"There are hundreds of thousands of financial advisors out there. How are affluent prospects going to choose you from among all the rest? How will you make yourself stand apart?"

You're the Expert

By John Bowen

If you're like most of us, you've put time, money, and effort into learning how to be a capable financial advisor. You know your stuff. You know it so well, in fact, that if you've been in the business for a while, you even take what you've learned over time for granted. You're an expert, but you probably have given hardly any thought to actually being one.

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The problem with this is that if you don't think of yourself as an expert, your clients and prospects won't either. This creates a much larger obstacle than you might imagine to attracting high-net-worth clients. You see, it's not enough to be good. To succeed with the affluent, you have to be seen as being good.

Your have to stand out in a crowded marketplace these days. Think about this for a minute. How many brands of soap can you name? How about toothpaste? Most of us could name only a few of each, and some might struggle to name even a couple, despite the fact that there are dozens of brands of soap and toothpaste on the grocery store shelves.

Likewise, there are hundreds of thousands of financial advisors out there. How are affluent prospects going to choose you from among all the rest? How will you make yourself stand apart? The answer is to position yourself so that you are the first in the minds of wealthy clients and prospects for what you offer. You must be perceived as better and different than all of your competition.

What will make you be seen as better and different than your competitors? The answer is to align your position with the views of what is important to your affluent prospects and clients. What's most important to them? Expertise.

There is ample evidence of this. A study of affluent investors conducted by Russ Alan Prince, research director at our firm, CEG Worldwide, looked at the criteria that are important to these investors in choosing their advisors. Overall, expertise was rated as the most important criteria, with the overwhelming majority—91 percent—citing it as very important. In a sharp and interesting contrast, just 27 percent cited investment performance/track record as a very important criteria for selecting their advisor.

Yet far too often advisors fail either to see themselves as experts or to communicate to their clients and prospects that they are experts. When our researchers asked advisors if they consider themselves to be experts in the financial services field, very few identified themselves this way. There's a strong correlation between advisors' income and their self-identification as experts. Overall, the higher the income, the more likely advisors are to position themselves according to what the affluent want—expertise.

Why are advisors hesitant to call themselves experts? Many advisors get caught up in the idea of expertise, thinking they somehow need to get some sort of license or other official qualification in order to be called an expert.

Many advisors are uncomfortable with the concept of being perceived as an expert. The truth is you do not have to know everything to be called expert. As a matter of fact, in our work with hundreds of nationally-recognized experts, we can say with assurance that none of them know everything. Instead, they have mastered the art of positioning themselves as an expert, and because they are perceived as an expert, they are one.

The simple act of raising your hand to be an expert causes you to become that expert. The secret is in both saying you are an expert and rising to the occasion by setting a high standard. This process is facilitated by the new circle of relationships that are drawn to you because you are perceived as an expert and that subsequently help you to enhance your expert position.

I found out just how well this works early in my career as a financial advisor. At that point, I had not yet had anything published, had never been quoted in the media, and had not done any of the other things that so many advisors mistakenly believe you must do before you can be called an expert. I simply identified a local radio station that I thought could benefit from having a financial advisor host a regular financial talk show, phoned the station, and asked to host the show. To my surprise, I was immediately given the show, which established instant credibility for me as an expert in my community. I was the same person before and after the show; only my positioning changed.

In other words, to become an expert, you must be willing to step up to the plate and take the risk of appearing as an expert. Or, as Woody Allen said so well, "Eighty percent of success is just showing up."

Many advisors spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to come up with exactly the right company name, tag line, and a catchy phrase that can be reeled off at any cocktail party. While names are important in capturing who you are and what you offer, it's unlikely that any one name will communicate your true position. Credibility is usually created not by the name of a company itself but by the positioning of its senior person or people as experts in what they do.

So rather than focusing on the perfect name, first design your business so you are able to offer exactly what your target market wants and to solve their set of challenges. Then position yourself as their expert—someone who is exceptionally qualified to meet those needs and address those concerns.

Establishing yourself as an expert and building your credibility is an ongoing process that will last throughout your career. But to focus your efforts, try to create a positioning statement, or a description of the benefits that you uniquely offer to your ideal clients. This is your unique selling proposition—the one value that you (and you alone) can provide to your select group of clients and prospects that is designed to meet their precise needs.

Positioning is the art of controlling Perceptions—how you and your company are seen by your clients and prospects. When you have a strong, clear, and accurate positioning statement that resonates with your clients and prospects, your marketing and communications efforts become more effective. After all, clients and prospects are infinitely more inclined to hear the specifics of what you have to offer when they already believe that your entire business is focused on meeting their particular needs.

You should be able to capture your unique value proposition in one single sentence. To arrive at your own positioning statement, consider the following questions:

• Who are the investors you would most like to have as clients (i.e., successful entrepreneurs, doctors with established practices, corporate executives, or wealthy retirees)?
• What are the special needs and challenges of this group of investors?
• With whom do you compete for the business of these investors?
• What makes you different from your competitors?
• What is different and better about you that would attract these investors?
• What unique benefits would these investors receive from you that they could receive nowhere else?

Examples of effective positioning statements include, "I help wealthy retirees make smart decisions about their money so they can spend more time enjoying their retirement," or "I help business owners become wealthy business owners." When I worked with corporate executives in Silicon Valley, my own positioning statement said, "I help senior executives make work optional."

As you formulate your unique selling proposition, make sure it meets all of the following requirements:

• It must contain a strong promise of benefits for your ideal clients.
• It must offer to solve a problem that already exists in the minds of the targeted group.
• It must make your offer appear different and better than your competition's approach.
• It must be short, simple, pithy, and concise.
• It must be believable.

By positioning yourself according to what your affluent clients and prospects themselves are actually looking for—an expert at meeting their unique needs—you'll put yourself in the enviable position of having an audience that is eager to hear what you have to say. Take the first step to position yourself as an expert today; both your current and future clients will be glad you did.