The ultimate defense against discount stockbrokers, on-line insurance and the Internet.
It’s time for a wake up call or your business will be swallowed by entities with more money than you who know how to use technology to take your business. If you manage money or sell investments, there are already many sophisticated tools on the Web that can replace your advice. If you sell insurance, anyone can get term insurance on the web in about 10 minutes and they do not need you.
Your hands are especially tied working for a large firm because you cannot use the Internet as a powerful tool to fuel your business. You cannot have a web site, you likely cannot have a blog, you cannot build a personal reputation. You are a sitting duck.
Sorry if you are affronted, but I want to help you protect your business and that means facing the truth.
If you think, “Well I’ll just offer term insurance on the web too,” realize that there are thousands of agents on the web who already do this. There’s no reason to come to your site as this product has been made into a commodity. If you think, “I will offer stock advice on my site,” join the other thousands of sites that can do this better than you. In the long run, the Internet is not your friend.
The solution to this is to make sure you are NOT doing the same thing as everyone else. You can differentiate any commodity and carve out a protected niche.
This may require that you learn something new. For example, I cannot find advice on the web about where to find high yielding, yet safe preferred stocks. That’s a specialty. To become such an expert, means you need an education in that arena. How many sites are called “Term Insurance for Physicians?” That can be made into a specialty and requires that you really understand the needs of physicians and how they differ form others.
The public is getting smarter all the time. Ten years ago you could exist as a financial planning generalist. As people get smarter they will realize they can fill out some forms on the web and get the same financial plan you handed them. As they get more sophisticated , so must you. Financial advisors must be one step ahead of the prospect, or you’ve got nothing of value to offer.
Please do not ignore the threat of commoditization of financial planning. It’s happening slowly. Schwab and Fidelity are offering your clients planning services. These efforts will expand. Insurance companies are turning their captive agents into financial planners. And as mentioned, web sites already provide financial planning to your clients.
The good news is that the process of the public learning how to be their own planner is a slow one. There’s also a segment of the public, the affluent, that has more complex problems that they will always need a professional (which requires that you understand and have solutions for those problems). Additionally, seniors have not adopted the web as quickly and remain a viable market for personal service and like the attention of a human. Last, there are certain personality types (a ripe area for you to study) that will always be more responsive to getting assistance than doing it themselves. Targeting these people is wise.
What should you do.
Pick a specialty. Some arena of your work that fascinates you or you see as a lucrative growing area. Become an expert. You do this by studying everything you can find and learning from any experts that already exist. You may need to subscribe to new publications and attend specific seminars or workshops. It’s an investment of your time and money. (The key to success in any business in this century is being a self-teacher). You will also need a marketing system to communicate your expertise to the target market that value’s it. The benefit to you will be a business that has staying power.
Some examples of specialization:
- Specialist in preferred stock
- Specialist in stocks of (name an industry)
- Specialist in working with (name a profession or segment of the population)
- Specialist in tax reduction
- Stock options specialist
- 401k specialist
- Specialist in insuring sub-standard cases
Pick a niche and protect yourself. Read more on niche marketing at Brokerville.
Tags: brokerville, financial specialty, niche marketing, speciality, specialize
Becoming a specialist or targeting a niche area seems to be a good strategy in such a competitive area as finance. In keyword based marketing niche keywords usually provide less traffic, but they’re less competitive and provide better conversion, as they’re normally closer to what the customer is looking for.
If you sell insurance, anyone can get term insurance on the web in about 10 minutes and they do not need you.
This is true and things will only get worse. The internet is there for freedom of information.
“The good news is that the process of the public learning how to be their own planner is a slow one. ”
The bad news is that the public will eventually catch on and it will continue to get tougher to find a niche that is so remote or complex that customers will exclusively use Financial advisers. Best advise, continue to develop new niche areas of specialization as well as develop your own general online financial service
If you think, “Well I’ll just offer term insurance on the web too,” realize that there are thousands of agents on the web who already do this. There’s no reason to come to your site as this product has been made into a commodity. If you think, “I will offer stock advice on my site,” join the other thousands of sites that can do this better than you. In the long run, the Internet is not your friend.
Just wasted to point out the quote. I really like it
Regards,
Anyone could be a specialist on the web. As long as you are good at marketing you can market yourself to be a specialist in any field. We see experts everywhere on the web and how many of those are cons? SEo companies for an example
“As people get smarter they will realize they can fill out some forms on the web and get the same financial plan you handed them. As they get more sophisticated , so must you.”
This is probably the most difficult aspect of marketing. No marketing strategy will last forever, and this is especially true of internet marketing. It is a constantly evolving, and ever changing medium, and in order to succeed, one must be willing to constantly adapt and upgrade their efforts.
This is probably the most difficult aspect of marketing. No marketing strategy will last forever, and this is especially true of internet marketing. It is a constantly evolving, and ever changing medium, and in order to succeed, one must be willing to constantly adapt and upgrade their efforts.
I agree with Spybubble Review
“If you sell insurance, anyone can get term insurance on the web in about 10 minutes and they do not need you.
This is true and things will only get worse. The internet is there for freedom of information.”
The single best way to protect your business is to hire top talent and invest in training your people so they amp up their performance in good as well as hard times. And work on your culture. That’s the “special sauce” that brings out the best in a team.
This is the proper example of technology evolution. Of course tools are meant to replace the human advice but from time to time human mind can be bent to some situations that software are unable to fit.
Anyone could be a specialist on the web. As long as you are good at marketing you can market yourself to be a specialist in any field
Be sure to get references. If your potential advisor(s) can’t or won’t provide names and numbers, move on. There are a lot of financial planners out there. Don’t be fooled by smooth sales talk or technical jargon
Getting the right people on our staff has helped us grow and improve our business for sure.
making sure the right people are on our team has helped our buinsess more that anything else!
Just because a wirehouse advisor can’t use the Internet for research, doesn’t put him/her at a disadvantage. Most wirehouses provide stock lists through their wealth management research departments. Their portfolio management group often publishes equity models and parallel ETF models as well. So the advisors have a lot of high-quality research to choose from.
Read more about advisors who handle their own portfolio management here: http://wp.me/pPor1-aw