If you’re among the more than 600 million LinkedIn users, or countless advisors steeped in traditional seminar and conference know-how…
You’re going to love the stealth network-building technique that I’m sharing with you today.
It comes to us by way of Jaclyn Vargo, who is a top sales rep with our friends at White Glove.
It’s an incredibly EASY and EFFECTIVE way to expand your personal network…and it’s probably something you haven’t thought of doing.
Jaclyn—who has more than 10,000 connections on LinkedIn—says her under-the-radar hack can easily leverage one connection into 1,000 or more new connections.
That’s networking on steroids.
Now, if for some reason you haven’t yet set yourself up on LinkedIn, consider this your wakeup call.
Get on LinkedIn today, and you can immediately use Jaclyn’s technique to jumpstart your digital marketing efforts and smooth the transition if you’ve been hesitating.
Think of it as a backdoor into the world of digital marketing, when combined with Jaclyn’s approach to traditional seminar and conference networking.
But before I share this great hack, let’s talk about digital marketing for financial services.
Digital Is Here To Stay
I know the thought of converting your marketing efforts over to digital can be overwhelming and even frightening.
And let’s face it; we’re in an industry whose comfort zone is slow and traditional.
While that’s okay, the time has definitely arrived for you to embrace digital.
Consider…
According to a recent Adobe/Econsultancy survey, 71% of marketers in the financial services space reported that their organizations are increasing their investment in digital marketing in the next 12 months.
Their primary focus?
Using digital to deliver a great experience to their customers and prospects.
The world has gone digital.
People watch 5 billion YouTube videos EVERY DAY.
Among Millennials, 8 in 10 are checking Twitter at least once a day.
It’s like Willie Sutton once said when asked why he robbed banks…
Because that’s where the money is!
It’s the same for you. The digital space is where your prospective clients spend the majority of their time.
If you’re going to drive traffic, communicate, build relationships and ultimately convert prospects into clients, the simplest and most effective way is to capitalize on digital marketing.
And here are three reasons why:
1. More Cost Effective: With traditional marketing, your options are both limited—print, radio/TV and billboards—and expensive. The costs for buying lists, printing and mailing have all gone up, and are continuing to rise.
By comparison, you can get started in digital with relatively little expenditure—especially if you’re already paying someone to create your content. Digital marketing can deliver lower costs, more demand and higher ROI.
2. Compliant-Ready: Because digital marketing seems light years from traditional marketing, many worry that their messaging or lead generation could run afoul in such a heavily regulated industry like financial services.
But if you schedule enough time for content review, discuss plans with your compliance officer, create checklists of disclosure information for marketing to use and stay current on regulations, it’s easy to systematically eliminate compliance issues.
FINRA is also a good resource for up-to-date information regarding digital marketing practices you can use worry-free.
3. Compatible with Traditional Marketing: You don’t have to abandon your existing marketing to introduce digital.
In fact, many digital strategies will enhance what you’re already doing, including seminars and conferences.
For example, digital marketing is a great way to prospect for seminar attendees.
The Stealth Hack for Explosive Networking – On AND Offline
When Jaclyn Vargo first told me the secret behind her rocket-fast climb to top account executive at White Glove, I knew we had to share her hack for building a personal network with our Advisorist family.
So how do you get to 10,000-plus LinkedIn connections?
And what does that mean to your business?
As Jaclyn explains, she knows her target market: financial advisors looking to grow their business using financial seminars.
Then, whether she’s attending a conference or out networking somewhere, she’s like a magnet for names.
“I just hear one name,” she says, “and I’m like looking on LinkedIn. What company do they work for? How many employees do they have?”
Okay, that’s smart. LinkedIn is a great business resource. But here’s where she gets stealthy…
Once she knows the company, she can find other people who work there, and she connects with all of them on LinkedIn.
And just like that…one connection can turn into 10…100…maybe 1000 new connections.
On one occasion she picked up 2000 additional advisors just from one connection inside a large agency.
Jaclyn has cracked the code on the multiplier effect.
But it’s not enough to make connections. Jaclyn is looking for new business. She wants to convert new connections into leads and add them to her pool of prospects.
That’s when she puts her follow-up strategy into action and starts to work the relationship.
Jaclyn reaches out with a brief email (a LinkedIn strategy we recommend at Advisorist) and a video link: Thanks for the connection. Here’s a link to a video describing what White Glove does. I’d love to set up a call with you.
She finds that if someone is interested, they’ll respond, which invites her to carry on and start developing the relationship. By including the video link, people can watch at their own convenience and get to know something about the company without committing to a call.
It’s low-key. It’s professional.
More important, it works.
She’s connecting with 1000s of new leads, and they’re completely free.
As an extra tip, video is one piece of reusable content that can easily become a long-term sales asset, if you create one to send to every new contact.
And for those of you who still love traditional marketing and face-to-face networking, this is the perfect companion.
Swipe These 3 Ideas from Jaclyn
1) Connect with Your Connections
Because Jaclyn has more than 10,000 connections on LinkedIn, she has a built-in audience. She stays in contact with her connections by posting content on LinkedIn.
She posts original content—often a selfie she takes at a conference. The personal pictures, she says, get more views than professional graphics.
And when she’s not posting her own content, she takes advantage of other people’s content by sharing it with her audience.
2) Optimize Your LinkedIn Page
If you go to Jaclyn’s page, you’ll see immediately what she’s all about: “I eliminate the pain of prospecting for business professionals – 100% risk free.”
That’s short, clear and to the point. She’s speaking directly to the professional’s needs.
This is one of several LinkedIn tweaks and optimizations we teach at Advisorist.
3) Be Tuned In for Names, Always
Jaclyn admits that when she’s out and about at an event, she keeps her ears open and tuned in for names. She says if she overhears a name (even if it’s not someone she’s talking with) she makes a mental note to find out who it is.
As soon as she gets a chance, she puts the name in her phone so she doesn’t forget.
Later she does her LinkedIn research to find out about the person, company, other employees and how many additional connections are possible.
“And the next thing you know,” she says, “I have 1000 new connections by way of someone I simply heard about.”
That’s all it takes to make a connection and build your personal network.
As Jaclyn says, you never know where the next great opportunity will come from. You may connect with 1000 people and nothing happens.
Other times, you connect with 10 people and something huge happens.
You just never know, so you might as well connect and send a quick message.
The Quick Version For Busy Professionals
Networking is still one of the all-time great sales strategies, and as Jaclyn Vargo has shown, you can accelerate your hard-earned networking skills while jumpstarting your digital marketing success.
Much of what Jaclyn is doing parallels the LinkedIn Leverage Methodology we teach at Advisorist.
I love this strategy for generating leads with LinkedIn + Cold Emails.
LinkedIn is the social media platform where your prospective clients gather—whether high net worth individuals, executives, entrepreneurs or hard-working professionals moving up the ladder of success.
But as much as I love LinkedIn, I love the power of email even more.
At almost $40 for every $1 spent, email still delivers the highest ROI of any marketing strategy—traditional or digital.
Let me recap Jaclyn’s process, plus add a few suggestions of my own:
- Optimize your LinkedIn profile; we’ve listed 7 things you can easily do to attract more interest from your target audience.
- Network at every opportunity to attract names of potential prospects. You don’t need to know the person. Hear a name, jot it down.
- Research names on LinkedIn, and if they seem promising, make a connection.
- Extend your reach by researching the first connection’s company, employees, and connections–turn one connection into many.
- Send short follow-up emails using our highly effective one-line strategy. Jaclyn includes a link to a company video, which is a great idea.
- Build your relationship with connections that email you back. You won’t turn every connection into a lead or customer, but as Jaclyn says, you never know where the big opportunity will come from so you might as well connect.
And finally, if you want to generate leads like a pro and fire up your lead conversion, turn this strategy into a SYSTEM, and commit to:
- Making 50 Outbound Connections Each Day
- Sending 10 Direct Messages inside of LinkedIn.
Today, with the help of digital marketing, you can easily 10X your typical results.
If that’s something you’re looking for, join us inside Advisorist.
We offer a comprehensive, step-by-step program dedicated to helping you build your financial services firm. We’ll walk you through the planning and implementation of a compliant, email + LinkedIn lead generation strategy. And much more.
We have coaches to answer your questions directly. If you don’t have the time or staff, ask us about our Done For You services.To watch my conversation with Jaclyn Vargo, join us over on the Advisorist YouTube channel.
