I have taken this opportunity to do a podcast about pre and post lockdown – what we have learned and what we can do to make our world a better place you can listen to it here.
We are being told to ‘go back to normal’ but the stats are still overwhelming: as of this week, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world has exceeded 6.6 million
Last week my daughter and I were tested for Covid – 19, neither of us has it – but when we went for the tests, I had hoped we were going to find out whether we had the antibodies not the disease. My son has been tested for antibodies and is negative – but his girlfriend has tested positive – she has obviously had the virus and has developed an immunity.
Until there is a vaccine, or we can be sure to have had the disease and have antibodies, the virus still poses a threat. How strong is our immune system – will we get away lightly or face the ventilator or worse?
These fears are not fanciful – and no matter how robust we are, we have been fed with such a highly toxic dose of media coverage with all sorts of statistics and scare stories that many of us have some level of anxiety about crowded places and people without masks.
So, what do we do as Private Client Professionals post lockdown?
Some of us will feel obliged to go back to work but may still prefer to keep non-essential socialising – such as travel and networking, to a minimum. Who knows how long this will go on for?
My mother used to say when I was a child ‘Bad things happen – but if we do not learn from them then we are a fool!’
So, what have I learned pre and post lockdown?
In November of last year, I started to interview the Private Client Professionals I have worked with, admire and want to do business with for my podcast series on How to Keep your Money which is published on Spotify and Apple I Tunes. If you have not already done so you can check out the link here
Although a lot of Private Client Professionals have done podcasts – there was no independent library for the private client industry from which I could draw upon and share with my clients who needed these services.
I am a lawyer, my expertise is tax and trusts but I also offer ‘Family Office Solutions’ when I look after the wider interests of my clients outside and beyond my area of expertise. – I call this a Culture of Care, for which I need to be able to refer my clients to the expertise of other professionals from time to time – hence the need of an independent library of information.
However, what I found surprising was that when I added a Podcast Professional to my Note – the open rate went up by nearly 20%!
Furthermore, and possibly of greater interest there was a marked increase of referral of business to GFOS. I had been told that third party podcasts would increase business by ten-fold but I only half believed it.
What was going on?
I started to do some research. The magic is not in the podcast there are lots of Professionals who do podcasts and get no business from them at all. What I discovered is that it is not the ‘content’ which makes a difference it is to do with the context. All human nature has an innate fear of the influence of strangers’ which can be diminished depending on the context and personal touches.
I decided to write down my observations and analysis–in a sixty-three-thousand-word book ‘Reimagining the role of the Private Client Professional – post lockdown’. About which you can hear more in my podcast
This will be available to buy as a PDF within the next week or so from our GFOS website. It goes into some depth about human psychology and what and why some ways of doing things are more successful than others.
After I had finished the book, I then gave some thought as to what the Private Client Professional would do – post lockdown.
My guess was that slowly, and reluctantly for many – they would simply revert to what they had done before – unless there was some other way which would replace bad habits, with better ones
How could I build on what we were already doing and make it more effective? What my research and observation revealed was that what we needed was a much more focussed, targeted, and personal network to promote the podcast as well as the distribution to a wide audience.
Each of my Podcast Professionals is an ambassador for their business. GFOS promotes them to its network of 8,000 and our audience on Spotify and Apple I Podcasts. This is attractive and we have accurate statistics and clever graphs to prove it – but it is not personal, so conversion of this interest is poor.
The solution I came up with is Caroline’s Club.
Let me give you an example of how it works in practise
Antony is a lawyer in the immigration department of a law firm called ‘Movin and Letlive’. Antony has done a podcast which has been published on How to Keep your Money. It says a little about how he got into law and specifically immigration, what he does for his clients through case studies and what he thinks about a few current topics involving immigration. It will probably get an open rate of 40% - just under 4,000 which means it has generated interest.
Antony has one junior partner, three senior assistants and two juniors.
Caroline’s Club invites Antony’s senior immigration lawyers’ who become members access to a calendar of Zoom calls which each can attend by booking online. This booking introduces the senior lawyer to a matched network of up to 14 other professionals.
On the Zoom call each lawyer will be expected to introduce themselves and describe what they do for their clients with a few case studies. This is called ‘speed-networking’ which I describe in my book.
To convert interest into business each of Antony’s colleagues will need to follow up with the people they have met, like and who he or she thinks they can refer or wish to be referred business. They do not need a business card contact details are available from the directory.
In this way Antony’s immigration services and his podcast not only creates interest but also increases the conversion rate through personal, focussed and matched networking without the need to travel or meet face to face.
Through Antony’s five senior colleagues the services of his immigration department can reach more than 200 Private Client Professionals through personal contacts across a range of different disciplines every year.
If you are interested in finding out more about Caroline’s Club, we have a presentation slide show we can send to you. Simply register your interest with Deborah on deborah@garnhamfos.com
In the meantime – look out for my book ‘Reimagining the role of the Private Client Professional – post lockdown’ which should be available to buy in PDF form in the next week or so.
Keep safe, keep strong and keep well.