Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Olivia Luper, Founder of Lexicon Advisor Marketing

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Olivia Luper founded Lexicon Advisor Marketing in 2018 with the desire to assist financial advisors grow their businesses by disseminating well-written, compelling content backed by the systems needed to generate new business online.She graduated from Florida Atlantic University in 2016 with her Master of Arts in English, where she concentrated on American Modern and Postmodern Literature. Her favorite books are LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov and THE CRYING OF LOT 49 by Thomas Pynchon. She is also an aspiring memoirist and published poet. She began writing website content in 2013 while finishing her undergraduate studies.Olivia lives in South Florida with her three exceptional children–Nola, Shiloh, and Roman. Olivia enjoys IFBB Professional bodybuilding, growing as an entrepreneur, and spending time at the beach with her family. She is also a huge foodie and loves trying out new local restaurants!Learn more: http://lexiconadvisormarketing.com/interview-with-olivia-luper-founder-of-lexicon-advisor-marketingInfluential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Influential Entrepreneurs is sponsored by Marketing Huddle, where we build an authority positioning portfolio that sells for you so that you, don't have to. This unique approach gives credibility and trust and easily attracts prospects as clients using podcast and TV interviews and guaranteed press coverage. For more information, go to Mike Saunders 360.com. Today we have with us, Olivia Looper, who's the founder of Lexicon

Advisor Marketing. Olivia, welcome to the program. Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat today. Yeah, me too. And I love talking with people that know their stuff and we share the same likes in the marketing world. So I'm excited to learn what you do and how you do it because I know that you keep your finger to the pulse of what's working in the industry. But before we dive into all that, give us a little bit of your story and background. And how did you get into the industry working with advisors, helping them with their marketing? Yeah.

So I actually do not have a finance background, which some people find interesting. I have a master of arts in English literature. So I'm a writer at heart. I got into the financial services industry as a writer doing freelance work for financial advisors, blogs, emails, social media. And then I found that my clients were not really optimizing the use or leveraging the content we were producing to the full extent. And when I would advise them on it, they sort of just said, well, Alidia, can't you just

kind of do it for us? And so my writing offering evolved into a content market. offering. And then I found that my clients were looking for some more lead gen. And so we added that in and we have developed into a fully outsourced marketing department for financial advisory firms. Most of our clients are at the $1 million in annual revenue mark. We find that that's a good fit for our service. Neat. And I keyed in on a phrase. I want to get your opinion on this. I say this so many times. Hey, back in the day, content marketing was all the rage. You know, back when marketing was push, push, push, sell, sell deadline. Content marketing was the

newfangled thing. And my opinion is content marketing no longer is anything new and fresh because content marketing should just be part of a good marketing strategy. You don't need to call it content marketing. You just need to have a good educational teaching strategy and call it content if you want, but it's just a good marketing. Have you noticed that in the industry as well? Yeah, I definitely have. When I started in 2018, you know, you saw everywhere. Content is king. Produce, produce, produce. And I think that for financial advisors in particular, it was because so many people were not buying into what you could really do on digital. And so the narrative then was, be visible, get on these different platforms where people are spending their time, produce educational

content to share with people. And so that was sort of the narrative. Everybody got the message and got on and now everything is super saturated. So the approach is much different. So now what we have to do is work on, you know, being noticeable, making impact, making sure that the things we're providing are high value, not just being everywhere all the time all at once, but showing up and meaningful ways that speak to the people we want to work with in order to gain their trust and attention. And then, and I think that's really where the content, you know, comes into play. Yeah. For the most part is in that top, those top of funnel activities where you're building brand awareness,

getting people to, you know, I always say, you know, step one is building brand awareness. If no one knows about you, they can't decide if they need want, like, or want to work with you. I think content marketing started off as go, go, go, go, go. You know, like content is can just go. And then now it's kind of refined to what you just said, which is you better know your target audience. You better know the pain points and the solutions you provide so that the educational content you provide really resonates with them. So it takes research. It takes learning your target audience.

And I use the word visibility a lot. That's huge. But I layer in the fact that you need to be credible. in that visibility because if people see you as not trustworthy, it doesn't matter how good your content is. So what are some of the main concerns that financial advisors have that you work with? When they come to you, what are some of the pain points that they're having? Well, mostly what I see in financial advisor marketing is that they've attempted to do something and they're probably doing it moderatively well, but they have gaps in their overall systems.

So maybe they're really great at podcasting, but they're not leveraging that podcast to use it as a funnel for new leads. They're not leveraging it to create content to share in other areas. They're not emailing their lists about new episodes. So there are gaps that they have that are keeping the efforts that they're putting in from yielding any type of measurable or predictable result. And one thing that you said that stuck out to me about credibility is that I get a lot of questions these days about search engine optimization and organic visibility and how that's changing with the rise of artificial intelligence and what we call like answer engine optimization or generative engine optimization. And they want to know what do I do to get found or brought up in AI search? And the answer is, a large part of the answer is building credibility behind your name and your brand so that when the search goes to the internet, they want to, I mean, their goal as a platform is to give you the best experience. So they're going to use, you know, was he featured in Forbes or a third party publications?

Does he have any awards to his name? Does he have Google reviews? and all of those contribute that credibility piece online to being found in AI search. You know, I think if you think you figured it out and then sit back and go, yep, we figured it out, you're going to get, you know, lapped 10 times over in about a month and a half, it seems like, with as fast as how technology online changes, chat GPT came online and then boom, now it's just morphed. So what you said is just spectacular because I think that, um,

Many people these days are not Googling best financial advisor in my town. They're not doing that because they know all they're going to see is ads. They're Googling around like using the AI terms to go, ooh, financial planners near me and then they want to see what do they got to say. And I think you said something really powerful to all surrounding the word consistency. You can't just do one thing and go, good to go. You've got to do these content, teaching, educational marketing things. consistently and you've got to see what you have going on in your business to layer in that

consistency because like you said with, you know, oh, hey, I got featured on this or that or the other, but you didn't really get it integrated in with your outreach to your current clients, to your prospects. And so I think that that becomes a huge opportunity, which is the kind word of saying, you're making a mistake by not doing this. But the opportunity is, let's just, you already, you know, the trains left the station. All you got to do is just, you know, add this to your monthly client communication. Oh, well, yeah, I can do that.

So how many times do you see your clients that come to you that say, oh, yeah, we keep a touch with their clients every month? And then when you dig in, it's like maybe quarterly at best. Actually, most of them are pretty honest about saying, we are not really doing much of anything, or we send things when something timely comes out. And, you know, I would say that most of them are kind of aware of their discrepancies. But then when I give my suggestion on how often they should be talking to their different lists, there is a little bit of pushback, right? So they are concerned about going from zero to hero, you know. And so what we do in that case is say, you know, okay, well, let's run a re-endip. engagement set of emails and let your client-based know, let your audience know, hey, we're making

some changes. We want to improve communication and we want to stay in touch so you can expect X, Y, and Z from us going forward, and just prime people for the change. And then when you are, you know, showing up, make sure that it's super personalized to who you are, your firm, your brand. And what I find is that, you know, clients and prospects alike really enjoy it once they start getting it. And so we get a lot of compliments from the work that we do. And so I think it's just a matter of, you know, prime your audience for the change and then they'll be, you know, more willing to

buy in. And you won't have to worry about annoying that. And I think that one of the things you brought up earlier, something I've seen over the years done for you is just where it's at. The advisor, the client that talks to you, they know logically, yeah, I need to do this. And don't tell me how I need to do it because it's not going to get done. That's why I'm talking to you right now. Right. So, you know, they don't need a course on how to create good content. They just want to know, yes, I need good content created. I need it communicated to my outbound, you know, prospects that aren't clients. I need it communicated to my current clients to remind them why they chose me. And so all of that done for you just really brings it to life. And then, of course,

the, you know, your client, the main advisor is going, hey, I want to just see the whole plan. I want to see the content where it goes out, that's wonderful, but then they walk away with that quick update knowing that you and your team is going to execute for them. Absolutely. So that's sort of why the business evolved as it did, because I found that the advisors I was helping really didn't have the time to dedicate to it. And when, you know, there is an advisor who is built to work with a coach, a marketing coach, and that's fine.

I mean, everything is a function of time and money, right? Either you have less money and therefore you're going to have to use more of your time or you have enough resources to save yourself that time. And so we have the Dunfer You model specifically for that advisor who has, you know, maybe a few advisors at the firm. He's built his business to a place where he knows what his best offers are and what works and what doesn't. He's refined his tech stack or is in the process of doing so,

getting the right people in the right roles within his firm, and now he's ready, he or she is ready to scale. So what we need to do as our, as their partner, is come in and not only decide how to market them, but decide what their main marketability points are, right? Like, what is it that makes you marketable? And this is something that knew that we've implemented over the past couple of years as the business has evolved. And it's really made a difference in something that you spoke to earlier and really honing in on, you better understand your target audience.

and you better understand what it is that speaks to them because everything is so saturated. You need to show up in meaningful ways, not just showing up to show up. Now, speaking of target audience, what do you advise your clients on from a marketing perspective on having a as close as possible specific niche? You know, because I feel like there are some advisors that go, I help you plan for retirement. And I'll help anyone who is over the age of X. Well, that's very broad. So what if it was like, oh, I help female entrepreneurs that own a health care agency?

Oh, well, now that's really specific. Where do you guide the conversation in really finding that targeted audience? Well, it's interesting that you ask me that. So because most of my clients are pretty established, they either are doing it or they're not. And sometimes they're doing too many. So we have a kind of subset of different problems. Either it's too vague and we need to hone in on who the person is more specifically that we want to talk to, or they have a good idea, but they're just not psychologically hitting on those catalysts that would actually get that person to take action. So that's where we have a discrepancy. Other times we encounter firms maybe where one advisor is leading a specialized group, in which case it almost becomes like marketing. Let's say they have four advisors. who have four areas of specialty.

It's almost like marketing for sub-companies under the middle umbrella of the company. So I have to advise them on, you know, we need a lead generation tool for this group. And what you say to this group is not the same thing you say to this group. And it makes sense on the surface. But when you go to implement, if you're trying to do it on your own, it can become very convoluted, very fast. And I say it's like, you know, marketing can be depth by a thousand cuts. There are a tiny, 100 million tiny different.

different things that you can miss and just missing a few of them can make a huge difference and your return on your investment, whether that's time or money investment. 100%. And I think that if you just, you know, like stand on your front porch with a megaphone going, come see me because I can help. That's, that is almost feels like how many people in any industry market. But that example you gave it where it's like, hey, four different people in four different niches, boy, when they can get the vision of what you can do and they can go, look, bring it to us, handle it, implement it. That's exactly what we need because we don't have the time to do it.

Well, now you guys can research that target audience and find those keywords, buzzwords that really resonate with them and then craft up that marketing to deliver what those people, you know, those pain points that those target audiences have. I think that is spectacular when you start seeing the results come in there. Now all of a sudden, that adds to the. the advisor's credibility. Right. Because they know that you understand them.

Yeah. So I think it's, you know, part merging the language and the way that the target audience speaks with the language and the way that the advisor speaks so that you're capturing the advisor's voice, but you're speaking to the pain points, the future goals, the positive outcomes that that target audience is looking for. And we highlight what that the advisor can provide that. Yeah, 100%. So what have you found that are like the main non-negotiables when it comes to building a marketing plan to get business online? I feel like a lot of advisors these days go, yeah, yeah, yeah, we get business by referral.

That's wonderful. But these days, you've got to make sure that you've got that online drip coming in. So where do you start there? Right. So just quickly before I get into the first question you ask is, just in terms of referral, I think I have this conversation. I do quarterly KPI calls with every one of my clients. If they're running advertising, we meet more frequently, obviously because there's a lot more money going out the door. We need to make sure we're optimizing it. But if someone's on an organic only plan, for example, or doing a very small amount of ads been, we meet them quarterly. And I feel like I have this conversation multiple times with, you know, multiple advisors in that if you think that the referrals that your friends are giving, you know, your client's

clients are giving their friends or not going online and researching you before they call, then you are delusional. Everything that you're doing contributes to everything that you're doing. In other words, if you have, let's say your clients, you know, you're still, you're running a marketing plan, but yes, okay, referrals might still account for 40% of your leads or 50% of your leads. And that's great. What that means is that, one, your clients love you and want other people to experience what

they're experiencing, but two, also that you are there and present online, that people are liking what they're finding, and they're making the decision to call you. There is research that goes in for a referral before that call is made 90% of the time. So then, you know, when we're talking about the non-negotiable to generate business online, one we touched on, which is building brand awareness. If no one knows about you, they can't work with you. The second one, especially for financial services, which is not an overnight quick sell, is a longer sales process because you're selling a long-term relationship, then the second step is generating leads or gathering lead information. So how are we going, how are you going to collect this person information?

Are we going to offer them a video, access to a video in exchange for their email address? Are we going to offer them a guide or a checklist, ask them to join our email list, invite them to a webinar. Somehow we want to get their email address and in other industries, I would say, to their phone number so that we can nurture them, which is step three, into becoming clients through email, or at least to the very least, signing up for a discovery call. So building brand awareness, so getting people's eyeballs on the brand, having some type of offer that they can opt into so that on the back end, you can stay in touch with them and you know, show them that it's worth having a conversation with you to discuss all of these

problems that you solve for. 100%. Yeah, if you fill those three effectively and everything is integrated well, you can predictably, you know, scale your business online. You know, I think referrals are just key. And I think too many times back in the day, you know, air quotes, you know, whenever that was, you know, the 90s, it's like, oh, get those referrals because you don't have to work is hard. I feel like today there is a level of skepticism that even if you're referred to someone,

it's not a lay down sale. You're not going to call up the advisor and go, Betty from the gym said to call you. So here's all of my forms. Here's all of my statements. Please tell me, oh, you're ACH so I can transfer. It just doesn't happen. So they do all of these due diligence, check you out, you know, make sure of everything. So talk a little bit about what you recommend for follow-up. You touched on, you know, like text or SMS, but also do you have your advisors when you're setting up these funnels? Are there prospects wanting to download their item that's helpful, educational? But are you gathering to follow up with text, with a voicemail, with email, with snail mail as well? How does that look? Right. So for most of my clients, there's sort of the

stage getting them to the discovery call. And then the second stage, once they've had their discovery call near a prospect, but they haven't signed up yet. That's a whole different set of nurture. So the first set of nurture, let's say they come to your website where you, I always say there should be at least four calls to action. The Holy Grail schedule a call. Some people who still use a contact us for them, that's fine. No, some people still feel comfortable using that, but I wouldn't, you know, hang your hat on it as a way to generate leads. Some sort of downloadable opt-in option. Maybe it's a webinar that they would get exclusive access to something where they would, or guide, download lead magnet of some sort, and then adjoin the email list. So those would be the four minimum CTAs I would have or calls to action I would have on a website to generate lead information.

Once you've gotten that, I think that whatever your follow-up nurtures should be in specific reaction to how they engaged with your firm. So if they filled out the contact us form, they should get an email that says, thank you for filling out our contact us form and letting them know what the next steps are. And then maybe they continue on in a welcome sequence and start to receive the firm's other email correspondence. If they downloaded a specific guide, the email sequence that they get after that should be specific to the guide that they downloaded. If it's for widows, you know, that should be widowhood content. If it's for business owners, it should be business related, you know, content. And so you definitely want to make sure that your nurture is specific to the way that the person came into contact with you. Now, you might reuse some of that information in your different email sequences, but the way it's presented, you want to personalize that experience for them.

Some advisors do use text message. It just depends on what your compliance setup is and how much, you know, front-in work you want to do to get that set up. If they are open to using it as a capability, it can lead to some good conversions. And I will say that text is really great for getting people to actually show up. Because there's a book rate, right? And then there's a show up rate, especially if you're running advertising. You know, you're going to be looking at how many people are booking from this ad set and how many people are actually showing up from this ad set.

So that's a whole other set of nurture that text can be really helpful. hopeful for. And then once they have their discovery call, your nurture is different, right? It's not, hey, come schedule a call. These are the things that we help people with. This is a good place, when I'd call like a hot prospect follow-up email sequence where first after the meeting, the advisor should send a personalized outreach to the specific to the meeting that they had. If this is someone who's qualified to work with them and they, you know, going over the things they discussed, highlighting the pain points that that client brought up, highlighting some of the ways that they could help the person over, you know, help them overcome their objections with a personal email. Then they would be put, you know, you could use a set of templated emails or put them in a drip campaign in your email platform.

This is a really great place to share case studies and testimonials. So letting people see themselves in your solution, showing them examples of people. like them that you have helped with similar problems. And so, you know, that's a great place to use testimonials. And you're, I mean, I like using them in all of the marketing, but specifically in that set of nurture. And then after a while, you know, if you, if the person is unresponsive, then maybe just putting them back into, you know, getting a certain set of the emails that you send out, depending what your kind of cadence looks like. you know, if all of that was done, as I was listening to you say at this stage and then the nurture stage and then the hot prospect stage, if all of that was done and an advisor knew that they had it set up for them hands free and reviewed all the messages at a time to know that, okay, it sounds good, sounds good. That's just amazing, an amazing feeling to know that all we have to do is drive people to that landing page for them to get that thing, that item of value.

and then all of that is happening driving to set up a discovery intro type call. So that is spectacular. I just love what you guys are doing for the advisors because advisors are human, just like anyone else and they're busy. And they didn't go to, you know, get an MBA in marketing to know how to do all of this stuff. And even if they did, their time would be better served meeting with their clients and their prospect. So it's just really amazing what you guys have put together, Olivia, if someone is interested

in reaching out and connecting with you and learning more, What's the best way that they can do that? So I'm really active on LinkedIn. So you can just search my name, Olivia Looper, and I have a lot of my links there in my profile. But our website is also lexiconadvisormarketing.com, and you can schedule a call through there. Check out some of our resources. But LinkedIn is where I'm most active. Perfect.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you. Thank you. I enjoyed it. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.

www. influential entrepreneursradio.com.