{"id":9107,"date":"2021-04-29T15:06:59","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T20:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.figmarketing.com\/blog\/?p=9107"},"modified":"2023-09-07T10:43:36","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T15:43:36","slug":"michael-kitces-podcast-summary-embrace-self-advocacy-in-financial-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.figmarketing.com\/blog\/michael-kitces-podcast-summary-embrace-self-advocacy-in-financial-planning\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Kitces Podcast Summary: Embrace Self-Advocacy in Financial Planning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When we first launched the Retirement Inside Out podcast<\/strong><\/a>, we set a mission to create more thoughtful discussions in our industry to help financial professionals meet and exceed today\u2019s retirement industry demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when we had the opportunity to sit down for an episode with financial planning expert Michael Kitces<\/a><\/strong> from Nerd\u2019s Eye View<\/a><\/strong> and Kitces.com<\/a><\/strong> (among many other accolades), we were dazzled by his viewpoints on topics like prospecting and capturing new clients and the focus in today’s fast-changing financial world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

We pulled a few of our favorite soundbites from that episode and turned them into this post so more people can learn from Michael\u2019s insights and analogies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, and if you want to catch the full Michael Kitces podcast episode, you can head to the episode\u2019s page on the Retirement Inside Out website<\/strong><\/a> to give it a listen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Kitces Podcast Excerpts<\/strong> on Financial Planning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the story with the \u201cKitces blue?\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Kitces:<\/strong> This is one of those \u201caccidents-that-became-a-brand things.\u201d Back in the early 2000s, when I started traveling and speaking for the industry a little bit, I was probably out at a couple of conferences every year. I guess, maybe just subconsciously, I had a blue shirt on the hanger that I really liked.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if I was traveling for a day, I would grab the shirt, right? You grab your favorite shirt when you go up, except from the other end of this, you know, like my friends and colleagues that I see out in the conference world, they would only see me maybe four times a year at four different events spanned throughout the year, always had the same blue shirt. \u2018Cause I might\u2019ve only worn it four days for the year, but it was the four days they saw me \u2018cause I grabbed it as the travel shirt.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So he started giving me a little light-hearted teasing. Like, \u201cDude, every time we see you, you\u2019re in the blue shirt, what gives?\u201d I said, \u201cYou know what, I\u2019m just going to own this.\u201d Like, let\u2019s just go with it. So I bought half a dozen of the blue shirts, so I was like, \u201cFine: I\u2019m going to wear one every time I travel, I\u2019ll show them.\u201d And then it became a thing. So now it\u2019s the brand color of the platform. It\u2019s the brand color of the site. I now own a dozen of these so that I can grab them in quick succession for a long trip. And it, it just kind of became, I guess, the uniform and the brand.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related: Integrated Marketing Plans for Advisors: 5 Key Steps [Infographic]<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

How do financial professionals stay relevant and keep their brand out there?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Kitces:<\/strong> So, to me, at the end of the day, the disruption of the pandemic has not really changed the fundamentals, what it takes to be effective in marketing, growing your practice as a financial advisor. We\u2019ve had all of these different strategies over the years: seminar marketing, which at the end of the day is about educating the people you want to work with. Drip marketing, which at the end of the day is about showing up for them consistently. Now in the past, we may have done that with in-person seminars and drip marketing. Might\u2019ve been mailers that we sent out to people\u2019s houses on a quarterly basis or whatever your newsletter frequency was. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, we get to adapt some of this to the digital world because we can do it with webinar marketing and YouTube videos and podcast videos, and blogging. And we can drip it out on email and social media and all these different platforms to get them out there. But the essences are still basically the same thing. You educate people, you keep it in front of them on a consistent basis because at the end of the day, they\u2019re not going to do business when you want them to do business. They\u2019re going to do business when they are ready to do business, which means some change or events has happened in their lives.

Are you top of mind in their moments of need? And at the end of the day, we\u2019re a relationship business. So how are you showing up in some way, shape, or form that establishes a relationship? And so, you know, in the past, we might\u2019ve done seminar marketing, printed newsletters, and client appreciation events. Now we might do webinars and podcasts, drip marketing via email and virtual online networking events. But the essence of it is the same. It\u2019s the same stuff, and human beings are still going to human being the way that human beings have always human being\u2019d. We just have to change the modality a bit, which I know feels very different for some of us who have not lived in a world of digital\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the essence of it really is no different than what we\u2019ve done, which still ultimately comes down to most of us tend to lead with education. You\u2019ve got to jerk people over time because they\u2019re only gonna work with you when they\u2019re ready, not when you\u2019re ready, and you have to give opportunities for them to connect with you as a human being, because this is a relationship-based business. And so, I\u2019ve seen things out there of advisors all over the place from virtual events to, you know, one I just had heard about recently an advisor who\u2019s built what is now a weekly prospecting event\u2014virtual bingo. Virtual bingo!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And apparently, there\u2019s like a virtual bingo.com website. \u2018Cause, of course, there\u2019s a website for everything. Like there\u2019s a website where you can host virtual bingo events. And so he invites his clients, his clients invite their friends \u2018cause everybody\u2019s kind of bored \u2018cause there\u2019s not a lot to do in a pandemic world. And they\u2019ve been running these on a weekly basis and it\u2019s building momentum for him and he gets to connect with clients and have fun and connect socially and meet new people and do all the things that we\u2019ve done historically. And he\u2019s running virtual bingo!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related: Top Client Concerns to Help Increase Engagement & Drive New Business<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve been able to master multimedia marketing…what advice would you give someone who\u2019s really trying to make sure that they can dominate the market and do what\u2019s best for their clients by being everywhere [they] possibly can from a marketing perspective?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Kitces:<\/strong> So yes and no. Be everywhere you possibly can, but don\u2019t try to be everything to everyone you can possibly be someone for. There\u2019s an analogy I like to tell in the world of marketing, so if you imagine what you\u2019re doing in marketing is like a net\u2026imagine for a moment like my hands are outstretched in front of me holding a net, like a fishing net. So, you know, classically, I want to count something with a net. I put my net out and you know, things swim into the net and hit the net. And then I count some fish. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now what most of us tend to do as financial advisors when we\u2019re not happy with how much things are growing is we take the net, and we stretch it out. Like I\u2019m going to make a bigger, wider net and then I\u2019ll be able to catch more stuff, right? You know, go wide, go broad, go down all channels. But if you imagine me literally holding a physical net and you take the net at the opposite corners and you stretch it out so the net is twice as wide\u2026what happens to the holes? They get twice as big.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what ends up happening? More fish hit your net. You don\u2019t catch any more. In fact, more fish hit your net and swim through the net, which means you know, in practical terms like your prospect count goes up and your close count goes down. You\u2019re like, darn it. I\u2019m not closing well, I got to go to sales training. Like I got to learn a new technique. How do you convert this business? No, you don\u2019t actually have a sales training problem. You have a net that\u2019s got holes that are too big to be relevant to any one problem. If I imagine like, how do I actually do this if I want it to work? I tightened up my net into a really tight net with tiny holes that nothing can swim through. And then I go find a river with fish, and I put the net there.

I put a really tight focus net exactly where the fish are. Now, if you get really good at that and you make a fantastic net and you learn exactly where the fish are and you start catching a lot, and then you realize like, Oh wait, this is actually just a tributary. There\u2019s like a bigger river upstream. And this is only one of four branches off that stream. Like cool, take your tight net and put it in one of the other streams that\u2019s a mile away off to the other side. And maybe now you\u2019re working two different channels at once because you\u2019ve got multiple different nets that you\u2019re casting, but you\u2019re not casting a big broad net. You\u2019re casting multiple tight little nets. And each of the little tight pockets about where you know that your prospects are. And the biggest problem that most advisors get into was certainly when we talked about this from a marketing perspective, is that we focus most on how to make the net wider and wider and wider\u2026

What we ended up doing is we spend so much time trying to figure out how to stretch and move the net that we don\u2019t focus on the part that matters the most, which is what kind of fish are you going for? And where are they? And you know, my analogy gets stretched a little bit, but what do they care about? And what\u2019s of concern for them? And what do you have to actually talk about in order to be relevant for them, instead of just trying to be relevant for everyone all at once?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related: The Financial Professional’s Inbound Marketing Funnel [Infographic]<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Do you feel that there is a nationwide retirement planning and retirement dilemma facing us today?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Kitces:<\/strong> You know, honestly, I\u2019m a little bit mixed on it. I\u2019m both mixed on whether we have a nationwide retirement dilemma and I\u2019m actually even more negative on the fact that we keep talking about it the way that we do. So, let me frame that a little bit. There\u2019s actually a psychology principle out there called social proof, and it says when we are uncertain about what to do in a particular situation, we look to others around us for cues, for insight, for guidance about what we\u2019re supposed to do.

I think this gets all the way back to, you know, like early primitive, human being brainstem levels. At the end of the day, we\u2019re herd animals, you know how to survive? Stick with the herd. How to die? Get separated from the herd and get picked off by a predator. So, we are really hardwired in the brain. Like if you are running with the herd and the herd banks hard left, you don\u2019t stand around and go, \u201cWhy is everybody turning left? This is so strange.\u201d You go left with everybody else so you don\u2019t get picked off by the predators and later you can figure out why did we all turn left. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, the problem with this is that sometimes it happens in unexpected ways. And it creates a lot of social pressure dynamics around it. So, anybody who\u2019s got a kid that\u2019s sort of been through these moments with a teenager, like, oh my gosh, if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you have jumped off the bridge too? And the scientific answer is probably yes, actually, if all their friends jumped off a bridge, you would too. We feel that much social pressure to align. And it creates all sorts of weird effects.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So there was a famous study for this a number of years ago, where they had a problem with one of these beautiful, petrified wood forests out West, and people would travel into the forest and like steal souvenirs from the forest and you know, that\u2019s not good for natural habitat environment. So they put up a giant sign, said \u201cPrior visitors to this forest have taken pieces of the forest, damaging the natural habitat. Please do not take.\u201d So they put the sign up, petrified wood theft went up 30% immediately, because the sign says that everybody takes a souvenir. Please don\u2019t do it. But it clearly says everybody takes the souvenir. And we use this to rationalize these things for ourselves.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so the reason why this is significant is when we keep putting out headlines, like \u201cThe overwhelming majority of baby boomers are not saving enough for retirement,\u201d You know what that says to any particular person who hears it? You\u2019re normal. You\u2019re completely normal like anyone else who doesn\u2019t feel like they need to change people who feel completely normal, like everybody else. They\u2019re already safe with the hurt. So first of all, I don\u2019t even like the whole framing around how big the retirement dilemma is just from an actual client motivation sort of problem, because it distracts them. It tells them that they\u2019re okay and don\u2019t even need to change, even in the process of trying to scare them that they need to change. It actually tells them you don\u2019t need to change. You\u2019re just like everybody else. you\u2019re normal and part of the herd.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the first opportunity around this is, is even just with clients, reframing the conversation. Well, you know, the general industry statistics would say things like \u201cThe overwhelming majority of baby boomers are saving only 3% for their retirement. It\u2019s not enough and they\u2019re not going to succeed.\u201d And so if I\u2019m saving 5%, I\u2019m like, A) I\u2019m actually better than the average person, and B) at least I\u2019m pretty close to the herd so we\u2019re all good.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if I come at this from different eyes, so, you know, as an expert, I\u2019ve worked with hundreds of clients over the years who\u2019ve successfully navigated for retirement. What I\u2019ve found is that our successful clients typically save at least 12% of their income; you\u2019re saving five. Well, let\u2019s talk about that. They\u2019re like, \u201cWell, I want to be with the successful herd. I mean, I was with that herd, but that herd\u2019s not cool; like your herd is cooler and your herd does that?\u201d It\u2019s like, oh, okay. I guess I need to do that so I can be normal and part of your herd of what successful clients do. And the irony to me is a lot of the time in our business, we\u2019re actually trained not to help clients with this. Right? Clients say things like, \u201cWell, what are your other clients do in situations like this?\u201d No, no, I\u2019m creating a customized, personalized, individualized financial plan just for you. It doesn\u2019t matter what all of our other clients do. This is a personal financial plan for you. And will you rip away that hurt validation that they\u2019re seeking and asking for?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep Reading: 10 Pieces of Retirement Planning Advice Retirees Wish They Had Known Sooner<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

To hear more on what Michael had to say, and to listen to our other episodes with guests like Jamie Hopkins<\/a>, Sheryl Moore<\/a>, David McKnight<\/a>, and others, head to RetirementInsideOut.com<\/a> today!<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\"michael<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"financial<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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