Setup guide: financial advisors and wealth managers

Who you are reaching

"People with money" is not an audience. Pick two professions or life situations and become the name that shows up there. Business owners approaching an exit. Physicians. Attorneys. Tech employees with equity. Two audiences, not five.

Prospects settings

• Their Job Titles, by niche:
• Business owners: Owner, Founder, CEO, President, Managing Partner.
• Physicians and dentists: Physician, Dentist, Practice Owner, Medical Director, Surgeon.
• Attorneys: Partner, Attorney, Managing Partner (at law firms; you want them as clients here, not skipped).
• Equity-comp employees: Senior Engineer, Director, VP, Staff Engineer at public or late-stage companies.
• Words to Watch For: retirement, selling the business, succession, exit, equity, RSU, vesting, second home, college, taking a sabbatical, burnout.
• People to Skip: Financial Advisor, Wealth Manager, Insurance Agent, CFP, Financial Planner, Investment Advisor, Broker.
• Words to Skip: market update, Fed, stock pick, crypto.
• Target Country: set it. Your license is local.

Train Allen

Rules carry the compliance load. "Never recommend a product, investment or strategy", "never use the words guarantee or returns", "never say you should", "frame as questions or as what I see clients think about", "never mention our firm". Keep a copy of these rules for your compliance file. Bio: who you serve and how you talk. Goal: ask a question. Length: short.

Sample comments

On a dentist posting that they finally bought out their partner:

• Ask a question: "Congrats, and a question most people only ask later: did the buyout change how you think about when you stop? Owning all of it tends to move the retirement conversation up, not back."
• Add insight: "The year after a buyout is when the practice's cash flow and the owner's personal plan usually stop matching, because all the surplus is going to the note. Worth a look at both on the same page once the dust settles."
• Agree and build: "Agree it is the right move for most practice owners I know. The thing nobody mentions: the practice is now a much bigger share of your net worth than it was on Friday."

Autopilot

Three a day to start, weekdays. Advisors should read every comment in the first two weeks and send any that worry them to compliance before turning the number up. Set the tone mix toward questions.

Watchlist

Current clients, their referral sources (CPAs and attorneys who send you people), and fifty named prospects in your two niches. Add from profiles with the Chrome extension as you meet people.

The first DM

"Thanks for the reply on the buyout post. The surplus-to-the-note thing surprises most owners in year one. No pitch: if a short checklist of what to look at after a buyout would help, I will send it." Keep every DM free of recommendations too.