Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 402nd episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today's podcast is John Mason. John is the President of Mason & Associates, an RIA based in Newport News, Virginia, that oversees $370 million in assets under management for approximately 390 client households.
What's unique about John, though, is how joining a firm that served the niche of Federal government employees allowed him to quickly accelerate his own learning curve and demonstrate his expertise early in his career as a 20-something, ultimately enabling John to more quickly begin bringing in his own clients (which also came about faster because he was able to plug his newfound focused expertise into the firm's existing marketing strategies).
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how John and his entire firm serves the Federal employee niche, with a particular focus on the areas that make their clients' situations different from others, such as the Federal government's unique retirement system that includes both defined-benefit pension and defined-contribution plans, how John finds that specializing has allowed him to serve them with greater efficiency because he doesn't have to 're-learn' the ins and outs of each client's unique employment and retirement benefits (which in turn provides more time and capacity to forge deeper connections with clients as well), and how John was able to build credibility with clients as a very young advisor early in his career by demonstrating his deep knowledge of the particular financial planning issues faced by the Federal employees that made up his firm's client base.
We also talk about how John's firm's marketing specifically emphasizes how Federal employees are unique (and thus why his firm is better suited than more generalist advisors to meet these clients' planning needs), how John's firm long used a radio show to demonstrate their expertise and encourage prospects to attend an in-person seminar put on by his firm, with about half of seminar attendees eventually scheduling individual introductory meetings to become clients, and how John evolved the approach to now attracts clients through a podcast targeted at Federal employees, which similarly both educates listeners… and also directly highlights how his firm does its work with Federal employee clients.
And be certain to listen to the end, where John shares how transitioning his firm from a broker-dealer platform to the RIA model has allowed it to generate more revenue per client while still bringing down the all-in fee costs for clients (thanks in large part to the lower platform fees paid as an RIA), how John handled the challenge of letting go of unprofitable clients during this transition, including by calling each one personally and trying to find those not-a-good-fit-anymore clients a new home with other advisors who would be a better fit, and why John thinks fee-only advisors sometimes underrate the importance of insurance planning, which he believes is a way for advisors to make a life-changing difference in their clients' lives.
So, whether you're interested in learning about how serving a niche can help a newer advisor gain credibility with clients, using a podcast to generate new client leads, or how to profitably transition from a broker-dealer platform to the RIA model, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with John Mason.
