Ep 073: Why Successful Advisor Marketing Is More About Staffing Than Spending with Sheri Fitts
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2018
⏱️ 96 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
My guest today is well known in the financial services industry as a true creative force. Sheri Fitts is the founder of ShoeFitts Marketing—a marketing consulting firm for financial advisors—and the Chief Marketing Officer for Sheridan Road Advisors—a Chicago-area advisory firm with nearly $13 billion in AUM. With more than 25 years of industry experience, Sheri specializes in crafting unforgettable marketing strategies that really stand out.
In this episode, she shares her journey from working a traditional corporate job to going out on her own as an independent consultant, as well as the key marketing concepts that have helped her get to where she is today. Listen in to hear Sheri’s take on how to leverage and maximize marketing ideas, the fundamental difference between sales and marketing, and what advisory firms need to cultivate in order to succeed.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/73
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with |
| 0:07.1 | financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading |
| 0:12.4 | financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success |
| 0:17.4 | and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next |
| 0:22.1 | level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to |
| 0:28.8 | the 73rd episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest on today's podcast is Sherry Fits. |
| 0:35.2 | Sherry is the founder of Shoe Fits, a marketing consulting firm for |
| 0:38.3 | financial advisors, and is also the chief marketing officer for Sheridan Road, a Chicago area |
| 0:43.0 | advisory firm that works primarily with qualified plans and has nearly $13 billion in assets |
| 0:48.1 | under management. What's unique about Sherry, though, is her particular focus on how to craft |
| 0:52.8 | unforgettable marketing strategies to |
| 0:55.0 | really differentiate yourself. Right down to the fact that as the founder of Shoe Fits Marketing, |
| 0:59.9 | she gives away colorful socks as a gift because it's unique, and that makes it hard to forget. |
| 1:05.6 | In this episode, we talk in depth about how to leverage and maximize marketing ideas, |
| 1:09.8 | from the importance of trying to craft your own memorable and distinct marketing initiatives, why it's crucial to align the |
| 1:15.3 | marketing of the firm with the kind of business you want to grow towards in the future, the |
| 1:19.2 | importance of systematizing your marketing processes that you can measure and refine them, |
| 1:23.5 | and why it's so important to have a staff member who is formally responsible for marketing your firm, even if that means 75% of your marketing costs are actually staffing costs. |
| 1:32.8 | And only 25% of the budget actually goes to the traditional spend on marketing itself. |
| 1:37.8 | We also talk about Sherry's own path as a marketing consultant, how she decided to make the leap from a traditional corporate job to going out on her own as an independent consultant because she didn't want to be buried in managing |
| 1:47.8 | people. The ironic challenge she faced when her independent consulting firm grew so quickly that |
| 1:52.2 | she once again found herself in the position of managing people. And how she restructured her |
... |
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