Hortz: What are the key skills and approach needed to command influence with your clients and in your community?
Halloran: Be as generous with your expertise as possible and make it incredibly easy for your audience to experience what you know and care about. This sounds easier than it is because most advisors have been taught to only give advice once prospects have become clients. Advisors have also been taught to build influence in person, at a boardroom table.
Today, influence needs to be built much wider, deeper and longer. Just before sharing these ideas with you, we confirmed a new client who I shared LinkedIn messages with 12 months prior. I looked back and all I did was answer questions, provide links to more information (specific podcast episodes that answered his questions) and let him know to keep in touch.
Hortz: Why do you see podcasting as the perfect delivery system to engage and build influence?
Lowe: While owning a marketing agency supporting advisors and financial firms, my biggest challenge and widest gap was convincing clients to produce more thought leadership. This is key to building influence but so few put in the effort or even considered it. What we have found is that podcasting is the easiest, and best way for influencers to produce valuable, intimate, honest, and personal content that their audience enjoys consuming.
When we consider how a podcast comes across to listeners, consider that podcasts are the most versatile medium. You can listen while you walk, commute, or cook dinner. Since listeners have control in consuming the information, they tend to be more relaxed and open to information being shared. Listeners can hear how much the podcaster (advisor) cares, what they know and how they communicate. When Matt and I meet new advisors at events or virtually, they already know us, like us and care about what we do. We have turned skeptics into fans and they do the selling for us. That’s how we all win. Influence works. It’s magic 24 hours a day.
Halloran: Think about it, most people either do not like or do not make the time for producing blog posts or recording videos. Yet, I have never met an advisor who did not like to talk. So, this can be a natural progression. We recommend preparing with an outline of key points and stories to tell. In fact, we have courses and vetted experts in these areas to walk you through this process and progression within the academy.
For advisors who work with ProudMouth, after their episode is recorded, they drop the mic and we produce and promote their podcast. But there’s still more marketing that needs to get done, and so we introduce our podcast clients to our academy also. Many of our clients are enrolled in the Academy, office hours and our peer podcaster mastermind groups. We teach them and their teams other important tactics to accelerate influence. For advisors who would like to build their own podcast and influence marketing team, we teach them the tactics and skills sets required in the PodRocket Academy.
Hortz: Any concluding thoughts or recommendations you would like to share with advisors on building influence?
Lowe: We welcome financial services professionals to #BeYourOwnLoud by starting a podcast that attracts your ideal prospects. Building influence is such a powerful competitive tool and community engagement strategy for the development of your business that we recommend, at minimum, that you explore the key principles of how to strengthen your influence by signing up to our free beginner membership for the PodRocket Academy.
The Institute for Innovation Development is an educational and business development catalyst for growth-oriented financial advisors and financial services firms determined to lead their businesses in an operating environment of accelerating business and cultural change. We position our members with the necessary ongoing innovation resources and best practices to drive and facilitate their next-generation growth, differentiation and unique community engagement strategies. The institute was launched with the support and foresight of our founding sponsors — Ultimus Fund Solutions, NASDAQ, Pershing, Fidelity, Voya Financial, Advisorpedia and Charter Financial Publishing (publisher of Financial Advisor magazine).