Financial Advisor Website Showcase: Beacon Financial Group

  1. The Beacon Financial Group story started back in 1996, which speaks to the longevity of your business. Can you tell us a bit more about the backstory of the company and any successes or challenges you encountered when…

Financial Advisor Website Showcase: Beacon Financial Group

Sid Misra

We have had amazing client showcases for the past several weeks and just didn’t want to stop! This week we had the chance to catch up with Sid Misra, CRPC® at Beacon Financial Group for our “Financial Advisor Website Showcase” series blog. Continue reading to find out more about the design process, their marketing tactics and so much more!

Framework

Fresnel

Plan

Tailored

 

1. The Beacon Financial Group story started back in 1996, which speaks to the longevity of your business. Can you tell us a bit more about the backstory of the company and any successes or challenges you encountered when establishing your independent RIA that may help others who may be looking to start their own firm?

We started as a group of successful advisors who were working at a good company that sold only its proprietary products.  One day we learned that there was a whole world of additional products and services that could be utilized at less cost to benefit our clients. We discovered that to provide these services and products to our clients, we would need to leave this firm and become independent. We were all nervous about leaving the big name firm and holding ourselves out as Beacon Financial Group.  Were we making the right decision to leave? What if we failed?

In the end, we made the right decision for our clients and ourselves. You don’t need a big firm to tell you what is best for your clients or how to manage your business. Believe in what you do and how you do it.

2. You have a social presence on what we like to call “the big 3” Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Tell us more about your social media strategy and how it has (or hasn’t) helped move the needle in lead generation for your firm.

Our strategy is to post content on our blogs and push it out to the online world via these three platforms. 

The hope is that:

  1. The content adds value to the reader
  2. It helps to drive more web traffic to our website

Since we are in a highly regulated space, we use pre-made content from a provider that is all approved by compliance at our broker-dealer, LPL Financial.  This pre-made content is used specifically for our website and our company pages on the Big 3.

We do, however, encourage our team to post their own content on their personal LinkedIn pages, obviously following compliance rules and guidelines.

One of the best examples can be seen on my LinkedIn, where I post daily. We have been receiving much more interest in our services as our “Contact Us” page form is being filled out daily.

3. With four office locations, we’re sure you’ve got a lot to manage on a day-to-day basis. What tools and tech do you rely on to keep things operating smoothly across state lines?

We have a phenomenal in house compliance director that handles anything that may arise. He is on top of our emails/client communications as well as our business tracking systems and keeps us up to date on the new rules and regulations in the industry and at our broker-dealer.

Email and phone are still the easiest way to stay in contact with other team members, especially during this unprecedented time.  We have also been hosting zoom calls with our team, as well as, zoom calls for just our partners to discuss the economic and business landscape and our overall plan to keep providing great service.

4. We love to see that you are embracing technology and regularly hosting Savvy Social Security Planning webinars. Were your webinars implemented as a pivot due to COVID-19 or have webinars always been a lead gen strategy for you? Tell us more about how webinars have performed for your business thus far and what tools and tech you would recommend to others who may be dipping their toes into the webinar waters.

These webinars were initially supposed to be in-person seminars at a local school.  Due to COVID-19, we have pivoted to doing them online for safety and access. 

Now, people can attend these in the comfort of their own homes and still get the same education and value they would have gotten from an in-person seminar.

To run them, we don’t use anything special.  It’s a standard zoom meeting with a password that is hosted on a laptop.  That’s the beauty of technology today.  Everyone has the tools to run webinars from their own homes!

The advisors that are hosting them are seeing great interest in education but also in follow-up calls and meetings.  Many attendees have specific questions about their situations and potential strategies.  They request an analysis be run using our calculators to see what their options may be. 

It’s a great way to showcase our value as advisors, and we can pivot to also talking about their whole financial picture. 

Beacon Financial Group

5. It looks like you’re regularly pumping out blog content in the form of weekly economic updates, which is great! Especially valuable during turbulent times like these. How do you go about generating that content on such a consistent basis and stay on top of your editorial calendar?

This goes the same as our answer for number two, as our strategy is to post content on our blogs and push it out to the online world via our three main social media platforms. 

Beacon Financial Group

6. As a company that has been in this industry for over 20 years, what major changes have you experienced and where you see this industry headed?

We see the industry becoming more strict with its compliance requirements and regulations to continue to protect clients.  More firms and advisors will need to take on the fiduciary duty to their clients and will have to show that their recommendations and planning is in the client’s best interest.

Outside of compliance, we see the industry shifting to a more virtual and online model where brick and mortar offices are not necessarily required.  Right now, in-person client reviews as well as team meetings have turned into WebEx meetings.  Marketing is now done on the big three social networks. Seminars can be done as webinars, which provide more flexibility to those who can’t attend in person. 

Beacon Financial Group sees this as a great opportunity to utilize the technology out there to meet our clients where they already are: online.  While we hope to transition back to our offices and to meet with clients face to face, we will continue to utilize the virtual space as a way to reach more people more easily.

We are extremely happy with the work Twenty Over Ten has done on our new site!  They were there every step of the way talking with us about all aspects of the design and implementation.  Once it was up and running, the team at Twenty Over Ten has been there for any questions we have had and issues that came up.  We highly recommend working with Twenty Over Ten if you want a top of the line originally designed website!

-Sid Misra, CRPC®, BEacon Financial Group

7. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies around the world have had to shift their internal operations, marketing strategies and so much more. What tips or stories do you have that may inspire others?

Everyone wants to hear from their advisors and leaders, so be proactive!  You need to be calling every single client/household in your book of business to not only alleviate concerns about the market and economy but to also check-in and be there on a personal level. 

We recommend sending out emails regularly to give updates on what is going on and more importantly, your company’s take on current events.  

This goes for your staff, as well.  We don’t have the luxury of passing by our co-worker’s office to say “hey” or to check-in.  Be proactive and reach out to them to make sure they and their families are doing well.

8. If you could share one top tip for other advisors who are looking to redesign their website, what would it be?

Understand the importance of your website and what it does for your company brand.  In today’s world, a well-designed and good looking website is the absolute bare minimum.  Every single one of us visits the websites of companies or products that we are thinking about using.  A website is the first impression people get about that company and its services.  With your own site, make sure you are sending the right message.

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