Participants:
Steve Wershing
Julie Littlechild
Matt Halloran
Steve Wershing:
Welcome to Becoming Referable, the podcast that shows you how to become the kind of advisor people can’t stop talking about. I’m Steve Wershing.
On this episode, we talk with Matthew Halloran, partner and the voice of Top Advisor Marketing. Matt is an insane podcast host, and since Julie and I are fans of both podcasting and insanity, we couldn’t wait to have Matt on. Matt has a really interesting background, including experience as a therapist working with families of the dying in hospice, where there was real urgency in translating medical jargon into conversational language, and we talk about how we can apply those lessons so that you can communicate more effectively and deepen your relationship with clients.
We talk about how to make communication through social media more intimate. We discuss the big gap that still exists with advisors in communicating with their clients, the five communication mistakes advisors commonly make, and how you can avoid them and communicate more effectively with clients.
Matt tells us about the outrageous offer he made to Ron Carson that got him into financial services in the first place. And listen through to the end, where we talk about how you can talk with clients about referrals without being a schlub. And so without further ado, here’s our conversation with Matt Halloran.
So, Matt Halloran, welcome to the Becoming Referable podcast. Thanks for joining us.
Matt Halloran:
Thank you very much for having me.
Steve Wershing:
And so let me just start out with this. I mean, you’re described as an insane podcast host, which I aspire to be, of course, and so how do you-
Julie Littlechild:
I think you are, Steve.
Steve Wershing:
Well, thank you. I knew I could count on you for that, Julie, and I appreciate the boost.
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah, no problem.
Steve Wershing:
So how do you apply that insanity to podcasting and how can you help us be insane in podcasting as well?
Matt Halloran:
Well, Kirk Lowe was the person who labeled me as insane, so we should probably look at the person who called me that first. But I think what he’s referring to, and why we use that as part of our marketing and P.R. is just because this is what I get up for in the morning. I started doing radio when I was 13 years old at my high school. It was The Madman Matt Halloran Show. And then I was the news director for my college radio station for three years.
Radio has been something that’s very near and dear to me, and just being in front of a microphone has always been very comfortable. And I think the insanity that Kirk refers to is the ability to totally immerse yourself in the guest. That’s my goal. So when I am preparing for a podcast, I’m doing what, Steve, you and I just talked about. You were digging up some stuff on me. You were looking at me online. I’m doing the same thing, if I can find a podcast or a video and how the person talks.
But the biggest goal is to be in the moment. It’s nice to have preordained questions, which we all do as competent podcast hosts, but it’s also super awesome when somebody says something that you really, truly hear and want to have as another talking point and be able to move to that seamlessly.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah. Yep. Well, that makes a lot of sense, and I agree with you. We share that. Being well briefed makes for a better interview, and it lets you be in the moment, which is part of the challenge, and it’s a challenge that’s faced by advisors as well when they meet new folks.
Now, speaking about how you talk with people and how you relate to them, in that research, I was fascinated by your background in psychology and in working with the dying, and some of those experiences. And one of the things that really stood out to me was a quote of you where you said that working with the dying helped you understand that people need to hear important information in the language they understand rather than the language that comes naturally to the practitioner.
And so as soon as I saw that, I said, “Oh, well, that’s obviously stuff that we have to learn.” But before I ask you that, can you tell us a little bit about some of the experiences that helped you understand that?
Matt Halloran:
Sure. I graduated with the two most worthless degrees you can possibly graduate with. It was communications and philosophy. And my philosophy degree actually is in biomedical ethics, and so I got an internship to a hospital system in Omaha, Nebraska to do biomedical ethics. Now, I was under the impression I was going to be teaching biomedical ethics, but that’s actually not what happened. That’s not true; that was part of my job.
The other part of my job was to wear a pager. Now, that’s how long ago this was. And every time my pager went off, that meant somebody was dying, and my job was to rush to whatever hospital was on the code of my pager, go to the ICU, the NICU, or a hospital room, and be the go-between between physicians, nurses, and then a family. Because the physicians were using physicians-speak and the nurses were using nurses-speak, and I had to somehow communicate to a person who’s massively traumatized in grief … and most of the people, 99% of the people, who I dealt with as the actual client … they were not conscious, so I was just dealing with that person’s family. And then the one time that the person was conscious, totally different story.
But it’s very, very difficult to explain to somebody that, “Yes, you see that your husband, wife, son, daughter is breathing, but we are doing that for them. Let me explain to you how that works.” And so that’s really what ended up happening. It’s all about listening, right? That’s the most important thing. Not only listening, but in our financial services, it’s really about truly understanding the language. And I had to learn doctor language. And then when I moved over to financial services, I had to learn financial services language.
And all of the acronyms and all of the buzzwords that we’re so comfortable with, the general public has no idea what you’re talking about. So trying to make it so that you can communicate more effectively has been a real passion of mine, and that’s one of the reasons why we podcast, guys. When I podcast with our podcasting clients who have hired us to do that for them, part of my job as the host is to say, “Hold on.”
This just happened on a podcast. He was referring to pink sheets or penny stocks, but he called them billboard stocks. Now, I had actually never heard that before. Been doing this for a long time. And so I said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I’ve never heard of that before,” and that made him, “Oh, Matt, you know what? Yeah, that’s what we call it in-house.” I was like, “Ah-ha.” And then I made him explain really what that meant to our listeners. Does that-
Steve Wershing:
Yeah, and it’s interesting, because of course, we’ve all had the experience where a loved one has been sick, thankfully not as extreme as the situations that you were in, but somebody is sick, and so you talk with the docs, and the doctor comes out and tells you what’s going on, and I mean, I fear that a lot of people wouldn’t do this, but because I am who I am, I’ll say, “I don’t understand a word of what you just said to me.” And we’ve all had that kind of experience.
And one of the things that interests me as I watch advisors practice and talk with clients and things is that sometimes they don’t even realize … so many of us have been doing this for so long that we forget what terms are typical conversational English and which terms are actually jargon and we’ve forgotten that they’re jargon, and we still use some of those things that we think is translating it for the client, when, in fact, we’re still talking in financial speak.
So how would you apply some of that thinking to the financial advisory relationship so that the advisor can always be sure that their client is really grasping what they’re saying?
Matt Halloran:
Well, the way I present it when I’m speaking is, “You all just need to shut up.” But it’s true. So there’s five ways that people can communicate. They can talk at, over, around, through, or with. So part of communications training that I have done for many, many years is to have the advisor identify which of those five that they lean to the most.
Most advisors actually talk over their clients because they have an educational inferiority complex that they don’t put themselves on pars with physicians and accountants and lawyers, which they are, right? And they’re doing even more important work, as far as I’m concerned, than a lot of those people. Talking at somebody, that’s the old kind of insurance sales. “I’m going to talk to you and say these things because I know that they’re going to work and I’m following a script.”
“Through” is a brutal way to communicate, which I see a lot of male advisors do with spouses, specifically women. They don’t seem to allow the partner in the marriage to have an equal voice, so they talk through them. They just kind of bypass or kind of … I’m waving my hand. And I know you can’t see that, but that’s-
Steve Wershing:
Wait till we add video to this podcast.
Matt Halloran:
Yeah, I know.
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah.
Steve Wershing:
We’ll have you back.
Matt Halloran:
So at, over, around. And then “around” is really not answering their questions. It happens a lot when advisors are confronted about performance, right? Because they’ve hinged so much of their client communications based off performance, but they don’t really want to talk about that. They send out weekly commentaries that say, “Well, the Dow fell 100 points last week,” which is nothing, right? I mean, that’s like .01%. And then the client comes in and is freaking out because the Dow was down 100 points, and then you have to communicate all of that stuff. So there’s number one.
Number two, the three-sentence rule, which I think is probably the greatest rule ever, which is after you’ve spoken three sentences of technical information, you need to check for understanding.
Steve Wershing:
That’s great.
Julie Littlechild:
I want to talk to you about those issues that you just brought up, and some of the different ways we communicate, but can you just fill in a gap for me? And that is how you made this transition, because I’m listening to the work that you did, and the work that you’re doing now, and I can see the connection, but I would love to know what actually caused you to pivot.
Matt Halloran:
To the dark side?
Yeah, I would be more than happy to explain that. My wife and I worked at a place called Boys Town. After I left biomedical ethics, because my wife said, “You’re crying every day.” As soon as the pager goes off, you’re crying,” because I knew it was-
Steve Wershing:
Clear warning sign. Yeah, right.
Matt Halloran:
Yeah, absolutely. And I’m very, very strong in who I am, and I don’t care if I cry or not. That’s a great way to release a lot of tension. And so I didn’t make it very long, and so we left that. I had a couple other jobs in Omaha, Nebraska because Omaha’s an amazing place to live. And then my wife and I worked at a place called Boys Town. Boys Town is where we lived with 36 at-risk teenage boys for five years. We lived in the house with them 24/7. It was a magnificent, life-changing experience. And we had twins there, our boys that are now 15.
So we had 10 kids in the house, and Boys Town said, “Look, we know that it’s going to be too difficult for you to raise two children at the same time and also help us raise these other eight boys,” so we left on a very good note, which was great, and I became a therapist. I’m going to try to make this as short as possible.
So what ended up happening was I worked in a very small town outside of Omaha, Nebraska called Fremont, Nebraska, and I worked with adults with severe and persistent mental illness. I worked with adults with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, what used to be known as multiple personality disorder, they changed the name, and a couple of other more severe things that are lesser known.
And in one week, I had … and this going to sound really depressing. You can edit this out if you want, guys. I had a mother who committed suicide right in front of her son, and they were both clients of mine. I had three kids go to jail, and two of my older adults with schizophrenia … their kidneys gave out because the medicine that they’re on is so hard for your body to process that they just died. And once again, crying on the way home, and my wife said, “Look, how much longer can you do this?” And I said, “I don’t know.”
So I have my degree, my master’s degree, as a therapist and a life coach, and so I typed in “life coach” in what used to be known as CareerBuilder.com, which I don’t even know if it’s around anymore, and two things came up. One was a franchise which I had to pay $250,000 to become a Vistage coach, which is what it was, and then the second one was Ron Carson’s Peak coaching company.
And I went through eight rounds of interviews. Every time they said no, because I had no financial services experience. And I said, “Look, all I want is 15 minutes with Ron Carson.” Now, at the time I had no idea who Ron Carson was, right? And for some gift, they gave me 15 minutes with Ron, and so I went and bought the most expensive suit I could possibly afford at the time, and drove to their office, and I walked into Ron’s famed circular table.
Now, for those people who listen to this who know, this is all historical crap here. So Ron’s got this very specific table that he uses meeting with clients, and we’ve done all sorts of research on it, and so did he. I mean, the guy’s amazing. And so he looked at me, and he said, “Why should I hire you?” And I said, “Here’s the deal. You can pay me half of what you pay everybody else, and I guarantee you within six months I’ll be your best coach, because I can coach anybody on anything at any time.”
And if you guys know Ron, which, Julie, I know that you had done some stuff with him because-
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah.
Matt Halloran:
You spoke at a conference.
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah, absolutely.
Matt Halloran:
He was impressed by that. So for the first six months I was literally paid half of what everybody else was paid. And then after that, I started speaking with him all over the country and became one of his top coaches, and he was my mentor for a really long time. So that’s how I made the transition into financial services.
Julie Littlechild:
Wow.
Steve Wershing:
That’s awesome.
Matt Halloran:
I apologize.
Steve Wershing:
No, that’s great. That’s awesome.
Julie Littlechild:
I was expecting like a slower kind of transition in there, but no. No. That was right to it. That is awesome. But I took you off course a little there, because you mentioned the five different ways we communicate and the sentences that are so important. Do you find or is there a way for us to assess how we communicate? Because I know we’re not always as self-aware as we would otherwise like to be, so how do you help advisors to understand that communication style?
Matt Halloran:
Julie, it’s roleplaying. And it’s so funny how few people use that as a vital training tool anymore. When I was running my coaching and consulting business, one of the things I would do is I would go and spend a day and a half to two days at the advisor’s office to do an in-depth practice management analysis.
And part of it would be, “Okay, look. I’m a client. I’m walking in. You’re going to walk me through everything, from greeting me at the door, to walking me to the room, to talking to me about your services, and then I’m going to ask you questions,” and those sorts of things, and I would be able to identify very quickly which one of those five mistakes that they were making. The problem is they switch back and forth.
And then I would explain to them, “Okay, so right now you’re talking at me, and here’s how you overcome at, and you’re talking over me,” which, again, is the most common one, “I need you to dumb this down about 10 steps.” So we would do that in person, and advisors would say to me, Julie, all the time, “Why hasn’t anybody talked to me about this? You’re telling me, Matt, that I’ve been making those mistakes the last 20 years.” I’m like, “Yeah. Sorry, dude. Yeah. You’ve been making that mistake.”
Steve Wershing:
It’s fascinating because you’re absolutely right, roleplay is … I forget who was it … I don’t know if it was … Cheryl from Abacus in South Carolina.
Julie Littlechild:
Garrett?
Steve Wershing:
No, Holland, Cheryl Holland. But I was listening to a presentation, and it was so true. They said roleplaying is what they need the most and are most resistant to. And I find that all the time. And just like you’re saying, going through it as a roleplaying exercise can be so hugely helpful. And in terms of the jargon thing, you don’t even necessarily need to do it with a coach, although doing it with a coach would be better, but you could do it with a spouse or a friend who’s not in the financial business, or something like that. How else can people find some of those communication mistakes that they’re making?
Matt Halloran:
Again, it’s really practice. You should find somebody who understands communication. In fact, Julie, I remember … God, this is probably 10 years ago, if not longer. One of the things that you had presented about the surveys that you were doing was it allowed you to listen to your clients in a different way, because it framed it differently, right? Am I paraphrasing that correctly?
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Matt Halloran:
And you were wildly successful with that, and I remember my advisors using it, like, “Oh, my God, I can’t believe, how is she able to glean this information?” I’m like, “Because she’s listening.” And they’re like, “She’s not here.” I’m like, “I know she’s not here, but she’s writing the questions to be able to hear the answer.” So all of it really hinges on listening, guys, and nothing else matters if you can’t listen. Listening is a skill that needs to be practiced.
You have to listen to listen, not listen to respond. And we have been taught in this industry … since all three of us have owned our own businesses, and we are basically the primary salespeople of our services, we know that there’s a lot of times that we listen to respond because we know we have to overcome an objection to make a sale, right? That’s all of our lives as entrepreneurs. But I have found that if you listen to listen, and you give people the space to communicate, all of that goes away.
Steve Wershing:
So let’s turn that around to think about what you’re doing more now, which is social media and podcasting and those kinds of things. So how can you utilize those principles in the realm of doing things like social media marketing?
Matt Halloran:
Social media is the greatest listening tool that has ever existed of all times. I mean, in the 1950s, everybody was terrified of Big Brother, and then Big Brother came out and everybody embraced it, hugged it, and then put everything they want in the world on it, which would be social media, right? If I’m going to meet with a client … most advisors don’t do this. They don’t go on their Facebook page, type the client’s name, and then see what happened in their life. I’ve had advisors say, “Matt, will that spook you?” “Okay, it’s spooky to you, but you’re weird, and it’s not spooky to the rest of the world.”
I have three women who all have their master’s degree in digital journalism and communications who work with us and our social media program, and so they’re journalists, right, so their background is digital communication and journalism. So, part of what we do for our clients is listen, which gives us great opportunities to create more tailored, customized content for our clients, and we also listen to what they post, and I have a wonderful story.
One of our clients, who’s a financial advisor in New Jersey, he’s gotten to the point in our podcasting where he’s starting to gain control of the podcast, which is our goal. We do all of the post-production and pre-production and all of that stuff for him. But he interviews guests, and he just had one that was a non-profit organization for a young boy who had died. And oh, just a beautiful podcast, just super emotionally charged, right?
And so that gave my team a great opportunity to show another side of this client, but what happened was when we started listening to the feedback that came back … his name’s Larry … Larry decided that he’s going to start interviewing more and more non-profits, because it’s drawing the correct attention to who he is and what makes him different. But he can’t do that unless he’s listening to the responses. And we do that for our clients because, I mean, everybody’s busy, right? But social media is the greatest tool.
Any time you have a client, any time you have a prospect, if you have a Hot 100 list of prospects that you want to try to call, get on social media. Look on LinkedIn. Find out what they’re posting. Find out who they’re retweeting. Find out who they’re reposting their stuff on LinkedIn. Both of you are always posting stuff on social media, and sometimes you’re tagging people in that social media, and that creates a great conversation.
Find out what people are doing, and then when they sit down, say, “Hey, Stephen, here’s the deal. I saw today for the first time, and I didn’t realize this, and I’m so sorry, that you’re a huge Baltimore Ravens fan.” I don’t know where that came from, dude. And that starts off a totally different conversation about life, which is really what our advisors are supposed to talk about.
Steve Wershing:
And I-
Julie Littlechild:
And-
Steve Wershing:
Go ahead. I’m sorry, Julie.
Julie Littlechild:
No, I was just going to say, I mean, do you find that … because to me the way you describe that is a wonderful way to think about social media, and I wonder if a lot of advisors don’t see it that way because they see it more as a broadcast tool rather than a listening tool. Do you find that?
Matt Halloran:
So that’s talking at, right?
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah.
Matt Halloran:
So that’s one of the communications faux pas that advisors are doing. They’re just broadcasting information out, hoping that … I talk about this in my speeches. Crazy Larry’s Used Cars, do you guys remember that? Every commercial break, Crazy Larry would come out and yell at you about his great deals. That’s not marketing anymore. That’s not how we can do it. It’s got to be communicative. It’s got to be a two-way street.
And in fact, some of the greatest communication success stories have been with negative feedback, and I highly recommend that your listeners type that in, with negative feedback on social media, and find out who is really kicking butt. Wendy’s has done a magnificent job. There have been a couple of other organizations.
Zappos does a great job of when somebody isn’t happy with their services, and they post a negative review, how they handle it is brilliant, and in fact, I started doing business with an online shoe company because of how impressed I was with how they handled listening to a negative complaint.
Julie Littlechild:
That’s interesting. So when you get down to talking to advisors about all of these opportunities, using social media, podcasting, what are you recommending for advisors today to get the word out to start those kinds of conversations?
Matt Halloran:
Well, first off, don’t do it yourself. I mean, you’d have to hire at least a full-time employee who has financial services experience, who understands and navigates not only compliance but the different levels of compliance across LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, the social mores and folkways on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
Most advisors don’t write. We have a fun presentation that we do. It talks about you can either be a writer, a radio personality, or a movie star, choose, because you have to, right? You have to be able to communicate to your clients. So I mean, this is a shameless promotion, Julie. I don’t know if you set me up for this, but I’m sure as heck going to take it.
Julie Littlechild:
Absolutely not.
Matt Halloran:
This is why you hire me.
Steve Wershing:
It’s all totally spontaneous.
Matt Halloran:
Yeah. Well, and I appreciate that. But with all of that aside, we actually have a whole bunch of free resources that you can use that will tell you how to do everything that we can do for you. To start your own financial podcast … we think that that’s the most effective way for advisors to get their thought leadership out, because they talk for a living. It seems to be a no-brainer. We weren’t really quite sure why nobody else did it, so we jumped on it.
And then by just taking that podcast and throwing it into a transcription service, which could be anything like Mobile Assistant, or there was one that my advisors used all the time.
Julie Littlechild:
Like Rev.com?
Matt Halloran:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or Trint is another really good one. And then you just take what you have already said, and then you hack it up in little pieces, you submit it to compliance, and there’s all of your social media posts.
Steve Wershing:
Oh, that’s brilliant. That’s great.
Matt Halloran:
So that’s how we do our jobs.
Steve Wershing:
Well, and we will definitely put a link to your site and to that library in the show notes, because I think that would be hugely beneficial to the listeners.
Matt Halloran:
Yeah. We’ve given away more … in fact, when Kirk and I got together … actually, this is my year anniversary when Kirk and I merged. And our goal was to give away every detail of everything we’ve done for free so that you could do it yourself, and I’m very proud to say that we’ve done a very good job of that.
Steve Wershing:
Interesting.
Julie Littlechild:
Happy anniversary.
Matt Halloran:
Well, thank you.
Steve Wershing:
And so one of the things that we talk about a lot here, and I think one of the things that you’ve spoken about periodically over time, is the whole idea of niche. How does that concept play into some of these ideas about social media?
Matt Halloran:
Well, it’s the most effective way to prospect on social media, especially when it comes to directed social media posts. So when I had Top Advisor Coaching, my ideal target market was a female CFP who was totally independent, who produced over $800,000 of GEC, who had three to five employees working for them, and also who firmly believed in full-blown financial planning, right? So that was my niche.
When I tell that to people, they’re like, “Well, how many people are in that niche?” I was like, “Well, enough to run a really successful coaching business for a long time.” But it also allowed me to communicate directly to that market. So, the gentleman who I was just referring to, Larry, his major focus as a financial advisor is to work with non-profits. And so, all of his social media, his podcasts now, are starting to focus more speaking directly to non-profits.
The best way to find out your niche, though, is to look in your book of business and find out who are your favorite clients and what do they do for a living. And niche marketing is … especially because how broad marketing can be using the internet, if you don’t have a laser focus, you’re going to spend a lot of money and not get a lot of results.
Steve Wershing:
And so that begins an interesting conversation. And I agree that most advisors, when they actually start looking at their client base, will find themes that they may not have seen before. But if they look at their client base and a target market doesn’t really jump right out at them, what are some of the next couple of things they might do to try to figure out who to direct all these messages to?
Matt Halloran:
Well, my favorite question to ask is, “What did you want to be when you were a kid?” And it’s so funny how advisors will say, “Well, Matt, I wanted to be a pilot.” “All right. Guess what? Let’s have your target market be a pilot. Why don’t you surround yourself with people who, when you talk about what they do for a living, you have the same passion you did when you were a child?” That’s one of my absolute favorite exercises to go through. Now, not everybody’s going to work with firemen, or nurses, or doctors, or things like that, but it at least gets that conversation rolling.
And then I ask them about their hobbies, so that’s the secondary thing, so, “What is your favorite thing to do outside of work?” “Well, Matt, I love golf,” or whatever. “Okay, well, who do you play golf with?” Because a lot of them don’t play golf with their clients, and then that opens up some more … you know, “When you’re driving around on a golf cart, who’s sitting next to you and what does that person look like?” “Oh, well, they’re a small business owner, just like me.” “Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Julie Littlechild:
It’s an important point you raise. So often I’ve been chatting with advisors who look at their top clients and don’t necessarily see the niche that they want to focus on. And it’s an uncomfortable situation, because the reality is you may not have your ideal client in your top clients. And it’s an important thought process to go through, but I love this idea of just getting back to what you’re passionate about.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah, it’s a great point, and I think that’s something that’s missing. When a lot of people talk about target marketing, they look at the business opportunity but they don’t talk about the passion, and that’s such a huge part of it. And so, Matt, are there different ways that you can incorporate that passion into your media strategy?
Matt Halloran:
Yeah. Joining groups. LinkedIn is famous for their networking groups. Community pages, social pages, especially when it comes to … Facebook is a great way for you to start embedding yourself within that community. And then on Twitter, hashtags are the key, or Instagram. And so if you are very, very passionate about … I do recycled metal art. I weld pieces of art out of junk. That’s my hobby.
And so on Instagram, I’m specifically always looking for people who do recycled art or metal art, and so I follow them, I chat with them. And if I was an advisor, surprisingly enough, a lot of the people who do metal art do it like me, and they’re business owners and it’s just a release. What a great way to prospect. And we can prospect all over the world now. I mean, goodness gracious. So, Julie, where did you move to, or where are you out of right now?
Julie Littlechild:
We moved just outside Toronto.
Matt Halloran:
Toronto, okay. And, Stephen, where are you?
Steve Wershing:
Rochester, New York.
Matt Halloran:
Right. And I’m in Kalamazoo, Michigan. And it sounds like we’re in the same room. So I just don’t understand why people … yes, you have to get licensed in other states, and blah, blah, blah. I understand that. But, man, wouldn’t you rather look at a person on a screen who shares the same passions that you do, than have somebody come in that you absolutely loathe who has $10 million with you, and every time they come in, you have a pit in your stomach and your whole team hates that person?
Steve Wershing:
You know, it’s a fascinating point, because we’re all still so hung up on the idea that personal service has to mean in-person service, and you’re absolutely right. In fact, I think there’s a whole separate podcast that we could all do about how to do an effective electronic engagement, or an effective virtual engagement, because it’s so different than what I see advisors actually doing when they try to connect with their clients virtually. But that’s a little off topic from this particular interview.
Matt Halloran:
Yeah.
Steve Wershing:
But-
Julie Littlechild:
I was wondering if we could … I mean, as you’re talking, Matt, I can see the connections with referrals and especially if you’re talking about groups and whatnot, but maybe we could just connect the dots a little more specifically with the strategies that you’re talking about, the strategies that you’re recommending for advisors in terms of communicating with their existing clients, and how that might translate into more referrals.
Matt Halloran:
Wonderful. Most people don’t have their friends locked down on social media. So what I recommend that people do … here is the easiest, most simple way to ask for a referral without coming across as a schlub, which is before that client comes in, if that client is connected with you on social media … now, there is an “if” there, if they’re connected with you on social media, or if you can access their social media, see who has been the person who has liked or commented on the majority of their posts in the last week.
And then when that person comes in, you can say, especially if you’re connected with them on social media, “Man, you must be really great friends with John Smith and Jane Smith. Oh, my God, they’re like our favorite people in the world. Would they be a good person to get a free consultation? I would love to volunteer a little bit of my time to just take a look at their stuff.” You don’t have to say, “Who do you know,” right?
In fact, Stephen and I were talking about this when I saw him at SEI the first time, so that would have been two years ago. And I said one of my clients would sit down and have a blank piece of paper and look at the person and say who are your three closest work associates, and wait until they gave an answer.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah.
Matt Halloran:
Right?
Steve Wershing:
Yeah.
Matt Halloran:
I don’t have to do that anymore. I can tell you who your three closest freakin’ work associates are by looking on social media. So does that answer that, Julie? I mean, every person who comes in I could ask them for a directed referral using that person’s name and the last thing that they talked about with you on social media.
Julie Littlechild:
Right. Right. So we can get a lot more specific.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah, and I think that’s the perfect way to encapsulate how all of this stuff wraps in together, is it combines listening with the intimacy of social media and, Matt, like you were just saying, as you know, I’m a huge opponent of that “who do you know” question, but asking for introductions is totally cool.
And that’s a great example, and there are so many other great ways of figuring out how to ask for specific introductions leveraging social media, and that’s a great one to start out with. I hate to do this, because this is a great conversation. There’s so much more I think we could dig into, but we are about at our time, and I think that’s a really good way of tying all those things together.
Matt, if people want to find out more about what you do, or your wise advice and stuff, where can they find you, or what would you suggest that they look at to pick up more of those tips?
Matt Halloran:
I’m very, very active on LinkedIn, so LinkedIn, just type in Matthew Halloran. That’s going to come up. And then TopAdvisorMarketing.com is our website. I wanted to thank both of you. Julie, I told you this when you were on our podcast. You’ve been a hero of mine in this industry. I cannot thank you enough for all of the great work that you’ve done for advisors.
And, Stephen, you know what? With how you woke people up with how not to ask for referrals but ask for introductions, I want to thank both of you for the work you’ve done, because it sure made my life a lot easier as a coach, and also just anybody who’s really trying to help advisors out in the right way, using the right motivation, which both of you are. I just wanted to thank you for that.
Julie Littlechild:
That’s very kind. And I’m just so excited to see the work that you’re doing now. It’s absolutely great. And we’ll make sure we’ve got the podcast links in there, because the episode that I was on aside, they are awesome.
Matt Halloran:
Oh, thank you.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s a great podcast, and you do such great stuff, so thank you for the work you do. And thank you so much for joining us here on Becoming Referable.
Matt Halloran:
Thank you for having me.
Julie Littlechild:
Hi, it’s Julie again. It was great to have you with us on Becoming Referable. If you like what you’ve been hearing, please do us a favor and rate us on iTunes. It really does help. You can get all the links, show notes, and other tidbits from these episodes at BecomingReferable.com. You can also get our free report, Three Referral Myths that Limit Your Growth, and connect with our blogs and other resources. Thanks so much for joining us.