Is content creation keeping you from achieving more success?
Count how many times over the past 90 days you could have leveraged having more, and better content at your disposal? It could be to email or share with clients, prospects or COIs. It could be a paper on your site or a blog full of valuable, timely content to help your ideal audience make better financial and life decisions.
Now think about how many times you decided that you need to create this content, started and never finished? This includes starting an article/blog post, a presentation for a seminar or webinar, or a one-sheet to leave with COIs.
Many financial advisors struggle creating content to further their expertise and brand. In marketing your practice, content may be the single greatest determinant of your ability to successfully attract, impress and influence your target audience online. Yet it has eluded too many advisors who aspire to “crack the code” and it will continue to do so.
BUT I HATE WRITING! AND, I’M NO GOOD AT IT
Writing is lost on a lot of business professionals. I’ve witnessed it for many years in this field – and others. If you’re anything like me, it was your least favorite class in public school and university. For me, I was told I wasn’t very good at it both in school and in my first financial marketing role. I’ve gotten a lot better at it. You can check that out at KirkLowe.com.
In the late 90’s I had the opportunity to witness a friend who went from a small financial marketing writing role at a Mutual Fund company quickly advance his career to the VP of Marketing at one of the fastest growing Mutual Fund Companies of that decade. He told me the unique characteristic he had that propelled him forward was that he could express ideas better than everyone around him. He could write. He wrote marketing copy, stories and could generally explain concepts better. It garnered him a lot of attention and he took full advantage of it moving up the corporate ladder and successfully using his writing skills and mindset to subsequently grow those companies’ content marketing when content marketing wasn’t a big deal yet.
IF YOU STRUGGLE AT WRITING, FIND WHAT WORKS
I’ve struggled to help my financial advisor clients help themselves and become quality content creators. I’ve beaten my head on the proverbial wall many times. Here’s what I’ve learned about helping advisors be content creators for the long-term.
Content creation has to be:
Writing is typically everything but these. There is a better way.
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MY EPIC CHALLENGE WITH ADVISORS & CONTENT
I’ve tried hiring writers for advisors.
It’s expensive and often times the writer didn’t get the sentiment of the advisor’s concepts. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of exceptional financial writers, but they are often best at doing their own thing and having advisors purchase their content. Wendy J. Cooke is a perfect example – she writes passive investing commentary and she’s brilliant at it.
I’ve tried coaching them to write articles.
I can coach advisors on better ways to organize their ideas but the writing part kills the process. It takes years of practice to get good at writing and most advisors just don’t have the time and/or patience to wait until they are good enough. It doesn’t help that most advisors are perfectionists either.
I’ve referred them to books about “how to write”.
Given advisors don’t have much time to begin with, this one died quickly on their vine of to-dos.
I’ve written with them.
Painstaking and expensive to be honest – for both parties.
I’ve failed over and over to get fix this for advisors. We both know they need more and better content, but how?
Then I met Matt Halloran of Top Advisor Coaching.
We decided to start our own podcast, ModMarketing for Financial Advisors. I was concerned my dry humor and technical marketing approach wouldn’t work as a podcast. It’s safe to say I wasn’t born to podcast but with Matt’s energy and direction, we get by with a very valuable and fun podcast. I enjoy preparing for a participating in this podcast. The feedback I’ve received has confirmed that podcasting is a highly viable content medium. Matt has since started 3 podcasts with advisors I’m working with. Contact Matt Halloran on LinkedIn if you’d like more information.