Referrals & Testimonials: Spot It, Ask, Showcase It

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our August. Did you know we are going to be talking about referrals and testimonials where we can spot them, ask for them, and of course showcase them and why they’re important. We know that in today’s day and age, this profession we are in, it is still a handshake business and relationships are everything. And no matter what marketing you have, no matter how beautiful your website is, referrals are still so so important and one of the best ways for us to build upon your growing practice.

So who am I? I am Elise Lambert, director of Enterprise Marketing and here to talk about everything about the platform. So whether you are joining us for the fifth, tenth time for this Did You Know? Webinar series or maybe this is your first time, we would love to hear where you’re coming in from.

I am beaming in from Fort Worth, Texas and I would love to connect with you on LinkedIn. I want to see all the great marketing you are doing, so let’s be friends. I want to hear about your practice. I want to hear about what you’re doing.

I want to be able to see your posts because that also gives us really great inspiration for these. As we get started, I have a question for you. We’re going to put up a poll. I’m just curious if there was a certain feature or tool within the FMG dashboard that you wanted to learn more about or that you wish you used more, what would it be?

We’re going put up a poll. This is going to help us as far as as we’re curating content and topics for future did you knows, but also just genuinely curious, like what what is kind of top of mind for you? So we’ll put up a poll and just genuinely curious and we’ll put that up in here in just a second and let’s just keep going.

What just general housekeeping, We gotta go through this stuff but it is so important.

Recording will be sent afterwards.

We will also include a summary of the chat because you all share so many great nuggets within the chat. We are also sharing resources and how to’s and our knowledge based articles in the chat so that will all be sent afterwards.

And if you’re someone that says, you know what, this chat is too much, it’s too much to keep up with, feel free to minimize it, but it is a really great place for community and dialogue and so would love for you to chime in and of course log in and follow along. I know how precious your time is as a financial professional and I understand how busy you are so log in, put into practice what we’re going to talk about today and of course we have some amazing giveaways for you as well we have really touched on and created a checklist for you based on the topics we’re going to cover today so we will be sharing that.

And I’m getting a little bit of feedback in the chat that there’s echo for some of you and some not. I don’t have anything on my end, so we’re just going to keep going.

And also throughout this, we will also be sharing some swag items. We would love to give those of you that are interactive in today’s chat and whatnot, we have some fun FMG swag that we want to give away to you.

So I’m going to be throwing out some swag as are as we’re going through here and so I’m going to go ahead and give one of our very first pieces of swag to Heather DiFranco you said yay for swag and so if you could just follow-up either in the Q and A section or a private chat with your email and a good way to get a hold of you guys, we will send you some fun stuff.

So let’s get to the meat and potatoes of it. If you missed July’s Did You Know workshop, we went over life events marketing, where we can spot warm leads, can you identify who your ideal client persona is, top trending topics and content that we are seeing working, and really creating a referral process or I’m sorry, not a referral process, creating turning life events into opportunities for content that connects with people, how to reach the right audience.

This was a really great I’m a little bit biased, but really great topic. How can we continue to identify our ideal clients and reach them and engage with them. So we touched on that. We’re going to share our last Did You Know replay in the chat as well so if you missed it. And if you want, if you’re ever looking for other topics or other Did You Know webinar topics we’ve done, go ahead and follow our Did You Know YouTube page. You can find topics on everything we’ve covered in the last couple years of doing this webinar series.

And like I mentioned, we’re gonna throw some swag out there today so just a little way to say thank you and we appreciate you all and just a little bit of you know an exciting gift as well. So today how can we turn our happy clients into a growth engine? How can we create that referral process? So how can we turn surveys and reviews and testimonials in a compliant manner, most importantly, into a repeatable process. And so there are so many tools within the platform, whether you know about them or not, maybe you’re already utilizing some. But during our conversation today, I encourage you to come into the content library, take a look at them, and maybe even send some referrals while we’re having this conversation. Right?

Put into practice what we’re gonna what we’re gonna discuss.

So today, the flow, why referrals matter. What it’s kind of an obvious one. We all know why they matter. However, how can we utilize these reviews and these testimonials and these referrals into a really easy five step process, and what resources live within the dashboard that you can use. So no matter which package you have, whether you have our basic essential marketing package or you are one of our do it for me clients, you can utilize all of these tools.

And so let’s talk about the numbers. You’ve heard it from me before, I’m an old D1 washed up athlete, I think numbers are very important winners keep score but ninety percent of advisory firms rely on referrals to find new clients, right? We know that’s pretty easy, that goes without saying and forty eight percent call referrals their single highest return growth channel. So my question to you before we go into this is how are you collecting and feel free to put this in the chat.

How are you collecting referrals today? Is it email? Is it social? Is it, is it on your website?

Is it phone? Is it in person? What is your best option for collecting referrals today? So I’m just curious.

You might be using a system like test FMG testimonials, might be in person, but a lot of in person word-of-mouth. Absolutely.

So why they matter? Right? We know that referred clients arrive trusting you. They got your name from a trusted confidant that they already have.

They heard it from someone that they respect, and we know that sixty six percent of finance professionals plan to grow their client base in the next three years. So what is the best and most cost effective way? Referrals. And also those COIs.

We can’t forget about our centers of influence that we can also reach on. And as one of our giveaways today, we’re also tying in a COI referral guide for you as well.

And so again, it’s working smarter, not harder. And I think something that we also need to take into consideration is the we need to take out the the awkwardness of asking for referrals. There’s a movie out there, and I remember the movie quote, and it was like, it just takes a couple seconds of insane courage. Right? So what is that couple seconds of insane courage? It’s it’s that ask in a client meeting or while you’re on the phone with them, or it’s sending a compliant text message through something like MyRepChat to ask for that referral or that testimonial.

So ninety seven percent of consumers read reviews before deciding. We know that our prospects are going to our website, they know that they are going to search engines to look you up, to find you, and referrals are one of the best ways for us to get found.

Thirty one percent now only choose businesses rated with four point five stars or higher, which is higher than seventeen percent. That’s up seventeen percent from a year ago and one hundred percent of Perplexity’s product service answers reference reviews. So Perplexity, that goes hand in hand with your search, your AI engine, so your Claude’s, your Track GPT’s, your Perplexities, your Gemini’s. We know that people are now going to these platforms to find you.

And so it’s important that you are collecting these testimonials in a compliant way. And how do testimonials help AI search find you? The AI engine pulls from the same trust signals, so we want to make sure that they are recent. We want to make sure that they are specific.

They’re easy to find. They are consistent in here. And companies that actively collect fresh reviews saw AI visibility gain in about three weeks with sixty five per sixty five percent of these seeing a little uptick in activity. And also, if you can and if it’s approved, video testimonials are also a great idea to add to your website and, of course, doing so in a compliant manner, making sure that video is compliant, making sure everything they say is compliant.

We’re following all the rules. So really, one, referrals help us grow our business. They help us get found online, and overall help you, you know, establish confidence in your practice, in your growth, and in your marketing. So how can we create this engine?

What’s in the platform? Well, today, we’re gonna talk about where we can find some of these, you know, and a lot of you are already doing this, but where we can find some of those raving fans, how can we ask for it, how can we expand on it, and of course I think another piece where we forget about is thanking people as well for those referrals and acknowledging referrals when they happen. One, how can we spot the referrals? Where can we spot them?

And of course it’s pretty easy in a meeting when someone mentions you or they give you a name, right? That’s one of the most easily ways to spot it, but also we can look at our engagement signals. So thinking about your emails that you’re sending, who’s opening them consistently? This would be a great person or a group of people, whoever it might be, to ask for that referral or that testimonial or to send them that email.

Also thinking about those that consistently attend your events, who are those clients that you know are consistently showing up whether they’re your in person client appreciation events or maybe they’re your online webinars or podcasts, Who are some of your core members of your clients and prospects that you know you can lean on? And also thinking about your social presence, right? Who are those that are always engaging with your social posts that you can trust that will like or comment on your social posts? These are our raving fans. These are people that we can start with today to start to find those people that are willing to give a referral. And so thinking about that is a great way. My earring just fell out.

But watching for those and also a completed survey. I’ve touched on this a number of different times and have you incorporated a survey somewhere in your process? Is it part of your process initially, right?

Getting started survey, working together survey saying, hey. Looking forward to working with you. Here are a couple questions. Or implementing that survey either halfway through the year or at your annual review.

This is another really great place to say, ‘hey, we’ve worked a lot on college planning, do you know anyone else that is also going through this?’ So I would be curious in the chat where you all have implemented surveys. Do you have them in the beginning of their meeting process? Do you have them at the end?

And how have you incorporated a referral into your process. So this is where we can start to spot opportunities to ask for the referral. So now let’s move towards the ask.

How do we ask? It can be awkward, we don’t want it to be, and so we need to figure out what’s best for you and your practice and your personality.

I personally, as a financial professional for those that you don’t know, I’ve been a financial professional myself, and so I didn’t like asking in the meetings. That was just something that I wasn’t good at. I wish I was, and so I needed a way to do it, so I’d send an email. So thinking about how we can create either an email template or just a utilizing a text message or an automation to create this process.

So the advisers who get consistent referrals aren’t more likable. They’re just asking more consistently. So are you consistent in your ask, or how often are you asking? And if you feel if you want, you can add that in the chat, how often you’re asking for referrals.

But, also, we wanna make it low effort for the client. We want them to say yes, make it really easy. And so within the FMG platform, we have some really great resources to make that ask. So one of them is if you go to the content library and you search, ask for referrals, there is an email in there that you can use.

So again, you can use this as is. I encourage you to come in and make this your own.

Add your own verbiage, add your own language, make it show your so your personality and your brand is shining through, but this is one that you’ve seen and curious if you’ve used this and seen results, feel free we want to celebrate your wins within the chat as well. And another feature and if you are not aware FMG acquired Testimonial IQ and now we have FMG Testimonials. So this is a really great way to automate your testimonial ask, to automate your surveys, to automate your client insights and covering life events, and so please check with your compliance to see if FMG testimonials is approved for you but this is a really great way to automate that ask.

And so yes, this is an extra charge, but if you are a current FMG customer we have some promos available and so we’ll put up actually a poll. If you are curious, you want to learn more, and if you are either self managed or you know your compliance has approved this, we would love to get you more information. Our sales team can reach out to you, but just letting you know that this is available to you. Great way to ask compliantly, but again, also check with your compliance to see if this is even available for you, And so that ask is so important.

So whether you’re sending an email or you’re automating it, great way to look at that. And also, so then what do we do? Right? We’ve made the ask, that general ask, but now we can also create that referral process.

Let’s have something work for us, that you can turn on and let it run without you having to think about it.

And so we want to turn our happy clients and our COIs into that engine that’s working for us so let’s automate our referral process. Of course that one to one email is always great, one to one approved my rep chat or approved text message is great, but let’s create an engine so we can do that with something like FMG testimonials. We also have automations built into the FMG platform that you can turn on and that means we can set it and forget it. And so within here we also have our automation. So within the FMG platform, you can come down to your automated marketing, and there is an automation called seasonal check ins and referral messages. So this is a quarterly newsletter that gets sent out. You can select the audience that which this gets sent to.

And so this automates a seasonal check-in to learn if anything’s changed in their lives, and it asks for a that soft ask for referrals. So again, taking out the you know, just creating an engine for you to ask so you can set it, forget it, and then you can see everything that comes in. You will see within the platform if a referral was made, and so great way to incorporate that. And we got a great question. Is FMG testimonials included if we have a different subscription? So if you are a current different customer and testimonials is approved for you or you are self managed? Yes, it is included with your Defam subscription.

Great question. So this is one automation that is available. Another way to automate or referral engine is if you have FMG Testimonials, there is a built in newsletter, so it sends regular review requests to your clients with personalized link to your FMG Testimonials landing page. So if FMG testimonials is approved for you, you can turn on this automation and you are a current FMG testimonials client, you can turn this on, and it will, and it follows all of the compliance rules, and it makes it really simple for them to share their experience.

And we just got another really great question: Are Google reviews different from testimonials? Yes, they are. Google reviews require a Google My Business profile where testimonials are different. And, of course, compliance, always check with your compliance to see what is available for you.

So that’s going to be like my blanket statement. You’re going hear me say that over and over. Always check with your compliance to see what is available for you. But these are a couple ways at which we can create that engine for you to take the awkwardness out of asking or just help remind you to ask.

Also then, so we’ve talked about where we can find a group of people to start with asking. We know how we can then create the ask using an email or we can also automate that referral engine, but then we can expand on these as well. So again, we know that testimonials and referrals are a great way to grow our business, help us get found. Then what do we do with these?

What can we do with these? It’s well, we can now take these approved testimonials and add them to our website, add them to our LinkedIn as a social post, And again, this is going to help us get found, and we can also we can create a blog post showcasing these. We can also add you know, your your referral link to your email signature. Right?

So ways that which we can now create systems.

So we can also expand on this. So for example, if you are utilizing FMG testimonials and you are collecting testimonials, you add the website widget to your website and it updates automatically, which is a really great feature. So again, this is helping us get found. This is adding social proof and credibility to our website, it is helping us get found on Chats and Claude’s and the Geminis and it looks really good.

So when a referral is coming to you, when a referral is being made, right? When when your name gets tossed around at the dinner table, that they’re coming to your, they’re coming to your website and they’re seeing all these great testimonials. Which is just growing their confidence in working with you. And so this is a great way to showcase them.

Can also these are some examples of how we can showcase these on our social media pages as an approved LinkedIn post. So I love this, it’s what our clients are saying about us and this is a really great way to showcase this, your social proof when people go to your LinkedIn or your proof business Facebook page, they’re seeing this. So I would love to see, does anyone have any client testimonials or reviews that they have created on their LinkedIn, please feel free to share it with this group. We would love to see some examples of this being done in the wild.

If you are currently utilizing oh, I gotta update my computer. One moment. Hold on.

Let me just get this back up. Hold on.

And so if you have any examples of ones that you have used, we would love to see this.

Alright.

And let me of course, this only happens. Here we go.

Alright.

Share. But, yes, if you have any on your current LinkedIn, we would love to see some of those testimonials or see how you are promoting all the great reviews you are getting.

And if you’re not seeing the testimonial automation, it’s most likely because you’re not approved for that yet or your broker dealer has not approved it yet. So just we keep getting that question. And of course, I think so we talked about where to spot our referrals, how we can ask for them, how we can create an engine, different ways at which we can showcase them. And I think one of the pieces we forget to do is also thank the refer the referee, the the person who gave you that referral.

And so how are you thanking those clients that are currently giving you referrals? Are you sending them the handwritten thank you card? Are you sending them an email? Are you sending them a Starbucks gift card?

How are you doing that? Because I think that’s something that we are forgetting. We want to acknowledge the fact that they just helped us tremendously so if you didn’t know this, within the FMG platform, there is a greeting card in here that you can simply come in, you can add this to your practice management process. When referrals come in, simply go to our greeting card section and you can type out a thank you and send it to the them.

So there is a greeting card that lives in the FMG dashboard, and we send it out for you. It looks great. Also, there’s a simple email in here. So either a handwritten of a printed greeting card through FMG or an email but we have to do something to thank them to acknowledge that because again it’s all about that relationship that cannot be lost and how can you create that personalized experience in this digital world we live in and it’s that piece of the puzzle.

So I’m curious has anyone used our FMG referral thank you greeting card or if you’re just doing a handwritten note, even better. Right? That’s even, even better.

And I just saw some feedback saying, didn’t think to add our testimonials to social. What a great way to do that. So yes, you can add those to your social pages. You can create a blog post to showcase them, making sure they’re showcased on our website.

And so within the FMG resources, and again, this will all be sent to you in our checklist, in our giveaway afterwards, but in our downloadable section, there is a ton of resources regarding referrals, greeting cards, email templates, again, so you don’t have to recreate the wheel. And I encourage someone to send out a referral email while we are on this call to see what comes back. And I would love to give another piece of swag away. So Chuck Fitzpatrick, if you would like to send us a message with your contact information, how to get a hold of you, we want to send you a piece of swag, just throwing some stuff out as we keep going, but again just making sure that this process is repeatable. You are so busy, so how can we make this easy?

And I’m curious, we would love to hear from you all what works for you. Is it that referral email? Is it FMG testimonials? What are you looking to implement from what we’ve gone over today?

And, of course, if you’re looking to elevate your marketing, we also have our do it for me program. So if that’s something that you’re looking into, we have that for you. But let’s now take a look at our our demo. Let’s dive in.

And if you’re someone if you’re looking to upgrade your tools, if you’re looking at some of these automations you wanna turn on, feel free to answer this poll if you want our team to reach out to you just to discuss where you are, what you need, what options are available to you. We’d be happy to help you out with that. And now let me go ahead and share screen. Let’s jump right into a demo.

Here we go. Okay. So let’s take a look at the content library, making sure you can see my screen show of hands you can see the content library.

Here, what we can do so let’s take a look at where we can find those referrals. We now know that we have native search capabilities within our content library.

If I just simply type in referral into the content library, you will see all the different types of content, whether it is a social post, an email, a downloadable that is available to you regarding this topic. Within the FMG dashboard, within the content library, lives a number of different, different referral options. So for example, a stand alone referral request email, a referral thank you email. We have a number of different items. So come in here, take a look, see how you can implement these, you know, a referral into introduction letter. So that’s a physical letter that we can send, but in here, a bunch of options. So come in here, take a look at all the referral stuff, and, also, now let’s take a look at the automated marketing.

If you have FMG testimonials and if it’s approved for your broker dealer, you will see that you can turn this on.

This is that FMG automation for FMG testimonials that we can simply turn on. Again, I have navigated over here to my marketing tools and I have selected automated marketing. Now also scrolling down, another one that we can turn on would be our seasonal check-in and referral messages. Here is our seasonal check-in and referral messages.

This is a great one to toggle on, and you can see how it performs right here. I just saw in the chat that Jacob Connolly just sent a thank you greeting card for the recent referral. So Jacob, we’re gonna send you some swag. That is so exciting.

Way to go.

And so here, coming back to this so this one sends quarterly. I can turn this on. So, again, I’m gonna select my audience. Because this is a seasonal check-in, I might not want it to go to all of my contacts. I wanna think of a specific group that I would like to send this to. So send to a specific group, and I’m gonna you know, my Fort Worth clients, my high net worth, my prospect probably not prospects, right? So I can select multiple groups or just one or two.

And let’s take a look at what this email looks like. If you’re curious of what one of these looks like, it says, hey, we just wanted to check-in and see if you anticipate any big changes coming up soon, such as a new job, family situation, or large purchase that may influence your overall outlook. And so it’s just that general ask, it’s that check-in. We know the number one reason why someone leaves their trusted financial professional, and it is because of a lack of communication. Turn this on, you know you’re now at least communicating with this. And if there are any if you’re running into any issues with groups or you’re linking your CRM, reach out to us in our Q and A section, and we can get you in touch with our support team as well to get you some of those answers because I know sometimes linking CRMs or anything like that might be tough. But but, yes, come in, turn this on, and that’s the way we can get that engine going.

The other piece that I wanted just us to take a look at today was FMG testimonials. Just a brief view of and let me get my screens organized. Lots of screens going on today.

But here we go.

Alright. So with FMG testimonials, you kinda wanted to peek. If you’re curious, this is what it looks like. And so when I log in, I can create a campaign, and this gives me options.

Right? I can I can collect and showcase client testimonials? I can boost referrals with interactive quizzes, and surveys with client insights so we can uncover life events and goals of our preferences and tailor your experience. Again, I mentioned earlier how our clients and prospects are really looking for that personalized experience and simply just asking them is a great way to do that.

So if I want to turn on a testimonial, I simply come in here, I turn it on, I can brand it. I can add my headline, and it looks really nice. And this is what it looks like.

So, of course, this would be your branding, assuming this is approved for you. And so this is what it looks like. So, you know, leave us. We wanna hear from you.

They can leave their review, and you hit submit. And what’s really cool is I mentioned we can showcase these on our website. So I went through, and I set this up ahead of time.

And let me just approve this on the back end. So what happens is I have now updated my website to include test approved testimonials. And if I send out that link via FMG testimonials, what’s really neat is it automatically updates on your website. So someone just submitted that testimonial, and what happens?

Compliance approves it. You will see that forty seconds ago, you know, someone left a someone, me, left a testimonial. So how awesome is that? Again, going back to creating that engine that’s updated for you, really great way to add that.

So just an example, it’s a really high level view of what testimonials can do for you in a compliant manner. So we went over how to turn on our automations, some of the content available in the content library and FMG.

And let’s go back to our slide deck, and again, you have to jump, feel free, but want to go over. You guys will all be receiving this, so we put together a referral reputation checklist for you that goes over these steps that we talked about today, how you can find this content within the content library, also a COI referral reference as well. We talked a lot about creating referral processes and how testimonials can help you from a client perspective, but also we’re going to give away a COI referral reference sheet, so how these COIs we can utilize them and where the overlap is. Where is that entry point for that referral? So that is something we’ll be giving away today and today we’ll also cover our content. What a great time now. I know everyone’s busy with kids going back to school and planning for Q4, but let’s talk about some content that you can implement today.

By attending our Did You Know webinar, we will be giving away our ten minute marketing calendar. You get it here first when you come to our Did You Know webinar series before it gets sent out to everyone so you can get ahead of scheduling out that September content.

I’m seeing that this was super helpful last month, we love to hear that, so we will send out our ten minute marketing calendar for you, so this is our suggested content with direct links directly to the content library to make it easy for you to share that content.

Some other things for you to start thinking about as we are thinking about September.

So Labor Day coming up, Rosh Hashanah, Patriot Day, National four zero one Day. So again, who is your target audience and which pieces of content can you or should you implement into your plan for next month. So we will share that content calendar with you and of course first day of fall. And if you have some time today, go and schedule this stuff out so that you can do what it is you’re really good at and that’s taking care of your clients in the month of September and also continued fall sports kickoff this is a great way to engage on social media people love talking about sports and so engaging with them, sharing fall sport kickoff, life insurance awareness month is coming up, great opportunity for education pieces, college savings month, Great time to kick off those conversations with kids going back to college, preparing that next generation of young families that it’s time to start planning for college.

Really great ways to kick off some of this content. Just some inspiration for you all to go through and find that. Also there is a brand new content available in the content library under automated marketing, and that is our financial focus email automation. So this is a brand new one that we have incorporated.

So if you’re curious, would love to add this and we would love you know I’m going throw out some more swag, so David Latham we would love to share some swag with you, just saw that you are using that content calendar helps keep you on track, We’d love to hear that.

And at this point, we’d love to open it up for Q and A.

And if there is anything available or if you have any questions, we’ll stick around. But we love seeing you all. We love hanging out with you.

If you’re curious, if you didn’t know FMG is a mobile app, so if you want to be able to share content and emails on the go, you can download the FMG mobile app.

I would love to hear in the chat, if you’re still sticking around with me, what you’re going to implement from today, what you’re looking forward to adding.

And yes, we just got a question. Would you mind sharing more about the Do It For marketing program? Yes. So our Do It For Me marketing program is pretty cool because you get a dedicated marketing concierge that you work with on a regular basis and they help execute marketing on your behalf.

Now it’s really important that you guys work together because they want to get to know you and your practice, and if we have any of our Do It For Me clients on here would love to hear your experience and for you to share one of your favorite pieces about Do It For Me. But yes, I know that when I was a financial professional, every time I if I had a dollar for every time I said I just need someone to do it for me, I would have a lot of dollars because we’re all so busy and so yes, it’s having that dedicated marketing concierge in your back pocket to help you execute on your behalf, right?

We’re all so busy. So awesome. Yay. And we’ll definitely be doing a Google review post on LinkedIn.

I love that. And yes, our presentation will be sent afterwards.

Our, those giveaway pieces will be sent afterwards. But as always, thank you so much. Everyone is so busy. I’m delighted that we get to share time together.

And this will be my last do it for me as I or do it for me. Did you know as I actually go out on maternity leave? So we have a really awesome schedule and topics lined out for you through the end of the year and so excited to share that with you all, in the near future. Keep coming back because we have some really great speakers lined up, for the upcoming months.

We are so excited and as always, we love our Did You Know community. Thank you so much. If there’s anything you want to hear from us in the future, please let us know, and we’ll talk to you all soon. Thank you so much.

Alright. Bye, everyone.