049: The Authority Accelerator: How Guest Podcasting Can Attract Ideal Clients for Your Financial Practice

In this episode, I  host my business partner and the co-creator of the Authority Accelerator Program, Tony Maree Torrey.

We dive deep into the nuances and benefits of our innovative program designed to elevate financial service providers by establishing them as trusted authorities in their industry.

The Authority Accelerator Program: Elevating Financial Experts

Foundation and Evolution: Tony Maree discusses the organic evolution of the Authority Accelerator Program, which originated from our personal challenges and was refined through our experiences. The program is designed for financial advisors and CPAs who struggle with being perceived as commodities rather than distinct experts.

Strategic Approach: We emphasize the importance of positioning oneself as a prescribing authority rather than a conventional seller. The program’s strategies aim to transform participants into the coveted 'pretty girl at the bar,' where potential clients actively seek them out.

Empowering Through Authorship and Speaking

Becoming an Author: Tony Maree highlights the transformative power of authorship in establishing credibility and authority. Our program assists professionals in becoming published authors, setting the stage for further recognition and opportunities.

Guest Podcasting vs. Hosting: We explore the advantages of guest podcasting over hosting one’s own podcast, emphasizing efficiency and exposure. Guest podcasting allows professionals to leverage established audiences, enhancing their visibility and credibility with minimal effort.

Success Stories and Practical Applications

Client Successes: We share inspiring stories of clients who have successfully utilized the Authority Accelerator Program. Examples include John Kuttin, a Barron's Hall of Fame advisor, and Alex Sonkin, a thought leader for CPAs, showcasing the program's effectiveness in real-world settings.

Strategic Guest Podcasting: We discuss in detail the process of selecting quality podcasts for guest appearances and the importance of forming genuine relationships with hosts. Tony Maree and I explain how strategic guest podcasting is integral to the program, providing a platform for professionals to shine as subject matter experts.

Key Takeaways and Looking Forward

Building Authority: This episode underscores the significance of transitioning from mere knowledge providers to trusted authorities who command respect and attention in their fields.

Future Prospects: As we anticipate expanding the Authority Accelerator Program, Tony Maree and I discuss upcoming initiatives and enhancements designed to further support our clients’ growth and success in becoming recognized leaders in their fields

About Our Guest: Tony Maree Torrey
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonymaree/
Main Website: https://www.tonymaree.com/

About Your Host:  Paul G. McManus is an accomplished author and expert in helping financial professionals grow their businesses. With over eight years of experience working exclusively with financial professionals, Paul has helped his clients generate tens of millions of dollars in fees and commissions.

Claim your free audiobook copy at: www.theshortbookformula.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Million Dollar Producer Show. Today I have a special guest for us, toni Marie Torrey. Hello, how are you doing?

Speaker 2: 0:42

Hello, I am doing very well today. It's Friday, so that always puts me in a good mood 100%.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Now. Toni Marie and I have been business partners for a while, but normally she's behind the scenes. Today she's at the center stage of everything. As I'm saying that, I'm thinking I think we might have our business plan wrong. I think I should be behind the scenes. Just given our general attractiveness, you should be in the front. I should be behind the scenes. Why is this not in that order?

Speaker 2: 1:09

I don't know, maybe we have to go back to the drawing board.

Speaker 1: 1:15

Do you have a bigger mouth than I do? What is it? So today we're going to be discussing something really cool that we've been working on and perfecting and now we're ready to really bring out to a larger audience, which is our Authority Accelerator Program, and I'm just going to bounce it over to you. So, just at a very high level what is our authority accelerator program, who's it for and what?

Speaker 2: 1:41

problems does it solve or seek solutions does it provide? The way I see it is that it's part of a natural progression, like one of the challenges that we faced ourselves and that we see our clients face that we've solved. Really, we both started out solving these things for ourselves first and then realized that we could utilize these methodologies and approaches to help our clients as well. Really, this evolved. This has been an organic evolution and the reason is because most of us are faced with the challenge of differentiating ourselves in the marketplace and making sure that we are not lumped in with the competition, especially in the financial services industry. We see people it's like there are studies that show that financial advisors, for instance, cpas as well for the most part, the general public sees you as a commodity right, and obviously that is not the best way to attract clients. It's not the best way to share your expertise and it's certainly not the best way to put yourself into the position where you are prescribing rather than selling.

Speaker 2: 2:47

And really, as Paul and I, we laugh about the early part of our history where we were trying to sell and how difficult those conversations were, whereas now we find ourselves in a position where you know, like the pretty girl of the dance and we're like, why should I want to work with you? Or we hear ourselves having people say can we work with you? I hope you've got enough time to fit us in and that's a really lovely place to be. And so there are ways in which we can do that, and we believe that one of the first ways in which you can do that is to become a trusted authority or AKA, an author. And then, once we've become an author, then really the next question that we see that happens with our clients because we help our clients become published authors in six to 12 weeks. And then the next question is great, I've got a book. Now what?

Speaker 1: 3:42

Let's do a pause there so that people can ponder that for a second. I just want to go back to something that you were saying is that I love the pretty girl at the bar analogy and that's not something that Tony said to bragging anyway. It's. Ultimately, it's what we all want and desire for ourselves in order to be positioned correctly. We don't want to have to chase down prospects, have them ghost us, as the saying goes. And then what happened? I thought we had a great call. We want to flip the script there. We want to make it where prospects are more likely to come to us, to schedule with us and see us as that true expert or that true advisor. And when you get that positioning down correctly which I would say anyone can do there might be an exception out there. I think there's a step-by-step roadmap for this, but when you do that, it's such a night and day difference. I can't help but to jump in and share a story where I think I first fully achieved that for myself. We're all salespeople, but it's how you position yourself that makes all the difference. This goes back maybe seven or eight years, but I was speaking to a room filled with very high level insurance agents. So they're part of an elite producer group and to be part of that, I think they had to pay like $25,000 a year. And I was brought in to talk about my then LinkedIn program. I spoke to two packed rooms filled with these very successful producers and I knew the positioning that I had, and what I knew was that I would have more people interested in talking to me and working with me than I could realistically handle. So I very strategically, at the end of my talk, said the next step is I have an application and so if you'd like to talk to me about my services, fill this out, and it's $1,000 to have that conversation. And it was amazing, because these are successful, smart people and they're like. So what you're saying is that I have to pay you a thousand dollars to speak with you. I was like again, not trying to be arrogant, but yeah, the reality is that there's a lot of people that are interested and we just want to make sure that there's an alignment and that you're genuinely interested in discussing and, of course, there's a refund, right, if we don't do anything, we'll give you your money back. Despite the grumbling, and he's like what I got a stack this thick of people coming in and giving me their credit cards and all those things and doing it. But that was my first real experience of having that positioning and just knowing the power that you have in your hands, and that's where I love that pretty girl at the bar. Analogy is that when you're like the one pretty girl at the bar and you got a bunch of dudes there, the power that you have in your hand, and so that's what we want for you and that's what our authority accelerator program, which we're we'll continue to talking about, is all about helping you achieve.

Speaker 1: 6:24

I know I interrupted you, so, tony, so person's. Okay, I know I'm a guy. Most likely. That's just the reality of financial advisors. Mostly are guys. You know, for better or worse, they're like I want to be the pretty girl at the bar. How do I do this? What's next?

Speaker 2: 6:37

So we've published the book right, and we're at the what's next phase. We're of the opinion that the next thing, the thing that will then put your book on steroids, is the capacity to get out there and speak about it. Now, that can mean going out to a local in person or even national in person conference or something like that. It could be webinars, it could be all sorts of things, but what we believe your next best option is to become a guest speaker on other people's podcasts.

Speaker 1: 7:10

So a guest on other people's podcasts? How is that different or unique from hosting your own podcast, which I think is pretty popular nowadays?

Speaker 2: 7:20

It is really popular and you and I both host our own podcasts and we love doing that and what we can tell you from experience. It's a lot of work and most of the time requires showing up consistently, week after week, and we want you to be in the business of operating your business, not working on your business, not in your business, and doing a lot of that podcast hosting work can be the working in your business rather than on your business activity.

Speaker 1: 7:50

And here's the other thing and this is just from us working with hundreds and hundreds of financial advisors is that most financial advisors that we've worked with guess what they want to talk about their service, their products, their message, and to be a really good, to have a podcast. Now you can do what's called a solo podcast and you can talk those things out, but typically what a lot of good podcasts are that get audience is guest podcasts, meaning that you invite someone to be a guest, you invite them to tell their story, which has this place and is great for its own reasons, but you're in the role of a, of a host. You're in the role of asking good questions and the conversation is largely all about them, not about you and what you want to talk about, which is your podcast message book, product, services, and so what I love about guest podcasting is that it flips the script right. It's all about making you look good and asking you thoughtful questions about your book and who you are and what you do.

Speaker 2: 8:50

Yeah, you're automatically the star right, You're automatically the trusted expert and you are automatically introduced to a whole new audience of people that you maybe otherwise wouldn't have access to.

Speaker 1: 9:07

Not only that, but when you get on these shows that are popular let's think Joe Rogan at one extreme, I'm not suggesting that if you can get on Joe Rogan, go for it. But even with a little bit more modest audience we'll say is that the host has spent years cultivating and developing this audience, this relationship with audience. So the audience comes in, they listen and they trust the host to some degree. So, even though the host isn't necessarily saying I endorse this person, you should go work with them, because that's not the format of a podcast. You're getting this soft endorsement, meaning that they've decided to have you on their show. They're asking you thoughtful questions, making you look good and so, to the audience's perspective, you're essentially getting a one-to-many referral. It's amazing the power of that transfer of trust.

Speaker 2: 9:53

One of the other things that I love about this, too, is that if you're going out there and you're doing some kind of keynote speech or even like a breakout room or something like that, it's so all on your shoulders and it's stressful.

Speaker 2: 10:06

We all know that almost everyone thinks public speaking is scarier than death. I think it's the least intimidating way of getting out there and public speaking. One of the things that has to happen in order for you to take your business to the next level is you need a change in identity, and so one of the things that we notice is that, when we work with our clients to help them author and publish a book, that one of the first things that happens is that their identity, how they see themselves, changes and how the rest of the world sees you changes as well, which is one of the reasons why we love creating this synergy between the books and the podcast guesting, because the book becomes a door opener to better, higher quality podcasts and a certain level of respect and authority that you're perceived at because you have the book. So it's the combination of these two things that becomes so powerful. And then, obviously, we leverage a few other things, like LinkedIn and all those things as well.

Speaker 1: 11:07

Another really cool thing about guest podcasting especially when you have a core message, such as your book, is that it becomes simple and I use that word deliberately simple, in that you have, typically on a podcast, you have about 30 minutes with the host. You give them questions in advance so they know what to ask you. They're looking to make their life easy, they're making to look your life easy and they want to know what to ask you. And what you find is that you start essentially saying the same things over and over because you have a core message that's condensed down about 30 minutes and you get really good at it. You get really polished at it because you're telling your stories, you're seeing reaction, you're getting better delivery, etc. But it's also incredibly simple because essentially my preparation before I do my guest podcasting, before I go on someone else's podcast, is I'll listen to high speed one of my past podcast just to refresh my memory of what I said, and that's essentially my preparation. Sometimes I do that, sometimes I don't, but you don't have to spend time struggling thinking about okay, what do I say? And this, that and the other is that it becomes a very simple process where literally the biggest constraint or obstacle A lot of people that we talk to have is I just don't have the time. I'd love to do that, I'd love to build my authority, my influence, et cetera, but where do I find the time? And so, once you get into the guest podcasting phase, you, literally two hours a month, one hour apart, in where we book you on these shows, you show up, you have this amazing conversation all about you and about what's important to you the book, et cetera and you leave motivated, inspired, excited.

Speaker 1: 12:41

The host then goes and publishes that. And then, once that happens, we get it and we promote it on your social media. And we take your LinkedIn. We create a media page for you. So when people look at your website, they're like, wow, this person has a media page. We create video clips, we create newsletter, we create emails, and so we two things are happening. One, you're getting exposure to this wider audience of people who never heard about you before, and so that creates immediate new opportunities. But secondly, we don't stop there. We then take that material and we repurpose it and remarket it back to your existing audience, whether it's through email, whether it's through LinkedIn, whether it's through other social media, and you're able to accomplish all of that once you have your book in place with simply two hours a month of your life.

Speaker 1: 13:28

It's the most rewarding, literally. I mean, I do this myself as part of my own marketing and it's literally the most highest ROI activity that there is. It's just, hands down, the most rewarding energetically, just from psychological reasons, but in terms of the actual ROI, I get the most high quality appointments on my calendar as a result of doing this. And when I say that, it's not just the number of appointments but it's actually the people that come on, I love these conversations because they're complete strangers to me up until that point, but they heard me on someone else's podcast, so a week ago or a month ago I was a complete stranger to them. They then proactively took the time to either get my book or immediately book with me, and when they show up, they already know my story, they already know things about me, they already know what I do, and so it's not this cold conversation that I'm trying to build trust. It's really. We can skip a lot of that and go directly into how can I help.

Speaker 2: 14:27

Yeah, they're absolutely a warm prospect by this stage, and let's talk about some of our clients who have had great experiences with this approach. So John Cutton is someone that we work with, that we know and love, and, if you're not familiar with him, he's a Barron's Hall of Fame advisor. He does approximately $10 billion in AUM. John is highly influential. He has other advisors that work under him in his business and he attracts really high quality talent, partly because of his public reputation. We're working with John on a variety of different books.

Speaker 1: 15:08

Currently we have a roadmap for four books. We have one completed and we're actively working on the second book.

Speaker 2: 15:15

as of this moment, so John also leverages the guest podcasting and he has his own podcast as well, and we don't want to say don't do that, because that can be a good idea. We're just trying to give you a good sequence, some sequential steps that you can go through in your business, and obviously, the more money you're making, the more people you can hire to help you all that kind of stuff, the more time you're free, the time you can free up in order to do things like host your own podcast, for instance. So we're not saying don't do it. John's an example of someone who does do that. He does all three. He's got the authorship, he's got the guest podcasting and he has his own podcast as well. So he's got all those three pieces of the strategy together.

Speaker 1: 16:00

And just to reemphasize that we like all three approaches, but depending on where you are today. Step number one publish your book when you have your book. Step number two guest podcasting is the fastest and easiest way to build on that and then, at some point in the future, when it makes sense for you, then having your own podcast is a great strategy, but you want to think about it sequentially, in that order. Let's talk about another example, and I'll share this one. So, alex Sanken we've been working with him for I want to say it's almost six years now, and we worked with him in a variety of capacities LinkedIn, marketing, we help them do an annual summit called the due diligence project summit. We're actually doing this in May of this year, which is a great is for CPAs, and over that time we've developed a number of strategies, but some of the consistent strategies and core strategies that we've done for him and even before I say that.

Speaker 1: 16:52

So, alex, I would say he's a genuine thought leader for CPAs, and so a lot of advisors have an aspiration and a goal of developing CPA relationships, for reasons that I think are obvious to many people listening to this, but I think a lot of them struggle in doing that.

Speaker 1: 17:09

So Alex is one of probably a handful, if not less, of thought leaders in the US that have successfully built out an organization that's geared towards attract influential CPAs elites that work with multiple ultra high net worth clients to him in both an educational capacity as well as a collaborative capacity. So they have a host of different strategies that they actively work with to help ultra high net worth people significantly reduce their taxes. He's been doing this for 20 years, even before we started working together, so he's built a lot on his own. In the past six or seven years we've been working with him, so in that time we've helped him write his first book. A couple of years later, we helped him revise and republish the same book. We've helped him come up with his own podcast and we've also helped him do guest podcasting. So guest podcasting is something that Alex has been doing consistently over time to continue to build out his reputation, his thought leadership, get the word out there to his ideal target audience, which is these high level CPAs.

Speaker 2: 18:12

And because it's so much fun and there's so much reward. It's one of the reasons why we are constantly sourcing and expanding our network of relationships with podcast hosts and we have this. I think this is an important point to bring up is that we have criteria. It's not just any old podcast out there. We have the specific criteria. The podcast needs to be at a certain level of maturity, there needs to have been a number of different episodes, the host has to be doing some proactive marketing, all that kind of stuff. So it's not just like throwing your bones saying go on Joe Schmoe's podcast, who's got two episodes under his belt, right. So we have criteria for what we consider to be a quality podcast to guest on and we're constantly expanding and evolving our relationships and finding more of those people so that you can continue to have these conversations in your target market of choice.

Speaker 1: 19:06

This is something that, to get on the best shows, typically requires a relationship. I don't know about you, but how many times have you received an email from someone who you don't know who's probably a virtual assistant out of the Philippines that says, hey, so-and-so would like to be on your podcast and that goes immediately to my trash because there's no relationship there? I don't. It would take a lot for me to actually pay attention to that and that's a very low reward activity. Where you're, you could potentially throw out hundreds of email requests and whether you do it or you hire someone, an assistant, to do it, and they're doing this and they're not getting attraction, and then it becomes ah, this thing doesn't work and that's not the case whatsoever. It's you need to get on the show.

Speaker 1: 19:45

But to get on the show, I think there's really two key ingredients. Number one, as we've talked about the book, is your passport. The book is something that differentiates you, because when the host sees that you have a book, they now see you as more of an authority figure with a message to share. They don't see you as a salesperson, they see you as an educator and they want to educate their audience. And two, just having that relationship with the host and being able to leverage that and that's what we do as a company is we build these relationships out. That helps it so that we can consistently book you on two podcasts per month and you don't have to do any of that legwork.

Speaker 2: 20:26

Yeah, absolutely. The relationship is so important and I just want to call out. Like you say, when you get those cold emails essentially saying, hey, I want to be a guest on your podcast, you just take them straight to trash. What I would say is that it actually damages my relationship with that person that does that kind of outreach. So it's not even a neutral response. The industry and they've probably had guests through you before it's a very different kind of dynamic and therefore it does make it possible for us to create these consistent bookings for people Before we wrap up.

Speaker 1: 21:15

So, tony Marie, now do you like Tony or do you like Tony Marie? I go back and forth.

Speaker 2: 21:21

You get away with Tony because you're grandfathered in, but I do generally go by Tony, marie, and one of the reasons why is that Mr Tony Robbins actually told me I needed to get back more in touch with my feminine side. I was being too much of a lady boss for my own good, and Marie is my middle name. So I bought. And not only that, because it's spelled a little weird too. I get all the domain names, all the email addresses, everything like under.

Speaker 1: 21:48

Tony.

Speaker 2: 21:48

Marie T-O-N-Y-M-A-R-E.

Speaker 1: 21:50

So Tony, marie, or, as I like to say, tony, but not Tony Robbins. So you mentioned Tony Robbins, so he's pretty well known. So what other famous people come to mind when we think of famous people?

Speaker 2: 22:03

When I think of famous people, I think of how wonderful it can be to be associated with famous people. And we have this client that we've been working with for what? Four years, about four years now Yep, the fabulous Mr Mark Miller. And Mark is very closely associated with the Hilton family.

Speaker 1: 22:25

Mark is the CEO and president of Hilton Tax and Wealth Advisors, and he's also the manager of the Hilton family office. Now I do have to jump in and say that he has not yet given me an introduction to Paris. I'm waiting for that. I guess I need to wait a little bit longer.

Speaker 2: 22:40

Yeah, I want her to be my bestie too, but what we love about Mark is that he's been going through this process. Four years ago, we helped him publish his book, the Tax-Free Business Owner, and then we just recently revamped it, because oftentimes the environment changes, things change, and so he's been leveraging that and our LinkedIn marketing for four years, and we're actually helping him write another book as well, called Hilton Wealth, and now he is at the point where this is great. I've gotten a whole lot of benefit and in fact, we had an interview with him or you had an interview with him where he was saying he was closing. He had an 80% close ratio.

Speaker 1: 23:20

Yeah, this gets into just the power of a book in and of itself, but from essentially what I would describe as cold leads, he told us, and I believe him.

Speaker 2: 23:32

Yeah, his people track it. Right People track it.

Speaker 1: 23:35

Yes, I know to be fair, I've not done an independent audit, but these are the numbers that he gave me, which is that he's closed. 80% of the people that scheduled with him that showed up on his calendar, which is an amazing track record. And this is with people that are not just your regular mass affluent person, but these are with high net worth and ultra affluent people.

Speaker 2: 23:55

Yeah, absolutely, and so we've seen the power of the book and book plus LinkedIn marketing, and he's been social media marketing and now he's ready to do the next thing. So the next thing we're doing is the guest podcasting and we just recently launched that for him, paul. What are you seeing so far in terms of his results?

Speaker 1: 24:15

Yeah, it's interesting. He's just starting out the gate on it and so far I've watched his first interview that he's done and what I love about it is just, it's all about the book. It's all about the positioning that we did with the book. It's about the tax free business center, the host in this case he has a podcast for real estate investors, which is a perfect audience for Mark, given what he does in terms of advanced tax strategies, and the host was like just asking question after question.

Speaker 1: 24:44

And, of course, what I love about our strategy is that really, in that conversation, you have some of your core strategy, your core, I'd say, talking points, stories, examples but at the end of the day, it's all about hey, you want to learn more, go to my website, get a free copy of my book, feel free to schedule a call website.

Speaker 1: 25:05

Get a free copy of my book, feel free to schedule a call. And so just that bridge from I'm talking to a new audience who is hearing about me for the first time, and you add in that I would say warm referral because of the host and the relationship that they have with the audience. And then, if you're compelling enough which of course he is, and many of our clients are. You have this clear bridge to the next step is go get a free copy of my book and, along the way, schedule a call with me, and it's just a beautiful approach to positioning yourself as authority, building your influence and, ultimately, when the person schedules on your calendar and they're taking the action, it's such a warm prospect because they already see you as the authority and expert.

Speaker 2: 25:47

Yeah, and just a thought that's come to mind too. One of the things that our clients often leverage is the capacity to, at the end of the interview, offer listeners a digital copy of the book or an audio version of the book. We usually help our clients set up both the digital and an audio version of the book. We usually help our clients set up both the digital and an audio version of their book, and so that can be a very high value ethical bribe. People perceive those things as very high value, and so the opportunity to get people on your list, to continue your relationship with them, communications with them. One of the things that we do in the Authority Accelerator is actually help write email content for you to send out to people that are subscribed to your list. And yeah, it's just, it's this interactive engine where all the piece parts come together to just create this amazing sales machine 100%.

Speaker 1: 26:39

So, just in wrapping up, if you're listening to this, if you've gotten this far with this, this is my call to action.

Speaker 1: 26:45

So if you're already a client of ours and you're listening to this and you're interested in the authority accelerator program because you're working on writing your book, or you have written your book and you're ready for the next piece, simply email me at paul at more clients, more funcom, and we can talk about this in more detail. And or if you're an author already but you published your book somewhere else, whether you're self-published or you publish with forbes or another company and you want to. Now you're like hey, I published my book, I need to get more promotion out of this, and you're interested in the strategy of guest podcasting and marketing? Same thing, simply email me at paul at moreclientsmorefuncom. I'm happy to set up a consultation and see how we can work together to take you from what I like to say from author to authority. Any final words on your side, just do it. I like how you took my long-winded sentence and just made it really concise, just do it.

Speaker 1: 27:43

Three words called action Love it. I like how you took my long-winded sentence and just made it really concise. Just do it. Three words called action. I love it.

Speaker 2: 27:48

Thanks for listening, everyone All right Bye for now.