25th January, 2023 - Webinar replay

Are you impressing potential clients on their digital journey to your door?

Phil Bray 0:03
And welcome to our first webinar of 2023. I’m not in the office today, hence not at my standing desk. So I’m sat down. Huge thank you to Schroeder’s for letting me borrow their meeting room this morning. So as I say, welcome to everybody, to todays first webinar of 2023, Are you impressing potential clients on their digital journey to your door? So we’ve got a really good turnout today. And hope our webinars’ are this popular for the rest of the year. Really good turnout. So who have we got? Hi Becky, hope you’re well. James, over there in Darby, hope you’re doing well. Ken in Bristol, Lloyd, Natasha. Anyway, hope everyone’s doing really well, had a great start to the year. And welcome. In time honoured tradition, I’m going to hand over to Dan. Dan’s gonna do a little bit of housekeeping. And then we’ll press on. So over to you Dan.

Dan Campbell 0:57
Thank you. Yeah, hi. Welcome to the first webinar of the year, everyone. Gosh, it doesn’t feel like five minutes have passed since we were wrapping the last one up in December, does it? Wow. Yep, so I’m Dan. I’m the head of Branding and Design here at Yardstick. And I didn’t realise that Phil was taking our webinar series on the road today, or I might have picked somewhere slightly more exotic than my house to be in right now. Anyway. So, this is very much business as usual, if you’re a webinar regular, but if you aren’t, I play the part of Phil’s extremely unglamorous assistant, which means I generally do two things. The first, is making sure everything’s running smoothly, who will keep us on track, and on time (ideally). And the second thing, is reading any questions so that Phil can answer them. And, these sessions work best with tonnes of input. So, don’t be afraid to get stuck in – we’re not afraid to be challenged, this is absolutely your hour. So make the most of it, you know? Say things, ask things – and we’ll answer them. And there are two ways you can do that. The chat function at the bottom, you can type in there, and we’ll see it, or the little Q&A box at the bottom as well. So, I’ll be monitoring both. And I’ll be reading them out at natural breaks. And, we’ll have a period at the end, where we can sweep any final questions up. It’s absolutely a safe space. There are no silly questions, I promise. I guarantee if you’re thinking it, so is somebody else. And, one thing worth mentioning for newcomers and veterans alike today, we’re doing something slightly different. So, if anybody has ever been to one of our webinars before, and thought, “I wish there was a quiz”, well, guess what? You’re in luck. We’re gonna be trialling a scorecard exercise today. And, well – it’s exciting to be doing something new. However, one thing we’d like to stress beforehand is that, we may be wrestling slightly with some of the tech. So, we’re all gonna have to summon our inner guinea-pigs today, and just hope it all goes smoothly. I’m sure we’ll be fine (he tells himself). We also have Abi here today, our head of Social Media. So, she’s gonna be lending hand, as usual, compiling the follow up comms that go along with this webinar, which includes any links or resources that we mentioned today, plus a video recording of the session, so you can watch it back at your leisure. So, without further ado: Phil, people are making their digital journey to my door? How do I impress them?

Phil Bray 3:24
Thanks, Dan. Let’s answer that question, shall we? So, let’s move the slides on. So what are we going to talk about today? We’re gonna start by talking about the enquiry equation, which isn’t necessarily the easiest thing in the world say. Then we’re gonna look at why prospects – and what I mean by prospects is potential clients – look you up online. We’re going to talk about the 10 ways prospects become aware of you, and your business. We’re going to touch on Google’s role in that digital journey. And then we’re going to have an exercise. And we’re going to flip over into Score App. Abi will put a link into the chat in a bit, not just yet, but in a bit. And we’re all going to do this online quiz together. And, we’re going to see how impressive your business is, on that digital journey to your door. And, we’re going to award a prize to the winner. And we’ll see how it all goes. Right. What have we got then? S,o let’s start with the enquiry equation. And as Dan said earlier, do ask questions, do give feedback and do share your experiences in the chat in the Q&A. But we are going to start with the enquiry equation. Now, this is something that we have developed at Yardstick, to help advisers and planners understand the steps that prospects take to your door. Because they do take multiple steps. And the equation is simple. It’s Awareness + Online Search + Due Diligence = Enquiry. We could go a bit further, and say that Awareness + Online Search + Due Diligence doesn’t = enquiry, if you are not impressing people on that digital journey. But that’s the enquiry equation – someone becomes aware of you. And that’s the source of the enquiry. That’s the source that you would note down on your enquiry recording spreadsheet, or CRM, or wherever you use it. Then they’ll do an online search, and that’s where Google comes into play. They’ll do some due diligence. And that might be basic due diligence, just looking for your telephone number, it might be that they’re comparing you with more than one adviser, more than one planner. And then that will result, hopefully, into an enquiry. So that’s the enquirey equation: Awareness + Online Search + Due Diligence = Enquiry. And, there are 10 ways a prospect could become aware of you. And we need to think about each of these, because this is the start of that digital journey to your door. They could be recommended from an existing client. As we’ve said before, always the best type of new enquiry, because they have the lowest cost of acquisition, the highest conversion rate. They could be introduced to you from a professional connection – solicitor, accountant, etc. They could have seen a social media post. They could have driven past your office. We’ve got quite a few clients, actually, who have high street offices. And they are incredibly useful for raising awareness in the local community of the firm. But even so, someone’s driving past the office every day. They’re then going to search online and continue that digital journey to the door with some due diligence. They might have seen some adverts. They could be printed adverts, you know the sorts of things you see in the local parish magazines. They could be online adverts – Google ads, Facebook ads, display ads, LinkedIn ads, etc. So, those adverts could be printed or online. Could be a paid for directory, I’m sure some of you will be on Unbiased or VouchedFor, and prospects could be searching on there. But rather than making the enquiry directly through that platform, they might then head to Google, and start their due diligence that way. Could be a free directory, there’s a bunch of overlooked free directories. Whether it’s the PFS, Find an Adviser directory, I see the CISI have recently relaunched their Wayfinder directory, you’ve got Money Helper, there’s a bunch of free directories. Could be sponsorship. We’ve got clients that sponsor the local football club, rugby club, cricket club, even a bowls club. And, there might be an advert there, something on the shirts, somebody’s become aware of the firm in that way and then searched for them online. Of course it could be a lead magnet campaign, where you’re advertising on social media and getting people to download an asset. And then it could be events and networking. You might run some events locally, you might run webinars, you might get up at seven o’clock in the morning to go and eat a mediocre breakfast and network with BNI or something like that. But, it could be events, it could be networking. So there’s a bunch of ways that people become aware of you. And at that point, this is where Google comes into play. Now, clearly, other search engines exist, people might use Bing or other search engines. But the majority of the time it is Google. And sitting between someone becoming aware of you, and taking action, between awareness and action, is Google. And as we said, that’s where it fits into the enquiry equation – Awareness + Online Search. And some examples to illustrate the point of the enquiry equation. Someone is recommended to you, but they’re recommended to another adviser at the same time. Therefore, they do a Google search. They search for you online. They see you in the results page. They go to your website. And they’re suitably impressed enough to go and make an enquiry. They see a LinkedIn post. And, from there… Sorry. They see a LinkedIn post. And from there, they click a link through to your website. Spend a bit of time working through your website. And they then head to your enquiry form, they pick up the phone or send an email. And then third example, they drive past your office. And so we’ve got quite a few advisers that we work with, that have high street offices. So they drive past your office, it might be something they do pretty regularly, on their route to work or their route to Sainsbury’s or whatever it is. So they drive past the office, the time is right in their lives, to seek advice. And therefore they do a Google search. But from the Google search, they don’t actually click your website, they clicked your LinkedIn profile. Then they go to your website, and then the enquiry happens. So, the enquiry equation, as I say, is the steps people take to your door. And it partly answers the advisers who often say, “Oh, we get no leads from our website.” Well, actually, your website is part of the enquiry equation, as opposed to the be all and end all. And we need to make sure that people who are taking those steps taking that digital journey, are impressed. Impressed enough to get in touch with you, rather than another adviser, or planner, or mortgage broker that they might have been recommended to. So that’s the theory. Just want to pause. Does anybody have any questions about the theory? Before we take our lives in our hands, do something we’ve never before done, and try and work through this scorecard with you? And the plan is, that we’ll work through the scorecard. And as we work through the scorecard, and get you guys to answer the 20 questions, and we’ll explain the rationale behind each question, and why it’s important. But as I say, I just want to pause. Dan, have we got any questions? Or shall we move ahead with the scorecard?

Dan Campbell 12:01
Nothing through yet. It sounds like we’re about to do a bungee jump, doesn’t it? We’re all sort of strapping our harnesses on, and yeah, getting ready to go.

Phil Bray 12:08
This could go any way. So Abi, could you put the link to the scorecard in the chat? Everybody who’s on this call, please click that link. Now, we need you to put your name and email address in there – don’t worry, you’re not going to get deluged with countless sales emails or anything like that. I absolutely promise that will not happen. And frankly, we’ve got your email address anyway, because you’ve signed up for this webinar. So, we’ve already got your data, and 100%, we’re not going to start sending sales messages. So the plan is, as I say, I’m going to get everybody to work through the scorecard, but one frame at a time, and I’m going to put the scorecard up on my screen as well. So please don’t, please don’t rush ahead. And we will get you to answer the 20 questions, we’ll explain as we go, why it’s important, why each of the questions are important. And we will make sure that we announce the winner on this call as well, and we will get a price sent out to the winner. So Abi, you’ve put that in the chat, thank you very much. I am going to take my screen off, I’m going to bring up the scorecard. So hopefully, everyone has landed on that page. And then click “Take the quiz now”. Now this piece of technology, is something we’re using with more and more clients. It’s a scorecard powered by Score App. If anybody’s got any questions about Score App, really happy to take those at the end. So, hopefully everybody has put your name and email address in, and we’ve got this page up. So, first question. Now what I need you to do, for these first four questions is open a separate window in your browser, and type in – ideally in a private browsing window, if you can, but if you can’t, don’t worry too much about it – and type in the name of your business. In the same way that a prospective client might do. So, if I was searching for The Yardstick Agency, I would do that. So type in the name of your business in the same way client might do? And answer that first question. Does your website appear at the top of the search results? And clearly, in Yardsticks case, it does. So I would answer “yes”. And the reason that’s important, is simply because you need to be visible online. You need prospective clients to be able to see you online, and find your website. It’s just a really practical point of view. Can someone find you online if they’re searching for you? So hopefully, everybody has scored that one. And as I say, first time I’ve done this, if I’m going too fast or too slow, do put something in the chat and I shall respond accordingly. Second question. We have… yes, we’re ignoring the paid results, Charlotte, ignore those paid results. Are you at the top of the natural search results for your business? So, we’ve got no paid results here. And we’re top of the natural search results. And Dan, after each question, I will come back and check if we’ve got any other questions from you. Right. So next question, number two. How many of the natural search results – ignore the adverts as we said – on page one, were about your business? So here at Yardstick, there’s our natural search, that’s number one. That’s about Yardstick, number two, that’s about Yardstick number three, four, five, six, seven, eight. So, eight of the natural search results, in that case, were about Yardstick. And the reason that’s important is because ideally, you want to dominate that first page, for anybody who is searching for your business. You want to make sure that that first page is packed full, packed full of information, about your business. So, count those up. And click how many you have got. Dan, any questions?

Dan Campbell 16:19
We’ve got a question from Scott about the FCA register question, but shall we wait ’til we’re on that slide to answer that?

Phil Bray 16:24
Yeah. Please, Scott, if you don’t mind. Any others Dan?

Dan Campbell 16:28
Yeah, one from Rebecca, do we need to go to page two for the first 10?

Phil Bray 16:33
No, just look how many on the first page for you. And an interesting point there, very few people will actually ever go to page two of a Google search result. They’re far more likely to refine the Google search result and – it’s gone dark, maybe Trevor’s only put 50p in the metre. It’s gone dark. So, next question number three. Do any negative listings appear? And essentially what we’re looking for here, are there any bad news stories about your business, on that first page? It’s really unlikely that there will be. Really unlikely that there will be. But I have seen examples of where an FCA notice, came up higher on the list, than the firm’s own website. We’ve also seen examples – I’ve been talking about this a lot on LinkedIn recently – of Glassdoor reviews, negative Glassdoor reviews, appearing on that first page as well. So those are two examples. And obviously, negative Glassdoor reviews are not a positive thing, and chatting to Abi last night, and hopefully we’re gonna get somebody from Glassdoor on a webinar in the next couple of months. So no pressure, Abi, in sorting that out, but it would be good if we could. So do any negative listings appear? So in Yardsticks case, it’s a “no”. Dan, any questions?

Dan Campbell 17:56
Yes. So Selena asks, “Should the natural search results always add up to 10 links?”

Phil Bray 18:03
Not always. You could see with Yardstick, it was 10… It was eight, sorry. So yeah, not always. It generally is, but not always.

Dan Campbell 18:09
Perfect. Question from Jade. “Does it have any bearing if you’ve already searched for your company on that browser in previous times, or will be same results appear for anyone regardless of…

Phil Bray 18:19
Yes, it could affect it, which is why we said use a private browsing window.

Dan Campbell 18:23
Brill. And a slightly tongue in cheek comment from Nick. Amazing, they’ve got eight results, and they never promote their website. They’ve asked if they should sign up off the webinar. Well, if the lights continue to go off in the Schroeder’s office, we may need you to present the webinar, Nick. So we’ll keep you posted.

Phil Bray 18:37
Absolutely not Nick, because as you’ll see, in a minute, there is a load of other ways that you need to impress people. This is all about those. That first bit was all about just being able to find you. It’s just about being able to find you. This is all about impressing people. The finding bits are easy, the impressing bit is the harder bit.

Dan Campbell 18:52
Great question from Danny, “What about sister companies appearing in the results?”

Phil Bray 18:57
Don’t include them on this. Don’t include them in the quiz here. Because sister companies can sometimes make it a little bit harder, create a little bit of friction, a little bit of confusion. So if you’ve got XYZ Financial Planning and XYZ Investment Management, it can make things a little bit tricky for the consumer to find the information that they need.

Dan Campbell 19:25
Brill. And then a question from Charlotte, can you include your Google Map result as the 10th result?

Phil Bray 19:31
Go for it. Absolutely. Because about 40% of people who are doing local search, will click in the Google pack. Google Places Google pack is that bit at the top with a map. So yeah, absolutely. And the key thing is that, as I said so far, and to pick up on Nick’s point, this is about being able to be found. We’re going to get to the harder bit which is impressing people… So, next question. When you click The FCA register link, so one of the natural search results should be a link to the FCA register. When you click that, just go and have a look. Are all your contact details or up to date? Are your contact details all up to date? Because quite often they’re not. Quite often, temporary details are sent to the FCA when a firm is getting authorised, often a personal email address, and it doesn’t get updated on the register. And you might have moved office and things haven’t been updated. So do check whether everything on the FCA register is up to date. And the potential answers there were “yes”, “no”, and actually, there was “no link to the FCA register appears” on the first page of the Google search results when you search for your business. So go and have a quick check of the FCA register. Now clearly, I’m going to answer “no” to that, because we’re a marketing agency, not a regulated business. Dan, any questions before we do this next one?

Dan Campbell 21:01
Yeah. So Peter asks, “I don’t see a link to the FCA register in my list of links. Is that an issue?”

Phil Bray 21:08
Um, is it an issue? It would be nice if it was there. Yeah, I think it’s probably a fairly satellite issue. But it would be nice if it’s there. Maybe have a look on page two and see if it is there – albeit with a caveat that not many people will go to page two. And so, yeah, it would be nice if it was there. Anything else Dan?

Dan Campbell 21:30
Elaine mentioning that they don’t have the link in the search results, either.

Phil Bray 21:36
Interesting.

Dan Campbell 21:36
And then, earlier, Scott asked regarding the FCA register question, just to clarify, that does mean via the search results, doesn’t it?

Phil Bray 21:44
Correct, yeah. So search for the business, scroll down that first page, and see if there’s any links there to the FCA register. You didn’t know you were gonna be working so hard today, did you Dan?

Dan Campbell 21:54
I know. Like I said, I’d have gone on the road. And I’d have found somewhere tropical. And I’d have had, you know, at least something else to look at whilst I’m asking all these questions.

Phil Bray 22:04
Any other questions before we do this next one?

Dan Campbell 22:08
Rebecca asks, “Ours doesn’t show up as a link – would this be because we trade under a slightly different name?”

Phil Bray 22:14
I’d probably need to know more about that. But potentially, yeah, potentially.

Dan Campbell 22:18
And there’s a few questions of that similar… in that similar vein.

Phil Bray 22:22
What we might do is take those away and do those. Because there’s some very specific stuff, there’s some very specific stuff there. But ideally, you do want the FCA register to be visible. And if you can answer that question, “yes”, “no”, or “it’s not visible”. So, next one, Google Business Listing. So your Google Business Listing, is this section on the right hand side. So you can see ours at Yardstick. We’ve got a map, the image that we put up, “Marketing excellence for the financial services profession”, and you’ve got links to your Google reviews, some basic information about the business, some products in our case, some of our reviews, bit about us, and then our articles. So your Google Business Listing is on the right hand side. And again, it’s really important, for several reasons. First of all, it helps pack out that page with information about your business. And it makes it easier for people to find your business who are looking for you. You will appear in the Google pack, the Google Places, or you will have a chance of appearing there. Of course, it’s where your Google reviews sit, which are up there. And we’ll get to those in a bit. So, very simple question. Have you claimed your Google Business Listing? Does your Google Business Listing appear on that natural search, that page where you typed in your business name? Does the Google Business Listing appear? Just a really simple “yes” or “no”? And then, a supplementary question about your Google Business Listing? Do you have pictures of your team or yourself on there? So in this section up here, where the images appear, have you… does a picture of you or your team appear? Simple “yes”, “no”, or “not applicable (because we haven’t claimed the Google Business Listing)”. Dan, questions?

Dan Campbell 24:23
Yeah, we’ve got two about the Google Business Listing. So Norman says, “How do you tell if a Google listing is claimed? Mine says ‘Own this business?’ Does that mean I haven’t?”

Phil Bray 24:35
Probably yes, I’d say that. I would say that means that you’ve not claimed it. So, you should go ahead and claim it.

Dan Campbell 24:43
And then we’ve got Peter, who asks… So Peter’s claimed their Google Business, but it doesn’t appear on the right hand side of the Google window now. What can they do about that?

Phil Bray 24:52
Interesting, so I would be… I would type different… Try it from a different browser. I would maybe add the geographical location. And if that doesn’t work, Peter, just drop me an email and we’ll have a look at it, and see if we can do anything with it. Because the whole point is that your Google Business Listing appears, when someone searches for your business. That’s the whole raison d’etre of having it. So do feel free to drop us an email. And we’ll give you the contact details at the end, and see if we can look into that for you. We okay to move on, Dan?

Dan Campbell 25:28
One question about the point on screen. So, do you have pictures of your team or yourself – does the building count in this question?

Phil Bray 25:35
No, which is why at Yardstick, we need to update ours, actually. But now we have some new photos, after our stock photoshoot last year, we can absolutely update ours. But no, it’s pictures of your… pictures of your team or yourself. And the reason for that is very simple. As we’ll see in… when we talk about the website in a bit, it’s really important, that as a business, you are showcasing two types of people. And the first type, are what we call your heroes. And they’re your clients. And the second type are your guides. And the guides are the people who help your clients and of course, guides by you and your team members. So really important that we showcase heroes and guides. And that’s why it’s important that we have a team – or yourself – pictures on the Google Business Listing.

Dan Campbell 26:29
Okay, if a Google listing’s out of date with incorrect addresses on there, how do we change that? Rachel asks.

Phil Bray 26:37
You log in to your Google Business Listing, and update it. So, Google Business Listing, the logins are often really difficult to find. Because it’s the sort of thing you might have done when you started the business and forgotten all about it, and had no need to go back into. But if you can track them down, maybe by doing a lost password, you can log-in very easily. So you can see actually, I’m logged into our Google Business Listing here. And I could click “edit profile” and go and change the address. But that is actually really important that it’s done. Because behind the scenes, Google is comparing the addresses that you’ve got out there on the web, whether it’s on your website, the FCA register, etc. So really important that you do change that address.

Dan Campbell 27:23
Perfect. One last question about this. If the pictures of the team or yourself aren’t visible on the right hand side with a Google search, but when you click into the pictures, you can see the team, does that count as a “yes” for this question?

Phil Bray 27:37
Yes, I would say and suggest it does.

Dan Campbell 27:39
Perfect. okay, let’s move on.

Phil Bray 27:41
Right. Next, how many Google reviews do you have? Now, this is very straightforward. The number of Google reviews is shown there. And, I just want you to count how many Google reviews you have? And answer that question. Hopefully, that should be relatively straightforward, but happy to take any more questions on that. And at the same time, by the way, if you can answer the question, what’s your score? So you can see the score there, ours is a five. So you would click five. So if you’ve got a score of 4.8, you would clearly click the one below that. So hopefully, that’s relatively straightforward. How many reviews you’ve got, and what is your score. But the reason that’s important, is very simply, when someone is searching for your business, they are going to be impressed by having a whole bunch of reviews there, that people can go and read, should they so wish, there’s our reviews. And people can go and read those reviews, to understand what you do, who you do it for, how you help people, etc. They are incredibly powerful. So those two questions about Google reviews, as I say, hopefully, relatively straightforward, but do we have any questions on those, Dan?

Dan Campbell 28:53
We do a question from Danny. So, for the reviews, if they’ve got different offices, but they’ve got separate Google reviews for each office. Is it beneficial to combine them?

Phil Bray 29:05
I think I know what you’re talking about there, Danny, in terms of your different offices, and no, I would absolutely keep them separate. Because you are a… if you’re the Danny I think you are, you are a multi-location business, multi-country business. So no, I think the way you’re doing Google Business Listings, works perfectly. For the purposes of this. Maybe add up all the Google reviews that you’ve got, and just do a quick average of the scores for the purpose of this.

Dan Campbell 29:39
Okay, while we’re loading up the next question, great question in from Salina. “Would you recommend that employees leave a Google review?”

Phil Bray 29:47
Generally not, no. There’s a fair chance if… there’s a fair chance that if an employee leaves your Google review, Google’s algorithm will hone in on it, and take it down. Because they see it as a bit of a conflict of interest, if an employee leaves a Google review? But what I would 100% be doing is asking employees to leave reviews on Glassdoor. Really important for all sorts of reasons. And maybe Abi, we could just put that Glassdoor blog that I wrote last November, into the follow up? But really important that you ask employees to leave you reviews on Glassdoor. So, clients on Google plus other platforms – we’d recommend VouchedFor – employees, Glassdoor. But great question. Next question on the quiz. Have you left replies to your Google reviews? Really simple. “Yes, you’ve left replies to all of them”, “yes, you’ve left some for some reviews”, or “no, you’ve not left any replies”. And that’s important because leaving replies shows that you appreciate your clients. It allows you to work in some key messages and key words, to show the outcome, to show the benefits of working with you. And you just look like a nice person. If you’re leaving leaving replies. It’s just the obvious thing to do. If someone does something nice for you, like leave a review, it’s a good thing to go and leave a reply. I’ve even written a couple of blogs about how to leave replies. You need to do more than just say thank you. So we’ll put those in the follow up as well. Very simple. Have you left reply to your Google reviews? “Yes to all of them”, “yes to some of them”, or “no not applicable because you don’t have any Google reviews”. The next question. Do you have any ratings or reviews on other sites? So, don’t just limit yourself to Google search here? Do you have ratings and reviews on any other sites? Do you have them on VouchedFor? Trustpilot? Facebook? Where do you have other reviews? Where do you have other reviews? And you can click more than one answer on here. So you might just have VouchedFor, you might just have Trustpilot, you might just have Facebook, there might be another platform, you know, FIFA or something like that, or you’ve got them on other multiple platforms. But the reason we recommend a second platform, and tend to recommend VouchedFor almost always as the second platform, is because it’s not necessarily the easiest thing in the world to do, to get a Google review. And people who leave you Google reviews have gotta have a Google account. And they’ve got to be happy with their name appearing in public. So, Google reviews are really quite difficult to get. Whereas reviews on VouchedFor are a lot easier. Google is still important, because when someone searches for your business, we want to impress them by showing the number of reviews that we’ve done, things you can see here. But, we do need that backup, because if they can’t leave you or won’t leave you a review on Google, you’re sending them down a dead end if you don’t suggest another platform. So always, always give them another option. And we tend to see for every one review you get on Google, you will get five, six, seven, maybe eight or nine on VouchedFor. So really important, you’ve give them that other choice. Dan, any more questions before we go on to the next question?

Dan Campbell 33:23
Yeah. Spencer asks a fantastic question. “Would you recommend replying to a review? That’s just a star rating with no comment?”

Phil Bray 33:33
Yes, I would. I… simply because I think it looks a little bit strange. If you’ve replied to every single review, but not that one that just left a star rating. You need to obviously know who it is. And your reply might be not quite as extensive. But yes, 100%, I would be leaving a reply to somebody who has just left a star rating.

Dan Campbell 33:55
Great. And then a question from Steve, just to clarify this question on screen now. So this is other than Google, isn’t it? So for example, if Steve has reviews on Google and VouchedFor, their answer would be “Yes, VouchedFor”.

Phil Bray 34:09
Correct.

Dan Campbell 34:10
Yep. Perfect.

Phil Bray 34:13
Right, next question. Have you run a client survey in the last two years? So, we talk about three types of social proof. And of course, social proof is absolutely essential, for impressing people on that digital journey to your door. We’ve already talked about one of those forms of social proof, which is online ratings and reviews. The second form is client surveys. Now client survey should really give you three types of opportunity. The first is how you can improve your business. So, what are you doing now, that clients like? What are you doing now, that clients don’t like? And what would clients like you to do, that you’re not doing? Second, should produce some wonderful data, that you can use in your marketing. And third, it absolutely underpins a referral and recommendation strategy. More of which in a bit, actually. But have you run a client survey in the last two years? “Yes” or “no”? Dan ,questions?

Dan Campbell 35:18
Yeah. So, question in from Scott does the VouchedFor Top Rated count as a survey, in this instance?

Phil Bray 35:24
No, this is a… No, because they’re just… they count towards the online reviews. So no, it’s not… that’s not a client survey.

Dan Campbell 35:30
Okay, and then a question in from Claire. We run on a sample basis quarterly, but very small numbers, should I tick “yes” or “no”?

Phil Bray 35:39
I would tick no to that, personally. Simply because being really honest, I’m not a fan of sample surveys. I will be… I’d be interested in the reason behind the sample survey, and happy to do a 180, and change my mind if I’m convinced the other way. But I’m just not a fan of samples. I would much rather ask every single client, at fixed points in time every year or every two years. So personally, I would answer “no” to that.

Dan Campbell 36:10
Perfect. And then a question from Ben, that’s exactly the same as Claire’s question. So your answer to that would be no, in this instance, Ben.

Phil Bray 36:19
Thank you, Dan. Something in from Christian I think, Dan?

Dan Campbell 36:25
Yeah. So this is quite a common Trustpilot question, I think people asked when you mentioned it. So Christian says, “I’ve just looked at Trustpilot. And we have no reviews, but have a rating of 3.5. How is this happened?”

Phil Bray 36:36
So Trustpilot reviews are – and the actual ratings are slightly strange. So Google, for example, let’s say you’ve got 10, five star reviews on Google, your score will be five out of five. If you have five, one star reviews, and five, five star reviews on Google, your score will be two and a half. But Trustpilot do it slightly differently. So they don’t just take an average of all the reviews, they apply a recency overlay. And that means that… I can think of a firm that uses Trustpilot. And I’m not a massive fan of Trustpilot for various reasons. And this is one of them. But I think the firm has got 20 five star reviews. And actually their score is 4.8 out of five. So they calculate them in a slightly strange way with this recency overlay. I suspect in your case, Christian that, actually 3.5 is a default score, that they just start people on where they… when they don’t have any reviews. I might be wrong. But I think that’s what they’re doing. They’re giving you that default score. But happy to answer separately, why I’m not a big fan of Trustpilot. So, have you run a client survey over the last two years? “Yes” or “no”? Yeah.

Dan Campbell 37:54
Quick question, sorry, Phil, quick question on that. Because Charlotte’s stuck on that question. They do for half of the business, i.e. mortgage side, but they don’t for the wealth side. What would Charlotte’s answer be?

Phil Bray 38:06
Oh, you’ve just given us a dilemma there, because I’ve not thought about that with the answer set. So, thank you for that, Charlotte, and we will shall edit this survey in the future. I would… what would I answer there? Which is more important to you from this perspective, this quiz? Is the wealth side or the mortgage side more important to you? And I would answer, maybe run the quiz twice, once for the wealth side, once for the mortgage side. But, yeah, we will change the quiz on the basis of that. Right, next question, LinkedIn. So LinkedIn is important, because it could appear in your search results page, the Google search results page. And what we’ve got to remember is, somebody who is become aware of you, might be searching for you individually, or you as a business. So, what we want to do is make sure that your LinkedIn profile is as good as it possibly can be, and is consistent with your website. But of course, the first thing is, have you claimed your corporate Linked In profile? So I’m just going to pop into LinkedIn a second. And, ignore the messages and notifications. Scroll down here. That out the way, scroll down here. And, your corporate profile will look something like, something like that. Yeah, that will… it will look something along those lines. And very simply, have you claimed your corporate LinkedIn profile? The other reasons as well, to claim your corporate LinkedIn profile, is it should appear as a link on the natural search results, and therefore help you dominate that first page of the Google searches… of the Google results sorry, when somebody is searching for your business? So that’s a simple “Yes”, “No”, “Don’t Know”. Next question, bit of a long one, this. But does your corporate LinkedIn profile have a banner image? And the banner image is… Abi, how do I get to the… There we go, view as a member. So, your banner image is this thing at the top here. So you can see the banner image of ours, it’s the thing that… letterbox style across the top? So does your banner image have three things on there? A statement explaining what you do, and who you do it for? So, Marketing excellence for the financial services profession – explaining what we do, and who we do it for. Your contact details – telephone number and email address. And some social proof, for example, a testimonial or an online rating, or in our case, the Google reviews. So very simply, it’s a binary one this ,”Yes” or “No”? Do you have all those three things on your LinkedIn banner? And the reason it’s important, is because everybody who hits or visits your corporate LinkedIn page – and remember, if it’s in the Google search results, somebody could visit it. And you’ve got to assume that they do. And therefore it’s got to look as impressive as possible. So, that LinkedIn banner at the top, everybody who visits your profile will see it. Everybody sees it. And therefore it’s really important, really valuable online real estate and a really good opportunity to impress people. So “Yes” or “No”. Yes, there’s a “Don’t know” as an option as well. But yes or no. Does your corporate LinkedIn banner have those three things on there? Dan, any questions?

Dan Campbell 41:59
Yeah. Great question from Jade. So if they have two thirds, then is it a no or a yes?

Phil Bray 42:07
I’m being harsh today, go for no there Jane.

Dan Campbell 42:10
Right, okay. The Quizmaster has spoken Jade, it’s a no. And then, while people are filling that out, just an interesting point that Chris brings up about our Trustpilot point earlier. So Chris says, “I think you’re right. But their reasoning, as I understand it is so a business with one five star review doesn’t then rank above a business with thousands of five star reviews, but also a couple of four stars peppered in, too?”

Phil Bray 42:35
Yeah, I get that. I guess the challenge to that would be, that pretty much all the review platforms will show based a number of reviews and the score. So people can make their own mind up yeah, I get the I get the logic, still got a long list of other reasons why I don’t like Trustpilot, which I’ll happily share one. Right, next point. What proportion – and this may be… we don’t have time to go into too much detail about it today, but maybe this is maybe a gut feel answer on this one – what proportion of your team, has a personal LinkedIn profile that promote your business? And when I say promote, it’s making sure that… let’s just go to my LinkedIn profile as an example. It’s making sure that the banner image is about the business that they work for. It means that they’re linked to the business, it means that their job title and the description is about the business as well. And so, and again, this is important, because if somebody is searching for one of your advisers online, they might not use the business name, they might use the advisers name, and therefore could end up on their LinkedIn profile. So, this might be a bit of a gut feel for you. I’m not… if there’s people on this call who have got 20 employees, I’m not asking you to go and look at all those 20 employees right now. So a bit of a gut feel. Do all of your team have LinkedIn profiles that promote the business? Do some of them? Do none of them have that? Any questions on that one, Dan?

Dan Campbell 44:16
Not on that one, but off the previous one. Kaylee says, “So all three things have to be in the actual banner picture?” And that’s what we’re saying in that question, isn’t it? The contact details, the tagline and the profile text are all in that top banner above the little picture of the…

Phil Bray 44:29
Yeah, absolutely. Right. I’m gonna take my LinkedIn down, it’s distracting. Right, next question (we’re getting towards the end of this now), but again, just on the individual profiles for team members, do they have this… in this case, it’s four things on their banner. Same three as before: a statement explaining what you do and who do it for, your contact details and social proof. But on this occasion, the logo. Really important that the logo is there. Because on your corporate page, your logo already appears as an image, but on your personal pages that’s replaced by a picture of the person. So again, just gut feel on this one, do you think all of them have that banner? And to be fair, you will probably have to have made that banner, and given it to them? So do all of them have that banner? Do some of them have it or do none of them have it? It’s a bit of a gut feel for you on that one. Right. Your website. So, click on a separate tab… click on a separate tab, and open up your website. Just type in your website address. We don’t have many more questions, but type in your website address. Scroll down your homepage. And does the homepage include pictures of your team? Now if you’re a sole kind of business, sole adviser business with nobody else in your business, then does it include… does the homepage include a picture of you? But it’s really simple, does your website’s homepage include images of your team? “Yes to all of them”, “Yes to some of them”, or “No”? Dan, question? Any questions?

Dan Campbell 46:28
Yeah, so question in from Peter. “Does images of the team include videos? We don’t have pictures, but I’m in a video on the homepage?”

Phil Bray 46:36
Um, yes, I would include that. But if all your team aren’t in the video, then the answer will probably be yes, some of them. But, if you read Brand Story by Donald Miller, he talks about – and it’s something that we subscribe to and have done since we started Yardstick six years ago – that you should be talking and showcasing people on your website. And and as we said earlier, one of the key groups of people to showcase are the guides, the people who guide your clients. And that’s the advisers, the planners, the mortgage brokers, the admin staff and paraplanners. It’s your team that guides them, and really important to put them on your website to start trying to create that connection between you and prospective clients, as soon as possible. Next question, same question, but about clients. So does your website’s homepage include images, pictures or videos of your clients? Now, this isn’t stock imagery to represent your clients. This is actual images of your client. So, let me show you an example here. The Smith & Wardle website. This is a site we designed a couple of years ago. It won best website at Professional Adviser Awards in 2021. And you can see on the first scroll, you’ve got four pictures of clients. Real life clients, who have been happy to have their picture taken. And then there’s a video of clients, the team, some more heroes and then more clients. So, that’s the sort of thing we are suggesting here. So does your website’s homepage include images, pictures, videos of your clients? Dan, any questions?

Dan Campbell 48:25
No, let’s push on.

Phil Bray 48:29
And then on your website (separate question), do you have videos of your clients on your website explaining the benefits of working with you? So, this is back to the third type of social proof. We think all planning, advice planning firms, mortgage brokers should have: client surveys, online ratings and reviews, and the third being client videos. So, do you have videos on your website explaining the benefits of working with you? “Yes” or “No”?

Dan Campbell 48:58
And the distinction here is not homepage, it’s just website in general, is it not?

Phil Bray 49:02
Yeah, anywhere on the website. Then closing questions. Have you published the results of your client survey on your website? So, let me just look at Wetherall’s in Manchester. So this is a firm that we’ve worked with in the past. And if we look at the Why Choose Us section, there we go, Why Choose Us, and scroll down on this page. You can see there is an infographic here with their client survey results in 2021, which Dan and his team designed, as I remember, and it publishes and shows the results of their client survey. And we’ve got other examples of where we have published the results of client surveys on adviser websites. And the reason that’s important, is because it shows you are open and transparent. It shows you are happy to listen, just by the very fact you’ve run the survey. And it shows you’re open, transparent and sharing. So, have you published the results of your survey on your website? “Yes”, “No”, or “Not applicable, because we haven’t run a client survey”. Dan, any questions?

Dan Campbell 50:29
One from Selena, “We’ve published the highlights from the survey, but not the full results – will that count?”

Phil Bray 50:35
Yes, I think the highlights do count. Yeah.

Dan Campbell 50:41
And then a side question from Jade. So they do run client surveys, but they only get a very small amount of their clients completing them – around 10 people. Is it worth publishing the results with that small sample size?

Phil Bray 50:56
Jade, supplementary question for you. How many clients do you send it to? That will be, if you don’t mind saying that? Then I can answer that question. Come back to that in a minute. And, then as I say moving to the end, have you displayed your online reviews? So Google, VouchedFor, Trustpilot, on your website? Do you have your reviews on your website? So again, another example of this, just so you can see what we’re talking about. Go back to the Smith & Wardle site, if I scroll down, you can see that we’ve got the VouchedFor widget on the page. Click that, open it and the reviews are there. So are you making the most of your Google and VouchedFor reviews, by displaying them on your website? “Yes”, “No”, or “Not applicable because we don’t have reviews on these sites”.

Dan Campbell 51:52
And while you go to the next question, or the end, in this case, around 134 people, Jade.

Phil Bray 51:59
So yeah, I would say that’s a really low completion rate of the survey. No, I don’t think you should be displaying those results. I don’t think it’s a big enough sample size to draw accurate conclusions, and certainly not a big enough sample size to be used in a marketing purposes. I think I’d be looking at the reasons why lower than 10% actually complete the survey? And trying to do things that will increase the number of people who complete the survey, and therefore giving you a bigger sample size, which is statistically relevant, and therefore you can use to draw conclusions from. So, everybody now who’s done this should have a result. I I’m just going to share my screen again and go back to the slides if that’s oka?. But everybody should, who has follow this – and thank you for following it with us – should have a result. So, what I want everyone to do now, is put your result in the chat. Put your score in the chat. And let’s see, who has got the highest score. And we’re going to award a prize. Not sure what the prize will be yet. Abi, Dan, and I can get our heads together. And we’re going to award a prize. So Dan, just start reading some of these out , will you?

Dan Campbell 53:17
Okay, yeah. Wow. So, Scott 51%, Claire 31%, Charles 36% with the word “ouch” after it. Ben 31%, we’ve got Dean 27% Lucy 51%, Elaine 67%, we’ve got Natasha at 22%, Simon 31%. So most people seem to sit between 20 and 50 with only one so far breaking 60, and that was Elaine I think. Yeah, a lot of 40s – Spencer 44%, Robert 49%, Lloyd 58%. David asks, is there another prize for 0%? David doesn’t hint that they did get 0%. But the reason that they asked that is a bit suspicious, don’t you think?

Phil Bray 54:10
I think it is.

Dan Campbell 54:11
Danny 47%. Natalie is competing with David for 0%. Steve 62%

Phil Bray 54:25
Does anybody beat Elaine at 67%?

Dan Campbell 54:28
Not that I can see, but I think you’ll need to be another set of eyes Abi if you don’t mind, because everything’s moving very quickly with 100 people in the attendees list.

Phil Bray 54:37
Well it looks like now Elaine, there’s gonna be a prize winging its way up to you guys in York.

Dan Campbell 54:44
A few 0%. So Martin, Christian, Gerald, and Richard. David confirmed they did get 0% But we’re all here to learn and act on that. So you know, this is the school you’re at now, not necessarily the school you’re always going to be at. Scott says “Good news though, I have a meeting at 1pm with AbI at Yardstick to sort it all out.” So no pressure there, Abi!

Abi Robinson 55:15
Gotta get the prize for that. If you’ve got a meeting with me, that beats 67, Elaine, I’m sorry.

Dan Campbell 55:20
Yeah, it almost sounds like the meeting with you is the prize in this instance, doesn’t it? Because we can act on some of these points. Elaine says, well, it looks like our investment in Yardstick is paying off.

Phil Bray 55:29
Excellent. So, some of it will be returned Elaine, because there’ll be a prize winging its way up to York for you next week. But, hopefully, that was a bit of fun. Something a bit different on a webinar, to identify areas in a business where you can potentially improve. And, we’re using scorecards more and more, not only within our business, but working with advisers and planners, so that they can help prospects identify gaps in their financial planning, to give you useful information, and of course, actionable information with contact details of prospects, to then pick the phone up and start conversations with them and start more meaningful conversations, because you’ve got the results of the scorecard. So after today, look at your score, everybody should have an email back into their inbox, waiting for them right now, showing you where you need to improve. I’m really happy to stick around and answer any questions that you’ve got, but did want to mention a couple of future webinars that we’re running. So Abi’s just going to put the links for these in the chat. The next webinar is on Wednesday, the 22nd of February. And I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. But we’re going to talk about fees pages on websites. So we’re going to talk about everything you need to know about building a fees page on a website. We’re going to talk about the pros and cons of doing it. We’re going to talk about the things that you need to have on the fees page, to make sure it’s effective. And we’re going to talk about the six mistakes that advisers and planners make, with online fee disclosure. So, I’m really looking forward to that one. I think it should be a lively session. And then we’ve got a workshop coming up on Wednesday 8th May (webinars are always free with Yardstick, workshops are paid for events). And we’ve got our first referral and recommendation strategy workshop of the year: How to build a successful referral and recommendation strategy. That’s at 10am on Wednesday, 8th March, £95 plus VAT for that. And we are limiting places to that one, places are limited to 30. And that will be talking about why referrals and recommendations are the best type of new enquiry, and training you on how to have better conversations with clients about referrals. And also, talking to you about other things you can do to turn clients into advocates, and advocates into active advocates, because it is active advocates who will refer people to you. So that’s two things we’ve got coming up, we’ve got the webinar on Wednesday 22nd February, and the next workshop on Wednesday, 8th March. So, if you want to stay in touch with us, if you’ve got any questions after today’s webinar, do drop me a linephil@theyardstickagency.co.uk. If we’re not connected on LinkedIn, do go and send me a connection request on LinkedIn. We publish – what we hope is helpful – marketing hints and tips throughout the week, both of my personal account and the corporate account. And go and have a look at our website as well. I just want to say thank you to everybody for being good sports, and taking part today. Dan didn’t know he’s going to work so hard. And the technology has not failed us. So I’m really pleased that it’s worked for us, but as I say, thank you to everybody for bearing with us. I hope it’s been a bit of fun. And I hope it’s been useful. I’m really happy to sit here and answer any questions that we’ve got to finish off. Dan, is there anything that we need to answer?

Dan Campbell 59:00
Um, yeah, a few things. But first, I mean, I guess if I have a fancy a career change, I should go for like a horse racing commentator, shouldn’t I? Reading out all of those percentages in very quick succession. So maybe that’s something for me to persue. One thing that Kaylee mentioned… so Kaylee comments, “Oh my life, 4% – mostly for only half complete stuff”. And I think that’s an important caveat that a lot of people will share, with this process. In that you’ve probably started a lot of these things. But this may be that sort of inspiration to get you over the line and actually get them finished. Because 4% is perhaps a bit deceptive, isn’t it? When you’ve got so many half open projects outstanding.

Phil Bray 59:43
Yeah, absolutely. And go back and do that. Go back into the quiz again. So you’ve done it once now. There is nothing to stop you… I’ve just seen what Kaylee’s gonna say there! There’s absolutely nothing to stop you going back and running this quiz again, in what six to eight weeks time, whenever it is. The link will stay open. Go and give it another go and see how you progressed.

Dan Campbell 1:00:04
Yeah. And that’s Martin asks if we got copies of the questions. I mean, as Phil mentioned, that link will stay valid. You can read through again, at your leisure, you can, you know, see how certain things impact the results and scores as you change. So that’s absolutely there as well. And then, I think Adam asked a little bit earlier, Abi answered direct if the recording would be sent out afterwards. Absolutely, yes, for anybody else that may be wondering. And I think the only other question outstanding was another one from Kaylee that asked if there was anything actionable they could do about the FCA link not appearing in those search results, because I know a few other people answered that also.

Phil Bray 1:00:43
Yeah, I’m not actually sure that there is that much that can be done. It is down to… it’s down to how Google… it’s down to Google’s search algorithm essentially. So I’m not sure that there is actually that much that can be done, other than just making sure that the FCA does have the link, and maybe looking and seeing whether the names match exactly? So if the names of your business, match the FCA register exactly. So that’s something to look at. But once you’ve done that basic stuff, there’s not much you can do to influence Google’s algorithm now, I’m afraid.

Dan Campbell 1:01:21
Brill. Thanks. Question from Martin. So Martin’s just click the link again. And rather than question one, his summary scores appears. In order to see that, do they have to clear that browser cache?

Phil Bray 1:01:35
They probably need to clear their browser cache or go into a different browser? Yeah.

Dan Campbell 1:02:38
Yeah. So there are a few of the ways. I believe that’s all the questions. Everyone seems to be… I’ve taken quite a lot from that. So yeah, absolutely. You’re welcome to everybody saying thank you, glad you found it valuable.

Phil Bray 1:01:52
Thank you, everybody, go and enjoy your day. Thank you for bearing with us. I hope it was really useful as I say. It seems to have been which I’m delighted about. Recording out later on this afternoon. See everybody soon. Bye. Bye.

Dan Campbell 1:02:06
Take care guys. Bye