April Rudin founded the Rudin Group in 2008 and has helped provide brand-building advice and marketing expertise to wealth management firms, banks, RIA's family offices and others ever since. She was one of the first people in the industry to recognize the marketing opportunities afforded by social media and digital channels. She speaks regularly at wealth management, wealthtech and fintech conferences in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa
Transcription:
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio for the authoritative record.
Dan Shaw (00:09):
Hello, hello, and welcome to our latest interview in Arizent's Leader series. My name is Dan Shaw. I'm a reporter covering wirehouses and industry regulation at Financial Planning. Joining me today is April Rudin, who founded the Rudin Group in 2008.
She has since helped provide brand-building advice and marketing expertise to wealth management firms, banks, RIAs, family offices and many others. She was one of the earliest people in the industry to recognize the marketing opportunities afforded by social media and digital channels. She speaks regularly at wealth management, wealth tech and fintech conferences in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Africa.
So thank you again for joining us April. And before we start, as was said in the video, we do welcome audience participation. I'm going to say something a little different than in the video. We're going to try to answer any questions that come in as we go, not try to save them to the end. So please feel free to enter some questions into that Q and A box, and we will get to them right away. And with that, let's get started here. Yeah, welcome April.
April Rudin (01:24):
So thanks, Dan. Excited to be here and talk about one of my favorite topics — marketing — and then one of the most important parts of marketing, which is personal branding,
Dan Shaw (01:35):
Right? Right. Yes. And we've talked for a couple articles that went live on our website today, so there's some tips in those articles as well. So you can check out that for ideas not only from April but other experts in the industry. But yeah, let's just get started with questions here. So maybe this is obvious, but sometimes you have to discuss the obvious first to get to the more interesting parts. Why is it so important to have a brand that stands out?
April Rudin (02:09):
I'm going to back up and just give a definition of what is a brand, because I think that's a really good place to level set. So a brand is really a product or service that is publicly distinguished from other products or services.
And that is something that is important because that differentiation is what needs to be communicated to the public. So branding in its most general definition is the process of creating distinguishment and understanding unique qualities and characteristics that can be positioned.
So the reason why branding is so important, particularly personal branding, is because there are a sea of financial advisors out there. And so how does one distinguish oneself from another? And typically the way it's happened in the past has been some, I'll call them old markers or old sort of measures of success. So one of those markers might be the amount of AUM that you manage. And for some viewers that might be important or less important.
(03:31):
What I want to point out also is that a lot of this communication and thinking about yourself in terms of brand should be thinking about it from a reader standpoint, rather than from a writer standpoint.
So what I mean by that is many financial advisors would like to brag about how much AUM they have. But for a reader, for a prospect or client, that number probably either holds no meaning for them, because they don't know how much other people are managing. It might sound like a lot, in which case it might signal to them that you might not have time for them as a client. It might sound like a little, and so maybe it sounds like you don't have enough experience for them.
So that is an example of why that sort of marker or distinguishment isn't important in today's world. Another one, sorry, I was just going to say another one is location. Your office location used to be super important, centrally located or a prestigious address in a particular town. And more and more advisors are working from home, being their authentic selves, and that really resonates with clients, again, more than a fancy office or something that looks sterile. You want to really get to know the person.
And that just sort of kicks off our conversation for personal brands.
Dan Shaw (05:01):
Right. I think when we were preparing for this, we were talking a little bit about if you are doing virtual meetings with clients and you notice something in the background. And we were talking about the color of your wallpaper or is that wallpaper there blue? And that's significant. I have some books in this office here and maybe you could talk about something like that. I mean, is that part of your brand, things like that. And if it is, how do you project that or how do you convey that to clients?
April Rudin (05:39):
So people go to the internet now. People will vet you before they've met you. In other words, the way most referrals are happening is not someone searching for best financial advisor in Minneapolis.
Generally. They're going to ask someone, get your name, get the name Dan Shaw, which, by the way, is a pretty common name. So it might be hard to distinguish online. But they're going to get your name and then they're going to search your name for more information about you. So it's really important if you have never searched yourself just to see what your online profile looks like, because the internet is forever.
And so that's a great place to start is seeing what others would see if they were to search you. And people always tell me they're very surprised about it. I remember working with an advisor a while ago who was very reticent about joining LinkedIn and told me that she was very private, didn't want to disclose anything, and really was reluctant to put up a LinkedIn profile. And I was Googling her while I was talking to her, and I found this picture and I asked her: Does your husband have a mustache? And she said, yes. I said: Do you have a little brown dog? And she said, yes. And I asked her: Do you have a daughter around 9 years old? And she said, 'She's 10. Where are you getting this information from?'
And it turned out that they had just had family photos taken and the photographer had posted those pictures online without her knowing about it.
So what she was trying to protect herself from was actually impossible because there is other information online that you might not be aware of. There's a ton of public information that is posted online including marriage, death, divorce, real estate sales, a ton of information that is online by which people can find out about you and find out more information about you. So I would say it's really important to Google yourself.
Dan Shaw (08:02):
Yeah, it's maybe an odd profession to go into if you're that concerned about privacy, especially if it's just a matter of: Does your husband have a mustache or not? Maybe she should consider being a librarian or something if she wants to be that private.
But do you think that there's certain kinds of personal details? I mean, obviously every person has to decide for him or herself what they're comfortable disclosing, but are there certain kinds of personal details that you think carry across better to clients, potential clients? Obviously everybody likes pictures of dogs. Are pet pictures the best, or what do you think works best?
April Rudin (08:48):
So I'm going to create two categories for people to think about in terms of personal brand and the information that you put out there. Some of the information that you put out there for personal brand is merely conversation starters. And let's put pictures of dogs in there as conversation starters. The college that you went to again could be conversation starter, hobbies that you have could be conversation starter; passions and causes start to drift over to conversation starters, but also starting to tell you about the person.
Let's say that you're very passionate about a particular philanthropy, and it could be because you have a personal connection to it. And that could be a conversation starter or a connection for potential clients. It could be. So those kinds of photos where you are working in a soup kitchen or spending your time in a fundraiser or hold an office for a philanthropy or spend time doing something in the community. Those kinds of activities are important to communicate because, again, they can be conversation starters. But they're also starting to tell you something about the person.
(10:11):
Another example of that might be financial literacy work that someone's doing in their community or at their child's school. Yesterday, I went to a local school to speak to 6th graders and participate in a phenomenal women's program that talked to young kids about careers.
So those are the kinds of things that start to resonate with both prospects and existing clients who may not know this about you, and then centers of influence who are looking to get more information about you. And it just reveals, I think, the kind of person you are and tells them a little bit about you before you've actually met in person.
Dan Shaw (10:59):
And I would think some of it at least could shed some light on what type of financial planner you're going to be, what your expertise is in
April Rudin (11:08):
Exactly.
Dan Shaw (11:09):
It might be assuming too much, but if you have young kids or something, you might understand someone who's in a similar situation a little bit better.
April Rudin (11:19):
Yes,
Dan Shaw (11:19):
Something like that. Yeah,
April Rudin (11:21):
Exactly. So, for example, some people might disclose their age or not disclose their age. But what might be more important, or another way to frame it in more of a brand way, is to have a picture of yourself with your family and have a statement, a personal statement about out how you're planning for your own family. And that is going to resonate with potential clients of the same age, at the same life cycle point.
And rather than somebody making an assumption, for example, people put graduated from college in this year. That's certainly not as meaningful or as powerful as stating something about it, even though they both might sort of disclose your age.
Dan Shaw (12:13):
Right, right. Yeah, definitely. And you use the term centers of influence and wanted to come back to that. And what do you mean by that? I think when we talked for the print article, we went over that quite a bit, and how important it's to not only know potential clients, but other professionals in other industries. I though you might want to elaborate on that a little bit.
April Rudin (12:36):
Sure. So I'm going to say that there are sort of two different audiences that you can market to. One are prospects who are end investors, who you could bring on as clients. And the other one is centers of influence. End clients are B2C, which is business to consumer. Marketing and professionals are B2B, which is business to business.
Those end professionals — centers of influence — include attorneys of several types, trust and estate, matrimonial. Those people could have clients that they can recommend to you and they can refer to you: CPAs, insurance agents, other people that are dealing in the financial world, and those could be professionals who investors end up asking for referrals.
The reason why that's so important, the No. 1 reason. is because each one of those people can have multiple referrals for you rather than a B2C referral. Whereas somebody asks their friend: Hey, Dan, who's your financial advisor?
(13:48):
And you call that person. So that's sort of the beginning and the end right there.
The other thing that's important about it is that it's more of a professional referral. So it's coming from a professional rather than just coming from a lay person. So people who are getting that sort of referral or giving that sort of referral can rest a little bit more comfortably knowing that they've been vetted or referred that person in the past, they've used them in the past, or that there are certain credentials or credibility that they've recognized that are important.
And for B2C, it might just be he's a really nice guy, or I really like his office, or I'm friends with his wife, or other things that could cause or trigger that referral that may be meaningless.
Dan Shaw (14:46):
For the B2B referrals for the centers of influence, what do you think is the best way to establish those kinds of connections? Is it joining professional organizations, playing golf? What is it?
April Rudin (14:58):
Well, I think it's all about building community. And so that's how social media, digital marketing, personal branding, can help you build that community. And one way of doing it might be to start your own little group or community of financial professionals in your community. And that can be around educational topics. So you can have a speaker come in that talks about the real estate commission changes that are coming up, or you could be the speaker.
Dan Shaw (15:38):
Oh yeah, definitely. And you mentioned social media. So we do have a couple of questions here. So why don't we get those? So one is just asking your preference for social media platforms for financial advisor marketing. Which ones do you think are the best and why?
April Rudin (15:57):
The No. 1 platform is LinkedIn. If you're not using LinkedIn in 2024, you really need to rethink your profession.
I think whatever your profession is, LinkedIn is the No. 1 place where business people go to connect with other business people. So it's highly important to creating connections with business professionals in your community so you can seek out and create relationships with, again, the COIs, the centers of influence: attorneys, accountants, insurance agents, people in your community that are already working with clients that could be good sources of referrals.
And the best way to find people like that to build your network and create your community is by using a tool, a social media platform like LinkedIn. But going on LinkedIn is, again, really important because of the fact that you want to have a really robust and authentic and transparent profile. So again, people who are vetting you before they've met you, the only information they have to go on is what they see on your LinkedIn profile.
(17:21):
So if your photo is not up to date, I don't think that that is a very good trust builder. Eventually you're going to meet people in person, and often people will say to me, I've gained 50 pounds, I've lost 50 pounds, my hairline's a little bit different, so many different things about their physical appearance.
But because wealth management is a relationship business, it's even more critical to make sure that you have an authentic picture for people to see if you were to meet that person in person. You want to be recognizable to them. I mean, certainly you want a flattering picture. I think I look like my headshot. You want to look better, but you want to be recognizable.
Dan Shaw (18:10):
Yeah, yeah,
April Rudin (18:11):
Headshot important. And then other aspects of your LinkedIn profile, because again, that's like your billboard and your personal brand representation apart from your website is your LinkedIn profile. So making sure that it communicates enough about your professional background and your personal background to let somebody vet you sort of before they've met you again, so they get to know you and they have some feel for who you are as a person and what's important to you.
Dan Shaw (18:45):
Important to you. Yeah. What do you think about TikTok? And to a lesser extent, Twitter, is the trade-off that you're going to be perceived as less professional if you're on those a lot? Because obviously it's a good conduit to reaching maybe younger people, but probably just all people these days.
April Rudin (19:09):
Well, I was just going to back up and say something about Facebook also, because I think Facebook is really an underutilized platform because Facebook will give you some of the lifecycle events of your clients.
You'll know if they've had a baby, bought a house, thinking about buying a house, different things that might signal something that changes in terms of financial planning. So I think Facebook is really underutilized. But, again, it depends on your comfort level.
Some advisors don't want to be Facebook friends with their clients and others ,for them, it's perfectly normal. The other thing that we have to say, I know you cover wirehouses, is that you need to check your compliance regulations and make sure that you're complying with any internal compliance and regulatory standards that your firm might have. That's our compliance message there.
In terms of TikTok and Twitter, or X, I think again, sometimes those platforms are allowed by compliance and sometimes they're not.
(20:27):
I think it's important to be aware of them, and I think they can help in visibility. So for example, Twitter, or X, is a great platform that you might want to be on to get news information or market information or search that.
I always say to people that one of the most underutilized parts of Twitter is actually the search box. If you're looking for news or information, you can type something in the search box and you can see all of the tweets that have that particular phrase in it. So that's really important. And then LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are No.1, 2, 3 in SEO. So having, if your firm allows it, having a robust profile on all of those can be really good for people. In terms of TikTok, it's really just starting.
(21:25):
The demographics are a little bit all over the place. I mean, they are certainly skewed younger for TikTok and many of the asset managers are now on TikTok. So you can see BlackRock and Vanguard and some of the others.
But the content that they have out there is not about investments. It's really about financial literacy and building brands. So part of the way that they're using that social platform is to make sure that their brand is a known brand for younger people, and that can help with their recruiting as well. And it shows the personality of the brand. Again, if you go back to the definition that I gave earlier, a brand is something distinctive that you are putting a phase two for the public.
Dan Shaw (22:16):
Right, right. Okay. And we have another question here. So when you talk about partnering with COI centers of Influence, I think we've both agreed that's critical, but how do you advise on making that a two-way street? So I guess a reciprocal, mutually beneficial relationship with the centers of influence.
April Rudin (22:41):
So certain people approach it differently in terms of the number of referrals that you might give. Now, of course, just because you're giving a referral doesn't mean that that person will actually go ahead and use that professional. So the number of referrals may or may not be equal to the number of new clients that somebody actually onboards.
So you could receive 10 referrals, but actually one or two could be appropriate or could be people who actually decide that they want you to be their financial advisor. So it's difficult for people who approach it as a quid pro quo or approach it as a quid pro quo within some time period. The main thing to know is that it's really opportunistic when someone is looking for a financial advisor, because if we knew we would just send out a silver bullet, I always say, and then let them know that we're here.
(23:52):
Now in referrals for accountants for example, it might be a little bit different. Accountants who are dealing with individual business owners or entrepreneurs are sometimes on the precipice of a sale. So they are ahead in knowing that someone is going to have a wealth event. And that wealth event could very well be a driver to finding a new financial advisor and having new requirements. So I feel like those kinds of situations are a little bit different in terms of the way people are referring them.
And, then again, the very same thing might happen though for financial advisors who might be having a more in-depth conversation with their clients and might realize that they are spending too much money on tax, living in a state when they can move to a state that has no income tax, paying too much for insurance or having insurance policies with too many different carriers. So, consolidation.
So there are things such as holistic financial planning, and as advisors get more into the weeds and more in depth in terms of their questions beyond investment advice that they're going to uncover that could make them good sources of referrals.
Dan Shaw (25:19):
Now,
April Rudin (25:20):
There's another trend though with, and I'm not sure if you've written about it, but if you haven't, you probably will, which is financial advisory firms adding those capabilities to their own sort of slate. So that's a way to keep those referrals and referers inside their own practice, so they might add that capability to their list.
Dan Shaw (25:51):
Right, right. Yes. Because investment advice doesn't seem to cut it alone anymore. It does seem like you need to go beyond that and the taxes and estate planning and all that sort of thing. And we have another question, which, it's great that we're getting all this participation. What types of content or topics do you find most engaging for prospects and clients?
April Rudin (26:17):
So that is a really great question. So I'm going to say it depends. If you are someone who's targeting retirees, let's say, then you want to, again, I think it's really important to be more client-centric for most advisors. So to put yourself in the shoes of the reader. So what might their questions be in pre-retirement or in retirement? That sort of content is going to resonate and bring people back to your website if that's where it's posted, have them click through on your LinkedIn if that's what you're doing, and also respond to an email with a call to action if you're distributing content that way. And you can distribute content, by the way, all of those ways, because not everybody is seeing everything at all times on all of those channels. So I think that it's important to have a variety of content, but have that content be relevant. So they could be retirement topics, it could be financial literacy topics, they could be even related topics. As I said about the commissions changing in real estate. I feel like that's an interesting topic.
(27:32):
It's a wide range of topics, and I think it's varying those topics that will make for more consistent engagement with your content rather than just sending out messages that are just one topic, just retirement, let's say because one size fits all content is not really going to work. You have to have some mix, a marketing mix of content that's relevant. So you can even vary it and put personal content, which I think is important too. So it's maybe coming up on the summer months where people are thinking about their summer vacations. So you could put out content on two best summer vacations I took, or two places you might want to consider taking your family, two places for young families to visit or share an article on how to do Disney with kids under five or something like that. That relates to the reader, again, not to the person putting out the content. So putting yourself in the shoes of your reader and thinking about the kind of content that could be valuable to them. It doesn't always have to be filled with investment advice, market advice, or something that is financially oriented in nature.
Dan Shaw (28:53):
Sure, sure. Yeah, we in journalism, struggle with the same thing about put yourself in the shoes of the reader. Don't write an article that only other journalists would want to read. Do you think it's important to be topical? Because you did bring up the example of the National Association of Realtors and what's going on with the commissions and everything like that. Do you think it's important to be especially topical with your postings?
April Rudin (29:23):
So I think it's, again, it's a mix. I always tell people content is like vegetable soup. You put in the vegetables that you like and then you taste it. Does it taste good? Do I need more salt? Right? So do I need pepper? Do I need other vegetables? So there's not one recipe for vegetable soup that everyone's going to make. So you can ab test, put content out there, see what resonates, and then you want to do more of that. So on the other hand, it's good to have a mix of evergreen content that's things that are evergreen in terms of budgeting, let's say, or how to have a money talk with your elderly parents, something that is going to be irrelevant kind of article that appeals to more people, but then mixing in so that you want to be more relevant, more topical, more timely, putting something in about, I just suggested that on real estate commissions.
Dan Shaw (30:29):
Sure, sure. Alright, we have another question. How do you measure success with content? What are you looking at numbers or other indicators?
April Rudin (30:38):
A really good question. I get asked that, that's probably my most frequently asked question is how do you define success? And success begins with engagement. Not every single piece of content marketing is a journey and a process. It's about differentiating yourself. As I said before, it's about communicating that to prospects and then it's about engaging with them leading to client acquisition. So that sometimes can be a long process. So you want to kind of give yourself a break and measure your success in terms of is your content creating engagement? That's one measure of success that could lead to more engagement if you find yourself having a lot of client meetings but not closing those clients. Again, that would be something to take a dive into. Maybe it's something in terms of the way you're presenting yourself, the sales materials you're using, how the demographic that you're targeting may not be a good fit, but other things that could be good measures, obviously the nirvana is to onboard more clients. So you want to, again, focus in on a client set that you feel your skills, your capabilities, and your demographics really resonate with. And that doesn't mean they have to look exactly like you, but for some people that's important as well.
Dan Shaw (32:17):
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah, we're flying through this time here. See, I told you we would have plenty to talk about. One thing that I was curious about in my list of questions was the mistakes that advisors make. What are the most common mistakes you see in branding? What makes you roll your eyes and think, oh, here we go again.
April Rudin (32:42):
Well, the main problem is copying someone else
(32:46):
Because no one else can be you. So many times advisors will come to me and say, I really like Dan Shaw's website and I want something that looks and sounds like Dan Shaw's website, except that person is not Dan Shaw. And so it's really important to embrace your own skills, capabilities, personality. So much of selling and presenting yourself to the public is emotive that you want your website again to represent you so that when people meet you, they feel like they've gotten to know you a little bit. I mean, one of the greatest compliments I get from people when I meet them live is you're exactly like I thought you would be.
Dan Shaw (33:33):
Yeah, yeah.
April Rudin (33:36):
Whether that's good or bad, I don't know, but it's authentic.
Dan Shaw (33:40):
Authentic, yeah. Yeah.
April Rudin (33:42):
So I think the biggest mistake people can make is not being authentic to themselves.
Dan Shaw (33:47):
Right, right. Also, yes. I think you had a LinkedIn post that you sent me when we talked for the print article about no more stock photos. And also one thing that we see that we kind of laugh about here at financial planning is when it's the holidays and the firm has some kind of Christmas message and then you see 40 different people reposting this Christmas message. I mean, do you generally think that that's a bad idea? If you're going to wish clients Merry Christmas, would you come up with your own message?
April Rudin (34:23):
What do you think? Yes, of course. It's not personalized, right? It's not authentic to each person. If the firm would like to have one message, that's one thing, but it's not genuine coming from a person to another person to copy a message, it just really makes no sense. Another area that people ask me about too is like holiday gifts, same thing. Should you have one holiday gift that you give to everyone? The answer is, I'll ask you, Dan, turn the tables.
Dan Shaw (35:00):
No, I would say no. Yeah. Just as if I went home to my family and bought them all the exact same thing, they would not be impressed.
April Rudin (35:09):
It's just not going to fly. So another good approach while we're on that topic might be to just make a donation to a philanthropy, a charity or something local to your clients that they could see and they could appreciate. That is something that's more genuine coming from you. So again, it's going to communicate something more about you than just sharing a message or liking a post on LinkedIn, which requires zero effort and has no personalization to it.
Dan Shaw (35:39):
Right, right. I think we've covered most of the topics that I had for you, but what should someone do if he or she listened to our discussion today decided, oh man, my brand is a mess. I've done everything wrong. You think a lot of times, do you see a lot of cases where a total overhaul is necessary or sometimes is it just a matter of making small changes that can put someone on the right path? And how does someone go about rectifying what's wrong?
April Rudin (36:17):
And that's a great question. Of course. So a lot of advisors rail against do it yourself investors. They don't want investors to be do it themselves, investors. And so I would say don't be a do it yourself marketer. If your website is done by you as a financial advisor, it's going to probably look like it. It's going to be canned in some way. It's going to have stock photos. It might have a photo from the dry cleaner and the same photo on your website because a stock photo that someone has pulled from the internet. So I think it's really important to seek professional advice. And of course, it depends on your budget, but seeking professional advice and having an outside opinion, take a look at what you have is really important for leveraging what your internal and what your capabilities and what your personality looks like.
(37:18):
Many people, financial advisors might struggle, might be very good, left brain quantitative, but struggle more with the right side of the brain. Creative type concepts. I know that I am not really good with numbers, so I always tell people, don't ask me for investment advice, but I can't give marketing advice. So knowing that to call in professionals, in fact, we just redid our website for 15th anniversary and I used a marketing firm professional because I know that I'm not my best at looking from the outside in. It's more important. And so that's the way we did it. So I think it's really important to do that.
Dan Shaw (38:04):
Right, right. It's almost like always important to have someone read your copy regardless of how good of a writer you think you are, or you may actually be as a writer. It's always important to get a second set of eyes on it.
April Rudin (38:15):
Yes. And you might assume because you're subject matter expert that everybody knows something or a word means something because it's also also colloquial to you, but it might not be the same thing to everyone else. Like I mentioned before about AUM M.
Dan Shaw (38:33):
Right, exactly.
April Rudin (38:34):
That's a UM. Another one. E-S-G-E-S-G is generally sort of inside baseball. These are terms that advisors use, but maybe values based investing or passion investing or something else might be more resonant with more readers.
Dan Shaw (38:53):
Right, right. Definitely. Okay. Well, I think that that's basically running up against our time there, and I think I've asked all the questions that I presented to you. So I really appreciate your taking the time to do this. I think it's, I've learned a lot, so I assume that those who listened in learn quite a bit as well. And yeah, again, as I said, my name is Dan Shaw and I'm a reporter covering warehouses and industry regulation at financial planning. And joining me today was April Rudin, who founded the Rudin Group in 2008. She is an expert on brand building and marketing and all related topics for financial advisors and financial services firms. So we really appreciate her taking the time. And also, speaking of taking the time, please take the time to read the cover story, which just went live on our website today. There's a couple articles there on brand building with tips from April and others in the industry. So I think that will be enlightening as well. So thanks everyone again for joining us. And yeah, this has been the latest in the Leaders Interview series.
April Rudin (40:11):
Thank you.
