Personal Branding For Financial Professionals – My Review of Peter Montoya’s "A Brand Called You"
Have you ever thought of yourself as a Personal Brand? Do you even know what a Personal Brand is? Well, whether you do or not, there is something you can learn from Peter Montoya and his Personal Branding University.
What Is A Personal Brand
The first thing we have to decide is what is a Personal Brand? Taken right from Peter’s website:
“Personal Branding is the art of attracting and keeping more clients by actively shaping public perception. You can control the way you’re perceived by the community you serve. Oprah, Tiger, Madonna – they realized early that talent alone would not take them to the top of their fields. So they created and promoted unique Personal Brands. And now, you can too.”
So a Personal Brand is a way that we define ourselves to attract the type of client that we want to attract.
How is This Different
What most financial planners or advisers do in their business is target many different groups of people. Maybe they do seminars for retirees, 401(k) planning for the working class and life insurance planning for young married couples. The fact is, they end up spending time, energy and money going after three different groups of people.
Imagine what you could do if you focused that time, energy and money towards one specific, well defined target market? If instead of touching three different groups of people once, you could touch one target group three times or more, you are much better off in terms of top of mind awareness. Not just a little better off, much, much better off.
One of the first things that Peter Montoya will teach you is how to clearly define your ideal target market and think of ways to be in front of them on a regular basis.
People Don’t Want To Be Sold
They would much rather buy. The mindset of most financial planners is to talk to anyone with a pulse and try and sell them anything. Most of the time it is what ever company is having the best perks that month. Rarely is it in the best interest of the client.
But that is why most financial advisers struggle.
If you immerse yourself in the life of your prospect and think about life from his point of view then you will be able to come up with ways to target them in ways that will make them realize the value you are providing.
What You Get With Peter Montoya
First of all, I think most of the marketing systems out there are worth the money you put into them. Where most people fail is in the follow-through of the tasks that need to be done to successfully run and launch a marketing campaign.
With that being said, Peter Montoya’s Personal Branding system is very well done and should be worth a serious consideration.
They offer many different types of training. Anything from phone coaching to the Personal Brand University. From direct mail brochures and postcards to their interactive media (website, email text, etc). It is all well done and mostly worth the money.
I went through the University and the 12 (I think) sessions of phone coaching.
With the University, first have to fill out a very detailed questionnaire detailing your current business. Everything from marketing strategies and income to what your business would be like if it was being run just as you would want it ran. Then you fly out to the location (travel and accommodations not included) and spend 4 days in a classroom style setting where you are assigned a team and your coach. you get a binder and several activities that really make you think about how you want to change your business and the ways in which you can market.
Peter does a great job getting you to really think about how you want to approach your future and the money you want to make.
The phone coaching is pretty standard. You go through a specified amount of time with a coach and they walk you through a series of questions, suggestions and assignments that must be done by the next time you speak. Make no mistake that they make you work and follow through on assignments or else they may re-schedule until you complete your work.
The also provide you with their marketing messages CD, which can be very handy in searching for unique messages to send out to prospects and clients and various times throughout the year. There are lists of email messages, postcard messages and several others. You can take them and customize them to fit your style. This was very helpful.
What else?
Asides from what he offer on his website, there are also a number of resources available online.
He wrote a few books that are available on amazon.com or bn.com. He also has some audio CD’s from Nightingale Conant’s website.
One Word of Caution
You will never quite be done spending money with Peter Montoya. The business is a well oiled machine that generates lots of cash for Peter and his group. Everything you buy is used to up sell you to other items. If you stop at any point in the buying process, the coaches will question your desire to be successful in the business.
One of the most unique things about Peter Montoya is his use of postcards, brochures and marketing messages to be displayed on them. Make no doubt, they produce very good work but you often can find the same type of brochure to be written and designed somewhere else for much cheaper.
Plus when you buy them from Peter Montoya, you will soon receive a shipment from UPS with dozes of boxes full of brochures and postcards (they are to be used together in a number of different campaigns) and no room to store them. We placed an order once and got 10,000 postcard’s and 5,000 brochures and had about 20 boxes show up at our door and we had to find a place to store them.
Case Studies
One of my best friends, Jason Gollhofer is also in the business and we went to the Peter Montoya Personal Branding University together in Orlando, Florida a few years ago. This was right when Jason got into the business and was trying to figure out exactly what he wanted to do. It was a tough time and one that was a great learning experience for him. I had the great privilege to interview him and ask him all about what he learned. His story will inspire you to at least give Peter’s system a closer look, but there are many things that you can take from his story and apply directly to your business today, without going through the University.
Jason was one of the success stories that came out of the University. So much though that Peter interviewed him. To get the conversation of Jason and Peter (as well as other conversations), you can visit Peter Montoya’s Website.
Conclusion
If I knew then what I know now, I would still invest in Peter’s University. It was money well spent and an investment that paid dividends.
I would still not choose his printer and designer for any f his creative stuff. I am confident that you could get it done for a fraction of the cost and in much lesser quantities.
If you have tried it or know someone who has, please let me know!
