Don't be a sheep, carve your own path

One of the things I see when I look around on social media or other advisers websites, blogs, Facebook ads is that they all seem to be carbon copies of each other.

Everyone is saying the nice safe thing like they are scared to have a different opinion.

They will say the same thing about the OCR that everyone else is saying or they will talk about how you can free money from the bank or just mention the same insurance products that everyone mentions.

It's all very much the same stuff. It's almost like it's been written by a marketing company. In fact, when I look at many of these posts and ads, it really has been copied and pasted from some marketing company in a lot of cases, where they've just used the same template, they offer the consumer the same free report that's mostly garbage.

It reduces every adviser to a different logo but there's nothing that tells me anything about the person or any particular reason why I should talk to them.

It doesn't take a lot to stand out.

I believe one key to standing out in the crowded financial advice industry is embracing contrarianism - not following the pack but having the courage to express unique viewpoints that challenge conventional wisdom.

For example, I've previously written articles such as "Why I don't care about interest rate changes" which goes against the common focus on short-term rate fluctuations. While the media (and most advisers without a good value proposition) obsesses over whether rates will drop by 0.25%, I would emphasise that these short-term changes make virtually no difference to a 25-year mortgage journey.

Similarly, a contrarian approach on Risk Insurance is discussing "Having a plan to get rid of your insurance" rather than only talking about getting insurance. This demonstrates to clients that you're committed to their long-term financial wellbeing rather than just making a sale and disappearing like they have heard about advisers.

Lots of advisers proudly talk about how their service is “Free” but I would rather talk about the value add you get from my fees.

You can find this approach in all the aspects of Financial advice. If you look out and see what other people are doing, you kind of want to talk about the opposite. Now it's got to be genuine to you. If you don't actually believe what you are saying, this will come across. I’d rather you go with the pack authentically than be someone you are not.

But if you're looking to set yourself as a brand and a name in your adviser business, then don't be the rest of the pack. Have an opinion of your own. Be a contrarian. You'll get noticed.

Consistency over Intensity

If it’s one thing I have learned and struggled with over the years, its consistency with marketing.

I think about the massive database I built up from all the tradeshows we used to do, and how I used to communicate with this list and would get clients from it. But I got to the point where I had more work coming in that I knew what to do with, and I let it slip. You cannot then go back a year later and try to use the database again. Now it’s not hurt me long term but it would have made it easier to grow the other members of my team.

Its not hard to have a good week or a good month with clients, and get some good sales results and a great burst of intensity, and then when it all settles down, you have to start again.

The key is to not sacrifice the habits you were following leading up to this.

If you write a blog every week, or post on social media, host a drop in or whatever it is, and then you let this go when you have some intensity and success, then eventually this may come to bite you.

Now, its not easy, if you get success and you have more work, you have to fit this in, and its often easier to use the time you used to use for your marketing and maintenance.

But this is one of those important but not urgent tasks, until one day you don’t have enough people to talk to.

So, while not overwhelming yourself with lots of marketing activities, whatever you choose to do, commit to. If you have to add more work time, fit it in other areas, throw a few late nights at it, update your systems to be more efficient, rather than drop your activities that keep your name out in the market.

Find those habits and activities and do them consistently, consistency over time keeps your name out there and gives you something to fall back on if things get quiet.

You’ve got this.