MASELLI: This relates to your brand identity. You can't base your brand on empty words. You can say all day long, "I provide great service." But if your service really stinks, your brand identity goes out the window. You must be able to back up everything you say to the client. You should never build your brand or your relationships on things that you can't control, such as good portfolio performance. You can say, however, I'm going to create a great financial plan for you. You do control that. You can say I'm going to listen to you, I'm going to really care about you, I'm going to explain everything to you and not hide anything from you. Build your brand around things you control and around things that you are strongest at delivering.
GLUCK: And to figure out what you're strong at, you suggest conducting a personal inventory where you actually rate yourself.
MASELLI: The process of building a business starts with self-awareness. You have to be really brutally honest with yourself about your abilities. I suggest doing a Kolbe A Index assessment, which is the only validated instinct test. It measures what you are hard-wired to be great at, your innate talents.
GLUCK: So an advisor should base his brand on what he is great at doing.
MASELLI: Yes. Are you instinctively analytical? Are you going to do all the research? Or are you going to give me big picture ideas? Are you going to be strongest at following up with your clients? Are you going to be thorough? Or are you going to try to assign in-depth planning to another person in your firm? Do you want your brand to stress that you are innovative, creative, dynamic and have new ideas? Or are you going for reliability, consistency and proven strategies? The Kolbe test tells you which traits you are instinctively strong at and you should create a brand around.
GLUCK: You like niches. Which niches do you like best?
MASELLI: I find new industries every day that intrigue me and that are relatively unpenetrated by advisors. After writing a check to my landscaper, for instance, I discovered the stone industry. How many advisors know anything about the stone industry? Nobody knows how much money these people are making. And it's not from new construction. It's from renovations. So it's recession-resistant. But niche marketing means that you must learn about that area and then become an insider.
GLUCK: You say that specializing in business owners or doctors is not niche marketing.
MASELLI: It's too broad. Ophthalmologic surgeons, that's a niche. I really want you to become an expert in something specific. You don't need to focus your entire business on one niche or base your entire business on niche marketing-at least not initially. But if you can get in tight with a specific professional group or niche market, you can radically expand your referral capability in that niche. People will talk about you. When the anesthesiologists have a local convention and six guys in the meeting know your name-that can translate into referrals.
GLUCK: And you want an advisor to learn about stone quarries, and maybe try to write a financial column in "Stone Quarry Today."