. This includes possibly reducing expenditure on SEO to invest more in targeted webinar promotions.

"I think you'll survive. I would like to see it more focused."
— Kendra Wright [17:20]

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Actionable Steps for Ross

1. Refine Target Audience:

   • Define a more specific ICP by identifying professions or demographics within the pre-retiree segment.
   • Document the top three to five pain points that Ross excels in addressing.

2. Optimize Ad Platforms:

   • Analyze performance on Facebook vs. LinkedIn.
   • Consider focusing more on the platform that yields higher quality leads.

3. Invest in Webinar Expertise:

   • Research and hire a specialized webinar marketing agency.
   • Explore resources such as the KITA Summit recordings, particularly David Sandu’s session on webinar marketing.

4. Develop a Focused Content Calendar:

   • Create a set of core webinar topics that address specific client pain points.
   • Rotate and repurpose these topics to maintain consistency and build audience familiarity.

5. Reallocate Marketing Budget:

   • Shift funds from less effective SEO efforts towards enhancing the webinar marketing strategy.
   • Ensure budget allocation supports a singular, focused marketing funnel for better predictability.

6. Enhance Webinar Offerings:

   • Incorporate interactive elements like Q&A sessions to increase engagement.
   • Personalize content to cater to the refined ICP.

7. Leverage Existing Local Service Ads:

   • Continue investing in relatively cost-effective local service ads to maintain a steady flow of new clients while building the webinar funnel.

"I believe in outsourcing wherever I can and yes, it's going to cost more, it's going to save me a lot of time, it's going to save me a lot of frustration and it's going to help drive the end result a lot faster."
— Ross Blount [30:13]

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Conclusion

Taylor and Kendra provide Ross with a clear roadmap to enhance his webinar attendance and overall marketing strategy. By refining his target audience, optimizing ad platforms, investing in specialized expertise, and developing a focused content calendar, Ross can create a more effective and predictable marketing funnel. The hosts emphasize the importance of concentrating efforts and resources on strategies that align with Ross's strengths and business goals, ultimately aiming to help him achieve his revenue targets.

"Less is more, better focus, more results, not the other way around."
— Kendra Wright [35:18]

Ross departs the conversation with actionable insights and a renewed strategy to tackle his webinar attendance challenges, embodying the show's mission to simplify and amplify financial advisor marketing strategies.

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Key Takeaways:

• Clearly define and refine your ideal client profile.
• Optimize and possibly narrow down advertising platforms based on where your target audience is most active.
• Invest in specialized expertise to streamline and enhance your marketing efforts.
• Develop a focused and repeatable content strategy to build trust and engagement.
• Allocate your marketing budget towards strategies that yield the highest returns and align with your business objectives.

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For more insights and actionable strategies, tune into future episodes of Advisor Marketing Made Simple with Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright.

Transcript

[Kendra]

Hey, it's Kendra and Taylor, and we're here to make Advisor Marketing simple. Today's guest is Ross from Springbok Wealth. He's been an advisor for 13 years, and he launched his own firm a year and a half ago as a solo advisor. He's currently generating $160,000 in revenue, and he wants to grow to $500,000 in revenue in the next five years. Welcome to Advisor Marketing Made Simple. Ross, what's that big question you want to dive into today?

[Ross]

So I would like to know how I could get more people attracted to my webinars that I've been trying to do. I've really been marketing through Facebook, through LinkedIn, through email, and I've put on or hosted three or four different webinars and unfortunately, all three of them haven't had anyone attend. I've had some people sign up, but no attendees, unfortunately.

[Kendra]

Okay, awesome. I want to dive into more details on that here in a moment, but before we do that, tell me a little bit more about who you love to serve your ideal client. I noticed on your website I. I see a mention of, you know, individuals and business owners. You know, tell me, who do you love to serve? Is it one? Both?

[Ross]

Yeah. Good question. So interesting. When I first launched my business, my whole focus was working with business owners. So I really wanted to help them with retirement planning, exit planning, et cetera. But nine months into, into launching, I was not getting much traction at all. So I went back to what I knew previously and working with pre retirees and retirees. So now my focus, well, now I work a lot more with those individuals who are 10 years, 5, 10 years before retirement and just starting retirement. So it's a little bit mix of both. But my primary focus and the majority of my clients have been pre retirees.

[Kendra]

Okay. When we look at your kind of book of clients, give me a ballpark. What percentage of them would you say are the business owner versus the pre retiree?

[Ross]

I would say it's probably 10% business owners, if I look at the entire book.

[Taylor]

Yeah.

[Kendra]

Okay. And for those clients you do have, how have they been finding you?

[Ross]

So majority, if not most of my leads that come in or prospects that come in are actually finding me on Google. So they're doing a search of financial advisor near me or retirement planning, and I'll show up there. I've been doing a lot really since I started being working on SEO, um, and then doing local service ads. And that's really drawn the majority of people who reach out to me and Find me online.

[Kendra]

Tell me a little bit more about what you've been doing there on the SEO front. So you mentioned local service ads. Are you also doing optimized blog content? Are you doing any kind of on website optimization? What does that piece look like for you?

[Ross]

Yes, so I, I did hire a marketing group, local marketing group, to focus on the SEO content for me. But what they do is, yes, they do optimize the website as much as possible. They're doing bi weekly blogs for me and then they are doing some backlink work as well to get the SEO ranked higher.

[Taylor]

Really quick, just to jump in, because this is a common question, I get how much are you paying this agency?

[Ross]

So currently it's 2000amonth is what I'm paying them. Okay. That does not include any of the Google, you know, marketing ads or Google expenses.

[Kendra]

And what are you spending on the ads for?

[Ross]

Google ranges anywhere from 1500 to 2,500amonth, just depending on the clicks and time frame, et cetera.

[Kendra]

That makes a lot of sense. And often we see that when you do hire an agency for paid traffic, there's going to be a management fee and there's going to be an ad fee. And the ad fee can change based off, you know, how much you want to spend or your budget.

[Ross]

Yeah. So I have put limits on, you know, how much I want to spend on local service ads or the ppc. So I do put limits on that. Otherwise I have had times where it's been much more than that amount and that is not great for my budget.

[Kendra]

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about what you're actively doing right now. You mentioned, you know, you're, you're driving to webinars. It sounds like you're doing some Facebook ads and some Google Ads. Is that correct?

[Ross]

Correct. So on the, for the webinars, it's mostly been through Facebook and LinkedIn is where I've been promoting those. Then I would also send out an invite to clients or prospects, anyone on my email list, which is relatively small. I also send it out to cois for any of their clients who may be interested. But for the webinars, it's purely Facebook.

[Kendra]

And LinkedIn and we're talking about ads there, correct?

[Ross]

Correct. Yes.

[Kendra]

Perfect. Any additional marketing activities other than Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, and then sending communication to COIs or clients?

[Ross]

No, those have been the primary drivers there.

[Kendra]

Let's talk a little bit about how you, as an advisor, love to educate people. I know you're looking at the webinar Path Are, do you enjoy that? Are you excited about that, the speaking element, Webinars?

[Ross]

I, I do, yeah. I, I, it's extremely nerve wracking, but I do enjoy them. I think it's a good way to, to help educate people in a, you know, hopefully a relaxing environment. So I, I do enjoy, you know, educating through, through webinars. Perfect.

[Kendra]

Now let me, let me ask you a question about your ads. So you're running Facebook ads and LinkedIn ads to I'm assuming maybe a webinar sign up, a lead magnet. Tell me about what that offer looks like from the paid ad side.

[Ross]

Yes, so it really is to a sign up sheet. Sign up through to our webinar. I've tried several different titles and several different descriptions, you know, to, to attract different people. So I've got a lot of ab testing going on within Facebook, you know, just to try get something that works. I haven't read out on.

[Kendra]

Are we sending this to that traditional pre retiree? Is that who you're targeting with your webinars?

[Ross]

Correct. Yes.

[Kendra]

Okay. And give me any couple examples of maybe some webinar titles or topics that you've promoted.

[Ross]

So some of them, just off the top of my head would be planning for income in retirement, what is your spending capacity in retirement, you know, potential taxes in retirement, how to invest correctly for retirement.

[Kendra]

Okay, now let's think about this. You're sending an ad to the pre retiree, ideal client there. And you're sending topics with us. Are you getting registrations for these? Are the ads working?

[Ross]

No, I, I had in the last campaign, probably less than 10 people register and somehow there were bots. Well, what, what I figured were bots because there were no names, you know, incorrect phone numbers, strange email addresses. So only bots were really signing up, which was frustrating, obviously. No actual real people.

[Kendra]

Okay. And one quick question. So mental flag post for me. When I think about the webinar funnel right now I have a little bit of a inkling popping up around who we're targeting and then the offer we're making. Now one additional thing, and I want to hear what Taylor has got on his mind is you said you're getting found through local search as well. Is that driving new clients for you?

[Ross]

Effectively it is, yes.

[Kendra]

Okay.

[Ross]

Yeah. So on average I probably get, I'd say three to four new clients a month through that.

[Kendra]

Oh, interesting. And can you tell me a little bit more about what's driving the interest in webinar versus some of that, that search versus SEO?

[Ross]

Yeah. So with the Local service ads I've built pretty much have maxed out the search parameters on there. So people obviously have to search more and we can't really.

[Kendra]

Yeah, there might not be enough people searching that you can buy an ad in front of them, basically.

[Ross]

Exactly. Yeah. So we've ma. I've maxed that channel out as much as possible. Oftentimes. Most months I don't even hit anywhere close to my max capacity or max spend on that. Um, so the, the webinars for me was just, you know, I've heard so many successful advisors who conference after conference saying they grew their. Their clientele through webinars or seminars. And so I figured, you know, I enjoy doing something like that, so I hate writing blogs. I hate doing social media posts on a daily basis. So I figured at least, you know, this is another channel for me to, to reach out and connect with more people.

[Kendra]

The good news is we won't push you down any of those avenues. So I'm excited to hear that, you know, what you enjoy. What I'm hearing so far is that your ideal client is the, you know, pre retiree five to 10 years out. You're primarily using SEO and paid traffic to try and fill webinars. Is that a good recap?

[Ross]

Correct? Yes.

[Kendra]

Perfect. Taylor, what's coming up for you?

[Taylor]

It looks like the SEO tool that I use, it looks like most of your traffic is coming through keywords around hourly planning, hourly financial advisor, hourly financial planning, hour hourly financial planners. Are you excited about building a business around hourly planning? Like how integral is that a part of your service model and marketing?

[Ross]

Yes, my business is working out In, I would say 50, 50 of revenue from planning and revenue from AUM. So with that planning, you know, offering a package of let's, you know, maybe it's someone who just has a few questions, but oftentimes that leads to something much bigger. So someone may come to me and say, you know, just I need some help with putting together a budget, for example, that turns into a much bigger financial plan, which is an ongoing revenue subscription. So I find that, you know, a lot of people don't want to necessarily commit to something out the gate that, you know, several thousand dollars. So they would rather. Let's answer a couple questions. Now, obviously knowing that the information that we provide, all the answers we could provide, is only as good as the information we have. So that's where it leads to a more fulfilling financial plan.

[Taylor]

Okay. I mean, how excited are you about attracting people that are actively searching for an hourly financial planner? Maybe I'LL just, I'll share my opinion that if somebody is actively going to Google and typing in hourly financial planner, they're already looking at this as a transactional relationship. They're saying, I don't need full service wealth management. I know there's hourly planners out there. I've heard of them before. So I'm going to go to Google and I'm going to, I'm going to type it into Google and I'm going to look for somebody that can pay for a few hours of my time. How do you feel about attracting more people like that?

[Ross]

To be honest? I mean, it's, it's more for a revenue generator than anything else. I honestly don't see it as a long term business plan, but especially, you know, just getting started up in the independent space, you know, that for me is my foot in the door in a lot of cases. Um, I don't see it, as I mentioned, I don't see it being a long term, long term process, but at least it does help every now and again.

[Taylor]

Okay. And then I just want to make sure I'm understanding how you're thinking about the marketing. Does SEO and hiring this SEO agency in your mind support the webinar marketing at all? Or are you looking at those two things completely independently?

[Ross]

They completely separate?

[Taylor]

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

[Ross]

Yeah. The, the Rabino stuff is I'm doing all on my own, so trying to figure that out. So. Okay. Yeah.

[Taylor]

I mean, I think what's so awesome about your situation is you're very clear about what you like doing and what you don't like doing. Like, I love hearing you say like, like I hate doing these things and that's great. Like, take note of that and don't do those things. The other great thing is that you're willing to spend money to grow your business, like a significant amount of money to grow your business. I'm just not so sure that the money is being optimized properly. And so if you're willing to reallocate some of those dollars and really commit to just building one solid, amazing marketing funnel that becomes more predictable, I think you're in a really great spot. Because again, like, most advisors don't want to spend that kind of money or don't have that kind of money to spend on marketing, would you be interested in dedicating as most of your time and most of your marketing resources to webinars? Like, is that something you, that gets you excited, you're going to forget everything else and just focus on webinars?

[Ross]

Definitely. I Mean, I, I do like the local service ads, the Google local service ads. It's relatively inexpensive and it does drive some good, some good new prospects and revenue to the business. So I think I'll definitely keep that going. But in terms of, you know, all the other dollars, all the other effort, yeah, I would love to spend more of that focused on the webinars.

[Taylor]

Okay. And you've never paid anybody to help you with webinars? Is that accurate?

[Ross]

So I did the first one I had signed to because I had no idea how to put a event or anything on Facebook. Their system is so complicated. So I had someone help me initially set that up and do the first campaign, so to speak. But that was just a, a one and done situation.

[Taylor]

Okay. I might sound like a broken record because I brought this up I think a few times on the show is any chance you attended the recent KITA summit and saw David Sandu session on webinar marketing?

[Ross]

I did not, no. Okay.

[Taylor]

If you are very interested in pursuing webinars and doing it well and systematizing it, I would highly recommend it. I already know willing to spend money in your marketing, I would highly recommend going and buying the recording of the entire summit just to watch his single 30 minute session where he shares his screen. He goes behind the scenes and shows you how he uses LinkedIn and LinkedIn Sales Navigator to drive people to his weekly webinars and convert them into clients. And I think I don't want to misspeak here, but I think he added north of a hundred thousand dollars in recurring annual revenue in just 12 months by doing that. But hyper focused only focused on webinars and he built a really good system to do that. So I want to say the recording of the kids a summit if you're a Kitas member is 297, if you're not, 397. So to me it's a really small price to pay for some great marketing ideas, especially David Sandu's session on webinars because it's timely and relevant to what you want to pursue. He addresses the issue that, that you had with webinar marketing and, and using ads to drive people to webinars, which is you get a lot of bots and random people who aren't serious about attending this webinar. They filled something out, they didn't know they filled it out, they don't really want to attend. So his system kind of solves some of that. But I would highly recommend checking that out and I can certainly share more about what that process looks like if you're interested right now. But, you know, the kind of the big takeaway here is we. We might need to forget about SEO for a little bit, maybe fire that agency so we can reallocate some of those dollars to our webinar marketing strategy and start to pour our time and energy into that, because it's gonna be really hard to. To do both. And they don't really complement each other. And that's why I asked that question. Like, SEO is great. It's nice to have some visibility online, but it is a decent amount of money, and it's not really supporting your webinar marketing strategy that you want to.

[Ross]

Pursue with the webinars. It's also trying to understand what really attracts people. What do people want to hear? What are they wanting to learn about? Because, I mean, you could go Google and get a thousand different answers of, you know, retirement planning, et cetera. So I think having that something that's more unique or more personalized, especially if you're doing a wiki webinar or even biweekie webinar, you have to have a lot of information. So I don't know if you're repeating the same thing over and over. Maybe you add in a Q and a session or something along those lines.

[Taylor]

I guess two things come to mind. One is kind of that who, not how, who has done this before and cracked the code. And this is why it's so important to spend money and hire experts. Webinar experts for financial advisors who study this space and understand it so they can help you stitch together this strategy. Strategy. I mean, I know marketing really well, and I thought I would be able to easily stitch together a YouTube video strategy when I hired true experts and really learned behind the scenes what it takes and the trends and the topics and how to write titles and write hooks and intros like, it was just like a whole new world that I didn't understand. And so these data nerds who study this stuff all day are able to break it down for me, and I don't have to go experiment and try it out. So you know that who, not how concept, who's already done this, who's an expert that you can go and hire to help, you know, stitches together for you so you're not testing out different ideas and stumbling and, you know, nobody showing up to your webinars. The other thing, too, is that you do have to get a little bit more clear on who you're trying to reach with these webinars. If you want to keep your website, you know, a little bit more broad for the time being. I think you'll survive. I would like to see it more focused, for sure. But when it comes to creating these webinars and marketing these webinars, they are going to have to be a little bit more specific than just, you know, how to create income in retirement, because there's ads like that all over the place. And so David does touch on this in his session. And so I don't want what he talks about to steer you away because he is hyper focused on defense and aerospace engineers at a handful of different companies. It doesn't mean just because you don't necessarily work with engineers, you can't pursue a strategy like that. But you might have to pick, you know, a few different professions or a few different companies and kind of center your webinars around those professions or companies to attract those people through paid ads. So maybe it'll just pick on engineers for a second. It might just be like engineers. And I'm going to target engineers who are close to retirement or nearing retirement or they have a certain position at a certain company and the content is more or less going to be the same. Right. I mean, you know, the engineers retiring and the pain points that engineers have in retirement are no different really than other professions or other demographics. But this is where, again, a strategist really comes into play and can really help you refine some of these things. Because it is going to be challenging just to go to social media and just say, like, five things you should do ahead of retirement. Like, there's a lot of that sort of content out there.

[Ross]

Yeah. And I know there, you know, being having the focus or having a niche is so important. And I've struggled a lot on that, having that specific niche, especially since moving away. Well, having an initial focus on business owners who, you know, are looking at exit planning. So that was my focus. Obviously that didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.

[Kendra]

So one thing there is you mentioned you did that for about nine months. I think that's one probably not a long enough Runway. And there might need to be a little bit more specificity there. So that's something you could, you could toy with. I just wanted to kind of interject there really quick.

[Ross]

Yeah, no, and I think you're right. I think the turning point for me, so my whole website, when I first started was everything said business owners, those business owners, that I was very, very specific. If you look at my website, I didn't have anything to do with individuals. So that individual tab was not there. And I think I did not bring on one new client and seven or eight months. And that's where I realized, you know, if, if I'm going to keep this going, I need to bring in some, you know, some revenue. I need to start building up this business. I need to be able to pay my mortgage. Well, what I know. And that's why I went back to, you know, working with pre retirees.

[Taylor]

Yeah, I would agree with Kendra that, you know, whenever we hear an advisor say, like, I tried this and it didn't work, we just like to remind everybody that, that anything works. Right. Like, if that didn't work, there's a reason why it didn't work. And if you put some time and attention into it again, maybe hired some experts to help you figure it out, like you, you could pursue that niche. There's plenty of advisors that do and have success with it. So we just like to reiterate, like everything does work. That's not just impossible to target business owners or exit planning.

[Ross]

Yep. No, I agree.

[Kendra]

So when we kind of think about the paid ad funnel to drive qualified clients to webinars, one little piece too, I think you could consider is even the platform. So Facebook ads versus LinkedIn ads are also very different. So there might be one of those platforms that actually work a little bit better for you based on who you're targeting. So for example, on LinkedIn there's different targeting capabilities than there is on Facebook, you know, for example, and I'm not as expert on paid ads, but for example, LinkedIn could have, you know, job title targeting where Linked Facebook is more interest driven so that even the platform can really change. So you're really looking at a couple things here on the paid ads front for webinars. One we touched on is who are we targeting? Then I think, which platform are we going to run ads? And then as I start to mentally move down the funnel, then I start to think about the actual ad. What are we running an offer to. And then is that ad converting? So that's kind of like just the start of it. And then if it converts, we got to get people to show up. So there's multiple phases of this process. But what's really exciting is if you're willing to, you know, sweep everything else off the table and go all in on this one channel, this can work. So to me, it's really multiple layers of focus as you move through that funnel.

[Ross]

Yeah, and that makes sense. Instead of having just a blanket offering.

[Taylor]

I think A helpful starting point for all of this because there is going to require a little bit more focus, I think, to have success again with with webinars is documenting those, those three to five pain points that we talk about all the time on this show. Right? Start with what are the three to five pain points that I love helping people solve and I'm really good at helping them solve. Document those three to five pain points and then backing into who has these sort of pain points, right? What are their ages, what are their different professions? Because again, like if I help people lower taxes in retirement, if that's one of the pain points. Well, again, that, that applies to attorneys that are retiring, that applies to doctors that apply, applies applies to optometrists. It applies to some business owners who are selling their practice and transitioning into retirement and they've got a big tax problem. So starting with what are those three to five pain points that you have a system and a process for helping people solve and then backing into what sort of people have these pain points and documenting what that avatar looks like and then being able to take that and build your webinar, your content, your, your ads, your funnel around those people. And again, it may not just be engineers, but it might be know several different professions.

[Ross]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Taylor]

I'm curious, are, are there any local businesses that you have clients who have retired from those businesses or you just like know those companies really well? Is there, is there anything a little bit deeper than just, you know, retirement planning?

[Ross]

I mean, there are definitely a lot of local businesses, both in a small, medium, large companies that are in the area or close by, but I haven't, I've never focused on any of them or I don't have, you know, particular ties to them. I may have one or two clients and in each company. One thing, however, that has been unique and very random is that I've been working. If I were to segment my book, I've got a handful of clients who are bankers. So, you know, bankers, lenders, etc, and I don't know, that could be from before going independent. I was in the bank wealth management space for 12 years. So I don't know if it's having the connections there. But that, that is one interesting segment or career that, you know, that I had there. But it's never been a focus of, of mine.

[Taylor]

Okay. I just want to make sure we weren't overlooking something where you're like, no, there's this, this local kind of, you know, large company near me and I've got 10 clients there, and I know their benefits like the back of my hand. Again, we don't have to go all in on that company, but we could start to think about hosting, you know, one webinar a month targeted to, you know, executives of a certain age at that company. Again, that's not necessarily an action item for us. Want to make sure we weren't missing something, that there was something like that, that we could, you know, we could build something around.

[Ross]

No, definitely. Okay.

[Taylor]

I do think one of my biggest takeaways here just, I get, I think primarily because you're willing to spend money on your business. I do think it would go a really long way to go and find an interview, you know, three or four webinar focused agencies. Not like a full blown marketing agency, but somebody who's just a master and expert at webinar marketing and building a webinar marketing funnel. It's possible that that agency specializes in financial advisors. I don't typically love hiring agencies that only work with advisors because I like when they think a little bit more outside the box. Kendra is certainly an exception to that and the YouTube agency that I hired is an exception to that. They only work with financial advisors. So it would be interesting maybe to go and interview a webinar agency that specializes in financial advisors and maybe a couple more that don't. Um, because I think there's a lot more to learn about webinar marketing and a strategist that can really sit down with you and help you uncover some of these things in your practice that are unique and then build the content and the funnel from there because it, it is a, a heavy lift and it is easier. As David points out at the. The summit, it is easier when you have a super tight niche to say, like, I help optometrists sell their practice and transition to retirement, and all my webinars are focused on those people that's going to land a lot more and be a lot easier to stitch that funnel together than like, I just help people transition to retirement. So I think it would be a helpful exercise. And again, you're willing to spend money to go and just hire that expert to help you go through this process and build a real webinar marketing system.

[Ross]

Yeah, no, that's great. I don't know if you by any chance have any recommendations there. The only one I've looked at, which, you know, is very common in the industry, is White Glove. And I just honestly didn't get a great feel from them. I thought that what they did was very old and they haven't really updated their processes in a long time and they're more focused on seminars versus webinars.

[Kendra]

I have someone that I know, they run a paid traffic agency. They're incredible. And while they do work with clients, they do have some consulting. I can give you a share link. I think that'd be one good resource. But as Taylor said, you could poke around for a few different ones and see different perspectives. So I think that's a great place to start.

[Taylor]

Yeah. If you do end up purchasing the replay of the summit and watching. There is another individual who presented, I think right after David on how he uses White Glove to grow his practice and he's had a ton of success. To your point though, he is focused on in person seminars. So I don't know much about their, their online webinar services and process. I also know that they recently, I don't know if they rebranded or sold, but it's no longer White Glove anymore. So I don't know when the last time you talked to them was, but perhaps they've improved a lot of what they do. So I have heard great success stories and they, they were one that came to mind. But again, I would interview a few to get some different perspectives here. Now, if you want to go and tackle this on your own and experiment and try to find out what works, that's great. It's just going to take you a lot longer. So if we want to shortcut this and we're willing to spend some money, I think it's a really good use of time. It's exactly what I did with, with YouTube and video. I was like, I'm not about to go on this journey on my own. I'm willing to spend money. I'm going to go hire the people that know exactly how to do this and let them lead the charge and tell me what to do. And it's been wildly helpful. Now again, a lot of advisors can't do that or don't want to do that because they don't want to spend the money or they can't spend the money. So that's a decision that you'll have to make.

[Ross]

Yeah, no, I agree. I think, you know, just like hiring a financial advisor, you know, you get in that expert help. I believe in outsourcing wherever I can and yes, it's going to cost more, but it's going to save me a lot of time, it's going to save me a lot of frustration and it's going to help drive the end result a lot faster.

[Taylor]

Yeah, yeah. I think you'll be really surprised how successful and how energizing webinars can be. Once this system starts to work like it did for David, he just once a week gets to show up and educate these people and do his thing. It's so rewarding for him. And of course, only a small, small percentage of the people that show up are going to reach out and consider working with them, but that's really all he needs. I mean, you're a solo firm. You don't need every single person that attends to reach out. So I'm sure it feels rewarding to you as an advisor to educate people at large and a handful of people reach out to you and become awesome clients. So it is a really great funnel and system if you're willing to dedicate the time to build it.

[Ross]

Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you.

[Kendra]

So Ross, you came on the show with the question of how do I get more people to, to show up to, you know, my webinars? And really what I think we've identified here is a couple of your kind of choke points. Is one, your icp, who you're targeting? You might have to get a little bit more clear on that then choosing a platform and getting some help tweaking your offer. What are you running ads to, you know, the actual webinar. And then once you're getting people to sign up, then working on that show up rate. So there's a few different pieces there. We still have a lot your way. You know, are there any follow up questions you have for us on how to pull those pieces together?

[Ross]

No, I think it makes, it's all making a lot of sense. Appreciate the guidance. Just going back to, you know, original question from, from earlier of do you think it should be a evergreen like type webinar of we repeating the same information over and over? Or should it be a we changing it every single week or maybe more of a Q and A or a combination of that. You know, what, what do you think is more beneficial?

[Taylor]

I think the topics are likely going to have to change depending on who you end up targeting. They may not need to change as much as you think. Kind of repeating the same message in a number of different ways. But you might find your five core topics on, you know, retirement income planning, tax planning and retirement estate and legacy planning, insurance planning. So you might have these like these core kind of topics that you build some presentations for under each one of them. And I'm sure there's going to be a lot of overlap. And again, this is where paying an agency to help strategize and build out a content calendar is going to come into play. And also leaning on some of these other webinar, I'll call them agencies, but where they'll provide content for you or starting points for presentations for you. You can learn a lot from them in terms of, like, how they think about creating content for webinars. If you do end up, you know, purchasing some of their content as starting points, that can be great as well. But I don't think you need to challenge yourself. Like every single week I have to come up with like a new, a new topic. I think you really sit down and spend some time on this. Let's say, I don't know, let's say like this is your summer project. Like, I'm going to spend my summer just dedicating all my time to, to building out a webinar marketing system and funnel. And I'm not going to experiment. I'm not going to throw spaghetti at the wall. I'm going to just spend three months just going all in on this. I'm going to read books, I'm going to buy courses, I'm going to watch and see what other advisors are doing. I'm going to potentially interview some agencies. I'm still learning everything I possibly can and start to build out that system in that funnel.

[Ross]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[Taylor]

Ultimately, I think you can start to regurgitate a lot of this material and it does start to feel evergreen. And you know, you've got this three month, I don't know, content calendar that's just kind of being recirculated every three months. It really is amazing. Like I, I kind of fell into this trap of thinking I needed to come up with new content all the time. It takes people. Yeah, people listen to the same thing over and over and over again before it finally sticks. So, you know, we've all heard it before. Someone has to hear something seven to 10 times before it actually registers. And so the same thing with your content, you regurgitate something, you're like, I can't believe that they finally latched onto it. I, I repeat myself and say that same thing all the time. So you'd be surprised how much you can kind of lean on the same content.

[Ross]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[Kendra]

So Ross, based off our conversation here today, what do you think you might do differently going forward?

[Ross]

Yeah, I think having a more, a better focus on who we targeting, what we targeting. I'm definitely going to research some agencies who could help with that and maybe putting more oh, definitely. You know, realigning my marketing budget on, on those strategies versus what I have been doing, that's not necessarily driving results. So I think those are my key takeaways there.

[Kendra]

Our hope is that we shortened your to do list and hopefully improved your results over time. I don't want to pretend that this is easy, that it doesn't take work. It does. It's challenging. It's hard. But ironically, taking less things off the list will allow you to double down and really become obsessed and interested and enjoy the process of reaching qualified clients through webinars. So based off our conversation here today, here's how we rebuilt your funnel and the next action steps to take on your side to start going down that path. So first, your top of funnel is still the same. Paid ads, paid traffic. I would encourage you to consider if one of those platforms specifically might work a little bit better, depending on who you're targeting, because you might be able to cut one of Those, maybe just LinkedIn ads or just Facebook ads. Your middle funnel is just going to be the same thing. So it's a webinar. We might need to improve that offer a little bit. We might need to improve that targeting on who we're inviting to that webinar a little bit, but no changes there. And then the bottom of funnel is just going to be your sales process. Now, as far as these action items for you, the first one, and this one's a big one, is getting a little bit more clear on who we're targeting here so that you can design a higher converting offer for the webinar. So you might have to get a little bit clearer on the specifics around the icp, their age, some of their pain points. You know, I really loved how Taylor said, like, what are those top three pain points that you're really excited to solve? Or is there a particular, you know, industry close for retirement? There's some options there to get clearer. And then we're going to potentially reallocate some of that SEO spend towards your webinar funnel when you start looking at how to improve building this funnel, interviewing some agencies and webinar experts, taking a look at the David Sandhu session in the Kitsa Summit. And then also another resource that I jotted down for you is we did a conversation, we had a conversation with Andrew Zull and we talked about really deeply about Facebook ads. So if you want to dive into some more of that nuance and how we talk about, you know, offers on Facebook and the role that paid ads play in your marketing funnel. That would also be another great listen. And for the rest of you listening, all these platforms can work, but very few of them work when you're trying to make all of them work. So hopefully this conversation reminds you that less is more, better focus, more results, not the other way around. So thanks for listening and we'll talk to you next week. 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.