Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to join us.
We are going to keep this very informal, and I am going to stick to my promise of just a half an hour. So we’ll have you back, at your desk quickly after this. But the point of this is just to have a really informal, honest conversation and describe so what is this do it for me program all about?
I am Susan Theater. For those of you that don’t know me, I’m the chief marketing officer at FMG, and I would love to connect with you if you aren’t already connected with me. And my esteemed guest today is Siobhan Farler, and I’m gonna let her introduce herself in just a minute, but feel free to connect with her as well.
I’m gonna spend just about a minute or two before we start our conversation teeing up why our philosophy really the philosophy behind do it for me, which is a content marketing strategy. It is the belief and there is a lot of proof. This proof is coming from wide charts that content and communications plays a huge role in your ability to grow your business, in your ability to retain customers, convert customers, and the likelihood that your customers are going to recommend you. If you look on the left hand side of this, I think it’s facing the right way, you’ll see, you know, into the ninety percent customers and this is the wide chart survey that’s done annually, and, actually, new results are coming out in the next month that we will be, sharing. But would you consider an adviser’s style and frequency in determining whether to retain them? And then on the lower side, would you just would you same question to recommend?
Also interesting on the right side is nearly fifty percent of clients that were surveyed said they wish their adviser communicated more or much more. And you may say that, oh, gosh. They don’t wanna hear from me. They do. They do. And this is another sort of proof point on this. Differentiation is really hard, and we think one of the best ways to differentiate is through communications and content, consistently dripping on clients and prospects and centers of influence with valuable content, consistently updating your website with blogs that have valuable content because people do want to see you as a thought leader and an educator.
On the right side, eMoney, a survey that said sixty three percent of consumers that were interviewed said that content educational content would make an adviser stand out. And then on the left, just showing that, basically, all consumers, you know, for this one, ninety six percent are at least somewhat interested in it, sixty six percent, and that’s millennials. This actually gets even higher as you go into the younger generations, believe that they want to be educated. They want to learn more. So with that, I am going to stop sharing because I’m boring, and I’m going to introduce Siobhan. So, Siobhan, tell us a little bit about you, your practice, and what about diff attracted you and made you I guess, you know, why did you decide to do Diffum?
Yes. Absolutely. First, thank you for having me. Welcome, everybody. I’m excited to to talk about this.
I’ve been a Diffum user for, a year and three, four, five months. So fifteen months, whatever that is. And I have seen a huge difference in the the content that they’re able to produce versus the content that I was trying to do myself from a time management perspective, from a, resource perspective, from a compliance perspective.
The whole kit and caboodle at Defham has has made my life so much easier and allowed me a lot more time to be help be with clients doing financial planning, the whole shebang.
And How how would you describe it to someone who said, well, what what what even is it?
Yeah. That’s a great question. So, basically, we have a a relationship with FM I have a relationship with FMG, and they provide feedback on my website. They help design my website.
I have monthly calls with, a representative from FMG where we go over my data. And and that’s really important because not only do you want to send out information like you were saying that’s educational to your clients, you also want them opening up those emails and doing some type of call to action with those. And so we go over my numbers. Roughly between sixty and seventy percent of an open, of of an open rate.
That’s amazing.
And do you remember do you have any comparison to what you used to get?
Honestly, because I was doing it all by myself, I don’t have a comparison because that would have required me to have data to do it myself.
Well, I will say I think the average is way below that. Like, you know, like a generic newsletter or things like that are are all good sort of foundational drum beats, but they don’t get seventy percent open rates.
Well and I’m very particular. So one thing about FMG and the do it for me is that there’s a lot of content that you guys provide for us. And so as an advisor, I get to pick and choose what I want to use. So from knowing my client base, if, you know, I have a lot of divorcees or or clients that are going through divorce. So I use a lot of that material. I may not necessarily use some other material that wouldn’t be the best for my client base.
I’m gonna bring up the calendar so you can even just talk through Yes.
How this works. So just a quick backdrop.
Every month, we’re creating basically a content strategy. Myself and Samantha Russell and our, you know, our entire content team, we’re brainstorming what would be the absolute best content strategy across blogs, emails, and social posts, as well as events and other marketing ideas and a podcast script for the next month. And then we send out the calendar two weeks before that month and that and I’ll let you take it from there, Siobhan. Then advisors of our do it for me program are reviewing this and basically selecting what they want to use and what they want to customize or edit.
Absolutely. So I’m a pretty hands on marketer. So I go into each of the pieces and see if there’s some changes that need to take place, that that better suit my client base or that I need them to sound slightly more like me. Yep. But very that’s very slim and few for between when I need to change the tone or the tender.
Do you remember any of the ones that you might have edited for February?
Actually, I didn’t edit any of the ones for February. I can tell by looking at this calendar. I know I didn’t edit any of those. For some months, you know, there there may be ones where we I rearrange.
For instance, like, I can’t remember for for February specifically, but, like, the student loan, I may not necessarily do that on that.
I may pick a different day Yep.
Where I want that to go out.
And for my monthly market insights, because I have a great relationship with FMG, I actually don’t use the prerecorded one. Sorry. Yep.
But they send me the script, and I do it in my and I do it in my own voice. Awesome.
Because I want my the client actually a fantastic tip.
And I think what you’re hitting on, and I’ll just make the exclamation point, is this is a lot of content. You know, we’ve got this one is I think this was the Secure Act two point o and changes that relate to special needs trust, which got a lot of great feedback and provoked a lot of conversations and I think some referrals, February. So it was the psychology of love and money was the other blog. And for most most months, we’re really trying to hit on a high net worth top financial oriented topic or something related to maybe the tax cuts and jobs act or Secure Act two two point o that customers and or prospects don’t know about so that they’re gonna be like, oh, you know, I wanna get an But then we also try to do one that’s a little bit more on human interest that has a tie in to money.
And And you can even target it through like, let’s say there was one in there about required minimum distributions.
Yep.
Well, my twenty and thirty something clients don’t necessarily need to get that. Yep. But I may want my sixty year olds to know what’s coming around the turnpike. So you can actually customize who your actual thing what the con who the content is going to.
So FMG has it where there’s even some a COI, or other prospect versions of the emails. Yep. So you’re not necessarily sending the same thing to everybody, which is really good because you can target it and and get the best results. And I think that’s one of the reasons why my open rates are so high is because it’s targeted to those specific groups.
Totally.
And what we want to encourage is this is a starting place for some. Like, this month might have nailed it for you. But in most months, and, generally, this is hopefully ninety percent there for you, but you might wanna tweak the date that we might have suggested for a post. We always include about ten optional posts. So you might say, I want those or I don’t really wanna do, you know, the motto. I’m gonna skip the motto this month, or we will suggest customizing. So for Valentine’s Day, we would have suggested, you know, use your own photo, take a picture of your team, you know, maybe doing a client event or something that’s more personalized.
And also just, you know, taking a second to customize the emails or the blogs so that it has even more of your tone. You know, we’re aiming to get it just right, but all of you have your unique voice.
So in a given month, you know, as you go through this and you’re deciding, okay. This one I want, this one I want edited, this one I want to go to just this segment, this one I wanna use a different picture, this one scratch. About how much time do you put in to making this, you know, perfect for you?
For the next month, maybe thirty minutes, maybe. Maybe.
That’s awesome.
We we can maybe say forty five.
Now in the beginning, in full disclosure, in the beginning, it took me a little bit of time to get the rhythm down Yep.
And to kinda learn the pattern. But, you know, after a couple of months of doing it, you get it down pretty fast versus when I was trying to write all the content myself and researching all the content and then writing all the content and then going through comply like, it’s just this is this is I would describe this as you know how sometimes authors have ghost writers?
Yep. I I would kinda describe this as kind of a ghost writer relationship where then it comes to to the adviser to make it actually ours. But the meat and potatoes of it, FMG is taking DIFM is taking care of for me.
Oh, that’s exact that’s exactly what we’re aiming for. So I love that you said that. We had there was a somebody wrote in recently, and I loved it. So I’m gonna share it.
They said, this is so I think it was right after we sent one of the calendars out, and they responded and said, this is so amazing. I feel like you’re reading my mind and writing exactly the way I would write, which, I mean, is exactly what we aim to do. But, again, taking the thirty minutes to customize makes a big difference. I’m gonna actually share a couple because you can talk through this as well.
I’m gonna share some of our, some of the customizations.
Let’s see if I can find this.
Okay. Hold on. There we go. Okay. So let me get out of this one.
Stop share. I’m gonna try it. Hold on one sec. My bad.
There we go. Are we there? Okay. So these are some examples of content.
Mhmm. So understanding the September effect was a very popular one, a year end checkbook.
Yes. My clients love that September effects one.
Really? So talk about that a little bit.
Yes.
I was at an event, not a not an investment event, but just an event out in the public where there were people there, some of my prospects who had and clients who I knew had gotten this, and they had asked me many questions. So I would give the tidbit to the financial advisers is to make certain you I mean, I do it. But you wanna make certain you read stuff before you post it just in case people have questions you’re not going, now what did I? Right?
Exactly.
Like, what are you talking about?
What’s September effect?
Exactly. Exactly. And, I’ve had a couple of other advisers come to me, in my firm and and ask about that e that one. That one was a big hit.
That’s awesome. We also try to hit on really, you know, timely trends. So I think this was back this was maybe in I don’t remember what month, but AI’s role in shaping tomorrow. You can see we write a blog and then an email and then a social post. And, again, all of this is customizable, and here’s some examples of how advisers customize it. Maybe you can share some of yours, but the Secure Act one, we wrote about how, businesses can now match student loans in their four zero one k, which is great for students and great for businesses.
And so we had a photo that we used, on the calendar, but we suggested that you customize it. And this adviser had a daughter that graduated, so he put this on it. Got great, great engagement. And the point being, the hard part really is the the writing part. I mean, that’s like how to get that clever and get it, you know, the right emojis and all that. Coming up with a customized picture, if somebody gives you a suggestion, is pretty easy. Have you customized any posts and had success with that?
I have.
So I don’t know if everyone can tell from my accent, but I’m in the southern US. I’m in Tennessee. No.
And so, there’s been times for especially some of the holiday posts Yeah.
You know, where knowing my client base again, I’ve swapped out different pictures for the holidays that I just that I know that would respond better with with what’s going on.
Yep.
Or, you know, different holidays. I see you’re using some of Doug and Kim’s stuff, who I know as well.
This is a pickleball.
Yeah. Just showing the range of topics, everything from, you know, the secure app to pickleball.
And as you probably know, some of the lighter ones get more engagement. But the ones that get the best engagement are dog appreciation day. Anytime you can weave a dog into a post so, again, for dog appreciation day, we wrote the caption, and we had a dog picture that looked like it could be anybody’s dog so you could use it. But here’s, you know, just a range of what other people did, some of the advisers did to customize.
Let me get out of it and stop sharing so we get to see your face.
One question I’m wondering.
People have asked me how we would describe the content.
I just showed some examples, but if if you met an adviser who asked, how would you describe it, what would you say?
How how would I describe the content?
Like, is it is it high net worth? Is it something like everybody you know, you read it and you’re like, I already knew this. Everybody already knows this.
Right. So I would say, it there are certain pieces that are obviously targeted more to high net worth, higher sophistication levels. There are other pieces like the human interest, like the dog, you know, anybody could like. I think FMG does a great job of being able to provide a lot of of content to to advisors and being able to pick and choose.
Okay. For this particular topic, I happen to know my clients aren’t as sophisticated on, and so I’m gonna use this particular content piece. Or on this one, my clients know a lot about. So I’m a use the Secure Act as an example.
My clients know a lot about the Secure Act because I’ve sent them a lot of information about the Secure Act. Right? So I’m just hypothetically saying, so if there was another SECURE Act one that comes out, you know, for June or whatever, I may not use that one because I know that my clients are already very well versed in that. Yep.
So you you wanna kinda I would say F and G does a great job of of using high net topics, but explaining it in a way that people always walk away with something they didn’t know before or, in a way that most people are going to be able to You were showing that slide earlier about education, and that’s really my biggest thing is I want my clients to understand what we’re talking about and understand their financial plan. So even though I was saying my clients know a lot about the Secure Act, there may be something else that I happen to know that they’re not as well informed about, and I’ll pick that piece instead.
You really just have to know what your clients what your clients need, and FMG has the content that you can then customize and use in that space. So so I I would say it fits it can fit any adviser no matter where they are in growing their book of business or retaining their book of business, and it can fit any sort of client base, whether or not it’s very high net worth, very sophisticated, you know, Elon Musk genius people, or just your normal average American.
You know?
Exactly. And here, just to show, like, I keep this huge stack of ideas, and most of them are from our do it for me advisers. So I get emails from Siobhan. I every month, we send out as we send out the calendar, there’s a video that describes the strategy behind it, and then we invite advisers to give us feedback and suggestions. So Siobhan, for example, asked us to do a blog on divorce.
So immediately, we did a blog on divorce. And I’ve got one here actually, from another adviser just yesterday on excess contributions that require actions. So there’s I’m gonna do it timely on that. The ten ninety nine one was really popular. We had advisers say, I’m getting tons of questions from my clients. Like, when am I gonna get all these ten ninety nine? So we did a when to expect your ten ninety nine and all the different types of ten ninety nines.
And I think save us a bunch of time because every year, I was having to write out over and over and over again when they’re gonna be expecting their ten ninety nines.
So that was perfect.
Want that. I would never have thought honestly, I wouldn’t have thought of that, but we get adviser basically somewhat order takers too because you guys have the best ideas.
And then that one, I think, got such a strong open rate and response rate that we got request to do a reminder because people were still emailing, so we did a second one. So we also we in addition to just the calendar being the calendar, we are always doing ad hoc, whether it’s a timely ten ninety nine or whether, you know, the Fed does something interesting.
So it there’s content in addition to that, including social content.
So I know one question that’s on everybody’s mind is how do you know it’s working?
Oh, that’s a great question. So for me, and, you know, we’re in the numbers game. Right? Yep.
So when I when I first joined FMG and Defham, I told my rep. I was like, look. I’m gonna give you guys a year, and if my production’s not at this mark, then I’m gonna think you got it’s not working, and I’m not gonna do it. I’m just being full disclosure.
Well, that’s yep. I would do.
And, obviously, I’ve stayed longer than a year because it’s working. I mean, prospects that I have been continuously dripping on for the last fifteen months now this quarter are are starting to sign on. I have done more in production this since the beginning of January of this year than I did in all of twenty twenty two. Wow.
So it is it it is it is working. I’m I’m on track. I don’t knock on wood. You know?
It all no one has a crystal ball, but I could potentially double my entire production from last year to this year, if I keep going at the rate. And I and I would say it’s from Diffam. It’s because of the social assist that they send me. It’s the content, the drips.
You know, the new client that I got said, well, it’s because I keep getting all the emails from you. You keep, you know, you keep sending me information even though I’m not a client of yours.
That’s awesome. So I decided I should be a client. That’s great.
That works. That’s amazing. I have a question from somebody in the Mike from the, audience saying, describe your ideal client, and do you use content for that audience in the different program?
Oh, that’s great. That’s a good question. So, I mean, my ideal client or I’m a say my sweet spot where I do the my best work would be a client that has between a million and and four to five million.
That’s kind of my sweet spot of and I’m talking about investable assets.
From a whole net worth, I’ve got clients that have that, but they have a whole net worth of twenty, thirty million, whatever. But I’m talking about investable assets for various reasons.
That’s that’s kinda my sweet spot, where I can really help clients. And and they kind of have at least in this market, they don’t view themselves as being wealthy. It’s just here I am.
They don’t view themselves as being wealthy.
And so helping them realize how to get their money to last their lifetime.
Yep.
So that would be my my ideal space.
And that some of, like, your favorite pieces of content for that, you know, what are the content pieces that really stand out or examples of them that stand out for that ideal client?
Yeah. So, Susan mentioned earlier divorce. I would say about a third of my clients are either going through a divorce, are or are post divorce, and I’ve helped them in that space with, providing financial information to their lawyers, you know, doing Monte Carlo simulations for alimony, you know, the whole the whole shebang. Right?
And so the divorce blogs, and all the divorce material really helped, And, obviously, I targeted that to my divorce clients. Right?
I do have quite a few of entrepreneur clients, and so the there’s been some great content that then I’ve targeted in that space.
Yeah.
And then there’s just generic market and economy content that I send out to everybody. Right.
So so, yeah, I I do target, but I also if it’s stuff that people just need to go niche and general.
Yep.
And I would agree.
Absolutely. If you were asked, if you like, if I phrase this question with a blank, like a mad lib, if you are an adviser who, fill in the blank, this program is perfect for you.
From my experience, if you’re an adviser who wants their book of business to grow, this is this is the program, because the the content I see someone else was asking about dripping on prospects and stuff.
You know, you can code people as prospects in this in in the system.
And so for for me, I’m wanting my book of business to grow. And so if if that’s where you are, the second would be if you are just retaining your business and you’re wanting just to to be in front of your clients so they don’t leave.
Like And probably grow referrals.
And grow referrals. Right. Then that would work as well too because you can just you can set that up.
Mhmm. Yeah.
Wonderful.
I don’t know. Can you hear my dog in the background? He’s now going back. I can. That’s great timing.
Of course.
Yeah. It just pouring, and now they’re, yeah, they’re barking. Tell me about, a typical meeting with your marketing your dedicated marketing specialist. And you talked about your website.
You mentioned that they go over metrics, but describe the value of that marketing specialist and, you know, what they do for you.
Absolutely. So, she takes care you can use them in different ways.
So one of because because this is what she’s told me. She said, that she can handle everything for me, like, just on the on the calendar that Susan was showing earlier. She can just reschedule all of that for me. But like I mentioned, I’m a hands on person, so I like to pick and choose what I use and when.
But she does all my blogs and puts them on my website.
Right now, I was featured in a in a couple of news stories. And so on our last call, I said, hey. I want a new thing on my website, you know, showing where I’m featured or I’m in the news or whatever. Can you can you work on that for me?
And so she she’s working on developing the new web page for me and how it’s gonna look. And so, you know, it it’s been it’s only thirty thirty, forty five minutes once a month, and we do we go over our metrics. I also ask her what are some best practices she’s seeing from other financial advisers around the nation because, you know, I know that she’s not just helping me. And so what are some tips and tricks that other people are doing?
Is it is it like you were saying at, you know, putting my own dog picture in there versus using, you know, the dog picture?
Or is it a webinar or a podcast that Have you done any events with us?
Have you used the platform and your specialist to do an event?
I have not yet.
I have to own that I haven’t, but that’s one of those things that on our last call How about the midyear market update?
Yes. So that’s that’s on my because that’s gonna be coming out soon.
So that’s my on my summer agenda to because I have not done one yet. And, and so I’m a little nervous about that.
Just putting that You’re nervous about that. Putting that on the health agenda.
Because it’s the it’s the first time, but I know that you guys will support me in all of it. So, and she said that there is a tax one that that was recently done.
Strategies one. Yep. Mhmm. There’s a shred event, which, you know, post taxes is always a good one.
Yes. That’s a great idea. That. So so all that to say is I still have lots of room for improvement too even though I’m a I’m a different person. It’s like, there’s still there’s they’re y’all are providing so much.
Just the events. You’re you’re taking advantage of all the rest, but I I would really recommend quarterly the marketing specialists help their clients put on you know, to promote an event. We have some that are just in our you know, the templates are already built in our platform, like a shred event, the tax the tax strategies, the, the mid mid year update. Mhmm.
And those, like, the mid market the mid year update one, those more technical ones, we use YCharts data. And they’re they’re really sophisticated, and they have the scripts, and they’re all compliance approved. And then we help with the email and social posts and landing page to promote and, you know, capture the the RSVP. So it’s a great way to do either a purse an in person event or, a webinar.
So with two minutes left, I think I’ve hit on most of the questions.
I saw one question in there where, Ned said Ned was asking about, when I was referring to the FMG system.
Yes. So all my contacts are in the FMG system, but it integrates with, like, Salesforce and Redtail and I don’t have it on all the different ones. Yeah. All the different one. Like, and so you you just dump your stuff in and it just integrates.
The special your marketing specialist, one of the one of the steps in the onboarding process is to sync your contacts with your CRM. So if you use any of the common CRMs, we just sync, which pulls in your all of your groups. So your contacts, your tag groups, your segments, however you’ve organized it, your CRM is a source of source of truth, and it just syncs with our system. So on a daily basis, it’s always up to date, but it enables you to do segmentation like Shavonn is doing. So if you have a group of retirees versus next geners, then when we have content that relates to either, your specialist knows let’s use that group only versus this goes to all prospects. So it’s, pretty simple.
So with that, I am gonna stay to my promise to keep it to a half an hour both for your sake, Shavaughn, and for everybody else. I so appreciate your time and your energy and that smile, and I hope everybody that joined, found this valuable. And I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, everybody.
Have a great day.
