Everyone likes Amy Noel. Seriously. Everyone. She's an upbeat, positive, feel-good presence wherever she goes. However, as we know, likeability doesn't necessarily translate into booming business. So while Noel Financial in Boulder, CO was doing well, it wasn't doing nearly as well as Amy knew it could do. That's where Peter Montoya comes into the picture.
"It gave me this streamlined focus," Amy says of her November 2003 Peter Montoya seminar experience. "It taught me who I am, who I like to work with, and gave me a way to communicate and a whole attitude that's reflected in my office." Running a boutique financial advisory firm for high net worth clients, specializing in asset management through Linsco/Private Ledger, Amy didn't like the idea of being a marketer. In fact, the prospect of sending out direct mail postcards "made me ill." She couldn't stand the thought of creating some slick image that wasn't really who she is.
With Coaching Comes a New Approach
So she didn't. Before she attended Peter Montoya's coaching program, Amy admits that her marketing was "all over the place. I got referrals by accident," she says, even though client and professional referrals are two of her three main branding channels. But after Peter Montoya coaching program, that changed.
"The last day of PBU was a life changing moment for me," she says. "With the help of the coaches and other participants, I had one of those "aha!" moments, when I branded myself the "feel-good financial planner." The "feel-good" concept has become the mantra by which Amy runs her business. As with all the best branding, the feel-good brand pervades every aspect of the firm:
- Before they go out, direct mail cards have to pass the "will they make the prospect feel good?" test.
- People are hired partly on the basis of if they make the other people in the company feel good.
- Amy has a Director of First Impressions whose job is to make new prospects and clients feel great during and after their initial appointment.
Branding That's "Her"
Barely eight months later, the results of Amy's branding efforts are obvious in the growth of Noel Financial. But one of Amy's greatest delights is that the branding really reflects who she is, not some crafted personality. "My coach, Michelle Carr, has just been so fabulous learning what my strengths and weaknesses are, tweaking all of this so it works for me," she says.
Before Peter Montoya, Noel Financial didn't really have a target market. Now they target not a specific demographic, but a personality type: independent, intelligent people, often self-directed and entrepreneurial. In other words, people like Amy. And with that targeting has come both more and higher quality prospects; where Amy used to see perhaps two prospects a month, now she sees as many as 12. And while her prospects once averaged $250,000 in assets, now she's seeing prospects with millions in assets…including one in the $30-$40 million range.
So what changed to provoke such a jump in growth? "I got the message about who I am out there," Amy says. Now, she meets with her centers of influence (in her case, CPAs and attorneys) once a month, speaks at CPA and bar associations regularly, and conducts regular client seminars to which she invites her professional colleagues. The networking and seminars have turned referrals into her solid-gold new business source.
"Half of my prospects have come from these seminars," she says. "I just figured, how can an accountant feel good about referring clients to us? By us showing them how we'll take such good care of his clients."
The Bottom Line
From the postcards Amy sends out that contain not financial information but whimsical things like professional photography tips, to the 13 kinds of herbal tea she keeps in the office for picky prospects, everything she does is designed to build that "feel-good" feeling. And it's paying off: She expects her assets under management to more than triple by the end of 2004, and her revenue to double to more than $500,000.
Those are numbers that would make anyone feel good. |
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