Parents Stressing About College? How One Advisor is Delivering Hybrid Events to Help

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 Justin Peek, who has been doing hybrid educational nights—presenting a webinar for one audience and a seminar for another on one night.

The following article is based on Peek’s conversation with Horsesmouth Editor-in-Chief Sean Bailey. For the full interview, check out the video.

An overlooked need

The college admissions process is notoriously stressful for both students and parents. As senior year in high school gets going, families often find themselves overwhelmed by choices, an uncertain financial future, and a lack of guidance.

Many turn to their financial advisor for help only to realize their advisor’s knowledge ends at the 529 college savings plan. Justin Peek, an experienced financial advisor based in Carlsbad, California, saw this gap and pain point clearly.

After nearly 20 years working with affluent clients and families, he was well aware of the stress brought on by planning and paying for college. So, he decided to do something about it. “This is an area where I don’t think most advisors realize just how stressed-out families of teenagers are,” Peek says. “If you think about what we advisors do as a living, we’re there to remove stress, we’re there to provide solutions, we’re there to take away that anxiety.”

A doubleheader

Peek has implemented an innovative approach to delivering financial education—two events a night, one webinar and one seminar—a doubleheader. His hybrid model is efficient for him, but importantly, it also provides more choice for clients as well as more customized guidance and content tailored to two different audiences.

“Webinars were a necessity coming through Covid, and I enjoyed them. But I was taught to give clients a choice ‘A’ or ‘B,’ not ‘A’ or nothing.” explained Peek. “So we wanted to give choice to potential clients on how to receive this education—this gives clients choice of date and it also gives them choice of format, and it’s been extremely effective.”

The results speak for themselves, with Peek acquiring new ideal households and establishing himself as a trusted specialist in this niche field.

“If you help them and their kids, if someone helps my children, I’m not going to forget it,” Peek says. “You do something nice for my girls, you go to the top of the list.”

A practice built on education

Peek has been an advisor since 2004, spending 18 years with a large national firm before starting his own shop, Peek Wealth, just over one year ago. Based in the affluent North County coastal area of San Diego, his practice works with around 85–90 families. He describes it as similar to a family office, providing deep and customized service for each client.

Peek built his practice through a commitment to educating clients. For many years, he hosted monthly educational events exclusively for top clients who would bring friends or family members with them. While he has scaled back the frequency, education remains one of his preferred ways to reach and acquire new clients.

For Peek, prospecting comes down to “finding your authentic self as an advisor.” He feels that acting as an educator is very genuine for him. “There are so many ways that we can meet new potential clients that I think a lot of it is finding that best fit for yourself and what feels most authentic,” he says. “And for me it’s educating. And I feel that if our clients are the most educated, they will hopefully in turn go and share that with someone else.”

An IEC brings a ready-made audience

As college decision day approached for the children of many long-time clients, Peek realized most advisors are poorly equipped to guide families through this transition. While many can set up a 529 college savings account, few have expertise in the tuition-saving process of figuring out merit financial aid and determining how to pay without jeopardizing retirement. Families need help navigating this high-stakes maze.

To reach families facing this challenge, Peek, a long-time Horsesmouth Master Member, began partnering with independent education consultants (IECs), who could provide him with ready-made audiences of well-to-do families in need of financial guidance around college education.

IECs advise families on nearly every aspect of applying to college: applications, essays, school selection, testing strategies and more. Yet they typically stop short of financial planning. They don’t have the expertise. That is a problem Peek could solve for them.

And so a partnership was born. Educational consultants could provide ideal prospective clients,while he offered late-stage college funding knowledge and insights they lacked.

“Our attendance went through the roof, literally went up fivefold, when it was the IEC’s event saying, ‘I want you here to receive this education as my client,’” Peek says about partnering with educational consultants.

It was a win-win. The IECs provide Peek access to their clients and marketed the presentations to them. And for their stressed clients, Peek offered expertise and guidance through the finances of this major life transition—something that is still hard to find.

Logistics

It was a health condition in his family that limited Peek’s time and spurred him to develop his method of offering either a webinar or a live seminar, both on the same date. “Necessity is the mother of all invention,” he confesses. “I was sitting there looking at a presentation that we’re going to give on behalf of an IEC and I just realized that I could’t do four events on four different dates because my calendar just would not allow it currently.

“And so we decided to do it all over two days. On one night, a Zoom for group A and then immediately walk to our presentation seminar room and do an in-person for group B. And the next night, flip it. Zoom for group B and the in-person for group A.”

Recently, Peek followed this plan for a seminar focusing specifically on major changes to financial aid and the college admissions process. He segmented his audiences into (1) families with rising high school seniors and (2) families with younger high school students. He offered each group to attend either by webinar or seminar.

On the first night at 5 p.m., Peek hosted a webinar for families with students who are juniors and below, then jumped to a 6 p.m. in-person seminar exclusively for families with high school seniors. The next evening the order flipped, with senior families first online and underclassmen families in-person.

The educational consultant provided marketing to their client list while Peek delivered the content. In total, across both formats over the two nights, around 50–60 people participated.

While he worked with the webinar audience, Peek has staff managing logistics for the live event in the next room, greeting attendees, doing registration, and coordinating refreshments. After he finished up the Q&A section at the end of the webinar, he signed off and walked into his conference room next door to address the live group.

“It does require precision, but what it does is to get four events done in really four hours, just two, two-hour blocks,” Peek says. “It saves having to go over four events over four different days.”

Presenting with impact

In taking the hybrid approach, Peek’s primary goal is identifying and forming connections with one or two top prospective clients in each session.

It is not that he takes on clients exclusively as college-planning clients—but for select, high-net-worth clients, his expertise in college planning becomes enticing because it shows the kind of extra attention and service he provides his clients.

While he estimates that he has brought in four new clients this year through the webinars and seminars with IECs, Peek notes that there are 15 or 16 other families who would like to work with him, but he has referred out to others. He is interested in the select few who have significant assets they are interested in bringing over for management.

During the presentation, Peek showcases his knowledge by answering attendee questions and demonstrating empathy for parent’s concerns. He builds trust quickly.

He focuses on reading the room and identifying potential families to help based, partly, on the quality of their engagement. He uses college planning guidance as the gateway to an ongoing relationship. Gaps revealed in college planning expose opportunities for working together on retirement, investments and estate strategies.

As he puts it, “We’re just bonding with the one or two that really raise their hand and say, ‘Hey, you’re different and we are interested.’”

He believes prospecting comes down to finding the right client match, not competing against other advisors. “I think there are hundreds of thousands of fine professionals. I don’t view myself as having any competition. My competition is me,” he says. “I’m enough for myself and there’s clients for everyone.”

Results and future plans

Peek’s hybrid approach for delivering financial education events has produced tangible results. Over the last 12 months, he has acquired four select new client households through the webinars and seminars. Based on extensive qualification, these are larger, higher-net-worth families who fit his ideal client profile.

Peek says that executing seamless back-to-back online and in-person events requires practice, precision and coordination with the education consultant. Logistics can be intensive. But the flexibility and options created for clients make the effort worthwhile. “For those who’ve been doing seminars for a while, it’s actually not that bad,” he says.

Key takeaways

• Specializing in a niche and developing innovative education formats to address the financial planning gaps that group faces will make you stand out.
• Peek’s experience shows the power of specializing in a niche area connected to clients’ pain points. By becoming an expert in late-stage college planning, he provides families with complex guidance few advisors can match.
• Mastering a topic that resonates emotionally with specific clients can help you grow your business. It comes down to learning continuously and staying up to date on what clients will need next, as well as staying true to topics that are of real interest to you.
• Educating prospects is a genuine way to form meaningful relationships with ideal clients.