Joe J, Financial Adviser, London & Cambridge, UK

TRANSCRIPTION

Joe: Okay. I'm Joe Jackson director of Spiritus Wealth, financial advisors in a headquartered in London with a an office in Cambridge here as well. Q: What issues or challenges did you have in your business in terms of marketing? Joe: Um yeah. Well, it's the classic really the financial advisors problem is, is finding qualified clients and what certainly new people speak to. We set up our business in, right at the start of 2014. So about six years old, we moved from a bigger practice to some clients with us, but we needed to work to grow a bit quicker than potentially we were already doing. We worked with the small number of high net worth clients. And while they're happy to refer, they obviously only refer a certain amount of people per year. So it was nice. It was a plan of ours to have a bit of a, a new stream of people coming in to the business. And that's what we were struggling with. Q: What made you consider using LinkedIn as a channel to use? Joe: Setting up seminars and you know, introduces arrangements weren't particularly productive for us. So we needed to find a marketing strategy that had a better chance of success. And that's why we've used you guys. We had had a look at starting a Twitter feed and putting content out there and, and the same Facebook. But we felt it was a little bit too difficult or too hard to track its success. So while we might drive traffic to the website how could we measure how interested people were? And I think that's where LinkedIn is different when you're messaging people and directly with a a scripted or planned approach. You can really start to measure the effectiveness of that campaign and where the where the pinch points are, where people you know, start to chime with the message and you can get a much better rate of feedback. I think for LinkedIn and clearly it's an enormous database of people and, you know, you can see quite a lot about them. Whereas, you know, just traffic hitting a website, I didn't think it was very useful at all. Q: How did the campaign perform for you? Joe: So we've done a couple of campaigns. I think the hardest thing that you said to me right at the start was you need to be as specific as possible and saying that's what financial advisor is the hardest thing, because, you know, we're trying to, we're trying to everyone by doing that, you by, by building a campaign around that you get a lot of different people expressing interest. You get quite a lot of people trying to sell to you. You know, I'm trying to filter out the, the, the, the decent prospects interested prospects from the others. I started to take a bit of time. So once I've listened to your advice and we got really specific, then we've had some some interesting results and it's really, you know, it's really paid for it. So Paul: Brilliant. And I mean, one of your sort of focuses was always on the sort of the high net worth and the ultra high net worth as, as, as part of your your, your, your business, as you said, you're quite choosy about your clients and, and who you want to to take on. And how did the campaign go with sort of attracting and, and, and, you know, getting the right kind of communication with those type people? Joe: I, there was the one thing I was quite worried about the start, because as you say, quite we're quite choosy and the people that we do want to work with, I was concerned wouldn't really engage with someone who made an approach filing tip, but actually the opposite was true. We've seen some really good prospects. We've seen some, some, some less good prospects, but I think as soon as we targeted our message further to, to a point where I was like, no, one's going to reply to this. We actually got the right people in front of us and we've had some really good phone calls, I think because we were targeting a very small niche of people, our hit rate, if you like, is, is lower, but actually the quality of that is much, much higher. So when we had a broad mandate, we got loads and loads of interests, but very, very little traction with the right people. And as soon as we get down, we got fewer hits, but they were all much better quality. And actually we've done business off the back of it. Q: What has the campaign been worth to your business in terms of year 1 revenue? Joe: We charged initially for, for the advice given. And we charge an ongoing fee so we've had more completed 15,000 pounds worth of initial business with sort of 13,000. Long-Going what, another three or four of those around. So depending on me and depending on how the market goes you know, potentially we could have done, you know, a hundred thousand pounds worth of business in a 12 month period or just under. Paul: So a hundred thousand and that sort of initial phase mainly. And obviously then there's a, there's a trailing come off the back of that as well as there. Joe: Exactly. Yeah. Paul: Wow. Okay. Excellent. So, so they were pretty good numbers overall over a 12 month period, isn't it? Joe: Yeah, I'm very happy, very happy indeed. Q: Any tips for other advisers considering running a campaign with Thompson Consulting? Joe: Uh just listen to listen to Paul he sounds like an Irish leprechaun, but he knows what he's doing! You know, part of the, part of the journey that we went through, just being specific about the messaging and targeting and when you're being onboarded through the process, you're thinking, you know, wow I'm potentially you know, I'm not going to speak to most of these people, you know, or most of the people that we can speak to are not going to be interested in this message, but actually the reverse is true. The more specific you can be about your offering your what you offer to people, the value that you can demonstrate, you know, a video or, or, or an article, the better quality of of introduction, you know, that will come through. And that's just, it's just made a massive difference to us. Q: Did spending some time putting together some good quality content help your campaign? Joe: So demonstrating value before you're asking for anything, I think is obviously the key to making the campaign work. And as, as important, it is to have a decent article or a decent video. It, it almost makes, you know, it almost takes the box. What you're actually doing is you're, you're demonstrating value to someone, a prospect that, that you think you can help. You demonstrating the value, tick the box. They don't really talk to you about your article once you, once you're on the phone to them, it's just a way of getting through to them and, and, and demonstrating that you're an expert in a field that they need help with. So it needs to be done properly and professionally and put up to an effort in, but actually will it generate, will a better one generate more leads in there? It's just ticking that box in their mind that you're an expert and that you can help. Q: Do you expect even more conversions coming from your new LinkedIn connection base? Joe: Yeah. So I think when we, I think had about 600 connections when we first started working together, and now it's just under 4,000, I think. Yeah. So all of those people have accepted. I will, you know, I'll be in this search that quite a lot of the people that we initially spoke to said this is really interesting, not quite at the moment. So let's let's, let's pick it up again. And of course, when you, when you track those yeah, that, that should lead to some more business later on. I think the barriers to people doing business with you is generally either it's completely irrelevant to them, but Paul's process you know, filters those out as much as possible, or it's just not the right time for people who is the right message at the right time. And that's where you do your business clearly, but managing that back catalog, if you like, of all connections is really important and that's where you can generate some, some serious revenue. Q: Would you recommend Thompson Consulting to other advisers looking to grow? Joe: Absolutely. I've introduced Paul to a friend already. Yeah, I, I, you know, it's, it's not a magic bullet. It's only as good as as, as the effort that you're willing to put in. But you know, the the client management system, the air table stuff, the the, the emails you get through it just keeps you on top of things. So, yes, it's a really, really good system for people who are let's say, disinterested in in, in making their own introductions and connections on LinkedIn. It's, it's a really, really good tool. Paul: Excellent. Listen, thanks, Joe. Thanks very much for your time. Really appreciate it today. And best of luck with the, you had to go through the business.