When Staff Advisors want to Market themselves

Learning from the Greats

I write this as I'm skipping a sponsored lunch here in New Orleans at FPA NexGen Gathering, geared specifically for young advisors in their 20's and 30's.  I grabbed a piece of pecan pie and ran off to write down my thoughts on some unique conversations I've overheard.

For starters, if you're a young advisor trying to find your calling in this community - you need to be here.  This is where the conversations are that you need to be having.

Like any conference, the meat and potatoes are in the “hallway conversations,” but every once in a while, the sessions themselves create a buzz that lives on.

By far the two most popular sessions I attended were led by marketing behemoths, Taylor Schulte and Blair Duquesnay.  They held different sessions on different days, but the same conversations emerged afterwards among young advisors.

After learning from these greats, NexGen advisors are asking:

• Should I be marketing myself separate from my firm?

• Should I be tweeting?  What about?

• Does anyone even care what I have to say?

After Blair's session, it was clear I'm not the only raving fan of what Ritholtz Wealth Management has built online.  It is truly impressive.  Their advisors have figured out how to market themselves well AND be authentic while doing it (re: tweeting about parenting woes and other real stuff).  

But what is it that we truly idolize about these advisors?  Is it their freedom?  Are we all simply wanting to sit at the popular table at lunch? 

Or is there more?

Identity Crisis: Millennials Unsatisfied (again)

Being a NexGen advisor is uncharted territory.  We live in a world of financial advice where firms already have clients and owners might not need us to do business development - they need us to help maintain those the firm's existing clients while they continue to make it rain. 

So congratulations to us, we got what we asked for:  No more cold calls.  Real financial planning that changes real lives.  Hooray!!

But now that we have what we wanted, some of us are suddenly unsatisfied.  Cue the dozens of CNBC articles re: Millennials and/or Avocado Toast.

It's hard to describe the conundrum without sounding unbelievably spoiled (which I definitely am), but it's hard to feel like your individual identity isn't valuable enough to marginally help the firm you work at.  Speaking solely about the numbers here, firms naturally make more money when we're servicing the firm's clients; spending time marketing yourself in a large, well-oiled machine can have little relative ROI.  Taken another way, the feeling that some young advisors feel is that their identity as an individual doesn't matter, just the firm's.

So what we have here is an identity crisis for those who feel like they have something to offer, but no clients to really show for it, no medium to showcase it, and little empathy towards those feelings.  The firm itself is having large success and you should be grateful to have a seat on the rocket ship.

Identify the Natural Marketers

Some people are honestly just built to market themselves though - I call them "natural marketers."  If you follow them on social media, you will know everything about their lives whether you asked or not.

On the flip side, many people hate talking about themselves and are glad to ride the coat tails of a well-marketed firm.

If you're a manager, make sure you know exactly where your people fall on this spectrum.  If they are a marketer at heart, they'll find a way to be seen, either at your firm or not.

Managing the Marketers

Perhaps it's my Middle Child Syndrome, but I'm likely always going to want my name on stuff.  I'm proud of the journey I'm on and think I can help a few people along the way.  And it turns out I'm not the only one.  I've met handfuls of advisors at this very conference who want to be taken serious as their own person, but their firms see any other marketing or attempts at individualism as a waste of time.

For those advisors in large firms with (unnecessarily) strict compliance rules on blogs and twitter, not only can they feel suppressed, but they can feel downright under-valued.  Basically breaking a rule from Management 101 - value your people.

If you won't let them start a blog or tweet about their worldview, find some other way to acknowledge their identity and let them know you value it. It’s the little things that matter, and acknowledging someone’s unique value always goes a long way.

The (Sometimes) Thankless Job of Management

Ice Cream Before Dinner

They say you never realize how much your parents did for you until you have a child of your own. All the late nights, lessons taught, dollars spent, all to be appreciated in a single moment of revelation in the delivery room.

Since I'm not a father myself, it's safe to say I have no idea how much hard work and tough love my parents drove into me during childhood. Being a child is about living a perfect blend of ignorance and innocence; we want our ice cream now and find it ridiculous that we have to wait until after dinner to have some. Why is that a rule anyways?

Being a young employee is a similar phenomenon when you're hired into an established organization with bosses and procedures. On one hand, the newbie is supposed to come in and learn the firm's dynamics to fit in and help out. On the other, they're expected to shake things up by adding fresh ideas to old mentalities.

If done right, a new hire can spark real change at a firm and make everyone better. If done poorly, associates can feel trapped in a binary system where their only choices are to adapt or walk away. Management ultimately decides the fate of the cogs in that system.

Filling Big Shoes

Now that I'm wearing manager's shoes, my role is the ungraceful mixture of grounds keeping and open-mindedness. Yes there are rules and culture lines not to cross, but if we always do things the old way, we'll turn obsolete in no time.  So which rules are worth keeping and which ones do we change? After all, culture trickles down from above.

The other dynamic I picked up as a newbie manager was how hard it is to develop young talent while also doing my own job. Our clients know me as their “Financial Planner,” but the firm mostly needs me for management and daily operations duties. It turns out all of the above could be full-time jobs of their own.

With an ever-growing list of clients and fresh talent waiting to be manicured, how do you find time to do a good job and make sure new associates do well too without being labeled the dreaded micro-manager?

Sorry for Being Arrogant

When I was the fresh talent myself, the only thing I was focused on was advancing quickly. I had moved across the country for this opportunity and only gave myself one choice - succeed.  I saw some early success and wrongly assumed it was all because of me.

My entire perspective changed when I became a manager myself.

My big moment came a few years ago when our firm decided to hire our first intern. I consider myself a big brother at heart, so managing and mentoring a young person seemed like a breeze.

This was not the case.

A couple of months into gasping for air, the lessons came pouring in and everything my own manager had done for me was finally coming to light. Opening my eyes for the first time, I could see how much had been done for me over the years.

The client I gave advice to and bragged about for days? My early promotion and title change?  The raving reviews from clients where I’d done half of the work but got all the praise? All were opportunities that I would not have had access to without my own manager’s blessing.

I barged into my boss' office and said, "I finally get it. I’m sorry for being difficult all this time." (yes this really happened)

All the well-intentioned, perfectly delivered lessons on Time Management, Managing Up, and Excellence that I basically ignored all surged back to me at once. I came to this firm feeling like an eager, talented person ready to shape the world. To someone who'd been around the block, I was the kid who viewed life through the lens of a not-so-perfect blend of ignorance and innocence.

The (Sometimes) Thankless Job

Being a manager can be thankless, repeatedly. Teaching someone rules, culture, and procedures can sometimes feel like explaining the health benefits of broccoli to a kindergartner. “Thanks for the lecture. Can I go back to work now?”

But a good manager presses on because they know what’s on the other side of the struggle.  

It's amazing how much of life we can take for granted until we have perspective. And now that I’m standing on the other side, it’s my job to make sure the next generation has opportunities of their own to advance quicker than they ever imagined.

Confessions of a First-Time Manager

I don't remember seeing "Future Manager" in the original job description.  In fact, I didn't plan on being a manager at all. I went to school to be a financial planner, which led to a full-time role as an "Associate Financial Planner," which somehow led to managing the next generation (a generation I'm also apart of).

Businesses grow though, and with growth comes hiring people to help.  And since I'm most familiar with being the newbie myself, it only makes sense I'd be in charge of our newest hires.

Trained in Financial Planning > Manager by Circumstance

The only goal of our profession is to give great financial advice, but if you go to work for an existing firm, it turns out that management plays a key role in our day-to-day lives.  On one hand, your direct manager basically dictates how happy (or dissatisfied) you are with your work. On the other, if your company continues to grow, your next promotion might be to train and develop the next hires; if you are a rapidly growing firm, hiring comes with the territory.

So now we have a bunch of trained financial planning technicians who are now responsible for molding the next set of talent as managers.  And here lies the main problems: First, we are trained in the technical aspects of the job. Second, not everyone wants to be a manager, and they frankly might not be good at it.  

My Early Management Failures

A few years into the job, we decided to test me out as a manager.  The equivalent of training wheels as a manager is to hire a summer intern, so I ran that program for a couple summers.  It's the perfect introduction because you get the illusion of controlling the experience by yourself and your ride is over before you have a chance to get lost.  

After some success there, we were ready to take on a full-time Associate and take my training wheels off.

What followed was months of trial and error, with a few bumps and scrapes along the way.  It turns out managing interns is child's play compared to a full-time hire.

I have a lot of growing left to do, but it's worth sharing some of my early challenges with anyone about to take the management plunge.  Here are a few ways I messed up as a newbie manager:

• Gave too much slack - with fear of becoming the dreaded 'micro-manager,' I passed down projects and assumed it would be fine without much oversight.

• Gave too little slack - after dropping the ball a few times, I quickly adjusted and had a few micro-manager moments. I did some excess hand-holding, which took away from my own work and time.

• Fell behind on my own work - the ultimate way to ensure I worked on nights and weekends. Hooray.

• Had a few identity crises - when something goes wrong, how much discipline do you instill? Is my role to be the parent or the cool big brother? Are big brothers meant to be cool? I'm still learning, and expect more crises.

• Created cool projects and did not execute them - before a new hire starts, everyone has grandiose plans for productivity. Then reality hits and the cool ideas get thrown in the backseat because the fundamentals aren't built yet. Hopefully I didn't lose those opportunities to make our firm better.

• Did not fully define our culture - "people like us do things like this," says Seth Godin on culture. It sounds simple, but there are dozens of cultural norms you could define. What is our dress code? What is our tone in meetings? What if I don't know the answer?? It's the manager’s job to set what is commonly accepted, and more importantly, what is not accepted.

• Broke the culture code after defining it - The easiest way to help define culture is to constantly lead by example. Each time those boundaries are broken, you corrode what you've built. Example: if the boss is regularly late = it's commonly accepted to be late. Guilty as charged.

I could go on and on about what I did wrong.  The question now becomes, what  am I going to do about it?

Being fair, I'm sure I've done a few things right along the way.  No one has quit on me yet. Among my many flaws, I have chosen to care and get better.  I realize I will never get it right the first time, but as long as I have the opportunity to lead, I will care about leading properly.

We Should Probably Care More

What irks me is that very few people discuss Management in the Financial Planning profession (at least no one in my circles), and I don't know why.  If your business is growing, you will likely have to hire someone, and managing your hires will make or break your win streak.

More importantly, I have too many friends who have left the industry because they were mismanaged or misguided in some way.  When your experience is a bad one, it's easy to associate the entire profession to it.

So I think it's very important for us to learn how to do this right.  Our friends in the accounting and legal professions have seemed to figure it out.  Now it's our turn.

The better we are at managing the next generation, the better off this profession will be.