The Only Differentiating Factor Left When it Comes to Content is Perspective—What’s Yours?
The world does not need another financial advisor writing general educational content.
There are literally billions of blogs on financial topics, and probably hundreds of thousands of newsletters on the topic. The internet is cluttered with generalized guidance of every variety, chief among which is probably financial.
What the world needs, what your clients want, what your clients will pass along to their loved ones, is your perspective.
Perspective is the only differentiating factor left in the world of content.
Not accuracy.
Not length of content.
Not even the best ideas.
Perspective alone will set your content apart in a lasting way and allow you to connect with both clients and prospects on a personal level.
People don’t let businesses into their personal spheres very easily. Their personal realm is reserved for people they love and things they enjoy, not financial advisors. It is reserved for people they relate to on a personal level, not professional.
Your perspective is the most personal thing about you. It is the result of your life experience up until this point. By sharing your perspective, you begin to connect on a personal level.
When you share generalized educational content, you are fighting against a flood of competitors. Readers can come and go when they need help. They might come to you for help on Social Security, but then they’ll ask ChatGPT for help with budgeting, and then they’ll turn to Facebook for opinions on annuities.
Like an all-you-can-eat buffet, the reader will pick and choose which content to consume and which to ignore. When all of the content serves the same purpose, they are free to find it wherever they want.
By defining your perspective clearly and employing it frequently, you step into the role of personal advisor, and your clients seek to connect through your opinions in your content just as much as they seek to be informed by you.
Perspective is the foundation of magnetic content. If you create generalized content, you may attract an audience, but your staying power will be limited, resulting in greater effort and a longer timeline for results from your communication efforts.
The Purpose of Perspective
Perspective is an exercise in differentiation. Your goal when differentiating your firm is to position it as the best choice for a select audience (your ideal clients).
When you share your perspective, you will find that your ideal clients are attracted and non-ideal clients are repelled. Many advisors mistakenly believe that any person with enough money could be their client, and so they avoid anything that could repel anyone.
Not every client is a right fit for our services. By accepting that you will repel some readers, you free yourself from the desire to please everyone and otherwise compromise your vision of what your firm can become.
Establishing Your Perspective
When I meet with advisors to talk about working together, they often ask questions like:
What topics will you write about?
When and where should I publish my content?
How will you target my audience?
What kind of content does my audience care about?
Will you help me define my audience?
One of the underlying questions in these conversations is this: What is my perspective? That is a difficult question to answer, but it’s not impossible.
All advisors have a perspective. Every single one of you. But if you’re like most advisors, you only apply it to your personal life. It makes sense. Most advisors (and business professionals in general) are trained to separate the personal from the professional and keep their opinions to themselves.
Establishing your perspective requires you to unscrew the lid on your personal opinions and let them seep into your writing a little bit. Maybe it’s humor. Maybe you talk about a book you’re reading or show you’re watching. Maybe you share how you feel about a current news item.
Do not misunderstand me: I am not saying you have to announce who you voted for in the last election and how you feel about the latest hot-button issues. That may work for some people, but it’s not a must.
I merely mean that you should feel free to share your personal side with your readers (and sharing recipes in your newsletter doesn’t count).
The 3 Steps of Perspective-driven Content
For our purposes, perspective is education through the lens of a worldview. It’s opinions and facts combined. Developing these components of education and worldview requires that you undertake three steps to achieve meaningful differentiation:
You must first know your audience
Then you must know the topics your audience cares to learn about
Lastly, you must apply your own perspective to those topics
Easier said than done, right? Yes, those are big steps. But they are essential to defining your perspective and engaging your audience. And if your audience isn’t engaged, why produce content at all?