#256 Richard Dunkerley – Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

advisors, business, clients, people, content, bit, google, website, ratings, talking, reviews, content strategy, meeting, digital, presence, zurich, social, terms, guess, search

SPEAKERS

Fraser Jack, Richard Dunkerley

Fraser Jack 

Welcome back to the x y advisor podcast. I’m Fraser Jack and today I’m joined by Richard Dunkley. Welcome, Richard.

Richard Dunkerley 

Thanks, Fraser, I can’t tell you how excited I am to be to be invited on to your prestigious show.

Fraser Jack 

Well, you’re very welcome. You’re very welcome. It’s good to have you. Have you checked today. So we’re going to talk about all sorts of different things, and specifically, a digital spring clean, something that we both geek out about quite a bit. So it’ll be it’ll be one of those episodes that we both be on fire with, I’m sure. In the meantime, though, don’t give us a quick background about yourself. Tell us about Tell us about your journey into what you’re doing at the moment.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, sure. So right now I’m, I’ve entered the world of small and medium enterprises. So I’m a I’m an SME. So I run a business called the limelight department. And I describe it as a virtual creative agency and communications agency. Working with other SMEs, specifically in financial services, I guess you could say we’re a one stop shop, we do everything from marketing and branding strategy and value prop development, through to the implementation of that strategic work through advertising, content, social media relations events, even down to presentations, and so on. I’m the strategy and copywriting guy, and I guess it’s the project manager. So I sort of bring together the other resources in the network, which includes designers, PR specialists, and customer experience experts. I’ve been running this business for a couple of years now. And as you’d know, and maybe some of your listeners might remember I, prior to that I did about 10 years as the head of marketing and comms at Zurich, and, you know, was privileged to sort of play a part in some pretty exciting things that that unfolded with with their business. And yeah, my my whole career has been in financial services largely in marketing and comms, but a little bit in product. So I’ve, I can sort of hold my own, if it comes to sort of geeky technical product conversations, although I’ll try and steer away from those as much as possible these days. So yeah, that’s, that’s me and my journey,

Fraser Jack 

there’s certainly a few, there’s certainly a time of the of time, the year at the moment where there’s a lot of product compensations going on but today, we’re not talking about product. And we’ll we’re going to get into very much the digital spring clean side of it. As you mentioned, you’ve been in financial services for a long period of time, you know, how advice businesses work, you know, a lot of planners and advisors very well. And you certainly know what, when it comes to a lot of the marketing and the communication stuff that goes on inside their businesses, how that might react with their clients. So thank you so much for joining us, as you as we talked about the digital spring cleaners, today’s topic, we’ve sort of got about seven tips and points and conversation, things to talk around. So let’s get started. Tell us tell us what, we’re going to start with this actually, if we’re going to do a digital spring clean, where should we start?

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, well, I suppose it’s worth saying that the, in the context of this particular spring with ID wi and D do and, you know, various other sort of regulatory things, maybe, maybe this particular spring is, is one of the busiest ones on record. But look, conceptually, the idea is that, that just like the, the, you know, the real sort of little spring, clean that once a year, you take the opportunity to really take a step back. And, you know, look at your, in this case, your digital presence, whether it be across social media, whether here you’re appearing on sort of Google search, you know, how your content strategies sort of playing out, it’s, it’s the point in time where you take a step back and look at all those things, ideally, through someone else’s eyes, you know, the eyes of your sort of customers. And just to see if there are opportunities to, to really give it a bit of a tweak, here and there and make sure it’s in tip top shape. Heading towards the back end of the year.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, fair enough. And then giving it a tweak is one way I’m hoping that most of our listeners will only need to do a tweak it from here and there. But obviously some people might need to actually think about things that we’re talking about, and start from fresh in a lot of these cases.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, look, I think by virtue of the fact that we’re talking to your listeners, your network, I think, it’s probably fair to say that they are more likely to be, you know, at the end of the spectrum that’s a bit more sophisticated, in terms of their handle on on various aspects of their digital presence and how they’re using various digital means and channels to grow their business. Engage the customers. But yeah, I guess it’s fair to say there are also pockets, you know, albeit a diminishing sort of group, but but there are some for whom, you know, even the idea of their Google presence is is kind of, you know, a little bit sort of advanced for them that, but yeah, fortunately, most people, yeah, when when I first started talking about social So, you know, back in 2012, I actually set up what was then the first YouTube channel across the entire Zurich global network, which is pretty, pretty amazing in retrospect, given it’s a massive sort of global company, but I think that back then, the lawyers were sort of getting involved. And there was this, you know, there were terms thrown around, like, viral and, and I think there was, there was a fear of, if we, if we’re talking social, there was a fear of, you know, people would just gonna pile on and, and reputations going to be trashed, you know, kind of overnight with with all these negative comments. It’s, it’s not the way it’s sort of panned out now, and, you know, social is actually, you know, becoming such an integral part of, of how people, advisors are engaging not only with existing clients, but in terms of their sort of building their brand and their marketing presence. And I think, philosophically, the idea that if there’s going to be a conversation about you and your your practice, it’s going to happen, whether you take part in it or not. And I think you’ve got more chance of being able to control the narrative if, if you’re actually sort of active and sort of taking part in it. But yes, we’ve certainly, we’ve certainly come a long way.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, absolutely. In in probably that we control to me as one of those things that a lot of businesses would have feared, and was scared over in the lawyers losing control or working in a space where you don’t have total control. Cuz I guess marketing, or, or, you know, digital messaging about a business has always been so controlled from inside the business and social media is one of those things that all of a sudden to control was not necessarily 100%. Inside the business. It was, it was external.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, I think. And we, you know, without laboring the point about lawyers too much, but certainly, the the sort of institutional ownership, you know, those sort of advisors who were part of oversells, that were sort of institutionally aligned it, it’s fair to say that their risk tolerance was was quite a bit lower. And, yeah, it’s, it seems ridiculous now to think back to, you know, there was an unnamed dealer group who literally was wanting to sign off individual tweets, you know, and that was back in the days of 140 characters. Yeah, certainly

Fraser Jack 

the the 140 character, individual tweets, and a lot of that a lot of that stuff around getting approval is a bit is a bit crazy, too, for social media, considering obviously social media is best done, you know, when it’s live and hot, and the message comes through, and, you know, you want a faster response time?

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, I think I think there’s a few ways that I guess the landscape has changed in that regard. Obviously, I think we’re seeing a lot of advisors now in, you know, either a self managed self license kind of scenario, or alternately, they with smaller kind of boutiques who are a bit more entrepreneurial in In this sense, but I think also, you know, platforms have changed and, and I think, I think there’s just sort of a realization that this fear that that negative commentary was gonna go viral. It just doesn’t really sort of play out that way. And so it’s now seen, you know, if he told me social that seen as, as a positive it’s not a it’s not a trivial you know, it’s not truly about social in the sense of it being non business related. It’s, it’s, it’s something that now that the most progressive sort of businesses are really starting to harness. Yeah, absolutely social

Fraser Jack 

and more in the way it’s two way rather than a one way communication. So if we’re talking about advisors in a digital spring clean what what should advisors be focusing on with their social media coming up at the moment?

Richard Dunkerley 

Well, look, when we talk about a digital spring clean, I guess there’s there’s, you know, a few key aspects of their digital, the sort of digital communication that that are worth sort of talking about. So social media is obviously one. But even things like their presence on Google, in terms of, you know, the way the business is kind of turning up in Google Maps, or you turn up when you try and search for yourself. How you show up when clients or potential clients sort of search for a financial advisor in their particular area, you know, there’s Google ratings, you know, the, the whole sort of use of ratings now, by customers is is, you know, becoming more and more, you know, the way they sort of search for things. Digital also encompasses your sort of content strategy, whether that be, you know, blogs or video content. And then, you know, digital, also encompasses how you are engaging with clients and prospects. And of course, we’re increasingly doing that in a zoom kind of world, I mean, zoom, now being a verb, as, as well as a noun. And I think, you know, there are elements to video sort of engagement that require specific focus as well, because some things that might work in a face to face context, don’t automatically translate into, you know, zoom engagement. So I think there’s more than likely opportunities for advisors to improve or at least take a look at what they’re doing in that space as well.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, 100% agree, there’s so much you can do in and around that. So there’s probably a lot of different subjects and we can cover the the, from the maps, the ratings, the the, the searching in the, in the content strategy in the digital, digital meeting present, let’s quickly finish up on the social media. So what is in I mean, I’m, I’m a big believer that, you know, obviously, the social media, there’s, people can do a lot with their social media presence, when it comes to just the imagery that they’re using, and the consistency across the brand and, and to be able to look at, you know, some of them, to maybe pay somebody to take a really good photo, or to take some good good photos of the staff and, and look at putting them up on the social.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, I think, you know, in terms of practical tips, I mean, something that, that I’ve been sort of helping advisors with for years, is simple things like avatars on LinkedIn, and making sure their LinkedIn sort of URL is not the automatically generated one, but they can actually tailor it to, you know, to, to their business, make it a lot more searchable, a lot more neat. But, but certainly things like photographs and the way they describe themselves, I think, you know, again, a simple thing, but advisors who run their own practice and like the, the kind of the ego, sort of enhancing ability to be able to say they’re a chief executive or the director. But in a, in a search context, that doesn’t mean much. And so just something simple, like actually describing what you do, rather than, you know, your sort of job title or your kind of ownership status. But I think, you know, something that’s exciting for me, and it’s a bit of a double edged sword in, in a social context is the way that new platforms are becoming increasingly popular as a means to share sort of financial content. And yeah, I think what’s really sort of exploded almost since, since the stalla pandemic has been the growth of tik tok in particular, but but also sort of Instagram. So we’re seeing now, you know, a lot more use of those channels, which, I guess, I mean, tic tocs obviously, relatively new, but Instagram was always the place that you went for heavy snaps of holidays, or, or cocktails, or cars or drinks or whatever, it wasn’t a place for, for sharing a serious financial content. And, and I think what’s really sort of happened the last couple of years is, we’ve seen that Well, two things one, younger people in particular, have an absolute thirst for financial topics, financial knowledge, they do want to be educated about things to do with with their money, they quite self aware that the lot of them have bad kind of financial habits. And, you know, what we’re saying and the research has shown this is that Instagram and tik tok are places to go for, for educational content. Now, obviously, when I mentioned the double edged sword that we’ve we’ve seen the same time, the rise of the, the influencer, this, you know, largely unlicensed, unqualified sort of group of, of, you know, predominantly younger people who are just giving tips in a, you know, dare I say, the sort of on the edge of what’s sort of legally allowed on or not, but I think you Put aside the issue of whether they’re giving advice or not, I think the fact is that they are catering to a demand. And so there’s there’s a few things there one, show that there is an absolute demand out there for education about financial topics, and that’s positive for advisors. Secondly, it’s shown that people want to engage with people that I guess, like them are more authentic and, and, you know, typically these few influencers, they’re not talking with a lot of jargon, they’re talking in, in language that’s very relatable. And I think that’s, I think that can be a positive lesson as well. And certainly, you’ve seen a couple of advisors, some sort of high profile ones that have gone into that space, they are licensed. And, you know, they’re doing great things off the back of it in terms of money coaching, and, you know, they’re kind of, they’re offering paid subscription services to various sort of coaching programs, as well as just general. So hints on you know, how to get your credit card, debt under control, and you know, how to save for Christmas gifts and that sort of thing?

Fraser Jack 

Yep, I see. I see this social side of this the equation the digital social side of it, it’s it’s got to be a two way street, like a like, I mean, yes, there’s a lot of getting into someone’s attention. But then there’s the conversation of the back of that, which is generally where things happen, the direct messaging, the conversations out of the bag, like she said, the language in the in the in the initial conversation could be educational, one way or or relevant for the person who’s going through things. But I think I think that people are used social media really well, are the ones that turned it into an engagement piece that it’s not just a one way engagement, there is a there was a conversation or something else off the back of it, it actually happened.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, look, I mean, I guess the best example of that is, is Facebook, and maybe to a lesser extent, Twitter, but you’re right, all these platforms have some sort of direct messaging facility in them. And certainly, when I was at Zurich, one of the things I really pushed for was for people in the business to reframe how they thought about Facebook, because really, the way people, Zurich clients were using Facebook was to contact us as if it was another channel. So for them, it was a substitute for, for email or a phone call, it was just a lot more convenient, you know, they weren’t really going there to, to sort of comment on things, they’re actually going there to, to actually try and get in touch with us. And as you say, it is more of a two way kind of channel rather than a place that that you just go and sort of post content expecting sort of comments. And so a lot of businesses as well as Zurich, you know, they’ve looked to actually, control of social was actually moved into their customer service area. Because it wasn’t, it was realized that it was not really a marketing thing, it was more of a genuine sort of communication channel.

Fraser Jack 

So we mentioned language. And obviously language is a big part of this with social media, and I know as you mentioned earlier, a lot of people aren’t just saying they’re, you know, they’re an advisor, or they’re a managing director, but they’re using more of like a story brain type language, where they might say, you know, I help people like this, solve these types of problems. And this is what we do, where you putting the the listener, or the reader, or the, the client or the customer as the hero of the journey, and you as the the Oracle, or the problem solver.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, that’s right. I think there’s a few different sort of strands to what you just said there one, your clients do not have anywhere near the sort of knowledge nor do they want the knowledge of products or terminology or jargon. And so the way they you know, in the context of say how they search for, for help in the sort of financial advice spaces, they, they won’t go in and plug in a whole bunch of product terms, they won’t plug in, you know, phrases around statement of advice, or fact find or, you know, trover insurance or whatever, they’ll, they’ll do more natural language by searchers, and certainly, that’s something that, that Google’s sort of getting better at over all the time. They’ll go in and they’ll articulate a problem that they have. And so the similarly from an advisor perspective, you’ve got a couch, your ability to help them solve their problem or take them on their journey in in language that that they understand and shows that you aren’t just this, you know, super well qualified automaton, you’re actually a person who understands that they have a particular unique, individual set of circumstances and that you’re able to, you know, take them on their journey and solve their problems with them. So I don’t think I’d like to say that the majority of advisors get that, but I’m not sure that’s strictly true, you still go to most advisors, websites, and you’ll find the language is still very much skewed towards, here’s the directory of services that we offer. You know, here’s a list of products that we can help you with, and it’s very functional. And internally sort of focused language that’s used, rather than, as you say, putting it in customer terms, that your journey is about protecting your family, or getting debts under control, or saving for retirement or saving for a holiday, or whatever it might be.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, I think, in speaking it, we’ve been, we might move to websites, because it’s probably a good segue as part of the content strategy. And really just looking at some of the advisor websites that are out there at the moment are just like, as you said, a lot of information, a lot of technical jargon, a lot of technical terms, a lot of product conversations, and other sort of, say that swimmingly in a file, if you if you’re not a product based advisor, but your website just says we do all these products, we’re sort of just falling into the trap of because everybody else used to do it that way that we, you know, advise websites should be stating all of these product type stuff that we give advice on.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, look, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I certainly, advisors face so many sort of compliance requirements these days, that, you know, there are some things that you just can’t avoid having as part of your sort of web presence, in terms of details of your business, and, you know, dispute resolution, and that sort of stuff. But I think that what I see is a lot of generic cookie cutter, sort of web templates, you know, it’s almost as if years ago, there was, you know, a few companies that were specializing in financial adviser websites, and everyone kind of went to them and, and you can always, you know, tell who’s who’s had their website built a few years ago and be, you know, by by the same sort of place, I think, you know, the, there’s a phenomenon I call mountain porn or kind of lifestyle porn. And what I mean by that is that, you’ll see a lot of them using stock images of couples running along a beach, or someone climbing a mountain and fielding a stream, or whatever it is, and, yeah, I get that, you know, some of these images are beautiful, but more and more, I think the websites that are standing out and, and run by advisors that are recognized as sort of leading the charge and, you know, winning all the awards for client engagement or innovation wherever they’re increasingly using the website as an opportunity to humanize themselves and their brand. And so they’re actually, if you see images on their website, it’s more likely to be pictures of them in situ, you know, pictures of their team, pictures of them and the clients. And, you know, the, they’re taking the opportunity to be putting a lot of effort into, into their web presence. Yeah, recognizing that it’s, it’s one of the first glimpses that a client or a prospective client will, will have, you know, into your business.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah. 100% agree in, I think you hit the nail on the head, are they putting money into it, they’re putting time and resource into it, and not just not just saying, Oh, this suits me, that’s okay. Some of the best websites I’ve seen that I really resonate ones with a very simple, they’re not, they’re not, they’re not long scripts of content, it’s not all about them and their journey and those sorts of things. just pretty much say, we help people like this. solve these types of problems, we feel you know, they feel this way about their money or whatever might be from you know, zero to hero from theater confidence, or whatever it might be, we take that transformation journey. And this is exactly how you start your journey. Click here. You know, that’s, I think some of those very simple, quick websites that just explain. We just do the from this to this, and here’s how you engage with us.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There was, look, there was a piece of research that I commissioned when I was still at my previous role. So a white paper we did with with the IFA, and it looked at it Yeah, what is important to clients or prospective clients when they’re choosing an advisor, and, you know, technical knowledge. And Brett the product offering and fees were way down the list of considerations and what was the top was more those personal relationship, sort of trust based elements that were to do with you, you know, the advisor as a, as a human, as opposed to them as a super well qualified, you know, kind of financial expert. And I think that what needs to be reflected in in websites, I think the other thing I’d point out about websites is it’s worth in the context of doing a spring clean, it’s worth advisors taking a look not just at their, their website on a desktop, but the reality is 90%, of how it’s gonna be viewed is now on a mobile device. And it’s worth checking your website on a mobile to see, actually, you know, hasn’t been truly mobile optimized? And is it actually working? Well, I, you know, I, again, I’m not gonna name names, but I, I searched one local advisor up recently, and the way it was rendering on a on a mobile device was that a lot of his photos of himself were kind of hidden behind a whole bunch of text. And so it actually completely undermined, you know, the the effort that he put into planning the site, in that it was all kind of melded together, and it looked pretty, pretty unattractive and not really accessible,

Fraser Jack 

exactly couldn’t agree more. Now, when it comes to, obviously, the social media and website are all part of a content strategy. Let’s get into that content strategy solid, because, you know, in, you know, back in the day, there was a newsletter introduced, and there was a little bit of marketing collateral that went out, but sometimes a lot less base it a lot of the times it comes out went out or just ad hoc, they weren’t actually pre thought of or set up for 12 months to talk to me about content strategies.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, look, I think that, you know, I use the phrase sort of cookie cutter before, and I think that a lot of a lot of advisors, you know, in the past, have taken a cookie cutter approach to their engagement and their comms and their content as well, I think that, you know, what is increasingly recognized is that you cannot take an ad hoc approach to content if, if you’re serious about using digital channels, to gain new business to gain prominence for your business, and to service engage with existing clients, you need to be very structured and planned in the way that you, you go about that. And, again, yeah, there’s probably, there’s a few things, I’d say, one, you need to bring everything back to what your objectives are, with your content. You know, I think I was talking about this, there’s five sort of pillars of content, you know, it can be used to boost your visibility, it can be about influencing people to behave in a particular way. It can be about building trust in your personal brand in your practice, it can be around driving people to become advocates, for your business. Or it can be about really building positioning yourself as a leadership sort of center in, in your particular sort of chosen market, it can be you can pick individual sort of objectives out of those those things, or you can you can look at all of them as a cohesive set of pillars for your sort of content strategy. But look, you know, in a basic sense, a, you’ve got to have a strategy. And that means setting out what’s the purpose of your content strategy, who do you want to talk to? Is it just, you know, is it just existing clients? Or is it is it about external sort of prospects, you’ve then got to look at there are different types of content or different dimensions. So there’s what I’d call utility content, which is the stuff based around it’s much more functional. So it’s content designed to help people engage with you as a business. So it could be stuff to do with, with products or it could be to do with your processes, how to get in touch with you, what your fee schedule is, etc. That’s that’s that sort of basic stuff. There’s probably motional content, which is content that is specifically designed to have a call to action associated with it. So there could be, you know, register for your seminar, download a white paper that you’ve written or, you know, or attend an event, etc. It could be corporate style content. And in that space is content that more positions, your sort of practice transmits reputation. So that could be things like client testimonials. And then there’s what I call leadership content, which is, the blogs, it’s, it’s the stuff that’s designed to, if you want to go down this path, position you as an expert in a particular client segment or a particular technical area, you know, whether it be cash management, or estate planning, or investments or wherever it is. So I think, I guess the key point is, you’ve really got to take a considered approach to it. And look, it’s not, it’s not something that every advisor advice, business has the capability of, of doing themselves, I certainly accept the fact that what advisors are good at is helping their clients and advising. But having said that, you do get some advisors who are natural content producers, they actually love writing, they, they, you know, love blogging about things they love, creating little sort of video snippets to send off to clouds, you know, on particular topics. So it’s horses for courses, but you, you need to be just like any aspect of your business, you’ve got to go about it in a very considered and methodical way. And it’s, it’s ultimately got to be able to be brought back to you, as a business are what you’re trying to achieve. And so who with

Fraser Jack 

Yep, yeah, no, I love that I love that framework, that’s really, that’s really cool, that content pillar that, you know, talking about the stick through them, just tell her tell me if I’m wrong here, that visibility for new clients, making sure that clients can see you, the second stage of influencing them just to say, you know, we can help you in these ways come and see us building trust being the third one, then becoming an advocate being the fourth one and existing clients is certainly a big part of that. And then that leadership part where you’re showing leadership, and then inside of those you can you can look at, are they are their utility functional tips. Is this a promotional call to action? Or is it a corporate branding type piece of content for each of those categories?

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, and then you sort of leadership stuff. So yeah, the five pillars, you know, they can sort of ramp up to a nice, neat little kind of acronym. So that’s the vital pillars, visibility influenced trust, advocacy, and leadership,

Fraser Jack 

brilliant, love it, love the love of good acronym. And of course, as you mentioned, before, you know, you know, put a plan in place, if you can do it yourself, get get somebody else to do it. And in in commit to it. So content strategy, a very big part of that. Thank you. Now, let’s talk about the three Google’s the Google Maps, the, you know, making sure you’re seeing the Google reviews, and we can get into other reviews as well. And in the Google search as part of the digital spring clean.

Richard Dunkerley 

Sure, I think, you know, the old adage that you should sort of go and Google yourself is is certainly a step that I’m sort of advocating here. And Google Maps, I think, I think we actually lose track of all the different tools that are available through Google. And of course, one of the ones is is sort of Google business, Google My Business, where you can go in, and you can really flesh out your, the way your business appears, if someone search for you, and the way you sort of turned up in, in Google Maps. And typically, I’d say, you know, it’s probably the 8020 rule, or they might even be more like 90% of, of businesses, not not just advice businesses, but that small businesses, they don’t realize that they can go in and sort of enhance the entry that that exists on Google Maps about their, their business. So, you know, the, I guess at one extreme, I looked at a financial planning business again in the local area, and all they had was the bare minimum sort of information about their address, their phone number, the name of the business, and the photo was literally the one From the Google Map vehicle that had Street, yeah, exactly, just had, essentially a photo of their front door. And to the extent that the office was actually part of a local shopping center, it wasn’t even visible, you know, the name of their business, there’s no sort of signage, etc. So it wasn’t so shedding that much light. And, you know, the other end of the scale, and, you know, certainly, I think many of your advisors would know, Glenn here, and Jess Brady at sort of Fox on here, if you go and look at their Google Maps presence, you’ll see that they’ve gone in, and they’ve actually enhanced that, by way of a lot of sort of descriptions as to what they do. But they’ve, they’ve uploaded a lot of really great photos of themselves, the team, that their clients etc. And so, you know, they’ve, they’ve done something that’s free of charge, it doesn’t cost you anything to, to go into your Google business profile, and sort of do that. But it makes a hell of a difference when you when you’re searching, and you come up with a few advisors in the local area. And that will be the basis on which all other clients search, you know, because of the sheer convenience. And yeah, you know, the, it’s a bit like, when you walk past to cafes, and ones heaving and packed with people and hard to get a seat, and the other one’s got heaps, sort of empty tables, and just one person in the corner tapping around their laptop, you know, as humans, we we’d like to go to the busy one for most of us do anyway, just because we reduce that they all know something that that I don’t and it’s it’s no different to the psychology of, you know, when you’re sort of searching for a business. So yeah, certainly, you can take control of your, the way your business appears, you know, again, you can google how to do this, but it’s sort of Google business profile, Google My Business, they sort of keep changing the name, but definitely, you should go in and and do that. And I guess related to that

Fraser Jack 

is just I just saw just on that. I mean, obviously it’s around saying, Let’s not expect Google to find the answers. Let’s just make it really easy. Put them in Go and tell them what we want them to show when when someone’s googling us.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, correct. I think that, as the saying goes, this is a sort of a trust base business. And there’s certainly so many decisions and so many hurdles that you have to get over in someone’s mind before they end up sort of engaging with you, but But certainly, you know, you can take control of your digital presence, such that you, you reduce the friction, you reduce the hurdles that you put in the way of someone between them, and then getting to your sort of business. And so doing things like adjusting your kind of presence is certainly one way of streamlining and making a lot easier for them to get to your front door, rather than competitors.

Fraser Jack 

Yep, I want to talk about that as well, as well, because that’s obviously the Google search and maps and understanding what Google’s gonna say about you and the images it’s gonna produce. But one of the things that I think is really important in this, especially for you know, some of the search engine stuff is this, this concept of reviews and reviews, obviously, we’ve had things like advisor ratings, you know, trustpilot all these things out for a while Google’s obviously, a big part of that as well, Google reviews. And I’ve seen some advisors doing Google reviews extremely well, and, of course, showing up on the first page of Google because I just kept I have so many reviews, and, you know, the more reviews we have, and, you know, the more people tend to trust the the outcome of those reviews, rather than just like one or two testimonials on our website. You know, having 100 Google reviews is pretty, it’s pretty good. Yeah, I

Richard Dunkerley 

think there’s there’s a couple of aspects to that. You know, you, you talked about sort of search prominence, and certainly, you know, there’s there’s a few things you can do to try and leverage Google’s ever changing sort of algorithm. And, you know, simplistically one is to make yourself as big a target on our Google as possible. And he can do that by by the way your content is arranged and the sheer volume of your content. But as you say, the second way that’s becoming increasingly just a normal part of doing business is the way you engage and leverage reviews. As you say, whether be, you know, Google ratings, whether it be advisor ratings, whether there’ll be trustpilot, etc, I think that increasingly, you’re seeing advisors realize that this is something that is another important way of, of making clients decision making easier, you know, making the search process easier. And it’s, you know, in a way, it’s it’s not dissimilar to the way that if we go into a bottle shop, and we’re not a particular savvy kind of, you know, wine drinker, we, you know, tests have shown that we are attracted to the bottles that have lots of gold medals. Because simplistically, those gold medals are saying that people who are far more qualified to judge the qualities of wine, have deemed this to be, you know, worthy of kind of recognition. And so, particularly, if you’re in a hurry, you going to a bubble shopping, those gold medals are a great aid to an efficient, sort of decision making process and ratings reviews work on a similar sort of principle, I think that I think we’ve reached the tipping point now where most advisors realize that it’s something that they need to embrace, I do think that, that in previous years, there was a bit of a fear, there was a fear of having negative writings published and what they would, what they would do, but I think that, you know, one thing that’s always mentioned is only 20% of, of Australian adults get financial advice and, you know, give or take a few percent, I think that’s, that’s largely proved to be correct. But, and, and certainly, the biggest critics of advice for those who don’t get it, so Conversely, the vast majority, and I’m, I’m talking more than 80%, I’m talking 90% plus the vast majority of clients, once they get advice, they are delighted. And so advisors, you know, advisors are confident that they’re doing the right thing, and, you know, that’s, that’s the majority of them, they should have no fear about what the clients are going to say with them, because, you know, nine out of 10 or even more, are going to be absolutely delighted with, with what they’ve done in a way ratings are sort of becoming the new referral, you know, instead of, you know, asking for Can I have a referral at the end of a successful sort of client meeting is asked for a rating, I think in some ways, it’s, that’s actually easier for a client to help out with is to write a nice review, you know, that’s something they can do pretty easily, I think trustpilot I think Google ratings becoming particularly popular, but certainly I had a quick look at the adviser rating sort of website. And you know, it’s interesting that in my local area, which I guess you’d say suburban, lot of profiles were not even completed and certainly most of them had no photographs, etc, completely different to inner city advisors, or CBD advisors, where virtually all of them had a photo have a profile that was filled out and they had numerous sort of client rating so i think that you know, I think that some advisors are a bit more advanced in terms of them embracing the importance of these ratings in the sort of client decision making process but I’m sure the rest of them will we’ll get there as well so so maybe that’s that’s an immediate thing that you know listeners should do is is go and search for them the sales that their business on online see if anyone has done any reviews because anyone with a Google account can can write a review on a on a business so you might already have some some ratings there and go and flesh out your advisor ratings profile so make those areas of priority

Fraser Jack 

yeah 100% Google yourself you name and write and type in reviews after and have a look what’s already out there which is very really important. And I’m actually I love the concept of reviews and rating so i think i think that people are you know whenever you see the word testimonials, I see a website don’t bother reading them because I know they’re going to be good. But the review the idea of a review means that there could be a chance that there’s something said in here that could be negative, you know like that, and often you know, because it’s got one star or five but not five, but there’s always a possibility of getting a one star which is the one living on the edge, but you’re absolutely right about advisors, you know, they, they know that their clients are happy they know, then they know that’s a good time to ask them just to fill out a review or to write a review. So, you know, like, like you said, most of these ratings are going to be great, by the nature of the fact that the clients are happy at the time they’re doing it. That’s fantastic. Now, if we might quickly move on to the video presence, because obviously, there’s been a lot, a lot of change going on over the last couple of years, with advisors now doing zoom meetings. And any as you mentioned earlier on, you know, zoom is now it’s just a word we use to discuss, but there’s a lot, there’s a lot involved in the way that advisors can sort of spring clean up what they’re doing with their online video presence.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, I think simplistically, one of the things to avoid is just assuming that what works in a, in a face to face engagement scenario automatically translates to, to a video sort of conference. And there’s a few, there’s a few sort of basic points there, I guess, you know, probably the most important one is firstly, Harry, your presence actually appears on on screen. And, yeah, I think that, um, look, I’m not a fan of the, of the virtual backgrounds, I think that both from a technical perspective, you look a bit fuzzy, but I think the you look a bit unprofessional as well. So I’d certainly recommend that. Advisors put a bit of effort into what’s behind what, you know, what’s over their shoulder, so how they’re, they’re actually appearing on screen and, and that also includes just making a little bit of effort around the sort of acoustic sort of elements to the place that they’re doing those, those meetings, basic things, like, you know, how they’re appearing with this sort of what they’re wearing, and, and that sort of thing. I’m not going to go into the equipment sort of aspect of it, that that’s more for another, another kind of day, but I think that so I just the the immediacy of sort of how you’re appearing, but then it’s looking at things like what materials, what content are you actually sharing, is it literally a face to face discussion, or a you having to take them through a sort of a document, or if it’s a first client meeting, you might have some, you know, slide deck or, or whatever to sort of take them through. And I think the point I wanted to make there is that sometimes, I think the attention span is a lot shorter in the context of a video meeting. And so you might need to tailor or shorten presentations to sort of suit that, you might look at turning some of your content into sort of ebooks, you know, sometimes, flicking through a PDF on your screen can be a bit clunky, if it’s, if it’s laid out as sort of a two page spread. And so yeah, there’s there’s plenty of sort of, you know, free or low cost ways of, of turning some of those materials into some ebooks that make it easy for clients to sort of turn the page and sort of zoom in and zoom out, as So, you know, take a look at that sort of thing. And then there’s, there’s also, you know, some a good range of, again, either free or extremely low cost sort of collaborative tools to use where you can turn the meeting into a genuinely interactive one. So yeah, I think I was telling you earlier, just last week, I, I read a virtual kind of brainstorm, the platform I use for my businesses is a Google one. And they have a sort of a whiteboard sort of facility in Google meats, called the jam board. And what I was able to do was to have six people, you know, dial in to this sort of video call simultaneously, and they could, in real time, put their own little post it notes up on a whiteboard that was, you know, shared on on sort of everyone’s screen. And, yeah, I think I think they say, Necessity is the mother of invention. And I think part of a spring claim would be for advisors to whatever platform they’re already using in that regard, is to maybe take a little bit of time to go and explore some of the functionality because they might discover amazingly powerful you know, functionality and sort of tools within those existing platforms that they can really take their their meetings, to do. Another level

Fraser Jack 

yep 100% agree there’s definitely a lot of inside the platforms that aren’t being used as you said before the you know, the whiteboard functions or the screen sharing functions, there’s often a lot of overlay type things as well that can be done when it comes to you know, headings. So you know, if you’re talking through certain topics of herbal agenda, you can put those up and share them and make them part of the conversation. I also think recording is a is a big part of, you know, a big part of the, the great thing that you can do with online meetings to record them basically being in the meeting as you file note, which you know, it goes pretty well. So there are certain things when it comes I’m also not a big fan of the virtual background and setting up something behind you that is aesthetically relevant to the conversations that you’re having. It doesn’t have to be pretty, but it has to be you know, within within relevance. Obviously, I do a lot of recording in mine in my background, it looks like a recording studio. So it’s relevant. But there’s, there’s certainly a lot of things that people can do in and I encourage people to to take some time out of the of the daily go and hunt around and find what’s available both both software, and hardware. I’m also a fan of making sure that you’ve got lights, you’ve got a decent camera, and you’ve got a microphone where people can clearly hear you, which is great.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, I think I’ve been just on that. Again, it’s a trip to Office works if you’re, if your state permits you to go out and do shopping with a lock down at the moment so that that’s a bit harder. But yeah, I mean, you’re seeing a lot of things like back back lights that that you’ve sort of stick on your screen, and that sort of reflect a soft sort of light onto your face. You can you know, similarly you can have those that you stick to your phone because again, with a tiny little sort of tripod that cost you about 20 bucks in a sort of a ring sort of backlight you can turn out some pretty high quality you know content just just on your phone. You know, so you don’t have to have a studio set up as sophisticated as someone like you appraiser that’s for sure.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah. And just in my just in my little studio here, I just have a little Logitech Embry breo camera. I think you’ve got the same one day as me. And it’s just a it’s an HD camera, it’s small, it goes on a tripod, not on top of my monitor, I just have it on tripod, so I can change the angle and move it around, you know, a light and a plug in mic. So certainly, you know, investing a little bit of money in those things. You know, imagine if you were setting up a boardroom in your office, you’d spend a little bit of money on making it look nice, I’d suggest with online meetings that you do the same.

Richard Dunkerley 

Yeah, exactly. And yes, I do have the Brio and it was a bit of an indulgence. It’s, it’s kind of the Lamborghini of webcams. But it’s, it’s just incredible. How much of a step up it is from what’s embedded in you know, I’ve got a MacBook Pro. And I didn’t really give it much thought until I was sort of watching some online reviews and realized it’s chalk and cheese. So, you know, this was from memory, it was just under a touch under 300 bucks. Yeah. And it’s made the world of difference to the quality of how I’m appearing on other people’s screens.

Fraser Jack 

Yep, one of the things I always noticed when I’m on my MacBook is that when I open the MacBook your thumb is at the point that are you always putting your thumb over the camera so it gets pretty dirty pretty quickly with often needs to be cleaned before each meeting using the MacBook Pro one Hey, Richard, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. What How can people get hold of you and continue the conversation with you? What’s the best way for them to find you?

Richard Dunkerley 

Look it’s it’s very 21st century the easiest way to be honest is just on LinkedIn. So I try and be fairly active I try and be fairly visible on there but yeah, just just connect with me drop me a line follow whatever. I’m pretty pretty easy to track down.

Fraser Jack 

Fantastic. Thank you rich today Richard Dunkerley. Really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you so much.

Richard Dunkerley 

Thanks, Fraser. It’s been a pleasure.