Tough love: Advisers need to warm up to social media — and fast

Schwab Impact session on social media and website improvements packed with advisers

By Davis D. Janowski

November 3, 2011 9:01 am ET

Welcome to the Internet land rush.

Related to this story

That was one of the opening lines used by Kathleen Pritchard during a presentation on how advisers could best get along in a thoroughly wired world.

Ms. Pritchard is head of adviser business development at Legg Mason and was speaking at Schwab's annual Impact conference Wednesday morning.

I'll go ahead and kick things off with the most entertaining anecdote provided (you will have to read on for the most provocative).

“I know an adviser that used to tell me all the time that 'I hate Facebook but my wife loves it,'” said Ms. Pritchard.

She went on to explain how shortly thereafter that same adviser came into his kitchen one night to find his wife looking at the photo of a guy on her computer.

“How do you know him?” the adviser asked.

The wife, fearing his reaction, responded that the gentleman in question had been a former classmate in college.

“I've been trying to get a meeting with him for three years,” the adviser-husband responded.

In short order the adviser had a meeting and now loves Facebook. I'm not sure how he feels about his wife.

That's not really the point, of course. This is: Ms. Pritchard's session was filled beyond capacity with advisers standing in the back and along the sides, at least 200 or more (I was later told by a Schwab spokesperson that 2,000 advisers were in attendance at the conference, so not a bad turnout for a single educational session among many).

Facebook anecdote aside she focused the first half of the presentation on the ever too humble advisory website and how most firms need to lavish a little more TLC on them.

“Half of clients that leave a firm leave over servicing,” she said referring to survey research her firm had done.

This was one way she helped frame a pointed suggestion to advisers: They need to clearly and succinctly establish their value proposition on their web sites and all their marketing materials.

“I'm not just talking about a pretty page with fancy, sophisticated words,” said Ms. Pritchard, bringing home the point that web sites are certainly no longer optional and should no longer be looked at as a static after thought.

“I have friends that won't even go to a restaurant without researching it beforehand --- do you really think prospects are going to continue to intrust hundreds of thousands or millions in investments without really knowing who you are?” she asked.

In addition to honing their message she suggested that advisers working with or contemplating a dedicated web site provider specializing in advisers should go with the premium-level offering from those firms.

She also suggested that someone within a firm be assigned the responsibility of performing at least quarterly evaluations of the site to make sure things are up to date.

Firms needed to follow that up with meetings to regularly evaluate the value proposition of everything on the site.

Professional photos are a must she said citing more research indicating that investors tended to pass up those sites lacking them.

Other suggestions included having a “refer me or tell a friend” buttons and links on the site and that links to financial calculators for things like savings, retirement, education, mortgage also proved popular.

It was a bit later that her focus shifted to social media.

“If you are overwhelmed at least pick a site and be a spectator,” she said, suggesting that LinkedIn.com was a good place to start.

Despite the widely held myth that social media is only for young people she cited more research showing seniors to be the fastest growing demographic --- the very people most advisers want to land as clients.

Now for that most provocative portion of the session.

One step Ms. Pritchard said she had observed being successful for advisers was to proactively connect with their clients on LinkedIn (not a bad idea on Facebook either).

“Look for two or three connections among each of your clients,” said Ms. Pritchard.

She even went on to provide a possible script: 'Hey before you came in today I was looking at LinkedIn and saw a couple people among your connections that are the sort of folks I would like to work with in my practice. I also know a few people that you might want to connect with in mine.'

“What are they going to say?,” she then asked. Most likely they will be helpful, possibly even prioritizing your choices and suggesting others.

Facebook should not be ignored either with its 750 million members and an average time spent their of 55 minutes a day.

Yes advisers can both link to clients socially and ask them to become fans of the adviser's business page but the real value likely comes from the unexpected possibilities, as evidenced by the husband/wife anecdote.

There followed a brief two-adviser panel discussion where we heard from Barry Glassman, president of Glassman Wealth Services LLC.

His firm manages $400 million in assets and serves just around 100 families in Virginia.

While it might sound a bit on the self-serving side I did like one of the points he made.

“Much like you,” he said addressing the advisers in the audience, “I was skeptical and not that interested in doing more in terms of social media but my experience has been that about 80% of social media is listening.”

He went on to say that advisers could quickly and easily tune in to what the media covering their industry is doing.

“Follow them, no one is more engaged with social media these days than the media and reporters,” said Mr. Glassman suggesting that advisers pick some reporters following the advisory business and in turn follow them on Twitter (perhaps @ddjanowski, for example) or the status updates from LinkedIn and Facebook.

I later spoke with an attendee, Laura Tarbox, founder and a principal of the RIA firm The Tarbox Group.

She said the session had reaffirmed many things she had heard about and thought her firm should be pursuing in terms of their website, which is in the midst of a redesign.

“I'm more of an observer when it comes to social media but I did find the suggestion about actively connecting with clients intriguing, if rather forward,” she said.

Another suggestion made by Ms. Pritchard had a been a bit of an “aha” moment.

“I have set up Google Alerts for myself but had not really thought of doing it for key clients,” said Ms. Tarbox.

Her firm has 80 clients, seven advisers, and manages $300 million in assets.

“It did drive home for me the things we need to stay on top of in terms of keeping the website fresh," she added.

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