Episode 7: Adrian Salamunovic

Patrick : 02:25 What recommendations would you have for an advisor who's trying to build, let's say, a persona or some type of archetype? One of the popular topics in our industry right now is this idea of niching, focusing on a very specific individual.

Patrick : 02:38 What are your thoughts on the idea of the niche and then also, can you elaborate on how an advisor could select that niche and build out that persona?

Adrian: 02:48 Yeah, that's such a good question. There's riches and niches, right? And the more focused you can be on a particular niche, whether it's lawyers, doctors or any type of professional or any type of age range, then you're able to really focus and focus is critical.

Adrian: 03:06 When you're developing and picking out those niches, you want to go after a niche that A, that you know inside out and really focus everything in your messaging around that. And of course, a persona documents where you start, so how do you develop a persona?

Adrian: 03:24 Well, there's a couple of ways. One of the things that we heavily encourage you to do is create a simple short survey and you can use Typeform.com, great service, or Survey Monkey, to just develop a simple, simple survey and you want to ask them things like age range, who they follow on social media. What publications they go to for information. Even what books they've read.

Adrian: 03:50 What that's going to help you do is surface information that will help you understand who you can partner with, who you can co-create articles with or even who you can reach out to as partners, to help get in front of their audience. That's a really critical step.

Patrick : 04:06 Okay. 'Cause I see, with a lot of advisors and their website, their communication strategies, one of the things you mentioned that they're lacking is focus. It's so critical because if you're putting out things into the world and you're saying, I help families and people that are getting close to retirement plan for retirement. That's not compelling to anyone.

Patrick : 04:28 But if you put out a statement that says I help plastic surgeons increase their savings and accelerate their retirement by five years by employing some type of a tax strategy or something like that, you're able to capture the attention of someone very quickly, who is in that demographic. Then you're able to hit them with a very relevant statement, that they can identify with, because they're in that demographic.

Adrian: 04:50 Yeah, exactly and you should be able to almost close your eyes and see that client. The more you understand about them, the more you live, breathe and eat everything that they're doing, the more you're going to be able to relate to them and the more relatable you're going to be.

Adrian: 05:05 And you really should look at yourself as an advisor. You should look at yourself as a brand. Not just a company you work for, but you as an individual. What is your brand? That's where we really like to spend a lot of time, is developing personal brands.

Patrick : 05:21 Talk me through the personal brand a little bit 'cause I do think that's also really important in our industry. I'm a firm believer that an advisor, they are the brand. Them as a person. The company's fine. The company's kind of there as a backstop for credibility and facilitating the offer, but the advisor, by them sharing their personal experiences, beliefs, stories, everything that they know and hold to be true, they're able to cut through the noise and kind of build the human connection.

Patrick : 05:43 What are your thoughts on personal branding? How does an advisor get there? What should they be thinking about?

Adrian: 05:50 Yeah, man, you start off with your target market, right? Identifying a market that is suitable to you, that you understand and that's hopefully an identifiable market. When you understand what their concerns are, what their aspirations are, and all those things that we talked about in the personas document, the next thing you want to think about is almost to reverse.

Adrian: 06:11 You want to think, you want to be the blank that they fill in. For example, when people think of getting media or PR, I want them to think Adrian Salamunovic. That's why I wrote a book called Free PR, right? Everything I talk about, in every channel, on social media, Twitter, whether I'm on a podcast or television interview, or doing an interview like this, I focus on PR. Free PR.

Adrian: 06:37 And so you want to think about what is your blank that you want to fill in. What is the statement that when people think Patrick Brewer, what's the next thing you want them to think about and then it's your job to fill in that blank by creating compelling content, getting on the right channels and always keeping your messaging consistent.

Adrian: 06:54 Because the one thing that's going to follow you throughout your entire life is you, your name, your personal brand. Whether you change firms or change the name of your company, you are your own brand.

Patrick : 07:05 What do you think about advisors who are unwilling to, let's say, make that change or that shift and they maintain kind of a generic web presence, a generic brand, where they're trying to be jack of all trades and a general financial planner, so to speak? What do you think is the future for someone who remains in that camp?

Adrian: 07:23 Yeah, I mean, do the same things, get the same results, right? It's the definition of insanity. You're doing the same things over and over.

Patrick : 07:30 Yep.

Adrian: 07:31 And you're wondering why you're not growing, why you're not getting as many referrals. The key is being open minded. First of all to change and then working with experts, such as your firm, which really understands this concept, to really identify where the opportunities are and what you want to become.

Adrian: 07:49 Be a bit aspirational. Say this is the type of brand I want to create and be willing to get help.

Patrick : 07:55 Yeah.

Adrian: 07:57 I've done this myself. I've invested tens of thousands of dollars into my brands over the years and it's one of the best investments you can make. Saying, look, I need help. My growth isn't where it needs to be. My brand isn't where it needs to be. Who can help me get to where I need to get to?

Patrick : 08:14 Yeah, so let's say the advisor takes your advice. They seek someone out. They get help building a personal brand that has a clarified position in the market. They work on some messaging that could potentially connect them with that audience, that is now more narrowed down.

Patrick : 08:29 What strategies, platforms, things, are you seeing that could potentially be effective for today's financial advisor and bridging that gap, building brands?

Adrian: 08:40 Let's get right into it. I mean, the areas that I'm most excited about is podcasting.

Patrick : 08:44 Okay.

Adrian: 08:45 We're doing it right now, right?

Patrick : 08:46 Yep.

Adrian: 08:47 Podcasting is probably the biggest opportunity in free PR right now. The crazy thing is, it's free. Virtually free. You're not paying me. I'm not paying you. But here we are, having a conversation. There are people like you listening right now, to us. It's one of the most effective forms of free advertising and it's not going to be like this forever.

Adrian: 09:11 Podcasting is growing really rapidly, so if you're not reaching out to your community, through podcasts, you are missing the boat.

Patrick : 09:20 Yeah.

Adrian: 09:20 And if Free PR, we talk about that. We talk about how to identify those niches. How to identify who your customers are listening to and then going after those targets and getting on their podcasts.

Adrian: 09:34 The second thing and flipping it backwards, and I don't need to tell you this, is create your own podcast. Why is it so important to create your own podcast? Because it's probably one of the most effective ways to reach out to the influencers in your space and get their attention.

Patrick : 09:50 Yeah.

Adrian: 09:51 Right?

Patrick : 09:52 Yeah, absolutely.

Adrian: 09:53 You did to me. You reached out and said, hey, I want to interview you. I'm not going to say no to that. And now it's an opportunity for both of us to reach out to our combined audiences with a podcast.

Adrian: 10:03 I'm going to share this podcast after. I'm going to tweet about it. I'm going to add it on my LinkedIn. Chances are, people in my circle are then going to hear about your company for the first time and very possibly reach out to you and it didn't cost you a dollar.

Patrick : 10:17 Yeah, reciprocal audience sharing and that's so huge for an advisor, because a lot of advisors, they're experts in their craft. They have CFPE's, CFA, CPA, they're afraid to be seen as salesmen that are out there in the street hawking product, trying to arm wrestle someone into an insurance policy or something.

Patrick : 10:32 Because really, what financial advice is, is coaching. It's helping mitigate bad decisions that people will make with their money because they're emotionally tied in with the money that they make. If left unchecked, they can make bad decisions, so a lot of advisors, they want the ability to be seen as an expert. They don't want to be put out there with the salespeople.

Patrick : 10:49 I think what I'm hearing from you is podcasting gives you the ability to connect with someone in a way that's not sales-y and you can have a dialog, mediate attention and then it's mutually beneficial for both parties, because you're sharing the episode out to your audience and they're sharing out, or we're sharing out the episode to our audience. So both people will mutually benefit in that situation.

Adrian: 11:12 Exactly. And it's organic and it's natural and it's not disruptive. Outbound sales calls are disruptive. Banner ads are disruptive.

Patrick : 11:20 Yep.

Adrian: 11:20 But a podcast is something I want to listen to and I'm intrinsically getting value from, so podcasting, both reaching out to people in your community that are targeting your target market and creating your own branded podcast are amazing ways to attract clients and create visibility for virtually no cost.

Patrick : 11:40 What would you recommend for the advisors considering a podcast. Do you think they should do more of an interview style or they should be inviting people in from the local community and interviewing them? Or should they do it more as a thought leadership thing, where it's just them talking and trying to shout from the mountaintops and try and get their perspective out?

Patrick : 11:56 What do you think is the best way for them to structure a podcast?

Adrian: 11:59 Well, yeah, all of those do work in different ways, but I definitely like the interview format because then you're reaching out beyond your circle of influence, right?

Adrian: 12:09 So by inviting those guests, you're not only creating new relationships with the guests you put on your show and then in turn, they're sharing it with their network. But you're also not running out of content ideas. You don't have to work as hard. You can let the guest help you, in bringing fresh content and perspectives.

Adrian: 12:29 From a production perspective, a solo podcast can be a lot easier. You don't have to book guests, etc. There's no schedule conflicts. But you're going to run out of ideas in time.

Patrick : 12:41 Yeah.

Adrian: 12:42 I'm a big fan of that. I'm also a big fan of the call in show format. If you can get people to phone and pick your brain for free, that's great content, because then you're not guessing what the audience wants to ask. You are getting content fresh from your customers. Ask Gary V does that. Gary Vaynerchuk, who's big in my world. Has that format show.

Adrian: 13:07 But ultimately, you want to do something that is true to your style and will appeal to your audience. That's why it's so important to understand your audience, before even deciding what format you want to do.

Patrick : 13:18 Yeah, and that's another thing that advisors struggle with. They want help with marketing because that's not their skill set, but they refuse to clarify their market and define their audience. Then they go and hire a marketing company to do lead generation and try and get people to show up. It's like, well, wait, we can't do anything because your message is irrelevant. Just bounces off people.

Adrian: 13:37 Yeah, you're jumping the gun, right?

Patrick : 13:39 Yeah.

Adrian: 13:40 You're jumping the gun. Trying to do marketing, but you don't understand who you're market is. We see this at all levels of companies and it's shocking. We agree. We both agree. We've talked about this.

Patrick : 13:50 Yep.

Adrian: 13:50 Understand your market. Understand them intimately and as detailed as possible. That starts with things like developing a personas document, right? The other thing we see and you probably see this and can tell me, is people don't have the money necessarily to spend on marketing, but the reason they don't have the money to spend on marketing is 'cause they're not doing marketing right.

Adrian: 14:09 So at some point, you have to jump the gun or jump ahead of this and say, look, I'm going to invest into myself. I'm going to invest into my business. And I'm going to stop doing the same things I've been doing for the last five years and take a chance and invest in having somebody help me get there.

Patrick : 14:29 Yeah, yeah. I'm a firm believer, actually, that a financial advisor firm or really any service based business is just a marketing agency. All they're trying to do is get their message out there, get attention, build audience and ultimately convert them and get them to sign up for an offer.

Patrick : 14:42 In our case, in this industry, it's financial planning, investment management, taxes, etc. But if you're not willing to acknowledge that what you're trying to do is get people's attention, and that marketing is critical for doing that and you're always going to struggle, as a business owner, in the financial advice space.

Adrian: 14:58 How long is a sales cycle in your space? That's what I'm really interested in.

Patrick : 15:03 It depends. It could be as quick as two meetings and they sign up. Then they're a client. Or it could be a drawn out multi-year non-linear process, where you meet them once and then they don't have enough issues or maybe you do a point in time financial plan. They take the plan and they implement some of it. They come back because they failed to implement and now they want to become a client.

Patrick : 15:24 So it really depends, but I would say the average, you know, acquisition cycle is anywhere from a month to three months.

Adrian: 15:32 What about pre that first booking? That first in-bound lead. Is this something that you feel that relationship may begins through content or sort of referral, months in advance, years in advance? What have you seen in your industry?

Patrick : 15:51 Yeah, nurture? It takes a while. It's a very personal industry. It's an emotional decision to hand over your money or to disclose personal financial information. Generally, the way that it's worked is you have to build a pretty solid relationship with someone through content or in more analog ways of just meeting them out in life, having dinner, being introduced by a mutual connection.

Patrick : 16:12 But there is an emotional connection, a human connection, that needs to be built and nurtured over time. Whether you're using email marketing or video or really, whatever form of marketing you choose, or all of those, and just going omni-channel, you have to be aware that you need to build a very solid relationship with someone before they're willing to disclose any personal information to you.

Patrick : 16:35 So I would say it's a fairly long nurture cycle.

Adrian: 16:37 Yeah and that's going to take months, if not years of creating compelling content and bringing value and like you said, multi-channels and so I think the people that are going to win in your industry, in the financial advisory industry, are people who are willing to A, create content, create a relationship, bring value first. And do the long game, right?

Patrick : 17:00 Yep.

Adrian: 17:00 And then secondly, who are willing to develop a brand that stands for something, so that when that client, potential client's, eventually ready to look for somebody like you, they know who to think of that can fill in the blank.

Adrian: 17:16 And I think that creating PR and creating unique content is just one of the ways that you can attract those clients, rather than having to be constantly going out and trying to outbound. You can start attracting them through inbound, but it's not overnight, if I'm hearing your right.

Adrian: 17:33 I think I agree, in almost every industry it's about outbound, outbound, outbound and eventually you attract the right ones.

Patrick : 17:41 Yeah, I think there's the exception, right? There's certain people that they have a broken arm in the crowd and they want to come up and have their arm reset, so they get out of pain. There's certain people that, you know, have got to the point where they've gone through a significant enough transition, where they need help.

Patrick : 17:54 But for the most part, it is a multi-month process, where you need to warm them up in a very specific way on specific platforms, based on where your audience consumes information and how they interact. I agree 100%.

Patrick : 18:07 What are your thoughts on PR, in general? A lot of advisors are unfamiliar with what PR even means. The idea of public relations. THat's just a foreign concept to them. Can you kind of break that down simply and maybe give us a way that the average advisor could think about PR and benefit from PR or how they should even start to do that?

Adrian: 18:29 Yeah, PR, the easiest way to summarize creating PR, is leveraging other social networks and other publications in order to get attention for yourself. The way that you do that is by first and foremost, being able to clearly articulate how you're different. What makes you unique?

Adrian: 18:51 Those are story angles. We talk about this in the book. What angles? Well, you might say we provide, some financial advisors might think they're commoditized. Well, we offer the same thing as everybody else.

Adrian: 19:02 Not necessarily, right? That's really where the niching comes down. It's where understanding the needs of your market comes in. What you want to do is first and foremost, figure out what makes you stand out in the marketplace. It could be the culture of your firm, it could be the way you approach the niche. It could be your own thoughts and ideas about how to invest.

Adrian: 19:25 The next thing you need to do is create and articulate that to the journalist, to the influencers in your industry, in a way that's compelling to them and their audience. We cover all of this in the book. It works for everything from service companies to high tech companies. It doesn't really matter.

Adrian: 19:43 If you're a financial advisor or a lawyer or a junk removal service, like my co-founder's actually the former COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK, okay? Probably, they're one of the largest junk removal companies in the world. He grew it from three million to over 200 million dollars, using just PR.

Adrian: 20:05 If a junk removal service can stand out in the marketplace and make their story interesting, interesting enough to get into mainstream media, and niche publications, then we believe anybody can do it.

Patrick : 20:16 Yeah, I agree.

Patrick : 20:18 Hey everyone, thanks for tuning into the podcast. If you like this content, and you want to get more, you can go to ModelFA.com and listen to podcasts, blogs, videos, other resources that are designed to help you grow and scale a profitable advisory practice. You can find this all at ModelFA.com. We'll see you there.

Patrick : 20:38 Let's talk local media for a second, because in our business, I feel like it's hard to replace the handshake. The relationship that needs to be built between us and the public, so that, again, they're comfortable sharing personal financial information. Do advisors, should advisors focus on local media exposure? What are you thoughts around how they could secure more local media exposure? If it is indeed beneficial.

Adrian: 21:04 Yeah, I mean absolutely. In this industry, having that geographic presence, that local presence is usually, my understanding, is that most financial advisors are localized to a certain degree.

Patrick : 21:16 Yep.

Adrian: 21:17 So what you really want to do is become a resource to the local media. An idea, as an example, if there's a radio show, a terrestrial radio show that's local, is approach them and say, look, I'm a financial advisor, I help millennials set up, whatever your niche is, right?

Patrick : 21:37 Yep.

Adrian: 21:37 And you say, I'd like to, for free, I'd like to come on your radio show once a week and do a answer your financial questions. Or if you're targeting moms or you're targeting families, whatever it is, make yourself a resource to that community. Local or international, doesn't matter.

Adrian: 21:56 Bring value first. Do it for free. Get out there. And then repurpose that content. In the example that I gave you, if you could call up the top radio stations, locally, you'd be surprised how open they would be to this. Say, look, I'm willing to come on board for free and host a half hour show. Then, you can record that content and then you can distribute it on your own.

Patrick : 22:15 Yep.

Adrian: 22:16 Your LinkedIn, Facebook.

Patrick : 22:17 Facebook.

Adrian: 22:17 Twitter, whatever it is. You're repurposing that content and if you do that enough, for long enough. You're going to begin attracting clients. That's just one of twelve different ideas that are in the book.

Patrick : 22:28 Oh, yeah. For sure. And then you could even leverage that, if you wanted to, into building on a studio and doing national media. Depending on what your goals are, I mean, you can take that and get that, once that's fully expressed, you can really take it to the next level.

Adrian: 22:41 Yeah, I mean, there's really no shortage of ideas. It's just which one will work best for your niche. I mean, it's a little bit off the PR discussion, but I think launching this book, Free PR, which is available at FreePRbook.com, right. I wouldn't be good at what I do if I didn't do a plug.

Patrick : 22:59 Love it, yeah. It's a great book, I read it. That's why we're sitting here, because I read Adrian's book and I was like, this guy knows what he's talking about. Then we scheduled a call and a couple months later, we're actually co-building a platform for advisors, to help them get the information that they need to become proficient in PR, so they can secure these spots and differentiate themselves because I think it's a huge pain point for our industry.

Patrick : 23:20 Your book is fantastic.

Adrian: 23:21 Which I'm super excited about. Because this is a really interesting niche to me. The whole financial space and how these principles can be applied to it. We wouldn't have met if I didn't author the book, right?

Patrick : 23:33 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adrian: 23:34 And now the book is on Amazon and it's trending number one in several categories. Now, people who have never heard of me, are A, reading what we call the PR bible that we developed, right? And they're learning and drinking the Kool-Aid, which hopefully is good Kool-Aid. I think it is. Developing it over ten years, the whole book.

Adrian: 23:57 They're now becoming advocates of what we preach, which is how to get free PR for your business. By the time they connect with me on social media or reach out to me, they're already on board, right?

Patrick : 24:09 Yeah.

Adrian: 24:09 They're as warm a lead as you could get. And then the other things it does, once you have a book, it opens up the opportunity to do speaking gigs. It opens up the opportunity to do podcasts, like we're doing now. A whole new world opens up and it differentiates you.

Adrian: 24:25 Now you're not just a financial advisor, you're a financial advisor with a book. It just elevates you to that next level. Hopefully, a financial advisor with a best selling book, if you go to the next level.

Patrick : 24:37 Yep.

Adrian: 24:38 Yeah, we worked with a company called Scribe. It's not a cheap process. But they help you market your book. They help you produce your book. I still put in, I would say, 50-80 hours of hard work into just creating this work, but I got help. I knew I needed help to develop the book.

Adrian: 24:59 I was fortunate enough to partner with Cameron Herold, who's already done four best selling books. Anyways, there are ways to partner on a book, develop a book. Even if you want, you can start off with a e-book only. A downloadable PDF, pretty compelling valuable content. Give it away, sell it. Do whatever you have to, but that's how you create the laws of attraction in your industry. Develop value.

Patrick : 25:22 Yeah and I think the book probably wasn't step one for you. You probably, for years, started to create micro-content and eventually it became to the point where you had a fully formed system that is now expressed through Free PR, right?

Adrian: 25:36 Yeah, we're talking over a decade of in the trenches, as a entrepreneur, applying these solutions, these techniques, I should say, based on real pain points. I wish somebody had written this book. I wish I could have read it ten years ago.

Adrian: 25:51 But I don't think you need ten years in the trenches experience.

Patrick : 25:54 Nah.

Adrian: 25:54 I think what you need is a good idea and solving a specific problem and then develop the book and even give it away. I mean, you don't have to sell it. A book is not a moneymaker. It's what I call the world's most effective brochure, right?

Patrick : 26:07 Yep. It's a door opener.

Adrian: 26:09 You know, it's a great door opener. It's a great branding tool. It requires you to think long term, right? It's not one click and you get a lead. It's about playing the long game.

Patrick : 26:19 Well, it's the only game to play in today's environment. I mean, there's so much noise. There's so many people that are vying for attention, that if you're not willing to play the long game or at least the intermediate game, why are you in business? You know?

Patrick : 26:32 You're going to get washed out by people who are willing to invest in things that are going to pay off for them over five, ten, fifteen, twenty plus years. I think it's important for the listeners to know that the short game, I mean, Adrian, from your perspective, do you see a lot of business owners that play the short game and have tremendous results?

Patrick : 26:48 I mean, what has been your experience over the ten year period, kind of consulting on these types of things?

Adrian: 26:53 Never seen it once. I've never seen anybody playing the short game succeed. I see people get small wins for a short amount of time, but every single entrepreneur that I know, is playing the decades long game. Right?

Adrian: 27:08 In their mind, they're playing the decades long game. 100%, you want to think of yourself, you're going to be on this planet a long time. You're your own personal brand. Treat yourself like that and think of the long game.

Adrian: 27:22 Do things for, do everything thinking long term. There are little things that tend to work, here and there. In the short term. But they usually quickly go away. The long game will never, never go out of style.

Patrick : 27:35 Yeah. I agree. Outside of a book, podcast, let's talk about guest podcasting for once second, because I know a lot of advisors are just confused about how that process could even work. What type of methodology do you recommend for someone to be able to get on someone else's podcast?

Patrick : 27:53 How should advisors be thinking about that?

Adrian: 27:55 Yeah. Once again, it's always going to come back to your target market, so you can't even do this until you really understand who you're trying to go after, right? Age range, where that fits, all that stuff.

Adrian: 28:08 As part of developing your persona, you want to survey and speak to your existing customers and you want to speak to your best customers. You just want to ask them, what podcast do you listen to? Who do you follow on social media? Work backwards, right?

Adrian: 28:21 They'll give you the answers and then once you have that list and it could be a dozen, it could be fifty different podcasts and people on Twitter that your customers follow, you want to start approaching them, one by one and you want to lead with value.

Adrian: 28:37 You want to say, look, I'm an expert in X. I'm an expert at X. I think that your audience is really interested in what I do and I would love to come on your podcast and talk about X. I'll promote the podcast to my followers and you can do the same.

Adrian: 28:54 That works really well when you're targeting podcasters that have a similar size audience as you.

Patrick : 29:01 Yep.

Adrian: 29:01 But it can also work if you're going after giants. I've been on podcasts where they have hundreds of thousands of followers and they just wanted to be able to pick my brain.

Patrick : 29:11 Hmmm.

Adrian: 29:12 So target people in your industry that your audience is already listening to. Approach them on Twitter with a direct message or find their email address, in the book we teach you exactly how to do this. Step by step.

Patrick : 29:25 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adrian: 29:25 Just introduce yourself, but always lead with value.

Patrick : 29:28 Yeah. Let's talk about the PR boot camp for a second. We have someone from my team that is working with you to kind of develop that out, for the financial niche. How does it differ from a more traditional PR company, in your mind? I have my own opinions and that's why you and I are sitting here today, as buddies, because you delivered a solution that I think is 100% relevant for what people need in today's environment.

Patrick : 29:51 But what are your thoughts on more traditional PR companies and processes and things that maybe advisors have used in the past or are considering using?

Adrian: 29:59 Most of the time, PR firms and outside publicists don't work. I know it sounds crazy, but I'll explain why. The way PR firms typically work is they have many clients and when you approach them, they give you the great sales pitch, the deck, the logos, all the stuff they've done in the past.

Adrian: 30:19 And a partner comes out and meets you and it's really impressive, but then the minute you sign your contract, you've got a very junior person doing the pitching for you. They're not as passionate as you about your business. They don't even understand your business at the same level as you do.

Adrian: 30:34 The secret is, journalists and influencers love to hear from the founders of these companies because, Patrick, if you think about it, no one as great as your team is, no one can sell the Brewer consulting experience and the story of Brewer consulting better than the founder, right?

Patrick : 30:51 Yeah. It's tough.

Adrian: 30:52 You can train people to do it, for sure, internally, but you want to have either an internal dedicated person doing this.

Patrick : 30:57 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adrian: 30:58 Or the founder doing this, because that's what journalists want to hear from. They want to hear from you.

Patrick : 31:02 Yeah.

Adrian: 31:02 They really do. And that's what it boils down to. What we do is we teach founder driven companies and founders how they can set up their PR internally. Whether they want to do it themselves, if they're a smaller shop. Whether they want to train somebody internally to do it, either part time or full time.

Adrian: 31:24 We give you everything that I've done over the years to hire internal teams. Same thing with Cameron. 1-800-GOT-JUNK and ourselves. We built our teams internally and it's a very cost effective way to get PR all the time.

Patrick : 31:38 Yeah. That kind of aligns with my philosophy, which is, with our Brewer elite platform, specifically, we start with a deep dive on marketing strategy, because if you don't understand strategy, you could never outsource services, because you're just going to start buying Facebook ads or you'll buy something on LinkedIn. Or you'll buy the next widget.

Patrick : 31:56 But step one is you need to understand who you're serving, so personas. And then what is the actual strategy that's going to work, based on the persona that you're targeting and it's possible that PR could be a massive component of that strategy and it's also possible it could be a sub component.

Patrick : 32:11 But the first step is strategy, so I think, Adrian, between what you and I are building, with the rebranded version of the PR boot camp, I think we're going to have a pretty solid solution for advisors, increasing their authority in expert positioning in the industry.

Adrian: 32:24 Yeah, I'm super excited about it. I don't think there's anything else out there like it. I'm excited to work with you on it.

Patrick : 32:31 So are there any other techniques or strategies that you feel would work well for the financial advice industry?

Adrian: 32:37 Yeah, the big one that we almost didn't talk about, but this one's really important, is the content strateger. Being a contributing content strategy. What is that? That's when you approach an online publication, could be a blog, but it could also be a newspaper or magazine that's targeting your niche.

Adrian: 32:56 You'd say to them, I'm willing to write an article for your publication and here's a sample article. So the way that would work is you would go on Medium or LinkedIn or your own blog, create a great article. A really valuable article. Could be a list article. Could be a tips article. Whatever it is.

Adrian: 33:17 Then you write the article and if you're not a great writer, you can always find a ghost writer.

Patrick : 33:22 Yeah, a copywriter.

Adrian: 33:22 They're not hard to find. Get him or her to write the article for you. Then, get a lot of people to put some likes, comments and things like that, so the article should look like it's been well received. Okay? Before you do this.

Adrian: 33:35 Then you can approach the biggest publications in your vertical industry or locally, whatever you're trying to go after. You point them to the article and say, see this article, it got 150 likes. Generated 15 comments. It's a really well received article. There's more where that came from. I would love to contribute to your blog or publication and I'll do it for free. Yeah, I'd love to.

Adrian: 33:59 So basically, the publication wins because normally they have to pay to have articles written. But here you are offering them a free article. We've done this kind of thing with Fortune and Forbes. Even Tech Crunch. But you could do it at any size publication.

Patrick : 34:14 Yeah, the other benefit of that is, if they actually link back to your website, you're getting the domain authority from potentially a site that's been in existence for a while, that has pretty domain authority, so it'll help you out for SEO, too.

Adrian: 34:25 Yeah, absolutely. SEO and just generally branding. I mean, it's free advertising. It's one of the most powerful techniques, but you need to create that first great article. What we've developed is a surefire way to get into publications like Forbes. Where, pretty much guarantee that you can get an article in there. That's part of the PR boot camp.

Patrick : 34:48 Yeah. Kind of using that as a cornerstone article to then launch the campaign out. Kind of get other people bought in, based on the credibility of the first article.

Adrian: 34:57 Yeah, because if you think about it, if you're approaching your local, say, your local business journal, the editor gets a letter from you, saying, hey, my name is Patrick. Here's what I do. I run a company locally and oh, by the way, if you want to see a sample of my article, here it is on Forbes.

Adrian: 35:13 That's going to work even better than if you're just linking them to your blog or your LinkedIn or something like that.

Patrick : 35:19 For sure.

Adrian: 35:20 But you've got to start somewhere.

Patrick : 35:21 Yeah and in advisor speak I guess it's when you're sitting down and you have a CFA or a CPA or a CFP, it's a lot better than having a weekend credential from the Wharton School of Business, that you spent two days and now you have some letters after your name. So just higher level of authority and expert positioning.

Adrian: 35:38 I'll trust you on that translation, but that does make sense to me.

Patrick : 35:41 Yeah. Awesome man. Well, I appreciate you coming on the podcast. It's been great having this conversation with you. Thanks again for coming in.

Adrian: 35:47 Always enjoy jamming with you.

Patrick : 35:49 All right, brother. Talk to you soon.

Adrian: 35:50 Take care.