Top Advisor Website Questions (Part 1): Should You Share Your Fees & More

Summary

Advisor Marketing Made Simple: Episode Summary

Title: Top Advisor Website Questions (Part 1): Should You Share Your Fees & More
Release Date: March 12, 2025
Hosts: Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright

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Introduction

In this insightful first part of their two-part series on advisor website questions, hosts Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright delve into two pivotal topics: deciding when to redesign your website and determining whether to display your pricing or fees online. Aimed at financial advisors seeking effective marketing strategies, this episode provides practical advice to enhance website performance, attract qualified leads, and ultimately grow your advisory business.

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1. When Is It Time to Redesign Your Website?

Understanding the Need for Redesign

Kendra opens the discussion by addressing a common frustration among advisors: investing time and money into a website that doesn't generate leads. Citing a 2024 Broadridge marketing study, she highlights that while websites are the most popular marketing investment among advisors, 62% report that their sites fail to generate leads (00:00).

Taylor's Perspective: Beyond Lead Generation

Taylor challenges the notion that a website's sole purpose is lead generation. He posits, “Your website does not have to generate leads” (01:21), suggesting that for some advisors, a website can function merely as an informational brochure. He emphasizes the importance of defining the website’s primary goal—whether it's to showcase services, provide resources, or generate leads.

Kendra’s Approach: Refresh Over Redesign

Kendra advocates for minimalistic changes rather than complete overhauls. She states, “I believe that it is rarely a good time for a complete full redesign, but it's often a great time to refresh or improve the website” (06:48). Her criteria for considering a redesign include significant niche changes, transitioning from a templated website to a custom one, or if the existing site is outdated and difficult to update.

Templated vs. Customized Websites

The hosts discuss the limitations of templated websites, which may suit new advisors but often restrict future customization. Taylor likens templated websites to robo-managed investment portfolios—suitable for many but not all (08:34). He shares his personal experience of using a templated website initially, acknowledging its cost-effectiveness but recognizing the need for more flexibility as his business grew.

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Kendra warns against using website redesigns as a means to sidestep underlying marketing issues, such as unclear target audiences or insufficient traffic. She highlights the importance of first defining the ideal client avatar and addressing traffic generation before considering a redesign (09:17).

Quotes:

• Kendra: “Your website doesn’t have to generate leads. It could be a brochure, just sharing more about who you are and what you do.” (00:00)
• Taylor: “So your website does not have to generate leads. But today we're going to talk about some of the biggest website questions that we get from advisors.” (01:21)

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2. Should You Include Pricing or Fees on Your Site?

Initial Hesitations: Avoiding Scare Tactics

Taylor recounts his early strategy of withholding fee information to avoid deterring potential clients who might not understand the value of financial planning. He explains, “I just wasn't convinced that consumers were educated enough to say, yeah, you know what, $15,000 minimum sounds about right” (18:02). This approach aimed to encourage conversations where he could demonstrate value before discussing fees.

Evolving Strategy: Filtering Qualified Leads

As Taylor’s business grew, the volume of leads increased, leading to inefficiencies in handling unqualified prospects. To streamline the process, he began displaying fees upfront, which significantly reduced the number of introductory calls but increased the quality of leads: “...we determined that adding more friction to the process, putting our fees front and center on our website... has now kind of gotten us down to closer to 50 to 60 introductory phone calls per year” (18:02).

Balancing Transparency and Lead Quality

Taylor underscores the importance of filtering leads based on their ability to pay, suggesting that fees should align with the advisor’s target demographic. He provides examples of alternative ways to display fees, such as linking them to client income or assets: “...we help tech professionals making over half a million dollars lower their tax bill and make work optional” (24:37).

Kendra’s Insights: Clear vs. Quiet Routes

Kendra introduces the concepts of the “clear route” and the “quiet route” for displaying fees:

• Clear Route: Directly listing fees, possibly on a standalone page like “Our Fees” or integrating them into broader content sections, which can increase transparency and attract the right clientele.
• Quiet Route: Subtly incorporating fee information within other pages, such as the process or services page, which can capture qualified leads without prominently highlighting costs.

She notes, “If you’re ready to be more bold about it... posting a standalone fees page can be very effective” (29:50).

Best Practices for Fee Transparency

Taylor and Kendra emphasize the importance of aligning fee structures with the advisor’s value proposition. Advisors competing on fees should highlight their affordability, while those offering premium services should focus on the value and comprehensive support they provide. The use of comparison tables can effectively illustrate the benefits relative to competitors, helping clients make informed decisions.

Quotes:

• Taylor: “A bad user experience is worse, I think than a poorly designed site.” (04:21)
• Taylor: “...your website should help filter people based on their ability to pay your fee.” (18:02)
• Kendra: “Great copy can save bad design. But great design will not save bad copy.” (16:42)

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3. Common Questions and Scenarios

Defining the Ideal Client

Both hosts stress the necessity of understanding and defining the ideal client persona. Tailoring website content and fee structures to attract the right demographic ensures more efficient lead generation and higher conversion rates.

Filtering Leads Efficiently

Taylor shares his experience of modifying the call scheduling process to include fee acknowledgment, which effectively filters out unqualified leads: “... adding a box to check to ensure that they've seen our fees and understand what they are” (18:02). This strategy ensures that only serious prospects proceed to the introductory call.

Practical Examples

Kendra provides a real-world example from a client who previously handled 167 calls a year but streamlined the process by incorporating fee filters, resulting in a more manageable and productive advisor schedule: “... changing their call booking process to be similar to what you mentioned... and it's been remarkable” (28:24).

Tailoring Fee Presentation

Advisors can present fees in ways that reflect their unique value propositions. For instance, those competing on lower fees should highlight affordability, while those offering extensive services should emphasize the comprehensive value provided, as Taylor suggests: “...if you are competing on fees, it should be front and center blasted all over your website” (31:01).

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4. Best Practices for Website Optimization

Prioritizing Copy Over Design

Taylor and Kendra agree that compelling copy is more crucial than aesthetically pleasing design. Taylor shares an example where excellent content outweighed a dated design, emphasizing user journey and clear communication of services: “...the content and the copy and the user journey that they created was phenomenal” (15:42).

Continuous Improvement

Both hosts advocate for viewing website management as an ongoing process rather than a one-time project. Regular updates and incremental improvements can sustain website effectiveness and adapt to changing business needs: “It should be a fluid, ongoing process... making updates to bring it up to speed” (14:05).

Collaboration with Designers

Kendra highlights the importance of collaborating with designers who can also assist with copywriting to ensure that both design and content are optimized for conversion: “...if you do choose to look at, you know, maybe refreshing or rebuilding your website, you need to be really clear when you talk to a designer, are you also gonna help write the copy?” (16:42).

Utilizing Design Elements Strategically

Kendra suggests leveraging design elements like footers to identify and connect with quality design partners: “...check out the footer because there's a lot of design agencies that will say, hey, design by, you know, xyz” (14:05).

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Conclusion

In this episode of "Advisor Marketing Made Simple," Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright provide financial advisors with actionable insights into optimizing their websites for better lead generation and client qualification. By thoughtfully considering when to redesign, how to present fees, and the critical role of compelling copy, advisors can enhance their online presence, attract high-quality leads, and ultimately grow their practices more effectively.

For more resources and to join future episodes, listeners are encouraged to check the show notes provided by the hosts.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Kendra [00:00]: “Your website doesn’t have to generate leads. It could be a brochure, just sharing more about who you are and what you do.”
• Taylor [01:21]: “Your website does not have to generate leads. But today we're going to talk about some of the biggest website questions that we get from advisors.”
• Taylor [04:21]: “A bad user experience is worse, I think than a poorly designed site.”
• Taylor [18:02]: “We determined that adding more friction to the process, putting our fees front and center on our website... has now kind of gotten us down to closer to 50 to 60 introductory phone calls per year.”
• Kendra [16:42]: “Great copy can save bad design. But great design will not save bad copy.”
• Taylor [31:01]: “If you are competing on fees, it should be front and center blasted all over your website.”

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Note: Time stamps refer to the position in the provided transcript.

Transcript

[Kendra]

Hey, it's Kendra and Taylor and we're here to make advisor marketing simple. This is part one of our two part series on advisor website questions. Today we tackle two topics. Number one, when is the time to redesign your website? And number two, should you include pricing or fees on your site? Now make sure you listen to the end because this conversation is about more than your website. What we share may help you save a lot of money, avoid some massive distractions, and keep unqualified leads off your calendar. And it all starts by answering today's questions. Your website is supposed to be one of your most powerful marketing tools. But after investing time and money, many advisors are left wondering, why isn't this thing actually bringing in new clients? So if you've ever felt that frustration, my friend, you are not alone. According to a 2024 Broadridge marketing study, websites are the most popular marketing investment for advisors. Yet 62% said they don't generate leads. So today, Taylor and I are going to tackle some of your biggest website questions and our thoughts and advice on potentially how to fix them. So Taylor, I know we've had a lot of conversations about advisor websites on the show and I know you have some really strong thoughts about this.

[Taylor]

You know, I certainly have a strong thought about that study. You just shared that 62% advisors say that 62%. 62% of advisors say their websites don't generate leads. Your website doesn't have to generate leads. So we could just lead with that and say your website does not have to generate leads. It could be a brochure, just sharing more about who you are and what you do. So just to note that at the very beginning here, your website does not have to generate leads. But today we're going to talk about some of the biggest website questions that we get from advisors. We're going to talk through the, the top five that we've received over the years and to kind of get us started here. Before we start to go into some of the questions, I just want to start by sharing that I think we should attack our websites and think about our websites just like we would financial planning. So attacking it like we would with a financial planning client, starting with, you know, what is the purpose and goal of our site? If it's to generate leads, then sure, we should approach it a little bit differently than if it's just a brochure sharing more about us and who we are on our team and our services. So to documenting that the purpose or goal of the site, are we going to include resources for clients do we have any lead gen or email capture? So documenting that to begin with so you know kind of where to go with what with your website and what improvements you should make. There are some general website characteristics that we'll start by sharing. One is that the style and color and design of your website is really important and it should match well with your firm's culture and desired brand image. It should also align with and speak to your ideal client. So as you look at your website today or ask somebody else to take a look at your website, be sure that that that style, the color, the design matches up with who your ideal client is. If you work with retirees in their 60s, you probably don't want bright colors and this tech forward design. So take that into, into consideration as you review your website and potentially make updates. Second, I want to share is that user experience is so critical on a website. Put yourself in the user's shoes and ensure that your site is easy to read, easy to navigate, the pages load quickly. A bad user experience is worse, I think than a poorly designed site. A bad user experience will cause people to get confused, not know where to go next and hit the back button and just go to somebody else's website. So user experience is really critical, having a clear value proposition and call to action if you want people to use your site to take action. So clearly documenting what you do, who you do it for and how to take action. What's the next step if they feel like they're potentially in the right place. And then of course, just some other general pages that most websites include. That team or about page is typically the second most visited page on advisor websites. The first being the homepage having a simple services page so people know the services that you offer. And case studies and testimonials are also quite popular. So just some, some website characteristics to keep in mind and think about as we go through some of these questions today and you start considering making improvements or changes to your website.

[Kendra]

Taylor, you said something there that may have listeners raising an eyebrow, which is the website doesn't actually have to have the purpose of generating leads. And you mentioned there are certain scenarios like maybe you're using it as like a brochure. Could you give some more context on where you've seen advisors build websites that weren't, you know, lead driven?

[Taylor]

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think about someone, an advisor who focuses on, let's say COI marketing and they're building, you know, local relationships with centers of influence, CPAs and attorneys. And these are great referral partners and you know, estate planning attorney says to one of their clients, like, hey, you should really go talk to Kendra. Kendra specializes in working with people just like you. If you want to check her out, go check out her, her website first before contacting her. So might be an example where that person just wants to go to your website, see that you exist, read a little bit more about you and your bio and your team and the services you offer before actually contacting you. Now, as I said out loud, I could argue that that is a form of lead gen, right? In order to kind of convert that person, in order for that person to want to actually make that phone call, they're going to your website to validate some information. So maybe at the end of the day, all websites are some form of lead gen. But that's kind of what I was getting at is like it doesn't have to be necessarily search engine optimization, blogs, podcasts, email capture, pop ups, all these things. It might just be, I want people to know that I exist. I want them to be able to get some basic information about me so that they are informed when they reach out or they know if they should or should not reach out based on whoever sent them there. So, and by the way, I know some advisors, some very successful advisors that don't have any websites at all. I can't even begin to explain how that works, but you may not even need a website.

[Kendra]

Fun fact. I think it was for the first maybe three to four years of owning a marketing consulting agency, I didn't even have a freaking website. So if I can get away with it, there might be a scenario that it makes sense for you, you know, do your own weird year. So that's all we're saying.

[Taylor]

Do your own weird. I like it.

[Kendra]

Cool. So what's up? What's the first question that we get a lot, Taylor, that advisors would love to know about on the websites?

[Taylor]

Yeah. So the first question we got is when is it time to redesign my website? You know, for example, you know, we spent time and money five years ago doing a full rebrand, a full redesign of our website. Like, how do we know when it's time to go through that process again and spend more money and more time redesigning our website? So Kendra, what do you think?

[Kendra]

So I have a pretty interesting approach and thought process on this. I think I've saved a lot of advisors quite a bit of money. I personally believe that it is rarely a good time for a complete full redesign, but it's often a great time to refresh or improve the website. So before I talk about a few of those things, I think it's really important, like when does it make sense? Right. And I think if you've changed your niche or you finally really dove into a niche and you feel comfortable kind of burning the bridges, so to speak. I've seen some advisors do that, and I think it can make sense. The second time I think it makes sense to potentially do a full redesign is if you're moving from a templated website and it might be easier to rebuild it than replicate it. And the third one is just if that thing is old and crusty, impossible to update. It looks like it's from before the dot com crash in 2008. It's just like, man, it'd just be better to like wad this piece of paper up and start over. I think there's some. There's some warrant to that too.

[Taylor]

Really quick, what do you mean by templated word website and rebuilding it rather than replicating a templated website?

[Kendra]

Yeah, so there are a few different services out there for advisors that will give them, like, really easy plug and play, you know, templated websites. You know, in the past, I don't want to say certain names because I don't want to. I don't want people to think I'm thinking negatively. But like 20 or 10 used to have, like templated, you know, websites, and that can be a really good choice for certain advisors, especially if you're just getting started and you don't need a really complex website. But over time, what you might bump into is there's a lot of limitations with these websites. You know, you can make copy updates and a few images. But if you really want to start to do more marketing or getting more traffic or your firm is growing, you'll bump into a lot of limitations there on like, plugins and customization and like, things like that.

[Taylor]

Yeah, I think it's, you know, not all that different. Again, as you know, I like to kind of tie things back to our financial planning investing world. Maybe it's not all that different than, you know, a simple model portfolio that's managed by a robo platform. Right. Limited customizations, kind of, you know, take what you get. It's not the worst thing in the world. It's appropriate for a lot of people. But if you want a fully customized investment portfolio, it's certainly going to cost a lot more and take a lot more or take a lot more of your time to manage. So there's certainly a time and place for these templated websites. In fact, my very first website was a template that I think I purchased for roughly $50, kind of built out myself. So there's certainly a time and place for these templated websites. But, yeah, like you said, you do run into some limitations in terms of being able to customize things.

[Kendra]

Definitely. And the other thing that advisors may not be thinking about, and I see it often, is that sometimes a website redesign is an easy way to hide from bigger marketing issues. And I don't think that advisors do this intentionally. And I see it happen in my own business, like, oh, let me go over here and tinker with this. And I really need to be over here dealing with this. For example. Some of those marketing issues I see happen, for example, is if advisor doesn't have a clear avatar and really understand their pain points. You've heard this a few different times on the show where we talk to an advisor and they don't really understand their avatar really quickly, and that flows down through the website. And so they just think, well, let me just rebuild the website. It's not working. We're like, wait a second, we really need to define that clear avatar and the pain point. So that's one place I see advisors run from. The second way I see advisors hide in a website redesign sometimes is they think they have a website problem when they actually have a traffic problem. So if you go back and you listen to our marketing funnels episode, what you might figure out is that your website's okay, but if you're not getting any traffic to the website, it doesn't really warrant a full, you know, rebuild. You might need to refresh and update the homepage or a couple of these key pages. But a full redesign might not be the best use of your time. And then the third one I'll say is that sometimes it can feel really scary to put yourself out there, you know, start publishing your podcast or put your videos out there to really start actively marketing. And sometimes it's easier to tinker with your website. So when it comes to what does a refresh look like? You already touched on it a little bit, Taylor. I like to call them the big three. The homepage, the about page, and your services pages are going to get the majority of your traffic. So if you want to make some updates, you could actually just redesign those singular pages. We do this often for our clients and improve the conversion rates on those. Going to save you a lot of time, a lot of money. And you can break it out into a phased approach instead of saying, I need a Website redesign. You might need a homepage redesign.

[Taylor]

Yeah, you bring up some really good points. I love what you said about avoidance behavior. It's so common to, you know, want to work on something on our marketing or our business, and we see somebody else's website and it looks so much better than ours. By the way, everybody else's website always looks better than yours. And we think, okay, now it's time to redo my. I got to redo my website. I have to bring it up to speed. And I think a lot of times it is avoidance behavior. We don't really want to do the hard work in other areas. It's a lot harder to launch and start a podcast and write really high quality scripts and publish this and share it with the world, or start a YouTube channel or start writing. It's much easier to go throw five or $10,000 at an agency to rebuild the website. Sounds like a lot of fun. So I, I love that you, you brought that up. And I think one of the most important questions here, before we answer that question or before somebody answers this question, is why? Like, why are you asking this why? Why is it time to potentially redesign your website? Why do you want to redesign your website? And having a good answer to that, why before you start to just jump in, I also think, and you hit on this as well, this being a fluid process. You knocked, you talked about kind of refreshing the website. And I might say it a little bit differently and say this is a, it should be a fluid, ongoing process, you know, like financial planning. It's not this, like one time do your financial plan and then come back to it in five years and do another financial plan. You might do a big comprehensive financial plan to start, and then, you know, you are updating that plan on an ongoing basis. Maybe it's monthly, quarterly, annually, or, you know, when certain life events occur, but it's a fluid, ongoing process, and I think we should view our websites the same way. And yes, every once in a while, maybe every decade, every 15 years, you need a full brand redesign, full website refresh. That's certainly possible. But most of the time it is this refresh or this fluid, ongoing process of just making updates to the site to bring it up to speed, to improve the performance of the site, to address some of the other issues that you brought up. You know, improving search traffic. I've done this a number of times. I probably spend roughly 10, 5 to $10,000 per year on the website just making improvements once or twice per year. I'll go to our agency and talk about some improvements that we can make. I'll go through my notes and we'll kind of agree on a scope of work and, you know, make those changes. So I think I would highly encourage you to think about this as a fluid, ongoing process. And if you're not in the right place right now, if you don't have a good website partner or good agency, or you still have an old outdated template that has, you know, limited customizations, maybe it is time to go through that process, get with a good agency, take control over your website so you're not on a captive platform and, you know, start to build a real website that can last for the next 15, 20 years. And again, you're going to be making changes and improvements year by year, but knowing that you have a great foundation to build on real quick too.

[Kendra]

If you land on a website you really dig, check out the footer because there's a lot of design agencies that will say, hey, design by, you know, xyz. So that's one way you could find a good design partner too.

[Taylor]

Yeah. I also think it's important to separate design from the copy or the content on the site. Kendra, I think you would agree that the copy is, is way more important than the actual design. I know we're all attracted to like beautiful design. This looks great, but in reality, what the website says, how it's written, the way the text is designed, makes a much larger impact than the graphics or the colors. Michael Kitces and I recently did a website consultation with an advisor and their website, Kendra, looked like a website from the late 90s or early 2000s. And they came to us wanting to redesign their website and asking for some feedback. And while it wasn't the best looking website, the content and the copy and the user journey that they created was phenomenal. And so what we told them or what we spent our time talking to them about was some improvements that they could make to their copy to improve their conversion rates on their website and better illustrate and communicate what they do for people and how they do it, rather than going and spending 10, $20,000 and a lot of time to just redesign the whole site. So I think part of that question of like, why are we doing this? Maybe it's also, should we be redesigning or improving the copy and the content or should we be redesigning, you know, the graphics, the images, the colors, the style? And I think that's a big question to answer before you start to begin a project like this.

[Kendra]

I also don't think that Most advisors realize when they're thinking about redesigning their website, they see that as one thing, but it is actually two things. You know, design and copy. And we could get more nuance in that. But let's keep it simple. And here's one of the most important things that I think advisors need to know that may surprise them, which is if you have great copy, great copy can save bad design. But great design, like, it looks pretty, it looks sexy, It. It will not save bad copy. I have a client right now, came on board with us, and I'm not gonna lie, their website looks pretty sexy, but their copy was just so bland. And it's really important that if you do choose to look at, you know, maybe refreshing or rebuilding your website, you need to be really clear when you talk to a designer, are you also gonna help write the copy? Because you might need to bring in support on that or maybe you help them write the copy is a really good distinction that you bring up. And I just don't think a lot of advisors think about that.

[Taylor]

Well, if everybody wants an example of a site that. And I'm not gonna say this is a bad design. Cause I don't know if they're listening. I actually don't know the folks who own this company or this website. So I'm not gonna say it's a bad design. I actually think it's a really nice, clean design. But it's probably not one of those websites that's like, gonna be on one of those lists, the top most beautiful advisor websites out there, just because it is so clean and simple. But if you want a good example of just a simple, basic website without any flashy design, but really great content and a really great user journey, the website is geometricadvisors.com extremely simple. All that's on the homepage is their name and this sentence that says comprehensive financial planning for executives and partners in management, consulting, finance, and other demanding careers that could probably be improved a little bit. But what I love right underneath that is our investment philosophy in 99 words. You better believe, like, I'm going to click that button because I want to read their investment philosophy words. And the rest of their site is really easy to navigate as well. I think it's just a really good example of they didn't go and spend $20,000 building this beautiful website. It's a very basic, clean, simple website. And they focused mostly on the content and the copy.

[Kendra]

I like that. I love this. And a little bit of a different approach too. So we'll link to that in the show notes, you'll be able to click real quick and see what that looks like. So let's talk a little bit more about some common questions we get, Taylor. The next one is should I include pricing and fees on my website? What do you think about this?

[Taylor]

It's a really great question. There's a lot to talk about here. So my view has changed and evolved over the years. Anybody who's listened to my old Experiments in Advisor Marketing podcast, I think I talked about this a little bit. I've done some presentations for the FPA talking about fees on my website. So my view has primarily changed in recent years, mostly due to the volume of leads that we get. We have a high volume of leads these days due to the retirement podcast I host and our email newsletter. A lot of people coming to our site to learn more about us and potentially reach out and schedule an introductory phone call. And because there are so many people coming to our website, we have to do a really good job of filtering them to ensure that the right people are scheduling phone calls with us. So we've added a lot more friction to our process, essentially making it a little bit harder or requiring them to jump through more hoops on our website before they actually get to our calendar and they're able to schedule a phone call. And again, we're only able to do that because of the volume of leads or the amount of traffic that we have on our website. So we have to be careful about adding too much friction too early. Because if we don't have a lot of traffic or we don't have a lot of people reaching out to us and we have a bunch of friction or a bunch of hoops for people to jump through, then we may not see any results. Nobody's gonna end up on our calendar. So over the years, we continue to add a little bit more friction to our process to help filter people out and ensure the right people are scheduling phone calls with us. So historically, let's say, so my firm is just over 10 years old. So let's say it's 10 years old. The first five years we didn't have our fees front and center on our website. And my argument was I don't know that most people understand what financial planning is and the true value of financial planning and what the true cost is. And I want to be careful not to scare somebody without even having the chance to talk to them and demonstrate what my value is and how I can help them. I think a lot of people don't even know how much they pay their financial adviser, they might think they pay their advisor nothing, right? And they come to my website and it says, our minimum fee is $15,000 per year. And they're like, I've never paid anything for financial advice. Why in the hell would I pay Taylor $15,000 per year? So in the first five years of owning my firm, I'm like, I don't want to scare these people away. I want a chance to at least talk to them, answer their questions and, and demonstrate my value and let them connect the value that I've expressed to them to the fee that I charge. So on that call or during that sales process, sharing my value and sharing my fees and letting them connect the dots. But if I ask them to do that on their own through my website, I was just fearful that they wouldn't be able to connect the dots on their own. People don't read every single word on a website. Even if you have videos on your website trying to demonstrate your value, they're not going to watch every single video or watch the entire video. So I can't trust that people are going to be able to understand my value through my website and be able to connect that to my fee. So that was my concern in the early years, was like, I need to grow. I know I do really good work for people. I know I provide a ton of value, and I want the chance to talk to them first to demonstrate that value before I put my fees front and center now. And again. I should have prefaced by saying I am all for transparency. I'm not trying to hide anything from anyone here. I'm not trying to pull the rug out from underneath them or be deceptive or anything like that. It's just, I just wasn't convinced that consumers were educated enough to say, yeah, you know what, $15,000 minimum sounds about right. I just wasn't convinced of that. Fast forward to today. And again, you know, our. Our brand has grown, our audience has grown. There's a lot more people coming to our website. And instead of 100 or 200 introductory phone calls per year, my team just determined there was too many people reaching out. Too many were not a good fit. A lot of times due to the fee conversation. And instead of them so through and filtering through 100 or 200 different intro calls and wasting their time, and more importantly, wasting this person's time to schedule a call, we determined that adding more friction to the process, putting our fees front and center on our website. Also in the the call scheduling process, there's a box to check to ensure that they've seen our fees and understand what they they are. This has now kind of gotten us down to closer to 50 to 60 introductory phone calls per year. But highly qualified, right? They've jumped through a lot of hoops to end up on our calendar. They've not only seen our fees, but who we do our best work for, our value proposition, our services, everything. So by the time they get to that intro call, they are very, very serious about hiring us. Now it's more about getting to know each other, asking some clarifying questions, seeing a little bit more about how we work, how we can help them in order for them to make that final decision. But now, instead of one to 200 phone calls per year, the team is having, you know, 50 to 60 per year with awesome people. So I'll wrap by saying, at the very least, your website should help filter people based on their ability to pay your fee. So maybe you're in the camp that I was in in the first five years of owning my firm, which is like, gosh, I, you know, I need to grow, and I don't want to scare people away by putting my giant minimum fee front and center on my website. If that's the case, at the very least, your website should help filter people based on their ability to pay your fee. So it might be a minimum income needed or minimum assets or minimum net worth or minimum business revenue or even minimum employee headcount. Right? We specialize in working with business owners who have, you know, between 15 and 20 employees. You know, for someone to employ 15 to 20 employees probably requires a certain amount of revenue. So you might be able to back into their ability to pay your fee based on employee headcount or the amount of taxes they pay each year. If you pay more than $500,000 in taxes every year. We specialize in helping people. Just like you reduce your tax bill if you work with busy professionals and your minimum is, let's say, $15,000 per year. What level of income might someone need in order to pay $15,000 per year? Right. If you make $100,000 per year, probably not prudent for you to pay an advisor $15,000 per year every single year. So instead of saying our fee is $15,000 or our minimum fee is $15,000, you might say something like, we help tech professionals making over half a million dollars lower their tax bill and make work optional. Someone making $500,000 probably should be able to pay an advisor $15,000. Maybe, maybe not. I Don't know, depends on their expenses. But it's another way to frame it to ensure that the right people are scheduling phone calls with you. You're not wasting their time. You know that you can make a pretty fair assumption that they have the ability to pay your fee. And now you have an opportunity to talk to them, share more value proposition, and ultimately let them connect the dots. So a lot to unpack there. Kendra, what are you thinking?

[Kendra]

Yeah, I really appreciate how you laid out that you can state your fees in a variety of ways. It could be the income you make, the assets you have, the team size you have, the business revenue you have, the amount of taxes you pay. So you can see also how this connects back to your ideal client profile, who you love to serve. You need to know some of those details. And you also brought up something I hear us get asked in the show a lot, which is, hey, Taylor, can you tell me a little bit about how you get people to give you all these details and give you all this friction? And through building the brand, building your platform and those pieces, you've earned the opportunity to create a little bit more friction. My question for you is the first five years, you know, you said I was a little nervous to do that in given what you know. Now looking back, do you think that it made sense to still kind of wait to do that or would you make any changes?

[Taylor]

Again, I'm all for transparency here, not trying to be deceptive. I do think that there is a benefit in the early years as an advisor or the early years as a business owner to get as many at bats as possible. I hate that word, like at bats, but I don't know better word to use at the moment. But getting as many at bats as possible, just talking to as many people as you can to get practice with these introductory phone calls, sharing about your firm, asking good questions and going through that process with people. So I found a lot of value in talking to a hundred different people every single year. Now, I could argue that. Yeah, but Taylor, you're wasting their time, right? There's a lot of people that are scheduling these calls with you that are truly not a good fit. But then I'd say, you know, in the early years, like, I didn't really know exactly who I was targeting and who I did my best work for and who I really wanted to work with. And so it did give me an opportunity to talk to a lot of different, you know, potential clients to determine who I really got along with and who I wanted to work with. And so I think there's some benefit to in the early years just having that, you know, calendly acuity scheduling link front and center on your website. You know, I'm a financial advisor. Here are my services. If you want to learn more. Schedule a phone call and having as many of those phone calls as you can from there starting to add more and more friction to your process to ensure that the right people begin scheduling phone calls and you're focused more on quality over quantity. I also depends on who your ideal client is, how educated they are about financial professionals and, you know, potentially your way of communicating your fees and your value proposition on your website. I've seen some great advisor websites that do a phenomenal job at outlining their value and their fees and potentially their target demographic, you know, is able to understand that value and, and make a decision by reading through the website or watching a video. So it depends on a number of different things. But I do think there's a benefit to in the early years, you know, I want to talk to as many people as possible and get that experience before I start to add a bunch of friction to my process.

[Kendra]

That's a lot of extra context I find really helpful. So if you're an advisor listening, I would kind of boil it down to two questions you would ask yourself on if it makes sense to consider adding fees to your website. The first one is do you have too many unqualified leads and you had enough at bats? I think that's a great time to consider adding a little bit more friction. And the second one is which Taylor is the process he went through if you have too many leads and you need to start qualifying them more effectively. I had this happen with a current client of ours recently. They did 167 calls last year and they were still just, you know, taking all these additional clients. And we changed their kind of call booking process to be similar to what you mentioned, a checkbox to confirm, you know, level of assets. And it's been remarkable what it has done for them and the amount of time it has got back for their advising team. But it was something they had earned their way to and that might not have been appropriate, you know, a few years ago. So makes a lot of sense to me and I love your perspective there.

[Taylor]

Yeah, you know, one thing I didn't mention either is, you know, if you are going to put your fees front and center on your website, or maybe you're a little bit nervous to do so, you're not sure how to display your fees or how to help people connect your value and your services to the fee that you're. You're displaying. You can take a page out of the, like the tech world where you see a lot of websites for, I don't know, virtual meeting software providers or even online calendar providers. And they'll often have this table on their websites, like, here's our fee and all the services that we offer compared to our competitors, right? Our fee is, you know, maybe $50 a month. And here's everything that, you know, our tool provides you. And yes, our competitors fee or cost is $30 per month, but they don't offer nearly as much. That is a kind of comparison table on their website. And you could certainly do the same thing, right? We charge, you know, 1% of your investable assets. Here's all the services we provide, and the next call over, it's like, you know, there are cheaper services out there. You can pay Vanguard personal advisor services 0.3%. And here's the services they provide. You're going to pay a lower fee, but you're going to get some fewer services and maybe not as high quality of service. So you can compare and contrast your fees and your services and your value to others that are out there. I think it's a really effective way to help consumers quickly connect the dots and determine whether or not, you know, your fee aligns with what they're looking for, the service they need, and the value that you provide.

[Kendra]

One quick follow up on that. Because I'm a total nerd and I like to keep swipe files of a lot of different things. And one of those things happens to be how advisors display pricing on their website. And I've identified that there's really two ways to do this. I call it the clear route and the quiet route. And you kind of touched on it there, Taylor, but the clear route, and this is kind of another decision point for you advisors listening. If you're like, okay, I do think I want to list it, how should I go about it? The clear route, where you're ready to be more bold about it. You can also do a standalone fees page in the navigation. Entitle it very clearly like our fees or something that I did for another client of ours recently that has been very successful is we actually blended it into their process page. They had a process page and we blended it into that and we just retitled that page Process and pricing. And there's just a small section of the page that has their pricing details. And what was really fascinating is the traffic to that page spiked like 20 to 30% after we just added that in the navigation. So that's one way the quiet route is, as you kind of mentioned, Taylor tucking it in on a service page or something like that. Or maybe you put it on your process page, but you don't label it in the navigation. So those are just a couple different ways you could do that.

[Taylor]

If your value proposition is competing on fees, right? If that's, if that's the game that you're playing is like our fees are lower than everybody else's, then absolutely it should be front and center blasted all over your website. You know, Our fee is $2,000 per year and the average advisor is, you know, charging $10,000 per year. So if you're competing on fees and you want to be the, the low price service offering, you would certainly display your fees and market your fees a little bit different than, you know, more premium services. So just worth throwing out there.

[Kendra]

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