So you're here to be able to articulate your value more effectively. This is actually a workshop So I gave you a bunch of tools so we will do our best to use the tools You're going to need a scorecard first So just make this sure the scorecard is the first thing in the packet and then we'll use the value messaging builder Next and then you have a sample of what we'll go through is the third one You need more? Okay, hold on. We've got a couple more. Yeah Okay, you guys don't have all the tools but you have most of the tool or the most important tool. You need some more? There you go. I hope I have enough guys. I think this might be perfect You're welcome You're welcome, if we don't if you don't end up with a tool we do have these tools are readily available And we'll make sure you get them You're welcome Okay So I'm Shana Mace. I run our advisor service team at SEI Does it who here knows who SEI is? Oh, wow. Okay. Usually we get like three hands. So that's awesome So if you don't know SEI, SEI does a lot of things. We've been around for 50 years. We've served advisors for over 30 years But the thing that's most important probably to most of you is we're a custodian So if you are interested in alternative custodian, please talk to my co-workers colleagues We have the orange booth in the sea of blue and green in the exhibit hall But I've been in the industry for over 20 years and I started my career at an RA firm. It's where I really Learned about the industry the first eight years of my career and I understand how important and difficult it can be to Be able to articulate your value in a way that feels not salesy that feels impactful and that helps you grow With the right clients and retain the right clients and also grow with the right talent We don't always think about it like that But it's really important to think about how you're putting yourself out there in the world So at SEI, like I mentioned I run our advisor service team That means practice management communities and strategic partnerships Now we believe practice management should be actionable And so my job hopefully today is that when you leave this room You've made at least a little progress in improving refining or starting to build your messaging in a way that's more impactful So again, this is meant to be workshop style I'll do some education, but I gave you tools and if you don't have the tools, it's okay You can give a piece of paper that works, too. I'll talk you through it But it's meant to help you get started on this journey of developing this messaging So please if you have questions raise your hand jump in I may ask for some some feedback from you guys So it's going to be a lot more fun if you you play along So we're going to talk about why messaging matters very very briefly But we're going to spend most of our time talking about the best practices around impactful messaging and the three specific steps You can do to start to build or refine your messaging in a more impactful way So it absolutely matters what and how you communicate and there's a stat up here around the impact on referrals So 85% of clients they say that their client their advisors communication actually impacts Their the referrals that they make and their retention So it's a what we see in the research is when we talk about communication Oftentimes, it's not the results the investment results aren't why people leave it's usually about something with the relationship and communication is a huge part of Maintaining that relationship and that starts in the very very beginning it helps set that expectation What we also know is that investors generally feel like Advisors say the same thing they make the same promises and I can empathize It's probably pretty hard to stand out when a lot of the work you're doing is similar to your peers So we're going to talk about what are some of the ways that you can stand out and differentiate yourself in this kind of sea of sameness the other thing that wasn't up here, but is important that we found in some research is messaging and Formalizing your messaging and actually training your team is the most one of the most impactful ways The most referable firms are getting more referrals. So what we saw in our Referral studies that we've done over the last seven years we've done two what we found is the most referable firms are actually training their team and who they serve and How they're delivering unique value to those people and so by the process of even just Formalizing this on a piece of paper can be helpful not just for you to refine what you say and how you say it but also to be able to essentially train Your team to be able to talk about it as well to talk about who you serve What why you do what you do and what the impact is? So a kind of a tidbit that we found out of referral research that I thought was really really interesting So what makes up strong messaging? There's four key components The first one is that it's clear it very very clearly Explains who you serve what you do why you do it and how you do it so people first Investors everyone wants to work with people who work with people like them They want to hear you talk about people like them that when you go to the when they go to your website They want to see people like them that helps build trust that helps build credibility out of the gates They also want to understand what you do in a way that they can consume Oftentimes the way we talk about what we do is or I would talk about what you do is very different than how my mom might understand What you do or what she needs and so as we think about how we communicate putting ourselves in the shoes of our Prospect or our clients and starting to think about how did they think how did they talk and we're gonna talk about how to do That I'm actually gonna give you some questions You can ask clients and non clients to get some of that language but starting to translate what we say in a more client centric way can be very very helpful and then Understanding how you do what you do Most people have no idea. It's a mystery and that uncertainty is confusing Like do you have a process? How does this work? I've never done this or this is my experience. It wasn't great How much do you charge? There's all these questions that if we give start to give them the answers more proactively it helps reduce the friction as they think about either maybe joining you as their advisor or Staying with you that retention So they understand what is the future value that you're going to deliver to me so that they feel like there's still value in the relationship This concept of value is very future focused. It's not what you did from did for me lately It's about what are you gonna do for me in the future? That's kind of how people think about or view you as valuable as you're gonna do something for me in the future That I need or want and we got to make sure that they understand that So it's clear. It's very clear. Not just Much more importantly to the end and use and an investor or prospect not so much to us It's distinctive so it very clearly in some way shape or form Articulates your unique what differentiates you and I'm gonna tell you a secret because like I said what you do the technical work you do May not be so different than some of your peers in this room What is different every single one of you is unique you all have your own story So you may be your best differentiator. So, how do you lean in and leverage that? So something that's really interesting. Is that on a website? The most visited page on an advisor website besides the home page any guesses what it is Yeah, you guys are well-trained. Have you bet who's been to this before? Yeah, it's about us. So is your what is your about us? Articulating. Are you are you talking about yourself in a way where someone can connect with you? Your ideal client ideal is connecting with you. Are you sharing your story? How are you letting them get to know you Again, we need to highlight those things that differentiate us relative to our ideal client Strong messaging is consistent so You might be really great at articulating what you do how you do it But is your team is your website consistent as yours other social, you know If you're anywhere else digitally say social media is that consistent your marketing material? Does that reflect not just in the words, but also in the images? Really articulate these things clearly that consistency is really really important because what we know is if you are looking to grow Whether people are referred to you or you get them through some other method the first place most people consumers go Your website right? They search you they look at you people buy from people generally and So you want to make sure that when they go and do that early? Research what they see is like compelling it connects with them and it articulates you and what you do in the right ways and Finally, it's validated You might be able to talk a big game But is there evidence that supports what you're saying? So we want to craft our messaging in a way that doesn't just tell but it also shows It provides evidence and that's really can be really helpful to Really take your messaging and how you talk about yourself to the next level Okay, so Effective messaging. It's clear. It's distinctive. It's consistent and it's validated. So first step not everyone has this but if you have the scorecard This is a chance where you get to evaluate your own messaging. So take out the scorecard If you don't have it and you have a piece of paper and you want to do it And if you can't see this, just let me know I can read it out loud but take a take a second take a minute and Go through this scorecard and honestly evaluate yourself. How are you and your team doing? across those four key Best practices and then there's a couple other other bonus ones. One is around training your team That helps increase referability So see how you're doing against the best practices you don't have to actually add it up you can if you want But I'm interested where you guys are Strong and where maybe there's some room for improvement I'm interested, for those of you who have the scorecard or don't have the scorecard and are doing this yourself, where are the areas, where are the areas that you need some love in your messaging, how you articulate yourself? I see James is laughing. Where do you, do you have anywhere, James? Oh, yeah, you need some love, it's just an opportunity. I'm an optimist, so this is just where you have opportunity to improve. I'm curious, do you validate people? Yeah. And do you give them a lot of information, like how do you know? You tell them, but you don't show them. Yeah, it's really common. Most people don't validate, advisors don't validate. I'm just curious, I think it's a lot of, how do you develop a relationship? Yeah. You open up, open up, and then you just, what do you do for people that don't know what you're talking about? People come to you, and how do you do that without providing evidence? How do we validate, how do we provide evidence? How do you validate without providing evidence? Yeah, well, yes, it has to be real things, of course. Yes, and it has to, it can't be overly promissory, but it could be things like, if you do have the sample one, you'll see this, it could be things like, in the example, I made up a firm, and in the firm, they serve corporate executives, dual-income families, people that are working and earning an attractive income. And so, in the firm, the made-up story, the owner of the firm was a corporate executive before they became an advisor. So, saying like, I've been there, right? Or maybe it's that I'm a life planner, I'm a life transitionist, or if you specialize in divorce, right, you have a certification that supports, or I work with over 100 doctors. So, it has to be real, absolutely. It shouldn't be promissory, but it should be, hopefully, showing some evidence around the legitimacy of what you say, and maybe, it could also be through your process, right? So, there's lots of ways to do it. There are some examples of it in the sample value messaging builder in the back, but good question. Yeah, please, if you're not sure, check with your compliance person. Anywhere else that you guys feel like you need some love in your messaging? You guys are killing it? Yeah, that's hard. Yep. Right, so the concept around, so, when we think about strategy, so I do a lot of business planning and strategy with firms, and we talk about messaging, oftentimes, yeah, that stuff's not really differentiated. You could look in your, you could research where you are geographically, and say, maybe you are the only fee-based planner in your area, I don't know. But oftentimes, that's not the case anymore, or a lot of people are using that language, even if it's not exactly the way you're doing it. So, if you really can't come up with something that's differentiated, oftentimes, differentiation is an ideal client you serve, so a niche, if it is something that you do, and leaning into that. It could be a technical specialization. Oftentimes, that's because of a niche you serve. But again, at the end of the day, amplifying yourself, your passion, why you got in this industry, why you love what you do, what the impact that you have or you want to have is, your story is going to be different. No one else has your story. No one else is you, and that might be the best way to find your people, and leaning into that and showing up authentically, and making sure that you are building a team that shares those values, and also allowing them to show up authentically can be the best way to differentiate. Okay, yeah, those are the two most common ones. Those are the hardest ones, so validation, so having evidence, and then differentiation. Okay, we're gonna keep going. The point, though, is wherever you are, wherever there is opportunity for you to improve, lean in there and focus there. Okay, so most of what we're gonna do now is talk about how do you actually develop strong messaging? So I didn't mention this in the beginning. My background's in marketing and sales, so I love this stuff, because my favorite part of my job is to get to help you all show up to the world effectively, so you guys, whether it's growth, or finding the right people, or really adding value to your clients, whatever your version of growth is, I wanna help you do that better than you can do on your own. So when I joined the REA firm in the beginning of my career, they hired me as a marketing associate at a college. So I have spent literally almost my entire career helping, whether it's advisors or financial businesses, grow and figure out how to really articulate who they are and their value as effectively as possible. So this framework I'm gonna teach you, it's really a, it's like a brand pyramid. It's a marketing concept that branding and marketing people use. So even if you just do the first page of it, which is where we're gonna focus, and maybe you're not the best copywriter, I'm actually gonna give you, farther along, I'm gonna give you a way to use AI, like a chat GVT, to actually help you with some of this copywriting stuff, because it can be hard. But even if you just do the first page, it can be a really helpful jumpstart if you do go and work with a marketing, if you're working with a marketing firm or person, or if you do go seek one out, it can be helpful. What do you think of the idea of, not so much in the in-space connection with the phone, but sort of to do that first? Yeah. Meaning, that's so much more of a, Yeah. The message really is not, it seems to have that final agreement. No. Yeah. Yeah. What's your name? Sorry, you're covering Joe. Yeah, Joe, did you guys hear what Joe said? No, okay. So Joe, yes, Joe, you make a really, really important point, and a great point. So Joe said, it's not just the words you say, I'm gonna paraphrase here, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, it's not just the words you say, it's not what you say, it's really about the connection. It's really about how you make them feel. And Joe's absolutely right. The words do matter, because you have to get them, you have to get the opportunity to build a connection, right, so how do you get that opportunity to build the connection? It is around having effective messaging that resonates in some way, shape, or form to give you the opportunity to then reinforce that messaging with who you are, and your process, and the way you make them feel. So that's just for the people in the room, you know, ask those questions. Not too much of a difference is if you didn't get that, you didn't get the opportunity to talk to them, because that's what's gonna differentiate you from all the other people that aren't seeing the NAFTA advisors. Do you guys think, let me ask you a question, I worked for a NAFTA advisor, so I drink the Kool-Aid, but do you guys think that all investors know what that means? I don't think so either. You have to educate them on that. If they know, yeah. Once they understand what a NAFTA is, and what a NAFTA advisor does, that will keep differentiating from the thousands of people that go to the top of their businesses. Yeah, it is, but you guys see this too. Are there other people who aren't necessarily really fee-based, who are kind of selling that concept out there? I mean, I see it. I see it all the time. The concept or the word around fiduciary and fee-based, it's used everywhere now. I think it used to be a differentiator, and now it's just part of the, so many people use it, even if it's not in the same way you all actually are. I think it's actually becoming a commodity. It's becoming commoditized, which is a challenge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they don't understand. It is, yes, I completely agree. Yep. Only if they know it, though. If they understand it. Yes. Yeah. No, it's, I love you guys. Mark. Shauna. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe there are some really educated, let's keep blinding me, I'm sorry, some really educated investors out there that really do understand the difference between fee-based and fee-only. Most of them, I don't think, do, unfortunately, and I hope you're all, I'm sure you're all educating them when they talk to you, as you should, to help them understand the difference, like how you're different, but initially, this stuff's confusing for them. So what I hope you get out of this is this isn't an elevator pitch. This isn't about creating language that you just use as a script. This is about getting really comfortable about talking about aspects of things you do in the right ways to connect with those prospects, and then set the right expectation and help reduce the friction so that they do understand the value when they become a client, and stay a client, and hopefully give you lots and lots of referrals. So what I'd do, I'd argue that it's hard to understand if you're delivering value. Anyone have a way in which you can quantify the value you're delivering? Does anyone have a way? Hard. Yeah, they tell you, maybe in a survey, where they tell you they're extremely satisfied. Another way, a signal, I would say, that you're delivering value is a referral. Now, there's lots of people who are probably feeling that they're getting value from you who aren't giving referrals, but what we see is that people who are getting referrals tend to have a pretty happy client base. So it's a signal that if I'm getting referrals, and a good benchmark for referrals is for every 100 clients you're getting, from your clients, you're getting 10 referrals a year. That's a good benchmark, just a high-level benchmark. If you're getting that, you're probably maximizing a referral opportunity from your clients, at least. If you're getting zero referrals, there's something going on there. I don't know exactly what it is, but there's something going on that's stopping them from introducing you. But the concept isn't to have an elevator pitch, which is, you know, I remember working on elevator pitches when I was at the REA firm. The concept is to have some language that you and your team are really comfortable with that really does authentically articulate the things that matter, that someone needs to understand in order to take action toward you. Whether it's a meeting they book with you, whether it's visiting your website, whether it's a referral they give. Okay, so we're gonna spend some time on this value messaging framework. I think most of you have it. There's a blank version, and then there's also a version that has writing in it. The writing is just a sample. So we'll go through it, and if you don't have it, I'm sorry, I don't have any more copies, but you can get this on the Growth Lab. We'll work through it together, and we'll follow up. If you want this after and you don't have it, we'll make sure that you get it. So this first page is what we call the inputs. These are the things that are gonna help you develop the messaging that's effective and impactful. And the best way to develop impactful messaging is to think about who your target audience is. How many of you do have a niche or a specialty, client specialty? Okay, so maybe like a quarter of the room. Okay, and that's fine if you don't. It is certainly easier to market and to build service models if you do. So when you do this, if you don't have a niche, think about who you, think about the clients you want to attract in the future, or the clients you want to retain that you absolutely love. Put those people in your mind. What's the target audience for the messaging? Because those are the people that we want to attract. So first is to define who they are. Now that's harder than it sounds. Anyone want to be brave and define who their ideal client is? Someone's willing to delegate. So most, okay, thank you for sharing. Yes, of course. Now, when I ask most advisors this question, they tell me, I want to work with someone over a certain dollar amount, say a million dollars, whatever it is, who wants to delegate, who's willing to, who values me. And I'm like, well, so does everyone else in this room. Like, who doesn't, does anyone here want to work with someone who doesn't want to delegate? That's hard, right? Like, so that's, this is hard. This is hard work, because what we want to do, part of defining your ideal client is defining them in a way that they understand, they relate, they're like, oh yeah, that's me. So how do we do that? If you don't have an ideal client, what I would recommend doing, we actually have a toolkit to help with this, but if, what I would recommend doing is I'd recommend looking at your client base and identifying the handful of clients that you absolutely love working with, the people you want to replicate. And we actually have a tool that helps you kind of evaluate them. What about them? And of course, through demographic stuff, maybe there's some patterns, we're looking for patterns here, there's some demographic stuff that might be similar, but we forget about, there's also a huge part of connection is values. It's people that, like, they're your people, and you're their people. And so what are those psychographics, those values that kind of resonate, and you see patterns? So if you look at the sample, I have it in here, okay, and the sample, and this isn't perfect, but it's a star, it's very small, and I apologize for how small it is, so I'll read it. The ideal example would be dual-income families in their 40s and 50s in the Philadelphia area, that's where I'm from, self-made millionaires with little financial experience. They've not worked with a financial advisor before, but they may have used a robo-service or a DIYers. You could do a lot more here. You could say they also, maybe they're very involved in their community, maybe they aren't from the area, but they went to school there, that's how they met. Like, who are these people? Because my guess is these people, if you wanna replicate these people, they probably are living and working in circles of people like them. And they probably have certain things that they really value. You have a question? I know this is a different example, but it's like this, the concept of, how does it work with a financial advisor? You know, I actually think it's an opportunity to work with people that have some experience in doing that, you know, other companies haven't delivered on it. And you have some, you know, this is a, what's that? Yeah, what things, if a person has that experience, then you can see how well it's working out. So that's really interesting. Yeah, depending on their past, whether they were, if they worked with someone, understanding what didn't work for them, so that you can. If they work with an investment person, I think that's where they're invited. Right, it was a one-dimensional relationship, just on investments. That's an interesting one, so I'll get to that. You don't want to, you don't want to, I like the people that have done it, but then you know, different experiences. Yeah, well, this is my made-up version. So these are DIYers, they've done it themselves. My guess is, and I can relate with this, because this is a little bit of me here. My husband also works, I work. You know, we're busy, we don't have time. You get to a point where you have enough wealth, and it's hard to do it yourself, you're overwhelmed, what am I missing? It's that sort of like, yeah, we're smart, but we're not that smart. So define your ideal client, and I would challenge you, if your definition of an ideal client does fit the, they have this much money, and maybe they just, I want them to delegate, and their retiree age, like, go deeper. And think about the psychographics, the values. Think about the clients that you want to replicate, and what about them do you really love? And what about them is similar? Because that's, what we want to do is we want to paint a picture for them and for ourselves, because that's how we can create a really fabulous messaging and service model and experience for them, is if we really understand, and we're very clear that these are our people, and this is who we're growing with. It does not mean you're gonna not attract other people, you still will, but it will put like, I think about a lighthouse, it's gonna put a light out there very clearly for those people. Okay, so first step is who are you writing this for? Who is this messaging for? And the clearer you picture you have of that person or those people, the easier it is going to be to do the rest. So then this first section here, and these are just inputs, this says financial needs. I can barely read it, so I'm sure you can't read it. And this says, these are needs. So what do they need? What are their financial needs? And then what are their emotional needs? Now most people, you probably think in the financial needs. They need estate planning, maybe they need some stock, you need to be able to provide some advice on their stock options or some non-monetary compensation they're getting, they need tax optimization, education planning, retirement planning, they need some investment advice. That's how we think in this world. They think, how do they think? And what are the questions they're asking? What am I missing, or what are we missing? What do we need to do with our kids in mind? We have kids that are in their elementary school, middle school, what do we need to be thinking about? How do we help them become responsible adults? Are we on track toward their goals? Do we even have goals, we're too busy. We need to delegate, there's your delegator, I'm a delegator. We're not really spending money. Can we, should we? How do we maximize life today, not just in the future? I mentioned there are some really great questions you can ask to start to understand this language. I love this exercise of going to those one, two, three clients that you have that fit your ideal client persona or profile and asking these questions and listening to what they actually say. Listen to their actual, the words they use. Not what you hear them say, but what they actually say. Because this can give you, this can one, it can validate if you're on track or not with what their emotional needs are, but it also gives you so much great language to use in your messaging. One of the other most impactful tactics that referable firms do is they use stories. So they're using stories, of course they're not sharing names or anything, but they're using stories. They're using their client's language. So it can be really, really impactful to highlight. Imagine on your, you know, you're talking to someone, we work with business owners and we help answer questions such as, imagine having that same thing on your website. Like, oh, yeah, that's me, I'm not only a business owner and I do have that question. Like, now I wanna talk to you, can you have an answer? So we have to start to understand their, what their, the language that's going on in their head, the things that they're asking. So, this is an exercise to uncover the needs of, and some of it might be financial needs, like I need someone who is managing my investments or I need help with tax planning. Some of it, though, oftentimes is not gonna be that. It's gonna be questions they have, more emotional needs. So, this is a great slide. You're welcome to take a picture of it. The idea is you find one, two, three of these clients or non, and or non-clients, also a great way to help people understand who you serve by being like, hey, I would love to work with someone like you. This is a friend. Could I just get like 15 minutes to pick your brain and get some insight about your experience? I'm actually working on some messaging and I wanna make sure that it is resonating and that it's relevant. Ask for help. Asking for help's a very good way to get help. So, for clients, an example question could be, what were your greatest needs when we first met? Why did you go and look for a financial advisor? Why did you change or switch your financial advisor if you're working with someone? So, what were your needs when we first met? They might, whatever they say, they say. Listen to what they say. Ideally, if you can record it, like transcribe it, that's really helpful. I've done this with advisors for similar exercises and if you say, hey, I just wanna be present, do you mind if I use something like an Otter AI as an example of something I've used? Or even just transcription on your phone where you record, hit record, if you're with them. Or if you are virtual, you can do the same thing. If you have Teams or whatever, you can usually record that stuff and just say, hey, do you mind if I record this? I wanna be fully present. I really wanna hear what you, I wanna hear what you have to say. It'd be helpful for me to go back. Most people are gonna say yes, they don't care. Okay, so what were your greatest needs? What are your needs now? They're probably gonna be different. What have you found most valuable over our time working together? How are they perceiving value? You can even ask, what would you find valuable in the future? What do you think you're gonna wanna need or want from me? Listen to what they have to say. Same thing for non-clients. So if they work with a financial advisor, it's a similar question. What prompted you to seek professional help? What have you found most valuable in that relationship? If they don't work with someone, what would, if they don't work with an advisor, what would prompt you to seek a financial advisor? What matters the most when you're looking for someone? And what are your top questions related to your finances? Questions are gold. Your clients are asking you questions all the time. Those are gold for marketing, but those are also gold, can be gold as you think about your messaging. So validate kind of what you're thinking and get some input using their own words. Next is your solution. So you know what you do as far as the services you provide and the expertise you have. The second one is the uniques. This is the hard one, right? How do I differentiate myself? If you're, again, coming up with nothing, your unique is your story. If nothing else, it's your story. And share it. So that, and this is really meant to be in the client's perspective. What is the outcome that they're looking to achieve? So that, in this example, I end up boiling it down to being able to live fully today. It's the why are they, it's not just about you and what they're doing with you, it's about why are they even working? Why are they saving? Why are they seeking your help? Why are they working with you? It's about what do they actually want? These are goals, right? These are the things that matter to them. I wanna protect my future. I want peace of mind. I want clarity on how close or far we are from our goals. I want alignment with my partner. There's gonna be different ones in there, depending on who your ideal client is. But this is really important. This is the why for them. Because if this is how you're gonna help them, this is how you're gonna deliver value. And it might change and evolve over time. Their goals and their why when they're in their 40s might be different than when they're in their 60s, of course. So the concept is if you fill out this top section, this can be really impactful to give you the foundational words and concepts that you can use to actually start to synthesize. So the next step would be synthesizing this stuff into bullets that you can use to help articulate the who do you serve, the what do you do, and how do you do it. And ultimately, why does it matter? So I promised you I'd show you an AI trick. So I actually took, who here has used ChatGBT? Okay, so most of you. So you know, oh, my phone is over here. Let me grab it. So you know that the power with anything like any GBT, like a ChatGBT or Copilot is in the prompt, right? It's in the prompt. You can use it for almost anything, creating job descriptions, OKRs, PowerPoints, all sorts of stuff. When it comes to messaging, the hardest part of the messaging is sometimes just creating the actual copy, right? Most of us aren't copywriters. There are copywriters out there, and certainly if you do need help with that, you get this far and you're like, OK, this is who I'm trying to speak to. This is what I want to inform my messaging. Can you help me? You could ask a copywriter for help. But another way you could do it is you could use ChatGBT. So I actually created a prompt earlier this morning using this example, and this is what it sounds like. So you can use this concept if you're not already familiar with creating prompts. So I said, I'm a financial advisor of an RA firm in Philadelphia called Vested Financial. Create, so I'm asking it, so I'm telling it who I am. Create a value proposition written for dual-income families in their 40s and 50s to articulate the value we can deliver. Specifically create bullets. I'm telling it what to do. Specifically create bullets that articulate who we serve, why we serve them, and how we serve them using the following details. And I put the details, I just wrote the details in here. And it created a beautifully written, actually really beautifully written with bullets, like headline and sub-bullets. Vested Financial, your partner for life's financial journey. So it was very similar to what I actually created myself. So use AI to help, even if it doesn't get you 100% of the way there, it can get you 80% of the way there. Yeah, yeah. So the power of AI, especially with copywriting or creating marketing, like social posts or whatever, it's about giving a lot of information of who am I, who's my target audience, what do I want them to do, what is the information that I want you to incorporate into the copy. So the more information you can give it around who and what in the format, the output, the better job it does. And then you can continue to refine it, like hey, don't use this word, use this word instead, or please incorporate this, and it will keep doing it. So if you get this far, you can use a chat, GBT, Copilot, whatever, to get you 80%, or someone on your team to get you 80% of the way there. So you don't have, I mean you can go hire a copywriter, copy editor, but you can also use AI to get you started on this. I'm gonna pause, questions? Yeah. Yep, yeah, you could also reference, like if there's a website, you're like, they do a great job, like I really like this website, kind of like structure it similar to how they have it. Go ahead. I don't know how you do it, but it's easy, like I said, it's easy, or it's gone, it's very simple and easy. Well, they actually, when you paint it, it should be done like this, where you paint it right, except for 80% of the sample. You can have it farther, move faster, move it amongst itself as well. Very cool, yeah, there's so much you can do, like literally the limits are infinite. Any other questions? Well, a few AI questions, I think our expert's back here. Yeah, yep, yeah, so sometimes if I'm building a job description, for example, for a firm, and I tell them I'm not, I'm gonna use ChatGBT, I'm gonna build a job description using ChatGBT, I'll reference their website, because I want it to pull in their view, their values, their culture, the things, like the language they use, tone, all that, and I share the prompt with them, and the job description saying this is how you do it, so you can do it in the future, but yeah, you can reference things that are online. I use the 4.0 version on ChatGBT, so that might be unique to me. I pay for it, yeah, but it's not a whole lot if it's something you want to try. I think it's nice, I don't know how to say it, but I think that it's one of the heroes of my portfolio, but you can use it. That's a great, yeah. If you ask enough questions. Yeah, it will give you, and it gives you insight. It might not be 100%, but it gives you insight. And then, I even asked it to all the telemarketers. Yeah. It said, like, you know, like, Instagram version. Yep. LinkedIn version, whatever, and they're like, you can, like, where should you get the gear? Yeah. And there's too many more questions, you say, oh, what is this? Yep, and if or when you have this value messaging, ultimately, the end goal is to have the other side of the paper, you end up having, I'm just gonna go through quickly, you end up having your messaging, so you have your, essentially, your value prop at the top. You have your messaging points that go a little deeper on the what, the why, and the how. And then you have your evidence in the bottom. Don't forget about the evidence. That's really important. We want to have our evidence in there. And this is helpful because you may only ever be kind of high-level talking about this stuff at the top, but depending on who you're talking with, the point of this is you have flexibility now. You can kind of pull things, depending on who you're talking to, pull things in, maybe different evidence points that may be more relevant for that person, maybe different talking points that may be more relevant for that conversation. You can make it more flexible than like an elevator pitch. Yep. Oftentimes it's the why. So it's like some of the best ways, I think, to incorporate problems are questions. Like these are some questions that I'm getting. So I share the idea of working with business owners and be like, you know, I work with business owners. Oftentimes they're coming to me with questions such as, usually those are the pains, the pain they're having. How do I navigate succession? I'm ready to exit. How do I think about not just my business, but my personal, financial, and managing those both well together in harmony? I don't know, other questions for business owners. But oftentimes framing it in a question can be really helpful because it's like, yes, I have that question too. So it's the why. Like I want to, I'm worried about protecting. So how do I do this? But using those client questions can be impactful. Yep. Any other questions? Okay. So the concept is we have our inputs, which is where most of the work is on that first page. With the goal of giving us what we need or what a marketing person or a copywriter needs or chat GBT needs, in order to help us come up with this kind of different, like the top is like a kind of headline message, and then these middle parts are the more expanded messages. So think about like building a website. The top line might be your homepage, like banner, kind of the high-level stuff and a little bit of what's below that. And then the additional bullets below, that's how you start to build out the other pages of your website. That's how you start to go deeper. Maybe when you just are meeting someone on a side of a soccer field. I spend a lot of time on soccer fields because my girls play soccer. So if someone's like, what do you do? You know, what do you do? I tell them, if I'm a financial advisor, I'm not going to be like, oh, I'm a financial advisor. I do planning. Well, that doesn't give them anything. Like, what do you do? I love being able to help business owners navigate the personal and the business side of their financial life, so that they can make informed decisions, so that they can have confidence as they work through those key milestones, both in their professional and their personal life. These are some of the, so I get to help them answer questions like, enlist it off. So very different because I'm using language that hopefully, whether they're a business owner or not, one, they might be like, oh, actually, my friend owns a business. They're going through this. Maybe they're buying their parent out or something. Do you work with multi-generational families? Yeah, of course I do. Introduce me. I would love an introduction. If nothing else, I'm going to help them understand the questions to consider. Very simple. But when we can start to paint a picture of who we serve and some of those problems in a way that, I don't love scaring people. I know it's a really easy marketing thing to do, but in a way that's more about them. These are the questions we get. These are real concerns people have. And this is how we go and help them. Then, oftentimes, it's like, okay, I either know someone or, okay, that's me. I need to talk to you. We didn't talk a whole lot about this, but the how is also really important. The how being your process. A lot of you have great processes that you've developed. Thinking about if you don't have a branded process or a way to articulate what you do to show that it's systematic and intentional, or maybe you have different service models. In this example, different service models in different periods of someone's life, where maybe it's subscription-based because their needs are different when they're younger versus when they're older and they have more wealth. Maybe it's more an AUM-based fee. So talk about those things because people don't understand how this works. Or maybe they've had an experience that hasn't been great, and you want to help them understand how you're truly different, not just in what you do but also in how you do it. So at the end of the day, a key takeaway would be that first page, if you do want to refine or develop messaging, I would just start with that first page where we spent most of our time today and seek help to actually create that second page where you start to synthesize these concepts into bullets, into either headline or subtitle bullets, subheadline bullets. Use a chat GBT, use a copywriter, work with a marketing person. If you're working with a marketing person and they're not asking you about who do you serve and some of the questions on that first page, what are you doing, how are you delivering value, what are your clients asking you, what are they saying, you're probably not going to get a great output. You're probably going to sound like everyone else. Tell me about yourself. We didn't talk about in here your story, but you can incorporate, again, you may be the evidence in your experience in clients' stories just to articulate that you really do know what you're talking about, you understand how to serve them, and you have the right process to truly deliver value today, but also in the future. But if you're not a great copywriter, you can always seek outside help. I would say do that first page first to have the inputs to help whoever is going to do that have what they need to build really great messaging. Test your messaging, so important. It's one thing to create messaging in your office on a piece of paper. You've got to go out there in the wild and test it, because it will change, and you will refine it. And the point of it is that you want to get comfortable with it too. If you have it on a piece of paper and you never actually use it, then how effective is it going to be? It's not. You've got to go out in the wild and use it. So when we do training around referrals, we have something called a referral seed. Essentially, it's value messaging plus two things. The two additional things would be when someone may need your help. So oftentimes that's stories, like for the business owner example, it's maybe, and again, it should be informed by your ideal client or ideal target audience. It could be oftentimes I get introductions. Hopefully this needs to be true. But oftentimes I get introductions when someone's considering the sale of their business. They're considering some sort of transition in ownership. Maybe they're going to bring on a partner, and they want to understand the impact, the financial impact, on the business but also on their personal life. So we've got to paint a picture of like when do people come to me? And you guys know this because you're the ones meeting with these people. Why are they coming? That's the question at the beginning. Why did you seek me out initially? What did you find valuable then? What do you find valuable now? So painting a picture of when and then also how to make an introduction. So those are the two secrets of a referral seed. How to make an introduction best practice is simply a mutual email introduction is great. I'll take it from there. If nothing, if they don't end up becoming a client, that's fine. I will at least point them in the right direction and answer some of their questions. So make sure they understand what's going to happen. People want to understand like how is this going to go for me but also if I make an introduction. Test your messaging. The point of it is to test it out because otherwise you won't use it. You'll just have it and that's not impactful. And refine it until you feel great about it. We do have a third tool. All of the tools in SEI's growth lab have these three steps. First step is to help you understand where there's opportunity to improve. Scorecard. Second step is how do you build or develop a plan. In this case, it's messaging. And third step is around how do you activate it. So this is literally a checklist of all the places where once you have that messaging, you got to make sure it actually shows up on your website and on your social media profile and in your conversations and to your team. So you want to make sure you actually activate it if you do the work of creating the messaging. So if you do want to access the Articulate Your Value Toolkit and there's 12 other toolkits in there to help you with referrals, marketing, technology, all sorts of stuff, business planning. This QR code on the left will bring you to the growth lab. There's no login. It's completely open. If for some reason it doesn't work, if you just Google SEI growth lab, it will come up first thing. Anyone can access it. And then if you want help, if anyone's a client at SEI's, we do do consulting. So myself and my team, we do help actually activate this stuff. But if you do want help on when you go to the growth lab and you're like, oh, my God, there's a lot here because there is a lot there, and you want help on how to navigate those resources, we're happy to help you understand where to start and how to leverage those resources or how to find the Articulate Your Value Toolkit as well. So that would be the QR code on the right. Any questions? We've got five minutes. Anyone doing a great job with their messaging and they want to test it out? Brave? James is looking at me. He's like, oh, maybe I do. Want to test it out? This is how we get better, people. We get uncomfortable. Sorry. Sorry. Thank you. I appreciate that. Literally, you know what it is? It's having lived eight years at an RA firm. They were the best advisors. They were fee-based advisors, and they just didn't know how to market or sell themselves, and it was a shame because they were so good at what they did. So thank you. I appreciate that. We try to break it down so everything we do is very easy and actionable. Go ahead. So I'd love for you to test it out. I've been here in our modeling and branding our company, and one thing that we are trying to be focused on is that there's a problem, but they want to be aspirational on this. Yeah. You know, who is the person who makes the plan? So that's what I'm talking about. I'm going to walk down the floor and say who's involved. So where do we need to be? What are we going to need to do all over? Do we have the body? Is it there enough? You know, so the thing is, I don't really understand why I'm at a conference. That's my identity that I'm working on is to embrace advisors who have that kind of identity. So anyway, that's not where we're at. I'm trying to get feedback. So it's the why. So it sounds like you need to, like, you're trying to nail the why, like what's in it for you, the pain point that ultimately, like, why are you doing, why would someone work with you? I mean, I would ask some of these advisors here. Just like I said, for them to ask their investors, ask some of them of, like, why would you, why does this matter? Why would you use someone like us? Why wouldn't you use someone like us? I don't understand how they're positioning it because they're your clients. You're already killing it because you did it. So for being willing to try. Okay. I missed the end part. And what professionals? You are super specific on who, which is awesome, the demographics. I know you're, like, I'm one of your demographics. I want to know more. Good for you. I want to know more, like, why? Why does this matter? Yeah, to me. I'm your ideal client, I'm guessing. Well, make me up. I'm your ideal client. Why does this matter to me? So that. So that. And you might not know. It's okay, I'm putting you on the spot. Okay. So you did a great job with the who. And I also know what you're doing, which is really cool. And it's different. I think it's somewhat differentiated. I don't know if you guys agree or not, but there's some differentiation in aligning values and investments. Not everyone's doing that. It's cool. The only thing I really heard that was missing was the so that. Like, what's, you don't have to say so that. But it's the why. Right, right, but you did it, you added it after I asked you why. So I'm saying incorporate the why in there. Yeah, incorporate the why. Yeah. That's it. And, like, so part of messaging, it's certainly the words you use, but it's also, like, the visuals. I want to see if that's for a website, let's say. What is your website? EnvisionWealth. Okay, I will go to it after. But, yeah, I want to, like, see those ideal clients. I want to see their faces. I want to see images that connect with the why. Because we're so visual as humans, right? Like, the auditory is just part of it. But we need to use that messaging to then kind of brand everything else. But, no, I think that's, you're, like, 80% of the way there. And I'm happy to give you any more advice if you want more. But it's good. Yeah, yeah, so you're in alignment with your, your investments align with your values. Yeah. Your outcomes align, yeah. There's lots of ways we could play with it. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I'm going to, hold on, let's talk. It's time. I don't want to hold you up from, I think, the keynotes next. But thank you all so much. If you do have questions, certainly, I'm here, and then our SEI team is here. Thank you, though. Thank you.

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