Rebranding…Already?

My initial wave of emails and cold calls did not go exactly as expected. While feedback on the idea was generally positive, no one opened his wallet. Fortunately, rather than email blasting my elevator pitch and link to the site to my entire list of financial advisors, accountants and brokers, I had only contacted ten…waiting for feedback and responses. Sitting in a pool of my own sweat and with my heart rate through the roof, I made my cold calls to the first ten. While all were willing to offer advice and comment on the idea, rather than hanging up on the salesman on the other end of the line, none were thrilled with the idea of an additional expense.

I thought about one of the first conversations that I had with a prospective customer several months earlier. The prospect emphasized the importance of trust. In fact, the two sample newsletters in my sales brochure were meant to establish a level of trust…but were they enough?

A recent Tweet turned me on to “This Week in Start-Ups”, a podcast by marketing and social media expert Jason Calacanis. Within the first five minutes of a two hour podcast, he discussed the importance of becoming an expert in your selected field.

I had products to sell, but I was no expert. In order to gain a necessary level of trust, I need to convince these experts in their fields that I am an expert in mine: understanding the relationship between financial advisors and Generation Y. Therefore, I published the results of my survey examining the relationship between financial advisors and young adults and began gathering news articles and studies on the subject. All were immediately posted to the website.

My goal is to rebrand myself as an expert in this field, promoting both my own research as well as that of others…all for free. If I can become a trusted source of content and resources for these professionals, I believe that the sales will follow. Fortunately, the research I gathered proved the thesis statement of my business: that financial advisors and young adults can both benefit from the promotion of financial literacy. If these financial advisors buy into the research proving the thesis, well that would be all the selling I need to do…my newsletters and ancillary products are just a click away.

Tags: become an expert, rebranding