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Ready to add some recognition to your site?

How Advisors can win awards

Ready to add some recognition to your site? In this episode of Ask Us Marketing, Kalli and Brian Hart of Flackable talk about how advisors can win awards. Give Grandma something to brag on you about and show prospects why you’re so spectacular– blue ribbon tips coming in hot.

What are the odds somebody's just gonna see you on CNBC and say yeah, I want him as much I want him to my financial advisor? I'm going to call him. That almost never happens exactly, but when you've been referred to a potential client. They go to your website and see that you had recently been on CNBC, or if they Google you, and when they Google you, they see awards and media appearances and everything else. That's what's going to accelerate growth for you.

Read the DISCUSSION

Kalli

Welcome to AUM. We are live, which means anything could happen, like a tornado, because both Brian and I are about to be under a tornado watch.

I'm your host Kalli Fedusenko of Kalli Collective, a digital marketing agency designed to build relationships between financial advisors and their target audience through data-driven custom content and advertising. Have you ever felt like all of your peers are winning awards that you have the same qualifications for, but you can't figure out what you're doing wrong? Well, today we're going to fix that; today, we're talking with Brian Hart of Flackable, a PR Agency for advisors, to discuss how you can win awards. Now I have my own set of questions, but please ask your questions in the comments; we'll see them on our end and answer them as they come in if we get more than we can handle the replying comments after the event.

So welcome, Brian.

Brian

Kalli, thanks so much for having me. It's been way too long since we've, uh, since we've collabed and done one of these.

Kalli

I agree, uh, and I'm really excited to talk about this topic because, let me give a little background here, when I started Kalli Collective, I was willing to do just about any marketing task an advisor needed as long as they paid me, right? Uh, we no longer do that, of course; over the last six years, we've really drilled down into what my team and I are good at, which, let me tell you, is not award tracking and nominations; it literally makes me want to stab my eyes out, so Brian, on behalf of me and my team, thank you for being the kind of person who enjoys this.

Brian

Yeah, absolutely.

Kalli

Um, how do you even find eligible awards for advisors?

Brian

Yeah, so there definitely needs to be a strategy and process in place if it's going to be effective and efficient, and that's what a lot of advisors struggle with. Um, you know they'll see an award after it's already been announced, and they'll think, wow, I should have. How come I wasn't under consideration for that? Well, because you need to get your nominations in well ahead of time and have a plan in place to do that. So you brought up tracking awards. Absolutely tracking needs to be at the core of any strategy collecting them. Some advisors do have the internal resources to do that efficiently alone, and those are the advisors that you see winning all these awards; most of them don't need help, um, you know, they need somebody to come in and just round things up and organize it so that there is a systematic approach so that that's something that we developed over the years um, to help advisors get in the running for these. You're not going to win every award that you nominate yourself for, but if you're not enough, so, for them, you're not winning anything.

Kalli

Yeah, uh, how many awards would you say an advisor is eligible for if they have over 250 million assets, member management?

Brian

Yeah, so there are different types of awards. There are certainly the advisor awards, um, and those tend to be the popular ones, you know, everybody wants to be on the Baron's list who's eligible. You know there, there are a number of Forbes lists which can be absolute game changers; to get yourself in that club and win some of those the advisor trade publications, almost all of them have their own award series as well that look at different factors and whatnot so, so the advisor-specific awards, you know, should certainly be a no-brainer for an advisor who's managing, you know, a decent amount of assets. Uh, some of them, your AUM is going to be enough to qualify you or your growth in AUM, you know, over you know the whatever period they're looking at could be enough to get you in, you know, that could be the key factor right. Still, there are awards that look at many factors, um, so be cognizant of that. When you are collecting the awards that you want to pursue, clearly, you want to spend your time looking at the ones that are realistic. If you're a brand new RIA managing under 100 million in assets, there are going to be certain awards that it just doesn't make sense. It's a waste of time to pursue those, so, don't you know, if you have a smaller book, you know then, that's fine focus on awards where AUM isn't to be a big determining factor. If you know if you're managing a billion plus, I mean that AUM is going to be that ticket to get you enrolled for a lot of these, so yeah, be realistic about where you are in your growth and what you're going to be eligible for now that's the advisor awards. Now there are a lot of other awards to look at. There are local awards. You know, if you've built up a nice team and a cool culture, there are best places to work awards in the advisor category but also just in local categories as well, especially if attracting and retaining talent is a big part of your growth strategy. Those can be huge for your recruiting efforts and your ability to return them so.

Kalli

Now speaking of local awards, I've noticed that the advisor non-specific awards, um, really look for more involvement in giving back to the local community, so like the local 40 under 40 here in Nashville, they ask a lot of questions about how you're giving back to the community more so than, um your profit or revenue, so obviously someone who's spending a lot of time volunteering would do better applying to those awards than someone who chooses to be charitable in other ways. Like if you're donating like that just doesn't translate well in an award application.

Brian

Um, if you donate enough money it could.

Kalli

That's fair. Um yeah, for the uh local awards, is there anything else that uh, an advisor, especially like a newer advisor, should be looking for that they could apply to?

Brian

Yeah, so, you know, new breakaway teams or, you know, advisors who are just in the early stages of building their brand and their business oftentimes they're doing that while they're in their 20s or their 30s, so you Kalli, you had mentioned those 40 under 40 awards yeah absolutely if you're coming into the business loud and proud. You've got a cool story, and you've got a little bit of a social media following. You're doing other cool things that are getting attention. Maybe you have a very niche and unique practice that's worthy of attention those can get you eligible for those. Again you know there are certainly advisor specific 30 under 30 and 40 under 40 awards that you could be pursuing, but then there's going to be community-based. Then there's going to be bigger National ones as well, and um, so yeah, absolutely that that is one to go after that could be a game changer. My story. I mean, I'm coming on ten years in business. What are the biggest things that happened from me out of the gates was, um, ad weeks PR Newser did a 30 under 30 list, and I made. I made it in my first year in business, um I. Honestly, I think I think the guy just liked the name Flackable and put me on there, um but, uh, it was a game-changer. One of the biggest things with that is that once you win that first award, it's gonna make you more likely to win more. You know, you've got to break the deal. You know, for me, you know, I happen to fall into that, and then after that, every year following, I was winning more awards and getting more 30 unders and 40 unders, and you know, various types of recognition, so it does snowball but you gotta get that first one, and you know me. I kind of lucked into my first one, um. For most advisors, you're gonna have to do a little bit more work to get that first one, and that's okay, but having a strategy and a game plan in a realistic view of what you want to accomplish is everything

Kalli

Hmmm, what does a strategy look like, um, like, as you are building out?

Brian

Yeah, I mean, it can be as simple as building a calendar or a spreadsheet that just looks at the year ahead. Where you're tracking when a nomination period opens when it closes and mapping out, you know, I mean, you know if you try to go at it, just spotting these as they pop up in your social media feed or whatnot, right, probably not going to have a lot of success. You really need to organize it and have a calendar and jump on these nominations early, John; you want to jump on these things as soon as they open up, and I know that sounds like a lot of work. I mean, tracking it is the big portion of it once you've filled out a couple of these nominations. You can repurpose what you've put together for other awards. Getting those first few in there is what's going to give you that momentum to continue pursuing them, but without a tracking strategy, without some kind of calendar where you know when these nomination periods are coming up, it's going to be very difficult for you to try to manage that on the win right, you really need to organize a strategy, and how do we use this aggressively?

Kalli

How do you find awards for advisors? Because I'm having some flashbacks right now of when I worked internally for an advisor, and you know, I had like an Excel list of all these awards, and then some other advisor would win an award that I hadn't spotted, and they'd be like, why didn't we apply to this, and it's like, I didn't even know this was a thing I don't know how to find them, so Brian, how do you find awards?

Brian

Yeah, sure, well again, I mean, for advisors, start with the advisor trades and the advisor-specific awards; they're very easy to find. If you've got a if you've got an AI chatbot, literally ask it what are the top advisor awards it's going to give you a big list of them, um, you know, so start there and then break it down and look at local awards and community awards see what you're eligible for there, look at your alma mater you know, so many of these universities have alumni awards that are out there. Some of them are based on age, some of them are based on what they give back to the university, and so forth. Look at those. I mean, look and look at other organizations that you're affiliated with; a lot of them have their own types of award series.

Kalli

I love that idea, and I will be looking up my alma mater after this. It's something that I've just never even thought of.

Um, here's a question for you if you've got an award on your email signature, how old is too old for it to be significant? So let's say I won an award in 2020. Do we think it's relevant for me to still have that on my email signature?

Brian

Yeah, so I mean, you've got to be the judge of that. Um, it's nice when you win these things that don't have a year attached to them, or at least not on the badge or logo or whatever you're licensing, and by the way. I mean, a lot of these, while it might be free to nominate yourself once you win, then they will have licensing fees to be able to use those badges and promote them, so you know, be cognizant of that, um you know, that when they put on these awards programs oftentimes, they want to make a little money to at the very least just pay for all the effort that goes into putting it out there judging it selecting winners and so forth um so there will often times be fees sometimes it's a fee just to nominate yourself other times after you win if you want to be able to leverage it which I don't know why you would go through the nomination process if you don't want to leverage this or if you don't have a plan right um keep that in mind but no as far as the year I mean you use your judgment you know, I mean typically, if, in a word, strategy is a key part of your branding and your growth and just the space you occupy in your profession, then I mean, you should be winning new awards every year, if not every other year.

Kalli

Yeah, like you said, you are more likely to win another one which, uh, how does that work? Is it just that the other awards are seeing your name in this other place, or why does winning one help you win another one?

Brian

Sure, it's a credibility factor, you know, um, if FA magazine sees that you had been on a Forbes list, right? Clearly that that's going to stand out to them that you already have that level of an endorsement by a brand and vice versa. When Forbes sees that you had that FA Mag recognition, um, that's going to mean something to them as well, so yeah, it's about building credibility. It's almost like building a resume. I mean, listen to nobody's position. Very few of us are positioned for our dream job right out of college right we have to get some work experience and build up credibility within our profession by building that resume well when it comes to media recognition and awards and everything else and getting speaking opportunities all the other wonderful things people want to do to build their prominence and their fields. Um, you're building from one to the next, so as you build it, you should be climbing the ladder and just building up you know your status as an icon within your profession.

Kalli

Yeah, I mean, that makes complete sense. Um, what if you've applied to an award year after year, and you haven't won it? Should you give up, or is there you know any strategies that you recommend for winning that unattainable award?

Brian

For uh, you know, I missed a little bit of the early part of the question, but when it comes to, I mean, when you've got, you to know, those big-time awards, yeah, I mean again, you've got to build up that resume so you know awards can help you get awards but also things like being a published author within your profession your publishing a book that gives you credibility um you know if you have spoken at big conferences that gives you credibility building up a big a book of business you know getting that AUM over a billion that gives you credibility so look at credibility at you know broadly you know and because a lot of this stuff's interconnected um as you build up one aspect you're gonna see it have a ripple effect on other aspects of your overall credibility within your profession.

Kalli

Yeah, so, um, I find that advisors, uh, need credibility more so than somebody in another industry because, uh, you know, they're handling someone's life savings, so how important would you say an award is to building that credibility?

Brian

Um, you know, I think we broke up a little bit. I did miss the first part. Can you repeat it again?

Kalli

Um, yeah, so I find that advisors need credibility more so than somebody else in another industry because just of the nature of their business. Um, how much weight should they give to awards in building credibility?

Brian

Yeah, no, it's massive in this profession, especially when we look at breakaway teams, you know, when you, when you break away from mother Merrill, and you're now starting your own brand, right? That nobody's heard of, and maybe you have a little bit of credibility behind your own name just because of the work you've done and the reputation you've built, but when you've got a new brand now that you're putting out there and looking to continue to attract new business to this brand um, yeah, the credibility factors got to be there because Kalli like you said, people are trusting their retirement dreams and their wealth and their ability to transfer wealth and everything else that is so essential, you know to to to to just, you know, their experience, you know, you know, as a person, and you know right um, so yes, uh, credibility's got to be there now are awards the only way to get credibility absolutely not. We talked about some of the other ways, um, but awards can catalyze so many of the other forms of credibility that are going to help you build that, so yeah, I would tell any new breakaway team, you know, who's just built a new brand, um, if you want to stick, you know, get an adrenaline shot into that brand, get an award strategy that should be one of the first focuses.

Kalli

I do see. I mean, when we're posting content uh for advisors', awards always get the most attention out of anything that we're posting online. Um, so I do see that on our end, uh, and there are also, it's interesting, it's about 50-50 on people who want to leverage the award and people who don't care, and you know it's rare that I find the middle grounds, they're either one or the other, um, so you know awards, of course, everybody wants the big ones. Uh, like you already mentioned, Forbes, Barons. Um, what do you think is more important for an advisor? Uh, is it more practical to go for local awards, or is it uh better to go for bigger awards because of that new variety, but do you have a preference when you're working with an advisor?

Brian

Yeah, well, advisors should look at their growth strategy, um, so advisors who are using tuck-ins as the primary fuel to build their growth, then looking at those best places to work awards can be huge because those are going to stand out to advisors who are looking for a new home and bringing their book of business with them so things like that absolutely um if that's the primary driver of your growth then that's where you're going to see the most bang for your buck and the time that you put into this strategy, um if attracting um or you know, organic growth, you know, through new client acquisition. If that is going to be the drive, the primary path for your growth, then um yeah, you know, winning some of those 40 under the 40s putting, putting a face behind the brand and showing yourself as a local business leader and so forth, um can be a huge driver or just you know portraying the image of growth in and of itself it's going to give you that credibility factor that's going to resonate with these perspective clients. Now Kalli, what you alluded to um before is, um, you know, some advisors win these awards and then don't know what to do with them, yes or do nothing or do nothing with them, yes um, so shameless plug so this fall I'm publishing a book Credibility Marketing uh check it out um but credibility marketing is all about that you know earning credibility is half the battle but then you know integrating it into your branding and marketing verticals that's where you're going to see the impact yeah that's where you can open new pipelines for growth if you're earning credibility and doing nothing with it you're going to see very little impact from it you know we talked about award if you appear on CNBC. You don't post that clip to your social media feed. You don't get it up on your website. You won't integrate it into your email marketing. What are the odds somebody's just gonna see you on CNBC and say yeah, I want him as much I want him to my financial advisor? I'm going to call him. That almost never happens exactly, but when you've been referred to a potential client. They go to your website and see that you had recently been on CNBC, or if they Google you, and when they Google you, they see awards and media appearances and everything else. That's what's going to accelerate growth for you. Still, if you're not properly leveraging it, you're not going to see that type of growth through these efforts. We're all going to be there.

Kalli

Preach! Amen!
And something that I've seen on my end is, uh, definitely the emailing it out is a huge part of it, um, so yes, social media that's always what gets the most attention when we're posting, but if you email something out I can guarantee you're gonna get double the views that you would have by just putting it out there because especially in today's online world there's just too many notifications on each platform. You just can't see everything even if, as the business, you're paying for people to see it; there's just too much, um, so yes, I completely agree with you share it. I know sometimes, um, you know, advisors are a little bit hesitant because they, uh, they don't want to come across as arrogant or tooting their own horn. Still, on the other hand, I feel like it's very important that you are sharing these things. Of course, there is a good way to do it and a not-so-good way to do it, uh. Still, I think it's better to share it than not share it.

Brian

Absolutely and there are tasteful ways that you can do it, so let's say you were included in a 40 under 40 list for investment news, um, you know, a good way that you can share it without coming off as overly boastful you know you don't want to be like, hey, look at me. Look at how amazing I am now of; course; of course, you don't want to do that, but going in and saying I'm so humbled to be among this amazing group of my colleagues, you know, my peers blah blah blah, that's the type of language that's going to make a good impact and not make you come up overly boastful listen, if you are a growth-minded advisory firm, there there's nothing to be proud of being the best-kept secret um if you are that good at what you do people should know that, yeah, and you need a strategy in place to let people know that, yeah.

Kalli

Um, and you know also for I think people who are feeling also I don't want to add to the problem like oh, LinkedIn and social media, we're all just showing off the good things nobody's showing off the hard things, but I think you can also do it in both ways you can share that award that you won but also talk about how hard it was to get there like it doesn't have to be one or the other you can combine them in a way that is authentic but also showing your credit.

Brian

I love that, you know, listen in America; especially, we love underdog stories. Yeah, we eat them up. I'm here in Philadelphia. We have a statue of a fictional character Rocky at the Art Museum. Um, that's how much America loves underdogs, so when you win these awards feel free to be a little bit raw about it. I'll tell you what, especially some of my earliest awards and recognition I won, I talked about that, yeah, you know, I talked about how when I graduated college looking to start my career in public relations, I couldn't even get an interview with a Philadelphia PR agency, so go from that to owning one and winning National recognition within my profession that meant something to me and. I was very raw about it, and it resonates with people, nobody, like no nobody. I mean, yes, there are people who are born with the silver spoon and do great things that that's wonderful, you know, don't take anything away from them, um, but the people who claw and grind and work for it be raw because Americans love those stories yeah eat them up.

Kalli

Yeah, absolutely, um, you know, as people are answering questions on these award nominations, uh, any tips for them on how to answer them?

Brian

Yeah, so I'm glad you asked this so. So the past few years now, I've been a judge for PR news, um, their annual award series, um, so I just a few weeks ago, I got done judging one of the categories I looked at. I think there were about a dozen nominations for this one category um, and some of the nominations I got were literally just copied and pasted boilerplate information from their website clearly; I wasn't picking those; um, some of them were clearly written by Chat GPT. I wasn't picking those either. Yeah, it's very easy to not the people who are thoughtful with their nominations versus those who are just going through the motions because yeah, and often I mean, I can pull it out, you know, if it's a junior level employee who is just trying to check a box my boss asked me to fill this out so here it is um. Still, they put absolutely no thought no creativity, no connection behind it, um, those. Probably you're probably not going to be successful if that's the type of system and operation that you have put some thought put a little bit of thought and human touch into these. It's gonna go a long way. It's that that's what it's going to take to stand out, especially with some of the more
competitive awards.

Kalli

Just like a resume, I'm hearing when you're applying to a job, you know, uh, does it have a personal cover letter, or is like clearly something that you just switched out the name? Um, what else is there anything else that advisors should know when it comes to award applications that we haven't talked about?

Brian

Um, you know, I do think definitely one of the first things we touched on was building that system in strategy. Think about who you want to work with to create that strategy. Is it something you want to manage yourself? Do you have time to manage it yourself? Is it something that an admin assistant, who doesn't necessarily come from a marketing background, but is it something they could do? Suppose the answer to the first two were no. In that case, you might want to talk to a consultant, an agency like mine, um, you know, somebody who specializes in these, who knows all of these awards inside and out, knows who's judging them, what they look for, and what's going to give you the best chance to be successful in it now that's going to come with a cost, but if you're using all that time internally, there's a cost to that too, so I mean, think about how much you want to prioritize it, what you want to accomplish, and what you're willing to pay and invest into making this a part of your branding and growth strategy.

Kalli

Yeah, that's a great point, um and I think you hid the nail on the head there do they have time because, in my experience, no not to do it properly. Sure, if after you've hit that really high mark, uh, you get asked, you know, they reach out to you, but before you get to that point, uh, I think it's worth investing. Getting help, um, even as somebody who used to somewhat consult on doing that it's very time consuming it's better to have someone who knows what they're doing do it right uh awesome all right well thank you, Brian, uh this was I mean I found this to be very insightful conversation. Again on behalf of my team, we thank you for offering the service so we don't have to.

Brian

Kalli, absolutely.

Kalli

Talk soon. Yeah sounds good, and thank you to everyone who joined us today. Uh, join us next month to talk about FBA press resources available to FPA members that you probably didn't know about, and if you are part of the FPA, make sure to sign up for the annual conference and attend my session on effective digital marketing strategies on the afternoon of the 27th, so thanks for joining and if you're not already, get Savvy at the following link, which is there. All right, thank you everybody.

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