How Personally Inviting Clients to Webinars Is Blowing Up New Business for Me

Editor’s note: In this edition of What’s Working Now, an AdvisorRADIO feature in which Horsesmouth members tell us about recent success they have had running and growing their businesses, we hear from advisor Chad Henry, who is personally inviting clients to webinars on a variety of topics, and meeting their friends and family as a result.

The following article includes edited excerpts of this conversation, or you can watch the full interview below.

A grassroots campaign through clients

Just like everybody else, when Covid hit out of nowhere we were stuck trying to reinvent the plan for the year. We had our entire year planned out, a map of my speaking engagements. We typically did dinner seminars, where we got 25 people or so into a room at a restaurant and talked about Social Security and Medicare.

Well, obviously that entire year’s plan went by the wayside. So we started doing webinars and just reaching out and connecting, including with our existing client base. We asked them to bring a friend or invite a family member, relative, or colleague from work, or somebody from church, to join us on the webinars. It was sort of a grassroots campaign through our clients, where they invited a friend. It led to a lot of warm introductions.

Where one door closes, a window opens. Covid took my focus off of the dinner seminar presentations and put more of a focus on my existing clients. I’ve increased the number of touches and contacts that I’ve had, not only the webinars, but direct phone calls. When I do a webinar on tax planning, it’ll lead to maybe 10–20 clients wanting a personal follow-up. There’s a lot of contact.

Least amount of marketing money for big returns

Listen at 12:12

About every two to three weeks since Covid hit, I’ve done either a webinar or a conference call, just by audio, no video. Doing it this way, it’s amazing, because I would say this is the least amount of marketing money that I’ve ever spent in the last 10 years. I’ve always been a big advocate of “You have to spend money to make money.” If you’ve worked really hard, if you’ve learned the material, if you’ve spent time rehearsing the presentation, if you get a good list and send out a high quality mailer, then you’ll have good return on investment. So I’ve never been afraid to spend on those.

But this year, my budget from a marketing standpoint has been almost nothing. Yet I’m right there keeping pace on a monthly basis with what I would do in any other year. We’re about $19 million higher than we started the year. We continue to receive a lot of introductions and referrals.

I would say year to date, we’ve probably received as many referrals in the last eight and a half months as I’ve received in any three-year period in my entire career. We always, I think, did better than average with referrals and introductions, but this year, it’s skyrocketed. We’re typically getting three to four a month.

I’d like to bring in $26–$28 million in new assets by the end of the year. I think that’s realistic. We have quite a few things in the pipeline; there are a number of people that we’re talking with. We’re much more selective too, so the number could be bigger, but I have to take a higher minimum so that we protect our time.

Personal touch is the best marketing

Listen at 17:26

Myself and my marketing assistant make up a mail/phone tag team. We still spend the money to have a team. We have to have some support people around us to be able to still grow and service everybody. Between us we’ll call all the prospects on our list personally. And we call our ‘A’ clients, to personally invite them and encourage them to invite a friend, neighbor or family member.

My prospect list is fairly tight, typically 100–120, to maybe 180 on the high side. Most of those people came from either attending a presentation that we did a year or two ago or a referral from a good client that we just haven’t been able to connect with yet. Or it could be a person that gave us a future retirement date. So sometimes people kick the tire, saying, “Hey, I’m going to retire in October 2021.” So we control all that data in our system and cultivate that relationship over the next 12 or 24 months until those big dates come up.

We do a monthly email newsletter, typically the first week of the new month. We send it out to all clients and prospects—about 300 families that we work with and about 150–180 prospects.

I also do a monthly printed drip letter. We use Bill Good Marketing, who put out four or five new letters every month based on what’s happening in the markets, the economy, whatever it might be. We hand address those, even if there’s 500 of them. We hand sign all 500. Every month they get a piece of mail. It’s uncanny, but sometimes people will keep six, eight, 10 of those. They don’t return your calls, they don’t return your emails. But then two years later, they stop in and they’ve got 12 of your letters. I think people respect the persistence and the hard work.

Keep the invites short and sweet

Listen at 23:38

When it comes to personal invites, I think you have to make it short and simple. You only have a few seconds of people’s time. Nobody’s going to listen to a two-minute voicemail. Nobody’s going to read a three-paragraph email. Time is so precious for all of us. I try to keep everything I do to something that you can look at or listen to in less than 15 seconds. It might be as simple as three or four sentences in an email, phone call or voice mail.

I would just reach out and say,

“Hey Mr. Bailey, this is Chad Henry from Forthright Financial Planning. I know you attended one of my presentations last year on Social Security and Medicare. I just wanted to personally invite you to a webinar next Wednesday on Medicare planning. There’s a lot of new things that have changed since you attended that presentation. Would it be OK if we sent you the information? You’re free to share it with a friend or a relative that might have some questions on Medicare. We’d love for you to join us.”

If it’s a voicemail, I would add, “If you’d like to get the information, please reach out to my associate, Lisa, at…” Just that simple: 15 seconds, you’re off. I always leave a voicemail. I know everybody’s different on that. But I always leave that 15-second voicemail.

We’ll also send a blast email with the same four sentences, maybe five sentences. But short and sweet. If you give them too much, they shut down and move on and it gets deleted.

We have a good response. We’re typically averaging anywhere from 50–70 people on each of the calls. Typically, about a third of them are prospects and about two-thirds are clients. I would say it almost always results in two to four new meetings, usually virtual. Every time I’ve done a webinar, it’s resulted in a new client within 30–60 days.

Keep doing what works

Listen at 3:53

Oftentimes advisors have some really wonderful marketing idea they used to do and then just for some reason it faded and they stopped. I resolved not to do that.

So when I learned about Horsesmouth years ago, I started to implement a lot of the things that they taught me about Social Security&v=zzf55bcscgfy0kmupxwbp1rl and Medicare.&v=zzf55bcscgfy0kmupxwbp1rl Then I took some sales best practices and built the presentation to fit my approach, and it really started working well. I committed myself, saying, “OK, this works. I’m not going to change it until it doesn’t work.” Or I guess, until Covid-19 hits!

Essentially, we were putting on 20–25 dinner seminars a year, group after group after group, because there are so many retirees. In the next three or four years, there will be an even higher percentage of retirees, close to 12,000 boomers turning 65 a day.

About every two to three weeks since Covid hit, I’ve done either a webinar or a conference call. I think I’ve done two or three where there’s been no video, just a conference call, and eight or nine Zoom meetings. With all the uncertainty in the world surrounding everything, you can pretty much find something going wrong in any topic we cover, so there is always interest. And as a Master Member&v=zzf55bcscgfy0kmupxwbp1rl, I’ve got all these presentations, and I can go from one topic to the next.

I think it’s important that our best clients see that we are continually in communication with them. Even though some of them don’t feel comfortable with an in-person meeting, at least they’re regularly seeing us, knowing that we’re healthy, that we’re still at work, that we’re working hard on their behalf.

Your expertise differentiates you

Listen at 32:28

In webinars or conference calls, it’s mostly me speaking and showing my expertise. I think it comes through genuinely as people will see that I’m not relying on a slide or that I’m not looking at this for the first time. I really can speak to the topics. The amount of education that I’ve gotten from Horsesmouth, Ed Slott and Bill Good is second to none.

As good as I’ve been at growing my practice, and being a CFP for 12 years, I can tell you I learned a huge amount of information in the Savvy Tax Planning four-day webinar.&v=zzf55bcscgfy0kmupxwbp1rl For those who haven’t done it, it makes a huge different in your practice. You can really start to differentiate yourself. Because that’s what it’s all about, showing that you’re different than everybody else. Horsesmouth makes a huge difference in that.

And there are awesome opportunities, like Horsesmouth making it possible to continue to grow our education virtually. I always enjoyed the live events, but you had to block off four or five days, you had to fly somewhere, you had to get a hotel. Now it’s, “Hey, jump on a Zoom four days a week.”

Educated clients talk about your value

Listen at 6:56

We’ve given the presentation on college planning&v=zzf55bcscgfy0kmupxwbp1rl twice now; the one on tax planning&v=zzf55bcscgfy0kmupxwbp1rl twice as well. We’ve given the one on Medicare at least once and Social Security I’ve done twice. I’ll probably do something coming up soon with cybersecurity.&v=zzf55bcscgfy0kmupxwbp1rl With college planning and tax planning, it was unbelievable how much positive response I got. Out of that college planning presentation, I got three new relationships for the next generation, the 40-somethings that will someday inherit the 70-somethings’ accounts.

Hopefully most of the advisors that are using Horsesmouth, or that will use Horsesmouth in the future, are continually trying to improve themselves and make themselves better for their clients. The systems and processes that I have today are much better than what they were three years ago, five years ago, seven years ago. A client that has been with me for 10 years hasn’t necessarily seen all the new tools in the toolbox that I use today with a brand new client. So by doing webinars on some of these topics with older clients, I’m opening new doors.

No matter how good your notes are, or how good your system or process is, when you have a good-sized book of business over the years, it’s really hard to remember exactly who you’ve covered which topics with, and which ones missed it because they became a client six-and-a-half years ago and not six years ago.

The amount of conversation and unity and collaboration that I get from the clients has been great. They’re part of the process. They’re really becoming educated clients. It’s not just, “Chad says to do A, B and C.” It’s, “Oh, I get why he’s saying that now, and we should talk deeper about that. And he needs to talk to my son and daughter-in-law. Or he needs to talk to my brother,” or that kind of thing. We’re getting a lot of warm introductions from just being out there and staying in front of everybody.

Don’t worry about fee compression

Listen at 14:41

You wouldn’t believe the amount of nice comments that we’ve received because of the value that we brought to them. Sometimes advisors are worried about fees, and fee compression, and what they charge. Well, when you bring this much value, you don’t worry. If you’re continually learning and making yourself better, you can bring so much value, and then the fee doesn’t become an issue. If you’re just a commodity, where you’re just an investment manager, and you’re not adding things like all the different components that Horsesmouth offers, then you really are going to be compressed and be charging much less because you’re not giving that value.

Hosting the webinar

Listen at 30:20

I use Zoom Webinar, not Meeting, so that the attendees can’t see anyone but me. If there are clients on there, I want to respect their privacy and they may not want everybody in the world to see who they do or don’t use as a financial advisor. I don’t take questions, but encourage them to follow up with me. I try to be respectful of their time because the Q and A sessions can go 20 or 30 minutes if you leave them open.

It is tougher to build rapport through a webinar than in person. I always made it a goal to say someone’s name at least twice during the presentation. I’d shake their hand and personally greet them when they came and when they left, but also call on them once or twice during the presentation and ask a question, to gauge their engagement and their understanding of what I was talking about. It kept everybody on the edge of their seat going, “OK, if he asks this guy over here on the left a question, now he’s probably coming over to my table next. I’d better listen to what he’s saying.”

I can’t do that as much with the format that we’re using. I think if you’re speaking and they’re actually seeing you and your mannerisms, and your facial expressions and so on, they can gauge whether or not you’re somebody they can relate to. If you seem genuine, if you seem knowledgeable, that’s what they’re looking for. They’re looking for somebody that has a good system and process that is honest, and somebody that is going to work hard for them, and going to relate well to them personality-wise. So you have to do the best you can to relate that. All you’re really trying to do is educate and then hopefully sell a follow-up of some type, whether it be a phone call or a one-on-one Zoom meeting.

From webinar to new client

Listen at 27:11

A lot of times we’ll have a follow-up call to get a gauge for if we’re a good fit for their specific situation. Maybe they’ve got some specific questions about their pension or their Social Security. Then a lot of times it’s, “How do you get compensated? What’s the structure of your business? What all do you do? What’s encompassed in those services that you offer for that fee?” and that kind of thing. If it’s just a get to know you call, we usually tell prospects that we’ll set aside 20 minutes to give them time to ask those questions, and get a chance to know each other, and see if it’s a fit that we should schedule a follow-up planning meeting to talk about some of the things we might be able to offer them specifically.

At that point, it goes right into the exact same routine. I don’t deviate from asking for all the financial documents, whether it’s a webinar, or a live dinner event. A lot of times people will say, “You know, this all sounds good. What do I have to do next?” I tell them my associate will follow up, sending a list of documents that we need. These days you can get most things in PDF and send them via encrypted email.

More than anything, you have to show them that you have a process, that you have a plan. It can’t be just, “Hey, we want to manage your investments.” You can get that for just about free nowadays. It’s not about investment management. It’s about all the other things that come into their life.

Depending on the segment of the population that you work with, it’s really important that you have some specifics for them, that niche so to speak. If you’re working with dentists that are 50–60 years old, you better have 10, 15, 20 things that you can bring to the table that are unique to their business, so that they can quickly see that you know them and you have arrows in your quiver that can help them be more efficient, be more profitable, pay less tax and have better overall return on investment.

Show them what they aren’t getting from the current advisor

Listen at 38:05

I think that’s the most important thing when meeting virtually, is that they start to realize that there is a two-page checklist that they don’t have from their current advisor. They start to realize how much value you’re going to bring, for the same price essentially.

I would say probably 80% of my new clients already had an advisor. Once in a while, it’s just somebody that worked for 30 years and has everything in their work retirement plan, and then they’re bringing it over. But that’s not the norm. More often than not, I really like somebody that works with somebody else, because you know they value advice. They want a professional to help them. If they’re sitting in front of me, there’s a reason. They know there are things they don’t know and their current advisor isn’t addressing.

When you demonstrate a process and a refined approach using the concepts that you’ve learned from the Horsesmouth Master Membership, or the CFP board, or those kinds of things, when you demonstrate that depth, all of a sudden consolidation comes into it. More often than not, it’s not that they had another advisor. It’s that they had four other advisors, five other advisors.

I explain to them that that’s like using four heart surgeons. You want the best heart surgeon that can put together a team and come up with the best treatment for you. But if you hire four heart surgeons, it may not work out so well, if they’re each giving you a prescription for something different and don’t know each other. People get that analogy, and quite often, we’re able to consolidate three, or four, or five advisors into one really knowledgeable person because of what our process brings to the table.

People need our advice—and right now

Listen at 45:25

If I could still have the same kind of impact when we get back to doing a live dinner event, then I might look at least in the first year to split it 50-50, webinars and live events, and see what each one came up with as far as results and return on investment.

I do think people are still retiring. There’s still 12,000 or whatever a day that are deciding that it’s time to transition. Maybe they’re transitioning even faster because their job is ending due to Covid, or who knows? There are a lot of people that need our help and still need to get this advice. They need it now, not when Covid ends in three months, or six months or two years.

We still have to find ways to get in front of people, get introductions, and communicate. I can’t emphasize enough, cultivate the relationships you have; if you’ve got 100 families, or 200 families, whatever you’re working with.

Centers of influence have also been huge. I get new CPA and attorney referrals just like clockwork, a few times every month. They’ve been some really nice opportunities, too.

There are still great ways to grow your business. Like they say, when life throws you lemons, make lemonade.