Mistakes to avoid in your first live webinar

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Planning to run your first live webinar? It’s a great way to attract prospects and deepen relationships with clients of your investment, wealth management, or financial planning firm. I watched a bunch of live webinars as I planned to relaunch my financial blogging class. Some of them were painful to watch. These webinars got me thinking about what distinguishes the best from those that seem less professional. I compiled a list of mistakes to avoid in your first live webinar.

Live webinar mistake 1. Not practicing before you deliver the real thing

You know the saying, “Practice makes perfect”? It may not make perfect, but it helps you to avoid problems that you could have anticipated. I participated in a live webinar where the host was surprised to discover “Oops, the webinar software won’t let me do that.”

If you practice enough times in advance, you’ll get a sense of what can go wrong. For example, during a live presentation of my investment commentary webinar, I accidentally touched the cursor to the wrong spot and popped out of slide presentation mode. This had happened during my practice sessions so I knew exactly how to get back to the right place. Of course, it’s impossible to anticipate everything. Your viewers will forgive you if you’re reasonably good at using your software.

Live webinar mistake 2. Not logging in or acknowledging participants by the official start time

Imagine that you’re a participant who shows up on time for a webinar. The designated start time comes and goes without any word from the presenter. You start to wonder if you’re there on the right day. You feel anxious and maybe a little angry at the organizer’s lack of respect for your time.

When you’re the presenter, you should log in early. You don’t need to start your call early, but it’s nice if you make people aware that you’re there and that you will start at the designated time. On my webinars, my facilitator starts checking in with participants as much as 30 minutes early. This courtesy is particularly important when people pay to participate in your webinar.

Live webinar mistake 3. Not having an agenda

When you don’t manage people’s expectations, they’re often disappointed. Sharing an agenda at the beginning of your presentation helps. People look at the agenda and can decide, “Yes, this is what I want” or “No, this webinar isn’t for me.” Turning away people who aren’t a good fit can be valuable.

Touch upon your agenda in your webinar’s marketing materials. This could include your online sales page, emails, and other communications.

An agenda will also help to keep you on track by providing a road map for meeting the commitments you’ve made to your audience.

Consider offering a handout that includes your agenda and other aids to note-taking. I don’t believe in sharing slides—especially not ahead of time—because they’ll distract people from your presentation. My handouts include headings for each major section of my presentation. I often include the text of the “before” versions of my many before-and-after writing samples.

Live webinar mistake 4. Not having a helper

When you present a live webinar, you need to devote 100 percent of your attention to the presentation. You can’t stop to respond to participant questions about technical problems that are unrelated to your content. That’s not fair to your other participants.

Even answering questions about your content can be a problem, detracting from your ability to connect with participants. Have you ever heard the sound of overwhelmed presenters as they try to scroll through a long list of participant questions, comments, and chitchat entered into a webinar’s chat box? They start talking fast and in a tentative tone of voice. It’s not easy to sort out the legitimate questions from the noise. When you’re anxious about doing that, it’s even harder to answer questions well.

You can make the technical problems and Q&A process easier by recruiting a tech-savvy helper. Your helper can field technical questions behind the scenes. When Q&A starts, ask your helper to sort through the questions and then read them out loud to you. In addition to relieving your stress, the change in voice—from you to your helper—will make it easier for your audience to understand where the question ends and your answer starts. It may even wake up listeners whose attention has wandered.

I wish more webinar presenters hired helpers. My main helper has delivered many webinars herself, which means she understands the technology. She has also seen what can go wrong. Before I present, we run through the entire presentation, including my logging in from a separate computer as a viewer to lob questions at my helper.

Live webinar mistake 5. Expecting people to multi-task for your webinar

I participated in a webinar where the well-meaning speaker expected us to open a second window on our computers and follow her instructions as she spoke. It was a great idea. People absorb lessons better when they apply things as they learn. However, it didn’t work. Instead, participants seemed to get frustrated by the difficulty of understanding and implementing her instructions.

Here are some reasons why expecting participants to work along with you may fail:

  1. They may not have enough computer power to open a second window on their computers. Webinar software can be a big drain on resources.
  2. Your content may be too complex for them to absorb and implement based solely on hearing your instructions orally, with no instructions in front of them. This might work better if you send step-by-step instructions in advance for participants’ reference. But if you do that, why should they watch your webinar?
  3. Your participants may be at different levels of ability to understand and implement your instructions. It’s hard to give instructions that satisfy people at multiple levels.
  4. Inviting people to do other activities on their computers may make it more likely that they get distracted by other opportunities on their computers, such as checking email or social media. When you tell them to take time away from watching your presentation, you communicate that they won’t miss valuable content from you while they’re not focused on your presentation.

If you want people to take actions during your webinar, keep them simple. Consider providing a handout to make it easier for participants to absorb important instructions. Your handout can incorporate worksheets to help participants plan for later actions.

Live webinar mistake 6. Not providing step-by-step instructions in writing

People have different learning styles, but most will benefit from written instructions when learning a complex process. I felt frustrated when I attended a webinar that attempted to teach me a complex process. It was great that the instructor demonstrated the process. However, I had trouble keeping track of the many variables that went into doing the process correctly for my situation. I’m still confused after watching the webinar replay multiple times. I wish that the instructor had provided written instructions, instead of relying on the live presentation and participants’ ability to access the webinar recording later.

Your written instructions could appear on-screen during the presentation. You can also put them in an outline-style handout or a separate step-by-step instructional handout. Another idea: Have your helper type the instructions into the chat box.

Live webinar mistake 7. Not testing the recording quality in advance

“The words are too small in the recording.” If you don’t test the quality of your recording ahead of time, you could be caught by surprise with a comment like this. It happened to one webinar presenter whom I know. What you see as the presenter (or as a live viewer) isn’t always what comes through in the recording. I don’t know how to explain the technical problem, but in this instance it seemed to be related to the webinar provider’s technology, rather than anything the presenter did.

Do a test recording in advance so you’re not surprised by things that you could have anticipated. Of course, most webinar software is glitchy—at least in my experience—so you may still encounter problems that you couldn’t have foreseen. That has happened to me.

Live webinar mistake 8. Not telling people about replay availability

Some webinar participants like to watch replays. Others start craving a recording when something happens during the webinar to make them miss some of your content. In either case, they’ll approach your webinar in a happier state of mind if it’s clear up front that a replay will be available.

If you’re not sharing a replay—or if the replay will be available for only a limited period of time—announce that, too. It’ll inspire your participants to pay more attention to your live webinar.

Live webinar mistake 9. Not engaging your participants

Ignoring input from your participants means that you miss out on opportunities to boost their satisfaction or to learn from them.

Most webinar software has some sort of Q&A or chat function. Use it.

As I suggested in my discussion of Mistake 4, interaction will go more smoothly when you have a helper to assist in soliciting and responding to participants’ input. But sometimes the participants can do perfectly fine on their own. I’ve participated in a webinar where the chat was visible to all participants. I picked up some great tips from other chat-room participants. They answered some of my questions before the speaker.

When I’ve delivered my webinar on “How to Write Investment Commentary People Will Read,” I’ve learned from the answers people gave to my live polls and when I asked them to type answers to my question into the chat box.

What next?

Avoid these nine live webinar mistakes and you can enjoy more success as you educate your clients, prospects, and referral sources.

I don’t know everything there is to know about live webinars. Please share your tips and suggestions. For more of my webinar-related tips, see “Tech tips for your educational webinar–Learn from my experience.”

 

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Selling PDF e-books online: Tips from my E-junkie experience

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If you’re a financial professional interested in selling PDF e-books online, you may learn from my experience with E-junkie, an online shopping cart. In fact, this post was inspired by questions I received from a colleague preparing to sell a PDF e-book online. He wanted to make sure he found a reasonably priced shopping cart provider that would provide all of the functions he desired.

e-junkie online shopping cartPDF e-book sales tip 1. Figure out what you want from your provider

Figure out what you want from your online shopping cart provider. Do you want the following characteristics?

  1. Low cost—this is a concern for me and many of my colleagues
  2. Ability to securely host your PDF on the shopping cart’s website
  3. Ability to set up a sales page on the shopping cart’s website
  4. Ability to accept credit card sales
  5. Ability to offer coupon codes and incentives for affiliates to sell your book
  6. Ability to stamp your PDF with the buyer’s identifying details to cut down on piracy
  7. Ease of programming your sales page, confirmation emails, and other aspects of your sales
  8. Good support when you run into problems

E-junkie offers seven out of the eight characteristics listed above. I haven’t used its PDF stamping ability.

Number 8 is the one area where E-junkie is a bit shaky in my eyes. E-junkie’s support is okay. There’s no telephone support. The folks who offer support via email are pleasant, but their instructions sometimes difficult for non-technical people like me.

PDF e-book sales tip 2. Figure out if you’re up to dealing with DIY sites

I shifted to E-junkie after selling my first PDF e-book on SmashWords. SmashWords was easy to set up, but it charged me a percentage of each sale that I made. I believe it takes 15% of your sales price as compensation. The rest flows to you.

After two fellow writers enthused about E-junkie’s $5 per month fee for the basic level, I jumped at the opportunity to use it for my $39 PDF book, Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients. I saved a bundle selling through E-junkie instead of SmashWords when the PDF sold like crazy upon my book’s launch in August 2013. (Well, “like crazy” is an exaggeration, but sales relieved my nightmarish fears that nobody would buy my book.)

The downside of E-junkie? Little of the set-up is intuitive, at least for me. Things may have improved since my initial encounters in 2013. On the other hand, when my virtual assistant (VA) and I tried to tweak the confirmation pages and emails for my products in late 2015, my VA had to go back and forth with E-junkie’s support.

If you’re not good at dealing with HTML website coding or cryptic instructions aimed at people who understand the workings of websites, you have two options. First, find another shopping cart. Second, hire someone who can do it for you. I’ve been lucky to have two VAs who understand websites enough to plod through the work for me.

PDF e-book sales tip 3. Decide where to host your sales page

If you want to drive traffic to your website, you’re better off putting your book sales page on your website instead of on E-junkie. Then you can send potential buyers to your website instead of to E-junkie, where buyers may get distracted by exploring other items for sale on the site.

It took me awhile to figure this out. I initially set up a sales page for my book on E-junkie. The “Buy PDF” link from my website went there. After I wised up, I made the “Buy PDF” link go directly to a page where buyers can enter their PayPal information. The fewer distractions between your buyer and their purchase, the better off you’ll be.

However, if you’re selling a non-specialized, general-interest book, you may benefit from creating a sales page on E-junkie. After all, someone may stumble on it when entering a common search term into E-junkie’s search box.

PDF e-book sales tip 4. Realize that your book won’t sell itself

Remember that famous movie line, “If you build it, they will come”? It typically doesn’t work like that for books. One exception might be my friend selling a PDF textbook. Students must buy the book if they want to pass the class.

For book marketing tips, see my post on “How to market your self-published book: Lessons from my experience.”

E-junkie Q&A

Here are the answers to E-junkie questions I received from my colleague preparing to sell a PDF e-book about a financial topic. I imagine he’s not the only person with these questions.

Q. Have your customers experienced any issues using E-junkie and making payments via PayPal?
A. Only one person has contacted me with a PayPal issue. She wondered if she could make a payment via PayPal using her credit card, even though she lacked a PayPal account. Yes, that was possible.

Q. Have the watermarks been effective to prevent illegal versions of your book from appearing online?
A. I haven’t used the watermarks. I sometimes see my book advertised for free on illegitimate sites. When that happens, I send a DMCA takedown request. I send it first to the offending website. If that doesn’t work, I contact the website host. Here is a template for a DMCA takedown request that I found through the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), one of my professional affiliations. So far, this has always succeeded, although I’ve often had to go to the hosting company. Here’s a link to help you report content that appears via Google. For an overview of your copyright rights, see “Copyright Infringement: What to Do?” on the ASJA’s Grievance Self-Help page.

Q. If you were to do it again, will you again choose E-junkie to publish your books?
A. Yes, unless I found an easier-to-use vendor in the same price range.

Q. How did you hear about E-junkie?
A. I learned about it from two writer friends who sold their self-published books and other products through E-junkie. I trusted them because we both belonged to the same professional associations.

Q. What is the worst experience that you have had working with E-junkie?
A. E-junkie’s customer service is responsive, but they can’t always explain things in terms that non-technical people like me understand. That’s why I delegate my E-junkie work to my VA.

Q. Have you and/or your customers experienced any issues with unsolicited marketing/spam mail through E-junkie?
A. No, not at all.

Q. Is there anything else that you would like us to know about E-junkie before we publish our book on there?
A. I believe you can do a free trial of E-junkie. I suggest you do a trial, set up your product, and make some sales to yourself to see how the process works. You can create a coupon code to obtain your book for free so you don’t have to spend money on the transactions. This kind of test should give you a sense of whether E-junkie works for you.

If you end up selling items or services other than e-books, remember that you can use E-junkie for those sales, too. I’ve set up sales of my coaching services via E-junkie. I’ve thought about selling my financial blogging class or my investment commentary webinar through E-junkie, but I like the nicer landing page and class registration process offered by EventBrite. Update: since I originally wrote this post, I’ve begun selling self-paced, pre-recorded versions of my classes through E-junkie.

Financial ads and we vs. you

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“We are great. Hire us.” That’s the gist of many financial ads that I see. They could be for a small financial planning firm, a wealth manager, or even an institutional money manager.

Emphasizing “we” and “us” isn’t the way to go. If you’ve attended any of my writing presentations, you know I’m a big believer in the power of “you.”

However, using “we” isn’t always bad in financial ads.

I like how Bessemer Trust combined “we” with “your money” in the ad excerpt you see below. The firm puts the ad’s emphasis on the reader, not the firm.

Financial ad example from Bessemer Trust

Also, this wording is more persuasive than the gazillion financial ads and websites that simply say, “We are fiduciaries so we put your interests first.” A fiduciary blurb requires me to trust you. The Bessemer ad gives me a reason to believe.

There’s text in smaller print that supports the headline that I’ve reproduced above. For example, “Have you ever wondered if your investment advisers would behave differently if it were their own money they were investing?”

I also like Bessemer’s use of plain language in this ad. It has no jargon.

I wish I could show you the full text of this ad, which I tore out of The Wall Street Journal. But I can’t find it online. However, you can read another post, “’Smart people’: A good ad by Bessemer Trust.”

Improve your speeches and deepen your family ties

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Want to improve the expressiveness of your voice when you speak? Try the technique that my speaking coach taught me. It livened up my speeches. Plus, an unexpected benefit was that my twist on her technique also deepened my relationship with my husband.

Read children’s books to improve your speeches

ozma of ozOzma of Oz sent me on the path to better speaking. That’s the first book I borrowed from the library after I got my coach’s advice.

Her advice? Read children’s books out loud with exaggerated expression. Somehow it’s easier to speak in an extreme way when imagining a little kid listening. Plus, it’s more fun to ham it up with “You’re in a pretty fix, Dorothy Gale, I can tell you!” than with a dry statement about asset allocation or financial planning.

“Practice makes perfect,” as they say. My expressiveness grew with this technique. Of course, there was still room for improvement. But I wasn’t going to make Oz books a staple of my reading. What to do?

Read newspapers to improve your speeches and your relationships

I had an inspiration. While on a longish car ride to a bicycle trail, I asked my husband, “Can I read articles from the newspaper’s travel section to you?” We both love to travel, but my husband often doesn’t get through the entire travel section.

It’s a win-win. I practice my vocal expression; my husband absorbs travel stories he might otherwise miss. Also, it keeps the two of us talking when I might otherwise read a book.

YOUR speaking tips?

If you have tips for improving one’s speaking skills, please share. I enjoy learning from you.

By the way, if you’re looking for a speaking coach, I highly recommend Cheryl Dolan.

 

Disclosure: If you click on the Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I only link to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

Lessons from my headshot photo disaster

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Susan Weiner

I’m thrilled by how this photo turned out

Your headshot photo shows up a lot. It’s not only on your company’s website. It’s also on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, other social media, and other sites where you log in with your social media credentials or upload photos.

Your photo is part of your marketing so you want a photo that looks professional and attractive. It should also be recent enough that people can recognize you.

I learned some lessons from a failed attempt—and my eventual success—at updating my headshot photo. I hope they help you to do better the next time you update your photo.

1. Value the crowd’s wisdom in assessing your headshot photo

“Ugh, that’s me?” That was my reaction to viewing the proofs from my initial photo shoot. However, I know I’m very picky so I asked my friends, “Which photo do you like best?” Perhaps I could learn to like the crowd’s favorite.

One photo proved most popular, but so did suggestions that the photographer had photographed me at a bad angle and with unflattering lighting. The suggestions, which came from people whom I trusted, prompted me to present their comments to the photographer. In our email exchange, I learned that my friends were right. The photos were bad, due to the photographer’s response to my glasses.

2. Ask your headshot photographer about your glasses

Ask your photographer if your glasses will pose a challenge. This question hadn’t occurred to me. After all, the same photographer took a perfectly fine picture of me in my glasses some years ago. However, I learned after seeing my proofs that the photographer had had two problems with my current pair. First, my lenses turn dark in the sun. Second, they lack an anti-glare coating. To work around the reflections, the photographer made choices that didn’t flatter my appearance.

3. Fix the glasses problem

I arranged for a photo re-shoot and decided to do whatever I could to make it more successful.

My key move involved my glasses. To avoid the reflectivity problem, I got the lenses popped out of an old pair of glasses. The store where I bought the glasses did it for me, to avoid damaging the lenses.

If you wear glasses, but lack old frames, you have options:

4. Fix other problems

You can also tackle other issues, such as clothing, hair, and makeup. In a sense, I was lucky because my bad headshot let me work on issues that weren’t caused by the photographer’s lighting or angle.

Your issues will differ from mine, but here’s what I did for my headshot photo re-shoot:

  • Picked a jacket that fit better
  • Added a red scarf to flatter my coloring
  • Wore brighter lipstick and more blush—even though I was already wearing more makeup than usual
  • Grew my bangs longer—my hair stylist had despaired of getting me to grow them longer since I like to keep my hair out of my face, but seeing my initial round of photos convinced me that she was right
  • Made an appointment to get my hair professionally blow-dried the morning of my photo shoot instead of doing it myself—I even got the bit of the gray in my hair professionally colored because I found it distracting in the initial round of photos
  • Brought a friend with me to the photo shoot to help me relax so my smile would be reflected in my eyes as well as my mouth—as a bonus, the friend also arranged my scarf far better than I would have done on my own

YOUR photo tips?

I’m not a photo pro. If you have tips for great headshot photos, please share.

Here are some links that a photo-savvy friend, Dianne Highbridge, author of In the Empire of Dreams, a novel about expatriates in Tokyo, sent me:

Camera lens photo image courtesy of Sura Nualpradid at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How to prepare for your podcast interview

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You’ve been invited to be a guest on a podcast. How exciting! This could help you reach more members of your target audience. But, if you’re like me, excitement quickly turns to fear. In this post, I share what I learned when I prepared to be interviewed for a podcast.

1. Ask for the questions in advance

Some people can handle any questions gracefully without advance preparation. However, most of us do better with time to reflect.

Ask your interviewer to share questions in advance. It’s often not practical for interviewers to share a complete list. After all, your live interaction should inspire new questions. However, an initial list will help you to prepare.

2. Decide on your main messages

A big-picture strategy will focus your preparation and the comments you make during your live interview. That makes it easier on you. I like the tips in “Creating Your Message: A Seven-Part Series” by Brad Phillips on the Mr. Media Training blog.

Your listeners benefit, too. Your narrow focus makes it easier for them to learn from your interview, as you repeat and deepen their understanding of your message.

Have stories ready

Stories will make your message memorable. “A story can be your personal story, an anecdote, a case study, a historical example” or something else that makes your message more concrete. Mr. Media Training explains this in more detail in “Telling Powerful Stories.”

Prepare sound bites, not soliloquies

Sound bites—catchy phrases—make it easier for your listeners to absorb your message. I like how Mr. Media Training explains them in “Sizzling Sound Bites.” Also see “Ten Ways To Create Memorable Media Sound Bites.”

Another advantage of sound bites: They’re easier for you to remember. That’s helpful if you’re trying to speak without looking at notes.

Use statistics

Numbers that resonate with your listeners will increase your impact on your listeners. They’ll make you more memorable. Mr. Media Training’s “Don’t Use Numbers—Use Social Statistics” explains this.

Know your goals

Sure, you want to educate and maybe even entertain your podcast listeners. But you also have a bigger goal. Perhaps it’s to promote your book or interest people in your investment or wealth management services. Make sure you work that into your conversation.

If possible, ask your interviewer to mention your services or products in her or his introduction. If you have a freebie or other special offering, it’s good to mention that in the closing.

3. Prepare and test your technology

If podcasts aren’t a regular part of your routine, get comfortable with the technology before you’re interviewed.

At a minimum, test your technology in advance. For example, ahead of recording a podcast via Skype, I installed the latest version of Skype, tested and fixed the settings for the microphone that plugs into my PC, and had a friend call me via Skype. If I hadn’t done that, my interview might have been cancelled by my microphone problems.

4. Practice

Practice helps. At least, it helps if you’re a slow-thinking introvert like me. When I speak my answers out loud, I develop new ideas. Also, my words flow better in live interviews if I’ve mulled them over in advance.

However, I’ve learned to avoid memorizing answers word for word. That saps their energy. I do, however, type up some bullet points. Their availability calms me, even though I try not to look at them during live interviews.

As part of my preparation, I collected some techniques for gaining time to think about questions for which I wasn’t prepared:

  1. Say “That’s a great question.”
  2. Paraphrase or clarify the question.
  3. Say “I don’t know about that, but what I do know…”—this is a way to sidestep difficult questions or to get your interview back on your message.

5. Prepare your environment

On your interview day, do whatever you can to ensure you’re speaking in a calm, quiet environment. For example, turn off or mute any sources of disruptive noises. For my most recent podcast, I put my landline phone in “Do not disturb” mode and shut down Microsoft Outlook so a task reminder wouldn’t beep at a bad time.

6. Have fun!

Approach your podcast with good preparation and a positive attitude. With a good interviewer, you’re bound to have fun.

 

Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Should your investment commentary be different?

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“Should your investment commentary present a distinctive point of view?” That’s the great question posed by a participant in one of my presentations on “How To Write Investment Commentary People Will Read.”

My answer? It depends.

What is the distinctive point of view?

If a distinctive point of view means ideas that hold their own vs. leading investment strategies, that’s easier said than done. Not everyone can be an original thinker.

Another challenge: Competing with top investment strategists may also require access to world-class data to support your contentions. That may be tough if you’re at a small company with limited resources.

On the other hand, ideas aren’t the only way to distinguish yourself. You can stand out with the way you express your ideas, instead of the actual content of your commentary. Perhaps you show some personality or you’re an elegant or humorous writer.

Your audience matters

Investment commentary that displays thought leadership appeals to some audiences more than others.

For example, if you sell your firm’s tactical asset allocation services, readers will care about the originality and accuracy of how you assess markets. In short, thought leadership matters if it is an important part of your appeal as an investment manager.

Some readers won’t care whether your ideas are original or common. This is particularly true of individual investors. I believe they’d rather know that you understand them and their needs. In their case, investment commentary explaining how a recent event or trend affects their portfolio may be more powerful than groundbreaking commentary on the stock market.

What do YOU think?

I’m curious to learn your thoughts on this topic. Please comment.

8 lessons from my marketing mishaps

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As I reflect on 2014, I’ve learned some lessons that may help you. Two of my anchor clients—clients who gave me work at regular intervals—took their work in-house last year. Although a couple of one-time projects replaced that income temporarily, I eventually fell behind. Catching up would have been easier if I’d done some things differently.

Lesson 1: Don’t stop marketing

Complacency plus unrealistic expectations. That’s what hurt me.

On the complacency front, I had stopped actively contacting new prospects because I had plenty of work. I didn’t want to have to turn away work that I was too busy to take on. I did, however, continue raising people’s awareness of me in a general way via social media, my blog, my weekly and monthly e-newsletters, and public speaking.

As for unrealistic expectations, I’d dreamed that publishing my book, Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients, would sweep my business to new heights. Publishing my book was a wonderful experience. I’m thrilled by the enthusiastic reviews from my readers. I’m confident that it has brought me to the attention of new people. However, the book hasn’t directly created scads of new business for me.

Lesson 2: Use LinkedIn to meet targeted prospects

Following the advice of some fellow writers, I experimented with sending letters of introduction (LOIs) to a group of prospects. I used LinkedIn’s search function, focusing on keywords, to identify people who might hire me. Then I sent a letter of introduction via LinkedIn that focused on how I could help them, rather than how they could help me.

I gained three new clients from LOIs in 2014. Though some may call that a low success rate, it nicely complemented clients gained from other sources.

Lesson 3: Be politely persistent

People can’t hire you if they don’t have a need. That’s why polite persistence pays by keeping you in front of your prospects until they’re ready to hire.

When I meet people, I ask if I can add them to the distribution of my monthly e-newsletter of practical communications tips tailored to financial professionals. It’s great if I can win their permission to enter their email inbox. Sometimes that gentle reminder is the key to winning new business. However, I don’t add people without their permission. My newsletter has been an ongoing source of new business for me.

If somebody sounds like a great prospect for me, I try to follow up quarterly with a quick email asking about current needs. When possible, I share a link to an article of interest to that person. I’ve gained work this way, too.

Lesson 4: Go with the flow when new opportunities arise

Sometimes opportunities take you in new directions. In 2014, my opportunities to speak for pay to professional associations and corporate clients increased dramatically. It felt as if most of these opportunities fell into my lap. However, in every case I had some sort of personal connection with the organization through my newsletter, social media, or previous speaking engagements.

Feeling very pleased with the response I received from my audiences, I shared the information via social media and in my newsletters. Talking about my paid speaking gigs generated more opportunities. In fact, one time a simple tweet saying that I’d like more paid speaking gigs led directly to a new opportunity, as I described in “Secrets of a speedy sale via Twitter.”

Lesson 5: Try something new

I wondered about offering new products or services to attract business from individuals instead of large companies, which spurred me to offer my first self-sponsored paid webinar. In June 2014 I delivered a webinar version of “How to Write Investment Commentary People Will Read,” which I’ve also presented to CFA societies and corporate clients.

I was pleased with the enrollment and student participation. The technology drove me crazy, but that’s another story, which I’ve described in “Tech tips for your educational webinar–Learn from my experience.”

The webinar helped me indirectly, too, by giving me something to talk about with prospects and others.

Not every new initiative paid off with big sales. I’m glad I created Investment Commentary: Best Tips from InvestmentWriting.com, but it took time to recoup my production costs. It’s hard to make a significant amount of money from selling inexpensive items in a narrow niche.

Lesson 6: Fine-tune your old techniques

My newsletter has been the foundation of my success, but sign-ups have lagged somewhat over the past year or so. As I discussed in “Your call-to-action choice makes a difference,” I initially thought the position of my call-to-action box was a problem. I moved the box back to the upper right-hand corner of my website. That seemed to help some. Still, new newsletter sign-ups lagged previous levels.

I mulled over adding a pop-up newsletter subscription box to my website. I don’t like them on the other people’s websites, but people whom I respect reported that pop-ups boosted their sign-ups. I heard this from Michael Kitces of Nerd’s Eye View, Blane Warrene, and fellow writers. Dave Grant of Finance for Teachers boosted my interest further when he guest-blogged for me on “How and Why to Use Sliding Pop-ups.”

I added the free SumoMe pop-up at the end of September 2014. Since then my newsletter sign-ups have increased. About one-third to two-thirds of my newsletter sign-ups come via the pop-up, according to my weekly reports.

Lesson 7: Track your results

Look at what techniques have yielded new clients in the past. I describe my approach to this analysis in “Learn what works in winning clients.” I’m able to write this blog post because I look at which tactics yield new clients.

I wish there were a quick and easy formula for me to win new clients. But there isn’t. My new clients come from a diverse array of sources including referrals, my newsletter, my LOIs, and my general presence on the Web. One new client told me, “I see your name everywhere.”

Lesson 8: Get your focus right

Your website should clearly communicate your business focus. If it doesn’t, you’ll get inquiries from people who aren’t a good fit for your services and products.

I’m still working to get this right. My online presence attracts more individual advisors than marketers and other managers from larger investment and wealth management firms, the ideal clients for my writing and editing services.

This mismatch is my own doing. I like writing blog posts that help individuals learn how to write better. My book, Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients, is a self-help manual for these folks. I can’t stop writing this kind of content because I enjoy it too much. I also get satisfaction from my paid speaking gigs about “Writing Effective Emails” and “How to Write Investment Commentary People Will Read” for local groups of the CFA Institute and Financial Planning Association.

It’s time to tweak my website messaging. Emphasizing my white paper and commentary work to attract more ideal clients is on my “to do” list for 2015.

What about YOU?

Do you see ways that these lessons might apply to you? What are you doing to fine-tune your marketing this year?

Image courtesy of  KROMKRATHOG at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

Note: updated on September 23, 2021

Guest bloggers: 2014 in review

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Looking for marketing and writing tips from diverse experts? Check out the posts from my 2014 guest bloggers listed below!

Blog

Marketing

Social Media

Writing

How and Why to Use Sliding Pop-ups

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Email lists are a key part of online marketing for financial advisors—and for me, too. I was intrigued when advisor Dave Grant told me on Facebook that he was using a sliding pop-up with a chat function to get more mileage out of his website. His guest post below resulted from our discussion.

How and Why to Use Sliding Pop-ups

By Dave Grant

One problem advisors have is building a credible email list in order to share their thoughts with a list of prospects to ultimately gain new business. The old way was meeting someone and then asking to add them to your mailing list. But in the age of more interaction online, you need a way to capture visitor information of those whom you may never meet in person. This is where pop-ups come in.

By offering a newsletter / free report / video series for visitors to your website, you can obtain their names and email addresses to add them to your list and, potentially, a drip marketing campaign. However, static opt-in boxes are often ignored, so how do you get that valuable information?

It may be time to use a pop-up. Pop-ups on websites can be annoying, but they have been proven by multiple marketing studies to increase visitor engagement through newsletter opt-ins because they are dynamic on the page. Instead of a pop-up in the middle of the screen, there is now an alternative that’s less annoying but still effective: the sliding pop-up.

Usually situated in the bottom left- or right-hand corner of a website, this box can transition in after a set period of time or when someone hits the end of the page, making readers notice the opt-in box. However, it’s not annoying like a traditional pop-up that blocks the reader’s view of the screen. When you use your company’s branding on these opt-in forms, they look like an extension of your site rather than a standard opt-in form. Many advisors find pop-ups increase their newsletter opt-in rates.

I’ve taken the pop-up one step further by adding a chat program.

While I still have static opt-in forms on throughout my site, I use the sliding pop-up on the bottom of my screen with a chat program. When people get to the end of an article, or after a set time period, the chat box slides up and I introduce myself with template text. From there, people can ask questions and interact with me in real time. Look at the image to see a screenshot of the initial view of my pop-up. Notice “Click here to get help” in the lower right-hand corner? That’s where you can start to chat with me.

finance for teachers

I’ve seen my conversations, not just opt-ins, with potential clients increase dramatically using this method. Now my website averages one good prospect conversation per week instead of the one per month I gained from the “Schedule an Appointment” button on my website.

If you’re wondering how to implement this strategy, there are many sliding pop-up options for advisors who use WordPress. You can download them as a plugin and adjust the wording yourself. To add your firm’s branding may require a web designer to write some code. Some options include AppSumo List Builder, Bounce Exchange, and OptIn Monster. There are also free options.

For my chat pop-up, I use ClickDesk. I like that it sends a chat transcript to my email once the chat closes.

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Dave Grant, CFP(R) is the founder of Finance of Teachers, a fee-only financial planning firm in Cary, IL, serving teachers, primarily in Illinois. He is also a columnist for Financial Planning magazine, writing about issues facing Gen Y advisors. His recent book “The First Year” discusses the challenges of the first year of running his RIA, tips on how to be successful, and is available on Amazon Kindle, iBook, and through The Mercato.