Telling Your Story: How to Differentiate Your Practice

We interviewed niche marketing maven, Kristin Harad on the following topics:
- Identifying your ideal client
- Choosing a niche
- The most common marketing mistakes financial advisors make
- Optimizing your marketing efforts

Did her answers spur new ideas for your practice? Do you still have unanswered questions you'd like to ask Kristin?

To help answer any questions that might've arisen, we've invited Kristin back for a live Q&A with our audience. Don't miss this chance to connect with Kristin and to ask her your questions!

Victor Gaxiola works with financial services organizations and individuals wanting to adopt a social media strategy. See what Victor thinks is crucial when considering going social:

- Establishing a social media strategy
- Having valuable content for social media
- Providing proper training
- Choosing your success metrics to determine ROI

Did his answers spur new ideas for your practice? Do you still have unanswered questions you'd like to ask Victor? Sign up with a live Q&A with Victor here: https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/6867/72515

See what niche marketing maven, Kristin Harad, had to say about the following topics:
- Identifying your ideal client
- Choosing a niche
- The most common marketing mistakes financial advisors make
- Optimizing your marketing efforts

Did her answers spur new ideas for your practice? Do you still have unanswered questions you'd like to ask Kristin? Sign up with a live Q&A with Kristin here: https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/6867/72513

Cathy Curtis says you don't have to have a product or a company to brand; you can be your own brand. But what does being your own brand mean?

Stephen Wershing answers 3 audience questions that came in following his presentation "Striking It Niche! Earn More by Marketing to Less".

To view the full presentation, click the "Attachments" button on the top of the webinar player.

When your ideal client interviews you and four other advisors, what is the one important reason they should hire you rather than those others? The secret is niche marketing. You have probably seen articles about developing a niche and target marketing, but there is so much that they don’t cover or even get wrong. This program will give you a strategy for developing a niche and capitalizing on it.

The best way to retain clients and to generate referrals (without asking) is to take great care of your clients! This 60 minute session will offer insights, summaries from research on what clients want and practical ideas for enhancing your client care and your clients' experience of your value (including the 6 steps of holding a great client meeting).

Victor Gaxiola answers the million dollar question for advisors and financial services companies alike -- What is the real risk of social media?

Is referral business a key and favorite source of new revenue for your company? If you'd like more and better referrals, Matt Anderson, president of The Referral Authority, will cover the five things that you can do differently than everyone else in business development to ensure a much stronger inflow of referrals. No more average results or simply 'hoping' good customer service will suffice.

In this workshop you will learn that:
*You can ask for more of what you want
*You can be more clear about what you want
*You can help others open doors for you more effectively
*You can be more strategic with and better leverage key centers of influence
*You can be more of the person who gets a lot of referrals and business as a result

You do a fabulous job laying out a blueprint for your clients in the initial client engagement. You do a fabulous job monitoring progress through your client review meetings—sometimes. Sometimes not so much—perhaps you would like more consistency in your meetings. Or perhaps you know how to review investment performance but are not so sure how to review the other areas of the financial plan. Or perhaps you simply do not know what to do other than recreating the financial plan that provides a blueprint to move forward.

John Comer, writer, consultant and CFP® certificant, will describe a framework for refining your client review meetings. Your clients come to you for financial advice. In this session we will review the core deliverable for your clients, your review meeting, so you can provide the best Carriage Trade advice for your clients. Learn more at www.jcomerconsulting.com.

It is more important than ever for women to obtain good financial planning advice as their wealth and financial power increases. Additionally, just as important for women reaching retirement age is the consequence of a smart Social Security election decision on her lifetime income. This dual financial service need has created a win-win opportunity for advisors and women. With the right training and client outreach, financial advisors who enjoy educating and working with women clients and who want to strengthen this niche of their practice, can become an invaluable resource in their communities.The centers of influence around the topic of Social Security income planning – including CPAs, attorneys, insurance agents, human resource managers and even realtors – will gladly refer clients to advisors who specialize in this service. The women who benefit will see a potential increase of over $100,000 in their lifetime income and will certainly spread the news to friends and family members.

In this special BrightTALK webinar, you will learn how to enhance your Social Security income planning services by addressing the needs of your pre- and early retiree female clients and prospects. Financial advisors now have the opportunity to position themselves to help the swelling ranks of female boomers meet their retirement income goals.

Moderator
* Marie Swift, President & CEO, Impact Communications

Panelists
* Martha Shedden, Social Security Specialist
* Frank Horath, Financial Advisor and Author of "How to Grow Your Financial Practice with Social Security Income Planning"
* Jim Schwartz, CFP, Founder, Widowed Community Education & Support Services, Inc. (WCESS)

The biggest communication mistake financial advisors make is letting your "list" get cold. Without ongoing, relationship-building communications, prospects who may once have had an interest in your service soon forget about you. And clients who don't hear from you regularly postpone work or drift to another advisor or resource.

In this invigorating session, you'll learn an easy-to-use framework to develop 12 months of communications to engage your audience and keep them warm...without having to do it all yourself!

Learn:
- 4 Kinds of "Cultivate" Communications to send to your prospects and clients
- What to say to persuade other professionals to help you out
- How to get past the 'overwhelm' and create your own communications calendar

According to the famous philosopher Yogi Berra, "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going because you might not get there."

Since our objective is know where we are going so we can get there, we need a plan. The thought of developing a business plan can be daunting. But less so if you break it down.

You will learn:

How to plan asset growth --

In this section, you will learn how to estimate how many new assets can come from client and how many you need to get from prospects in order to make your goal. And you will learn a menu of choices and what to expect from different prospecting channels. Should you do seminars or should spend money developing a big network? It depends on a lot of factors. When you understand those factors, you will be able to make a better decision.

How to plan team growth --

As you grow your business, you have to grow your team or you will plateau as surely as night follows days. In this section, you will learn about the critical points when you have to add staff. You will also learn what functions combine well and which do not.

When we’re done, you will have an excellent idea where to start.

For additional resources, check out: www.billgood.com/2yearplan

The best financial advisors have always kept their clients engaged with content marketing — from publishing newsletters to leading seminars. But more interactive, social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and publishing-oriented websites are driving new levels of competitiveness.

We'll discuss a 5-point content marketing plan for minimizing social risk and maximizing client value at each relationship stage — from new client acquisition to client retention and growth. 2013 competitive threats such as the looming hedge fund content war likely to be unleashed by the JOBS Act will be explored for advisor marketing opportunities.

About Justin
Justin Breitfelder is a business content marketing strategist for financial and technology firms, from the Global 500 to boutique firms. Serving as an outsourced marketing director, he manages media and content on key business issues to position brands for more client interaction and long-term growth.

Are you seeing a clear ROI on your marketing, networking, and seminar efforts?

The most successful financial advisors use niche marketing to stand out from the crowd. Before you change your marketing strategy, however, you must 1) learn the difference between niches and ideal clients, 2) create an ideal client profile, and 3) determine the best ways to market. Discover the simple secrets of marketing with niches and ideal client profiles before you waste your time and money on strategies that don’t work.

Today, decide to work with high-quality clients who value your services and the expertise you bring to the table. Attend this workshop and we’ll show you how.

What You Will Learn:
- The vast difference between niches and ideal clients
- How niching helps you stand out from your competition
- 6 steps to create an ideal client profile that brings you AAA clients and a more profitable firm

Diving Deeper into Participatory Processes: Ideas for Topics for your Circle and Conversation Café

In the second session we will explore ideas for content and questions to use during your gatherings. By the end of this session we hope you will have the confidence, clarity and enthusiasm to get out your invitations and call your own circle of women.

This session will outline the core aspects and design of the participatory meeting process known simply as, “Circle”.

Gathering women together in a circle meeting takes advantage of women’s ways of connecting, learning and experiencing realization and empowerment. All of this is designed to help your clients and potential clients become more ready to learn and truly engage with you in improving their financial life.

If you thought that LinkedIn was just a fancy job site, well think again. Reputation matters to financial professionals, and LinkedIn now represents a valuable asset for advisors to build and leverage their reputation online. Join social network founder and LinkedIn expert Philip Calvert as he reveals a wealth of proven tips, techniques and strategies that are guaranteed to make an immediate and measurable difference to your profile and reputation on LinkedIn.

Philip is the founder of an award-winning social networking site for financial advisors and planners in the UK. His webinars with BrightTALK are consistently amongst their most popular and highly rated presentations - don't miss it.

Join Brent Carnduff, Marie Swift, April Rudin and Victor Gaxiola for a round table discussion about blogging for Financial Planners. The webinar will be set up as a question and answer session, with time at the end for specific questions from listeners.


Moderator:
- Brent Carnduff, Principal, Echelon Business Solutions

Panelists:
- Marie Swift, Principal, Impact Communications
- April Rudin, Principal, The Rudin Group,
- Victor Gaxiola, Social Media Subject Matter Expert, Actiance, Inc,