Are you trying to juggle too much in your business? Running a financial firm is no small feat. The day-to-day meetings with clients, managing accounts, offering the best financial advice, and drafting financial plans is already a full-time job. It can be easy for financial advisors to get so wrapped up in growing their clients’ wealth, the growth of the financial firm gets put on the backburner.
The key to building a successful financial advisory business is developing a growth strategy. Once you have laid a foundation, growth is the next step to avoid a business plateau. Read on for tips to build a financial firm without sacrificing the growth of your clients’ investments.
1. Find Your Niche
There are a plethora of financial firms competing for a limited clientele. By establishing a niche, you’ll let your clients know why you’re the best fit for them and what differentiates you from other firms.
It starts with answering the simplest of questions. Will you be an online financial advisor serving holistic financial plans? Or would a traditional route with specialized services better suit your skills and goals?
Then, addressing the more difficult ones, like determining who you want to serve. Craft an avatar of your ideal clients. Determine demographics and develop a story for the avatar. This exercise will make finding your target audience easier. You’ll be able to match the best services to meet their needs. After all, you can’t sell to everybody, but you can sell to a well-defined and specified audience.
2. Build Brand Awareness
Do you know the strength of your overall brand awareness? Survey to see if people in your selected target audience know about your brand, and if so, find out how they view your brand. Does it align with your audience’s demographics? If not, you’ve discovered a prime area for growth, it’s time to reassess!
You’re more likely to capture the attention and win the patronage of those who actually align with your mission statement and vision. A blurry brand might be what’s keeping you from uniting with a plethora of new customers. Clarify your mission, vision, and put continuous efforts into connecting with your target audience.
Investing in brand awareness may also help put you above the competition. If you’re willing to invest in your brand awareness without high expectations from your ROAS, you can focus on building real relationships. When making brand investments, adopting a long-game frame of mind may help you emotionally connect with potential customers.
3. Let Customers Speak for You
Building up personal relationships with clientele can help build your business for you. The key is to provide customer service that is above and beyond and foster those personal relationships. News of your firm’s personal approach will spread through word of mouth.
Get personal with your clients and show them you care by sending birthday, holiday, and thank you cards. Taking the time to send a handwritten note, or even an ecard, puts a personal touch on the customer service of your brand. It tells them you see them as more than a paycheck, but that you actually care about their money.
Build trust and loyalty and the people will speak on your behalf. People are more likely to trust a referral for a product, service, or company when it comes from a trusted source like family, friends, and experts. Treat your customers well and they’ll show you kindness in return.
4. Strengthen Your Marketing
Perhaps you’re offering great services and outstanding customer service but you’re still not seeing the growth you desire. A surefire way to prevent growth is to ignore your marketing strategy. If your Facebook page has outdated information and your LinkedIn page hasn’t been updated in over six months, it might be time to reassess your marketing plan.
If you’re already on all the popular social media platforms, don’t worry, there are more options. Consider starting a website featuring blogs with financial tips that will show off your expertise. Free content is also a great way to prove you are a wealth of knowledge and care to potential clientele.
An alternative to playing the long game of social media marketing is paid ads. For every $1 a business spends on Google Ads, there is an average ROI of $2. If your plate is too full to focus on marketing efforts, consider outsourcing or hiring a strong marketing team.
5. Build Your Business While Building Trust
Many Americans are hesitant to use the services of a financial advisor because they question whether the financial advice they’re being given is sound. Hidden fees and high prices often strike fear in clients. If you’re charging a higher fee, it doesn’t mean your advice isn’t worth the price, but you’ll have to find a way to reassure your clients.
Calm societal fear around financial advising and establish yourself as a fiduciary. This term isn’t merely a trend. More and more people are seeking to do business with fiduciaries for their transparency and honesty. In fact, 93% of Americans want their financial advisors to be fiduciaries.
Going the extra mile to establish that your company sees its customers as individuals could make all the difference in gaining new customers. It’s easy for consumers to see whether a business has a people-focused purpose. Put them at ease and build trust by letting them know you care.
Growth Is On the Horizon
In this day and age, there has been an influx of entrepreneurs and new businesses. Running a business is hard work and finding time to focus on growth while maintaining the day-to-day operations is difficult. Remember to stay people-focused and strive for service that is above and beyond.
While implementing any of these tips will help grow your business, there are a few takeaways to focus on. With the vast amount of competition financial firms are facing, establishing trust and providing quality customer service to clientele are the top strategies for growth. Do these things and your client base will grow organically.
