We’re not long back from the brilliant (and inaugural!) Financial Planner Marketing Summit, where we had the opportunity to exhibit our #AdviserStories photographic exhibition.
Our gallery – which told the stories of the surprising ways financial planners spend their free time – took good care of itself in the bar of the fantastic Electric Theatre in Guildford, which gave us time to witness some inspiring presentations.
We heard highly practical tips on how to create inspiring client journeys, build personal brands and come up with content ideas among many other nuggets of gold, such as these:
Michelle Daniels, from Extended Thinking, told us a personal brand is “about your underpinning message and point of difference…knowing the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ you’re communicating will help.”
Michelle Daniels 
Michelle Hoskin
Michelle Hoskin, from Standards International, challenged the audience by saying they were likely to be designing client journeys “but you have no idea what it’s like to be a client….this is how you design a client journey: you design it and write it as a client.”
And Michael Taggart, of Foco, who worked with us on our “Why I…” series project spoke about the crucial elements to a good story: a protagonist, an “inciting moment”, a problem or struggle and a character arc. “If you want to provoke decision-making, you have to spark emotions and if you want to spark emotions, you do that with stories,” he said.
Michael Taggart 
Conference organiser Martin Bamford, of Bamford Media, had kicked off by telling us that financial planning was not a well-trusted profession and, together, the presentations were a blueprint for how to build trust with clients.
So thanks, Martin, for a brilliant event that we’re sure will soon become a fixture on the financial planning conference scene. And if you didn’t go this year, we’d strongly recommend getting tickets for the 2020 event!
This article was written with the help of our friends at Foco 💜