Be Unforgettable: Marketing Strategy for 401(k) Advisors

[0:00] Sherry Fitz: Unforgettable is doing things that are unforgettable. [0:02] JD: Wait. And here you go again. I guess you are unforgettable because Chad's wearing cowboy boots because of you. And he remembered that that's your thing. [0:10] Justin: As soon as I was packing for [0:11] JD: this trip, I put on your socks and you're proving the concept again. As you're hanging, you're handing out your swag for us. So thank you. [0:19] Justin: You know what you're doing, and you are clearly unforgettable. [0:29] JD: Welcome, everybody, to another Episod retireholics. We are here in the hangover suite [0:36] Mark: again with our host, Zachary galifianakis. [0:39] JD: Las Vegas, Nevada, aka Sin City at the 401k Excel, the advisors conference today, we've got a special guest. So we've got a little bit of an audience here. And I'm going to introduce to our audience and two guys on the couch, the master of marketing, Mrs. Sherry Fitz of Shoe Fitz Marketing. Come on up. [1:06] Justin: Thank you, Sherry. [1:07] Sherry Fitz: Hello. Here. I'm gonna do this pillow, though, because I have short legs. Yeah. [1:11] JD: And her fashion is making us look a lot better, offsetting my T shirt. Actually, you guys are looking pretty good. [1:16] Justin: I guess I was gonna say we got jeans, we got a couple bucks. [1:20] Mark: Hey, worthy socks from Sherri. [1:22] Sherry Fitz: Those are awesome. [1:23] Justin: Yeah. [1:24] JD: Sherry, just to let you know, Mark's role on this couch is kind of throw you off once in a while, so don't pay too much attention. [1:31] Mark: I'd say I've never rolled on this couch. [1:32] JD: He's the distractor. [1:35] Sherry Fitz: This couch. [1:36] JD: We've got some cool subjects to talk to you about today. But first, like every episode, we need to go to what I call the boe, commonly referred to as the beer of the episode. And this one comes from Sherry. She brought it for us. So why don't you explain it to us while we pass it out? [1:53] Sherry Fitz: So this is. You want to open them for me? So this is terminal gravity. It's from the. It's from Joseph, Oregon. [1:59] Speaker E: What kind of beer is it? [2:00] Sherry Fitz: It's ipa. [2:01] JD: Oh. Loving it. We can. [2:05] Sherry Fitz: So I fell in love with two beers. The first one is jubile. And then this is the second one I fell in love with. Be careful, though. It is, like, higher in alcohol content. [2:16] Speaker E: There you go. [2:18] Mark: Plead the fifth one thick one. [2:20] JD: But it's good. It's good. I'm. [2:22] Sherry Fitz: I shipped it from Oregon in a box and I said it was just. [2:26] Mark: You were pretty afraid it wasn't going to make it here. [2:28] Sherry Fitz: Clink. You have to. [2:29] Justin: Well, we're thankful for it. [2:30] JD: Thank you very much. [2:31] Justin: Let me tell you that after I [2:32] Mark: take a sip, we're going to have [2:33] JD: a word of the episode. So if you say this word starting, I'm going to say it once, and then after that it's came on. You got to take a drink from your drink. Okay. And the word is going to be. It's simple, but it's going to be advisor. Okay. [2:44] Mark: Can we make sure that the crowd's also participating in this? [2:48] JD: They can always participate. [2:50] Justin: You didn't know that? We all prepared earlier and we have nine different additional words. [2:54] JD: The word is advisor. So you got to come up with. [2:56] Mark: You just said it again. [2:57] Justin: You said no more. [2:58] Sherry Fitz: Oh, man. [3:00] JD: I was just trying to give advice. [3:02] Mark: What's this conference geared towards of how the game works? [3:06] JD: Don't lead me into that. The concept we're going to start with is Sherry's concept. And it's around being unforgettable. Okay. And we're talking about marketing, branding, etc. So I would like to ask Sherry, can you help define your concept of being unforgettable and kick us off here? [3:23] Sherry Fitz: Well, marketing is supposed to be unforgettable. You mean you want people to remember you. Right. So the other day on Amazon, I got a wemo, a plug, little thing from wemo, which is the way to make your house like the Internet of things. [3:37] JD: The tech company. [3:38] Sherry Fitz: And it totally showed up. They probably spent as much on the packaging for that particular thing as they did on creating the thing itself. Plug. Yeah. Somebody, like, thought of that. I mean, it was so delightful to, like, open. I would love. By the way, I would love to totally do a 401k enrollment thing that was like that much like that. Well thought out, right? Yeah. [4:00] JD: That's a common thing these days, like Apple, Samsung. You open up your thing and you're. [4:05] Justin: Wow, they're delivering. [4:08] Sherry Fitz: Yeah, you're remembering. Yeah. So that's just kind of it. I also, though, think that unforgettable is doing things that are unforgettable. [4:14] JD: Wait, and here you go again. I guess you are unforgettable because Chad's wearing cowboy boots because of you. And he remembered that that's your thing [4:22] Justin: as soon as I was packing for [4:23] JD: this trip on your socks. And you're proving the concept again as you're hanging, you're handing out your swag. Swag for us. So thank you. [4:31] Justin: You know what you're doing, and you are clearly unforgettable. [4:34] JD: Can you. [4:35] Justin: Well done. [4:35] Mark: What's your name again? [4:38] JD: There goes Mark. Can you give us an example of an advisor that. [4:43] Justin: Boom. [4:44] JD: Jeez, I stepped right into that one. [4:46] Sherry Fitz: Well, you picked a hard one. Yes. There is a woman in Portland, Oregon. She used to work at Design Within Reach, which is a very like mid century modern place. And then she decided to be, you know, serve in the financial services industry. People. And the people that she picked, the people that she picked were artists. And her whole thing, her whole experience. The name of her firm is Modernista Financial. Everything about it is geared toward art. Art, everything. Even down to her thank you cards. They're delightful to get. They're awesome. [5:24] JD: Her office space. [5:25] Sherry Fitz: Her office. She's got art everywhere. They totally support artists. I mean, it's like her office space feels like an Apple store. [5:34] JD: Huh? We've talked about this a little bit before, and for the kind of nerdy, intellectual people, sometimes it's hard to understand or fully comprehend creativity and art. And this ties into branding and everything [5:46] Justin: that keeps pointing at me in case [5:47] JD: you're interested and I'm trying to help you along, but I get it because it does leave an impression. It does put you in a kind of head space for what that person's about and what they're trying to accomplish. And it can bring up warm fuzzies and. Or get you inspired to want to do stuff with them, etc. [6:05] Justin: What I've heard from both of you and Sherri, I've heard you talk about this over the years, and you just hit on it there. She delivered an authentic experience. It was about her. It was about her passion and what she wanted the clients to know she really cared about, which was them and art. And so I've heard you say it before, that is a key component to being unforgettable. Right. Is being authentic being true to who you are. [6:27] Sherry Fitz: But one of the things I'm going to talk about tomorrow is I think that. Well, I don't think I know that we're moving into this idea from a marketing perspective of the age of authenticity. So I feel like authentic is kind of like an overused word. Except for that, given how much. [6:42] Mark: Kind of like fiduciary. [6:44] Sherry Fitz: Yeah. [6:44] Justin: Do you know what that means? No, I didn't think so. [6:47] Mark: Still have no idea. [6:48] JD: He's derailing it. [6:48] Mark: It's okay, continue. [6:49] Sherry Fitz: It's totally. I'm like fiduciary. So I think that the whole age of authenticity is kind of where marketing is going, actually. You know, the thing about it is, is it makes it very fun being authentic. Look at you guys. [7:04] Mark: You can't have fun in this industry. [7:05] Sherry Fitz: Yeah, it makes it fun. [7:07] JD: This is an authentic. Everything I do, I made up one night. Yeah, exactly. [7:10] Justin: Right. You just exude work. [7:14] JD: Let's go. You woke up from a four year [7:18] Mark: coma and said, this is me. [7:19] JD: So let's say, let's say I'm a financial professional. [7:24] Justin: Well done. [7:24] JD: And I agree with what you're saying. I get it. I think that I need to work on this. I need to be authentic. I need to be memorable. What's the first step? Why isn't it happening? Why isn't everyone doing this? And what's some advice you can give me to take that first step? [7:43] Sherry Fitz: I sometimes say to myself, big target, big money. Big target, big money. And the reason why is because it totally takes courage to be different. [7:56] JD: Big target, big money. Meaning you put yourself out there. [8:00] Sherry Fitz: Yeah. [8:00] JD: Now you're a big target for critiques, people to make fun of you, whatever. But if you do, that is the big money that might really pay off if you have that. [8:09] Sherry Fitz: And I think that the. The more. Well, the more authentic you are, the more vulnerable you are, the more people want to be with you. [8:22] JD: And I agree with you that courage is a big part there. Because in my own marketing, there's times when I want to send something out and, you know, blasting my whole email list of, you know, 5,000 plus people. And I'm about to hit that button, and maybe it's you guys in pink tutus because I've done something out there and I'm thinking, some people are not gonna like this. Some people are gonna judge me for this. [8:48] Mark: We didn't like it. [8:49] JD: A lot of things I do, but it takes a little bit of courage and it's scary to put yourself out there and do it. But what you're saying is get over that, that fear. [8:58] Sherry Fitz: I had my podcasting equipment for six months before I had the guts to push record. [9:03] Justin: Yeah. [9:03] Sherry Fitz: And I had to have a friend be my first interview because it was like so, like me being, you know, I knew I could do it, but it's. [9:13] JD: And you're an outgoing person, but it's different. [9:15] Sherry Fitz: Yeah. And every time, like I have a 7,000 person email list and every time I go to send it out, I kind of like. [9:20] JD: Did she just one up me on the email list? [9:23] Justin: Well, she actually 2000. Up to you. But [9:28] JD: my bad. [9:30] Mark: No. [9:31] JD: So the takeaway. [9:32] Mark: How many Twitter followers do you have? [9:33] JD: The takeaway here is if you're struggling, [9:35] Mark: it's like way more than he does. [9:36] JD: If you're struggling, pull that trigger. I'm sure there's plenty of investment professionals, financial professionals out there that don't have the courage and the charisma that you have, but they want to do that. And I would say try to make that leap. Try to take some steps towards that. [9:55] Mark: We've talked about this many times before. There's always a roadblock and there's excuse part of it, but there's compliance. [10:05] JD: So put it to your compliance. [10:07] Mark: I know. So I'm saying hook us up with some knowledge. Like, how do we get on that? [10:11] Sherry Fitz: Compliance does not say how you choose to leave your voicemail message. Like my voicemail message tricks. People, they think it's me talking to them. [10:20] Mark: Well, you say, you say, hi. [10:22] Sherry Fitz: I go, hey, it's Sherry. [10:24] Mark: And then I'm like, hey, how's it going? And then it's like, leave a message. [10:27] Sherry Fitz: And everybody talks. And then when they call and I'm [10:30] JD: live, there's plenty of things you can do. [10:32] Sherry Fitz: You can do a ton of stuff compliance can't. Like, they can say, it can't be, you know, over $10 or whatever. [10:39] JD: Isn't compliance really there to make sure that you're not. [10:41] Mark: Are these not $10? [10:42] Justin: It's content delivery. [10:43] Sherry Fitz: They're, I think, $7 all in. [10:45] Justin: When you're talking about branding, I haven't seen a whole lot of feedback from compliance. It's been negative. [10:50] JD: So I don't. I don't want to hear the compliance. I don't want to hear your negativity. I want to motivate. [10:54] Mark: I'm not the negative one. We get that negative pushback on us because we try to say websites, so forth, you're different. Don't take a picture in front bush. [11:03] JD: Like, will you talk about. [11:06] Mark: Don't do that. [11:07] Justin: You've said, JD said this for years in terms of what we've done. He said, until you're hated, you're not succeeding. And when you talk about being vulnerable and being risky and willing to take that chance, if it's specifically about, you know, preaching to the choir, the group out there that you want to get. I forget what you called it, but essentially your target audience. [11:25] Sherry Fitz: Yeah. [11:26] Justin: Tribe. Your tribe. Yes. [11:27] JD: I know my Sherry stuff. [11:30] Justin: Sometimes you have to take that big risk, and there will be people that will not like what you're delivering. And I feel that, especially from a nerd, that was the vulnerable part that I struggled with. [11:39] JD: They're absolutely vulnerable. [11:40] Sherry Fitz: But that is actually totally fine. Go. No, because you don't talk very much. [11:44] Justin: Getting my one line in. [11:45] JD: So true. [11:46] Justin: I like her, but I hate you. [11:48] JD: So much right now. [11:50] Speaker E: It's gonna be one line of the show. You know, one of the things that was unique about what you did. And when I came into the industry, like, working for you guys, I was super scared of it all because it just. [11:59] JD: I do. [12:00] Speaker E: I'm quiet, you know. Anyways, I didn't know how it was going to, you know, how people were going to react to and accept it. But the more I got into it, you know, it just takes a little bit of courage. When we started doing this and you send us, you know, send us in pictures of. In tutus out to everybody, people start to expect that from your brand. [12:17] Sherry Fitz: Yeah. [12:18] Speaker E: You know, and that becomes exciting for them to receive. It's like, oh, God, this is pdc. I want to see what's going on and accept. Yeah, exactly. [12:25] JD: All right. [12:25] Sherry Fitz: You know, so there's. There's a really great book. [12:28] Speaker E: I'll shut up now. [12:28] Sherry Fitz: A really great book about being courageous. There's two, actually. One of them is called the Icarus Deception. It's by Seth Godin. And the whole Icarus thing, right, is about his. We hear that his father told him, don't fly too close to the sun because your wings will melt and you'll surely die. But the other part of that particular Icarus thing was, don't fight. Fly too low, because your wings will get caught on the water and you'll die. So we always hear don't fly too high when there are so many people flying too low. So it's a really fantastic book. The other book that's really cool about producing something and understanding about being vulnerable about what you're putting out into the world is called the War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It's fantastic, but it's all about the fact that your head is the thing that gets in the way, not the work that you do. [13:23] JD: I love them. Those are great takeaways. And that was super professional. And so now I apologize because I'm gonna take you to the hijinks part of Retireholics. [13:32] Justin: Okay. [13:33] JD: I am going to ask. [13:35] Justin: Not. Oh, goody for me, our audience out there. [13:38] JD: This is kind of. Usually what we do is a quiz of death. And we asked Chad some questions around Orisa, and if he gets them wrong, then we inflict. [13:47] Justin: If they're always set up for me [13:49] JD: to get them wrong, you could get them right. [13:50] Mark: You're going to answer them right. [13:52] JD: If he gets them wrong, we inflict some pain on him. It usually doesn't end in death, but it can be severe pain. And we've got one in store for you today. That's really, really cool. But instead of you answering the questions, I'm going to answer the questions of anyone out there in the audience. So if I get any correct answer from anyone out there, that's one star for them. If we get three correct, you're gonna face the death part. [14:16] Justin: So I want you all to fail is what he's saying. [14:18] JD: The very first question is, who is thought to be the inventor of the 401k? Can I get a name from anyone in the audience? [14:27] Sherry Fitz: Ted Bennett. [14:27] JD: Ding, ding, ding. That's one for one. [14:29] Justin: You're not allowed to answer. This is about the audience. [14:31] JD: Second one. [14:32] Justin: Goodness, they didn't know that one either. [14:35] JD: Who is the founder of Vanguard? Anybody? These are tough questions. [14:41] Justin: I think there needed to be first name there. [14:43] JD: And the last one. [14:44] Justin: Theodore. [14:44] JD: The last one. You guys can do this with me. Who lives in a pineapple under the sun [14:53] Justin: dance? I'm destined to fail at this. [14:59] Sherry Fitz: I was told. [15:00] JD: I was told that Justin is very good at the old high school towel snap. [15:05] Sherry Fitz: Oh, God. He was warming up earlier. [15:08] Justin: Yeah, he's been practicing for most of the night. [15:10] JD: And by the way, Justin has been so excited when I told him about this. He's been practicing walking around with a towel. [15:18] Mark: I've never seen something on the show. [15:20] Speaker E: It's great. [15:22] Justin: No, the towel is not wet. [15:24] Sherry Fitz: No. [15:24] Justin: Hey, remember, this is considered hours on the clock, and I don't feel to put a workers comp claim in. [15:29] JD: Well, movement. Go over there. [15:32] Justin: Get out of here. [15:34] Mark: Hold on. [15:35] Justin: I got to warm up the wrist real quick. [15:36] JD: Yeah. [15:36] Justin: Give us a little bit of a yeah. Hey. [15:46] JD: Okay, okay. [15:47] Justin: What do you mean, don't move? I'm terrified. Yes, I want to move. [15:55] Mark: I don't have all day here. [16:02] Justin: That was upper hip bone, too. [16:04] Sherry Fitz: Oh, man, that's a welt. [16:06] Justin: All right, don't worry. There will be no pictures of that coming out later. That's what you think. [16:10] JD: Let's shift back to the professional thing. All right. Let's put back on our professional hats. I want to hit one more topic before we wrap, because I know that Sherry's been working on this concept. She has a lot of speaking presentations all over the country, and you have this concept of out carrying the competition. So can you define that a little for us? [16:31] Sherry Fitz: Yeah, well, you know, so when I think about out carrying the competition, I actually think about client experience. [16:39] Justin: Who's the competition? [16:42] Sherry Fitz: Other financial professionals. [16:45] JD: Very nice to the guests, Chad. [16:46] Mark: Damn, this is getting boring. Advisors. [16:53] Sherry Fitz: Yes. Isn't it good it is advisors. It's so good. It's malty. It's kind of. Yeah, it's hoppy. It's good. Okay. So when I think about out carrying the competition, I really think about the idea of kind of focusing on the customer experience, the service, the real job. Yeah, totally. And I don't think that many financial professionals really think through that. So as an example, when you bring on a new client, do you just slide, like paper across a table to them and say, sign this and sign this and sign this? [17:25] Speaker E: Yes. [17:26] Sherry Fitz: Don't you do anything? [17:27] JD: Like you can put a colorful clip on it or something? [17:29] Sherry Fitz: You can put a color. Yeah, like the fuchsia colored, you know? Yes. No. [17:33] JD: Yeah, you slide it. [17:34] Sherry Fitz: I mean, there's no welcome thing. People have just, like, placed their trust in you to take care of them. [17:40] JD: Can I jump in here and talk with some Chad And I've been working on just to that, please. Now, we haven't done it yet, but we have put it in motion that for all of our new clients, we're gonna send them a box with an orange bow, which is our corporate color. It may not be a coffee mug we thought it was going to be, but which may change. It's evolving. And inside of it, we're doing a welcome piece from me, the CEO, but also one of the children of a PDCer is drawing them a picture from them, and we do a little disclosure that this is from our kids. So anyways, you just crossed my head. [18:15] Sherry Fitz: Exactly. That's exactly it. Well, also, though, when you think about a financial professional and their 401k plan, why would they not just do a welcome to the plan sponsor and the committee members, but why would they not do it to all the COIs associated with that particular plan? Like, imagine if that's the only thing that you did. [18:34] JD: Fair enough. [18:34] Sherry Fitz: Right? Just. And all you did was welcome everybody to working together. [18:40] JD: And then as you move down the service model, we've had some discussions about this. I think we live in a world where a lot of investment professionals are very reactive as opposed to proactive. Right, right. And one of the things that I've always said that I want to share with the audience is you do these fiduciary review meetings. You go through the funds and the fees and all this kind of stuff. Retirement readiness. Do you ever stop at those meetings and say to that committee, hey, am I doing right by you guys? Like, am I hitting all the things you need? Are you satisfied with my service? Is there something else that I could be doing? For you. You know, you're asking them, hey, am I. Am I good? Am I doing good? And I don't think we do that enough. The only time we consider those things is when we've been fired. You know, what did I do wrong? And I think that's a great way also to communicate to a committee, hey, I do care about what I'm doing for you, and I want to make sure that I'm meeting your need. The point is, there's a lot of emphasis these days on the prospecting, the marketing, the closing, the bringing out of new plans. But I think it's just as important the service that you're talking about, because not only can the service model retain you clients, which we don't got to go through, why that's important, but you can also use your service model to win new plans, too. If you want to slide over to that sales side, right, to show them, hey, this is what I do. This is how happy they are. This is their results. This is what's happening. I think that's super. [20:08] Justin: I have not seen it yet, but I've heard it in Advisors Essential pitch. [20:16] Sherry Fitz: Caught myself on here, I'll drink some for you. [20:17] Justin: In a pitch, essentially, where they're saying, how often do you want me here? For fiduciary meetings, for education meetings. And they might offer four times a year. And the client might say, whoa, you're going to be intrusive into our business, so we want you twice a year. So I've seen it on the upfront side, but have you ever seen it at Advisor? Darn it. Essentially, in the service side once. They're already engaged. And I saw this recently on a Goldbergs episode. If you watch that show, she was smothering her kids. [20:46] Sherry Fitz: I love that. [20:47] Justin: Have you seen it Smothering with Mother? She makes sure that she classifies that, that it's not fathering, it's shmothering. Have you seen someone go above and beyond to the extent where the client's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is too much. You're intrusive to what we're trying to do. The 401k is a byproduct of our offering. We got to make our widgets well. [21:05] Sherry Fitz: Okay, so [21:10] Justin: I see you counting. [21:11] Sherry Fitz: He has two. I don't think. I think that if you're attentive to what your client wants from you, then you should be able to figure that out. [21:21] JD: And what's the worst case scenario, though? Your client says, hey, you're giving me too much service. Can we tap it breaks a little bit. That's gonna be an okay thing. [21:28] Justin: I think that's fair versus the alternative. [21:30] JD: Let's come to the close of this show. Two things we talked about today. And the first part I think was super, super important. And I want the investment professionals out there to do everything they can to start building an unforgettable type of solution. And that's not just their branding and marketing. That's everything that they're doing. [21:49] Justin: The way you leave a voicemail to emails. I mean, it's every piece of your touch. [21:54] Sherry Fitz: Yeah. Second your thank you note. [21:57] JD: Once you've established being unforgettable and you've got this great marketing, branding and everything that's going along with that, you need a solid service model that shows that you care about your results, you care about the people, you care about your client. Remind them of that. Make sure that everything's working well and they're happy with what you're doing. And create that solid service model. And those are great steps to a successful practice. And if you do that, you can have results and be super cool like Sherry Fitz and grow your your email list to however many millions she's got. [22:29] Justin: 2,000 more new JD do that. [22:31] JD: Okay. But with that, get started. Get that going. Keep it rocking. We are the retireholics plus one, the master of marketing, Sherry Fitz. We are changing. Have to clink the retirement plan industry one beer at a time. Thanks for tuning in. Hopefully we'll see you next time. I don't know, maybe you just. I don't know if watch something else on YouTube, but we'd love to have you back. See you later. [22:58] Mark: Peace. [22:58] Justin: Bye. [23:05] JD: Sherry, you're awesome. Yes. [23:07] Justin: And you didn't let Marty rail you too.