Abby Salameh: How to Merge Marketing and Sales to Spur Organic Growth

This podcast is brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking, and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra-high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at joinwfadvisors.com.

Hello and welcome to Barron's The Way Forward. I'm Greg Bartels, and my special guest today is Abbie Salameh, the Chief Growth Officer of RFG Advisory, a $5 billion RIA that she recently joined. Abbie, who's well known in the industry, was previously the Chief Marketing Officer at Case, and she previously held that position at Hightower Advisors and Private Advisor Group. Today, she will explain how advisors can merge their marketing and sales efforts to accelerate organic growth. A fantastic topic. Welcome.

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be back with you.

Super happy to have you here. Tell me now what you're doing at RFG.

Yeah.

Before we tackle this really interesting topic.

So coming from Case, which, you know, I truly enjoyed and loved and felt very passionate about the mission, where I really felt like I needed to be was back on the advisory side. Building support services for independent advisors and helping them in being fully supported by an RIA. So, um, RFG is based in Birmingham, Alabama, and we've got about 45 teams with us. And part of my role is helping them grow, and part of the mission is to really give these advisors the full support that they need to run their businesses better.

Tell me how you're doing that and also provide the macro backdrop in terms of industry growth, where we are and why it's such a challenge. I mean, M&A and market gains can paper over that.

Yeah, of course. Well, you know, it's really hard for advisors to grow their business. You know, historically, I think advisors have relied heavily upon referrals, which is still probably the number one way that advisors grow their business. But with the advent of so many new technologies, especially in the marketing technology land, there are new and improved ways for them to target their ideal clients so that they can actually reach them in different ways. And as you start thinking about the huge wealth transfer that's going to be upon us soon, it's really critical for advisors to start, to start thinking about the ways that they can do this that might be different than what they've done in the past. And that's what we're really trying to deploy and help our advisors understand.

And what's the state of play today generally? Like, describe the average approach and setup.

Yeah, I would say that on average, advisors are growing in low single digits organically. So, you know, minus any appreciation from the markets, you're looking at a 2 to 3% organic growth rate average in the industry. Advisors working with us, we want to get them up to closer to 20% organic growth rate minus net appreciations from the market. And I think the only way to do that is to really help them amplify their name, their brand, their service delivery within their local communities or wherever they're serving their clients. And to date, I think that advisors, like I said, have been really good at referrals. But if you actually ask them if they've ever asked their clients for referrals, many of them will tell you no, they don't feel comfortable doing that. So imagine, you know, you have these advisors that have been somewhat successful, but if you just put a little bit of effort into it, they could really be on fire. They could really be growing their business at a much faster pace than they are today.

Yeah, and in addition to some of the examples that I assume you'll share, I think many of those advisors who are reluctant or refuse to ask, in their mind see asking in a very kind of brusque and direct way, like flat-out asking, whereas I would think there's a gradient, like there are shades and different ways to ask without asking to signal or pull someone into your orbit where they might not even be aware, but you're kind of testing the waters in a very tasteful and diplomatic way. And then if you're feeling receptivity, you can get more explicit. With, with your, with the ask, so to speak?

100%. And in fact, one example of that and one that I could bring to the table that I know has worked for other advisors, you know, doing an annual client survey. So many advisors don't even do that. But when you do a client survey on an annual basis, number one, you can uncover how satisfied your clients are with the services you're delivering. But then, and see if there are gaps in what you're offering. But then also if you add the question, have you referred any business to me? And they check the box yes, that gives you an opportunity to call them and say, hey, I noticed that you said that you had sent a refer, you know, a referral over, but I'm not sure I caught that. I wanna make sure I follow up with that person. Can you share that information with me today?

What I think is, I don't know if brilliant's too strong a word, but really smart about that approach is even if they check no, you've planted the idea in their head of a referral and they think, no, I haven't. And they go, hmm, should I? Or maybe, so it's almost like, yeah, brand awareness, like awareness of this idea that you're putting out there. Yeah, that's smart.

Because, you know, your clients are not walking around every day thinking about who they know that they could introduce to their financial advisor. You know, they're walking around every day in their own lives doing their own things. Another successful way that I've seen referrals really start to be generated in a more proactive approach is if you do a client advisory board. So a client advisory board is a great way to bring your biggest ambassadors, your clients that you know are going to be your helpers, together on a quarterly basis, for example, or even twice a year is good enough. And then tap into some of those centers of influence like estate planners or accounting firms that you also share referrals furries with and bring them together for a meeting to talk about what your business goals are. Bring them into the fold and help them understand what you're trying to achieve. And when you start explaining how you're trying to achieve additional growth and grow your business, all of a sudden they become more vested in wanting to see that happen. And they start thinking about who they know that they can refer over to you.

Tell me any other details about if you were interested in starting a client advisory board, how would you do that? I mean, assuming you have like 5, 6 clients who you know would go to bat and recommend you.

Absolutely.

So what would be next after that?

I think after that you would reach out and just invite them to join your client advisory board. Tell them that it's gonna be, you know, not a huge time commitment, 2 to 3 times a year to get together because you appreciate and respect their feedback. And, you know, you're really looking to grow your business with people like them. Them. And I would say 10 out of 10 times, they all accept the invitation and they're happy to do it. And then take them to dinner somewhere, get a private room at, you know, a steakhouse or something, and have a full agenda. But really make sure that they understand that you're looking for their feedback. And it doesn't have to be just on growing your business. It could be feedback on, you know, whether or not you're delivering the right services for the clientele that you're serving.

Okay, well, that's a great idea along with the annual client survey.

Of course.

Tell me now about sales and marketing. What's the state of play today? What's the upside, the opportunity, etc.?

That's a great question. So it's interesting because if you think about, you know, sales in the traditional manner, business development, typically, you know, you have two types of financial advisors, those that have been the rainmakers and those that are more investment-focused, right? So we're talking about the rainmakers here, those that are expected to go out and bring in the business or have historically always been the ones to go out and bring in the business. So I think if you think about ways that you can duplicate those efforts, automated marketing technology campaigns and programs, webinars and events and things like that are super important to complement the sales person and to help get the word out there in a bigger way. But to do that, you need to be adept or adapt, adapt to new technology and be adept at it. Right. And in order to have that kind of acumen, you really need somebody who understands marketing. So the combination of sales and marketing together makes a very powerful growth flywheel. And I think most advisors know that, and most salespeople know that. And yet, when you look at organizations, you oftentimes have marketing over here in one silo, and you have sales or business development in another silo, and they're managed by two different people that don't necessarily always align themselves with one another. So, you know, my role now as Chief Growth Officer is focused on the growth of the organization itself. So I have all of the business development development underneath me in addition to all of the marketing and then onboarding and transitions as well. But what that does is it really sets the firm up for success because there is 100% alignment on that whole sales marketing flywheel. Because you need marketing, whether it's programs, campaigns, blog posts, social media, you know, advertising, webinars, sponsored content, you name it, you think of it, you You need that to provide lead generation, and then you need the salespeople to follow up with the human interaction. So it's really important that you have both, and I think that the secret sauce is having them tied as closely together as possible.

How do you bring them together in a way where there's mutual trust, common spirit, and then Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would assume though the benefit of having that unified vision on a high level, in a way, each side is getting equal treatment. So on that level, at least structurally, there's no, it's not like one's under the other. You're kind of like, hey, we're going to pull together. So I imagine on that level almost cancels out perhaps.

You know, it's, it's, it's been really fascinating. It's only been less than 2 months, but I can tell you that there's such a difference in the sense of camaraderie that I'm seeing between the sales and the marketing teams. I just had a growth offsite like 2 weeks ago and bringing in everybody to one room for a full day so they could really understand, here are the business goals and here's what we're trying to achieve. We can't achieve any of this without all of you rowing in the same direction and believing in that same mission and knowing that your role is critical to the success of how we get to this end goal. And what I think is even more interesting is that as much as you would think that the marketing folks know what the sales folks do and the sales folks know what the marketing folks do, they really don't. So even just getting as granular into understanding functional roles on the team and what each person's role does and how it plays into creating that flywheel of growth was super validating in this whole thesis that marketing and sales need to be together.

And was there like immediate buy-in or in general, like people like, yeah, this makes sense? Or was there an element of inertia? Like, I don't know, or I don't know, any light you could add?

I think change is hard. And I think fortunately we work with amazing people that don't have egos or narcissistic personalities. And everybody was super eager to take this leap of faith and is really excited about what we're building. But I can't promise you that that would be the case in other firms because there tend to be territorial kind of feelings when you talk about bringing these two teams together.

In a situation like this, uh, where you're trying to in a way merge teams, um, do you have someone maybe who's like dedicated to this? And if so, was it possible to get someone who has had had one foot in each camp, so they might speak that common language or understand.

That would be me.

Okay, there you go.

Of course, that would be me. But also, like, bridging the gap is also sales enablement. So there is, like, a role for that in-betweener, so to speak, that can— that understands both sides but then also knows how to create the connectivity, especially as it relates to the data. So, like, the data that's being driven from the marketing campaigns how does that flow and funnel into the advisor or the salesperson's, you know, ecosystem so that they then know how to take action on it? And I think that that's equally as important as bringing the teams together from a human perspective is making sure that the technology and the data integrations are there.

Tell me about that. Some real-life examples or technologies or products or just approaches where how it manifests itself in real life bringing this together.

Yeah, so it manifests itself in real life real life in so many ways. And if you think about it, and I'll just take one example, let's say that this podcast as an example. So we are recording this podcast, and after this podcast, at some point it'll be published. And when it publishes, maybe there's a way for me to extract who listens to the podcast. And those folks might go into one of our systems where we then automate or API and upload into to an automated marketing system that then puts a nurture campaign on the folks that listened. And then when the nurture campaign reaches a certain engagement score, for example, like the person who listened to the podcast then came to our website and read a blog post and then listened to one of our podcasts and then downloaded a fact sheet or something off of our website, they hit that score where we say, wow, this person is actually engaged. And then it goes over to a salesperson as this person is highly engaged, it's time for you to reach out to this person.

That's a wonderful answer. Yeah, totally comes to life there.

Did I paint the picture?

You painted it in Technicolor. Yeah, absolutely. Tell me some, I don't know, what are some takeaways you're already gleaning about how to navigate in a constructive manner for all involved?

Yeah, and I think as I think about it from the advisor's perspective, I've worked with with thousands upon thousands of advisors in my lifetime at this point. And I think that they are so amazing and they do such a wonderful job with their client service and it's such a noble cause. But I do see that they need help as it relates to just the follow-up from some of the things that they do do. As an example, you know, if you're hosting an event or a client event or a prospect event where you're trying to bring new clients in, you know, making sure that you take that attendee list or even the folks that registered and make sure that you're creating some type of nurturing experience for them. So when the event is over, you can start really dripping on them. And then not only that, measuring ROI on the event activities that you're doing is where most of the time I see people fall off the rails, is that they're not actually taking a look back. So 30 days after the event, 60 days after the event, 180 days after the event, did any of those, those prospects become clients? And, you know, start leaning into the things that actually provide and deliver results. And I think that oftentimes people just don't pay attention to that. They do something, they think it was great, it was a wonderful event, my clients came, they brought some friends, everybody had fun, but then they're not really measuring how successful the event was.

Exactly. I mean, you see that a lot of times where a software product will be made. It's like, you know, internally the company creates something, they put it out there, and then the end users are using it and problems develop. But then the support's kind of gone. They're on to the next project. It was a little bit different, but it's very much like you, you need to stay on it.

Follow it through.

You have to follow through.

Follow it through to make sure that what you're spending money on is returning results.

Exactly. I'm curious now, given the dearth of organic growth and desire for it, are on balance advisors eager and open-minded, just kind of jumping into this, finding, using, leveraging technology to grow? Or to what extent is it that there's an element of inertia, maybe insecurity that they're not tech savvy and a reluctance to open their wallet and spend on something where to them the ROI is a little bit like hard to determine. Like, I'm just curious on the landscape to what extent.

It's a great question. I would say for the most part, if left to their own devices, it probably won't get done. And what I mean by that is you can have the greatest marketing technology and integrations with other technology like your CRM and a marketing automation system, but, you know, if if you're not accustomed to using it, it's not likely that you will. So advisors, unless they're hiring somebody specific for this role in their organizations, they're just not focused on doing it. It's not what they do best. It's not what they have time to do. They're really good at working with their clients, right? That's what they should be doing. So at RFG, we've actually built and are continuously building out our internal marketing organization to better support the advisors that work with us. So we buy the marketing technology, we create the campaigns, we provide them with a budget towards doing events and things like that, but we do all the logistical planning for the events, find the venue, create the invitations, create the promotion around it, do the LinkedIn or Facebook advertising. We track the results. We send the campaigns out afterwards. So we take that off their plates, which is a huge added value. And it's just one of the benefits of working with a firm like RFJ.

What you mentioned earlier about finding these great high-value targets of people who said, oh, they listen to the podcast, they downloaded this, they click that. Well, this is someone who's clearly demonstrating, you know, very serious interest, right? So I think that takes a lot of the guesswork out for sales. I'd imagine on that level, they would invite that integration. Because it just saves them time and they welcome it. Absolutely.

They welcome it. They just don't want to do it themselves, nor would they have the knowledge to do it themselves. Right. So, you know, if you're not accustomed or trained in using marketing technology and data integration and creating campaigns and knowing workflows and creating customer journeys, which they're not, then they either need to hire people to do it or they need to work with a firm that provides it for them.

Them. And tell me about like data sharing. I think that I would assume that'd be something very important just to transparency, everyone on the same page.

Yeah, so data sharing, it depends on what we're talking about. You know, when we're talking about marketing data, we're not talking about any PII. You know, it's not personally identifiable information. It's really just behavioral activities. You know, a lot of the AI tools out there today can actually tell you a lot more about people, like where they go, what they do, what they're interested interested in, what hobbies they have, what clubs they're a part of, what church they go to, like a lot of that information, which can help you also target market depending upon what your own value system is. So that can work well for you as well. And then there's marketing automation tools that also build AI into their functionality to help with that as well. But I think that we're talking about data in terms of behaviors and interests and making sure that you're creating content that's appealing to your specific audience.

Right. And I think it's interesting because not only can you measure the level of interest, but you can also see how they prefer content, right? Some might just be podcasts, others like videos, newsletters, etc.

It's however they want to digest it. You just have to figure out how to be there.

Yeah. So question about RFG. In addition to you, the company brought along, brought on Brendan Fraser as Chief Behavioral Officer.

Super exciting.

Yeah, and Kenneth Kim as CFO. And I was curious because that title, Chief Behavioral Officer, caught my attention. Tell me a little bit about that.

So it's really fascinating because in addition to thinking about what advisors need, you know, there's a whole slew of services out there that many firms provide to their advisors. There's the investment management piece, there's the marketing, which we were just talking about, there's business consulting services. And now we have Brendan, who's building out a program which is basically around the human side of money, which if you think about it, it's the emotional aspects of finances. So when you're talking to an advisor or a client for that matter, there's always emotional ties to money, whether it's the way you grew up or how you perceived money or you're coming into a big, you know, life-changing event and you either need money or you inherit money. There's a whole emotional side of that. And Brendon is really schooled in how to manage the emotional side of finance. So he can work with both our advisors on helping them understand their own emotional disconnections to certain things. But then also he's starting to work with advisors and their clients on understanding how different, like retirement can impact you in a very big way if you've been working for 50 years of your life or, you know, somewhere around there. So how do you deal not with just the finance side of the retirement and moving into that phase of your life cycle, but how do you help your client with the emotional side of going into retirement and what does that look like? So we're really lucky to have Brendan. I'm actually, working on building out his programming right now, which includes— he's been going out and meeting with all of our advisors and actually doing some presentations, client presentations for that matter. And I think it's going to be a really great added value for our advisors to not only help them connect with their own emotional journey, but then to really be able to connect with their existing clients and going back to prospecting, how to overcome that emotional fear Fear of prospecting is one of his session topics, right? So there's all of that packed into it.

Yeah, that's really interesting. And it's really important. I mean, so much of money, people think just about the logical aspect, but it's filled with emotion and fear and greed. And there's so many biases we have. And yeah, it's tremendously important. I mean, look at all the people who panic and sell at bottoms and get greedy and buy at the top. I mean, that goes on over and over and over.

So yes. And I mean, I think our advisor's biggest job Our job is to save some clients from themselves. Yes, right.

Exactly. Exactly. Talk them off the ledge. Right.

Exactly. Exactly. So we're really excited about that.

Excellent. Excellent. Well, we're almost out of time. Are there any final thoughts you'd like to share?

No, I'm just grateful to be here. You know, I'm really excited about what we're building at RFG. We also have a huge emphasis on women. We've got a program called StrongHerMoney with an H in there for the her.. And we're really working hard with men and women advisors who want to target females who are, you know, stand ready to inherit a significant amount of money within the next 10 years. And we think that's going to be a really big vantage point is helping our advisors understand how to work with women more. And then obviously bringing more amazing female advisors to work with us is one of our our biggest missions as well.

Excellent. Well, thanks so much for joining.

Thank you for having me.

It's always a pleasure. Likewise. My guest has been Abby Salameh. For more podcasts and the latest wealth management news, visit barons.com/advisor. For The Way Forward, I'm Greg Bartalus.

This podcast was brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking, and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra-high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at joinwfadvisors.com.