Recently I had an opportunity to interview financial advisor extraordinaire Jeff Rose CFP®, author and creator of the highly successful “Good Financial Cents ” blog site. Jeff Rose is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ in Illinois . He has been one of the few financial advisors who has embraced the power of social media early on and leveraged his skills to develop a powerful and influential online personal brand. Jeff’s blog site and strategy for influencing clients and prospects is exactly on par with what we do for our financial advisor clients here at Wired Advisor , and I thought that our readers could benefit from some of his insights. He didn’t get here overnight, but he dedicated significant time and resources adopting a do-it-yourself model to build his integrated online presence, and continues to work very hard at making the strategy successful. You see, this is his passion. He loves this stuff. He dreams about what his next blog post might be! I tried to get Jeff to give up the financial advisor day job to come and work for us, but the fact is, he’s a passionate financial advisor who just happens to be blessed with the smarts and the inclination to make a dedicated daily investment in his online personal brand. How has he fared? Very well. Read on.
Jeff’s entrance into social media began toward the end of 2008 when he became committed to building his online personal brand, and it didn’t take long for the momentum to build. Jeff wanted for clients, prospective clients, centers of influence, and community leaders to get to know him on a personal level first and a professional level second. Jeff’s philosophy? Educate first, sell second. I couldn’t agree more and his financial blog site clearly showcases who Jeff is as a person, what he stands for, as well as his financial expertise. It is true, after all, that the way we build relationships in our natural everyday lives is around common interests, passions, and connections, and Jeff has leveraged this idea to work in his favor. Spend a little time on “Good Financial Cents” and you will quickly become a fan. Jeff is paving the way for other financial advisors who are looking to develop a successful new media marketing strategy for their brand.
Below is a recent Q & A Session I had with Jeff Rose and I’m thrilled to share some of the insights with our readers!
Q: Jeff, first off, I notice that you launched your blog site separately from your website which is a strategy that we highly recommend for our advisor clients so that their niche content can be more easily discovered. In addition, you link back to your business website which is also a good practice. Why did you decide to structure your online presence in this way?
A: I thought it was important first of all to come up with a catchy title that would have broad appeal, which is why I chose the url http://www.goodfinancialcents.com. It is important to be able to use your own custom url (web address) and have a professional blog site. I’m trying to create a professional brand and it takes away from that brand if I can’t use my own collateral (i.e. a standard url from a free blog host). Secondly, a website is very static and a blog site is dynamic. My blog site gives me the opportunity to update with fresh content daily, share content with my network of followers and get them engaged, and also showcase my personality. In addition, my blog site serves as just one more billboard out there on the web for my personal brand. Strategically it makes a lot of sense to keep them separate.
Q: Jeff along those same lines of creating a professional brand, I just cringe when I hear about financial advisors throwing up a quick blog site and social media profiles in hopes of catching the wave. We think there is a lot more strategy that needs to go into this and advisors who dive in head first without a plan could end up hurting their reputation more than helping it, would you agree?
A: Absolutely. We are in the business of giving professional advice. Why would you want to put anything out there that was even remotely unprofessional? Your professional image is extremely important to consider and you want to send the right message. I would also argue that your “About” page on your blog site could very well be the most important page that your visitors see. People want to understand “who’s the author?” I’ve always tried to paint the story of who I am and weave that into my brand. You can create that element of people feeling like they know you even though the don’t.
Q: Exactly, I couldn’t agree with you more. People buy people online and maybe even more so than in person. Credibility and the trust factor cannot be underestimated. I see a significant number of financial sites that have no face or visible person behind them. That lack of transparency online does not build trust and in this day and age, we can’t be too careful about that, especially in the financial world.
Let me ask you about your content. There is an ongoing debate that the easy way to implement a blogging strategy is to use ghost-written content. As a person who diligently writes his own content, what are your thoughts about using content libraries for your blog? Can a financial advisor get away with that and still sound authentic?
A: You know, if you think about the Olympics, it’s the behind the scenes stories about the athletes that are so engaging and compelling. People love stories and I love to weave personal stories into my blog writing. I think it is a mistake to rely on ghost-written content. You need to have a voice and that voice should be authentic. With that being said, could you edit and rewrite some ghost-written content to put your voice into it? That would probably be okay. Sometimes the ghost-written topics can give you ideas and save you time from having to research the specifics, and it is very important to be accurate.
Q: Jeff I agree with you and I think it is fairly simple to detect generic ghost-written content. Clients of financial advisors have been receiving those ghost-written newsletters for years. We do believe, however, that you can work with a partner or copywriter to help you generate content ideas in your niche markets and areas of expertise. It can be beneficial to have help in flushing out ideas and determining a direction with your writing. In addition, as you know and also implement on your site, video content is becoming more and more powerful. Again, this is something that must be done tastefully and professionally.
Jeff I know you write most all of your own content so that begs the question; how do you know what to write about? Where do you get your ideas?
A: Once you find your voice and your passion, you will have plenty to write about. It becomes top of mind. You begin to observe everything going on around you and come up with all kinds of ideas just by being aware. In the beginning I worried about not having enough to write about, but now I wonder how I will find the time to write about everything I want to write about! I keep a running log of topics and re-visit them daily, and as mentioned, I like to do personal stories as well. In fact I’m planning to do a post in the near future on a family prime rib recipe!
Q: That is terrific and very creative! I agree that once you condition your mind to always be thinking about what might be interesting and valuable to your online community, you’ll have plenty of idea flow. Ok, so the big question on everyone’s mind is, how much time does it take to produce your terrific content, and how often do you post?
A: I probably spend about 15 hours a week and try to produce 3 to 5 posts a week, so I put in a significant amount of time. However, that is just me. You don’t have to lock yourself in your office though. For example, during football season I’ll sit and watch the game with my laptop in front of me and work on blog posts. Frequency is important but so is consistency, so whatever you do just be consistent. Your posts don’t have to be long but they need to be high quality and interesting in order to have impact.
Q: I would agree that consistency is really important, and probably once a week is necessary but no less than once a month. As social sharing becomes more central to what we do, I think we’ll see shorter, but more frequent posts optimized for sharing across our social networks.
Jeff, what about ROI? Social media success can come in many forms and can be difficult to quantify. Have your efforts paid off? I see you’ve got several thousand subscribers to your blog, and your personal brand is very well optimized so that you are discoverable, but have you been able to influence and bring in business from your efforts, and how long did it take?
A: Yes, my efforts have really paid off. I started my blog site in December of 2008 and landed my first substantial account in April of 2009. I’ve continued to capture high quality assets consistently as my blog site is an asset that gathers more and more momentum over time. In addition, I’ve developed a size-able email list from which I can continue to drip on and provide premium content in order to eventually convert those leads into relationships. Also, my blog site is extremely powerful for landing referral business and introductions. For example, my clients and connections can easily recommend me by simply pointing to my site, referring an article, or commenting on any of my posts on a site such as Facebook where all of their connections will see what they commented on. This allows any potential new client to get to know me, subscribe to my updates, and ultimately feel very comfortable before we ever talk about business.
Q: Jeff these are great points. I also believe that blogging as the central focus of your social media strategy is extremely crucial for client retention AND referrals. It takes so much more effort to go out and find new clients and now here’s a way that we can really deepen our existing relationships and garner referrals from them in a non-threatening way. In addition, you must have a place to capture qualified leads and your blog site is the perfect place to do that.
Clearly you have adopted best practices with your blog content as it is no secret that we’ve got a challenging regulatory environment. What is your approval process like with your firm?
A: Typically I have a 3 day turn-around in getting my blog posts approved. On occasion I’ll have one not make it through, but for the most part they’ve been really supportive of my efforts which makes it nice.
Q: That is great to hear. I do think that more firms will find a way to allow their financial advisors to produce their own content, and in many cases an advisor would be well-served to present a plan to their compliance department and ultimately build trust through best practices and following the guidelines.
On your blog site you do make extensive use of social media integration with your blog site serving as the central hub. We design the same structure here at Wired Advisor for our clients. Do you feel that the power of social media can really make a difference?
A: I do make use of social media integration tools in everything that I do online. For example, my content is automatically pushed out to my Facebook business page and Twitter status. I find that leveraging my social connections from these networks provides a subtle reminder to those who are connected to me, and this can drive significant traffic back to my blog site.
Q: Yes, you’ve got a built in drip tool through your social networks. We think that integration with your social networks is what ultimately can really accelerate word of mouth and make your content go “viral” as you mention.
Clearly you are doing this the right way and I want to congratulate you on your success. Thanks for taking the time to share your insights with our subscribers!
Jeff’s tireless efforts have not only brought him new business, but he’s been able to achieve front page Google rankings with his blog site for the fairly generic search terms “financial planner Illinois”. It is quite impressive to achieve that kind of ranking statewide. I can assure you, it didn’t happen overnight. This man is extremely dedicated to his craft and has spent countless hours educating himself on blog site design, structure, strategies and furthermore has developed a systematic approach, which is crucial to success. Jeff Rose is someone who is passionate about keeping up with the tools, trends, and techniques required for ongoing success. Many financial advisors will not be as inclined to dedicate the time or resources necessary to become as technically proficient and frankly as social media savvy as Jeff. Regardless, the most important thing to remember is you only get one chance to get this right. Anything you do online is a permanent fixture forever indexed by the search engines and social networks. How much is your time worth? There is tremendous value in an integrated social media solution that can help you achieve the kind of results that Jeff has achieved in your own financial services practice.
Jeff Rose is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ in Illinois , financial advisor and registered representative with LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC.
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