Susan B. Weiner Investment Writing - Susan B. Weiner Blog

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

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If you’re an introverted perfectionist like me, you never feel as if you make enough great contacts at networking meetings. These occasions felt like Olympic-sized failures until I
became more creative and forgiving of myself.

Here are some of the strategies that have helped me.

1. Seek out people who are by themselves.

They may also suffer pangs of shyness.

2. Focus your conversation on the other people.

People love to talk about themselves. Asking questions is a great way to soften them up. Also, you’ll be most memorable if you can offer some information that helps them.

3. Introduce people.

Take the initiative to introduce people who may not know one another. A variation on this is to take a friend and focus on introducing him or her.

4. Use unusual techniques to attract attention.

My favorite is the tag technique I discussed in “Introverts, steal this idea for your next conference!”

5. Lower your expectations.

These days I attend meetings with the goal of making two or three good contacts. This takes the pressure off my perfectionist self.

6. Find out ahead of time who’s attending the meeting, so you can arrange to meet.

This sounds like a great idea, but it hasn’t worked well for me. Invariably, something derails these plans.

Bonus tip

Follow up promptly after meeting people. It’s best to contact them before they forget who you are. I recommend that you do not add them to your e-newsletter list without asking first.

What’s your favorite networking survival strategy? Please answer the poll in this blog’s right-hand column. I’ll report on the results in my next newsletter.

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

BlackRock is running an eye-catching ad campaign. You can’t miss it if you read publications such as The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times.

Screen shot from BlackRock's Investing for a New World website--Click on the image to visit the site.

Ad appeals to the analytical

The ad campaign takes an analytical rather than an emotional approach to appealing to readers. It basically says, “you’ve got an investment problem, we’ve got an answer.” The problem is defined in terms of yields, volatility, and confidence.

This befits an asset manager that has “embraced a new standard of analytical rigor,” as stated in the firm’s ad in the March 15, 2012 Wall Street Journal (all references below are to this ad because it’s the one I saved). It’s also good for reaching financial advisors and institutional investors who favor the analytical.

Emotions sneak in

There’s a bit of an emotional appeal in this BlackRock ad. The fourth line in the headline says “Confidence is scarce.” This may attract the attention of readers who worry about their financial future.

There’s more text that appeals to emotions. “So what do I do with my money?” is a question that evokes anxiety. The next block of the ad ties this question to widely held concerns including

• When will I be able to retire?
• Will I be able to pay for my children’s education?
• Will I outlive my savings?

However, these questions aren’t in large type, so a casual viewer may miss them.

Still, this ad stands out from the crowd of ads that use hackneyed images of happy families and retirees. The graphics don’t look like anything I remember seeing.

Your opinion?

What do YOU think of this ad? I’d like to hear your opinions.

If you didn’t catch the ads, check out BlackRock’s Investing for a New World website that’s tied to the ad campaign. If you’d like to learn more about the firm’s strategy, see BlackRock’s press release about its new initiative.

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

“What do you think?” is a weak ending to an email, according to Power Sales Writing: Using Communication to Turn Prospects into Clients by Sue Hershkowitz-Coore.

I said “uh oh” to myself upon reading this because I’ve used this in emails accompanying proposals. Hershkowitz-Coore suggests you encourage your reader “to give you the result you want by offering your opinion and asking for her approval.” She prefers a closing such as “Please let me know which direction you prefer, and with your approval, I’ll move ahead. “

I like the idea of nudging prospects in the right direction, but I also want to show that I’m open to my prospect’s feedback.

There must be a middle ground. What do YOU think?

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Example of guest post by Margaret Patterson--You can click on the photo to see the post.

What if you wrote a guest post and nobody realized you were the author? I’ve read guest contributions on blogs that hid their author’s identity so well, I thought the host was the author. If you follow my tips, this won’t happen to you.

1. Ask your host to insert your byline into the post.

When “By Jane Advisor” runs prominently near the top of the post, it’s easy to identify the author.

2. Provide a head shot photo to run with your guest post.

Some readers respond better to visual cues than words. A photo leaves no doubt that the blog host is not the author.

3. Ask your host to run a brief bio, including at least one link.

A bio is your one chance for overt promotion when you guest blog. Provide the bio to your host, rather than relying on him or her to write something suitable. Include at least one link in your bio. Good candidates: your website or your strongest social media page. Another possibility is to link to a landing page where you make a special offer to the readers of your guest post.

To see sample guest posts…

…click on some of the links in my “Guest bloggers: 2011 in review” post.

More on guest posts

Wondering how you can snare a guest post? Check out this link: Audiocast: How to Guest-Blog on Personal Finance or Investments.

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

If you’re planning your first webinar, don’t forget to plan for audience participation. People who participate learn more and will give you better evaluations. I first

Photo: Mario's Planet

learned this when I developed and led custom workshops on “How to Do Business with the Japanese” back in the 1980s. My financial writing workshops have only reinforced this lesson. In this post, I’ll share some practical tips I learned preparing for my first webinar.

1. Ask up front for participation

People won’t make comments or ask questions if you don’t encourage them. Tell people at the beginning of your presentation that you’d like them to participate.

2. Tell your audience where and how to pose questions

It may not be obvious to your audience where they can type in their questions. Tell them where to go. You might even point to it in one of your slides.

3. Ask them questions

Prepare questions to ask your audience early on. This will get them involved. Plus, it will give you a sense of how they’re responding to your material.

You have options.

• Polls are easy for your audience to answer.
• Yes-no questions require only a little typing.
• More complex questions can also work.

4. Don’t expect instantaneous responses by your audience

It takes time for people to input their responses, even when they simply click a button to answer your poll. Don’t get caught off guard by this. Instead, plan some patter to fill the time as you wait.

5. Encourage participation by responding

If you ask for participation, but fail to acknowledge audience participation, your audience will stop responding. Plan to integrate audience responses into your presentation. Answer their questions and mention at least some of their responses to questions you pose. I took this one step further by basing a blog post on some of the responses I received to a question I posed in a webinar.

6. Have a colleague help you

You may find it overwhelming to sort through your audience’s input. So, don’t go it alone. Ask a colleague to view the audience’s questions or answers and feed them to you. I found this very helpful in reducing my stress while I was presenting.

Can YOU add suggestions?

If you can add suggestions for attracting audience participation, please do. I look forward to hearing from you.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Investment and wealth management executives like to talk about themselves. Who doesn’t? But this hurts their firms when it’s reflected in their marketing.

Photo: World Series Boxing

What financial advisors say about you vs. me–or we

A group of financial professionals helped me test my belief that talking about “you,” the audience, is more powerful than discussing “me”–or, by extension, “we,” the company that’s marketing to you.

Here’s the question I asked participants in “The Power of You: The Secret of Great Blogs that Boost Your Readership”:

Which introduction do you prefer? Introduction #1 focused on you, the audience or Introduction #2 focused on me, Susan. Explain your choice.

Prior to asking the question, I’d introduced my webinar in two ways. In Introduction #1, I’d discussed the benefits my audience would receive from watching my webinar. In Introduction #2, I described my blogging success and other credentials related to the webinar’s topic.

You may wonder how my two introductions relate to you, if you’re a financial advisor, investment manager, or wealth manager. In my experience, many financial websites – and other marketing pieces – use Introduction #2. They are about “we, the firm,” not “you,” the prospective client.

The results? A knockout by “you”

Respondents unanimously preferred the introduction focused on “you.” Here are some of their comments about why they preferred a focus on “you” over a focus on the speaker.

• When you spoke about yourself, I stopped listening
• You connects with me, lets me know whether it’s useful
• I don’t care about you, but I do care about what I can do to be successful
• “I” sounds pompous
• It’s not about the speaker, it’s about meeting the need of the target audience.

What this means for you

When writing marketing materials or client communications for your firm,

1. Use “you” more than “we”
2. Communicate in terms of benefits to your readers more than products, services, or characteristics of your firm
3. After you write something, ask yourself, “Why will my reader care about this?” If it’s not obvious, then delete or re-write.

Which do you prefer for your company – marketing materials that use “you” or “we”? Why?

Please comment on your opinions.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

I found inspiration for a model sales letter in the introduction to “How to Get to the Top and Stay There: 10 Strategies for Developing a Multiplier Mindset,” a free report available from Dan Sullivan of The Strategic Coach.

The formula goes like this:

Paragraph 1: As a [fill-in-the-blank], you are exceptional…

Paragraph 2: Like most other [fill-in-the-blank]s, you know you could go further…

Paragraph 3: How do you transcend the obstacles?…

Paragraph 4: [Fill-in-the-blank] can help.

To read a good example of this formula, register for The Strategic Coach’s free report and read the section called “Why a Multiplier Mindset?”

Sample sales letter

Here’s a letter following the model. It’s for a financial advisor who works parents worried about providing for their children’s college educations.

You’re a smart parent who knows a college education is essential for your child’s success. College graduates earn $20,000 a year more on average than high school graduates. Plus, they are more likely to find a good job and keep it. The unemployment rate of college graduates was only 2.2%–half the rate of high school graduates–in 2007.

Like most other parents, you can’t pay your children’s tuition out of your paychecks. You know you must plan and save.

But how do you figure out how much to save and the best way to save? There are so many confusing options – 529 plans, Coverdell savings accounts, and more.

Having guided many parents through the process leading to their children’s college graduation, I can help. Please contact me at XXX-XXX-XXXX or info@XXX.com for your free initial consultation.

Why this letter works

This letter works because you

1. Flatter readers at the beginning, putting them at ease.
2. Reassure readers in paragraph 2 that they’re not alone, so they shouldn’t feel ashamed to acknowledge a problem.
3. Define their problem in paragraph 3.
4. Offer a time-tested solution in paragraph 4.

If you’ve been successful with a similar formula, I’d like to hear from you. I’m also open to suggestions on how to improve the formula.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Financial writers and compliance departments are often at odds. But the two sides must learn to get along. Nobody wins if flat writing turns off prospective clients. Or if marketers create unrealistic expectations in the minds of current or prospective clients.

Photo: winged photography

“Weasel words” help writers and compliance officers coexist. Writers can often defuse compliance officers’ anxieties about guarantees by using words and phrases such as “may,” “we believe,” and “seek to.”

Disclosures are another tool. However, long disclosures are daunting. Sometimes I’d rather delete a topic than introduce a scary disclosure. For example, I’d talk about an investment strategy without referring to the mutual fund using the strategy.

Capitulation is the path taken by some. I don’t recommend that writers always cave in to compliance officers. Caving in is easy, but it doesn’t serve your material well. Sometimes compliance officers’ suggestions are based on their editorial preferences rather than a perception of legal or regulatory risk. When you point this out, compliance professionals are often open to negotiation.

Sometimes you can call in back-up. It’s helpful if a senior person in your organization backs you up by saying, “Our business is willing to take the risk of not making changes.” I’ve also achieved good results by presenting examples of similar companies with sterling reputations using the language questioned by my compliance officer.

I’m curious to learn more about how other writers–and compliance professionals–cope. Please answer the poll asking, “What’s your favorite way to make your financial writing acceptable to compliance?” You’ll find the poll in the right-hand column of my blog.

Here are your potential answers:

• Add disclosures
• Cave in to every request by compliance
• Insert “may” in sentences challenged by compliance
• Insert “we believe” at the beginning of sentences challenged by compliance
• Negotiate the most important points, cave in on the rest
• Say your business is willing to accept the risks of publishing without changes
• [Your own answer]

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Advisors, which counts more for your potential clients–your personal chemistry or your process for helping them reach their financial goals?

Photo: Steve Jurvetson

Chemistry wins. At least that’s what an article about voters’ approach to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary suggests to me. “Voters Examining Candidates, Often to a Fault” appeared in The New York Times on December 29, 2011.

Potential voters interviewed by The New York Times

…were hard-pressed to recall details of the candidates’ plans to reduce taxes, create jobs and shrink the government.

Yet they knew about the marriages and mannerisms, the faith and careers of the candidates, and they brimmed with unvarnished opinions about any trait that strikes them as admirable — or just as likely, annoying. (Emphasis added by me.)

For example, one interviewee “…is leaning toward voting for Ron Paul because of the Texas lawmaker’s unpolished speaking style….” Another “… is drawn to Mitt Romney because the well-coiffed candidate reminds him of his father, a business executive.”

Advisors’ personal chemistry counts

Personality is more memorable than plans. That’s the lesson I take away from this article. Anyone marketing to individuals should keep this in mind.

Blogging boosts personal chemistry

The importance of personal chemistry is another reason for advisors to consider social media, especially blogging. It’s a great way to develop chemistry before you meet or even speak with a prospect.

If you’d like to boost your financial blogging skills, sign up now to get the EARLY BIRD rates on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Lesson Writing Class for Financial Advisors.” I’ve recently updated the class FAQ.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.