Before our work together, this client had made a decision to break up his current partnership and start his own independent practice. His primary goals for the year were twofold – to transition his favorite clients from the partnership into his own independent practice and generate revenue of $350k.
We started with mapping out his overall vision to support his focus and ultimately his business model. This client is a family man and his main intent was to have a practice that netted $500k or more annually and experience balance at the same time between his work and his personal life.
In order to support his conversations with his top clients that he wanted to transition to his new practice, we started with the focus on his brand. My intent was to support him with a focused niche (target market and area of expertise), create a slogan that would simplify and support communication, define his branded system, create tier structures to support his business model and the sales conversation and ultimately, create a customized marketing plan.
Through a process of analysis, we determined that his top clients that he most enjoyed serving and the serving of which supported his financial goals, were business owners and executives. This advisor was a natural fit to serve this market as he had extensive experience effectively serving this market previously and he had relationships established already in these communities. As a business owner himself, he could personally and professionally identify with the business owners and he enjoyed serving them – all important factors when considering which niche makes the most sense for marketing focus purposes.
The next step was to determine his area of expertise which was comprehensive financial planning as he truly delivered a wide variety of services and products to support business owners and executives with their diverse needs. He had a focus on investment management, retirement planning, estate planning as well as college planning. He sold a variety of products to support his clients with their overall needs including key man insurance, long term care insurance, life insurance, and disability insurance.
Once we had his target market and area of expertise identified, we created his slogan: Comprehensive Financial Planning for Business Owners and Executives. (A slogan is a communication tool that briefly states what you do and for whom.) Having a slogan supports marketing conversations in being focused and effective.
Next, we created his branded system. A branded system is a step-by-step communication system that supports advisors with communicating how they do business, what they provide, tier structures and how the client can best be served.
From there, we mapped out his customized marketing plan which included his goals and his marketing channels – the avenues through which he would attract his ideal clients. His initial primary marketing channels included clients from his previous practice, professional referral sources, clients’ referrals, networking as well as a social media campaign.
Once the marketing plan was clarified, he was inspired to focus on transitioning the clients into his own practice first. He was extremely effective at this process and wound up with 95% of targeted clients. As a bonus, he was also effective at attracting additional business owners and executives as clients in support of the future sustainability of his practice.
At the end of the year, this client was in a place to celebrate his success as he generated revenue of $397k from clients that he transitioned into the practice as well as new ones. On a personal note, he ran a marathon, took 3 weeks of family vacations and became a father to a set of twin girls! It was a very exciting year!
