The 52: Business Books to Read in 2023

Business Books to Read in 2023

This year, I read more than 50 nonfiction books, most of which fell into the categories of business and marketing. In celebration of the last business day of 2022, I thought I would share the ones that left a memorable impression.

The 6 Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni (Amazon Rating 4.8 out of 5)

I’ve taken a lot of assessments in my career, and this book offers one of the simplest I’ve come across. It will help you quickly identify the strengths (geniuses) and weaknesses (frustrations) in yourself and your team. With this information, you can restructure your team so people do what they are best at, and you can hire for the areas where you have gaps.

Selling Is Hard. Buying Is Harder: How Buyer Enablement Drives Digital Sales and Shortens the Sales Cycle by Garin Hess (Amazon Rating 4.5 out of 5)

I stumbled upon this book as I was evaluating publishers for my upcoming book, and I’m so glad I found it. While written for companies that sell B2B services with complex sales cycles, the suggestions for improving a client’s buying experience are relevant to all service businesses. For example: Have different marketing materials for the different roles a prospect serves (e.g., one piece for the elder parent and one piece for the caregiver child). If you are an innovator by nature, this book will give you lots of ideas to implement in your practice in the new year.

Write Useful Books: A Modern Approach to Designing and Refining Recommendable Nonfiction by Rob Fitzpatrick and Adam Rosen (Amazon Rating 4.6 out of 5)

I read this book for guidance on how to make my upcoming book more helpful to advisors. If you plan on writing a book for marketing purposes, this is a must-read! And even if you aren’t, you’ll find lots of great tips on making the content you create more, well, useful.

The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks Than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian P. Moran (Amazon Rating 4.7 out of 5)

This book changed the way I think about developing marketing plans. Annual plans are out of date before you know it and rarely get implemented. If you follow the techniques in this book, 2023 will be your most productive and impactful year yet.

$100M Offers: How to Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No by Alex Hormozi (Amazon Rating 4.9 out of 5)

Read this book if you struggle with how to add more value to your clients and charge higher fees for your service. I especially recommend it to advisors with hourly, project, flat-fee, or subscription-based fee models. The author will provide scalable ways to increase your value and fees without increasing your workload. With nearly 10,000 Amazon ratings and an average rating of 4.9 stars, I’m not the only one who thinks this book is magic. In fact, I can’t wait to read it again in 2023.

Happy new year!

The 52: The Long-Term Consequences of ChatGPT

The Long-Term Consequences of ChatGPT

Last week I presented the short-term opportunities I see for ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that solves problems to questions you pose.

While I believe early adopters of this technology will see tremendous benefit in the short term, I predict it will present negative marketing consequences in the long term for generalist advisors—even those who don’t use it.

The ease with which ChatGPT creates content means that there will be more of it. And everyone who uses the AI for content will be conveying the same information. The result? It will be even harder to get noticed through your content marketing.

Another issue is that if a prospect can get their question answered using ChatGPT, they won’t need to do a Google search. This means content on your website that once attracted prospective clients will no longer be as effective.

If ChatGPT or a similar technology becomes ubiquitous, you’ll have to create content that AI can’t easily do in mere seconds. So it will be even more critical to differentiate yourself by positioning yourself as an expert in a niche.

Marketing influencer Seth Godin summed up the impact of this technology in his blog, stating: “Technology begins by making old work easier, but then it requires that new work be better.”

The Incredible "Silver Bullet" Potential of ChatGPT

ChatGPT: The Marketing Silver Bullet You’ve Been Looking for?

If you’ve followed the news over the last few weeks, you probably heard the buzz about ChatGPT. If you aren’t familiar, ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that is astounding users everywhere. As described on the Forbes website, ChatGPT gives “human-like, detailed answers to inquiries—like drafting a contract between an artist and producer and creating detailed code—and could revolutionize the way people use search engines by not just providing links for users to sift through, but by solving elaborate problems and answering intricate questions.”[1] 

Explaining the technology doesn’t do it justice. You need to experience it for yourself. Go to the website and ask it to “write a Seinfeld episode about a stolen car,” and be ready to be amazed by what it can do. 

ChatGPT is exciting from a marketing perspective because it can write marketing articles. And it can do an article in a matter of minutes. For example, I asked it to “write a 750-word article on the taxation of RSUs,” and it produced a decent article in less than two minutes. When I showed the article to one of my financial advisor clients, he said the content was equivalent to what the junior advisors in the firm would have produced. That’s remarkable for a technology in its infancy.

From testing ChatGPT, I have observed the following:

1. Articles written on general financial topics tend to be quite good. Advisors may find the output to be an acceptable alternative to canned content.

2. I ran each article through plagiarism software, and nothing significant was flagged. That being said, I wouldn’t feel comfortable using content generated by ChatGPT without running it through a plagiarism check.

3. While I didn’t find any factual errors in my tests, a known limitation is that the technology may produce incorrect information. You will want to double-check any content generated before using it for your business.

4. Because the technology is in such high demand right now, I’m often unable to log on. Also, it sometimes produces an error before finishing an article, and I have to start over. I’m sure this will improve as the company builds more capacity.

5. From a compliance perspective, you usually can’t claim content you have not written as your own. You should check with your compliance officer about the disclosures you need to attach to a ChatGPT-written article.

While ChatGPT is still in its infancy, I see a real opportunity for advisors over the next few months. 

The Short-Term Opportunity

I believe there is a window of opportunity for advisors who are early adopters of this technology. This AI will allow them to create large volumes of content quickly. More content on an advisor’s website can increase their search engine rankings, especially if optimized for their local geographic area or niche. 

ChatGPT also means that advisors can create more content to share and get noticed on social media. For example, I asked the AI to “write a tweet about RSUs,” and here is what it came back with, hashtags and all: 

RSUs are a great way for employees to build wealth and align their financial interests with their company. They provide a sense of ownership and can be a valuable part of a compensation package. #RSUs #equitycompensation

This window of opportunity reminds me of similar periods I observed when I worked with advisors who were early adopters of social media, SEO, and Google reviews. Those advisors who took advantage of these technologies early on reaped the rewards. But as more advisors entered the market, the advantage became harder to defend. I expect the same to be true with ChatGPT. 

The Long-Term Consequences

While I believe early adopters of this technology will see tremendous benefits in the short term, I predict serious marketing consequences for all advisors in the long run whether they use the technology or not.

The ease with which ChatGPT creates content means that there will be more of it. And everyone who uses this AI to create content will convey the same information. The result? It will be even harder to get noticed through your content marketing.

Another issue is that if a prospect can get their question answered using ChatGPT, they won’t need to do a Google search. This means the content on your website currently attracting prospects will no longer see the same amount of traffic. 

The Long-term Solution

If ChatGPT or a similar technology becomes ubiquitous, original thinking will be even more critical. You’ll no longer be able to write basic articles on topics such as Roth conversions or Social Security strategies because AI can do it just as well in mere seconds. You will have to create content that is different. The clearest way I see to do this is to focus on a niche market where there isn’t a lot of information for AI to pull its knowledge from.

For example, I asked ChatGPT, “What are the executive benefits available at [company name]?” and got this response: 

I’m sorry, but I am not able to browse the internet and therefore cannot provide information about any specific company’s executive benefits. In general, executive benefits are a type of compensation package that is offered to top-level executives at a company, and they can include things like stock options, performance bonuses, and additional retirement savings plans. However, the specific executive benefits offered by any given company will vary depending on a number of factors.

AI’s current inability to create niche content is a good opportunity for niche advisors. Will AI learn this information in the future? I’m sure it will. But right now, it appears unable to replace expertise in niche areas of financial planning, and this is where the opportunity lies. 

Marketing influencer Seth Godin summed up the impact of this technology in a recent blog, stating: “Technology begins by making old work easier, but then it requires that new work be better.” 

It has always been hard for generalist advisors to differentiate themselves through content marketing, and artificial intelligence will only make it harder. If you want to differentiate yourself, you will have to be different. You will have to offer value that no one else offers. You will have to become an expert in a specialized niche. In other words, you will need to become uncomparable—so different no one else can compete with you, not even AI.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2022/12/07/heres-what-to-know-about-openais-chatgpt-what-its-disrupting-and-how-to-use-it

About Kristen Luke

Kristen Luke is the President of Kaleido Creative Studio, a marketing consulting firm that positions Registered Investment Advisors and their employees as experts in a niche, making them “uncomparable” to other advisors. Over the past 17 years, Kristen has consulted with hundreds of financial advisory firms and shared her marketing expertise via industry conferences and publications nationwide.

The 52: The Short-Term Opportunities of ChatGPT

The Short-Term Opportunities of ChatGPT

If you follow the news closely, you’ve probably heard the buzz about ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that solves problems to questions you pose. If you aren’t familiar, read “Here’s What to Know About OpenAI’s ChatGPT—What It’s Disrupting and How to Use It.”

ChatGPT is exciting from a marketing perspective because it can create original content in a matter of minutes. For example, I asked it to “write a 750-word article on the taxation of RSUs,” and it produced a great article in less than two minutes.

From testing ChatGPT, I found the articles it wrote on general topics to be quite good. For advisors who use canned content, this technology may be an acceptable, if not superior, alternative.

I believe there is also a window of opportunity for early adopters of this technology. Advisors who use it can create large volumes of content quickly. That means more original content on their website, which can increase their search engine rankings. It can also mean there is more content for these advisors to share and get noticed on social media. This window of opportunity reminds me of the same windows I observed with advisors who were early adopters of social media, SEO, and Google reviews.

While I see great opportunity for advisors who adopt this technology in the short term, I predict there will be serious marketing consequences for all advisors in the long run whether they use the technology or not. I’ll discuss that next week.

The 52: Become a Guest on a Podcast

Become a Guest on a Podcast

One way to get in front of a large number of people in your niche is to be a guest on a podcast. The time you invest into being a guest is minimal—usually just a few hours, including preparation, recording, and promotion. Yet it potentially gets you in front of hundreds or thousands of people in your niche.

To become a guest on a podcast, you can reach out directly to the host of shows you are already aware of and pitch them on the value you would bring to the show and its audience. You can also use podcast-matching services like PodMatch.com or PodcastGuests.com to find opportunities.

Find Your Patient Zero

Find Your Patient Zero

You’ve decided to focus your business on a niche. But now what? How do you get the word to spread?

While there are many options for generating awareness about your business, one quick way is to find your patient zero. What’s a patient zero? It’s “a person identified as the first to become infected with an illness or disease in an outbreak.”[1] Usually, having a patient zero may be a negative, but it is a positive in your case. Every business would love to have viral growth. This rapid growth starts with “infecting” one person who will then spread their enthusiasm about your work.

Who is the one person you know that is well-connected to your niche? Who is the person who will make introductions to others in your niche to jump-start your growth? 

I recently spoke with an advisor whose patient zero was a friend and client who was a partner at a prominent consulting firm. This one person loved what the advisor was doing for him and introduced the advisor to a few colleagues. This started the ball rolling with this niche. After working with three or four more partners from the consulting firm, the advisor wrote a white paper specific to their needs and shared it with these clients. And those people shared it with their colleagues. Business took off from there, and the advisor has struggled to keep up with demand ever since—with very little additional marketing.

How to Identify Patient Zero

So how do you find your patient zero? First, you need to identify people with the right characteristics and relationships. Your patient zero is likely to be someone who:

• Is highly connected to your niche

• Is a connector by nature

• Has professional or personal experience working with you (a client is the best option if possible)

You will have the most success with someone you have a long-time relationship with because you don’t have to spend months (or years) developing trust.

New clients are also good candidates for patient zero because they are usually enthusiastic about the advisor-client relationship in the first months of working with you. These people are likely to tell others about you during this euphoric stage.

For example, I spoke with an advisor who told me her niche got off the ground after she met a wealthy woman at a club she belonged to. This woman became a client and referred enough people to kick-start the niche.

How to Evaluate Patient Zero

Once you’ve identified a list of possible patient zeros, you’ll need to explore which ones have the capability to infect others with your message. To do this, conduct informational interviews commonly used by new college graduates exploring career options. With this approach, you ask people to meet with you one-on-one to get their feedback on your business. You are honoring them by asking them for their opinion and expertise while planting the seed for introductions and referrals. As you wrap up the conversation, ask them these two questions:

1. What other opportunities do they recommend you take advantage of to get in front of your niche?

2. Is there anyone else in the niche they suggest you speak to?

If their response is positive, probe further by asking them to provide you with introductions to the people and opportunities they mentioned.

By the end of the interview, you’ll be able to gauge which people have the potential to be your patient zero. If you are lucky, you will uncover a few options to pursue.

How To Engage Patient Zero

Once you’ve determined someone has the potential to be your patient zero, you need to help them infect others. While you hope they will just shout from the rooftops about your amazing work, realistically you need to provide them with tools to make it easier on them. You do this by giving them something to share, like an ebook, a recorded webinar, a podcast episode, a video, or an invitation to an event you are hosting.

When you give them the marketing asset, be clear that you hope they will share it with their friends, colleagues, and contacts who fit into your niche. If you have identified the right patient zero, this should not be a difficult ask.  

Final Thoughts

I’ll be honest. Relying on one person to drive clients to your business is not a smart long-term marketing strategy. But when you are just starting with a niche, a patient zero can lead to quick wins and jump-start your efforts. You can eventually build a more solid marketing foundation on top of your early momentum, but in the meantime, identify the patient zero who will help drive that initial momentum.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patient%20zero

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About Kristen Luke

Kristen Luke is the President of Kaleido Creative Studio, a marketing consulting firm that positions Registered Investment Advisors and their employees as experts in a niche, making them “uncomparable” to other advisors. Over the past 17 years, Kristen has consulted with hundreds of financial advisory firms and shared her marketing expertise via industry conferences and publications nationwide.

The Balanced Advisor Podcast: Finding Your Niche with Kristen Luke

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