Mark B, Financial Adviser, Wales, UK

TRANSCRIPTION

Speaker 1: Hey my name is Mark Birch. I'm the director of Sleekstone Private Clients based over in Pembrokeshire in Wales. And I found the accelerator course through LinkedIn. Speaker 2: Excellent. All right. And what kind of challenges or issues did you have in your business, Mark, you know, prior to coming on board, was there, was there particular things that you were struggling with or where were you at? Speaker 1: Im new ish back into financial services and I had a company previously. So back in 2014 following the injury came back into industry back in July last year started from scratch and no clients, no clients, no contactno nothing needed to find a way to try and get in front of people quicker because we will do and connect with more people. And LinkedIn seems not the platform to be on. I look after entrepreneurs and directors, the natural kind of hunting ground really is to go into LinkedIn and really understand that worked. Okay. Speaker 2: And were you starting from a low base? So you just sort of had a profile and you weren't really doing much with it. Is, is that what, where you were at too? Speaker 1: Yeah, I had a profile, which I thought was quite good until I went on your course and then realized how terrible it was. And if I went to networking events, as you do, you meet people, "Oh, I'll connect with you on LinkedIn" and you connect with them and then that's it. And I found out what was happening all for a lot was you connect with a lot of people. And it was almost like when Facebook first started everybody out to had the most friends possible and you see that everybody's got, you know, some people have got 20,000 connections, but how many of those connections are they actually communicating with or dealing with on a daily basis? And that was the bit I was finding hard was how do you get, you've got the connection now, how do you actually take it to the next stage of engaging and to actually have a conversation with about what you want to talk to them about. Speaker 2: And did you, did you attempt to do some of that yourself? Like, did you try and kind of figure it out a little bit? Speaker 1: No. Blindly, "Oh, look, I'm connected with enough. That's going to pay dividends at some point" in the vain hope somebody will, at some point and remember being, you know, decided they're going to send me some business or talk to me about a particular project or whatever it may be. So it was more of a kind of smash and grab. It was just try and get as many contacts as I could get which I wasn't there particularly well. And then as with all things in business, your focus changes, and then you suddenly think go, actually, I've got to go and do that. Instead of being you forget that you were trying to set up, I wouldn't call it a campaign or thoughts that it was that you kind of forget that you're actually on LinkedIn and then you think, Oh, I've got to check LinkedIn and you don't realize it still nobody's contacted you or connected with you, or I don't know the answer. It wasn't expanding with any, any particular speed, which is frustrating. Speaker 2: Did you have other sort of channels or marketing or ways of acquiring clients that you were working in developing on as well? Speaker 1: Yeah, basically my, when I have my previous business, I had a big bunch of connections, listed lawyers, accountants, and so on. So I spent an awful lot of time hitting the phone and setting up a network and events to try and lead connect with those people. I knew all those years ago which does pay dividends. That's fine. But nothing else online because it was, again, it's kind of a whole new world in terms of how you do this stuff. So it didn't really you know, being told to sit down in front of the computer thinking, right, going spend a whole day, trying to work out how to do things on LinkedIn. I know people who do, and I know people who spend an hour a day, every day, sending stuff out on LinkedIn to connect with people and so on and so forth. Speaker 1: And I look at, I think I actually lost a bit too short to spending every day, sending stuff to people on LinkedIn. You know, there must be a way of doing it, which obviously is where your cost comes in, but I didn't know existed. You know, hotline would say probably 99% of the stuff that was on your course. I said, Oh, wow, we could do that! Because I just didn't know. I'm not that tech savvy that I look at things and go on, but that's AI that sent me that, you know, that message. So no, I don't really have any other, any other modern channels, the traditional channels terminal, but neckline and events and get my face back out there and seeing the people I used to know is that the way I used to try and do things. Okay. Speaker 2: And what made you decide to get involved in the course? I mean, you obviously said that you were, you were, you knew there was potentially a better way and you needed a bit of assistance. Was there any particular reason why you decided to go down the route of the course? Speaker 1: Of course. COVID in one word COVID as you and I have spoken about before I hit a point, I think like most people, the first, the week leading up to being put into lockdown, I found more terrifying than actually being put into lockdown, going into lockdown was a more of a relief. Finally done something. I think the first two or three days of locked down was low. Okay. My way of connecting with people normally and let the rest of the world is suddenly dried up. I didn't know that a thing called zoom even existed, which I'm now an expert on. It was one of those things where I thought, ah, right, okay. How am I going to get in front of people again quickly and keep the momentum that I've built up from last year to now I'm going. And I honestly can't remember with how you appeared on my feed or wall, or whatever you call it on LinkedIn? Speaker 1: But you did with the accelerater course. And I said, well, I've got nothing else to do. Literally the first kind of week and a half of locked down, there was nothing because everybody had just gone blind panic, can't talk to you ahhh. You don't know what's going on. So I have time. So I said, well, it's a four week course. I wonder how quick I can get it done because there's nothing else to do is if I say if as a day for three days or four days, I'll have long, it takes to do the course great. Because it's then done and I'm being productive. I'm being proactive. I'm starting to try and get some, get some activity going. Speaker 2: You actually went through the course by quickly though. Didn't you? Because as you said, you had a bit of, a bit of time. Officially, t's a six week course, but that's okay. But, but you went through it. If I remember correctly, you tell me if I'm right. I think you went through a lot of it. Would they like five days? Speaker 1: Would that be about right? Yeah. So I literally have nothing to, because everybody I was talking to, I was ringing come and see when we're not locked down. Come see when we were locked down because nobody was embracing in that first week or two, they were just embracing team or teams or WhatsApp, video calls, et cetera. Speaker 2: Did you find the process of going through the course then I'm seeing in you got stuck in and saw and how did you find that? Speaker 1: I thought it was great because it's because it's recorded and you can watch it at your own pace. There was quite a lot of time to actually stop it halfway through part of the presentation and go back and listen to the first part. Again, I made one of my things. I make notes constantly on the legacies of the injury I had and my memory is not great in terms of remembering technical things. So in terms of remembering processes, I mean easier if I write it down because I can always then go back to it. Okay. Got to do this bit. So I didn't pretty, I didn't write out everything we've said, but most of what you say, certainly the systems cause computer systems or spend my brain going through it and then go back and be able to listen to it again. Speaker 1: And sometimes on the first time round just for me sometimes the first time I was a bit like I would go back and listen and get press that I'd missed a link in the chain and then ofcourse, it doesn't work. But now that the process was great. And as I say, because you can do at your leisure, you don't have to just do one bit this week, the one bit next week. But the week after that, I think really for me, so I think it was yeah, four or five days. It took me to get through it. But I think had I been doing it under normal circumstances, not in lockdown, I would have taken longer because I wouldn't have had as much time to sit down to all in one go. So I think it would have then become, you know, four or five weeks of doing, you know, a block this week and a block next week and the week after. So because at the time it just made sense to, to crack on and get on with it. Speaker 2: Get your campaign up and running. I think it was about a week or so. It was there Speaker 1: Three days, six, we've got the first bit, we've got the, you've got me connected onto the software pretty swiftly and we were ready to go with the all the conversation pieces on the way through it. So I think the campaign launched on day three and then it got tweaked on the other two days of the remainder of the course where we're in more detail and gotcha. Yeah. That needs to change a little bit. And there's even things now and looking at the campaign and it's still running and it's still expanding and I'm looking at it now and going, actually, I'm going to tweak that, the wording on that, but I seem to get a better response if I took the lead on this bit. So it's yeah, it's, it's, it's a moving beast, so. Speaker 2: And the whole point is to iterate and improve. And so on, particularly when you get feedback from the market, because people are going to tell you what they like or what they don't like and so on, and the more you can iterate and improve it, the better it's going to work. So how did the how'd things go? I mean, obviously you got the campaign up and running. How'd it go? Speaker 1: Good connections, I think were sapped just over 700. Now when I started, I was on a base of about two 30. So I've done a lot of the connections now, which is, which is great Speaker 2: In what periods that that's better, what two months or so is it. Speaker 1: Yeah, but two months, dude, as you explained, when, you know, when I questioned it, because it didn't seem to be going, you know, sort of exponentially going large as quickly as I thought, but then as you said, because I'm not got that many connections, there's only so many people I can connect to. So it's it's yeah. It's going well, numbers are up connections are up. We'll get in lots and lots of people actually now coming back and going on, you sent me a thing a while ago. Didn't get in touch. You're really sorry. But could you put me with this or do you know someone that does that, so being helpful, which is what I like to do. I don't see, I know the campaign is all about getting business. I get that I'm not shying away from that, but it's also about helping other people. Speaker 1: So the, the middle part of the campaign where we sent an article I've changed the article because the first article I wrote was about COVID and how survivors in terms of business I've now changed it to a business model article. So is your business ready for the new world when we come out the other side of COVID and that's getting, again, a different response to the first one, because people are now going, you know, COVID is old news. We know what that is. Right. Okay. You know, actually in right. I do need to sit down and take some time and, and we model things. So now we're getting people quitting about that as well. And then saying from a financial planning point of view, we're where do you come in? And so it starts to gel those connections together. Speaker 2: I remember you telling me a story about a, a guy who was a bit cranky with you. I think wasn't, he, he he came back and sort of pushed back a little bit to go to tell me a bit about that. Yeah. Speaker 1: One guy in particular who shall remain nameless because as I'll explain why in a second he got one of the automated messages and said something along the lines of you know, I don't want AI conversations. I'm very busy leave me alone or worse. In fact, really quite shirty. Ever since I started the campaign, I've tried to do it on a personal basis. So if I get someone messaged back and there's no thanks or, you know, not interested or, you know, cause they just assume mosly rightly it's, it's a marketing thing. I actually try and jump on pretty quick and then send them a personal message to say, thank you for responding. If I can be of any help, let me know. And this particular guy I'd say it was really, really cranky. So I sent a message back and said, look, I'm really sorry to bother. Speaker 1: You just figured that you do this. I do that. There's a synergy between what we do. We really don't have, you know, maybe have a conversation at some point any email back or message back immediately and said, he was really sorry that a really bad day really struggling in business was tough, et cetera. I reached out and said, look know, do you want to have a conversation because I'm really good listener and I'm an entrepreneur as well. So I've been there, done it, got the t-shirt I've been through bad times on good times that we kind of a conversation. And he said, we had a conversation. He's now a client. So even the grumpy ones can get converted. So count them with kindness. Is that the last one? This is actually, I think it is because there we'll get it on, on LinkedIn and other platforms were forever being bombarded with people that want to try and sell something. Speaker 1: I think that the way that your campaign teaches people to structure things is not about bombarding people with stuff it's about dripping it slowly and constructively across and giving them something that actually makes them think and not, you know, actually I want to think about that when I look at that. And I do think, especially in the midst of COVID, there's lots of people that are really, really struggling who need that little bit of, you know, out on the shoulder saying it's all right, we're all in the same boat. Because as you know, running your own business is really quite isolating. Sometimes you all, you all, what you make, you know, you all, you all the business. You've great. And if suddenly everyone's looking very black around you, who the hell do you talk to because you are the business and I've spoken to an awful lot of people on the 15 minute discovery calls in your program where a 15 minute discovery calls and one was almost 10 to 15 minutes of therapy. Speaker 1: You know, what do I do this, what do I do with that? And sometimes I'm a financial planner, but I've had, I've got investments in other businesses. So I understand how other business works. And, and then suddenly these people, have you thought about it from this perspective? Why don't you think about doing this this way? And they go, Oh yeah, that's really quite a good idea. I get nothing from that other than, you know, self satisfaction. I might have to help him become an accountant. So I think he's really important because it's really good to just say to somebody, look, I'm not just here to try and sell you, you know, ultimately yes, I'd love you to become a client, but that might take three months, six months before that happens. It's not a quick way with the most, you know, 90% of the people, there's not a quick way I've picked up so far. Speaker 1: Just have to be in exactly the right point and frame of mind at the point at which we've made contacts and then said, you know, obviously, you know, you need to think about this and they're going, yeah. You know, I've got time now. Lockdown has given people lots of time. I picked clients up from that. I've got other people from the program who have known 700 going well, you know, when we get out, locked down and we see a degree of normality, really, do you want to have a conversation with it? But the minute we just don't, you know, where I live tourism massive. So a lot of people I deal with down here, it's always related to them with ended up being tourism related to all gone, that I am going to do what is going in the moment I need to plan the quite right, but I can't plan it. I'm going to because it's so unknown. So we've got connected. I literally got a ball over here with about 20 people on it from LinkedIn said, you know, as soon as we get back to degree normality, please get in touch. Cause we really value valuable conversation. Excellent. Speaker 2: You know how the campaigns performed overall. I know you've done quite a few calls and you know, you started converting some clients. I know you have this there once for the future. Do you know, do you know how many conversions you've had so far? Speaker 1: Off the top of my head we're converted. I think it would get we're hitting. Cause I think your in your numbers, it was, you were able to sort of 33% would respond to the initial seed and then you'd get to, I think you said two or 3% and I was going against the, the 15 minute discovery call. I think we're actually marginally ahead of that. About 5% of the people we're talking to will immediately go for the 15 minute discovery call. So I had, without checking Melissa, we must have had 40 or 45 discovery calls in the last, in the last two months. Okay. Mentoring in a really good way. I know Speaker 2: They're standing up. Yeah, Speaker 1: It's crazy. Because again, normally, because of where I live, traveling times gotta be factor in everything, you know, geography, isn't great down here. So it takes a long way to get to everywhere. Normally I try and schedule about six 88, six to eight meetings a week. And the most we've done so far during lockdown was about three weeks ago at 2012 meetings in a week. Wow. 16 of those came from LinkedIn. Wow. It's yeah. It's productive. Speaker 2: And do you know in terms of converse, I know you're still working through things with some clients and I know, I know you and so on. Do you know what sort of conversions are coming on the back of that at the moment? Speaker 1: Yeah, we we've hit so far during a lockdown, we picked up full new clients directly from the LinkedIn campaign. And total revenue from those four clients I think is probably pushing about 17 grand. Speaker 2: Okay. And that's year one revenue, is it? Yeah. And do you know what kind of assets that that will be, you know, into your assets under management? Speaker 1: I'm trying to think it's just tricky because some of it was some of it was quite heavy on protection side as well. But we must've added, you know, a good two, 300,000 fund immediately. I'm to say from the list on the board, there's people who've said, look, I've got money, but I don't want to do anything with it yet because we don't know what's going to happen out the other side of this and you know, how much I'm gonna need to put into the business to keep it going and whether I do or don't. So it's a bit of a, a bit of a quandary, but I'm expecting that there's going to be very, very good things coming up with document. Speaker 2: Okay. And are you happy with how the campaign performed and I'm going to once I've been able to do for you? Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It does say it was, it was completely eyeopening that all these things existed or even self navigate on LinkedIn. I didn't have a clue what that was. And the, what I'm trying to do at the moment is every week is set aside now, sit down and then re extend the campaign. I've got the original campaign. I've now got the second tier campaign company and so on. And the numbers then obviously get bigger and bigger and bigger as you're going along. So it's really starting to gain traction. And it's then also prompted me to write more articles to put out on LinkedIn, to share. I've gone to LinkedIn and found different groups. That, again, I didn't even know existed on LinkedIn. See these people in these things. If you look there's a group, there's, you know, there's entrepreneurial groups I've joined now and I'm sharing articles and then get some traction from that. Speaker 1: So as an overall eye opener, it's been phenomenal for me to see that there is a different world to the one that I used to frequent. But equally you look at it and think, well, it's opened the doors to more things on LinkedIn and is raising my profile and the business's profile at the same time. So it's kind of a win-win because the more people I'm talking to now go, yeah, I know sticks. Then I, I have seen that somewhere and it'll be there forever. One of my articles, or they see me being interviewed by somebody, or they've had a message from me through LinkedIn or yeah, they've seen it. And it started to really gain traction that people stopped to realize who I am the business about. Speaker 2: I would say one of the most important things of these campaigns is momentum and momentum, not just in terms of, you know, calls and clients and leads, but momentum in terms of, as you say, visibility and people being able to see you and people knowing who you are and then getting the, getting the name out there. And of course not, everybody's going to convert your client in the first two or three weeks of speaking to you. But as you say over the following three months, six months, 12 months. So you get all your backend conversions coming through as well. Speaker 1: Is that just random that there's a guy connected with down in South Wales just running and got a phone call from this guy. Oh, you just connect me on LinkedIn. I was waiting for the, you just, you did. I mean, did he sort of think, Oh, hang on this a bit weird. And he said, Oh, I just saw, he said, whenever everybody connects me. So I had to ring them. You said, cause I like to switch. You know, who they are really good way of doing it. I'm going to love the chat and really, really nice guy. So he does my discovery call for me. So I did that start to get to that point. Speaker 1: What do you do? Let's let's have a chat. And we had a lovely conversation and he's coming through a timer and he's got this and that. And he's got lots of planning that he needs to do. And then the end of our very brief settlement conversations, I'll get it, give me a ring. And we'll, we'll do a plan because I need to work out for a retire. And I mean, that is going to be in the next six to 12, maybe even 18 months, but potentially that could be cranky. That could be 20, 25 grand Speaker 2: From one conversation, from one person that you connect with who called you? Speaker 1: No, no, that was the thing that was really come. Like I got off the phone, pinching myself thinking that did that really just happen? This guys, this place, he said, they want to do all this stuff. And you know, I don't want to retire. I don't want you to plan it, which was a bit mad. Cause he just said that just completely fortuitous timing. You sent me a connection at the exact point, I'm thinking I'm going to retire. How do I get out of it? I've read one of your articles about exit planning for businesses. You sound like, you know what you're doing? Let's have a conversation. There's no guarantees in all things, but it's that one thing, Speaker 2: A lot of those things I think come from getting your positioning as a business owner, right? And being clear about what you stand for and what you can do for people. A lot of advisors don't CR are quite vague. They're quite sort of generalist. They're not sort of subspecialist. Whereas as you said, he, he read your article about exiting your business and that resonated with him. And when, when your articles and content resonate with people, conversions become the obvious, the obvious result of that, you know, which is, which is nice. If if you were talking to someone who was, who was on the fence, maybe thinking about during the course. So I want, what would you, what would you say to them? Speaker 1: Do it, just do it, take the leap of faith and give it a go. The, the things that course gives you that you didn't have before, you won't even know that you haven't got, if that makes any sense at all, Speaker 2: You don't know what you don't know is, is that what you mean? You don't know what you don't know. Speaker 1: Exactly. Honestly, I would say it was eye opening as much as, Oh my God. There's so much stuff that I should be doing that I wasn't doing. But even down to trying to hone my, you know, what am I actually doing? Who am I talking to? Who am I looking to talk to you? You know, I've now got it down off, Pat. I help entrepreneurs and directors across Wales to secure that financial planning with simple financial planning techniques. That's my, that's my elevator pitch on to a better phrase that came out of your course that came out. You sitting down on the back of what you said in the video about how I need to in a very simple way in a one-liner what do I do? And proof is in the pudding. I was on a call with a motivational speaker last week. Speaker 1: Who's based out in America deals with brands and Mike Tyson and governors. What else is going on that I can say going around the room, but he's going to run the zoom call. Sam, what do you do? I'm picking folk with everybody else's Oh, well, Oh, well I look after and very long-winded and lots of women in an Island. And so came to me and I said, mine, and you went, that's pretty succinct right next. And just moved on because there was nothing they could say. Cause it knows what I do, but that came out of the court. So I think if you're on the fence, it's an investment, you know? Yes. There's, there's financial outlay, but you do it. You do the course, you come out the other side, you're going to make money. You run the course the way that you, you set the coal side, you follow the past on the path works. There's proof that Speaker 2: Pudding and all that proof proof. Yeah. Excellent. Well, listen, thanks very much for good jumping into jumping on today, Mark. I really appreciate it. And you're talking so openly about, about where you're at and you know, best of luck with the future growth of the business. It sounds like the future's looking pretty bright. Yeah, it is. It is not today, but it's generally looking broad. Thanks Mark. I appreciate it.