Financial Advisor Branding
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- Tired of your current brand?
- Ready to update your brand and stand out?
- Moved firms and need a new brand?
Branding for Financial Advisors: Hello. I am Suzanne Muusers, Brand Coach for financial advisors for the past 19 years. I help you figure out what’s great about you and put it into a form that allows you to attract your ideal clients.
As a financial advisor, you haven’t always been focused on branding. You may have started your practice with a wirehouse firm and therefore you were limited with their brand.
1. Breakout of blah financial advisor branding
Then, you may have progressed to an independent advisor model with little control over your brand. You may have developed a standard template website with a plain brand, appearing mass produced and uninspired. Your compliance department may have offered only one vendor for your website, and you were once again limited with their choices.
Financial Advisor Branding: You’re tired of looking like other advisory firms. You want prospective clients to be attracted to your brand. You want clients to be impressed with your business card. You want centers of influence to notice your distinction.
The problem is, you don’t know how to go about creating a new brand because it just doesn’t come naturally to you. You’re great at investment management. You’re brilliant when it comes to writing a financial plan. But branding? That’s a mystery.
Stand out!
Branding helps your firm express its unique value, while influencing buying behavior, allowing you to stand out from the competition and attract your ideal clients.
2. Avoid these financial advisor Branding blunders:
1. Your brand is focused on YOU rather than your ideal client.
2. You have never declared a Target Market.
3. You have failed to engage your ideal clients with an authentic message and brand.
3. Brand Coaching Program for financial advisors
Work with me on your Financial Advisor Branding. We will establish a step-by-step customized Branding Plan focused on key deliverables to help you pre-sell your services to prospective clients with your branded message. In addition, we can explore how to land new clients using Marketing Coaching and Prospecting Coaching.
Who’s this for?
Independent financial advisors, RIA’s, investment advisors, financial planners, and financial firms.
Private Client Website
Work with me and gain access to my Private Client Website with my Branding Coaching, Prospecting, and Marketing tools and exercises to use during our private one-on-one coaching sessions.
What happens when you work with me?
1. You’ll have a beautiful brand message and brand visuals that express your benefits and values.
2. Potential clients will be attracted to your practice and PRE-SOLD because of your authentic BRAND.
3. You will make an investment in your brand that will payoff forever.
4. Brand Coaching Program: What do we work on?
- Practice name guidance
- Brand guidance – logo/colors/website design
- Vision / Mission
- Target Market development consulting
- Tagline development consulting
- Value Proposition consulting
- How to create Brand Engagement with your ideal clients
- Develop a Client Service Experience that engages
- Headshot guidelines
- Biography guidance
- LinkedIn profile development
- LinkedIn Prospecting
- Facebook business page consulting
- Instagram business page consulting
- Search engine optimization consulting
- Brochure content consulting
- Business card content consulting
- Marketing Plan
- Social Media Marketing Plan
- Digital / Inbound Marketing Plan
- Prospecting Plan
Although I don’t do design, I help you make branding decisions
5. I help you:
Strategize your Target Market
Part of the work we do together will be to strategize the niche markets you would like to attract.
My unique process pinpoints your strengths to match them up with who you most would like to work with along with the benefits you provide in your Value Proposition. This becomes part of your Brand!
Develop your Message and Value Proposition
I help you determine the value you provide. My unique process zeros in on what you provide that benefits your ideal clients. This becomes part of your Brand!
Create subconscious Branding Messages
I help you get results through the use of subliminal messages that create engagement and action.
Your potential clients will make their decision on which financial advisor they will hire based on subconscious messages they find in your website design, website bio, and your LinkedIn profile.
Subconscious Branding: Are you presenting the right subconscious messages?
- Is your headshot the VERY BEST it can be? Approachable and honest? Easy to work with? Knowledgeable? Facing the camera and not at an angle? (at an angle, the subconscious mind thinks “What are they hiding?”)
- How do you dress? I always say, dress for where you want to be in 5-10 years. Any sleeveless or strapless attire can be construed as unprofessional.
- Color choices: what are you saying with the colors you chose? The Psychology of Color and Your Financial Brand
- Did you know, 95% of decisions are based on emotions and come from our right brain creative self.
- Too much left brain financial information turns people off.
- Emotions: Motivate and pull at your prospective clients’ heartstrings and emotions.
- Influence: We must think about how we influence behavior through subconscious messages.
- Intuition: Decisions are often made on gut instincts.
- Use beautiful images of vital, healthy, people in your marketing and on your website.
- Why a picture is worth a 1000 words: photos get to the emotions far more than words!
- Activate the brain’s reward center: The right brain wants to make a decision instinctively therefore we must help to activate the brain’s reward center.
THIS ^^^^^ is what’s important in effective branding.
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Attract clients via your Brand!
Need proof that what I do works?
See visual Brand examples below of clients I have worked with who now have engaging brands.
Re-invent your brand and your website!
Your online pages such as LinkedIn, website biography, and website Value Proposition should be focused on your target market. WHY?
CONSUMERS ARE USING THE INTERNET – 97% of consumers use the internet to find solutions to their challenges.*
NO ONE USES THE YELLOW PAGES ANYMORE – 54% of former Yellow Pages users now rely solely on the Internet to find their service providers. **
This is why it’s important to carry your new brand across all marketing mediums from your brochure and business card all the way to your website in order to create brand continuity.
Why re-brand your firm?
- You’ve been in business many years and it’s time to reposition
- Your practice has changed over the years and your brand hasn’t
- You want to attract better quality clients
- You want more referrals from centers of influence
- You want to introduce a new wealth management service
5 Benefits of Good Branding for financial advisors:
1. Higher quality clients
Using the concepts of quality design, you can appeal to the desires and needs of more sophisticated clients, who routinely make decisions subconsciously. Consumers buy based on EMO-TION. A good brand captures emotion and uses it to influence buying behavior. Clients are willing to pay more for services that are presented through quality branding.
2. Services are easier to sell
The Ritz Carlton is a high quality establishment that attracts affluent business owners and families. If they used clip art or cheap logo design, would they still attract quality visitors? No, of course not. Consumers stay at the Ritz because it is a brand they trust that exudes wealth and sophistication. Extrapolate this concept to your financial firm. Wouldn’t you love to attract better quality clients who are willing to pay your fees?
3. Pre-sold clients
In this digital age, 97%* of consumers use the Internet to find solutions to their challenges. When these consumers land on your profession-ally branded website, they will be pre-sold on hiring you because they have an oppor-tunity to research what you stand for and whether you can help them with their unique challenges. Since this research is done ANONYMOUSLY, it safeguards their privacy and allows prospective clients to think about what you offer and whether they would like to hire you, all before you even hear from them.
4. Premium price
The more expensive your services, the more you need a good brand. And let’s face it, financial advice is not inexpensive. It is however wonderful value for the money, and the wealthy can afford it more than the lower wager earner, but you must position your firm as offering value, which you can do by conveying a great message through branding and your Value Proposition.
5. Competitive advantage
When going up against other financial firms (and you will compete against many other firms, there’s no doubt about it), you must stand out visually. In my opinion, the design concepts used by the majority of today’s financial firms are overly bland and unexciting. Every brand looks the same. Your ideal clients are looking for uniqueness and creativity in your brand, and they are unaware that they are doing it. They want to see the BENEFITS of working with you presented in a visual manner that is different from other financial firms.
Brand Coaching for financial advisors
I work with clients in a Coaching capacity. This means that we establish your brand together. I help you define your Value Proposition, your Message, Target Market, and WHY clients would do business with you over another advisor. I help you strategize what to say on your branding pieces to get results.
Why hire ME for Brand Coaching?
1. I use sophisticated marketing and branding strategies that help you attract your ideal clients.
2. Experience – I have been working with financial advisors on Branding going back to 2004!
3. Unique – you don’t want a template brand. You don’t want a cookie-cutter Value Proposition. You want to express your unique value.
6. Examples of my Branding messages
Your Message is your Value Proposition. Please request a consultation so we may discuss the possibilities.
7. Examples of good Branding Visuals for financial advisors
Example #1 Website Homepage for a Financial Planner specializing in women, businesses, and families
Example #2 Website Homepage for a Wealth Management firm specializing in businesses, retirement plans, and families
Example #3 Brochure Cover for Financial Advisor specializing in Legacy Planning
Example #4 Brochure Cover for a Financial Planner
Example #5 Brochure Cover for an Investment Manager focusing on the affluent market
Example #6 Website Homepage for a Financial Advisor specializing in Institutional Investors and Private Wealth Clients
Example #7 Boutique Brochure for a Wealth Manager working with women, businesses, and families
Click the image below to see the full brochure.
* BIA/Kelsey Media and Advertising
** comScore Inc Analytics
Geographic areas served:
99% of my Brand Coaching is done via telephone which allows me to work with clients in a wide geographic area. I work with advisors in California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona, where I’m based. I also work with advisors in Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio as well as New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Florida.
Thanks to the internet, I am able to advise clients from the comfort of their offices, without the cost of travel.
Click to download my free e-book
Nine Mistakes Advisors Make with Their Brand
Don’t attempt to brand on your own and fail.
Let me help you get it right!
“Suzanne’s advice was invaluable when it came time for me to brand my independent financial advisory firm. Our work prior on target market, combined with help selecting my company name and colors and building my website have helped me attract my ideal clients and a consistent flow of leads from my website.”
Shanna T.
Financial Planner & Leader
“Don’t think twice about hiring Suzanne. Give coaching the time it deserves, be open, and trust that Suzanne will keep you on the right track.”
Kevin G.
AIF, CRPC, Financial Advisor, New Jersey
“I highly recommend Suzanne’s services to anyone who is interested in growing their business and maintaining a healthy balance outside of work as well.”
Monica B.
Holistic Practitioner
“Working with Suzanne has helped me to develop a distinctive brand. Having a cohesive brand gives me the confidence to network with and approach high level prospects. If I had not hired Suzanne, I would not have made this progress.
Nicholas E.
CFP® New York
“I truly feel that without Suzanne’s guidance, my business would not have flourished. Her expertise in my field helped me produce the results I needed more quickly. But most importantly, she made me safe enough to recognize the weaknesses in my business (and myself). You can fix anything once you recognize the problem!!”