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Advisor Marketing Made Simple
Advice Line: Why Picking A Niche Makes Everything Easier (Frank Rekas)
00:38:44
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- [00:00]
Kendra
Hey, it's Kendra and Taylor and we're here to make Advisor Marketing simple. Today's guest is Frank from Palm wealth partners. After 30 years in the industry, Frank recently launched an independent firm where he now leads a team of nine. They are transitioning from a primarily insurance based model and just started focusing on growing their assets under management in the last two years. Welcome to Advisor Marketing Made Simple. Frank, what's that big question you want Taylor and I to help you solve today about your marketing?
- [00:37]
Frank
Trying to grow my practice is probably the biggest thing that I have. Not that I've reinvented myself, but maybe a little bit. I have reinvented myself because for many, many years my focus was primarily on insurance products, life insurance and annuities and did very, very little aum and that's changed over the last two and a half, three years. But it's really trying to attract more aun do more financial planning as I continue to work with the niche market that I've picked.
- [01:10]
Kendra
Okay, I'm looking at the website here. You've got some really nice branding. I'd love to know a little bit more about that niche market and who you're trying to attract to the firm to work with.
- [01:20]
Frank
So I took a look at my book of business, my client base, and this was shortly after I got out of management when I was at a previous company and I wanted to see who my clients were, where are they coming from and what did they do and look for some commonalities. And it turned out that more than 60% of my client base was made up of attorneys in various practices, you know, family law, estate planning, business, a couple personal injury. So I decided that since I was going to focus on a niche, that was the niche that I wanted to focus on as well as business owners.
- [01:55]
Kendra
So it's not exclusive for the business owners. If 60% of your book right now is attorneys, what percent is business owners?
- [02:01]
Frank
Well, most of the law firm owners that I work with own their own firm. So when I say business owners it might mean someone that has a construction company, someone that is a CPA that owns their practice, things like that.
- [02:13]
Kendra
And what percentage of your clients fit that profile? Like non attorney, non business owner, A.
- [02:19]
Frank
Small amount, maybe 10% are what we would call executives or salespeople.
- [02:24]
Kendra
Okay, that's super helpful. All right, go ahead and tell me a little bit more about, you know, who you're looking to attract going forward and what are some of those big problems that you love to solve for that client.
- [02:36]
Frank
So I'm looking to attract a law firm or business owner. Typical income is going to be on the low side, $250,000 and on up. And they're growing their firm. Many of them are still actually practicing law, but I'm starting to see a few now that have kind of. How do I want to say? They're the rainmaker. They're bringing the client in, but they're. They may not actually be doing all of the work. They're going to supervise the work, they're going to be involved in the work, but they're having an associate do a lot of it. So it's those kind of attorneys that I'm trying to attract. A lot of them are on the upswing with income, which is great. And I think one of the biggest problems that I see them having is the amount of taxes that they're paying. I mean, I've had four conversations this week, and that's been the hot button for all of them.
- [03:27]
Kendra
I want to dive a little bit deeper because you described two kinds of attorneys to me. Those who are practicing law and they have a certain level of success, and then they have kind of a. Another version of that is the rainmaker, so to speak. Do you find that those two versions of an attorney have different problems when they're at different points in their career?
- [03:46]
Frank
Yeah, I think the attorney that's still actually in practice is extremely busy, and his time or her time is short. Their attention span is short because they're working in the practice, they're trying or doing the cases, they're hiring. Some of them are even stuck doing things that they really shouldn't be doing. Payroll, paying bills, administrative stuff. And so time for them has. Has become an issue.
- [04:13]
Kendra
What about the rainmaker? How do they vary in their pain points?
- [04:18]
Frank
I still think the pain point is tax planning. A lot of it now has become financial planning. You know, I haven't done a lot of financial planning up until recently, and it's been something that I really, really wanted to do because personally, I feel that that's the way the industry is headed. Where I was previously, we could do it, but we had a little bit of red tape to go through to get it done. It's been much easier to do it now since I'd made the change to independence, which was back in September. So it's a lot easier, a lot simpler. But I'm also seeing that the clients that we're working with, they want it. They want the planning, and they understand that planning is part of the process.
- [04:56]
Kendra
And when you look at that Book of business you have right now, the. The 60% of your current clients who are attorneys, what does their demographic look like? How many of them are the kind of still practicing law versus, like, the rainmaker?
- [05:07]
Frank
I think right now it's probably a mix of 70, 30. 70 still practicing. 30. Being a rainmaker, trying to grow the business, if I could take a stab.
- [05:19]
Kendra
Yeah, that works great. So when we look at marketing going forward, who are you most excited to work with? Those who are still practicing law or those who are like a rainmaker?
- [05:29]
Frank
Loaded question. The rainmakers, I think, are easier to work with because their time is more available. But I also enjoy working with the attorney that's, you know, knee deep into the practice because I. I look at them both, since we're talking, and I think they both have similar problems. It's just one side has more time available and the others don't have as much.
- [05:51]
Kendra
Okay, help me understand the website you currently have right now and if you wanted to make a change to it, what that process would look like right now. The homepage headline says, your financial freedom expertly explained with a subheader that says, at Palm Wealth Partners, we create personalized financial strategies that are intended to help you achieve peace of mind in the retirement you've earned. If you were to want to make a change to the headline or the website, is that possible or.
- [06:19]
Frank
No, but we actually have a meeting coming up in a couple of weeks with the designer, and we're going to talk about marketing and my topic. One topic that I'd like to have is to either have another link or maybe something that goes to me and talks about me dealing with the attorneys and the business owners, if that's possible to do and what that looks like just so that it helps my brand.
- [06:47]
Kendra
Definitely that makes a lot of sense. On the front of your ideal client, are you willing to set aside going after business owners and focus on attorneys? Okay, and when we think about how you would love to reach and potentially connect with attorneys, is there a, you know, path that has been working very well for you already to reach these attorneys?
- [07:12]
Frank
I'm on LinkedIn heavily. Might look like I'm on there all day long, but that's not necessarily true. I pick my spots and I use a couple different tools to help me engage. I do all my own engagement. I do all my work myself. It's just me. So LinkedIn has been very helpful. I rejoined a local bar association that obviously has a lot of attorneys in there, some of which I know. I'm in a networking Group that's across the country that's made up of mostly attorneys. So I'm trying to put myself in places where I can be in front of them. And recently I started hosting a law firm or an attorney happy hour. And I'll do it quarterly, and we'll get anywhere from 10 to 13 or 14 that show up.
- [07:56]
Kendra
Awesome. Of these different activities, which one are you most excited about? Like, you know, do you like to write? Do you like to speak? Do you like to build these local relationships?
- [08:04]
Frank
All of it. I really, I mean, I, I, I enjoy speaking. You can ask me to talk about a subject right now, and I can go up to the front of the room and start talking.
- [08:13]
Kendra
So for you, it's speaking? Actually, you love speaking.
- [08:15]
Frank
I like speaking and I like writing.
- [08:17]
Kendra
Okay.
- [08:17]
Frank
I like the writing. I enjoy the writing. Yeah.
- [08:20]
Kendra
Okay. And of these current marketing activities, you know, connecting on LinkedIn, on the LinkedIn front, what are you doing on LinkedIn? Are you writing posts? Are you just connecting? Like, what's your activity there look like?
- [08:32]
Frank
So I post every day, at least one time, every now and then I'll do a second post. I try to mix it up where it's not all business or not all me sharing, you know, financial knowledge. I try to get a little personal. I, I'll do a video once in a while. I did one this morning. Just a natural chat. I'm not reading from a script or anything. Something that just comes to my mind and I'm connecting. And then I'm, I'm not as good as doing DMs as I probably could be. So I might be sending two or three a day on average. And I know I could probably step that up a little bit. One of my goals this year that I had at the beginning of the year is to meet with 50 attorneys. Not necessarily to get them to do business, obviously, if that's a byproduct, great. But just to meet with them, learn about them. Why do they practice the practice that they're in? What do they like? What do they don't like? Those kind of things? So I'm pretty much halfway there at this point, which is on target.
- [09:27]
Kendra
Is that for just understanding their pain points deeper, or is that to build, like, a relationship with them? Like, what's the motivation on that piece, Meeting with the attorneys?
- [09:35]
Frank
It's to understand their pain points, really, because that will help me dealing with whether it's them or another attorney. So I have some sort of commonality.
- [09:44]
Kendra
Okay. And of these different marketing activities, you've been Doing have any of them send any highly qualified attorneys your way that have become clients?
- [09:54]
Frank
Yes, I had. Well, actually, at one of the events that I hosted, got a client from that.
- [10:03]
Kendra
Okay.
- [10:03]
Frank
At a. An event that I'm involved in. It's a mastermind with a bunch of people who work in the legal space. They're not attorneys. I met an attorney, a number of attorneys. Through that, he and I have formed a relationship where we're collaborating on cases. You referred a case to me. We had the first meeting with the client yesterday. So I think my efforts are starting to take place. And, you know, I'm seeing some return on it a little bit.
- [10:29]
Kendra
Okay. And right now, how much time do you have per week to spend on marketing?
- [10:35]
Frank
Every week is different. Like, every day is different. So if I don't have a coffee meeting or a meeting scheduled in the morning, I'm probably on LinkedIn for 60 minutes. It's built into my calendar.
- [10:45]
Kendra
Let's choose an amount that you could consistently spend each week, regardless of how your calendar might look. And that might be three hours a week, five hours a week, ten hours a week. What could you do consistently?
- [10:55]
Frank
I think I could do 10.
- [10:57]
Kendra
Cool. Taylor, what's coming up for you?
- [11:01]
Taylor
I mean, I love that you're specific here with attorneys. I. I can't. I can't think of an advisor that I've ever met that says I specialize in helping attorneys. I'm sure they're out there. I've just. It's not like a. A common niche that, that I've heard. Great. That you're very clear about that. I know in some of the friendships I have with attorneys, we have a couple of attorney clients. Different attorneys have different needs and pain points. So, for example, personal injury attorneys, their income is very different than, you know, a corporate law attorney.
- [11:35]
Frank
Right.
- [11:36]
Taylor
I also know with attorneys that it can be challenging to build assets under management because they're contributing to their workplace retirement plans and everything is locked up in there and there isn't assets in our to manage outside of it. You specifically came to us and said, I want to grow my aum. I've been doing insurance for a long time, and I want to build my assets under management. So I'm just curious to hear from you. How are you building AUM with these still working attorneys?
- [12:06]
Frank
And that's a good question. A lot of them that I'm working with have left a prior firm and now they're on their own. And if they have a 401k plan or an IRA, we're able to roll that over into our management. We may be starting a 401 for them with those assets that have come over. In some instances they'll have a brokerage account where nobody's paying attention to it or the advisor has left. So we're able to bring those assets in under those circumstances. And that's been pretty common, I think, for most of them. And then there have been a few cases where we've been able to establish or put in a defined benefit or cash balance plan. And then that's going to create some significant assets to manage as well as give them a tax break, which is the other thing that they're looking for. Okay. Yeah.
- [12:55]
Taylor
Because that gets into another layer of service, which is the 401 plan, the cash balance plans. And were talking about this earlier today with another advisor. It's really challenging to go down that path of building and maintaining cash balance plans, you know, 401k plans, and also try to service people on the individual side. So it sounds like if this attorney went and started their own firm, you would actually help them put together the cash balance plan and 401k plan.
- [13:21]
Frank
Yep, yep.
- [13:22]
Taylor
Interesting.
- [13:23]
Frank
So, yeah, we'll work with a, you know, a TPA standalone or we'll use a provider that does everything, you know, under a bundled plan.
- [13:32]
Taylor
Would you prefer to work with an attorney in that situation, has their own firm, starting their own firm, leaving, you know, another firm or just a, a lifetime? I don't know what you call them, like employee attorney.
- [13:45]
Frank
Yeah, I would, I, I would prefer the entrepreneurial attorney, if that's the right word to say. Because I think there's more opportunity for them to do things, especially on the financial planning side. Because at least my experience has been they see the need for planning because, you know, they don't have all of the different benefits available to them. And it's, it's more of a one on one relationship where I'm not just filling gaps, I'm actually, you know, doing comprehensive planning for them.
- [14:13]
Kendra
Okay.
- [14:13]
Taylor
I, yeah, I think that's really helpful to take note of. And you know, if it were me, I try to draw a hard line in the sand and say like I only work with attorneys that are either leaving their current firm and starting their own and I'll help them through that process or attorneys that have their own firm or they're in a decision making, you know, role or partner of the firm. I think that would certainly help to simplify a lot of your marketing and messaging to really narrow in on that. That's a business decision for you to make. But you know, you're really clear and it sounds like you enjoy working with those folks and there's more opportunity for you to help them. So there's plenty of them out there. It's not like the, you know, the niche isn't big enough. So I would certainly encourage you to kind of lean into getting more clear with exactly the type of attorney, again attorney that owns their own firm or they're going to go start their own firm and the others just don't, don't worry about them. Are you able, willing, excited to work with all types of attorneys or are there certain types of attorneys that you want to work with?
- [15:08]
Frank
I'm okay working with any type of attorney. I think what I've gravitated to is family law for a few reasons. I come from divorce as a child and I come from divorce as an adult. But they're, they're good sources of referrals for me because they're obviously working with a client who is going through divorce. And whether it's the male or the female, you know they're going to have some assets that they need to have us work with. There may be an insurance need, there's a financial planning need. Estate planning is good because of the collaboration. I'm very pro getting your estate documents done. So we have good relationships there. Business blob obviously business owners need buy sell agreements so that comes in handy as well. Personal injury is. I'm trying to develop more of those relationships which hopefully will lead to more opportunities.
- [16:02]
Taylor
Well, the one thing I do know about attorneys is that community is really tight and they like to refer between each other. And so it's great to hear that you are very ingrained in the attorney kind of community with your mastermind groups and the different kind of networking groups. You know, you've really put yourself in the right position in front of a lot of different types of attorneys. And as you start to get more clear on the exact type of attorneys you can help, you know what that service model looks like, the pain points that you help solve for, you know, everything starts to become much easier here. The last thing I want to ask before we maybe start providing some ideas is you had written that you want to be able to do more fee based financial plans. Can you tell us more about what that means to you?
- [16:46]
Frank
So for example, I was on a call yesterday with an attorney that was referred by an attorney contact of mine. They've been doing very well the last couple years. They want to start a retirement plan probably lead to a cash balance or defined benefit plan just because of the income that they're making. And he just basically said, so how does all this work? I don't know how you get paid. Is there planning? What do we do? And, I mean, he just kind of walked into it, so to speak. And I said, well, everything really should start with a financial plan. It's kind of hard for me to help manage your assets, especially if you have other assets that we're going to manage. And I think the financial plan creates the roadmap for you. And I kind of walked them through a lot of the different things that we're going to do. Not limited to just investment advice, you know, could be risk management, could be college education planning. There's a number of kids that are. That are there, as well as, you know, what does retirement look like? So the opportunity is to create your roadmap for your financial future. And I'm starting to see that more and more of the people that I'm working with, they want that and they like that. I don't like to lead with a product. Now, on a rare occasion, someone's going to come to me and say, hey, I hear, you know, you know, life insurance. I hear you're very good with disability insurance. Okay, that's fine. We'll take care of that. But I think the way that we've kind of been able to do our business is that we'll eventually come around to, you know, doing the comprehensive planning the more that we continue to work with the client.
- [18:10]
Taylor
And would you charge a flat fee for something like that?
- [18:14]
Frank
We would charge a flat planning fee in addition to a fee for managing the money. Yep. Because they're two separate things.
- [18:22]
Taylor
Right. Okay, I think that helps. Kendra, what are you thinking?
- [18:27]
Kendra
Yeah. So I think we've really started to narrow down your ideal client a lot more. So far, we've cut off business owners. We've narrowed your attorneys down to essentially rainmakers. They either are starting a new firm or they have their own firm, not, you know, individual still practicing law. And we might even go a little bit deeper and consider something like family law or personal injury to get even more narrow there. So now I think we really need to, you know, start talking a little bit about how do we get in front of them. Let me back up for a second a little bit. Your messaging, I think, is kind of coming up for me, because when we start to think about, you know, the content you put on LinkedIn, let's just talk about that. For example, the kind of content you're going to publish is going to look different for someone who's a practicing lawyer versus like a firm owner. So you can see how who you're trying to target is going to change. You know, in, in my world, you know, I work with advisors at a certain level, 300 a. U. M. Or above. And so I don't write content to solo or new advisors. It could be helpful, but I think about that person when I write a post. So from a messaging standpoint, I do think you're going to want to consider tightening that up a little bit. You know, when I look at the current firm website, I do a control find on the homepage. I don't see. I don't even actually see. I don't think business, I see business owners once. I don't see lawyers at all. So if you're able to have, you know, a personal page that could get created, um, we can go down that route a little bit. I think that's going to be important part of your kind of funnel and process. That's kind of what's coming up for me now. And then I think, you know, funnel we can get there. Taylor, what's kind of coming up for you?
- [20:09]
Taylor
Yeah, we had a similar conversation today that, you know, it sounds like, Frank, you've done a really good job ingraining yourself in the attorney community. You have a lot of attorney contacts, very clear about the things that you enjoy helping attorneys solve for. But then there's this disconnect between what you're out there doing and, and kind of how you're showing up online and specifically your website. So, you know, if I'm an attorney friend of yours and something you said during a webinar or a master meeting really resonated with me. I'm like, ah, I'm kind of interested in working with Frank. And I come to Frank's website and it says nothing about helping attorneys. In fact, it's like Florida retirement system pre retirees. Like there's nothing that screams attorney. And so you could build this into the existing website and maybe you find a way to add attorneys to the homepage there. So there's something about attorneys. Maybe there's a specific page. Or you could consider building a very simple website just for you, A personal branded website about Frank, who specializes in working with attorneys. Again, you don't need to go spend $20,000 and a bunch of time, but just a very simple website. It's like, hey, I'm Frank, I specialize in helping attorneys solve these three things. And you have some sort of process built in there specifically for attorneys. You know, if you're looking for help, you know, I've built this five step process to help people just like you. I click here to learn more, but that helps a little bit more. From the bottom of the funnel standpoint, when you're out there, whether it's LinkedIn or out in the community shaking hands, networking referrals, and people do show up to your website, that immediately speaks to them and reinforces everything that you've been saying in other places. Does that make sense?
- [21:45]
Frank
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense and it's something that I've been thinking about recently. So it's timely because we're going to be meeting with the website developer that just redid our website recently. So it's perfect timing and I like the idea.
- [21:59]
Taylor
Okay. Yeah. Because it's always challenging when you have a larger firm, multiple advisors, they all work with different types of people. It's hard to effectively brand and message that website. It kind of has to be broad. So how can you create your own space here? You know, if I was consulting with a company like yours, I would advocate for maybe each advisor to have their own separate website that specifically talks to their target market. Now, all prospects might ultimately end up on the Palm wealth website. To ultimately take action, that's a decision to make. But to be out there marketing and speaking to people, having that dedicated home base that really resonates with that niche is I think, really, really critical. Because no matter what, even if you meet somebody in person or you know, your attorney friend refers their attorney friend to you, like they're gonna land on your website in some shape or form just to check you out and see who you are and read a little bit more and nothing is screaming. Frank works with attorneys on this website.
- [22:56]
Frank
Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. I agree with you a hundred percent.
- [22:59]
Kendra
And this also comes into play when we start to think about something like let's say for example, LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, you would link to this personal, simple website. You know, if you were meeting with attorneys and you wanted to, you know, hey, if you want to have a conversation about this, here's where you go. You've used that, you know, URL and it could be like your name.com or something very simple. Choose a really simple, you know, URL. And I think the key piece of this is like, less is more. Make it really clear who you serve, the big problems you solve for them. A couple of the key questions, simple bio, like it doesn't need to be really complex. Keep it, you know, really streamlined.
- [23:39]
Taylor
Also, a couple things here. You mentioned LinkedIn. I have a couple of things on LinkedIn, but when I come to your LinkedIn profile, nothing talks about attorneys. Right. Stop tipping. Uncle Sam's all about tax planning, which would potentially resonate with attorneys. But how different would it feel if I'm an attorney and I end up on your LinkedIn profile? It's like I specialize in helping attorneys solve these three things. And that's like the banner image on LinkedIn. And then there's more information down below that really starts to reinforce that message. And attorneys will naturally be attracted to, you know, the things you have to say and potentially reaching out. Also, you and I have 71 mutual connections with a bunch of other financial advisors. So how many financial advisors are following you on LinkedIn and not the attorneys that you specialize in helping? So there may be some, some cleanup work to be done there and then the last thing on LinkedIn, because it sounds like it's a place you like to spend time and educate. I didn't hear you say anything about connecting with people. So is there a LinkedIn connection strategy for, on an ongoing basis, connecting with attorneys that you could potentially help?
- [24:38]
Frank
Yep. So I was going to ask your thoughts first off about the cleanup a little bit. And I just read somewhere recently that if it's really not in your niche and they're not active and they're not liking or commenting, it kind of hurts the visibility. So I think, I guess you just solidified that it does make sense to kind of clean up some of those connections and followers a little bit. And as far as a connection process, you know, I'll be looking at some of my connections in the legal space and I'll look at their connections and I'll, I'll reach out specifically to them. Sometimes I'll add a note, sometimes I don't. And it's, I don't, I don't know if it really makes a difference at the end of the day. And I've heard from a lot of people that, no, it doesn't. If you don't have a note, yes, it does. If you do. Even though I am connecting and building those connections, one thing I also have to be better at is sending them at least a thank you after they connected with me. So at least I start to be in front of them a little bit. Unless you, you two have a different thought or even a better suggestion on.
- [25:40]
Taylor
That, I would not try to figure this out on your own. I would go and hire a LinkedIn expert. I would go to upwork.com I recently hired somebody from upwork.com and my trick to finally finding somebody I was really impressed with. The very first person I reached out to was I screened for the highest, the most expensive contractor in the category I was looking for. And with the most experience I'm like, I'm not going to mess around, I'm just going to go. And it's like not even that expensive. So it's like a hundred bucks an hour versus the cheap person who's trying to charge 15 bucks an hour. So you could probably go to upwork.com just find a LinkedIn expert screen for the most expensive one because it's not going to be like, you know, $2,000 an hour or anything. And I would one lean on them to hey, can you help me show me how to like clean up my, my bio, clean up my connections. So it's specifically centered around these types of attorneys. And then subsequently paying for LinkedIn sales navigator will make it very, very easy for you to connect with a hundred attorneys that meet the exact criteria you're looking for per week. So you can use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to connect with those attorneys. And this LinkedIn marketing expert that you hire on an hourly basis, they can help show you how to automate some of these things, like automating thank you messages when somebody connects with you or automating additional DMs, you know, in the future. So there's some automations you could probably work into here as well. But I don't know if you want to go and figure all this stuff out yourself. Again, you might go spend a couple thousand dollars with a LinkedIn expert to help you optimize LinkedIn for trying to find, attract and educate more attorneys that you want to get in front of.
- [27:20]
Frank
Okay, no, those are all great ideas. I definitely agree. And I do have Sales Navigator and I don't use it as much as I should, which is probably something that's not new to everybody.
- [27:28]
Taylor
Yeah, and I don't know, I've never used it personally. I've seen some demos of it, but it looks great. It works really, really well for advisors who have a specific niche. Right. It's challenging for me it's like this broad like retirement niche. But you know, if you specifically work with attorneys with certain level of experience, maybe in certain areas, it becomes really easy to start to streamline and systematize connecting with these people. So connecting is a part of it. And then of course nurturing and educating them on LinkedIn is part of it. But those two things aren't going to be very effective if your banner on LinkedIn just says stop tipping Uncle Sam. Right. I want to see like, I'm Frank and I help attorneys tackle these three things.
- [28:07]
Frank
Okay, makes sense.
- [28:09]
Kendra
Frank, we've thrown quite a bit at you here. What's coming up for you? Do you have any follow up questions here?
- [28:15]
Frank
I think my first question, and I might already know the answer, I mean, if you had to prioritize three things for me, what would you say would be the top three that I need to do that would get me the most bang for my dollar, so to speak, handle or time?
- [28:33]
Taylor
I'll let Kensha give you her three if she has them.
- [28:36]
Kendra
Otherwise I'm literally like, like brainstorming, writing it out.
- [28:39]
Frank
Sorry that there's so many to choose from.
- [28:41]
Kendra
No, this is a great question. I actually wish more advisors asked this.
- [28:44]
Taylor
Yeah, I'll give you my quick answer, then I'll let Kendra answer. I do think you need to create a home base, right? Your current website is just way too broad. So whether you create a home base on your website to direct people to that speaks to your attorneys. But you need some sort of home base. I believe there's too big of a disconnect there. Two, if we're going to use LinkedIn again, optimize the hell out of LinkedIn for attorneys and go and hire someone and pay them a couple thousand dollars to help you do that. Maybe you end up hiring somebody on an ongoing basis to really help you manage your LinkedIn strategy and content strategy. You can decide how far you want to go with LinkedIn there. And then third, I would probably start to think about a compelling offer that helps convert or encourage these attorneys you're getting in front of to take action. Like, it's not just reach out to Frank, schedule a call with Frank, fill out this contact form on Frank's website, creating some sort of process similar to what I've done on my website, this free retirement assessment process. But can you create something that kind of maybe even like clever for attorneys? You might even lean on Chat GPT to brainstorm some ideas. But this, you know, this attorney financial blueprint, right to go and take action. And there's five core pieces that I take every client through. Like click here to learn more and schedule a call. But like some, something a little bit more compelling than just like reach out to Frank if you have questions. So it's like, I'm Frank, I specialize in helping Attorneys solve these three pain points. If you're interested, I've designed this very specific method to help attorneys tackle these challenges. I call it the whatever blueprint. You know, it's a five step process. Click here to learn more.
- [30:19]
Frank
I've actually been playing with chat GPT a little bit to kind of help me with that. So I think we're on the right track and I think that does make sense to do. And I think that would probably help convert people more than just the usual, you know, reach out to me, shoot me a message, give me a call. I think that'll make a big change if I start to utilize something like that.
- [30:37]
Kendra
Cool. And Taylor, are you talking about like your retirement assessment process? Right.
- [30:41]
Taylor
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The free retirement doesn't have to be free necessarily, but you know, packaging matters a lot and it really works well when you have a tight niche like this, this, this thing, this process, this framework, this blueprint that I created is specifically for attorneys. With these three pain points, it just starts to work really well. If it's this like very generic, you know, financial planning process for everybody type of thing, it doesn't work as well. But when you have a niche, you can really get a little bit clever there and package up the thing that you do so well, package it up and brand it. Because it's just, it is really compelling. It does help people take action.
- [31:18]
Kendra
Okay. The only thing I would add to that, we actually aligned on that wonderfully. I would add this quick like mental note that you're cutting out all marketing towards business owners and anyone who doesn't fit this profile of attorney who is a rainmaker or a new attorney with their own firm. And if you go deeper into family law or personal entry, any marketing that doesn't market to them, I would cut all of it out.
- [31:43]
Frank
Okay.
- [31:43]
Kendra
Because this is going to give you enough work to do already. And it will, it will essentially align your messaging from the top down, from your website to your LinkedIn profile, to the offer that you make and the whole process. And it's gonna allow you to get obsessed with building this out and serving that ICP really well.
- [32:06]
Frank
Okay.
- [32:06]
Kendra
And then one other additional thing I wanted to add there and this is why the medium that you wanna work within and the platforms that align with that is so important. So for LinkedIn specifically, something that is really hard to do is to move people off platform. Right. So there's a lot of different strategies that, that work a lot also that don't work and it's kind of a testing process and so something I've actually seen working really well that I've just lightly dabbled in on. My personal profile is my personal profile is actually optimized for an email opt in. And so when you, if you go look at like a couple of my last couple posts, you'll see that instead of a call to action or a link out, I just say, hey, by the way, if you love this content, you'll really love my email newsletter. Just to advisors, I just talk about that at the end of the post and then I tell them to go to my profile. And if you look at my profile, you'll see that it's also optimized for the email opt in. I'm not telling you this because I think that you should necessarily do this. It's a strategy that works, but you don't figure these things out unless you really obsess over a specific platform. And I don't even think I'm actually doing it very well. It's more of like a simple testing strategy that I'm interested in. So that's why I think getting narrow on this, you know, ideal client and platform, like we can build a funnel around that, we can cut your marketing in half or a third and get you better results with that approach.
- [33:25]
Frank
I like that. I like that. No, I think that makes perfect sense. And I'm not necessarily afraid to eliminate the business owners only because I think they're still going to come to me just by the centers of influence that I have. So that doesn't bother me at all.
- [33:39]
Kendra
Taylor, do you have any kind of closing thoughts here as we kind of wrap up our conversation with Frank?
- [33:44]
Taylor
Nothing really earth shattering here, but Frank, I really appreciate you coming on and having this conversation. It's always really fun to talk to advisors that are really clear about who they want to work with. And again, it's cool to just hear how ingrained you are in the attorney community and how much you know about these people and you can help them. So I'm really excited for you. You know, there's certainly some, some work to do and we gave you some ideas, but yeah, I really appreciate you coming on having this conversation today.
- [34:08]
Frank
Well, thank you both for having me. I'm honored and humbled that, you know, I was able to do this and I found it very, very helpful and looking forward to taking action on all of this.
- [34:20]
Kendra
So Frank, we've shared a lot with you today. What's been one of your biggest kind of ahas or maybe something you'll change going forward?
- [34:26]
Frank
I think the Biggest aha. Is that I realize that I have a big opportunity in front of me and that there's not many people that are focusing in this niche. And I see by just fine tuning two or three things to get started, I can make some real progress, for lack of a better word, and really ingrain myself in the attorney community. The nice thing is that not limited to just my home state, I can work anywhere and I have them all over, which is great. But I think fine tuning it even a little bit more, just by the way that you and Taylor have described, I think can make a big difference in what I'm doing.
- [35:04]
Kendra
All right, Frank, we rebuilt your funnel and I'm about to lay it and your action items out for you today. So here it goes. Frank, you are obsessed with serving and delighting attorneys. And how are you going to do that? How are you going to get them to find you on the Internet is pretty straightforward. There's a reason why we named this Podcast Advisor Marketing Made simple and not Easy. Because this is simple, but it's not easy. So strap in. Here we go. For your funnel, you're going to be focusing on a LinkedIn funnel for attorneys. Your top of funnel is going to be a connection strategy with qualified attorneys. Now, your middle of funnel could be the social content that you're posting that is very specifically aligned to your ideal client. And then you make a simple call to action, either to maybe the email list or a branded, you know, sales process similar to Taylor's. Your bottom funnel is just going to be right now a really simple personal landing page, whether that ends up on your current firm's website or you rebuild that as your own little micro mini site. Now to get to that, we got a pretty good little list of action items for you. First, you are going to ruthlessly cut away your icp. Not only are we targeting attorneys, we're targeting the rainmaker attorney who has a practice of their own or an attorney who has just broke away to build their own practice, which is going to heavily influence the time they have to meet with you and the problems that they are looking to solve. It's very different than a attorney who is still practicing law. This means you're also not going to be targeting business owners as well. It's going to simplify who you're going after. Later on. You might even consider going a little bit deeper, just going after family law or maybe personal injury. But I think that's something you could can get a little more data on and decide later. You're also going to want to create potentially a landing page on your current firm's website or a simplified personal website. Now, for your actual LinkedIn funnel, you're going to need to update your profile so it is heavily optimized to speak to that ideal client and the problems you solve for them. You're also going to want to hire someone to help you approach how do you clean up your, you know, list of contacts. We want your LinkedIn to be basically a stadium full of lawyers, not lawyers and advisors or, you know, other, you know, random people. We want it to just be the kind of people that you want to serve, particularly for taking this platform very seriously. And we want to build a business and help new clients from this platform. You're also going to make sure that you have a consistent connection strategy with attorneys and you're going to consider also looking at your current sales process and how you could potentially package that up. So we've given you a lot of different things to think through here. What I love about the outcome is that hopefully we've been able to cut many things off of your to do list and I think that we can reduce your marketing activities and actually increase your revenue with a very clearly defined ICP and a well built funnel. So thank you so much for joining us today, Frank. We appreciate your openness and your coachability and for other advisors listening, if you want us to troubleshoot your funnel, make sure that you check the link in the description. We will have additional openings to come on the show. We're always looking for great advisors who are open and coachable and make sure you check that out. Thanks for listening and we'll see 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.
- [38:37]
Taylor
RA.