The typical financial services advisor within your market area allows his or her image to take care of itself! That is to say they do little or nothing to make their image actually work to their marketing advantage!

About 95% (my guess) of them believe that if they have a professional looking letterhead and business card, plus if they belong to a local civic club, and if they spoke at a local senior citizens home, then they have a good image. Of course, this is dinosaur thinking!

If you compete in the same market with such planners and agents, and if you place the media to work promoting your image in your market, then you can take desired business away from these other planners and agents! You can take their most desired clients away like crazy! You can also become the local recognized expert, plus you can become the leader in your community.

Prospects select the more noted trustworthy financial professional. Clients
of other practitioners prefer the more noted trustworthy financial professional. That person should be you!

But, is that you?
Now more than ever, prospective clients prefer to invest and protect their hard earned money with financial professionals who are viewed as the recognized, respected, and established experts in their local areas. Most financial professionals have been bombarded by PR practitioners or "financial coaches," all saying "Communicate more effectively using the media!" or "Know yourself first then make yourself known through your local media!" or "Emphasize your strengths in the press!" Perhaps they say, "Isolate your objections and cover them on radio, TV, and in print." Or maybe, "Plan your work and work your plan using all the existing media within your market territory."

After years of ignoring approaches like this you begin to devalue the worth of all image-building. Too many PR agents seem to "promise anything" to get an account. But the delivered results are often rather disappointing. Once "burned" you may well be inclined to no longer even consider retaining a so-called "professional PR man or woman."

You Need Intelligent Promotion!

For 25 years I have worked as a Media Advocate (that means image promoter) for financial professionals in seven countries. And I'm no slouch at this specialty discipline. I've interviewed five Presidents at the White House, ghosted books that made The New York Times top ten best-seller list, edited Financial Planning magazine, placed stars on the Hollywood Walk-of-Fame, arranged for Times Square "names in lights," written screenplays that were produced into movies, placed advisors on network TV talk shows, interviewed the legends of the business and financial world, such as Ted Turner, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, John Templeton, Alan Greenspan, etc. I have earned the right to speak with some authority about your image and about the image of the typical or average advisor.

I've also known more than my share of loud mouth egomaniac financial advisors who also exaggerate and over-promise.  Like you, I have seen far too many planners who do their own self-promotion and view themselves as wise financial writers - but are perceived as embarrassing amateur self-promoters. Like you, I know the difference between those in our industry who share and are team players, and those who are not.

If you do not define, establish, and maintain your desired image, then your competition will define your image. And your competition will define you to their advantage not yours.

It is amazing how some advisors place the cart before the horse. "I want to build my agency or planning firm before I hire a media advisor." Or, they may say, "I want help to create advertisements to drive clients to my firm or agency." Common errors: They confuse presence with impact.

Napoleon Hill wrote one of the best-selling books of all time, Think And Grow Rich. His second best-selling title was How To Sell Your Way Through Life. In How To Sell Your Way Through Life, first published in 1939 (that's 70-years ago!), Dr. Hill titled Chapter Two: You Need Intelligent Promotion To Succeed. You still do!

By Wally Cato

Forrest Wallace Cato, RFMA, RFC, CRR, CPC, has over 20-plus years of successful experience as a local, regional, and as a multi-national, media strategist and media advocate serving financial professionals. For financial advisors, he creates, establishes, and maintains, desired images, then promotes those advisors within target markets. This highly proven marketing communications effort leads to increased understanding (brought about by desired media exposures) and results in increased consumer acceptance!