Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 414th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Eric Franklin. Eric is the Managing Partner of Prospero Wealth, an RIA based in Seattle, Washington, that oversees $52 million in assets under management for 80 client households.
What’s unique about Eric, though, is how he was able to 10X his AUM to $50 million in just 3 years by focusing on working with his ideal target client (employees at big tech firms), which led to him breaking down his planning process into smaller bite-sized chunks… as he found that doing less at a time, stretched out over a longer period of time, was actually more valuable as it avoided overwhelming them, given their especially busy work schedules.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about why Eric focuses on just 2 to 3 planning priorities at a time with clients (rather than addressing the full scope of their financial planning needs) to increase the chances that the clients will actually follow through on implementing them (given their hectic lives), how Eric starts planning engagements by having clients review a list of potential goals (which helps them consider goals they might not have thought of themselves) so he can work with them to identify those that resonate and help them highlight and prioritize the top goals they want to pursue first, and why Eric holds a dedicated meeting to discuss his planning insights before formulating and presenting specific recommendations in a final plan presentation meeting, so that Eric and his clients can come to a mutual understanding of what the client really views as their key priorities.
We also talk about how Eric spurred client growth by focusing on marketing to the types of clients he most enjoyed working with and who generated the most revenue (which turned out to be employees of big tech companies where Eric had a background himself), how Eric found greater marketing success through technical, long-form written content targeted at his ideal target client compared to using more general, prepackaged marketing content, and how Eric has further accelerated the growth in his firm by bringing on new advisors who are also career changers from the tech field and can ‘speak the language’ of their prospective clients in the industry to build trust with them quickly (despite the advisors themselves being relatively new to advising).
And be certain to listen to the end, where Eric shares how he leverages technology (including RightCapital’s task management features and Loom as his video recording software) to efficiently communicate with his busy (but tech-savvy) clients, how Eric decided to make the career change to financial planning after spending 20 years working in tech…first becoming a partner with his former advisor who also worked in tech, before eventually buying him out so Eric could focus on accelerating the growth of the firm, and why Eric encourages career changers interested in financial planning to attend industry conferences to learn industry best practices before starting out on their own.
So, whether you’re interested in learning about customizing a planning process to match the time constraints of a firm’s ideal target client, marketing through long-form written content, or how to make a career change into financial planning and serve clients who were previously coworkers, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Eric Franklin.
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