Lesson 2 | Develop Strong Messaging with the Value Messaging Framework Tool

Transcript: If you've watched lessons one and two, you know what informs strong messaging and how it can come to life in your business. In this lesson, we will walk through how to use the value messaging framework to develop effective value messaging. Make sure you have the framework tool on hand to make the most of this lesson. You can access the value messaging framework tool in the value messaging course page on the Growth lab. I'm Shauna Mace, head of Practice Management at SEI, our mission Simple. It's to help you and your team grow. At SEI, we're focused on creating better and braver futures together. Welcome to lesson three. Let's get started. What you say and how you say it matters. If you don't believe me, consider the results of the Y chart investor study that found that 85% of the over 600 respondents reported that their advisor's frequency and style of communications impacted their willingness to refer and stay with their financial advisor.

In lesson one, we reviewed the attributes of strong messaging. Strong messaging is clear, distinctive, consistent, and validated. This isn't the first practice management content built to help advisors and their teams develop value messaging. You may have seen content to help you develop your elevator pitch or value proposition. Our approach is a little different in that we're not trying to help you build a one or two sentence pitch to summarize your value, rather to help you create a framework of key messages with evidence that's flexible and can be applied in many places. You need to communicate both externally and internally. Think about all the opportunities you have daily, weekly, and monthly to talk about yourself, your firm, why you do what you do. A single elevator pitch isn't enough to communicate effectively and consistently on your website, social media profiles, in conversations in your marketing, and more. Instead of a one size fits all messaging solution, we want to help you build a flexible framework that you and your team can reference anytime you're developing communications. The value messaging framework has two sides. Page one are the inputs. Page two are the outputs. We're going to start on page one with the inputs. If you don't have this worksheet downloaded or in hand, pause this lesson and get it now.

Step one, describe your ideal client. If you don't have clarity of your ideal client, check out the ideal client profile course in the growth lab in the foundations module, you're going to want to keep your ideal client or clients front of mind as you go through this exercise. It can be helpful to think about a specific client who meets your ideal client persona, someone you want to replicate. In this example using fictional firm Vested Financial. Their ideal client are dual income families in their forties to fifties. In the Philadelphia area, these are self-made millionaires with little financial experience. They have not worked with a financial advisor before. They may have used a robo service or are do-it-yourselfers. Step two, a list your ideal client's needs both their financial and their emotional needs. This could include retirement planning and advice, tax optimization, investment management, and peace of mind that they can retire on time, a trusted partner they can go to for their money, questions, or confidence in their financial situation.

Some of these needs you will know based on your experience in client situations. However, I challenge you to test your assumptions by talking to a handful of clients or non-clients that fit your ideal client profile to hear what they have to say, here are some sample questions you can use to confirm and uncover your ideal client's needs. Start by explaining the type of client that you want to replicate or you want to work with to ensure that you're addressing their specific needs. Ask them for help by saying, can I ask you a few questions about what matters most to you when it comes to your finances? Here are some sample questions you can use for clients. You could ask, what were your greatest needs when you first came to me? When are your needs now? What have you found most valuable over the past X number of years of working together for non-client?

You could ask, do you work with a financial advisor? If so, what prompted you to seek professional help? What have you found most valuable in that relationship? If not, if they don't work with a financial advisor, you could ask what would prompt you to seek professional help? What matters to you most? If you were looking to hire a financial advisor and finally, you could ask non-clients, what are your top questions related to your finances? What questions do they have? What are they searching for online? Knowing this will be helpful for SEO purposes, search engine optimization. If possible, use their words using the vested financial example. Their ideal clients' top financial needs include estate planning, investment advice, stock option advice, and helped optimizing their tax. No, this may not be the exact language they use, but this is how you can understand how to bucket it.

It is helpful to include their actual language. Their top emotional needs include help understanding what they're missing as do-it-yourselfers. What do they need to do with their kids in mind? Are they on track towards their goals and a partner to mentally delegate their financial situation to? Investors are funny in that what they say they want and what they value may be different, which is why it's important to identify both their financial and emotional needs. Step two B, list your solutions, all of them, including the tactical work you do such as tax loss, harvesting to the advice work such as helping clients make big purchase decisions or defining how they want money to impact future generations. If you package your services in a unique way, include that here. Also, include your uniques, which are the things that differentiate you from other advisors. Ask your team to weigh in and use client feedback to help inform this list, to take a formed approach to your uniques.

Audit your competition either locally or based on your client focus. Also, consider looking outside of the financial service industry to understand how others are targeting your ideal clients, if that makes sense. Evaluate their messaging, appearance, and experience. What are their gaps? How can you stand out? Everyone has uniques. This may not seem obvious and they don't need to define your practice. A differentiator could be as simple as what you believe in your story or experience. In a highly commoditized financial advice industry, you are often your greatest differentiator. Don't be afraid to lean into that. In the example you can see vested financials, list of experience and services and their uniques. Step two C, with your services you just listed in mind, complete the sentence so that to identify the benefits of your services on your clients. Again, consider the financial and emotional impact. Keep your ideal client persona front of mind.

What benefits do they value the most? Step three, this is the hardest part. You're going to synthesize the bullets from each section into a sentence or two that captures the most relevant needs, solutions, and benefits with your ideal client in mind. Effective messaging is succinct. You can't say everything. This part of the exercise is meant to force you to prioritize and summarize. Simply listing all your bullets won't work. See the sample for an example of what this could look like, vested financials. Ideal clients need a third party expert to review and manage all aspects of their financial situation. From education to retirement planning to address the opportunities gaps, and to offload their questions and responsibilities. They provide full service, wealth management, financial planning and investment management built for your evolving needs. We've been there so that their clients can live fully today. Flip your value messaging framework over.

We're going to start to build your messaging. Step four, this is where you put your inputs together to form what we traditionally refer to as an elevator pitch or value proposition. This is a one or two sentence statement that summarizes at a very high level what you do for whom and the impact where you put what doesn't really matter. What matters is it's clear what you do for whom and what's in it for them. It should be comfortable to say and will be amplified by your belief that it's true. As you can see in these examples, you can communicate the same key concepts in different ways. Example, one, vested financial manages all aspects of our client's financial lives from planning for education and retirement to making sure money questions don't stall your dream. Vacation to investing so you can live fully. Today, we specialize in working with dual income families in their forties or fifties in the Philadelphia area. Example, two Vested financials specializes in working with dual income families in their forties and fifties in the Philadelphia area, we manage all aspects of our client's financial lives from planning for education and retirement to making sure money questions don't stall your dream vacation to investing so you can live fully today. As you can see, both value messages communicate the same key concepts.

Step five, this is where flexibility really comes in. In developing three key messaging points that expand on what you do, why you do it, the impact and how you do it. To give yourself additional room to expand or tailor what you're saying to your audience. Defining your key what, why, and how Puts meat on the bones of a traditional elevator pitch. For messaging point number one, what? Take a look back at your synthesized solutions inputs on page one for messaging. Point number two, why use your synthesizes needs and benefit inputs on page one For messaging three, how? Describe at a high level how you deliver on your promises. Your what if you don't have a standard way you ensure you deliver your services. This is an opportunity to think through that with your ideal client in mind. If we go back to the spur stone example, their how was by delivering high impact, guidance, authentic partnership, and our proven five step 10 x executive wealth plan.

Your key messages should be one or two sentences or bullets. Brevity and simplicity are best practices when delivering messaging work. To say more by saying less in the vested financial example, there are at least a couple bullets for each messaging point. Their how is we proactively manage all aspects of your financial life through our fully vested process. A four step process to protect and empower your goals through every phase of life. Discover, act, monitor, and adjust, and the fact that they have two service models, a subscription and annual engagement model based on their client's needs. Step six, for each of your key messages include at least one point of evidence that supports your claims. Evidence could be your experience, a certification, a process, a sample output, an award partnering with messaging with evidence only strengthens it. So now what if at this point you're frustrated and saying, Shauna, I'm not a writer.

This is beyond my skillset. That's okay. By going through the first half of the exercise, capturing your inputs, your ideal client, their needs, your solutions, and the impact you've done. Important work to inform your messaging. If wordsmithing is outside of your abilities, seek outside help from a marketer or copywriter. As Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach says, sometimes when you get stuck, it's a who, not a how problem. This lesson's meant to teach you how to develop impactful messaging, but if this isn't going anywhere, then find a who can help you. The median cost of a copywriter on Upwork is $30 an hour. Marketers and copywriters costs can vary greatly based on their experience, the scope of the project and how quickly you need it. If marketing isn't your thing, find a good marketing partner and that can be invaluable. To find the right marketing and copywriter partner, ask your network for referrals post on LinkedIn, leverage one of SE i's strategic marketing partners, or use a freelance site such as upwork.com.

Once you have a draft of your messaging framework complete, don't spend too much time perfecting it before you test it out. Practicing your messaging can be one of the best ways to refine and finalize messaging you love before you have too much time to overthink it. I challenge you to practice using it immediately. Practice it in the next three meetings. It doesn't matter who they're with. You want your messaging to be flexible enough to use with all different audiences to ensure it gets used. Also, practice it outside the office. Ask a family member or friend who is not an expert in the industry to let you practice on them. Imagine you're at a networking event. Challenge yourself to deliver your key messages, to test out how impactful you were and what stuck. Ask them what they recall and how they would explain what you do to one of their friends.

Ask them, is there anyone you can think of that may benefit from our services to see if you painted a clear enough picture of your who, what, why, and how. Again, you want to be easy to understand, repeatable and natural. Finally, how did it feel? What aspects of your messaging felt great and what fell off? Take your learnings back and make refinements as needed. If you have a team, ask some or all of them to test it out too. Now you know how to develop strong value messaging and have a tool to help you get started. Well done, but don't stop here. Watch the close and coach video for next steps to activate your messaging in all aspects of your business. Using the value messaging activation checklist to ensure you are consistently delivering your key messages.