The Power of Niching: How to Build a Resonant Financial Advisor Brand with Natalie Hales

In this conversation, Shelby Nicholl and Natalie Hales explore the intricacies of branding within the financial services sector. Natalie shares her personal journey into the industry, emphasizing the importance of niching for advisors to create a clear and resonant brand. They discuss the layers of a niche, the distinction between industry voice and client voice, and the risks of brand dilution. The conversation also highlights the necessity of playbooks for maintaining brand consistency and the challenges of staying committed to brand messaging. In this conversation, Natalie Hales and Shelby Nicholl discuss the significance of playbooks in branding for financial advisors, emphasizing the need for continuous evaluation and adaptation of strategies. They explore the concept of 'heat moves' as a way to experiment and listen to client needs, and highlight the importance of authenticity in communication. The discussion also touches on the necessity of finding one's purpose in the advisory role and the impact of effective branding on client relationships.

Hosted by Shelby Nicholl. Produced and edited by Aaron Sherman. Operations and Guest Coordination by Shelly Hadel.

Transcript

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Shelby Nicholl (00:00)

Have you ever wondered why isn't my marketing working? Is my message off? Is this helping or hurting my authority? Am I getting through to my ideal clients? Maybe I should niche down. Our guest today is Natalie Hales. She's spent 14 years helping advisors build brands that actually hold together, brands that aren't necessarily loud, but that are very, very clear, and brands that clients can repeat back to you and aren't just adrift in industry noise. Let's dive in. 

Shelby Nicholl (00:38)
Natalie, welcome to Advisors Offscript. I've been so looking forward to having you on this podcast and for you to get to share a little bit about what you do with the advisors that you and I both serve. Thank you so much.

Natalie Hales (00:52)
thank you, Shelby, honestly, it's fantastic being here and you and I are friends off screen, so it's just a great opportunity to chat together, isn't it?

Shelby Nicholl (01:00)
It is, it is. Well, you know, for the benefit of our listeners, tell a little bit of your story, how you got into financial services, and maybe a little bit of your journey to where you are today.

Natalie Hales (01:10)
Definitely. So I've been in the financial services world for like 15 years now, but I did have a bit of a oddball start, a bit of a rocky start into it. And it all started actually with my dad having a massive stroke.

it was actually caused by a rare hereditary disease. And so my mom at the time, was not working, she was on disability. And then to have this happen to my dad, of course, you know, we didn't have anything in place, so we're looking at some financial troubles. But also with the news that it was hereditary, it also meant that I was looking at the potential of also having this disease called catasyl myself.

And what that meant was that, by the time I was 35, I was going to start stroking severely. I was going to be having chronic migraines. I was going to, you know, start slipping into dementia and have all the physical, issues that come along with chronic stroking. so not only was I, of course, terrified, but I'm also, you know, in my head thinking, my gosh, I'm going to be a burden to everybody I know because

Obviously, it's debilitating. by the time I was mid-50s, potentially mid-60s, I probably wasn't gonna be here anymore. And so after hearing that news, my boss at the time, he recommended I see his financial advisor, which I didn't even think of, to be honest. He a very blue collar family.

never had spoken with financial advisor before, didn't even occur to me that this was a time to do that. the first thing that he did was share a story with me about how he was kind of in a similar situation. And so...

he knows what it's like to kind of have to put all this together in a rush and explain some of the things that we need to do and just made me feel really comfortable but also like understood. And when I walked out of there, I'm like a thousand pounds lighter, right? Compared to what I was when I was walking in there. But I realized that, you know, why do not more people understand what financial advisors do and how they help, right?

And so that's when I started working with financial advisors in their marketing and then eventually started coaching financial advisors and eventually moved into Canada Life, which is one of the big three insurers here and working with them in practice management and helping kind of junior advisors pair with senior advisors and, you know, analyzing books of business and profitability and things like that. But I missed the creative side of things. And so that's when I started to move into branding, but

I knew throughout the journey of working with advisors, really the key kind of gap and thing that they were missing was that connection piece to help people really resonate with them on another level. And the advisors who niched had that together. And so I knew when I started my own business

that that's exactly what I wanted to help advisors focus on. And so that's what I've been doing ever since.

Shelby Nicholl (04:15)
It's so interesting that your observation was that people who niched had greater, I guess, resonance and sort of understanding with their client set. Do you think that's because they chose a client set that already had some personal connection to them? Is it because they had taken the time to do the niching? Like, what was it about niching that gave them that clarity and then that language of connection to those clients?

Natalie Hales (04:23)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you're bang on. think a strong niche does that, right? Like a strong niche, in my opinion, has, that kind of shared identity with each other, right? But for the advisor, there is some sort of personal connection, whether that is experience or expertise or values or something in their story that helps them connect on a personal level

and helps people understand why to resonate with them and why to work with them and why that's important in addition to having that more like strategic ownership and angle to your niche as well. And so I think that the advisors who do niching well, absolutely take that into account.

Shelby Nicholl (05:25)
Okay.

And I want to talk about niching well and like what a niche is. But first I just want the observation to get out there that you run a niche practice about niching. Is that fair? That's how I always think of you.

Natalie Hales (05:37)
That's absolutely it. Yeah,

yeah, definitely. You know, and it's funny, every time I get onto, you know, a coffee chat with other marketers, they're like, you are a niche within a niche, like, it's, you talk about niching and I'm like, yes, yes, I am.

Shelby Nicholl (05:51)
Yes, I do. That's all I do is niche all day long. OK, so then tell us for the listeners, right? And I know we've had on the podcast before a conversation a little bit about niching, but I don't think we've done it with a niche expert in the way that you are. And so I'm really excited for this because I think that a lot of people hear the words like niche down and like the social media construct, especially it was huge a couple of years ago. We were hearing that all the time from any kind of influencer coaches. But tell us what a niche is, what makes a good niche.

Natalie Hales (05:54)
you

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well, there is, it's such a good question, because there is a lot of confusion around what is a niche, right? And I'll tell you what a niche isn't, and I think that helps really clarify it quite clearly for most people. It's not this, there's this confusion that it's like, just pick a demographic, right? Like it's this large group of people and women or millennials or like pre-retirees, and I get why people think that that's a niche, but that's really, it's just the beginning.

It's absolutely just the beginning. It's that broad category that you start with. And the best broad categories, they start with shared identity, just like I mentioned. So they see themselves as a group. And when a large group when they see themselves as a group in something and they resonate with that, you can find them. They have magazines, they have conferences, they have...

know, associations and so that's important. But then they also share, things in common like their financial situation or some sort of shared struggles and so that is literally just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to niching. So you absolutely have to go deeper than that. So you can't just stop there. I know a lot of people just.

you know, I serve women and like that's, but no, no, no, that's not a niche. Going deeper means that not only do you speak to that shared identity, but then you have them resonate with you on that personal connection side of things. And they can resonate with you based on your values or your philosophy or your story or your expertise or your experience, like whatever that is.

But you have to make that a part of your brand. You have to make that a part of your niche and understand that as a part of your positioning. then you kind of take it down even to get even more strategic with it. You have to understand what the need is. The reason why they resonate with you, the reason why they need you and use that as a strategic angle. Is that something that you can own because you have the advantage there and not many other

other people can. And so you have to look at it from those three layers in order for it to be a strong niche.

Shelby Nicholl (08:32)
Okay, so say those three layers again, sort of the demographic, the sort of shared experience, shared story, and then the ability, your personal ability to serve them in maybe like a unique way.

Natalie Hales (08:36)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I call it mega market, which is like that large category of people and that they hit that large category of people have to have a shared identity. And then the next kind of layer is the market segment. And that is kind of that, if you think about it like a big pie, that's like a slice of the pie. And that's where you have that personal connection, that layer of it. And then, you you get even a...

even deeper and you take a sliver of that and you decide what area can I speak to and actually own from a strategic angle where there's not a ton of competition, where there is a true need. So yeah, from all of those angles.

Shelby Nicholl (09:25)
Yeah, I like that a lot. You one of the things I think about for our business and such is like, where do I have conviction that we can do it better than others? And so maybe that's part of that last kind of tiny slice is like, I have conviction, which then kind of leads into that authority conversation too. You've used the words, you know, kind of in our prep and just in our conversations before of industry voice and client voice. Can you?

Natalie Hales (09:36)
Mm-hmm.

Shelby Nicholl (09:53)
talk about those two terms and what you means, because I do think this industry is just full of this, like holistic, comprehensive, I'm a complete financial planner. Even the word financial planner, like means wildly different things from one place to another. Talk about industry voice, client voice. What does that mean?

Natalie Hales (10:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that there are so many times when we can kind of get confused between who we're speaking to, right? Like when we go and post something and you have a lot of advisors, for example, resonating with that, you're likely using your industry voice. because when you're using a client voice, you're speaking to their desires. You're speaking to how you can help them.

you're speaking to how you understand them. And so a lot of the times I'm seeing a lot of advisors using their industry voice because it does make them, it sounds really smart, you know? But that's a lot of the times that's not what resonates with your clients. And so once you have a true understanding of your positioning and your...

Shelby Nicholl (10:56)
Yeah.

Natalie Hales (11:09)
like how you wanna articulate your brand and the messaging that you're using, that's when you can truly start developing a client voice.

Shelby Nicholl (11:16)
That's so good because I think I was talking with an advisor friend the other day and former client we launched helped him launch to his RIA last year and he was talking he was asking me hey you know are you are you winning business through your conversations on LinkedIn and for us yes it's a very effective channel for him it has not been an effective channel right he's doing much better with YouTube and some other things

That's probably because of who he's wanting to attract. You know, in his case, it's Nissan retirees are his niche. and maybe they're not hanging on LinkedIn and maybe it's industry voice that's showing up on LinkedIn and his videos are definitely client voice videos on YouTube. So that's a, I can see where that can be very distinct and different. and it's probably hard to do both industry voice and client voice, like on a single platform.

Natalie Hales (11:47)
Mm.

Definitely, and it's just, I found just articulating that with my clients, the ones who, you know, I help live in their brand. I've just found it a really handy way to say, you know, I think that's your industry voice or you nailed it, that is your client voice, that's exactly what they wanna hear. And helping advisors understand the differences.

when they are trying to live in their brand and trying to make sure that everything they're doing speaks to the positioning that they wanna have in the marketplace, I've just found it a really handy tool to show them the differences.

Shelby Nicholl (12:48)
Yeah, so kind of a question or a takeaway for everybody listening is like pay attention to your voice and is it the industry voice or is it the client voice that's talking? Is that kind of the lesson you're giving us?

Natalie Hales (12:59)
That's

it, right? And it's, yeah, I think that it's such an intentional, and we should be doing this when we're crafting any kind of marketing material, of course, but it's such an intentional process to understand where you're showing up, not just in your marketing materials as industry voice, but where are you showing up in your conversations?

as an industry voice versus a client voice, where are you showing up in your talks, in your posts, that sort of thing. And so we can take a look at those tangible things and pull talks and say like, these are the differences and point to where exactly a client leaned in and you said exactly what they were hoping to hear from you and what they want from you.

versus where you used your industry voice and it went totally over their head.

Shelby Nicholl (13:53)
Why is it such a problem to use both industry voice and client voice, like, either within the same platform? Like, what's the problem with advisors kind of falling into industry voice? I mean, it's like, not that big of a deal, right? Like, what is that doing to their client interactions?

Natalie Hales (14:10)
Yeah, I think that when you are very conscious about using your client voice and you are helping them feel understood always and when you are leaning out of that, you will have them tune out. so I mean, at the highest level, it's the difference between being recognized and repressed.

and having what you're saying actually being able to be repeated back to you or back to their friends versus being ignored.

Shelby Nicholl (14:48)
Yeah, yeah. What does it mean to dilute the brand? Is that something that most advisors should be thinking about or concerned about? What does dilution look like?

Natalie Hales (14:59)
Yeah,

Being really intentional about your brand and constantly kind of reflecting back, like asking yourself whether or not this is reflecting the positioning that you want to have in the marketplace is a super conscious effort. And if you're not conscious and intentional with that effort, you are going to dilute your brand. It's just natural that...

You know, we're not all one thing. have lots of interests and lots of things we want to talk about and the urge to just kind of comment here and there on every little thing, right? Like that interests us versus being very intentional about being known for something and what that thing is and being seen as the expert in that. so that's different. And so absolutely everybody

Anybody who owns a business needs to be conscious about diluting their brand because it means that you're not reaping the rewards that compounding on your brand can have for you. And so, yeah, it's the difference between being able to kind of double down and compound on your efforts every single month or feel like you're spinning your wheels year after year.

Shelby Nicholl (16:13)
Yeah, I think this is something that for us in our practice and our business is, I have seen this happening as we have grown, right? We now have more people who are writing things on behalf of Myriel Consulting, which is great. It's amazing to grow. But we also are like, what one of us writes doesn't sound like what somebody else writes or the graphic that they use doesn't look like the graphic that the others of us use. And

Now I feel like our brand has diluted some. And so we're actually going through a project right now to say, OK, what are going to be some of our brand standards about how things look and feel, especially graphically? Because I think people remember so much of the graphics that they see. And if you can create a shortcut memory to that graphic look and feel, it can be really powerful. But it is interesting, so fast to happen, to your point, that dilution.

Natalie Hales (17:05)
Yeah, and I mean, like new team members is like such a critical, like we want to scale, we want to grow, but it's one of those areas that again, if you're not conscious and intentional about like maintaining your brand, then that is probably the easiest way to start diluting your brand is to bring new people on who feel like it should be one way versus the way that you had maybe intended. so getting everybody kind of,

Shelby Nicholl (17:13)
Yeah.

Natalie Hales (17:30)
rowing in the same direction, right? Right from the get-go, I think is super important.

Shelby Nicholl (17:35)
So how do we get them to row in the same direction? What is the fix for that brand dilution or just not having clarity around the brand? How do we get ourselves there?

Natalie Hales (17:48)
Honestly, I think it's playbooks. It's really short playbooks. And there's a couple of playbooks that I recommend to all my advisors, one being like that niche positioning playbook, the brand messaging playbook,

marketing planning playbook, just because it really showcases this is the positioning we want to hold in the marketplace. This is the place we want to hold in people's hearts and heads.

about who we are and who we serve, what we do. And then when it comes to brand messaging, it's like, you want to kind of understand the differences between This is the internal articulation of what's important to us. And this is how we speak to clients, like, or this is solution that we provide, but we speak to the client's desires externally, and those desires are this, and this is a solution.

And this is how we articulate that and having an understanding of what that is and how to do that, I think is important. And then again, when you're getting over to the marketing planning side, these are the things that we talk about. These are the topics that we talk about and where we show up and how we show up. And we don't really go outside of that, right? Because again, that's kind of diluting the brand.

Shelby Nicholl (19:04)
we talked a little bit about the niche playbook and the pie and the slices and the narrow slice. What is in a brand playbook and like, what are some components of that that should be maybe in a brand playbook?

Natalie Hales (19:16)
Yeah, so the brand playbook is your differentiation. Understanding because when you're talking about niching and positioning, you really are talking about the unique value that you bring to the marketplace and how you want to stand out there. Now, when you're talking about

brand, it's really about how we do this and how we do it differently. And it's getting into that kind of more strategic layer that I talked about, using those things that maybe you have as advantages that maybe not everybody else does. And how are you going to make that quite obvious? So in addition to things like messaging,

You want to have a really good understanding initially of what those differentiators are and how you're going to use them. So it's like, is it your experience or expertise or values that shine and that's what you're gonna be using as a strategic advantage? Is it your process? Is it how you do it that's different? And how are you going to articulate that? So you're taking that,

strategic position that you decided on and you're making some decisions about how to articulate that.

Shelby Nicholl (20:34)
So powerful because then I think you're making decisions on how to articulate it. And then I guess you're sticking to those decisions, which I think is like probably the underbelly of this is like, that is really hard to stick to those decisions that you've made. For one thing is like the brand leader. Let's say you're the founder of the financial planning practice. You probably get bored saying the same things over and over. Like how do we stay on target?

Natalie Hales (21:02)
100 % and I always joke around and every marketing person knows this, you are going to get bored of your before anybody else, right?

Shelby Nicholl (21:11)
Yeah, a lot faster than anybody else is. They're fine with it. You're completely bored out of your mind. That's what we're saying. Yeah.

Natalie Hales (21:13)
Yeah.

Right. That's

it. And so you're constantly looking for fresh ways to show up. But again, you have to make sure that it's reinforcing your position in the marketplace. It's reinforcing your differentiators. It's showing up where the clients are. so, yeah,

think that there's

The playbooks are such a key component to making sure that everybody kind of is on the same page with those things. And I personally haven't found anything better.

Shelby Nicholl (21:51)
Okay, and in practicality, like we would distribute the playbook to everybody on our team. Yeah, okay.

Natalie Hales (21:56)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's

not to say like it can never change either, right? Like, but I think that when you have something like a playbook, when you do make those changes, there's an expectation set that, that has to be updated, that has to be distributed. People have to be made aware. Somebody has to agree on it, right? Like, and so you aren't just willy nilly kind of making changes to be potentially

big decisions in your brand that could change everything, right? I mean, you do have advisors that want to go even deeper into their niche, even more niche than they were before. And so it's not to say that they can't do that. It's just that changes a lot of things. And so you want to make sure that you have a good understanding of does that change my unique value? Does that, is that going to change, you know, the differentiators that were

we say are going to be the most value for our clients. Is this still the right place to show up? All those questions need to be reevaluated again when you're making changes. Sometimes it might mean none of it needs to change. Sometimes it might need that. A lot of it could change. But you don't really know that unless you have something like a playbook and you can talk about...

you know, does it change this? Does it change this? Does it change this? Like, let's look at these things. And if not, cool, make that tiny tweak and redistribute and get everybody, you know, on the same page with it again. But, and it's something you can kind of come back to, you know, every year to just say like, how did it go? You know?

Shelby Nicholl (23:37)
Right, right. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about an ongoing sort of process on an annual basis. Like for those offices that are running on EOS, maybe it becomes part of your first quarter or your second quarter rocks that you might have. And it's like an annual sort of process to revisit it and say, what did we learn about our niche? if we are serving, one person that we've had on the podcast was Lauren Oshman. And I think her practice is so interesting. It's Vestia Wealth Advisors. They're in the Nashville area.

but they serve clients nationwide and they serve physicians and specifically like specialty physicians, a lot of orthopedic surgeons. And then she serves women orthopedic surgeons, right? Like it is a niche and you think, gosh, that's tiny, but she knows all kinds of things about, you know, the women and what they're facing inside of these larger practices and inside of some of the hospitals, even malpractice insurance norms that she can talk about because she's been

Natalie Hales (24:32)
yeah.

Shelby Nicholl (24:34)
part of these conversations for so long. And so I think about for her, it'd be something like, what did I learn about my niche? Like, what are the challenges that they're talking to us about now? Are they any different than what they were a couple of years ago? Is like AI impacting my niche in some new way that we weren't talking about before, but we should be talking about now.

Natalie Hales (24:51)
Mm-hmm.

Definitely, of course you want to do that annually and just make sure that those playbooks are updated. But if this is something you can have, especially if you're just starting out as an each advisor, if this is something that you can intentionally look at and ask yourself what's working, what's not working, what's going to be that next heat move to get you going into like, how can we make, how can we turn the volume up here? Because we know that this is working.

Let's lean into that. That's when, you know, when you can get intentional like that every single month, that's when you make progress really quickly.

Shelby Nicholl (25:32)
wow, every month. I love that because that also helps us not get as bored too if we're like kind of reviewing it and taking a look at it every month. It doesn't mean we're throwing out everything is what I'm hearing. It's just, but what is a heat move? You just use that term.

Natalie Hales (25:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's something where, so I think the biggest part of, like you said, having a really successful brand is doing that listening out there, finding out what's working, what are people leaning into, what do people seem to want to talk about you with you most, what are people asking you to do a webinar on or do a talk on or, you know, that sort of thing and making conscious decisions to double down on that. So like, how can we turn this work?

Like how can we turn the heat up on this? And it's just one small little area and we're just gonna lean into it a little bit more and turn the heat up on this, whether it is a channel, whether it is a message, whether it is...

just some little thing that you might be doing, let's decide next month how we can go even deeper into that. so it just, it sort of forces the experimentation of it a little harder.

Shelby Nicholl (26:45)
Yeah, I think experimentation is such an interesting word too, because I think for a lot of people, they like it all kind of buttoned up and perfect, and experimentation sounds a little scary. So does the heat move and kind of that monthly process maybe take down some of that risk? Because I mean, if it's not working, we can just not do it again, right?

Natalie Hales (27:02)
Yeah.

exactly it. And I mean, it's one small thing, right, that, you know, we have consciously tried to pay attention to throughout the month, through our activities, you know, what people might be paying attention to. And now we're just doubling down on that. Was it a fluke or was that something that's, you know, really resonating and people want to hear more about that? And so it

it forces us to be more conscious with the listening effort as well as giving more to that. Like if that's the value that they want from you, let's keep giving them that and turning the volume up there and seeing what we can make of it.

Shelby Nicholl (27:51)
Yeah.

How does an advisor know when their playbook is working, when these heat moves are working, like their marketing is working? How will they know that?

Natalie Hales (28:01)
Yeah, you hear a lot of people say the brand isn't what you say it is, the brand is what they say it is, right? And it's so true because the moment people start repeating it back to you, right? The moment people said, without me realizing, she'll show you how to niche, I was like, that is it. Like, that is me. Like, why am I not doubling down on positioning?

Why am I kind of being that a marketer? This is where I'm shining. And so, it's taking that and doubling down on what's working, right? So I think that we need to be just a little bit more conscious of that and what's working every single month.

Shelby Nicholl (28:41)
Yeah, and it's you heard somebody say it though. That's how you knew it was working.

Natalie Hales (28:44)
Yeah, that's exactly

it. Yeah, it's what are people repeating back to you, right? What is it that you put out in the ether and somebody picked up on or leaned into or repeated back to you? I think that that's probably the most effective way to understand if it's working. It's like, I called you because I saw this or, you know, I heard you talk about this or my friend told me that you really focus here. When that keeps happening, it's working.

Shelby Nicholl (29:13)
Yeah, I've had a couple clients, especially last year. And now as you say that, I'm like, I need to go back and highlight this some more again on LinkedIn and other channels and in our marketing. But I had a couple clients last year that said, I heard you on a podcast and you were talking about messaging at the time of making a firm move or transforming the practice in some way. And I think for lot of recruiting type consulting type firms out there, they're not talking a lot about messaging with their clients.

like how to get clients through that change and the messaging that's part of it. And I'm not doing like traditional branding and marketing, right? We're not, Muriel Consulting is not, and Dee Dee on our team is amazing at launch communications. Like that's what we do. We do change related communications, but so many people overlook that bucket, but I had like two clients in a row say, that's why I called you. And so, you know, I...

Natalie Hales (29:57)
Mmm.

Shelby Nicholl (30:10)
knew we had to like double down. made it a part of our process. Every client gets a messaging package, you know, that we work, we have them work with Didi and, know, we create FAQs for them and a client script and a client email and social media pushes, right? Like those are the things that we know everybody is going to need at the time of making some kind of change in their business.

Natalie Hales (30:31)
Yes.

And

that is such a pain point that you can become known for helping advisors do well and helping them kind of get through that with, you know, not even just no issues, but I mean, with resounding success, right? Because you're so right. It's a big change for advisors. It's a big change for their clients. And so they're always, it's scary, right? Like, it's like, how is things gonna be received? if...

Shelby Nicholl (30:49)
Yeah, yeah.

Natalie Hales (31:00)
If you are somebody who has gone through that change management process with advisors and their clients over and over and over and over again, you know exactly what to expect. And an advisor is gonna wanna come to you because you've done it inside and out, right? You know it. it's just like, it's that level of expertise, right? That people are looking for in those big moments of change.

I would 100 % Shelby double down on that for yourself. And if that's a heat, like that's one of those heat moves where it's like, that's where you got to explore. You're having people kind of come to you and say, this is why I came to you. And now, so it's like double down there. It's like, how can I turn the dial even just a little bit up on here?

Shelby Nicholl (31:46)
Yeah, yeah, it's such a good point. And it's like, it's just listening for those little clues that people give you, right? I could have easily overlooked that from a couple of clients are gone. good. That's great. I'm glad they like that. Right? Like, that's cool. But no, I'm like, wait, that's a clue for me. That is something. There's something there that I need to explore and highlight more. And I need to do it even more. So it's like, I guess to the advisor, I'd say like, maybe that's something that we have to really amp up during this time period of like,

Natalie Hales (31:58)
Yeah

Shelby Nicholl (32:15)
defining your niche, building your brand playbook. You gotta listen a lot in there, it sounds like, too.

Natalie Hales (32:21)
Yeah, like, so when I work with advisors, I start with putting them through my sprints, which is like three, two week sprints. So it's a six week process where we're setting those strategic foundations. We're getting them those playbooks, right? The niche playbook, the brand playbook, the marketing playbook. But then they continue, you know, once we have that strategic foundation, those, all those decisions we talked about, right? Like it's make, it's a lot of decisions. Then we get those settled and then we

We communicate that to their team and then we start working together to live in the brand every single month. to, consciously listen to how things are being received and make tiny tweaks in terms of where we lean in even more. And so that is like, that is one, how you don't dilute your brand, but two, how you can compound on what's working a lot quicker.

Shelby Nicholl (33:16)
Yeah, I love that. So we are getting near sort of the end of our time. And I want to talk a couple of practical takeaways. And you've given us so many, from like the heat move to the have a playbook. But what's one thing that advisors should just stop doing immediately that maybe it's diluting their brand? Is there a key thing you're like, I just wish more advisors would stop doing that?

Natalie Hales (33:45)
I mean, there are a few things I could say here, but I mean.

Shelby Nicholl (33:50)
Stop using words,

comprehensive financial planning. I don't know.

Natalie Hales (33:54)
Definitely, I think that stop using that generic language, but I think that that's something that advisors probably hear all the time. And so sometimes what I hear out there that just like breaks my heart a little bit is stop apologizing for being a financial advisor. There are some narratives out there that say like, when you don't start with telling people you're a financial advisor because their eyes are just gonna glaze over.

say this and this and this and like spark curiosity and da da da da da. And it's like, for me, I'm like, you know what the real solution that is? It's find something you're truly passionate about that it doesn't even occur to apologize know, for being excited about, for being excited about, for helping people with. And once you find that, that's when you never have to apologize ever again. yeah.

Go deeper because stop apologizing and find your purpose. Go deeper.

Shelby Nicholl (34:53)
Yeah, find your real purpose all the way down. Like, why are you doing it and be convicted about it? I love that. What is a client moment in your business, in your life, where you've thought to yourself, like, this is why I do this thing.

Natalie Hales (34:58)
Mm-hmm.

So many, I feel like every client I work with is like this to be honest, because I work with kind of purpose driven advisors who don't want to sound like everybody else. And so when I work with people, I'm trying to find out kind of where a client needs meets kind of their story meets their purpose and their passion and kind of bringing all those things together. And so happens all the time. But I think one of my earlier ones just

always stands out in my head as like kind of just blowing me away and just help me know like I am on the right path. When the advisor I work with, he grew up with one arm and decided that he wanted to specialize in helping people kind of understand RDSPs and some of the tax breaks that they could get for their kids. So he works with parents of children with disabilities. And his story just so like growing up.

and going through some of the experience that he has gone through and being able to resonate with them on that personal level, but then also being super passionate about making sure that they're so well taken care of. And it was one of my first experiences and it was like, yes, this is exactly why I do what I do. And I'm never gonna, there's so many like that, but I think some of those early ones really stick out in my brain as like,

just, I know this is my right path.

Shelby Nicholl (36:31)
Yeah, they absolutely do. And that one is so important too, because of the families that he was serving and the impact. It's like, I know you and I share this, like when we get to see, you we have an impact on the advisor who has an impact on their clients and those clients' families. Like it's really cool to see that expansion of impact over time.

What is one thing that advisors underestimate about their own voice?

Natalie Hales (37:01)
I think, that is such a good question. I think there's so many examples of advisors whitewashing their own voice. And I think I understand where it comes from. They're worried about how something could get perceived. They're worried about compliance. So there is valid reasons to that. But I think that sometimes it goes so far that it's like even taking out some of those.

personality that they have. so, yeah, that is maybe one thing or one area that I think is always kind of concerning to me, that you'll whitewash it out so much that the true you doesn't come across. And so people have this cognitive dissonance of how you show up in your marketing materials versus how you show up in person. And that doesn't bode well for trust.

Shelby Nicholl (37:59)
Yeah, yeah, you can't have you can't show up with two different personas. That makes so much sense to me. All right. Our signature question, I ask this of every guest, is what is one way that you're living an off script life today?

Natalie Hales (38:04)
Yeah.

Oh, I will live such an off script life every day. I'm gonna say, definitely. So I am so niche in that I help advisors. Like am a marketer who focuses in on the branding aspect of things and specifically helping advisors position themselves properly and kind of living in their brand. And so you're right. Just my life in general is pretty different, but also I think...

Shelby Nicholl (38:17)
I mean, you are a niche of a niche, so that's off script in and of itself, right?

Natalie Hales (38:41)
My advisors who work with me all the time who have noticed this about my schedule also realized the way that I kind of organize my work is also very intentional. I really only open up my calendar to people and clients two days a week. Otherwise, the other two are like really focused in my business as well as really focused on the client work that needs to happen behind the scenes. I am so...

religious about kind of maintaining my time and where I spend my time and the podcast that I go on and the conferences that I speak at, it all needs to be so reflective of my positioning. So like every single Monday I will ask myself, is that meeting, is that event, is that podcast helping me?

to push my positioning and my messaging and kind of my brand forward. Because if it's not, then it's not gonna be in my calendar anymore. And so I think that that's where maybe I live a really different, I live kind of like an off-script life.

Shelby Nicholl (39:57)
Yeah, well, I think the level of commitment that that shows, not just to your clients, because obviously you're making time for your current clients and making sure that you can deliver properly on the work that they are working with you on, but it's also a commitment to living that life of values and having the values set. You are, as you said, committed to it, you're religious about it. I love that for you.

Natalie Hales (40:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Shelby Nicholl (40:24)
I am getting there. I'm learning. I'm starting with buffer days. I'm doing things like that. We're expanding the team, all the things in order to free up some of that time. But I can appreciate getting religious and getting committed to how you spend your time and that that carries through to the quality and the tone of the work that you deliver for advisors. Now, this was such a great conversation, Natalie. I'm so glad we got to have it.

Natalie Hales (40:50)
this is fantastic. I could talk about this stuff all day. So anytime, Shelby.

Shelby Nicholl (40:53)
thank you so much. Well, this was the exact conversation I wanted. It was really tactical and had a lot of clarity moments in it. You know, it was also a great reminder that and especially your last comment on how you're living an off script life. It's not always that brands are built by doing more, but sometimes even by doing less and doing the right things. So to our listeners, if your marketing is feeling a little scattered, a little inconsistent, like it's not exactly working or exactly who you are.

Natalie Hales (41:13)
Mm-hmm.

Shelby Nicholl (41:23)
It might be time to sort of step back and build that foundation and maybe do a niche playbook and a brand playbook. And of course, we'll have links to Natalie's contact information, et cetera, on the show notes. To those listening, subscribe, share this with an advisor who is maybe stuck in that tactical mode and who could benefit from it. And we'll see you next time.