By Joanna Belbey.
As people get older, their wealth is inherited by younger generations.
Today, the Boomer generation holds a great deal of wealth which has begun shifting to their children, and will shift eventually to their children. To avoid losing out, Financial Advisors and Producers need to be prepared for this shift, and for the differences in how these generations find trusted advisors to help them manage that wealth.
The Boomer generation is comfortable with the financial advisors they have. And if they haven’t one, they’re used to the traditional ways of finding one: word of mouth and personal introductions. Younger clients are much more savvy than that. They know that if to find someone who is reliable and good at their job – you have to do the research.
Boomer clients passing wealth on to a generation that lives on social media.
Increasingly, these younger clients are turning to their social networks for the same advice their parents would have asked by word-of-mouth, and researching referrals on networks like LinkedIn. For Financial Advisors who trying to acquire these new clients, chances that using traditional means isn’t going to be successful.
Young people have turned to social networks and instant messaging as their primary means of communication. That’s because modalities like Instant Messaging are real-time, and social networks are collaborative. They can get the information faster, and they can get it from more people who play off of each other’s ideas. So it’s no surprise that social networks are overwhelmingly used by younger generations. In fact, over half of LinkedIn’s users are between 25- and 44-years old. Have you made the connection yet? Your traditional Boomer client is passing wealth on to a generation that lives on social media.
Many of these Millennials have cut the cord. They may not have touched a landline telephone ever at all in their lives. However, they are connected to the Internet 24/7 – they consume data wherever they go, whenever they can get a connection.
The End of The Cold Call
Even though email is still the most popular way to communicate online, its growth has started to slow. Young people have turned to social networks and instant messaging as their primary means of communication. That’s because modalities like Instant Messaging are real-time, and social networks are collaborative. They can get the information faster, and they can get it from more people who play off of each other’s ideas. So it’s no surprise that social networks are overwhelmingly used by younger generations. In fact, over half of LinkedIn’s users are between 25- and 44-years old. So how do you reach this group? Phone? Most sales people dread making cold calls, plus this generation doesn’t use the phone much. Email? Yes, it still works, but continues to decrease in effectiveness.
However, sales people are beginning to discover that Social Media is doing away with the need to ever make another cold call or send an email blast again. For example, one of our insurance clients provided a profile of an “ideal client” for whole life to their junior agents. One agent looked through his LinkedIn Connections and identified 200 Connections on that fill the bill. Working with his Compliance Department, an InMail was crafted, approved and sent. Of the 200 folks that received the InMail, 158 responded. Of those, 33 actually requested a proposal for life insurance. Most people would agree that those are great percentages and we’re looking forward to hearing how many policies he closes by the end of the year
Younger generations have different traits than their predecessors. Our research tells us that Generation Y is the most educated, confident, globally mobile, technology aware cohort in history. This group will change jobs more frequently, put a greater emphasis on flexibility in how and where they work, have increased life expectancies, and care deeply about their broader communities. PWC
So you know you need to engage with your clients across generations, you know that in order to do that, you need to be where they are – on social, on mobile – the problem is that a lot of advisors haven’t recognized this shift. They’re still using old selling techniques that don’t work in a new social, mobile world.
Get In Front Of Clients
This is a tremendous opportunity for financial advisors who are trying to attract a new, younger, and technologically savvy audience. As the world goes increasingly mobile, your next clients are connected virtually every waking hour and on multiple screens, so it’s critical that you have a presence on social so that you can be in front of prospective clients as much as possible.
Social media has become the place where people get news and information about their personal and professional worlds. News feeds of current events now keep us aware of the latest developments around the world in politics, culture, and technology. Businesses have taken note of this new news medium, and have started using it as a new way to disclose their own company information like product developments and quarterly or annual financial results. This is especially true now that the SEC has agreed that social media is an appropriate outlet to announce key company information. It took this step as a reaction to Reed Hastings disclosure of important company news on social. In doing so, Hastings sent Netflix stock and the financial word into a state of frenzy, and regulators had to react quickly to keep up the pace with social networks being used as a new form of public communication.
So How Can You get Started?
One way to start is with LinkedIn – the network of choice for young, educated, high-income earners. But in order to reach that opportunity, you don’t just need to BE on LinkedIn, you need to PARTICIPATE.
Sharing content and interacting with these people is the only way to gain their trust in an authentic, personalized way. It’s imperative that you engage with these clients, but also that you use their connections on social to help find new ones.
LinkedIn is the ultimate personal branding platform. LinkedIn provides one of the best opportunities to increase your visibility and credibility with members of your brand community. It lets you stay connected to large networks of contacts. Using all the features of this powerful online tool will help you paint a compelling picture of who you are in the real world. Be sure to adhere to your firms guidelines when using LinkedIn.
People are researching you. All kinds of people use all kinds of ways to learn about you. LinkedIn gives you an opportunity to control what they discover about your strengths and, more important, about your brand. Who are these people? People you know. People who want to know you. People who matter: Your prospects, employees, manager, clients, competitors. They all use LinkedIn to learn about others. They search for you before meeting you for the first time, or after reading an article that you were featured in, or when deciding whether to respond to your email.
7 Tips For Getting Started on LinkedIn
1. Complete Profile — It’s important that when you build your profile as completely as you can possibly make it. Consider this your resume, and you want to be sure whoever reads it has a very clear understanding of your qualifications and achievements.
2. Great Photo — Make the effort of having a terrific photo. It’s the first thing that people see and you want it to be engaging. Dress the way you would meet with clients. And for heaven’s sakes, don’t use some photo that has an arm draped over your shoulder, or in an amusement park or during your last trip to Vegas. Stay professional. It’s often best to hire a professional photographer so you look your best.
3. Include Personal Information — Most financial advisors getting started on social media struggle with the concept of personal v professional information. That train has left the station. On social media and with this generation specifically there is an expectation of transparency. Include your personal experiences beyond the workplace. Include where you went to school, the languages you speak, the personal certifications you’ve taken time to earn. And don’t stop there. As we do business with people we will like and with whom we share interests, share your passions. Maybe you’ve attended 300 Bruce Springsteen concerts, directed a short film, volunteer at the local food bank or PTA. All of these things help people see you as a more well-rounded person, one who is more relatable.
4. Make Connections — Once your profile is complete, reach out and make as many connections as you can. Contact and communicate with your friends, school buddies, colleagues, former colleagues, current and former clients. Don’t skip people because they are not your target audience. It’s really their connections that you want to access. Do not use the standard message that LinkedIn provides. It’s important to write a personal note when you reach out. You may want to remind people how you know them as well. Once you have at least 250 connections, you can begin to do research to look for prospects. By conducting searches and looking through the connections of your connections (2nd degree connections), you can either reach out directly or you may ask your connections for an introduction. Provide a strong reason, but, don’t pitch. Think about why should they be interested in you. How can you help them? What common interested do you share?
5. Share Content — The underlying theme of social media is to be helpful. One way to be helpful is to share engaging, relevant content with your connections. Establish a reputation for expertise of specific topics that will be interesting to your connections and clients. Your firm may have a library of preapproved content that you may use. If not, find out the process for sharing personalized content. You may want to spend some time each day looking through articles or blogs that you would like to share. Sharing content that others post is an easy way to get started.
6. Listen — Social media is not a megaphone. You want to share, but, you also want to listen. Watch your connections’ activities, anniversaries they are celebrating, promotions they are earning, blogs that they are writing, events they are attending. Reach out and congratulate them. “Money in Motion” events are the times that people are most likely to want to have a discussion about their financial future. Timing is key.
7. Stay Engaged — Expanding your network by making new connections is something you should try to do every day. When you meet a new person in person at meeting or event, connect with them right away. LinkedIn will continue to offer up suggestions for new connections. Or feel free to reach out to speakers at events or on webinars once you get back to the office. When you make new connections, their connections and yours see that activity. That’s a great opportunity to get someone to click on your name to find out more about you, or to ask someone they know why they may have connected with you in the first place. Keep sharing content to stay top of mind. And, most important, have some fun. Social media is just another way to connect and do what your love doing, help people build their financial future.
To conclude, take the steps today to position yourself as a trusted advisor for the next wave of wealth.
This post was provided by Joanna Belbey. As Social Media and Compliance Specialist for Actiance, Inc, Joanna Belbey helps regulated firms use social media effectively while complying with rules and regulations. Joanna is an enthusiastic user of social media (follow her on Twitter @belbey) and her background includes leading the development and delivery of more than 350 compliance educational programs per year for Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Connect with her on Linkedin.
Actiance delivers a unified platform that allows firms to manage all electronic communications and collaboration. This article appeared previously on the Actiance Blog Sept. 11, 2014. View the original article here.
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