Question from a subscriber: “As a solo advisor focused more on my clients, and maintaining a consistent marketing campaign is a challenge. For a couple of weeks I am flat out busy and my marketing goes silent.”
Yep, being consistent with marketing is a real challenge when you are the only one steering the ship.
Here are my ideas:
- “Clump” your marketing time and use scheduling tools. The major social platforms, email newsletter programs, and even Gmail allow you to schedule posts and emails in advance. You can schedule a three hour block once a month and produce your marketing content during that time, then just schedule it to be posted.
- Be hyper-focused on quality rather than quantity when it come to relationships. I usually suggest having 20 people on your call list, but maybe that should be 5-10 people who are more likely to be more meaningful clients or centers-of-influence. Think of relationships in terms of impact rather than just maintaining relations for the sake of it.
- Reduce the length of content by one half. Most advisor content (blogs, newsletters, emails, etc.) are way too long and shorter content engages better anyways.
- “Up or out.” Be honest with yourself about marketing that is not producing results and make a 30 day resolution to either make it work or cut it.
Having unstable or limited time does not have to be a disadvantage if you are strategic and simple about it.
There’s no time for anything anyways!
If you are losing your mind over having a lack of time in general, here are my tips.
It’s not that your Internet is too slow.
Here’s the biggest vortex sucking away your time:
Confusion, and the problems it creates with other people that you are relying on
I don’t care how long it takes me to pay my electricity bill online. Maybe I can automate better, but it’s not going move the needle.
On the other hand, I spent 45 minutes yesterday trying to convince my mother that my oldest daughter is a size 4 sneaker size. She thinks she’s a five. We couldn’t get past it.
Take this action TODAY
- Figure out which people the biggest source of confusion, and limit or eliminate time spent with them.
- Use the Two Sentence Rule as much as possible. First sentence is a statement, second sentence is a question.
- Get better at asking direct questions that zero in on the bottom line, earlier in the conversation.
- Be more sensitive to when people start to get derailed in a conversation, and redirect them back.
- Announce the amount of time you have in the beginning of the conversation – it gives it a frame and lets people know they have to be succinct.
- Study the skill of persuasion and how to get people to agree to take action more easily.
- Study great debaters and learn how to increase the clarity of your logic when the other person is being argumentative.
- Start saying these words: “I’m sorry but I don’t have any more time for this – we’ve talked about the FICA tax for 30 minutes. Either we come to an agreement in the next two minutes, or I’m simply going to ask another CPA.”
Confusion is your most expensive use of time – start there and forget about the tedious exercise of time tracking.
Marketing resources for solo financial advisors
Alright that’s all for now. Hope these tips about how solo financial advisors can find more time for marketing were useful.
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Thanks for reading. See you in the next one!
-Sara G
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