Participants:
Steve Wershing
Julie Littlechild
Suzanne Siracuse
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Welcome to Becoming Referable, the podcast that helps you become the kind of advisor people can’t help talk about. I’m Julie Littlechild, and on this week’s show, Steve and I are joined by the wonderful Suzanne Siracuse. She’s the founder and CEO of Suzanne Siracuse Consulting, a company that advises financial services firms in three core areas, strategy, marketing, and advocacy initiatives. She’s the creator and host of The Big Reveal podcast series, which is a great podcast, and a true thought leader. Speaking on topics that range from marketing and leadership to financial literacy and FinTech. During the conversation, Suzanne shares a really interesting journey from the time she left her position as CEO and publisher of InvestmentNews, through a personal rebranding and starting her own firm.
I love to hear these kinds of stories. And she shares some very powerful and very practical ways for advisors to amplify their message through content marketing. And we examine how advisors work with the media – the mistakes they make and the best practices they can employ to ensure they build meaningful connections. With that, let’s get straight to our conversation with Suzanne. Suzanne, welcome to the show. So happy to have you here.
Welcome, Suzanne.
Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s great to see you even though it’s virtually, but hopefully we’ll see each other in person soon enough.
Oh, I miss it. I really, really do. You know what, I was thinking it might be helpful to start because I think what’s interesting with your role is for so long, everyone knew you and your role at InvestmentNews and that role. But can you maybe just start with an update on the work that you’re doing right now?
Absolutely, and thank you for asking, and yes, my name was synonymous with InvestmentNews and vice versa. It’s been, if you can believe it or not, almost two year since I left InvestmentNews and started Suzanne Siracuse Consulting Services. Basically, how I like to explain what I do now is I took the parts of my role that I absolutely loved at InvestmentNews that I found myself gravitating more towards and wanting to spend more time doing. Essentially, took those pieces and start at my own firm so that I could do it exactly the way that I wanted to. So I bucket it into three different areas, all focused on the wealth management, financial advice industry. So very, very niche and we’ll probably talk about niche marketing at some point, but very, very niche in my approach.
I started falling more in love with the industry than I did with media, which was one of the things that prompted me to consider doing something else, quite frankly. Even though I still work with InvestmentNews all the time and all the rest of the media, I feel like sometimes I haven’t left. But the three areas that I really specialize in are working with firms that want to do business with financial advisors or the firms that serve them. And three specific areas, business strategy, marketing strategy, and advocacy initiatives. What I mean by advocacy initiatives are my passion projects, like they were at InvestmentNews. Anything surrounding DEI, innovation, next-gen talent development, financial literacy.
Things that I would classify as game changing important topics, and because I launched so many initiatives with my fabulous team around those things, I now am in a pretty good position to help either large companies launch their own or enhance or amplify their own, or help small companies figure out how to position that within their own firms.
It’s interesting to hear the journey. I love understanding what got people from here to there and-
You’re very cerebral Julie, that’s why.
I know, it’s a problem, right? I know it’s an illness. But you explained it really well there and I think it sounds like you just evolved into learning different parts of the business. Did that involve understanding also where your natural skillsets lay and your passions lay? What did you learn in that process?
That’s a great question. I think, first of all, the journey was longer than most people probably know. I’ve said this publicly a couple of times, but I had started my soul searching of what I wanted to do when I grow up years before I actually left InvestmentNews. And had sought out the advice of a coach, Greg Friedman, who I know you will both know very well. One time said to me we, were having lunch and I was frazzled and checking my phone and messages and distracted as we all can be. He just looked at me and said, “Are you happy? What are you going to do next?” I never really thought about what I was going to do next.
This was going to be the deepest lunch I’ve had in a very long time.
Exactly, but it made me sit back and think, “Was I happy? Did I love what I was doing? What was he seeing that maybe I didn’t see myself?” I sought out a coach who I went through several months of exercises with and answering her questions and came out of it with you’re not ready to leave. A month later, the Crane family who owned InvestmentNews, up until a few years ago, said, “We are going to be selling InvestmentNews. We’re buying out one of our brothers and we need you to help us sell it.” That’s when I realized that, that was actually what I was meant to do, was to get it ready to transit it to someone else. A different owner, a different CEO, publisher, what have you. That’s exactly what happened, and so I stayed, I transitioned it to the new firm and the rest is history, so to speak.
So it sounds like you were heading in a certain direction, but then this external thing happened I guess that just was like, “Okay, now I’m really going to go down this path.”
Yeah, I think sometimes people get very comfortable in what they know, and I know that, that was something that I was guilty of. I also think that your definition of success changes throughout your career. While in many people’s minds I may have been considered successful and I had run a great business, I think, and produced really important content, which was our mission and resources for advisors. I felt that there was something else and I also felt myself definitely changing what I was attracted to, which is what you were getting out earlier, Julie. I really wanted to spend less time managing people and process and all that fun stuff that goes along with that.
Advisors listening, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, Michael Kitces says this too. And I wanted to spend more time on the things that brought me joy, and it took a long time to understand what those were and that’s what I’m doing now. I’ve never been happier, quite frankly.
Once you got to that point, so it sounds like you’ve got now a deep understanding and clarity around what you want to do. Does the rebranding become easier at that point? Because I’m sure it sounds quite daunting for people.
I think that what was… I was a bit lucky in that I was in a relatively public… I was a public figure, so to speak, in the industry. If I launched a bunch of things and they failed miserably, I don’t know if I…
It’s getting bad on this, yeah.
I don’t know if I would’ve been able to successfully launch my own consulting firm because I wasn’t able to run my own business. The business of InvestmentNews. The thing that I think really was helpful was launching so many important initiatives that Women to Watch or Icons & Innovators, 40 Under 40, the Moss Adams practice management benchmarking studies that now our InvestmentNews is. Then also just grow the business and become the number one brand in media. So that was, because I was leading the organization, a lot of that success was attributed to me, which was great, and my team, of course, could never do that without them. I also, in the process, developed a lot of authentic relationships with senior people in the industry that were advertisers as well as the many advisors that read InvestmentNews and spoke at our events.
That personal connection, personal relationships, real desire for them to be successful. If they were working with us on any particular project, I wanted it to be a win-win for both. I also am fairly curious. I’m a curious person, I’m a question asker, and so a lot of the insights that I took to my consulting practice came from the many conversations I’ve had over the years of the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to working as an advisor. Then, quite frankly, one of the things I was the most nervous about when I left was I’m not going to have the InvestmentNews platform behind me, and are people going to continue to follow me? Are they going to continue to support me?
It doesn’t matter how confident you are as a person or what you do or what you bring to the table, that was a real valid concern. By chance, I had been thinking about this podcast idea and knew I wasn’t going to have the platform. Actually, approached Bill Crager from Envestnet several months before I left InvestmentNews and asked him what he thought of the idea and if they would want to be a partner to me? At the time, he didn’t know I was leaving, but he said, “I love the idea. I love the concept.” I left and we had lunch a few months later. He’s like, “This is great. Let’s get right on it.” It was supposed to launch in October of 2019. If you remember what happened, obviously, the tragedy of Jud passing away, the former CEO, my podcast was the least of their concerns, as it should be.
So we rebooted when things calm down a bit there and Bill was made CEO and launched it in September of 2020. I’m so excited to say that yesterday, I just found out that The Big Reveal is a, which is the name of my podcast, is a finalist in the WealthManagement.com Award, so that makes me really happy.
Wow, that’s awesome.
I know a little something about that.
I know Julie as the Judge. You also-
One of many, one of many.
You also know that podcasts are not as easy as they may look or seen.
Yes, fair enough.
That’s right. Well, so Suzanne, you mentioned some of those insights that you had developed. Now, you were in a really unique position in the industry from InvestmentNews, knowing practitioners, knowing vendors and sponsors and that kind of stuff. What were some of the challenges? What were some of the things that you saw advisors facing that you thought that you could add something to?
Yeah, great question. Let me back up for a second and say when we first started InvestmentNews, the underlying mission was all about the end client. So making sure that financial advisors had the information and the resources to best serve their clients. That was our ultimate mission. As we continued to evolve the brand, we evolved into covering the business of advice and making sure that we were supporting advisors as they grew their businesses as well as covering major industry trends. Some of them I alluded to earlier. The main areas where I saw and still see advisors wanting to collaborate on finding the best solutions and answering the challenges that they face really encompass two distinct areas, delivering advice and the business of advice.
So some of those areas that I see pop up more often than not are around how to properly segment your client base, marketing and business development strategies, how to best showcase their value to their clients and justify their fees? How do you charge what you’re worth? Which I know a bit about now in the consulting world. The evolution of the various compensation models. When I first started in this industry, serving this industry at InvestmentNews, the primary way of being compensated in financial planning was commission. And the move, we covered quite a bit, the move and fees on AUM, and now the evolution going into subscription models for services performed.
I think that’s really very interesting and being able to follow that, and we were able to write about that and provide case studies, examples, and also with the benchmarking research that we produced, it gave a lot of great detail and information in that report that Philip Palaveev is a huge part of that provide insights for advisors. In addition to what I just talked about, hiring and retaining top talent, increasing the pipeline of talent into our profession and increasing the number of diverse talent coming into the profession to better serve the changing investor demographic. Those were also really, really important.
Then succession planning, the move towards holistic planning, and the shift in advisor business models going like, again, from employee based to the trend of RIA. I would say those are some of the main areas that I saw as big issues and important ones that we covered, and I think they still are relevant today.
No wonder we get any work done with that list of challenges in front of the advisors.
Right, exactly.
It’s tiring.
Do you agree? Did I miss any or?
No, it’s interesting too because you ranged from really tactical things like how do I segment appropriately but right up to some of these team challenges that I think people are really embracing and the shift in models. I don’t know, Steve, was there anything else that you saw in there?
No, and those were all really important issues, and of course, a lot of them have really changed over the course of time. Suzanne, you’re in a great position to watch that from InvestmentNews as we’ve changed compensation models, changed what advice means, who is in the advisor population. Those are all huge trends.
There’s a couple of things I was hoping to really dig in on and pick your brain on because I know there are areas that you write and speak and advise a lot on, and it’s mostly in the area of how to define and amplify your message. I read a great piece that you’d shared on content marketing, and you talked about eight essential components of successful content marketing. Do you mind talking us through that? Because I thought it summarized it really nicely.
Absolutely, and this is I think you’re alluding to the article that is coming out in the NAPFA Journal. It’s really hard to narrow these down, so I try to look at you can get even more specific within each one of them. But the first thing that I would do when you’re looking at creating a content marketing program to use as your primary source of engagement with your current clients and drive new prospects would be to find your target audience, first and foremost, start there. Is the content you’re creating meant for your prospects or are they meant for your current clients? Because it may be two different things, and so just understanding that there could be two different content paths that you’re taking. Then understanding who you serve as a firm. Are they C-suite executives? Are they next gen investors? Are they business owners? Etc.
So really understanding that will help you when you’re trying to make good decisions around a content marketing program. The second thing, which to me is the most fun, is creating a list of themes or topics. This should be really easy, just like a target audience, quite frankly, for advisors to think about. You just defined who your target audience is, now what are some of the topics and themes that resonate with those particular targets? Again, for example, your next gen investor is going to be interested in different topics than somebody that’s about to retire. So keeping those things in mind. One of the things that a best practice is to maybe create like a little editorial calendar, so you can keep track of things monthly. But also remember to make it so it’s fluid.
Like if a major topic comes up that’s going to be very, very important, no matter who your target is, for example, the proposed tax law changes that are in the Biden proposal, the 99 and a half percent estate planning proposal. Those types of things are super relevant and they’re very, very timely. So that’s a great example of mixing specific topics for your target and timely topics for everyone. I also would say that writing is time consuming, and unless you love doing it, there are so many fabulous writers that are out there that can help you execute on some of this. Next, so step three, determine in which content and what form your content will appear in? Is it going to be an article, a blog, a webinar, a video, a podcast?
It could be all of the above. It could be, one, I would start off don’t bite off more than you can chew and do something that feels right for your vibe, right? You may be more or of a video person or you may be more of a long form article person. And aggregating whatever you produce into a monthly newsletter is a great way to nurture your current clients. Next, you have to decide how to distribute that content. Of course, it should all live on your website, but how are you going to get people to your website? A lot of times you don’t think about that. You’re going to need a plan for both your current clients and your prospects. For current clients, the most common approach is to email using your marketing automation platform like HubSpot or MailChimp or Constant Contact, and that houses your databases.
Also using social media platforms can be effective to engage with new clients. In addition, you need to think about your future client’s interests so you can really address hot topics and trends in those areas. Webinars are really a great way to do that. One thing that I have definitely seen advisors do that’s been really effective is to join forces with say a key referral source like a Centers of Influence, an attorney, or a CPA. A lot of times you’re referring business back and forth, anyway, and so you may have the same type of target. And so you can share in some of these responsibilities and deliver like co-produced webinars, for example. I’ve seen many advisors do that very effectively.
Number five, decide on your distribution frequency. Again, it will largely depend on how much time you want and need to devote to prospecting and the type of content that you’re sharing. Then defining how you will measure success, and this is a step that I see so many people leave off. And not just advisors, like large firms where you don’t set out what your goal is to start and so you don’t know if it’s successful when you’ve gone through all of this. You’re putting all this time and energy into it. Make sure that you set out goals, just like you do with your clients and their financial goals. For example, are you going to define success by number of new leads, prospect to client conversion, referrals? Those types of things are really, really important to do.
Then analyze and benchmark those results. For example, for email marketing, the marketing automation platforms that I mentioned, HubSpot and MailChimp, they offer reporting and analytic features that make this easy to do. This allows you to see what works and what doesn’t work. Again, don’t continue to do something that’s not resonating, but the only way that you’ll know that is if you’re analyzing the results. Then, finally, assign responsibility. Effective marketing is all about consistency, whether you have internal team members or you’re outsourcing this, you’ve got to make sure that people are assigned responsibility to overseeing this. It’s a big job, and again, that’s sometimes one of the things that I see get left off, the equation.
You mentioned this in a or touched on it in a couple of different ways the idea of being relevant, being timely. One of the concerns I often see is you could go through the entire checklist, but if what you about is too generic, for example, like you said, define your audience. Any ways you would suggest advisors can ensure they’re choosing the right topics?
I think that they could, well first of all, follow the news and if you can make sure that you are addressing something that tends to be written about a lot in the media and spin it from your perspective because you are more knowledgeable on some of these topics than, quite frankly, the people that are reporting on them are. So that would be really one way. The second is ask a few of your clients that you’re close with and say, “Hey, I’m looking at starting a newsletter and I’d love to get your input on some topics that you think would be relevant and important.” I’m a big believer in focus groups, and it could be five people, it could be 20 people, and so I would look at it that way and see if they can help provide some guidance on the things that they most want to see.
Hi, it’s Julie here. I hope you’re enjoying the episode and just wanted to pause to share some news. The team at Absolute Engagement recently launched Engagement by Design, our weekly newsletter. Our focus is to bring you valuable ideas, not only from our team, but from experts across the industry. Each week, we’ll share articles to help you engage with your clients, your prospects, and engage your mind. And we always include something a little different that we hope will make you see the world in a new way. To sign up, go to www.absoluteengagement.com/newsletter. That’s absoluteengagement.com/newsletter.
Do you have any guidance, Suzanne, for let’s say you choose a topic that’s relevant to your clients, but you want to make sure it’s timely and specific enough and you don’t fall into that trap of, “Well, all of my pre-retiree clients telling me that retirement is a big issue.” Then you try to take on a topic that’s too wide. Do you have ideas about how you can narrow that down to something that’s more specific and timely?
Well, again, it goes back to follow your expertise. If you are a specialist in something, that’s what you write what you know. So don’t pretend to be something you’re not. Go into, I would say, use use cases. The things that tend to resonate the best I see with marketing that I do with a ton of my own clients is the things that seem to resonate are when they can actually provide a use case of this is what happened, this is how it affected them, and this is what they did about it. I think like case studies and use cases, telling a story, so storytelling through your content is just another best practice that I would recommend.
One of the things I want to make sure we dig into, and it’s related in that we’re talking about getting your message out there is how advisory firms or advisors can really think about working with the medium more effectively. Again, you’ve had a great perspective on this. What are the big mistakes that you think we all make when it comes to trying to work with the media? I’m sure you’ve seen one or two.
I have seen a lot, and got you. One day I’m going to write a book of so many companies, senior executives, advisors that called me and were like, “What do we do? This is what happened and now we…” So I’m like, “Okay,” I’m like talking them off the ledge. But there are a couple things. To me, mistake number one is not understanding what that media outlet’s focus is or their readership. What are they known for? I’ll give you an example, I actually conducted a bunch of interviews with many of the reporters and editors covering our industry and asked them a bunch of question about their pet peeves, effective strategies, in addition to my own experience.
This is just, I think, a great example. I was talking to Brooke Southall from RIABiz, and I asked him like, “What’s a pet peeve of yours?” He’s like, “We still get people pitching us bond stories. We don’t do that. Anytime, whether it’s a PR firm or an advisor or a company that is pitching them something that they don’t write about, it gives them the impression that they don’t read their medium and they don’t understand what they’re trying to do or what their mission is. So that really sets them off on a negative foot, so I would say make sure you do your homework and know what their focus is, what their readership is. And really know that before you go in to pitch them anything.
Mistake number two, this is probably the biggest mistake that I saw getting made and still see getting made, is pitching to the wrong person at that media outlet. Say you’re a advisor and you want to talk about practice management, but you’re talking to a reporter that covers technology. And because that’s who you know or that’s how you met at one of the conferences. More often than not, there are going to be different people that are responsible for the columns versus like a story on a particular topic. So understanding the various roles within the newsroom is really, really, really important. Most of the time for columns, and I know we’ll probably get into this in a little bit, it’s not the reporter. That’s not who you’re going to be pitching that to.
Another mistake is don’t take it personally. If you are on the phone with a reporter or editor for an hour and you’ve given them all these great quotes and feedback, and they either don’t use it at all or they use one small part of what you said. That’s just the name of the game, like that’s part of what it is. Don’t take it personally, don’t alienate the reporter, be able to take rejection, and more often than not, when somebody gets rejected, they never went back. So just keep trying, keep establishing that relationship, and just don’t take it personally.
The last mistake is like reporters tend to be motivated very differently than I would say traditional business people, so don’t try and sell them something. Like they’re going to smell that a mile away and it really is a turnoff, so don’t sell too hard or at all on anything that you do. Those are, I would say, some of the biggest pet peeves or mistakes.
Suzanne, apart from reaching out directly to an advisor, what are your thoughts about press releases and how can you put one together that connects with a publication?
I’m going to answer the press release first, and then I’m going to talk about some best practices in pitching to media. Depending upon which news organization or which media organization you’re working with, some have, I would say, interns or lower level reporters that work off of press releases. So knowing who those people are, that’s part of that knowing the various roles within a newsroom. Most reporters that I have worked with or experience with do not look at press releases. It’s necessary evil, you have to have one out there, and there are some organizations that write straight off press releases. But I would say the most credible ones tend not to.
Here would be some best practices on how to work with the media. First and foremost, just like with any business, establish a genuine and authentic relationship with the reporters and editors at that media brand. Let them know that you’re there for them. And that, again, it’s easier to do business with people you like and trust than not. Second, this seems so simple, but it’s got to be a good story idea, plain and simple. For example, if you’re an advisor, if you can provide something that reveals the secret of your business success with details, going back to even a case study on a client situation or an issue in how you resolved it. A female executive in an all male firm or succession planning in a pandemic or growing your business using technology, those are great examples.
At InvestmentNews, we particularly liked when a pitch came in that was a current event and how you relate it to your own business. For example, when Prince passed away and he did not have a will, I believe that was the story, how do you take that current event and turn it into a column or a story and how maybe you would’ve handled it as an advisor? That was we loved those kinds of stories. Again, thoughts on industry trends really picking up on that and supplying your thoughts around something that was really hot in the news at that time.
Another best practice, again, demonstration of your expertise, like what is your specialized knowledge on a niche practice? Really not only helps with your prospects, but really, really, I would say, helps with reporters. Then always try and have a unique or unusual perspective if you’re just saying the same stuff that’s regurgitated time and time again, that’s not of interest to them. They like contrarian points of view. Then two other small things, or three other small things, be a good writer. This is where a PR firm or a marketing resource can help you. Don’t send them lots of typos and punctuation errors. Like be able to have a coherent story.
One reporter actually told me that they don’t care about advisors like assets under management, or how successful they are. What really appeals to them is how many social media followers they have, so I thought that was interesting. Then, finally, just be a resource, not just a source. So make sure that you’re there for them, that you are not afraid to talk to them, that you give them an opinion and that you are mindful of their deadlines.
That last piece I think is interesting because there’s a… I think often with PR people are thinking about like, “Did I get in the news? Did they cover it?” But it’s a long game, right? To some extent, it’s connecting with those people, letting them know you’re there, letting them… As you say, it’s how we deal in all of our relationships, but it seems to go out the window. We suddenly think when it comes, and to me, that’s powerful. You want to be the person they call as not just that they write about, right?
Exactly. That’s a great point. Also, too, if you can say they’re looking for, “Hey, we really want somebody to comment on this, and you’re just not the right person.” If you can refer them someone, you would think that reporters have this massive Rolodex of advisors to comment on stories and they don’t. That’s why you still see the same people getting quoted time and time and time again. If you can say, “Hey, listen, I have a couple of people I could recommend. I’m not really the right person to comment on that, but let me send you over to Julie here, she can give you a great comment on that.” That goes a long way too.
It’s an interesting point because I would say almost every time I’ve talked to a reporter about something, in particular, the question will be, “Can you share some advisor names who are putting this into action?” Because I want to know how it works. You’re thinking, “What do you mean? Don’t you just want to write what I’m saying? I don’t understand all this diversity.”
What more do you need?
What more? Or for advisors like clients, right? So being able to do that and it feels like and it makes perfect sense, right? They want to see it in action.
Absolutely, and I think now is a great opportunity for those that are of diverse backgrounds to be able to be quoted and sourced, I think the media are paying attention to who they’re sourcing and they are looking for. I know I’ve had these conversations with many of the industry media myself that they are looking for new sources that represent underrepresented communities and financial advice. Now is a great time to start reaching out.
Suzanne, you said something that fascinated me and I wanted to dig into it a little bit. You said press releases are a necessary evil. Like you have to do them, but reputable places aren’t really going to do much with them. Do we still need them? What role do they serve, if the relationships with the reporters and other things are more influential, then what role does a press release have?
I think you still need them, and I do say necessary evil. There are still, again, there are still media outlets that use them. As I said, it’s like, at InvestmentNews, like we had an intern do them. Just like write up a summary or if it was just like a quick little blurb. But that’s not going to get you your ultimate relationship builder. It’s not. But there are media outlets that do use them, so I don’t want to say nobody uses them. I just think that reporters are smart enough to know that all of the stuff that you have in a press release is going to be like, “Look at how great this is. Look at my shiny new toy.” They’re looking-
It’s not a balanced review of what’s going on?
Exactly. Exactly. They’re skeptics at heart and they should be, that’s why they’re great at their jobs. That’s a very important thing for reporters to have is to be a little bit skeptical because everybody’s going to try and paint the best picture that they can. And most of the stories there’s usually two sides.
And so would you recommend that if advisors are thinking about a more formal PR strategy, that they try to work with a PR professional, given the number of mistakes you can make?
I think, so I’m glad that you asked me this question. When I asked many of the editors and reporters whether they felt a PR firm helped or hurt, I think most of them said it depends. I think, ultimately, if you can afford it, if you’re advisors and you can afford a PR firm, you’re big enough, you think it’s this important, it’s never a bad thing. It’s more about which firm you choose. I would say there are some PR firms that are much better than others, especially, in the space. It depends on what your goals are. It will depend on what your… I go back to the budget because do you have an internal resource that you can… if there’s no one that you have that can help you with some of this, I think it’s really important to have a firm or a consultant help you put together, even if it’s a small strategy.
Most PR firms work on retainer, but there are many that can work on a project fee. I do think that it’s useful, especially again, if you don’t have someone internally that can do this for you. This is not your day job. Outsource it to someone that has expertise, for sure. As one editor said, really good PR people operate at a whole other level and they tend to organize the focus of the advisor and of the reporter. I have seen that in action and I think that that’s an important thing for advisors to consider.
Yeah, it’s interesting as we were talking about the awards and I’ve had a real honor to be on a couple of different judging panels. Sometimes the firm submits these and you think, “Wow, you should have really had someone professional do this.” But the opposite is also true, this is too slick. I can’t see, so that’s I’ve always thought that great PR is when they can get in your head and do all the right strategic things, but be authentic in terms of how you want to communicate. That’s a big challenge, but you can see it a mile away sometimes.
Oh my gosh, 100%, that is such a great point. I just literally worked on… so a client that they had their internal person submit awards, submit an award submission.
Yeah, that’s the other thing also.
And I looked at it and they had a very junior person do it, and I was like, “Oh my God, we got to pull this back. You’ll never become a finalist with this entry.” We reworked it and made it addressed exactly what they were asking. There is a bit of an art form, but also to your point, sometimes reporters want to talk directly to the advisor and they don’t want a PR person in the middle of it. The answer, again, like was it depends.
It depends, yeah.
It depends, it depends, and I do think that there’s a niche here, so if you are looking for a PR firm, I think you have to go with someone that has a real expertise in this industry, and there are plenty of them out there.
Yeah, there’s some great people out there. Look, I’m just going to wrap this up. This has been some really good tangible takeaways, which I appreciate. But where can our listeners find out about you and the work that you’re doing?
Go to LinkedIn, usually.
The source of all knowledge.
Yes, source of all knowledge, a little scary. suzannesiracuse.com is my website. My Big Reveal podcast is on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, the Big Reveal. It’s also envestnet.com/thebigreveal. Please subscribe. You get lots of additional content and thought leadership that’s sent to you that you have access to. We also are doing bonus footage, so basically when-
Oh, that’s a good idea.
Yeah, when we’re not… So I just did Jamie Price, the CEO of Advisor Group, I just interviewed him and we were talking, because we’ve known each other for a long time, and we were talking offline. We didn’t know that the podcast was still recording and we were just talking about just stuff and it was funny. So they shot like a, not a blooper reel, but more just behind the scenes or bonus content and so we’re still starting to post that too.
That’s a great idea.
Then I’m just very involved, Julie, in a lot of the industry events that are going on. One of the things that’s cool is it’s not just InvestmentNews, even though I’m still doing business and working with them, but also advisor perspectives and financial advisor magazine and many others where I’m helping them with their content as well.
That’s wonderful. Well, thank you. We’ll make sure we put links to that in the show notes, and yeah, I would get right on that podcast because it’s a good one. So thank you for the work you’re doing there.
Thank you.
Yeah, that’s great. Thank you, Suzanne.
Thank you guys so much for having me, and I look forward to hopefully seeing you in person soon.
Absolutely. Hi, it’s Julie, again. It was great to have you with us on Becoming Referable. If you like what you’ve been hearing, please do us a favor and rate us on iTunes. It really does help. You can get all the links, show notes, and other tidbits from these episodes at becomingreferable.com. You can also get our free report, three referral myths that limit your growth, and connect with our blogs and other resources. Thanks so much for joining us.