Kevin Nichols, COO at Oechshli, discusses the importance of consistency when building your personal brand. Whether you’re starting a podcast, creating videos, or enhancing your website, maintaining a consistent message and frequency is key to success.

It’s interesting, John, as a financial professional starts to think about positioning themselves as really a thought leader in the industry as opposed to just an advisor. And how about transformation happens in the eyes of their clients and there are so many ways to do it, but it really takes a commitment of time, obviously, of resources and a strategy and not just one and done. And I think that there’s oftentimes just so much process behind it that can be very overwhelming for financial professionals. And those are conversations that I’m having every day. I don’t know if those are discussions that you’re having as well with financial professionals.

Well, it’s funny, Julie. I don’t think about it that much. I mean, I’ve never applied for the job as as a thought leader. I don’t think you did either. But essentially we provided a lot of it for Hartford funds, even through a podcast like what we’re doing today. But let me just tell you about my experience in quote unquote thought leadership. Very early in my career. The PR folks at Hartford thought it would be a good idea if I went on some of the financial television shows up in New York. You know, that the CNBC, MSNBC, all the market kind of shows that go on during the day and share some outlooks on longevity, aging, all this kind of stuff was funny. When I came back from doing those little interviews, you would have thought from the colleagues around me that something in me changed because everybody all of a sudden was kind of like, Hey John, what are your thoughts on this and what do you think about that? I was still the same person, but now being cast in the mold of a of a thought leader, if you will. People kind of had different level discussions with you. And I think in our podcast today with Kevin Nichols, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re not you know, there’s not a necessarily recipe. What we need to identify are things that are really important to us as financial professionals that we think more clients need to hear about and then begin to develop a brand about creating good ideas and sharing those through whatever medium we choose.

I think it’s a really exciting opportunity for financial professionals to share that information. And I love how Kevin even said, you know, sharing stories and conversations confidentially, of course, that you’re potentially having with other clients that you think could help. I just think it’s such a great opportunity for for financial professionals to position themselves as sharing that information.

And isn’t it great when you run into someone out there on the road who comes up to you never met them before and they say to you, Hey, John or Hey Julie, I love the podcast episode you all did on X, Y, Z. I mean, it’s awesome. It’s like you’re there when you’re not even there. And that’s really what we’re talking about today is how to leverage the knowledge that you as a financial professional have to create kind of a persona and someone that even people you don’t even know yet will look to for your opinions and your thoughts on a given topic areas. And so that’s why I’m so excited to hear from Kevin Nichols today from Oechsli. Kevin This is their business, right? They they help people not only think about thought leadership, but actually take the steps to put it into action. So I think our audience is really going to enjoy the conversation we have with Kevin Nichols.

Absolutely. Kevin is the CEO at Oechsli and the author of the Indispensable LinkedIn Sales Guide for Financial Advisors. He’s been a social media columnist for Wealth Management Dot.com for over ten years, and he’s also the co-host of the popular podcast The Stephen and Kevin Show.

And so, Julie, let’s share with everybody what Kevin had to share with us about moving from being just a financial professional to being a thought leader. Hi, I’m John.

And I’m Julie.

We’re the hosts of the Hartford Funds Human Centric Investing Podcast.

Every other week we’re talking with inspiring thought leaders to hear their best ideas for how you can transform your relationships with your clients.

Let’s go.

Hello, Kevin. Thank you so much for being here today with us on the Human Centric Investing podcast.

I’m happy to be here, Julie.

So, Kevin, on today’s podcast, we really wanted to talk to you about this transition that many advisors experience, where they go from being kind of known as the financial professional or financial advisor to really an industry thought leader. And it’s kind of funny because when I think about thought leadership, remember what was it about ten years ago that the electronic publishing business started up where maybe is longer ago, where I can put my name on the title of like any book, and it made me seem like I was something I’m not. We’re not talking about that, you know, basic step of leadership. But I want to hear from you because I know you consult with advisors and teams all across the industry. What does thought leadership mean to you and what value is there in it for that financial professional?

Yeah, you know, I, I think that it’s something that obviously where everything is headed is that you want to be present more and start building your expertise online through good content and thought. Leadership in itself is sharing your own thoughts. And so when you’re talking about putting your name on like a book, which I get it, I remember working with an advisor years ago who had this like shock and awe package and why is this so, you know, it’s like, well, it’s me on a book cover and me and this and I send it to people in advance and I was like. What one prospects and clients. They’re not they’re not naive, right? They’re not they’re not dumb people. Right. And they they can tell like if you’ve really if it’s your own thoughts and it’s something that you put your heart and soul into versus something you did it. The idea here behind thought leadership is that we’re just kind of fighting for attention online. Right. We’re all we’re all trying to do that. We’re all trying to get a piece of of this right. This scroll that we’re all stuck in. And I want to be kind of in the palm of your hand through good content. And I want to do that spaced repetition over time to a point where when you have a need where you think, gosh, you know, Kevin at Oechsli has given me a lot of good stuff, I should reach out to them. Right? And it is playing a little bit of a long game, but I think it’s a game worth playing for. For most advisors and the advisors that we’ve worked with who’ve taken the time and energy to build that thought leadership, it really changes the whole sales process for them.

It’s interesting. I think this starts at mindset and sort of value proposition. Obviously, so many financial professionals have, you know, their value proposition through the years has either been on the investment side or the wealth planning side. And if you think about that, you know, all of a sudden sort of putting themselves out there as a thought leader, that’s sort of a whole new value proposition. Will you talk us through kind of that mindset shift and maybe why you think financial professionals should consider that is sort of a new arrow in the quiver as we think about, you know, the changing landscape and value add as it pertains to what clients want and expect of their financial professional going forward.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, the mindset shift, How does that happen? Because. Because for some it’s it’s a little bit of a struggle. I’d say I think I’d say the first thing is like getting comfortable with the spotlight, like knowing that if I’m going to build thought leadership, I’m going to have to get comfortable sometimes, like being on camera, doing a podcast, right? And in practicing some of those things, it could be even being on graphics or being, you know, we’ve talked about before with websites and having custom photography and videography, getting comfortable with the spotlight. That’s like the best way that I can put it. And that takes a little bit of, of a mindset shift at times. I remember working with an advisor who was in a video program with us, and the guy was a natural on video. I mean, his, his cadence, his delivery. I was impressed by it couple of months and he calls me up and he was like, Kevin, I, I, I think I’m going to cancel the program. I don’t want to do any more video content. And I was like, Why? And he was and he just started kind of rambling, wouldn’t give me a clear response. And after kind of peeling back some layers, it was revealed that he was out the other the other night with some friends of his from a former firm that he was out at. And they were kind of giving him a hard time and joking with him about his videos he was putting out. Well, they weren’t allowed to do video content. And he was and he was he was insecure about it. Right. So there was some like, self-consciousness that comes with putting yourself out there. What if what if someone says something to me about it? What if someone makes a negative comment? What if all that stuff and I. I don’t know if there’s an easy answer to a Julie that other than, like, get over it. Like, that’s this is how the world works now and that your consumers are going online to find an information for whatever they’re looking for. They’re doing a lot of due diligence ahead of time and you want to be one of those options. So it’s going to take that for some. For others, it’s not for other, it’s some advisors. It’s like, Oh my gosh, I’ve been begging to do this. Like I’m so excited to do this. An advisor I work with that used to have a radio show, right? Mean him getting into podcasting was like, you know, this is amazing. This is the new radio, right? So to me, that’s, that’s part of it. Now, that’s the mindset part. And my answer, which is probably not the best answer, is just like, get over it, right? Like, people are going to judge you like that’s going to happen, that you’re going to be the one who builds influences and influence and takes advantage of that right now. Because eventually, I mean, it’s just the market’s just becoming more and more saturated. Like, let’s be obvious here. Like there’s a million podcasts, right? There’s a million YouTube channels. But can you niche down like can like, for example, for us talking about thought leadership, there’s a million podcasts out there about leadership for financial professionals, right? Like now I’m creating something that my audience is going to really value and like listening to more than a generic. Video on building thought leadership overall.

Right.

The value component. I have research on this, so I have it right here in front of me and sorry, I don’t have these stats memorized, but this is affluent investor research on what’s the impact of an advisor being an author, a podcaster, or a video personality. So what’s the impact of that? How do the affluent see it? Basically that the top answers here for the. Most of the demographic as a whole. It was a minimum of 500,000. Investible was it encourages me to actively seek their opinions. It increases my confidence in their abilities. And then this one, which to me I think is huge, is it inspires me to refer them to others more. And that one to me is one that we don’t talk about enough.

And Kevin, I think it’s important you talked about the that the advisor, potential advisor who’s not comfortable in that light. I think thinking about some of those things that you just share. By the way, I’ll point out that the friends that were kind of giving him a hard time, at least they watched the videos right So and found it such.

Such a good point there. Right. They saw it. They saw it. He was grabbing some attention. You know what? There’s plenty of other people who watch his videos that he doesn’t even know about.

And and this is what I find is that, you know, again, thinking about conversations I often have with my friend Joe Coughlin up at MIT, he believes the new value of financial advisors to their clients is this simple statement. Tell me something I didn’t know, right, Because so many consumers now think we know so much about everything and we can learn anything on social media. Having somebody being it be able to say, you know, I know you were told this, but I’m here to tell you that, right? Somebody right. Challenge our thinking, make us think through the processes. I think that’s the that’s really where we want to get in thought leadership, where somebody actually cares about what I have to say. But as I think about that, Kevin, I think another objection might be when we think about all these media outlets now, whether it’s podcasting, whether it’s video, whether it’s whatever, and we just use this kind of broad term thought leadership. Some financial professionals, I think, are a little bit worried about how divided the country is, how divided their client book would be. How do you know what topics are in scope and what topics you want to stay away from? By the way, from a political standpoint, I’ve seen advisors on both ends of the political spectrum. Some say this is the client that I market to. Others say this is the client I market to, so some might invite it. But how how do you actually think about the right conversations to be leading thought on, if you will?

Yeah. Now, when it comes to being on the political side of it, unless your clients are one way or the other, like I always tell advisors, like, let’s be a political atheist in that regard. Like, let’s try and not like, go down those paths. Now, what you talk about, you talk about conversations that you’re having already. Like, I mean conversation. I mean, and this is why the ideation process doesn’t have to be overly complex. But right now, if you’re let’s say you’re having reviews with clients, what are you talking about primarily? What are the conversations that you’re having? What’s what’s a story that you could share anonymously, of course, about a conversation you just had with an 80 year old widow? Right. Like because there’s someone else out there who could relate to it also. And I forget the what was the value proposition you mentioned from the MIT person. Tell me something I don’t know.

Tell me something about it. I mean, something I didn’t know.

Yeah, I did it. That was something I didn’t know. So, no, I love that, by the way. I think that’s great, because what I want you to do is start giving away some of your best, best, best advice. Like just some of your best stuff. Don’t. I was talking to an advisor the other day who was saying, Well, if I give away my best content, they don’t need me. And I was like, Well, if you don’t give away your best content, they’re never going to see you. He was like, Well, you know, really? And I was like, Yeah, because if you’re not going to give that advice away or that tip away, someone else is, and that person is the one who’s building the influence. That’s the person who’s actually building the authority and is going to start, you know, really when you think about marketing, you think about push versus pull. What we’re doing with thought leadership is we’re moving away from pull or sorry push strategies of whether it be old school or cold calling or mass seminars or, you know, I mean, those types of thing and mass mailings. And we’re we’re trying to be magnetic. And in order to do that, we got to give away some of our very, very best stuff. And the reality is, is if that person takes some of your best content and implements it themselves, I would argue that they probably weren’t going to hire you in the first place anyway. They’re more of a DIY or we did research on this at actually a while back and we asked what would we ask a group of DIY investors? What would cause you to hire a financial professional? And the the number one thing was I became too ill to do it myself. They’re probably not going to hire you in the first place. I don’t think you’re going to convince them otherwise. So give away your best stuff. Tell them something they didn’t already know. I hope that that was that. That was a phrase, right?

Was. Yeah. Yeah, You got it.

Yeah. All right, good.

Kevin, don’t you think that clients are also on the email distribution list of another financial professional somehow that they don’t have a penny with? And I always say when I’m coaching advisors that chances are your clients are getting a drip from some other advisor that they don’t have a penny with that they somehow got on a list with. Maybe it’s an interesting educational article. Maybe it’s a summer tip from a dermatologist, right? It’s just these drips and all of a sudden, if you’re not doing that and they have their $3 million with you yet this advisor that they have $0 with sends them these monthly really interesting articles and video clips. All of a sudden it just over time starts to feel like, well, gosh, I don’t have a penny with this advisor, but they’ve really brought me a lot of value and it starts to create that question in moment. I don’t know what your thoughts are. I just always bring something that I’ve thought about.

I’ve never thought of it that way because I’m, you know, I guess I’m on so many advisor newsletters because like we I naturally we run that for advice. I have so many. But I bet you’re right. Like a you’re 100% right. You know, they’re on someone else’s campaign or even or even they’re seeing another advisor in their feed constantly. Right. And over time, it shapes perceptions. It definitely does. You know, we we did some research on this, again, getting into newsletters, but like we asked affluent investors, what would cause you what would be like the number one thing that would actually make you read an advisor’s newsletter? And there was a top two. And number one was it had a like a written intro from the advisor themselves. So this is going beyond like the here’s an update on the markets and you just plug in whatever, right? The second one was they had interesting videos or content. So, you know, I think you’re absolutely right. And it’s shaping those perceptions. And over time, you want to be the one that they think of is like a really smart provide me a lot of value and why isn’t my advisor doing this?

Exactly. Yeah. QUESTION On the the consistency. I think that’s the next conversation that I have with financial professionals is. Okay, I think I want to do this. I’m going to start with a newsletter, say, or a blog. You know, gosh, I don’t think I can do it every week. That comes really quickly. I think I could commit to monthly. You know what? What are your thoughts on frequency? Obviously, my thought always is once you’ve committed to a specific duration, you need to follow through. Right. It’s worse to say, I’m going to do this monthly newsletter and then do it for four months in a row and then all of a sudden, on the fifth month, not. So. Will you walk us through your thoughts on timing, consistency, follow through, and maybe even share some things that advisors are doing wrong? You know, just to kind of put it all out there in the spirit of educating us.

Yeah, if we were working with a brand new advisor and they wanted to roll out a video series. Yeah. You know, first off, to back up even even further the idea of, like, building thought leadership can feel overwhelming. Right. Like, what does that mean? How much do I have? How much time do I have to allocate to this? Like, I don’t know if I have that time. Right. And this is all related to consistency. The first thing that I always tell them is like, we’re going to build some sort of Cornerstone series, just one Cornerstone series. Now that could be a podcast like we’re doing today. And maybe it’s like their podcast and it’s branded, it’s professionally done. To me, that that’d be one or a video series. That could be it. It could be written. Right. I just have you know, I’m biased in the sense of I like being able to hear someone or see someone. I feel like that’s very, very humanizing. But when you think about even someone like back in the day, like you followed him forever and everyone knows. Michael Kitsis Right. The guy got started and he was starting off by writing these really in-depth articles because articles were just fantastic. They were super detailed and that’s what he did. So I’m not saying you can’t do the the article route as well. Now he has a podcast and whatever, but you’re going to pick one of those, one of those mediums, and we’re going to create that Cornerstone series, we’re going to name it, we’re going to brand it, and then we’re going to commit to some level of consistency. If I were doing a podcast, I’m like, Hey, twice a month at a minimum, if I could do it weekly, that’d be amazing. But also I’m going to batched that creation. I mean, just to be clear, like we’re doing that, like that’s what we’re doing right now, right? We’re batching the creation at Oechsli Fridays for us, our content days. What we do on Fridays is like, I block it off. I know we’re creating content, we’re creating short form videos, we’re shooting an episode of our podcast, The Stephen and Kevin Show. We’re like, We batch the creation for sure, right? If I want to see Wheel of Fortune being being filmed, like they don’t just do one show and then they’re done right? Like it’s like, no, they’re going to, they’re going to pop out a bunch, right? So podcast frequency, I would say minimum, like twice a month. If you could do more and you could stick to a cool video. I feel about the same article. I think you could do one a month. If you’re doing that, if you’re setting a newsletter, commit to one a month, and then you can increase it from there. What happens naturally, though, is these advisors, they get excited about it and they’re like, Oh, I want to quote and this is what they’ll come to us. I want to quote for two video videos a week. I’m like, okay, how many videos are you doing right now? Zero. Okay, let’s let’s back it up and let’s like, let’s let’s come up with a realistic, you know, because. Doing the stuff consistently is hard. Like, it’s it’s just not easy. As soon as you don’t feel like it. I mean, I don’t know if you guys felt like recording a podcast today. I did, but you may not have. And but that’s the reality of it is there are days where you’re like, I want to do it, but you got to do it right? So pick a pick a number that you can stick with and be fairly consistent with where we all fall off that train. And there’s nothing worse than. A podcast where I’ve never seen it, where an advisor does five episodes and they just don’t do any more. They haven’t done another one in a year. It’s like, What? What are you doing? When you started building an audience? People are starting to listen. They’re waiting for the next episode, right? They’re waiting for it on their phone. You got to give it to them.

That’s why I think, Kevin, one of the things that Julia and I appreciate at Hartford Funds we have an entire team of people and even beyond our podcast team, we have a larger team that are suggesting potential guests to us. Because to me, that creative process, right? Having something interesting to say pretty much all the time is really, really challenging, right? Once you get your best ideas out of the way, it’s kind of like, What do I do? You’re like a songwriter, right? You’re only as good as your last hit. And so farming it out involving the team, I think is is crucially important. But Kevin, aside from like those frequencies of, you know, people maybe get ahead of themselves. Julie mentioned just a moment ago. Anything else stick out to you in terms of biggest mistakes that people make when they enter into this kind of thought leadership realm?

Yeah. When I think about some of the biggest mistakes I do, I do think about again. I start and I. And I stop and I just I again, I’m not being being consistent. I think the other is trying to do too much yourself and I think you hinted at that there’s certain aspects of it like do you need to be editing video content? Like is that the best use of your time as a financial professional? Probably not. But I do want you on video sharing your best ideas, but I don’t think you need to to mess with the editing. You can have someone on your team do that. You can outsource that. Distribution of the content is a whole nother animal in itself, right? I think that’s something too. So getting that that right team in place, because if you’re going to do it all yourself it. That’s a lot like that. That is a lot. But what I’m saying is you can do it. You don’t have to. You don’t have to. You need an ally. You need a team that can help you with some of those things. But if you want to build thought leadership, it needs to be you. And and I think I think a mistake that I’ve another mistake I’ve seen is advisors who just used only canned content and. Again, I know there’s plenty of advisors listening who are like, Oh yeah, I use content provided by my firm and so great. That’s okay. That’s supplemental content. But you are not going to build thought leadership by posting articles from your firm. You’re not like, they’re not going to look at you and give you the credit for those. And that’s that’s what you got to do. You mean I said it? And I think it’s so simple when it’s like thought leadership is your own thoughts and like, that’s what you all have them. You’re all I mean, I talked to so many great advisors all the time. They have so many awesome ideas and they’re they’re so good talking to clients and great personalities. Share it. Share it with people. Here’s one other I get. I’m rambling here, but here’s another mistake. Not being authentic enough, not sharing some of those personal aspects of yourself. Because I share with you I have a mini burn a doodle and you’re like, Gosh, I have a mini burn a doodle, and now you feel like, Oh, we have something in common, right.

Or right that.

You know, I’m into to playing video games like retro games, because when I was grew up in the eighties, like, that’s what I did. Like, that’s those are things that humanize you. And we cannot forget that this is a people business and people do business with people that they like, right? So and again, I’m not saying coming in and being super polarizing with your ideas, I’m saying share personal tidbits about you that connect others to you, that that that’d be another mistake. It’s just straight facts, the facts and figures and market updates. And that makes for for you’re not entertaining me at all. It kind of bores the audience.

That’ll make sense. If a financial professional goes through the process and starts to have a consistent approach and commits and say, does this for a certain period of time and invests the time and the money and the sweat, blood and tears, if you will. How do they go about measuring the success of this endeavor, assuming that they can’t point to ten new clients that came to them saying, Hey, I’m here with my $5 million because of that amazing video that I saw. Right. Assuming that that doesn’t happen. How how do they track the input to sort of, you know, the growth of their practice?

This is the ROI conversation, right? That’s it. We’re talking about like, okay, I’m committed to this. I’m doing it. What’s the ROI going to be? And, you know, and I and I give a lot of presentations and so I pull lots of little tidbits from from those. And there was one a couple of months ago, an advisor raise their hand. I was talking to him about same similar topic video content and. He said. So how many videos until I can bring in a new client? It’s like, Dude, I have no idea. I mean, I can’t tell you.

Like 4 to 7.

Yeah, it’s like five. Five videos. No, no, no. Six, six video. You get a client and the audience kind of laughed a little bit, and they, you know, But what what that advisor is asking is the ROI. That’s what they’re asking. So there’s a couple of ways to go about this. First off, when you first launch something like this, I tell all of our clients to look for clues. So first phase of I think the ROI conversation to me is what’s going to happen. You start creating videos, start creating podcasts, you’re going to have friends and family, you’re going to are going to make comments to you. They’re going to say, Hey, by the way, so you’re video on this is interesting. You’re outside getting your mail and your neighbor says, Hey, I saw your I actually listened to your podcast. That’s pretty cool. That’s a clue that you’re getting some traction. You’re building a little bit of audience. Second phase up client, start bringing it up. So if I’m distributing this stuff right now regularly, I should hear anecdotally from clients. I’m going to say, Hey, by the way, I watched your video on this. I saw that. If you’re not getting that, we’re missing something. Something’s not right. It’s not just the distribution isn’t there. The content is not right. Something’s wrong. That’s like the next kind of level up. Third would be metrics are increasing, so views, impressions, follower count like those things should. If I’m measuring those and those those are hard numbers. Right. But I should notice that that’s it’s trickling up. Do not expect a you know hockey stick of like, wow, I’m going viral with this. Oh my gosh. It’s like the worst conversation ever to have with someone is like, how do I go viral? But I should you know, I should I should see a trend going up, Right? And then what you’ll get eventually and this is the Mecca is you start meeting with prospects and they say, I’ve actually watched a bunch of your videos. I’ve actually I’ve actually listened to your podcast. I’ve been listening for a while now. And that should be all the affirmation that you need when someone sitting in front of you that you’re getting the ROI on this. It changed. But but you see how there’s baby steps there. Like there’s an I’m telling you, once the advisor knows that they should be looking for those things, they start realizing it. They’re, you know, at Thanksgiving dinner and their uncle’s like, by the way, nice video on this. And they’re like, Oh, cool. Their list. They’re watching it. And then it just progresses from there. The the other thing I would say is start asking everyone how they heard about you. Everyone, I mean, even clients. I think this is a good exercise. If you knew that number. Would it shape your marketing going forward? Yeah, absolutely. It would. It would shape so much of it if I had an accurate representation of how all my existing clients heard about me and also knew prospective clients or even centers of influence that I’m trying to build relationships with. How did you hear about me? And eventually you should get to a point where they say, Actually, I watched your video first. I saw video I saw. I listen to an episode of your podcast, and then I kind of got hooked on that that level of content. And that’s where where you want to you want to get to that point.

Well, Kevin, we can’t thank you enough for joining us today on the Human Centric Investing podcast and sharing your thoughts and insights. And for our listeners, if you’re interested in engaging with Kevin and his team, please visit their website at Oechsli dot com for individual coaching and engagement. Thanks again, Kevin.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks, Kevin.

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