As the world becomes increasingly digital, the barrier to get one’s ideas out and in front of others becomes lower and lower. In the financial sector, in particular, this has led to an open floodgate of financial tips and advice. Many financial advisors have found that sharing their own expertise and marketing their intellectual property are great ways to establish themselves as dependable, trustworthy sources. But with so much content available and from so many sources, it can be challenging for advisors to decide how to start their own process of sharing information and what to share with their target audience.

In our 95^th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss why advisors may be their own worst enemy when it comes to content creation, why having a system to notice and track ideas is more important than choosing only the best ideas to share, and how commitment (and a good systematic process) may actually be the key to creating good content consistently.

When it comes to creating content, advisors often face mental roadblocks that keep them from making progress. Examples including expert’s curse (i.e., underestimating how much knowledge and expertise one actually has), familiarity bias (i.e., overestimating the extent that certain topics are understood), and imposter’s syndrome (i.e., experiencing a lack of confidence despite the years of training and work) are all commonly experienced obstacles skewing the judgment that many advisors have about their own ideas and expertise, often leaving them feeling that their (really good) ideas are not unique or interesting enough.

However, the best way to overcome these roadblocks is often to focus less on the critical process of choosing only the best ideas to share, and instead to focus more on developing a consistent process to capture, store, and organize all ideas – even if those ideas consist of just simple phrases or sentences. Because when it comes to content creation, the more important goal is not so much about finding ‘good’ ideas to share (as advisors have plenty of those, even though they may not always acknowledge that they do), but more about creating habits to help them develop their style and confidence, and to engage with their audience on a consistent basis. Which means that having a reliable system to record their ideas to serve as an ‘intellectual property flywheel’ can serve as a valuable source for potential content for whatever the advisor’s preferred content strategy is – whether it be to release a weekly blog post, monthly podcast, book, or something else entirely.

Ultimately, the key point for advisors to create good content is more about developing a sensible process to capture, store, and organize their ideas… and then having the courage to create sharable content based on those ideas regardless of whether they think the ideas are good enough! As the advisor who commits themselves to create again and again will find that their creativity, digital voice, and audience will grow and improve with time. Taking the first step to establish a process that allows advisors to systematically capture all of their ideas, though, is what opens the door for them to eventually make their best, most creative work!

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For many financial advisors, the most valuable part of what they offer comes down to the financial advice that they give, whether it be the expert guidance they give to a certain niche or a unique point of view that presents unique insights to an individual client. However, the advice given to clients is not always the only useful offering provided, as the process through which financial advisors deliver their advice can also be an important part of their value proposition. As while most financial planning advice may ultimately be modeled on similar principles, the process by which a client's situation is analyzed and how the advice is delivered can be vastly different depending on the advisor’s particular areas of expertise, niche, firm size, standards of conduct, and other differentiating factors.

In our 94th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss how an advisor’s process can be considered a form of intellectual property, and how advisors can market themselves not only as providers of client-specific financial advice, but also as developers of systematic and effective processes used to deliver their advice.

Marketing a service process as intellectual property can be of great value to an advisor – not just as a business venture itself, but also as a way to articulate a firm’s ethos and brand, and even as a channel for the advisor’s own personal development. While creating blogs, books, podcasts, and other types of creative work can be instrumental in publicly affirming the brand identity of what an advisor is creating, it can even help the advisor grow personally and professionally. Clarifying and formalizing what their process is can help generate leads that are drawn to the unique aspects of the advisor’s process, and thinking through best practices and the reasons for implementation can encourage advisors to understand and articulate their most important personal priorities, helping them to identify their own career goals and trajectories.

Importantly, creating a marketable financial planning process can be intensely time-consuming work and can require substantial creative energy, which means that consistency and perseverance will be key to (eventually!) developing a valuable offering for consumers. In the end, though, advisors who commit to a regular schedule to create their intellectual property offering – regardless of what form it takes – will more likely be successful in creating a relevant and functional tool, and at the same time may come away with a deeper understanding of their own character and values!

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