Well, hello everybody and welcome to the next episode of NAPA's playbook series for 2023. We're calling this the summer series and it is a three-part series with a high level focus on building trust and earning credibility in a digital world. And today we are joined by two financial advisors who are going to talk about this particular topic with us. So Johnny, if you want to get the slides up, there we go. Today we're going to be talking about magnetic marketing, niching in with ideal client personas and hyper relevant messaging. So on the next slide, you'll see our smiling faces. There's Johnny who will be playing a part with me today, Johnny Swift of Impact Communications. I'm Marie Swift of Impact Communications and we're joined today by Sam Brownell of Stratus Wealth and Steve Weinberger of HCR Wealth. And so we'll be having a panel format, but I thought I'd kick us off with a couple of questions and then we have some examples and we want to get our panelists talking today. So the first question that I'd like for Sam and Steve to talk about is their niche, describing their niche and how and why you picked them and how you serve them. So maybe Sam, we'll have you go first and then Steve, you go second. Sure, sure. Well, thanks Marie and Johnny for having us. This is great. We're looking forward to talking about what we do here. So the niche that we have at Stratus is that we do a lot of succession planning works. We work with independent business owners across the country and we take them all the way from the valuation of the business through any type of operational improvements that they may need to setting up that succession plan. What are the transition options? What are the buyout strategies? Do they have a cash flow to do it? What can the owner support post ownership in terms of their business value and the rest of the value of the assets and then looking at tying that into their personal financial plan and whether that's they have a planner and we work directly with them or they need some help and we can do that in-house. So we can offer a full suite of it or we can tack on as needed wherever the expertise might need to come in for those specific folks. And so how did we get into this? So we really jumped into this market because I had a friend from business school whose father owned a hardware wholesaling firm. And one of the reasons he had sent her to get an MBA was because he was hoping she would buy the business and coming out of my background was in investment banking and trading. And so they had asked me down the line if I could help them. And I said, well, you know, probably I've done it in the public market. And I wonder what it's like in the private market. And so that became a very good learning experience for me for a lot of reasons. But it also opened up this specific niche within the valuation succession planning world, which really is lumber building materials, hardware, independent home centers, and some of the ancillary trades, HVAC and plumbing and construction and various other trades that are related to building materials and hardware. So that's kind of the niche is set with succession planning and valuation. But also within that, we dove even deeper into specific industries so that we know everything there is to know about them and particularly when the valuation side of things, if you're doing a gift or a state tax valuation that could get scrutiny from the IRS, it's important that you really know the industry and you know what they're doing, how they operate, what their margins are, all of this important information. So that's what we do. And it's great. And we love it. So Steve, jump in. Great. Yeah. Thanks again for having me as well. I would say one of our bigger niche markets really is when we look at clients going through a life transition, in particular, the largest portion of that would be going through divorcees and widows. But it would also include people that are having a liquidity event by selling their business or retiring. I would say the first two is a bigger focus, but the other two do complement each other. And the reason for that really is they they're at a fork in the road. We're kind of in that red zone where there's there's a lot of money in motion. There's a sum of money. Now they need to make major decisions on what the next step is. And that's where we really kind of come in much more on just how to invest for them. But it's any way money touches their life. And it's really kind of helping to set them up on all the non-financial aspects of that next stage that we are walking them through, holding their hand and really kind of developing a, you know, you think of a strategy, but we really call it a life strategy on what is that next stage look like. Obviously, investments is part of it. But that's only really, you know, just when we look at the wheel, that's just a fork in the wheel. We're really looking at that whole wheel and their whole self on how to kind of be able to help them transition into that next lifestyle for them. And especially a lot of times with the divorces and widows in particular, it tends to be maybe the first time that they've had to deal with money. So it also becomes with a lot of education and again, that handholding approach to build out that planning, build out that budget, and then kind of walk them through on that. And it's, I think how we got into that is our firm, I've been at the firm for 25 years. We've worked with all types of clients, but we kind of started finding early on the clients that were getting the most value out of the services we were providing them. And that was in particular in this area. So then we wanted to kind of really get much more of a focus in that area. One, it's something that I truly enjoy doing the biggest, where I feel mostly fulfilled working within with these clients. But it's also something where I really see that the clients are getting the most value out of what we can offer them. I know in a little bit, Johnny is going to be showing some examples of how you communicate your two niches and how you serve your ideal clients. So as we go through the rest of the questions leading up to those examples, feel free to work in any additional examples or just verbal comments around how you use ideal client personas or avatars. If you have more than one niche, I think you've addressed this pretty well. But Johnny, let's go to the next question. I'd like to find out from Steve first and then Sam, how has honing in and focusing on a niche or niches helped your firm? And if you can quantify, we'd love to hear that. I mean, I think the easiest example for me is what I think about is a couple of professional networking groups that I'm part of, where there's some local groups, you might be part of a group with other business professionals, people in finance, insurance, attorneys, all aspects of the world, but ones that are trusted advisors, and we're trying to build a business and helping each other out. You know, the group, you have your own individual group, but you also have a much larger group you can be part of. And obviously, there's a lot of other financial advisors in there. I've been part of this group now probably I think about 12, 13 years. And when I first walked in and kind of got started, I'm a financial advisor, here's the great investing we do and everything else, I was getting no traction at all. Because basically, there was no connection to who I was or how I might be able to help some of their clients. So when I started focusing much more on that life transition, especially the divorcees or the widows, and the services we provide for them, it all of a sudden some of the referrals I started getting was, my friend is getting a divorce, I thought of you. So it wasn't that they were thinking about the financial advisor, they're thinking about me as the specialist working with divorcees. And I started even honing and kind of even perfecting that type of elevator pitch or just the way I would kind of persona, the way I'd be talking about it, I saw the referrals continue to grow and grow. And they were always specifically in that space. And like I said, we obviously we work with small business owners, we work with families and everything else. But it was just I needed to find a way to kind of really more separate myself and really kind of where they could in their mind, think of something where they could make them think of a person, just being an advisor doesn't necessarily make them think of a family friend or a client, the way that I feel the way we've kind of done with this life transition niche. So when we were preparing for this session, Steve, you said that it's allowed you to do more meaningful work. Would you elaborate on that? Sure. I mean, it's when I look at obviously investing in what we do and managing portfolios is a big part of what we do, but it's not as fulfilling or it's not just how big of a sum of money can you build up? It's more, again, what I mentioned a little bit earlier was on that life planning where we are really hoping we're seeing our clients as our job is we're half financial advisors, half therapists. And it's putting on that therapist hat a little bit more and really kind of helping our clients be preparing themselves for that next stage of life. And as you then see them, not just successfully monetarily, but you see them successfully happy or being able to kind of have that confidence to move on and you know that you had a part in doing that. That's for me, it's been one of the greatest fulfillments of what I enjoy about what I'm doing. Now, I know that your firm has mushroomed. You've been with the firm for what, 25 years now? How has the firm grown? Yeah. So when I started a firm 25 years ago, it's when the industry was kind of transitioning from transaction-based to fee-based. We had minimal assets under management. We're doing some transactional business and we've grown it now. We're a little bit over 1.5 billion in assets and helping probably 400 to 500 clients, families. And it's just been, especially with the mushrooming aspect of it, the more tree branches we've been able to kind of establish and the way we've been able to service these clients for these particular needs, the way that we've been able to kind of see those branches grow and grow and grow because they're like, the way we've also kind of structured it when we're, instead of saying we're asking our clients for referrals, we've kind of structured in such a way where they don't think they're doing us a favor, they think they're doing their friends and family and clients a favor by saying, you need what I have. So it's allowed that structure to grow and grow and grow from there, which has been a great way. We're at 1.5 and our next stop is two and then let's say five. But I think the foundation we've built now is just allowing us to kind of, I think we'll have that continued growth with that. Yeah, you make a really good point. The New York Times Insight Study, every year they put it out and it talks about why people share, why they share their resources, whether it's a restaurant or a movie or a financial advisor. And they're not doing it so much to help us, the practitioner or the service provider or the restaurant even, as so much as to validate their worldview, to help other people. So they're doing it for meaning and to help the people that they're in a circle with. Sam, would you build on this and talk about how niching has helped your firm? Yeah, so a couple of things I wanted to pick up on, I thought Steve made a couple of really great points and I'll start with, it was interesting, I was doing a webinar yesterday and talking about the soft skills part of a business transition, but it really relates to what we're doing here as advisors, which is the soft skills part is really important. Everybody here can put together a financial plan or research stocks or put together a portfolio, but it's that soft skill that connects you with the client that then builds that trust. I think that's crucial when you're talking about a niche, because what you want to do ultimately, in my opinion, is to get really well known. You want to be the person, as Steve said, that they turn to and go, hey, you should go talk to that guy, Steve, because he knows about everything there is to know about somebody getting divorced. And I know this is a difficult time for you. And so similarly, that's what we've noticed. And I think that something to keep in mind and potentially take back to your own practice is to take a look and do a couple of cross-sectional studies of your clients, because my guess is that there are going to be some similarities that pop out to you and then compare those to the things that you'd ideally like to be doing. Well, who would you ideally like to be serving? And I think you'll find that that will help you discover that there are probably one or two or maybe more niches within your firm that you can really attack, because if you are going at an audience that already is open and accepting to your message, well, that makes it a whole lot easier. And that's the whole idea behind this concept is for us. As we've gotten into this and we've gotten involved with trade associations and purchasing groups and other folks that service small businesses, we're known. We're a known quantity. People know who we are. They know what we do. They know what we provide. And so when we have a conversation, it's much easier. We're not necessarily trying to sell now. We're trying to educate. And that comes across a lot better to folks is, oh, OK, these are people that can actually help me. They're not trying to extract anything. They're not trying to push anything on me. They honestly understand what I'm going through. And that then leads to better problem solving and more acceptance of allowing this person in, because once you get in and I'm sure that most of you or many of you have had this experience, you'll get questions across the board, right? You'll get questions from college to where do you think I should go on my anniversary dinner? I mean, it just it covers the it covers the gamut. So but that's how you know that that trust has been built. Yeah. And when you're dealing with people passing down their generational wealth in a family business, that's pretty personal, I would say. So is a divorce or transition like Steve was talking about? But Sam, before I let you go from this particular question, could you try to quantify how your firm has grown, adding partners and just the revenue in general? Yeah, yeah. So so I started this firm by myself about 10 years ago now and have slowly, slowly started to build it. You know, like a lot of things at first, you just kind of take whatever business comes comes along the road here. But eventually, as I got more into specific a specific niche, you know, I'd say we've probably at least doubled revenue just in the last three, four years because of the fact that we're a known quantity and people come to us or refer folks to come to us, whether they're as Steve was saying, get to know those groups that are involved, whether it's a state attorneys or corporate attorneys, CPAs, people that serve the markets that you also are interested in serving. That really helps because then it's then it's referrals and then it's a very it's a warm conversation. You're not going out and you're not trying to to sell somebody. But I do think that that revenue growth has come from the fact that we're now very focused on the market that we're going to. And we know that the clients that we're working with can pay for the value that we're providing. And I think that's another point of it. You can provide great advice, but if you get a good niche where, you know, most of the business owners we work with are somewhere between five and 60 or 70 million in revenue. These are people that have a lot of wealth in their business and sometimes out, but they they need the help and they can pay for the service that you're providing. So you don't feel like you're necessarily giving something away. You can also get get well compensated for the advice that you're giving. But at the end of the day, it's it goes back to something Steve said earlier. And you just brought up, Marie, which is these big transitions in life, I think, is a great place to look for these niches because people are looking for help. And I will say that the pandemic was also very good for us because when when things go go downhill and people are scared, they're looking for advice. They're looking for somebody to help them navigate these troubled waters. And that's a great place to position yourself. Yeah, for sure. Hey, Steve, before we leave this topic, when we were talking before, you had three tips for niching. And I don't know if you remember what they are, but if I prompt you, maybe you could elaborate. So you said, ask yourself what clients do you enjoy working with most? And I want to know why. Um, I would say just definitely those are the ones I feel that are getting the most value of what I'm offering again, it's. You know, just doing a financial plan or doing a good investment portfolio, while clients would be appreciative of that, I'm not it's not as much of a life changing type of service that I'm providing, and I really feel like sometimes I am able to really help assist them making a major life change. And it is something that I'm watching them, watching them grow or watching them move on and seeing what would be successful partially is their happiness or their ability to kind of move on to me. That to me is where I really find rewarding. And it's what excites me. It's what Monday morning where I'm like, let's get to the office at a fun weekend. But it's I've got these things on my desk and I'm I'm ready to take them on. And it's not a chore. It's something that I'm excited to do and and working with my clients or and prospects as well. Yeah, so it doesn't even feel like work anymore. And and then thinking about touching on what Sam said about getting involved in the community, knowing who the players are. I know your firm does some co-branding. Talk a little bit about how you stay hyper relevant in Beverly Hills. Yeah, so I mean, obviously, especially within the divorcees and widows, it's working with a lot of family law attorneys and estate attorneys, particularly with the family law attorneys. We've been involved with some of the bar associations, some of the local chapters here where we've sponsored some of their events. We've been able to network. We've gone to some of their different galas they've had. We've even kind of had a chance to write some pieces that were part of their brochure or part of the topic. So again, you're just now, your name is getting more out there where they see you, they know who you are, you're building a reputation. That's kind of like the, so all that it is is just building the foundation, getting a little name recognition, meeting a few people. And then as you're gonna go through and meeting with other people, now they're gonna be like, oh yeah, I know who that is. It's, you know, they spoke at this event or they sponsored it, or I know that name, I know these guys. It just helps to solidify that on set relationship. Yeah, so the first tip is ask yourself who you wanna work with and why, right? Who do you enjoy working with? The second one is who are the players, which you just addressed. And the last one I think was kind of surprised me. You said work to become even more knowledgeable so you can add more value. How does that help with niching? So, I mean, it just, everything just continues to evolve and which I love. You know, something stays too static, I'll get a little bored or, you know, it's just not as exciting. So I love that, especially this industry in particular, but even the laws are changing with estate planning or how divorces are being treated, the tax laws and that whole aspect. As you're getting more and more engaged with what type of tax treatments there are or new laws is we've seen a lot with the Secure Act and the Roth and an inherited IRA is just one aspect to obviously the estate plan limits to what maybe needs to get done when you're helping prepare for a widow, looking at their estate. We are working with the estate planning attorneys on other ways that we've kind of done, especially clients that are above the estate limits. And obviously those laws are ever changing. So the more I can keep myself knowledgeable and staying on top of it and, you know, having these little nuggets of knowledge as well, it just kind of resonates. And especially if you can just, you know, especially when you're sitting with someone, if you're speaking, you have an hour meeting, they're probably gonna remember five or 10 minutes and try to remember one or two, hopefully even more few things. But if you can leave them with something specific or knowledgeable that's more easily for them to grab onto, sometimes that's enough to make the difference, especially if they're considering multiple different advisors that they're interviewing. Absolutely. So Sam, anything that this sparks for you? And meanwhile, Johnny, you can start getting ready to do your screen sharing, Sam. Yeah, no, I think everything Steve said is spot on and the world is changing fast and you do need to keep up with it. And your niche will appreciate that because if you get to know what their big issues are, and the estate tax limit is a huge one right now, and looking at your list of clients and seeing who might be bumping up or who might be in trouble if they were to die in 2026 as opposed to 2025, and they've got a huge business asset sitting there. And these are important things to start having conversations about now because these larger clients with bigger estates with lots of different assets, it's a barge and it takes a while to turn it if you need to make some changes. So just being aware of what's important to the niche then allows you to be very, very specific and hyper-focused on each one of your clients so that you can provide them with proactive advice. And I think that's something that clients really appreciate is not having to call you and go, hey, I saw this, what should we do? It's, hey, Mr. and Mrs. Client, this is going on. We think that we should have a conversation with this. So let's get your CPA on the phone and have a conversation about potentially divesting something or moving something around or opening an irrevocable trust or whatever the case is. But yeah, that proactive piece of it is easier when you really, really know your market and the people that you're working with. Absolutely. Johnny, the next slide touches on this idea of hyper-relevant messaging. And we've used that a couple of times. Will you take us through some examples of client communications and content that are hyper-relevant to audiences? Sure thing. And for those of you who have downloaded the slides or accessing the slides, you'll see some screenshots in there just so you have them in the slides and for posterity's sake. But I'm actually gonna just show off the live websites for HCR and Stratus here and show some good examples of who we serve, client experience pages, client personas, case studies, pieces of content like blog posts, videos and webinars, external third-party articles that they've been featured in on topics that relate to their niche. And I think that all of this type of content and client communications and that hyper-relevant messaging is really important because it gives your prospect proof that you know what you're talking about around these niches and these topics. You've worked with people like them before. When they read some of this messaging, they can really put themselves in the shoes of that person because they can relate. So I think it's really important to walk the talk and really produce content around your niche and those topics and things like that. So with that, I'm going to exit out of the slides and you should be seeing my browser here. We're gonna start with HCR Wealth Advisors, so Steve's firm's website. And on their website, they have a page called Client Experiences where they speak to some of their different niches that they serve. And this first one here is actually athletes and you'll also see business owners, divorcees, high net worth families, retirees. And with each of them, they have a client experience page that you can click into. But also with each of them, they have a testimonial. Under the new SEC marketing rules, nationally registered SEC firms can collect testimonials and feature them on their websites as long as they include a proper disclaimer. But I think also having a testimonial from someone who fits within that niche just continues to provide that proof and credibility that you have happy clients that you've served that are gonna be able to provide an example and people can relate to. So here's a testimonial from NFL Center. Steve, I know you guys have worked with some other athletes before as well. I know it's not a large niche within your firm, but anything you wanna add about athletes? Yeah, I mean, definitely that is its own unique niche much more than probably even the light transitions. You have, I would say athletes and some would say you can throw in entertainers as well. We're based in Los Angeles, so it's obviously something we come across, but there is a very different type of planning and the way you've got to experience them. So a couple of the main differences, one, they tend to be younger than our average client because these are professional athletes that are average, mid-20s might be the average age. So they're not as experienced, they don't have, they always think the big difference is no matter how much money they have, they always think they're getting one more contract, which is gonna be their next biggest one. And that's the problem where it's hard to get them to focus on planning and saving and building because I was like, well, I've got my next one that's even gonna be bigger, I'm gonna be good. So it's kind of working through on that and understanding that that was only a bonus if that next contract comes, that they have a shorter window to make money and then a longer window that a lot of times they need to either figure out something else to do or that they were gonna need that money to last for. So how do we kind of work with them on the planning and saving and again, with them being young, education, education, education. Right. Yeah, and within each of these client experience pages, you have a little section that talks about what you offer that speaks to each of those niches. And so supplemental income advice, charity and philanthropic strategies, tax strategies, financial education, obviously all of those are really important to athletes and you have similar things, similar pages set up for each of these other niches. So if we just wanna take a look, for example, at the divorcee client experience page, but support, educate and empower, engage your entire professional team, make a game plan, provide step-by-step support along the way. People in transition really need that kind of service. And then a testimonial from another, a really nice long testimony here from another divorcee who you all have helped out in the past. So I think that's a really nice feature as well. And speaking of people in transition, another niche that I know HCR has kind of been targeting recently is inheritors, people who've inherited or come into sudden wealth. And so I was involved in helping to create what we're calling the inheritors guide. And so we set up this special landing page on the website where we had a special list of people that had recently come into money and so we created this inheritors guide that's a comprehensive PDF of things to do and not to do after coming into an inheritance along with an educational video from some of the team members at HCR. And so just really, really helpful educational resource here for someone who's inherited money. So, and people can download that for free off the bat and just provide a lot of value right off the bat. Yeah, to me that seemed just like a natural extension off of the life transitions dealing with the inheritors. And it was something where, again, just large sum of money, what do I do? There might necessarily be a fork in the road as much as some of these others, but it's still required a lot of that planning and how does this work? What type of budgeting should I look at? Am I now able to purchase a home? Do I can change my job or things like that? So it's kind of walking them through all this. And again, the planning and looking at the numbers is definitely part of it, but sometimes it's just really having that conversation with them so that, just using, we're a sounding board for them that they can explore these topics and have some of that ability to kind of talk to, but they don't have something that they can talk to like this and just hearing them themselves speak can sometimes even help give that guidance. And that's part of why we wanted to add this as part of our niche. Yeah, definitely. And we've also placed an emphasis on getting featured in articles that speak to topics and niches that you all serve. So here's the, in the news page on the HCR website and the most recent article that HCR was involved in was actually a byline article written for the retirement daily section of the street by one of the team members. And it was all related to the inheritors guide, four steps to best use your inheritance that obviously the streets are really credible websites. So getting featured there as a thought leader provides a lot of value and just provides a lot of credibility. Also, Steve, here's one that you did with the industry publication wealth solutions report on the unique financial needs of athletes, entertainers, and creators. So obviously that one was really valuable in speaking to those niches. Anything you want to add about this one? Yeah, again, it was just, it was, a lot of times people just don't realize the issues that come up with athletes, especially when they're receiving a large sum of money. You know, tend to be, some of them might be from the inner city, they're, they, their family, their community, tends to be not, doesn't have a lot, doesn't come from a lot of money. So they are, sometimes I feel that obligation of they need to support their family. They need to support their community. They need to set up some, some charitable aspects of their life. So we're kind of helping them kind of understanding that whole process to making sure that, yes, this is you helping your whole community. And that should be part of it, because that helps really define who you want to be. And we want to make sure we're listening to what our client wants, but we're making sure they can do it in a meaningful way, but in a way that still can be lasting for them because the longer they are working and having, you know, being successful and having that money, even the more or decades that they can give back to the community can even be better for them. So it's a, but it's, again, it comes down to that education and budgeting and planning and understanding where this money is. Just definitely a unique difference than some of the other clients we'll be working with. Definitely. Johnny, I have a question here before you go on. So one of our, one of our participants today has a question for you, Steve. He's saying that this is great looking content and thank you for sharing it. Do you have a team in house that creates this content or how do you divvy up the work? Do you work with an external team? So, yeah, we work with an external team. I mean, obviously we're looking to do some of the in-house and we're trying to write some of that content, but it's definitely working with an external team that's been able to help facilitate, helping us find the right places to have our content being displaced, placed either in prints online or whatever it may be and coming up with a strategy. That's been very helpful for us. And I would say one of the biggest things is you can kind of come up with an idea and then you do something, but then, well, you didn't see anything, then you try something else. The biggest thing with really all of this, again, being part of the Bar Association, writing content, having exposure is being consistent. It's that consistency that can build over time. If you're doing it for a few months, then build it out into a year and then build out a couple of years, you then really start seeing the value of that the longer you've been doing it, really that has that bigger value of you've now created something for yourself. And you need a team for that aspect. If it was just on me or a couple of other advisors, we would try to do something and then we would go back to our clients and then we wouldn't have someone dedicated. So you definitely need someone who is going to, this is their focus to help you. Yeah, I think every one of the pieces from HCR here that I've pulled up as an example was, the lead was taken by a different team member at HCR. So it's a team effort, it seems like, but if you're a solo practitioner or have a small team, obviously your output won't be as large or as robust, but I think it's still important to just focus in on a few pieces of content that can really speak to your niche or those topics that are gonna resonate with them. And even if you aren't gonna be able to do it on a regular basis or have that much time to create that much content, even having a few strong, powerful pieces is important, quality over quantity there. And then the last one here is an article from Go Banking Rates. This, oh, here we go. Eight ugly financial truths about getting divorced. A team member at HCR was quoted in this article in a few different places. One of the senior advisors who focuses on working with divorcees. So obviously that can be really valuable to have, to be featured in these types of articles, not just to providing the prospects that fall into that niche, but also obviously divorcees are gonna be reading this article and seeing the HCR name within the article and linking back to the website there can have a lot of value, as I've talked about before in the past with SEO for back-linking. So- For us, just kind of gives us more credibility. I would think very common a prospect, the easiest thing for them to do now is to Google our firm. Obviously they're gonna look at our website, but content that they can find not from us directly just helps to build credibility for us. And especially when it could be on these specific topics of why they might be coming in. It'd been very helpful for us. Yeah. All right. So I'm gonna move on to Stratus. Thanks for sharing all that info, Steve. Lots of good content there from HCR. And so first off, I wanted to show off on the Stratus website. This is the valuation page where, Sam, you talk all about your valuation services. And on this page, we have a section called Who We Serve, where you really talk about how you pride yourself on working with independent business owners. And specifically you specialize in these industries. And obviously the photo kind of brings it home as well. And so I think that this is just one of many places on your website that you speak to some of these niches in your industries. But anything else you wanna add here? Yeah, I think, and Steve brought it up, is that the first thing that anybody's gonna do as a prospect is check you out online, whether it's your website probably first and then just Google you. So trying to speak to your niche on the website so that when they're clicking around, they're seeing something that resembles them or they're seeing their industry or their specific situation. And that really helps because it's just making that connection initially with them to say, okay, well, maybe I got in a referral, but now I see that there's actually something that connects us. And so I am gonna pick up the phone or I am gonna reach out via email or even through the website, right? To set up an initial conversation. And I think you impart that idea and those messages even more so in the content that you create. So first I wanna show off the blog here. So Sam, on their blog, they cover a lot of financial planning topics, current events, things like that, but then a lot of small business focused content. So here's two recent blog posts from earlier this year, how valuation can help strengthen your business, how to build an enduring and sustainable business. So lots of good blog content that speaks to small independent business owners. Also, you do a lot of webinars with publications that work within the industries that you focus on. So here's two recent ones you did, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think LBM Journal and HBS Dealer are probably the two biggest publications within the lumber and hardware industry. So this one here is how the death tax impacts your estate and tax planning. And then this one is the importance of understanding valuation, a topic that you touch on often. And you also write bylined articles for these publications as well. Here's the news page, and you'll see those same publications here. In addition to other industry publications or consumer finance publications on more general topics, but a lot of the content that you write on your blog or do webinars on, or you're quoted in articles about, speaks to business owners, specifically within those industries that you specialize in. So I wanna hear why that's important to you and how that helps, but also how you got started with these partnerships with LBM Journal and HBS Dealer, writing these articles, doing these webinars. Yeah, so to answer the first question, the thing, and Steve hit the nail on the head, is it's consistency. So if you are gonna be somebody like us who focuses on transition planning for small business owners and family-owned businesses, that needs to drive everything you're doing. So that, for example, on that Go Banking Rates article on inheritance, we're coming at it and we're talking about inheritance from the family business perspective, from the intergenerational transfer of businesses. And so I think that's really important because then people aren't just seeing you for, oh, well, they're just general inheritance. And so that's, I think, a really important thing that we do is we always try to keep in our minds that our end client is that person who is looking to transition a business. And so how we got involved with both of these publications. So LBM Journal, HBS Dealer, as Johnny said, those are the two biggest publications within the lumber building materials, hardware, independent home center space. And they both have readerships of tens of thousands of people. And what you want to do is when you get involved in whatever your niche is, you want to find the best avenues to reach the people who could be potential clients for you. And so one of the ways to do that is to go to these publications that are very active and have their finger on the pulse. What matters to this industry? And so you'll see articles in here on things like recruiting and retention. That's huge in any business nowadays. You'll see things in there about how to manage your inventory or how to protect against cybersecurity. And so what we've done is we've been able to build ourselves as the succession planning expert. And so for LBM Journal, for instance, we write quarterly articles for them and their audience. And, you know, they're five to 700 words. So they're not terribly long. A lot of times these articles are things where we're recycling information that we've used before, maybe presenting it in a slightly different way, doing it a question and answer, trying to mix it up, but deliver content that is relevant because one of the things that is interesting about our niche, and then I would encourage everybody to think about when they're thinking about niching, is it's got to be big enough that you're not going to blow through because not everybody's going to be your client and that's fine. But you can't have a niche that's either so specific or so small that you get 10, 20 percent of the business and that's it. You know, you've used up the 200 people that are in that niche. And so one of the nice things about an area like this is all you have to do is think about Ace Hardware or Do It Best, True Value, people like this, they have thousands of members. I think there are 5,500 Ace Hardware members across the country. And you add that to all of the other purchasing groups and you're talking tens of thousands of business owners, most of whom are over the age of 50 and who are going to need some type of transition planning over the years. Well, how are we going to get at them? Well, they're all reading these publications every day. And so it really starts with trying to figure out how to get the message in front of the people that you want. And then it's, again, with these publications, creating that, building that trust that we talked about before and showing that you do know what you are talking about. And because then you start getting invited to do more. You might write an article here or there. It gets well received. Maybe you're asked to do a webinar. And I will say, Johnny, that in our opinion, the webinars are the best return on investment that we do because it's this is still a trust business. People want to see you. They want to understand that you're speaking clearly and that you have interesting things to say and that you can answer questions. So so these these webinars that we do, we probably do anywhere from four to eight of them a year. Those are really, really good because you get a lot of follow up from that. And even if it doesn't turn into business immediately, it's somebody who you can keep following up with. And it's a it's an extremely warm prospect at that point. That's great. And I did also want to show off one of your recent newsletters. So you use your newsletters kind of just to digest of all this recent content. So a lot of the stuff we've already been talking about, your webinar replays, your blog posts, your byline articles, your media mentions, things like that. You probably send out an average once a month or so. And it's just a digest of all your recent content. So it touches on a few different topics. You give people some choice in the type of format to digest content. But, you know, speaks largely to business owners and specifically LBM dealers and other business industries within your niche. So I think these are really great ways to do newsletters. You don't always have to write a really lengthy intro piece or something like that. Sometimes it's just a digest of your recent content that you put out within the past month or so. Yeah, and it's just it's again, it gets back to that consistency thing, right? It's if you tell somebody something once, hey, I'm an expert in this area, they're not going to remember because they're busy. You tell them 10 times, maybe you tell them 20 times, OK, now they're listening. And so this is a great way just to, as Johnny said, to follow up and and remind people that there is this content out there that can help them. And I know that when we were we were doing our kind of pre conversations, I know both Steve and I were talking about and believe very much in the educational aspect of this, because it is true. If somebody goes away from one of these webinars or from reading some of this content with a little bit more information that they can take back and feel a little bit more comfortable, that's great. And eventually what we find is most of our clients realize that no matter how much they learn, they're never going to be able to do this on their own. And there's just too much going on in their life. And they do want a partner to help them through. And I think that that, again, gets back to this idea of finding a niche, because then they're going to go. Yes, we know. We know, Steve. We know, Sam, this is what they do. They're going to be able to help us. So we're going to talk to them. And last thing I want to show up on your website here is your lead magnets. So we've done a NAPFA webinar before on lead magnets. And you put together a business owners essential planning kit with a lot of really helpful resources. There's a business continuity plan checklist, activities and services analysis, hypothetical ownership transition timeline and ownership transitions options chart, a buy sell agreement checklist. So lots of checklists and charts and things like that that really give business owners everything they need to start thinking about the continuity, the succession planning transition options. And also you have a video paired with this and people can download this on your website. So, again, just a really helpful educational resource available to your niche. So kudos to you on that as well. Let's have a question of Sam about how do you get your content done, and then whatever you wanted to add, Sam. Yeah, so I'll answer the question in just a second. I was going to say that I would highly suggest thinking about something like a lead magnet that you can download because I find that after doing a webinar or after putting out a piece, and then we'll send it up through email, we'll get a bunch of these downloads, because people will go, oh, that's right, there's something here that I can take away that gives me a little bit of information. And then also, like I said, tells me that there's probably more here than I can wrap my head around and so I do need some help but this is really helpful. The other thing on this page, I think, is the video pieces. If you can do some videos, I think it really helps because it's a lot easier. People nowadays would rather watch you talk for 30 seconds or a minute than read a four or five paragraph piece. So don't be afraid to get some information out there and it's becoming easier and easier to do this stuff now, right? Most iPhones have really good cameras nowadays. And you even have some videos in your video library that speak to some of your niches, I remember, in terms of LVM dealers, purchasing cooperatives. So that's always great as well and video just allows people to relate with you, see what you're like as a person and as an advisor and feel like they know you a little bit before they even meet you. So video is always great for that as well. I do have some other examples if we have time at the end, Marie, to show outside of these two firms but I think for now, let's go back to our final question. I did want to let Sam answer the question about how do you divide and conquer? It's a lot of content. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we're a smaller firm, right? I have one full-time partner that works with me and then we have a number of folks that are either contract or part-time. And it is a lot of content. I would say that what we do is recycle. So a lot of this stuff, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel here. We're just trying to pick what works well and what seems to resonate with our audiences and get it out there in a slightly different form. Maybe it's a video, maybe it's a different article, maybe it's a bullet point or checklist as opposed to paragraph format. But it's really the consistency of trying to present the same information in a slightly different way that really has helped us do this and do it without taking up a ton of time. Because as all of you know who are listening in, we're all busy. And if you can't get somebody to do this for you or hire somebody or have somebody on your team, you need to be a little bit more creative. And some of that could be using content from a website, right? Like the 20 over 10 provides some good content out there or using – we contract with a sub-advisor to do some of our larger portfolio management. Well, they can help us with some of these articles. So use the resources around you because you want to spend time on this marketing, but you've got to serve your clients first and foremost. So recycle that content and then use the resources that are available to us has been very helpful. Yeah, I want to go back to you, Steve, with a question that's here from Jacob. How many niches can a company have? I've struggled with this because I don't want to narrow down to one. Looks like HCR has five or six, which are mostly pretty broad. So Steve, jump in. Yeah, you know, it's – the way we picked life transitions was a little bit on purpose was because it is a niche, but it also is pretty broad. There are a lot of people going through a life transition, so we didn't want to do something that was so specific that you were shutting out so much of the market. The life transition is one that you can kind of capture a lot of the market, but it still sounds like you are specializing. You do need to be able to kind of be a specialist and know specific about those different transitions, but it still gives you ability to kind of capture a large part of the market. Like I said, in some professional networking groups, I try to only limit it to just life transitions, but as I'm in different areas, I can kind of pick up a different niche that just targets to where I am. But I would say, again, life transition is a big, good, broad one to use, but if you find yourself having the ability to be in front of, say, athletes or small business owners, there are still ways that you can kind of put yourself out there as an expert in that area as well. But in the broad markets, it's sometimes good to maybe pick one larger niche that can kind of make you stand out more than just, I'm a financial advisor. Because if that, if someone looks at you as a financial advisor, you're going to have a very hard time getting some business. They really have to be able to think and visualize you helping out somebody's need, not just they're there to kind of help manage their money. Yeah, we have about eight minutes left, so I want to make sure that we can get to that bonus content. There is, John, I see your comment about consultants. If you would like to spend 20 minutes with me, just shoot me an email, marieswift at impactcommunications.org, and I'll tell you about the different consultants that might be of interest to you or anyone on the call that hears this. I'm happy to spend 20 minutes with anybody who's a member of NAPFA or a part of this webinar. Before we ask Sam to jump back in, well, maybe Sam, you start with this one. How did you, well, we talked a little bit about how you picked your niche, but anything more around picking the niche and thriving with that niche and serving it? Yeah, so I think I'll pick up, Steve made some good comments there about making sure that you're broad enough. You have to cast a net so that you can catch enough people because otherwise the law of diminishing returns will catch up to you. So I think it is important. And in our case, we do have specific industries we serve, but because of the fact that we are agnostic as to how you ultimately transition a business, we have gotten into a number of, we have a number of different clients that we have picked up through, for example, doing educational webinars on employee ownership transfers, whether it's an ESOP or a worker-owned cooperative or something in that regard. And that's a different audience you're picking up. It's still business owners, but it's different than if you're just going through a journal that is laser focused on lumber and building materials dealers. So make sure that as you're looking out there, I would say, look at that client base, look at who you would ideally like to serve, as Steve was talking about, and what gets you up in the morning. And then see where there are crossovers because the planning aspect, the thing that I think really adds value here, whatever the niche is, that goes across a number of different areas. That doesn't have to be specifically, oh, we do valuations for people in the lumber and building materials industry. No, the planning that comes out of that is much greater. And so as you're thinking about who you might want to serve and how you can get into those, also think about different ways that you can expand that because you definitely don't want to get too narrow here. And that also helps you kind of thrive as you get in there because you do notice that if I decide that I'm going to work very specifically for the lumber and building materials industry, all of a sudden it starts opening up other avenues to plumbers, to contractors, to HVAC folks, because they're all related. Who are the clients of a lumber company? Are they independent door and window manufacturers? So that can help to broaden the scope, too, and really help you thrive in there is maybe you decided you were going to go into one specific niche, but don't close off and allow yourself to recognize that there are lots of other people that interact with this niche and there are lots of crossovers here that can allow you to expand your potential audience. Johnny, would you spend two or three minutes and show us the bonus content examples, and then I need to close down. Sure, I have them all linked in the slides here. I'm not going to dig too much into each of them. But one additional resource that I have for you all is an article that I wrote for NAPFA Advisor Magazine that actually came out, I think it was last December, but it's all about how ideal client profiles and case studies improve your marketing. And also there's some tips in there on how you can create ideal client profiles and case studies that speak to your niches that you serve. So even as far as writing a case study and all of the I have the HCR and Stratis websites linked in the slides and also a few others here. This firm is called Brown, Bostitch & Associates. They have a Who We Serve page where they speak to each of their niches. And on them, let's take a look at like medical professionals. They have really nice looking client profiles here that speak to identifiers, challenges, goals. They have a lead magnet, a checklist on what medical professionals should consider when paying off student loans. And then they also have a full case study with semi-fictionalized story and names that kind of speak to challenges that this couple faced and the solutions that the firm provided. So really nice pages here with, you know, the only thing that could really improve this page, I think, would be a testimonial from a client that fits this niche. So whenever you can have a client profile, a case study, a lead magnet, a testimonial on your Who We Serve page, that stuff is always good. Here's a firm in Ohio named Buckingham Advisors that has a Who We Serve page. And they also have some forms of case studies with fictionalized names and lays out that situation that a lot of people can relate with, provides that proof and credibility. Here's a firm named Heller Wealth Management, same thing. They also focus on life transitions. So let's click on the divorce one here. But they have a lot of background info on their process and how they help. And then also really nice case studies that link over to another page with fictionalized name and photo. But the story is legitimate and how they helped someone in a similar situation. And they even have their 10-step process that kind of functions as a lead magnet as well. And then here's another firm called Silver Oak that has on their special lease page some of their niches. When two become one, this is all about women in transition. So divorcees and widows. And so same kind of idea there. But if you want to get some different ideas and see some more different examples, all those links are in the slides here. Great. Speaking of the slides, would you quickly go back so that our audience can see what's next? We're going to continue this series on June 29th. We'll have two new advisors joining us. Thank you so much, Steve and Sam, today, by the way. Next time we'll have James Bogart and Matt Mundu, one from Blue Chip Partners, Matt, and one from Bogart Wealth. That's James. And then we'll have some interactive discussion on July 27th to kind of capstone this series. But, Johnny, on the next slide, I'm really excited. And please all mark your calendars. We have expanded our panelists for the conversational selling skills and the art of influence. That trilogy will be this fall, September 28th, October 26th, November 20th. We have Bob Veres, who you knew was already committed, but I've also convinced George Kinder to join us, Eddie Kramer from Abacus Planning Group, and Meg Bartel from Flow Financial Planning. So mark your calendars for that. I'm not sure if the registration link is hot yet on the NAPFA playbook page, but it will be soon if it's not yet. And then last but not least, here's how to get to that page. So, again, thank you, gentlemen, for being here, and thank you, everyone, for your participation and attention today. See you next time. Thank you.

financial advisors

niches

trust

credibility

succession planning

life transitions

education

content production

target market