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The BLX Internship Program is connecting advisors with candidates from diverse backgrounds. 

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The Great Escape 💰

Imagine being trapped in a steel fortress with no way out.

That was one man's overnight ordeal in a New York City jewelry vault last week. 

He became trapped when trying to access his safety deposit box, and authorities were left puzzled when they couldn’t get the vault to open back up.

After a 10-hour struggle that left them fighting with a large steel plate, the firefighters took a break.

Thankfully, an automated timer caused the doors to open on their own around 7AM the following morning.

Let’s just call it ‘The Great Escape.’

Jeremiah “Feeling Claustrophobic” Desmarais

CEO, Advisorist

In Today’s Issue 👇️ 

• Are 401k contributions about to take a hit?

• Simple tricks to create more magnetic content

• Unlikely secret to outearning most advisors

Plus, the latest headlines and feel-good stories to kick your week off right.

Let’s dig in!

🤔 Are Retirement Contributions About to Take a Big Hit?

It’s possible that a decent chunk of your clients could stop making contributions to their retirement accounts over the next few weeks.

I’ll tell you why that is in a moment, but first…

Did you know the share of U.S. borrowers who have fallen behind on their car loans hit a nearly 30-year high this past month?

According to the latest data, 6.1% of Americans with subprime car loans are now 60+ days behind on their payments.

That’s the highest mark since the mid-1990s.

🔥 The Repo Business is Hot

The sudden surge in late car payments shouldn’t really come as a surprise for anyone who can read between the lines.

Pandemic savings + stimulus checks + overpriced vehicles = T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Vehicle repossessions are up more than 20% from earlier this year.

👇 What This Means for Your Clients

It’s easy to look at the uptick in late car payments and think, not my problem! 

But maybe it is?

If you zoom out and look at the bigger picture, you’ll notice that Americans are tightening their budgets.

And when people tighten their budgets, they start by cutting expenses that cause them the least amount of pain.

So before they get rid of the brand new family car or cancel vacation plans to Disney, they’re going to cut things they don’t feel as much…

…like that $700/mo 401(k) contribution.

Yep, here’s my prediction: Clients are about to start slashing their retirement contributions in an effort to shore up their short-term cash flow.

🤔 What’s an Advisor to Do?

My suggestion is to get ahead of this.

If you aren’t regularly reiterating the importance of staying the course and dollar-cost averaging – you know, the “boring” stuff – they’re going to take matters into their own hands.

I’d encourage you to schedule short 20-minute 1-on-1 sit downs with all of your financial planning clients over the next 60 days.

Talk through their current cash flow situation and help them look for areas to cut back that don’t involve their retirement investments.

Here’s a short text message to send out:

How to Increase Leads by Up to 11X

There are hundreds of marketing tasks you could do, but only a few that will drive real results.

So where do you start?

Just ask Snappy Kraken CEO Robert Sofia.

He and his team are building and launching marketing campaigns for thousands of advisors every single month.

Which means they get to see ALL the data.

And they’ve used this data to build a near-perfect “marketing model” for advisors that Robert is calling “The Advisor Growth Flywheel.”

Jeremiah Desmarais is sitting down with Robert on November 7th at 2pm ET/11am PT where he’s going to tell all.

👉️ Click here to register and discover how Individual advisors are seeing numbers as high as an 11x increase in leads generated per month!

Headline Roundup

🏠 Affecting Your Clients

• Most Middle-Income Americans Still Earning Less Than 3% on Savings [CNBC]

• Biden Admin to Crack Down on ‘Junk Fees’ in Retirement Plans [RTRS]

• Credit Scores Hit All-Time High, Despite Mounting Household Debt [CNBC]

📈 Markets & Economy

• Municipal Bonds Offering ‘Fantastic’ Yields in High-Tax States [MW]

• Treasury Dept Announces New 5.27% Series I Bond Rate [CNBC]

• Gold Futures Settle at Highest Rate Since End of July [MW]

💼 Industry Roundup

• Health Insurance Open Enrollment Period Starts Today [HG]

• ​​Nationwide is Embracing the Revolution of Generative AI [NW]

• Southeast Headlines Cheapest States for Life Insurance [BP]

#️⃣ How to Use Numbers to Create More Magnetic Lead Content

Most advisors are pretty good with numbers…

It sort of comes with the territory.

But even “non-math” brains have a psychological bent toward seeing numbers.

This is why numbers are used so often in email subject lines and blog headlines.

When a reader sees a number in a sea of letters, the brain involuntarily zooms in and says, “This must be important…let’s focus.”

It’s why the title The 14 Biggest Retirement Planning Myths is much more appealing than a similar post titled The Biggest Retirement Planning Myths.

While adding numbers to your email headlines, LinkedInPosts, and other content will instantly help you attract more eyeballs…

I want to give you some next-level digital marketing hacks from my copywriting vault:

1. Odd numbers tend to work better than even numbers, because they seem less contrived and more believable. (e.g. Try giving away 17 tips in an article rather than 20.)

2. Research shows just 5% of top-performing content has the number 2 in the headline. This makes it the WORST number to use.

3. Always use the numeral and never the word. (Your high school English teacher won’t like this piece of advice…but we’re writing conversion copy – not a 9th grade book report 😆)

If you want to get really technical, you can always split test the same email and simply change the number in the subject line. 

If you do run a test like this, hit “reply” and let me know what sort of results you get!

Sponsored

🤯 Advisors Who Do This are 35% More Likely to Outearn the Industry Average

This McKinsey report might reveal the best-kept secret to growing your financial planning practice…

…and it’s probably NOT what you’re thinking.

It doesn’t have anything to do with your certifications, the college you graduated from, or your IMO, FMO, or broker dealer.

Instead, it’s about the makeup of your team.

According to the study, companies with ethnic and racial diversity on their teams are 35% more likely to have above average revenue and profitability.

Yet, for some reason, our industry has been one of the slowest to diversify the demographics of our profession. 

As an advisor or financial planner, you’re probably asking where do you even find candidates from diverse backgrounds?

Well, fortunately for you there’s the BLX Internship Program.

This program has done the networking and relationship-building for you and will provide a pool of diverse candidates for your firm to consider for summer internships. 

All you have to do is apply to the program to get access.

Advisors who’ve done it in the past say it’s one of the best things they did for their businesses.

“This was the first intern I hired on the financial planning side of my business,” said Deborah Meyer of WorthyNest. “I liked having ideas for projects that my intern could work on. I felt supported throughout the program.”

Applications to participate for the next summer are now open. 

👉Click to learn more and apply!

✌️Good Vibes

There was a groundbreaking move this week that promises financial relief for nearly 3,000 Morehouse College graduates.

The National Union for Debtors announced they’re erasing $10 million of student debt.

The Debt Collective has spent the last few weeks notifying graduates that their student loan balances have been obliterated, no strings attached.

The new mission is to extend this initiative to help students at other institutions and hopes for increased federal government support to alleviate the student debt crisis.  🎓💰🤝

Sharing looks good on you.

When you copy that link at the bottom and share it with a few financial planning colleagues, you look like the smartest advisor in the room by keeping them informed.

Plus, you earn rewards. Sweet.