5 minute read

Branding: it surrounds us. Even before you have taken your first client meeting of the day, you have personally interacted with a dozen or more brands.

Perhaps Amazon Alexa woke you this morning. While reading The Wall Street Journal on your Apple iPad, you drank a coffee made in your Nespresso. Getting ready for work, you shave with your trusty Gillette and brush your teeth with Crest toothpaste. You dressed in your Hugo Boss suit, purchased from Harry Rosen. Drove to your office in the Royal Bank Tower in your Mercedes SUV, stopping for a Starbucks. All before sitting down at your desk, tuning in to MSNBC, and looking at your Bloomberg Terminal.

Amazon, Nespresso, WSJ, Apple – what do these brands have in common? Yes, they are brands, but a brand is more than a name—it is the total of a consumer’s experiences with a recognizable product—and it is powerful, often leading to a competitive advantage.

The brands mentioned above are more than just products with recognizable logos and marketing; they are powerful brands chosen by consumers through the loyalty and recognition of their names. Brand power is what your business promises to its customers. It represents what a customer can expect from your service and what you offer that your competitor does not. It is your edge.

Your personal brand will get your clients to invest with you and, more importantly, talk about you to their friends and associates. And yet, most Retail Advisors do not give much thought to their personal brand power. A Professional understands that learning to stand out from their competitors separates them from the herd.

We Don’t Talk About Branding

The problem in the industry today is that we focus on mass marketing. We have all seen the BMO Commercials, can recognize Royal Bank’s “see difference performance makes” slogan, and perhaps we’ve even referenced elements from Scotiabank’s “Bad Advice” ad. Is it any wonder why we have no referrals from our client base? Because we focus on a proactive, preventative strategy, we have to go into solicitation mode to sell a client something he doesn’t feel he needs upfront. We end up with customers who don’t trust us and have no intention of referring us to a friend who will go through the same experience.

As Brian Tracy says in The Power of Branding, “Clients don’t buy products; they buy perceptions and reputations. They buy certainty. They buy trust and likeability. They buy because they like your personal brand.”

Increase customer loyalty, competitive advantage, and profitability by harnessing the power of your brand. Develop your edge. Learn skills to differentiate from your competitors and turn those skills into a competitive advantage. Learn how to create The Professional Solution–a solution that meets and exceeds our client’s expectations. A solution that allows the client to participate in a uniquely creative experience we will call, The Professional Client Experience™. If we can identify The Client’s unmet need and then create The Professional Signature Solution™ that cures that unmet need, the clients will beat a path to our door. It is a fact that people write cheques for cures; they don’t write cheques for prevention.

When we understand the clients more profoundly and have uncovered their real needs and discomfort, we can now deliver The Professional Signature Solution™. And when clients unmet needs are met, they are excited and want to reach out and pull you into their life and introduce to you all the others they know that have the same unmet need. (link)

The Core Of A Professional’s Personal Brand

Professionals manage money differently than Retail. They craft a professional investment process that allows them to avoid or minimize losses and perform better during market corrections. Do you want to stand out from your competitors? Learn how to read the market and understand how to use fundamental facts and technical analysis to prep, execute and manage trades. Then put it all together and build your Professional Practice that better protects client assets, especially during turbulent times. Professional trade set-up, execution, and management are the core of a Professional’s Personal Brand.

Branding is not just creating a widget and pushing it into the world in a mass-market fashion. It is not cold calling. It is not e-mailing. It is not mass mail. It is not seminars. It is not any of the marketing techniques that Retail advisors have used up to this point. The best branding done by professionals is targeted. It is targeted to a very simple niche of people. It is only seen by those who have the unmet need for which the solution cures.

Stop focusing on your business if you want to make more money, have a better business, and grow your practice. If you’re going to sell more of your products and services, have a nicer life, and enjoy more free time, stop focusing on your business. Start focusing on the client if you want the best of all worlds. Focus exclusively on their needs through the profiling process and then identify that Professional Signature Solution™ that turns that relationship conversation into a relational experience. Create a solution that is unique in the marketplace. That is what branding is all about.

Over the next 11 months, we challenge you to focus on your brand or reputation. Your reputation determines how clients react to you, whether they listen to your advice, and whether they refer you to their friends… it even determines how many assets your gather and whether you can successfully shift to a fee-based, discretionary practice.

Stand Out From The Crowd

Trade Like a Pro Self-Study course is available to start today. Endorsed by CSI for all financial advisors. Learn Professional Trade Set-Up, Execution and Management as well as how to translate that knowledge into a brand that attracts new clients and new assets to your business. Click here to register.

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