PLANADVISER - November/December 2022 - 40

practice management / Q&A
Sheri Fitts
Like it or not, marketing is necessary
S
heri Fitts, founder and CEO of Sheri Fitts
& Co. in Portland, Oregon, is a marketing,
sales and brand expert who aims to help
financial professionals make client engagements
more meaningful to their business
and more effective to their bottom line. Fitts'
expertise in the retirement plan and wealth
management industries has been gained over
a nearly 30-year career on both the buy and
sell sides. Managing Editor Judy Faust Hartnett
chatted with her about the particular
importance of marketing for advisers now.
PLANADVISER: Why do you say retirement
plan advisers need to take on the role of
marketer today?
Sheri Fitts: I believe that marketing's sole
purpose is to sweep the path for sales
conversations and that not having consistent
outreach leaves an adviser's practice up to
the whims of the market.
The question advisers have to ask themselves
is, are they being included in conversations?
Or in the conversations of prospects?
If they're not doing consistent marketing,
they're not top of mind, and their sales
will suffer as a result. Alternatively, when
advisers invest in marketing, they generate
the opportunity for conversations. Then it's
up to the advisers what they choose to do
with those conversations.
PA: What exactly do advisers need to do to
market themselves?
Fitts: Retirement plan advisers should be
visible in any way they want to be, whether
it's through newsletters, social media or
going to conferences.
They need to create ongoing, consistent
content. It's crucial to their practice.
They need to view themselves as a media
company, which I know is going to make
their heads explode.
Many years ago, we sold by using the
Yellow Pages [a business telephone directory],
starting at the letter A. Today I hear advisers
saying, " I don't want to create content. It's
hard. I don't want to do social media. It
doesn't work well. I want somebody else to do
it for me. I just want to be an adviser. "
That's fantastic. Then what I'd say is, go
find a place where you can be an adviser
and you're supported by a bigger brand and
organization that will do the marketing for
you. It's likely you'll still be required to sell-
which means, you'll still need to market in
some capacity.
PA: What type of content do advisers need
to create to get in front of prospects and
start conversations?
Fitts: Statistic after statistic points to email
marketing working for advisers. Now, when I
say email marketing, sometimes advisers think
of the four-sentence emails we get from somebody
who wants to generate appointments or
help us with Google ranking-the emails that
come out of nowhere. I'm not saying that; I'm
talking about content marketing, inbound
marketing or thought leadership marketing-
they're all really the same.
The purpose? Build a solid foundation of
helpful, meaningful content that's of interest
to the audience. Use email to distribute that
content. Address the issues and worries that
your prospects are facing.
An excuse I see advisers use to avoid
the effort of doing this is to complain about
compliance. If they write original content
and they put it through compliance and
compliance decimates it, they see that as a
reason not to write content anymore. I just
see that as a reason to get better at writing
compliant content and creating a relationship
with compliance.
Many advisers are unclear what their
prospects and clients really care about,
and, as a result, their content is just noise.
I always say, we need to do a better job in
our industry of figuring out what potential
clients' monsters are. What scares them?
PA: Is email marketing more important than
social media?
Fitts: Advisers own their email list. Advisers
don't own social media. So imagine being
an adviser who built his or her business on
Twitter, and now Elon Musk changes the
rules of the game. Poof goes their influence.
However, if they put that energy into
building an email list, they aren't at the
whim of another platform.
" They need
to view
themselves
as a media
company,
which I know
is going
to make
their heads
explode. "
40 | planadviser.com November-December 2022
http://www.planadviser.com
PLANADVISER - November/December 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of PLANADVISER - November/December 2022
