#257 Tom Haigh – Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

advisors, people, clients, guess, advice, deliver, dan, business, investing, sorted, articles, content, engage, ultimately, big, fantastic, marketing, fraser, benefit, building

SPEAKERS

Fraser Jack, Tom Haigh

Fraser Jack 

Welcome back to the Expert Advisor podcast. I’m Fraser Jack and today I am joined by Tom Haigh. Welcome, Tom.

Tom Haigh 

Thank you, Fraser, great to be with you.

Fraser Jack 

Fantastic, you are a with the general manager of a business called NBS, or marketing and branding and sales. And you generally work with with advisors or advice firms. Thank you for coming on. And we’re going to talk a little bit of that. And we’re also going to talk a bit about some of the work that you’ve done with a brand called my money sorted, which we’ll get into a little bit later. But firstly, let’s start with you tell us tell us your story. And how did you get into this marketing, branding, sales concept, shopping phrases.

Tom Haigh 

So my introduction to I guess the industry particularly was a really unusual one, I haven’t come through the traditional pathway of being an advisor. My first, I guess, Introduction to advice was actually meeting a guy by the name of Dan Brown, about six years ago. So I first met Dan, through a referral from a friend who was, I guess, getting some advice from Dan on the time at the time on restructuring. And I guess made a suggestion that I get in touch with him about a few things I was considering doing Personally, I was looking to start a business, we had a young family, we were buying properties, we were doing all sorts of different things, and I was I was working for a multinational at the time would be a big corporate entity. And I guess, meeting with Dan, from the outset, we really struck off a really good relationship. And it was, it was far more than, you know, service provider and client. Of course, it became much more than that very quickly. But I think through my interactions with Dan, early days, I started to see or learn more about the industry and what he was involved with. And I was also probably at a point in my career where I was, you know, really considering whether property and construction, which is what I was involved with at the time, whether that was that was really my, my future. I had some very interesting time, I was working on, you know, very big projects in, in Melbourne, particularly in dealing with trade unions and all sorts of interesting people and probably could just sort of see a bit of a misalignment with, I guess my values. And you know, what I really wanted to put my time into, I guess, and so, again, the early stage conversations within probably where, I guess, not only in terms of obviously learning more about the industry, but I guess Dan really, I guess gave me a bigger vision for my future than perhaps the one that I had at the time. And whenever you’ve got anyone external, who, you know, believes in you, perhaps more than you do yourself, it’s a pretty special thing. So that was, I guess, the beginnings of, I guess, more certainly my first exposure to the financial financial services market. And then from there, I guess, Dan, and I really built a pretty special relationship and have since gone on to start a couple of businesses together.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, well, fantastic. So you came in as a as a, as a client, essentially, into into the industry. And one of the things I want to explore here is this is a really interesting part to me, because, you know, I like I like looking at the difference between, you know, tangible and intangible benefits. And you’ve come in thinking that you’re going to get some practical or tangible advice around structures and the things that might be good for you. And you’ve walked away with an emotional reaction. Yeah,

Tom Haigh  

most definitely. Yeah, it’s interesting you say that phrase, I definitely probably entered that initial meeting, thinking it was going to be purely about consolidating superannuation and getting some advice on, you know, starting a business. But he became much more than that. And it was, it was, I guess I’d liken it to having a guide or a mentor there to sort of help you help steer you in the right direction. You know, and I think particularly for me, it was clarifying my goals. You know, I had a couple of had a couple of big picture ideas of what I wanted to do in my life. But I think through those those early stage interactions, or experiences with an advisor, with Dan and his team, at the time, it was really about clarifying those goals and setting in place, a plan to move towards those. So that was, that was for me one of the biggest benefits,

Fraser Jack 

yeah, fantastic inside, then you you’ve got your plan, you’ve got your goals set out, you can then move towards them. How did how did that I guess become? How did that become a you and Dan working together,

Tom Haigh 

it was probably about 12 months after that first meeting, that we really started to explore some, you know, ideas to, you know, to work together, like anything, you know, and initially, it’s about getting to getting to know one another, and building trust in that relationship. And that, look, that happened very quickly for us, I must say, but it probably wasn’t till about 12 months down the track that Dan had gone out on his own, I’d left the safety net of a employer and started a small consultancy business, that’s when we really started to, I guess, bounce ideas off one another, I’ve sort of been there alongside him, since he won’t be first went out on his own back in, I’m going to say late 2015. And I guess the more exposure that I had to the direction that he was heading in, the more we started to, I guess, identify opportunities, his model has really been one of, I guess, vertical integration. So taking advices obviously, the core focus, and then looking at all of the related services that he could be bolting on to that initial business to obviously better serve the client to grow the business and to be more efficient. One of those key areas was marketing communications, from day one. Branding as well as probably critical to that, in that was something he got right very early on, both with a lot of input and guidance from his wife, Julie, who’s fantastic in that department, with some external suppliers at the time as well. So yeah, some good good help and good guidance. But I guess from the marketing standpoint, he and I had some exposure to to a business coach, who was out of out of the United States, Goblin ama, JT Fox, we invested a eyewatering amount of money in a coaching program that that JT rolled out and through that, we really got to learn about the true benefits of investing in your in your marketing, both from an internal client standpoint, but also for attracting, attracting new clients to business. And that was, for me, I guess, a very long winded answer phrase, I’m sorry about that. But the the real seed for us was, I, for a long time had been, I love to write, you know, love, I love story, particularly, I love you know, anything to do with personal development, it was probably a combination of those skills. And identifying that opportunity that we set out Well, we’re using external providers to do the marketing piece at the moment, why wouldn’t we? Why wouldn’t we bring this internal and, you know, build out a team around it. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. So Dan, initially, with the help of Stacy, who’s still with him today, you know, really refined an approach to marketing that’s been phenomenally successful for them. And has really allowed us to use that as a bit of a guinea pig is not the right terminology, but a proven formula that’s based on applying it internally before then rolling that out external. So that’s, that’s probably how it all came to be.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, fantastic. I was gonna I was just going to explore, explore a little bit into that you sort of answered a little bit of that. And the idea of moving from a construction project management based role, very sort of structured and probably a little bit regimented in the way that we always do things to into sort of a digital marketing role, which is obviously a little bit different and transformative. What was the main drive for you around that digital marketing experience or what what drove you towards that?

Tom Haigh 

I guess it’s I I spent a lot, probably 15 years leading up to that point, you know, really trying to continue to invest in myself, you know, to be better in every aspect of, you know, even prior roles, and how to communicate better how to, obviously lead teams better, I was dealing with people who would typically very difficult to manage. And so that required building up a fair bit of resilience. And a big part of that, for me was investing in self help, you know, guidance books, business, and that really evolved into entrepreneurship, and it would, was probably the combination. For me, Fraser was reading a book called The Four Hour Workweek, which a lot of the listeners listeners will probably be really familiar with. And that that really, I guess, was the catalyst for the big shift for me, I could see you know, that anything you wanted in life was truly possible, if you went about it the right way. So probably a crossover meeting Dan, around that around a similar time as well, it was, it was sort of a case of sort of realizing that I no longer had to stick with something just because I’ve gone and done a uni degree. And that was what I’d told everyone in my life that I was going to do. And it just made it easier to really to really pursue a new path that I was more passionate about. That. Luckily, for me, I had some natural skill sets, you know, obviously the, the writing aspect, the storytelling aspect. So that was beneficial. I wasn’t starting from scratch. I’d done a lot of writing prior to that point. So yeah, I think probably those few things were really the drivers wanting to wanting to do something that I was more passionate about, and truly felt I could see myself doing for the rest of my life.

Fraser Jack 

Yep. So when you started the business, were you just looking with working with financial planners? Or were you just sort of taking any business to help them out?

Tom Haigh 

Yeah, so we, we, I guess, from day one has been really, really focused on serving planets. And naturally, we had a competitive advantage over the rest of I guess I call them digital marketing agencies out there, that’s typically our competition, it’s it’s been the intimate understanding of the market, you know, of the client interaction of, you know, those experiences that have that have delivered that point of difference for us. And, and hence, I guess, while we’ve remained focused on that, it’s the one thing I would say probably with, with the, with the financial services market, it’s probably from an marketing standpoint, and uptake of marketing. For advisors out there, it’s, it’s not dissimilar to the number of Australians not obtaining advice. So, you know, there’s varying views and figures about, you know, roughly 8080 to 90% of all Australians don’t obtain advice, I would say it’s very similar in terms of 80 to 90%, of advisors, don’t do any marketing. And then, again, it probably comes back to that, that point of not really understanding the true benefits of, you know, what they can obtain by investing in it. No different to a client who can’t see the value in, you know, an advice fee. It’s, it’s very similar.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, that’s really interesting. I love the analogy too, by the way, just putting those two things together and saying, obviously, that means at the top, they said the top 10% of clients that are getting advice are doing well better. And and probably the the firm’s that are that have have a structured marketing plan, and schedule and budget and all the things that go with marketing are doing well.

Tom Haigh 

Yeah, I’d agree. I’d agree. And probably, it’s just, it’s a different mindset, you know, and the same would apply for clients, no doubt, they’re prepared to invest in in good guidance, in order to achieve their goals. And for advisors that are out there that are investing in marketing. That’s, that’s very commonly the case. They’ve got a big vision for the future of their business, and they’re prepared to invest.

Fraser Jack 

Yep. Fantastic. So just while we’re on this on the digital marketing space, you work with advisors and planners, if somebody wants to continue that conversation, or as part of the conversation with you, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you in that capacity?

Tom Haigh 

Sure, yeah, just best ways, marketing branding, sales.com jump on the on the website. We’ve recently I guess, opened up a free trial for any clients that are interested in or any advisors out there who are interested in learning more about the service, you know, for those, we’re happy to provide them with a with a first free article. So a lot of what we do is around the content marketing, so really providing advisors with great content that they can Share with potential future clients and existing clients. So if they jump on the website, they can book in a free session with me in the team and we can we can get that happening for them.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, fantastic. They’re just while we’re talking about that specific part, how do you how do you produce these articles? Like it does it doesn’t require the advisor to take a lot of time out of their day to do

Tom Haigh 

it? It’s a great question. And it’s, it’s evolved over time, funnily enough, because we’d always produced articles in house. So for Dan, and his practices within coastal advice group, so over the years have always been okay. What are we going to come up with as an article this week, you know, it would typically be Dan is probably on the couch after watching the, the eels play on a Sunday afternoon, you’d had a couple of beers, and you’d get this text message or an email and it’d be 15 different ideas about articles that we could be producing for the next next few months. And that was really the approach early days, it was what’s in our head, you know, what do we think clients would value? The shift for us has been just purely taking it research focus. So developing an intimate understanding of the information that clients are seeking, based on their situation in life. And I guess back back to hopefully answer your question, Fraser. When we first started marketing, branding sales, we took the view, very wrongly, of course, that if we just provided advisors with ideas, headlines, and you know, templates for writing articles, I’d be able to produce them all themselves. But what we know, you know, certainly today is that advisors are just so time poor. And ultimately, that’s not an area of their business that they should really be investing a lot of time in. And I only say that, from the point of view that what we know is that for advisors, who are really, I guess, exceeding today, as they’re putting more more and more time into client relationships, you know, they’re not getting caught in the nitty gritty of backend admin. They’re not doing their own power planning, and they’re most certainly not writing all of their own articles. So we, I guess, to tie that in, we research we write we curate and deliver content for our clients. Yeah, fantastic.

Fraser Jack 

So I’m assuming that and I might be wrong here. But, you know, advisors have ideas, opinions, beliefs, thought leadership concepts that they want to try and get across. And so do they then tell you what they are? And then you take those and mold them into an articles? And?

Tom Haigh 

It’s, it’s a good question. So it’s probably in two parts. So what we always encourage our clients to do is, is personalize, you know, the comps that they’re providing, particularly for their existing client base that the best advisors are out there, continually communicating or consistently communicating with our existing clients. And those personalized insight, whether that’s part of a an ADM each month, a monthly mail out to their clients, their database. And once we mail it to those that are on their database, who haven’t yet engaged as a client, it’s a phenomenal way to start and build a relationship. And it sounds a little crazy to say that, but the experience for us has been, you know, by consistently communicating people get to know you, like you and trust you before, ultimately, they make a buying decision. And for you know, many clients and certainly in our experience with marketing, running sales, even, it could be six or eight months, from a first interaction to someone actually, you know, being ready to obtain advice or to take up your services. So I guess to your point, phrase up, phenomenally powerful to, to, to layer in the personal insights we take. We take prompts from clients all the time, about, you know, what they want to be communicating. But I think what we do is we just very mindful of taking those ideas and distilling them down into things that people will engage with. because quite often the cases the content is fantastic, but it’s not packaged in the right way and if it’s not packaged in the right way, and by that I mean a really intriguing headline, particularly then ultimately, people just don’t engage.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, no, I agree. I’m, I’m a big I’m a massive believer in that the power of that digital marketing, but consistency and comms is a huge part of that. I think I’ve probably said this before, but you know, I think we’ve developed trust very quickly in real life situations when you can meet people in with a proximity. But in areas of lockdown or in the areas of, of digital communications, that consistency of communication develops trust over time, you know, to a similar degree, as meetings Somebody but obviously meeting somebody does a lot faster. Thank you for sharing that about that part of the business, I think it’s I think it’s a great area that advisors can lean into with regards to them having a marketing strategy, having a consistent communication strategy with their, you know, to their ideal or their best client and, and they will end up attracting a lot more of those overtime. And, you know, I think it’s, I also like the idea of being a compound interest type conversation to where the more information they get, the more and the more consistent, you know, it is over a long period of time, it just compounds that interest that they would have in the business and the value that the business provides.

Tom Haigh 

Absolutely, that’s, I think, a really good point that you make around the long term aspect of this, you know, this is not a short game, you know, we we do have lots of conversations, where that comes up, or how quickly do you think else? I’ll see results with this? And the answer, of course, is different for everyone, you know, how long have you been doing it? You know, what is your online presence look like? How, how polished is your brand? You know, I often sort of think about this in terms of other professional services, you know, if you, if your first interaction with a dentist was, you know, walking through, you know, a retail shop, and they’re positioned at the back in the backroom, and it’s dark and poorly lit, and they’ve got files all over the desk. And, you know, it’s, it’s going to be very different to one where you walk in, and there’s a receptionist who greets you, and there’s a nice lounge to sit at, and there’s everything’s clean and tidy. And, you know, you immediately have a perception of what that brand, the quality of the service that brand will offer. So in a digital marketing sense, that’s your shop front, you know, have you invested in a website that clearly articulates the benefits that you can deliver for your clients? Can they engage with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you know, if they are themselves sitting on the couch on a Sunday afternoon, if they’re researching information and service providers, can they jump on there, check you out, read some of your articles, and understand you know, the value that you can deliver on it, the same applies in a marketing sense, and ultimately, those results that you just mentioned, and obviously, the long term is a big part of that continuing your invest and in making sure that I think you accept the fact that for some people, they’ll be ready to ready to make a decision within the first, you know, first meeting. For others, it takes much longer.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, you know, fantastic. That’s, that’s pretty much to say, with clients, do some time take longer and some ready to go straightaway. thank thank you for sharing that. Now. I wanted to dive into some of the work that you have been doing in this space. If we go a little bit deeper with Dan in the the concept of the mind money sorted branding and how that’s working. Tell us about where I guess let’s go back and tell us about the you know why that was created in the first place?

Tom Haigh 

Yeah, it’s, I guess, the realization, or probably, I think, seeing the statistics around the Australians not obtaining advice. It’s, it’s phenomenal to see, you know, again, 80 to 90% of the country, not seeking out advice. And depending on who you listen to, or what you read, there’s always an excuse behind that it’s either well, advice is too expensive. Or, you know, there’s a lack of trust with the industry post Royal Commission and, you know, days gone pass, you know, in our observations it was it, those are obviously factors is there’s absolutely no doubt, you know, the the cost of advices is it is a challenge for a lot of people and trust. Yep, it’s an issue for some people as well. But for us, it was, I guess, a realization that most people just don’t realize the benefits of obtaining advice, they don’t see that guidance can transform, you know, their lives and ultimately give them a better life. I was the same until having someone suggest to me, I should have a chat with Dan Brown I, I had no clue of what benefit I stood to, to obtain by having that conversation and becoming a financial planning client. And it’s that transformation and the better life that ultimately is often not not articulated well. So what we set out to do with my money sorted was get more advice to more Australians. And we knew that the best way to do that is to lead with value and to build relationships, build trust, give people I guess, you know, some phenomenal insights that can help them on their journey. And that might be a case that they do four out of five things themselves. They take that information, they apply it and if they do fantastic, but what we know is that you know when it comes to personal finance, particularly planning for retirement, there are complexities there that that really mean that people truly benefit from, you know, getting a professional on their side and getting advisor to to help them to plan out their future. You know, quite often we know that it might be a case of even the cost of advice itself is canceled out by the fact that they had seven super accounts and now we’re paying all these all these different fees out, we often joke this friend of mine in Newcastle, I think he he set the record, he had nine, nine different super accounts and he was paying this exorbitant level of fees, he just purely by giving advice and having someone help him consolidate that he was ahead. So there are all these little things that we can be doing to, I guess, better educate Australians on the fact that an advisor can be there, not only, you know, get them moving in the right direction, that they can help them save money and make money at the same time as well. So I guess the journey with my money sorted is really just to lead with super valuable information that can help people make better decisions by being more informed. And having greater awareness of those benefits.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, condensing and I like the I like the concept of, you know, when people, sometimes people don’t want to look silly, when they walk into an advice, you know, situation, because they had to then confess their sins and say what they’ve done, and they put all of their poor decisions along the way, which we all have, you know, like, even is even knowing what we all know about money, and we all make decisions that are necessarily the best long term outcome if we’re standing if we’re getting emotional with them. But look, I think, you know, bringing people towards all that stepping stone, I’ve often call the two because it’s a big step to go into an advice, relationship, it’s a big step. And so I feel like this is producing a whole lot of small steps that lead up to that big step.

Tom Haigh 

Yeah, it’s, again, is that is the trust thing, you know, it’s, it’s ultimately realization that people take time to develop an understanding of what they what they stand to benefit from engaging, you know, I think there’s a lot of hesitation there to say well, like is, am I going to walk into a into an initial meeting and get pinned down and have to pay all this money versus taking the approach of allowing them to check you out online, allowing them to consume some content that you put out, you know, about topics that are relevant, important to them? And so once you start to deliver value in that way, it completely changes the relationship? I think that a lot of this for me is this the law of reciprocity. You know, ultimately, if you, if you give people something, without expecting anything in return, ultimately, you know, it will come back in time. So what we’re what we’re ultimately doing with my money sorting, sorted is delivering freely available information that’s highly valuable, that will help people on their journey. But what we know in time is that when they ultimately do need some help with implementing what they’ve learned, then they’ll remember the source of that information. And if it’s us, you know, fantastic if it’s, if it’s someone else out there that’s providing highly valuable content through our platform, great as well, you know, we, for us, my money sorted is not about dominating the industry. It’s about helping get advice to more Australians. And what we know right now, is there are so many people out there that stand to benefit from this, there is opportunity for everybody in this space. there is opportunity, and hence why we’re doing this for advisors all across the country. You know, quite often we get asked a question, Dan, particularly, why don’t you just do all of this for your own businesses? Why would you help other advisors. And that’s the realization is the market is big enough for all of us, there is so much opportunity out there. If we share our great ideas, if we share the things that we’ve learned, you know, collectively we can, we can have a much bigger impact. So competition for us is never is never a concern. It’s more about making sure that we we take the right approach in that we help overcome those perceived or real barriers to advice.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, fantastic. Now, how did you put it all together as in, work out what you wanted to talk about, work out what you were going to present in it, how it was going to come across? Tell us all about the the actual building of it?

Tom Haigh 

Sure. So I guess we’ve been really lucky over the years to work with some incredibly smart people. And particularly in the in the SEO space. So for those who aren’t familiar search engine optimization, and what that really comes down to is developing a deep understanding of the information that people out there are seeking. So our ideal audience, our ideal clients, what is the information that they’re, you know, they’re searching for on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. And so we invested a significant amount of time and money in, I guess, conducting some national research into what that look like. And we identify that each month is roughly 9 million Searches related to personal finance. And those are all linked to goals. And typically, it’s how to get the best return, how to retire sooner, how to pay off my home loan five years earlier, really specific things that people are seeking out information around. So all we really did was took the time to develop a deeper understanding of that, not only on the kind of search terms that people are doing entering into a Google search bar, but once they do, I guess, engage with information that comes up on page one, where also they’re going, what else are they seeking out what other information have would be a benefit to them. So really building out a content structure that helps them from their initial question, or their initial problem along the entire journey towards reaching their goal. And that ultimately, for us is about helping to connect them with great service providers out there, great advisors, people who are specialists in the things that they’re actually, you know, reading about and wanting to know more about, and ideally wanting some help with. So that that’s sort of been the pathway for us and the, and the content that’s on the site today is really our foundational, you know, research back content. And we’ll be building that out over the coming months, so that it is a real content powerhouse in this space. And it’s I guess, content that’s based on an intimate understanding of what people want.

Fraser Jack 

Fantastic. I love the love the way you use the data to work out what’s, what’s the good thing to talk about, rather than just making assumptions around our let’s talk about this this week, because I happen to have done some work on it, or I know about it, it certainly makes a lot of sense to work out. You know, what people are actually after before you start delivering?

Tom Haigh 

Most definitely, yeah, and not not to say, that wasn’t our approach a few years ago, Fraser, you know, it was, it was genuinely, let’s think about what we should be writing about and, and put it out there versus take. Dan likes to compare this, I don’t know if you’re back to the Back to the Future fan. But when they find the sports Almanac, and they get the answers to all of the, or the future future sporting events, beef, beef, steals the magazine, but it’s been very much like that, for us. It was such a shift in our approach. And I guess really comforting as well, knowing that we’re investing a lot of time and a lot of money in producing something that is based on what we know people are searching for.

Fraser Jack 

Yep, enticingly and tell me about the platform itself. So my money sorted? Is this a platform for all advisors? Or is it? Is it just certain advisors?

Tom Haigh 

Sure. So I guess the approach for us in terms of engaging the industry and in getting them as part of it, it’s it’s a big part of what we’re looking to do with the future. So what we really want to do through the early stages is develop a deep understanding of the, of the consumer journey on the website. So how are they engaging with the content? And how do they want that interaction to flow through to meeting an advisor. And so what we were really in, I guess, doing a lot of work to model model this off some very successful sites, out of the state particularly, and how they manage those interactions, is what we want in engaging with industry partners is to make sure that they get a really valuable outcome as well, which is a potential lead or potential client, who, I guess is going to be the right fit for their services. Now, we know that that’s not always 100% the case, but ultimately, you want to make sure that there is a process in place so that once that consumer engages once that they take that next step and want to seek out an advisor who’s best suited to deliver advice to them, that, you know, they know, they understand the process, they understand who they’re going to be having a conversation with. And they understand, you know, how that how that will all flow. So really developing that out so that the industry partners that we bring on, and we’re going to be obviously very selective with this, we want the best of the best, we want to be dealing with great advisors out there who are specialists in what they do, who have got a track record and has delivered, obviously enormous value for their, their existing clients. So that engagement process is underway. You know, we’re seeking expressions of interest from advisors out there who would like to be part of that. And then obviously, as we develop out the platform, we want to make that obviously an incredibly valuable thing for not only the consumers but for the advisors that can obviously Ah, with that audience,

Fraser Jack 

yeah, fantastic. So you’re looking for advisors out there, and then you will engage with them to say, look, this is what this is what topics are so hot right now, or whatever you want to call it, these are the topics that are being searched a lot at this time of the year, you know, and imagine there’s times of the year when certain topics are very relevant, especially around in the financial year, and those sorts of things. And then you’ll say to people, we want your ideas, opinions, beliefs, articles, and we’ll help write them as to how it works.

Tom Haigh 

That’s exactly yeah, it’s I couldn’t have said it better myself. Yeah, we, at the moment, what we’re doing with our existing clients, who, obviously we’ve got phenomenal relationships with through MBs is giving them the opportunity to get exposure on the site, you know, we want to help, I guess, ultimately, you know, obviously help them grow their business as well. And if we can feature them on the site, as a subject matter expert in a particular area, then then ultimately there’s, there’s value for us, there’s value for the advisor, and there’s enormous value for the consumer who gets to engage with that content.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, well, fantastic. And how do you get the content to consumers? How do they find my money sorted?

Tom Haigh 

So really, the big focus for us, Fraser through this website is organic search. And so the SEO approach that I mentioned a little earlier, it’s been incredibly important to that aspect of it. So what what we know to be true from Google’s standpoint is that they’re they’re out there, they’ve got their bot bots, crawling all of these sites every month, they’re really looking to identify, which are the sites that are that are doing a couple of things, which are the sites that are delivering highly relevant, specific information that answers the questions that people are obviously searching in, in relation to, but also a demonstrated level of authority. So it’s fine to go and, you know, write or write a half page blog article that answers questions on how to retire earlier. But ultimately, if people jump on that website and engage with that article for five seconds and bounce off, that’s a real cue for Google to sort of go hang on a minute, this person’s got relevant content, but is it actually answering the questions properly? And is it is it you know, based on authority and understanding and, you know, ability, I guess, probably my better put is the person delivering the content well qualified to be, you know, talking about it. So it’s interesting how Google’s algorithms work. And they’re always changing, which makes it difficult. But really, what we’re seeking to do is provide the most relevant, insightful high value content that is specific to those search terms. So that Google begins to reward us in time by saying, these guys are doing something special here, we can see that when people engage there on the site for three or four minutes, you know, they’re looking at other articles, they must know what they’re talking about, let’s reward them with some traffic. So a big part of its organic search, obviously, social strategy as well, that we’re they’re really building out the moment to, I guess, build an audience build a following. And ideally, you know, make this something that people really want to share with, with friends, it’s,

Fraser Jack 

it’s a huge part of it, because I think that a lot of planners, advisors, they’ll have opinions or love ideas, and they can get to that article space. But it’s very easy to set up a shack in the middle of the desert and have nobody walked past it right and see, and see, and you get to all that trouble and effort to, to you know, produce something that is going to help somebody or help transform somebody from point to another point. And then if nobody reads it, it doesn’t actually help anybody.

Tom Haigh 

It’s, it’s so well put, and I must say, we’ve probably seen some Taj Mahal is in the middle of the desert, too, you know, there’s that it is a sad thing for for a lot, not only advisors, but a lot of service providers, we often refer to them as, you know, the best kept secret in their local market, because that’s ultimately the case, they’ve got these phenomenal skills they can they can deliver so much value, but if nobody knows about that, then you really don’t stand a chance. So for us, that’s been the shift it’s about saying Well, let’s put you on the map. Let’s make you a bit more prolific in the content that you’re putting out. Let’s make sure that everybody in your local market knows who you are, what you can do, what you do and how you can benefit them. absolutely the case.

Fraser Jack 

You’re putting putting people on the map but also making sure they stay on the map because it because constantly everybody else was trying to get in front of them in front of them on

Tom Haigh 

the mat, right? Yeah, very true.

Fraser Jack 

So if you do nothing, you’ll you’ll get lost pretty quickly. So thanks for going through that to help. So how’s the platform has now set up it’s ready to go there’s there’s content on there. You’re you’re getting, you’re getting eyeballs on the content. We really want to take it from here.

Tom Haigh 

It’s a great Question. Yeah, we’ve we’ve been live for a week now a whole week, which is, which is really exciting. It’s been a big journey cost to get to this point. But the evolution for us is really about continuing to improve the user experience. So a big part of, I guess the next phase for us is starting to increase the level of interaction and introducing things like multi goal tools, projection based software apps, and the like, that allow someone to come in and get a better understanding of, you know, where they’re at, you know, as we know, with advice, a huge part of that is Miss people wanting to know Are they on track, to achieve their goals, or, and if they’re not on track, what do they need to do so it’s, it’s probably for us about in two parts, really improving the ability for someone to come onto the website, and develop a be a better, more personal understanding of this situation. And then for us to be able to deliver insights based on that. So really make it an intuitive site. It’s not just here’s a hyper blog articles, read them one after the other, it’s, or you came in through this stream, what we know is that people who read this article would benefit from, you know, having a look at, you know, at what age they could retire. And then if ultimately, they can see that, hey, it says, I’m going to be able to retire at 69, I want to retire at 60. What then can we serve them with to help them understand what steps that they can take, to better achieve that goal. So that’s a big part of it. The other aspect is really building out the different forms of content on the site, what we know is that some people love to read, some people love to listen to audio like this. And, and others, obviously, like video. So really taking that foundational content that we’re building out on a daily basis. And delivering that in in different media.

Fraser Jack 

You’re exactly right, depending on how the human likes to learn or best absorbs or whatever that fits into their daily routine. Now, obviously, I like podcasting. And I like listening to podcasts because I can do listen to them without having to use my use my eyes. Again, I can use my eyes for other things like driving or, or walking or whatever it might be so so you’re absolutely right, in producing content in multiple formats is, is certainly going to build that out. And it’s fantastic. And I and you mentioned sort of that you’ve recently recently released it. And for those people that are listening to this podcast, and he used to gamuts, that was mid September 2021. So from then on, it’s all been it’s all been growth. Thank you so much for explaining that to us. Now. If somebody wants to get involved in or not be more about that. What’s the best way for them to reach out?

Tom Haigh 

Yeah, sure. So you can head to my money sorted Comdata you and register your interest there. Or alternatively, with our central email is Hello at my money sorted Comdata. You dropped inquiry there and one of the team will get back to you,

Fraser Jack 

then they’re sick. Tom, thank you so much for coming on and chatting to us today that all the work that you’re doing with advisors around the country, really appreciate it. And if somebody wants to call that to you directly, maybe LinkedIn was the best way to find you personally.

Tom Haigh 

Yeah, absolutely. I try to be as active as possible on LinkedIn so you can check me out there. Or just just shoot me a note on email Tom at marketing branding. sales.com fantastic. Really appreciate your time. Thanks. So thanks, Fraser. been a lot of fun.