Summary:
Many financial advisors invest significant time and resources into hosting client events, yet walk away disappointed by low attendance, minimal engagement, and few—if any—referrals. According to Mark Mersman, the core issue isn’t a lack of effort or expertise, but a fundamental misunderstanding of why clients attend events in the first place. Too often, advisors design gatherings around information rather than experience, defaulting to familiar seminar formats with slides, structured presentations, and subtle sales messaging. While these events may be educational, they rarely inspire enthusiasm, participation, or pride—the very ingredients required for meaningful client advocacy.
At the heart of this episode is a simple but powerful reframe: client events are not primarily about education; they are about connection. Clients don’t attend because they want another presentation they’ve likely heard before. They attend because they want to feel valued, included, and engaged in something worth their time. When events feel like a sales setup or an overly formal pitch, guests—especially prospective ones—tend to arrive guarded and skeptical, if they arrive at all. Even worse, a poor experience can eliminate any desire to attend future events.
To address this, Mark encourages advisors to think like experience designers, borrowing from the principles outlined in The Experience Economy. Experience, at its core, is time well designed. A truly effective client event intentionally activates four elements: education, entertainment, aesthetics, and escapism. When all four are present, the result is not just an enjoyable evening, but a moment clients remember, talk about, and want to share.
Education remains an important component, but it doesn’t have to be strictly financial. The goal is for attendees to walk away feeling they learned something useful or meaningful, whether that’s a financial concept, a life lesson, or a perspective they hadn’t considered before.
Entertainment complements this by keeping the energy engaging and enjoyable. For advisors who aren’t naturally entertaining speakers, this can take many forms, from interactive formats to outside elements that add interest without forcing the advisor into an uncomfortable role.
Aesthetics play a surprisingly powerful role in shaping perception. The environment, venue, lighting, ambiance, and physical beauty of a space all influence how the event feels. Sometimes the right venue does the work for you; other times, thoughtful staging elevates an ordinary space into something memorable. Clients may not consciously articulate why an event felt special, but the atmosphere leaves a lasting impression nonetheless.
Perhaps the most impactful element is escapism. When done well, an event provides a temporary break from daily routines, work stress, or personal challenges. Even a brief escape can leave clients feeling refreshed and grateful, which directly influences how they talk about the experience afterward. People don’t remember slide decks—they remember how something made them feel.
This emotional component ties directly to referrals. Clients don’t refer advisors because of performance statistics or technical expertise; those are assumed. They refer when they feel proud introducing their advisor into their personal world. That pride is built when the environment feels safe, relaxed, and shareable. One of the most useful litmus tests Mark offers is simple: would your client feel comfortable bringing a friend to this event? If the answer is no, it’s a signaling problem—likely too sales-focused, too formal, or too rigid.
Mark walks through several categories of events that naturally support this referral-friendly environment. Social experiences such as wine tastings, golf outings, cooking classes, and sporting events create low-pressure settings where conversation flows naturally without the need for presentations or slides. In these situations, the advisor’s role shifts from speaker to host, focusing on relationships rather than content delivery.
Interactive educational formats offer another option, particularly when positioned as collaborative rather than instructional. Small group discussions, panel conversations, Q&A sessions, and “ask me anything” formats feel inclusive and conversational. Removing podiums, minimizing slides, and encouraging dialogue helps guests feel involved rather than sold to.
Hybrid events strike a balance between insight and experience. A dinner paired with a brief market perspective, a client appreciation event with a short update, or a lunch-and-learn with a strong social component can be effective—so long as the content stays concise and the experience remains central. The moment an event crosses into sales territory, attendee interest drops, and future invitations lose their appeal.
When advisors do speak, Mark emphasizes the importance of how they frame their message. Rather than highlighting services, advisors should talk about who they help and the types of problems those people face. Sharing client stories—without sensitive details—allows advisors to demonstrate value through real-world challenges rather than feature-based explanations. Conversations, not pitch decks, do the heavy lifting.
Memorable moments are what turn good events into lasting impressions. These can include personalized touches such as handwritten notes, customized keepsakes, or surprise experiential elements placed strategically during the event rather than at the end. Small surprises, whether a gift with dessert or unexpected entertainment, create delight and give attendees something specific to talk about afterward.
Mark also highlights the importance of restraint with branding. Subtle visual cues—menu design, color palettes, or an event name—are more effective than logos everywhere. The focus should always remain on how the event feels, not how prominently the firm is displayed.
Ultimately, advisors should ask themselves what attendees will remember and talk about once the night is over. Sensory details, emotional moments, and thoughtful connections shape that memory more than any prepared remarks. As hosts, advisors should spend less time talking and more time connecting, making introductions, and creating comfort throughout the room.
The closing message is clear: clients refer when they are confident and proud to introduce their advisor. Expertise is expected; experience is what differentiates. Advisors who design events worth sharing give clients a genuine reason to advocate for them—and that advocacy is what drives meaningful, sustainable growth.
Transcript:
Mark Mersman, Chief Marketing Officer at USA Financial - Welcome back to the playbook today. I want to talk about staging the right client events. And I guess to, kind of start, I think we need to really look at the problem with most client events that advisors host. And most of them fail or maybe fall flat because they're designed around information and not necessarily experience. You know, when you think about the traditional model for client events, you know, it's seminar, it's slides, and it's a pitch. And clients are, or prospective clients, especially if the goal of these client events is to get them to bring a friend of theirs to possibly introduce you to the firm. You know, the, the, the problem is, that clients will feel like, or prospective clients will feel like, I've heard this before. There's a sales setup and oftentimes guests will feel guarded or skeptical. And the result is low attendance, no referrals, minimal impact. And perhaps one of the worst things that you can have happen is they do come and have a terrible experience and have no desire to come to another one. And so we really don't want it to feel like a presentation. It won't generate participation if it feels that way. we want to think about, these are not just about education. They're about connection. They're about
Creating an experience and in many cases, you know your client events Education might be expected depending on what the topic is I mean sometimes you're you're mixing in some education with some some social and fun times You know, I would certainly if it's truly a client event. I would try to somehow find a way to integrate a number of different elements and when we think about experience and we learn this from the book the experience economy which was published I think in the late 90s and it still holds true today. You know, if we think about what truly the definition of experience is, that is time well designed. And you really want to maximize the experience for clients. And there's four key elements to try to hit on. If you can capture all four of these in an event, you're going to absolutely hit a home run. You'll get the referrals. You'll have people wanting to come back to future events of yours. And the first is education. Now, typically within our industry, that's fairly easy to accomplish. We want them to learn something. Now, it might not even have to be about finance, but we want them to learn something. And this might be a life takeaway, some sort of life principle that they can apply, but somehow, some way, we want them to feel like, hey, I learned something as a result of going to this event.
The next piece is entertainment. We all want to be entertained. mean, frankly, people, you look at the entertainment industry and people spend thousands and thousands of dollars every year just to entertain themselves. So we know that entertainment somehow, some way needs to be worked in. And this could be just through your presentation style where you're entertaining. If that's not you, if you're not that type of person, then you might have to figure out other ways to create an entertainment value for those attending your events. The next thing is the aesthetics. So we want to, you know, if you're really trying to design an experience, you want to take the atmosphere, the environment, the aesthetics, the physical beauty of where you're hosting the event into play. And this could be you know, you might just pick a venue that is beautiful and therefore the aesthetics are already checked off for you. Sometimes you might need to stage some of the beauty at an event. So think through the aesthetic side of it. And then the last part of it is perhaps the most important part. And this is known as the escape or escapism. The truth of the matter is when you are designing the experience, a big part of what makes it memorable is the fact that you're helping people escape their current world. And whether it's the mundane exercises that they have to go through day in, day out, whether it's the work grind that we're helping them escape from, whether it's maybe personal health issues that people are facing and just getting out and having an experience that helps them just forget about that for a moment. So I want you to think about what is it that you can do to help create an escape for your clients and prospective clients from whatever it is that they may want to or need to escape from, even if it's just for the evening, because frankly, that's a big part of what designing and experience is all about. The thing is, is that they are not attending for the information. Now, if they get some education, of course, it's great. They're attending for that experience. They're showing up for the social interaction. They want that. They crave that. If COVID and being isolated in lockdown taught us anything, it's that we do in fact crave that social interaction and they want to feel valued. And if you're talking about client events, that's a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate to them that they are valued. And the truth is referrals happen when clients feel proud to introduce you. And that doesn't have to mean always you're got great performance in their account. It doesn't have to mean you built the best, most rock solid financial plan because your clients are not going to necessarily talk about those things to their friends and to people that you want them to introduce you to. They're going to talk about how you make them feel and they want to be proud attending an event that you're putting on that's like, my goodness, I want to bring somebody to this event and I want to introduce them because I want to kind of feel proud of, hey, I'm a part of this group. This is the advisor. This is my advisor that is putting this on. and referrals are going to happen when clients are feeling proud and when the environment feels safe for guests, for them to bring guests. So, that should be one of your very first litmus tests on whether or not it's going to be a good bring a friend type of event is would you feel comfortable bringing one of your friends there? Is it going to be that comfortable, safe environment? you know, events really should answer, would I invite a friend to this? That should be one of the things that you strive for. Even if that isn't your goal, if your goal is just a client event and you're not intending on them bringing friends.
You should still look at it through that lens because the goal is if when you do that next type of event that you want them to bring friends, they experienced an environment that is going to make them think I more than welcome any friend to come to this event because I know there's not a pitch. There's a wonderful experience and it's a moment worth sharing. So there's tons of types of events that you can do this with, right? Social events are easy, wine tasting, golf outings, dinner experiences, sporting events, cooking classes. I will tell you that, you know, doing a cooking class where people are getting their hands dirty and getting their hand, they're involved in that process, something like that, it's a ton of fun. It's an experience, it's memorable, it's something that will be very much shareable. You know, they work, this sort of thing works because it's low pressure. There's natural conversation that comes from it. And these types of things are very easy for clients to invite guests to. You don't need a presentation. I would tell you for this type of client event to ditch the slides, no presentation required. I mean, if you wanted to chat for a few minutes, absolutely, you can pull that off. the goal of it is not necessarily for you to give that slideshow presentation. You're the host, not necessarily the speaker. And we're going to focus on relationships and not content. That's what these social events are about. And then you can do the educational and interactive events. This could be small group round tables, Q and A style discussions, panel discussions, ask me anything type of sessions. These work because they feel much more collaborative and not just one directional. And clients and their guests can kind of engage a little more naturally rather than it being you know, a true seminar type of type of play. and the, there's no podium, there's no slide. Make that, you know, if you ditch the podium, you're going to make it feel much more inclusive when you do that sort of an event. next one is, kind of a hybrid event where you you're mixing in an experience with light insight. So this could be dinner and a short talk.
A client appreciation events with maybe a quick little market update. A state of the market with a social component. Some lunch and learn type of things where you're going to give a short presentation on a topic, but you're also going to make it a little bit social and fun. You're balancing, and this is key, you got to have the right balance between value and experience. And you're keeping that positioning without feeling salesy. The second you start, making it salesy, all of a sudden the guard's gonna go up and then you're gonna lose interest in future events. We talked a bit about the kind of that test, would your client feel comfortable bringing a friend? If the answer is no, it's too sales focused, it's too technical, it's too formal. If it's yes, then you've created the right referral environment. Now,
Obviously the goal of these, especially if you're going to have prospective clients there, you want to be able to at least share a little bit about yourself and what you do without pitching. And the thing that you have to remember is that you don't, you're not selling here. Your presence and conversations are going to do the work. And especially if you have team there with you, that can kind of be a part of your overall presence. I would replace presentations with conversations, share stories instead of stats, kind of that key, key piece there and let your clients advocate for you naturally. if you are going to stand up and give a short little introduction in terms of who you are, what you do, would avoid touching on your services, at least, you know, not along the lines of, me tell you about our services and what you need to position that as is most people we work with are trying to solve this problem or in this part of their life or phase of their life. Or if you have a certain niche that you're representing, you are speaking about who you help rather than the services you provide. One simple way that you could demonstrate services is just to kind of bring that who together with what and you know, we recently helped such and such a client with walking through this sort of a challenge. Now you're demonstrating a service, but you're demonstrating it through the lens of a challenge or a problem that the group that you serve was facing. So it helps to stage things a little bit differently and feel much less salesy when you are giving that short presentation.
Now let's talk about probably the most important part because if we are creating experiences at client events, we need to have memorable moments and the memorable moments are the types of things that will get your clients and most importantly, the people that they introduce remembering that event and sharing that event and keeping you top of mind. And there's a number of ways that you can do this, you know, from experiential type of things, you know, whether you have a photo booth, you know, something that might be themed a little bit, you know, you could have instant prints. You've seen those at certain events where they've got kind of a little keepsake and a takeaway or a custom frame with your branding that's subtle, but not salesy. You've seen events with roaming photographers that that tends to work well as long as there's at least kind of the right type of venue and forum for that type of setup. You could even go around and do some fun little interviews. know, nowadays you've got little Bluetooth microphones. You go around and ask some fun questions. Things like, you know, questions like what advice would you give or do you wish you would have taken when you were 21? People love to kind of give advice to that younger generation, learning through their mistakes. And it's a way for them to feel included and involved in the event. And in a way, it's also a chance for you to then showcase some of that content through your website, through other videos as a social proof. but that can be a fun way. You know, some people don't like that. So you have to make sure that it's, it's certainly voluntary, but, it's great for social proof.
Next little thing that you could do is just simple personalized takeaways. I've heard of one advisor that hosted an event. It was a smaller event with some clients and he placed a short little note at the table for each of his guests and it mentioned something specific about them, whether it was a story, whether it was one of the favorite memories or something they've learned from them, something they appreciate about them. That sort of thing demonstrates that you put some extra time into that relationship. wasn't the same for every person. It was a handwritten note specific to each different guest. Another thing we've seen custom gift stations where, you know, I've just heard about this at an event, ladies event that an advisor hosted where they could make some custom bracelets. It had some, you different whole little beads set up and that, that sort of deal, but something that was memorable, that was a takeaway from the event itself, whether, or maybe you could do custom monogramming or engraving and, you know, or personalized journals, things like that, that are a nice little touch that seemed personal or custom. And it's something that is going to leave a lasting memory or a longer term memory for that attendee that they're going to take home with them and at least place somewhere and you're kind of top of mind. We've seen a lot over the years of different experience based type of events. When I touched on kind of the cooking or chef experience, know, bourbon tasting, wine tasting, whiskey, that sort of thing. Have some storytelling around each of those. Heard of one advisor doing, for some of his clients that he knew were into cigars, there was a cigar rolling in a tasting station there. I think that sort of event can be good for the right crowd. Obviously you have to know your audience, but that is something that will be distinctly remembered. And if they roll a cigar and then enjoy it a month later, they're going to be thinking about you in that event. And it's something that that event is allowed to extend beyond just the day of the event. I love the idea of surprise and delight type of elements, you know, and a lot of advisors, if they do events like this, they might give a gift away and maybe there's a little gift bag that comes at the end. I'd encourage you to work a gift maybe midway through the event. And it's not at the end. It's a little bit of a surprise or maybe when the dessert arrives, you have a small little gift that comes along with the dessert. Or, you know, again, another surprising element might be a surprise entertainment, whether there's a magician or a live musician or a comedian, that sort of thing that maybe you don't market on the front end, but is kind of that pleasant surprise. Everybody loves the positive surprises like that. And so those are little things. mean, in addition to upgrading the environment, finding a unique venue that has really kind of that aesthetic beauty that we've talked about, there's lighting, music, ambiance. Those are all the things that you want to be thinking about from an event standpoint.
Another thing that you can really try to tap into, and this doesn't have to be the main purpose of the event itself, but you know, if you can identify some emotion driven moments that you can pull from, if you know a certain guest has a milestone that they just achieved or is coming up, whether it's a retirement, whether it's a business sale, whether it's an anniversary, whether it's a big birthday. These types of things, if you can surprise them a little bit with that, that might not be the reason for the party, obviously, or the get together, but you can surprise them and maybe you present a small gift. These are the things that will create memories for people and enhance the overall experience. I want you to be very careful with how much branding you do here. I think if you're gonna do branding and have your logo and that sort of thing. I want you to be cautious about how much and how over the top it might be. know, maybe the menu design is going to have some of your logo and feel and flair or your color scheme or color palette or maybe in the event name you're trying to work something in. But I would try to avoid making it, especially if the intent of it is bring a friend type of deal, avoid logos everywhere and put a little bit more of a focus on the feel and the experience there. When you're designing this event and you're building it, I want you to think about, will people talk about this after they leave? And if so, what is it that they're going to talk about? If it's a negative thing, boy, the place smelled like a locker room. That's not gonna be obviously the type of lasting memory you want to have them hold onto. So ask yourself that question, ask your team that question. And kind of go into it, looking through the lens of that, that client to say, what are they going to remember about this event? What is it that they're going to feel? What, what are they going to think about from a smell standpoint, a site, the whole nine yards, think about that from that perspective, because that's going to be the lasting memory. And that's going to be the thing that they carry with them when they get that next invite to the next event. So lots of things to be thinking about.
I encourage you take the step with your next client event and, you know, some mistakes to avoid. Don't talk too much. You know, don't make that presentation be too much. Don't, don't make it overly formal. You know, have some flexibility within, you know, kind of the agenda and the structure. And, you know, don't, don't get heavy on the sales pitch. Be, be very cognizant of that the environment itself, the experiences, your job as an advisor there, especially at an event with multiple people, large numbers of people, is to be a connector. Work the room, introduce your clients to other clients, prospects to other clients, that sort of thing, because let that magic happen with you as the connector, you as the host to go around, make those introductions so that everybody feels comfortable at an event like that. That's the thing that's going to make that event stand out. kind of closing thought here, guess, you know, clients aren't going to refer you because you're knowledgeable necessarily. That's, that's assumed to be some table stakes. They're going to refer you because they're confident introducing you into their world. They're proud to introduce you into their world and into who their, who their friends are and they're gonna use their social capital at that point only when they are confident and proud to say, is my advisor. So give them a reason to do that. And the best way to do it, the best way to give them that reason is to create an experience worth sharing. Hope this helps, take care.
--
The Financial Advisor Marketing Playbook is a podcast/video series for high-performing financial planning professionals that are committed to improving their craft, helping their clients, and growing their business. Hosted by Mark Mersman, Chief Marketing Officer at USA Financial, this series contains a wide variety of content – from quick win ideas to long-form interviews, each episode provides actionable marketing ideas and insights that can be implemented easily into your practice. From digital marketing to traditional direct-response marketing, each episode delivers straight-forward and engaging content that any financial professional can use to improve their bottom line and grow their practice.
Financial Advisor Marketing Playbook is also a podcast! Subscribe today via Apple Podcasts or your preferred podcast listening service for easier on-the-go listening.
