MASELLI: No. They really don't. They don't know what they're talking about, frankly. Newsletters do more than the average advisor understands. A newsletter is not going to generate a new client. Nobody is going to pick up a newsletter and say, "Oh, my God, I have to work with this guy." But you never know when a client has the newsletter on her desk and somebody wanders in and says, "What's this?" And that can lead to a new client.
A newsletter is an automated touch point that an advisor doesn't have to think too much about. It's also a way of saying to a client, "I'm not here just to sell you stuff. I'm here to impart value, give you wisdom and communicate with you." Most advisors don't write their own newsletters, which is a good thing, because most advisors don't write well. If you're sending clients a newsletter, it's valuable. It's like casting a net. You don't know the benefits it will bring, and you may never know.
GLUCK: What are your three favorite marketing books and why do you like each of them?
MASELLI: I'll just give you the authors' names and you can read anything they've written. Nick Murray, Dr. Tom Stanley and Harry Beckwith.
GLUCK: You say that your brand ideally can be captured with one word and, to find that one word, you suggest an exercise in which the advisor finishes a sentence that begins with, "You need to call my advisor because ... " What are you trying to do there and how does it affect getting referrals?
MASELLI: You need to create a message in the mind of a client and you need to control that message to the extent you can. So ask yourself, "What do I want my clients to believe about me? What do I want them to feel about me? What do I want them to say about me?" Once you decide those answers, then reinforce that message through your actions and periodic touches. So when the moment comes for a client to say something good about you, he actually has something to say. What are your clients going to say to their friends about you?
You have to think seriously about that. It may surprise you. It's unlikely a client would say, "You have to call my advisor. He made me a ton of money on this stock." It comes down to relationship issues. "You have to talk to my advisor because he really listens to me. He took a lot of time to pay attention to what we were saying." Or, "You have to work with my advisor because he really goes out of his way to solve problems for me. He came into the office on a Saturday." These are the kinds of messages advisors must proactively craft in their clients' minds. It's part of your brand identity. What is your brand identity in the mind of your clients?
GLUCK: You suggest that advisors create a hit list of people that they want to make clients. That sounds a bit unrealistic, like pulling names from a hat.
MASELLI: Most advisors would be able to give you a list of ten or 15 people in their community that they are really interested in working with. It's not unrealistic. Every advisor should have a prospect list. The act of creating that list begins the research process we've talked about. You look into their personal and professional world. You gather their links to existing clients. By researching the prospect, you learn whether any clients could introduce you to the prospect. You may be very well-connected without realizing it. You just need to build a process around it, to explore it with discipline.