Summary:
Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools a financial advisor can use to connect with clients and differentiate their practice. In this episode of Financial Advisor Marketing Playbook, Mark Mersman explains why stories resonate more deeply than credentials or technical details and how they can make your message unforgettable. Rather than focusing on facts and figures, stories create emotional connections that help prospective clients understand who you are, what you stand for, and why your work matters. Mark introduces three essential stories every advisor should craft: the origin story, the client transformation story, and the philosophy story. Each serves a unique purpose in building trust, demonstrating results, and defining your brand.
The origin story is the foundation of your narrative. It answers the question of why you do what you do and should feel conversational rather than biographical. Instead of listing credentials or designations, this story begins with emotion and experience. Mark suggests using the hero’s journey as a framework, which includes four key elements: the call, the struggle, the shift, and the mission. The call is what first drew you to financial planning. The struggle represents the challenges or frustrations you noticed in the industry or among clients, often leading to an aha moment where you realized the importance of good advice or the pain caused by bad advice. The shift is what changed in your approach or mindset as a result of that realization, and the mission is how this experience defines your firm’s purpose today. This story should sound like something you would share over coffee, not a resume. It helps prospective clients understand the meaning behind your work and why you care about making a difference.
The second story focuses on client transformation and demonstrates proof and empathy. Prospective clients want to see themselves in your narrative, and this story illustrates a journey from confusion to clarity, anxiety to assurance, and uncertainty to confidence. Mark advises framing this as a before-and-after scenario, not in terms of dollars or returns, but in emotional outcomes like peace of mind and confidence. Use real examples, anonymized for privacy, and emphasize process over product. Highlight the steps you took to guide the client, not the products you sold. End with a reflective takeaway, such as realizing that great planning isn’t about beating the market but about helping people gain clarity and confidence. If you serve multiple niches, consider creating multiple transformation stories tailored to each audience. These stories provide social proof and reassure prospects that others have successfully traveled the same path with you.
The third story is your philosophy story, which communicates what you stand for and why it matters. This is not about products or strategies but about your core principles. It answers questions like what you believe about money, planning, and life; what misconceptions you want to correct; and how you define success for clients beyond money. Examples of philosophy statements include believing that money should have a purpose, planning should start with the life you want and work backward, or retirement should feel like a beginning rather than an ending. This story should be concise and memorable—something you can summarize in one sentence. It reinforces consistency across your marketing, messaging, and team culture. If you cannot summarize your philosophy in one sentence, it is time to refine it. Think about what values your firm would live by if it were a person and what principles guide your advice and process.
These three stories work best when they interlock. Your origin explains your why, your client transformation proves your how, and your philosophy defines your what. Together, they create a cohesive narrative that builds trust and differentiates your brand. Mark encourages advisors to integrate these stories into websites, discovery meetings, social media, video clips, client presentations, and workshops. If a stranger visited your site or attended a meeting, would they walk away knowing these three stories? If not, that is your next marketing project. Storytelling builds trust and emotional connection, and when done well, it becomes a powerful differentiator in an industry where most firms fail to communicate their beliefs and values clearly.
The episode closes with a reminder that crafting these stories takes time and reflection. They should feel authentic and conversational, not scripted or promotional. Avoid resume-style narratives and focus on emotional outcomes rather than financial metrics. Use stories to create consistency across all touchpoints and to help clients understand not just what you do, but why you do it and what you believe. When prospective clients hear these stories, they should feel a sense of alignment and trust, knowing that your approach resonates with their own values and goals. Storytelling is not just a marketing tactic—it is a way to humanize your brand and make your message unforgettable.
Transcript:
Mark Mersman, Chief Marketing Officer at USA Financial - Welcome back to the playbook! Today's episode really focuses on how storytelling can make an advisor's message unforgettable. And I want to touch on three, what I believe are foundational stories that every great brand and trusted advisor needs to have inside of their practice. So each story really plays a very distinct role. One is designed to build trust. One is designed to demonstrate results and social proof. And one communicates belief and conviction and what you do. So let's, let's start with story one. And I would argue that, you know, this is really the base of the foundation and that is your origin story. the purpose of it is to build trust and relatability to help prospective clients understand why you do what you do, not just what you do. And to me, you know, I strongly believe that every great advisor has a moment that mattered, has this moment where the light bulb kind of goes on for them. Not so much in terms of, I overcame this and became successful, but something that significantly moved the needle for them and kind of opened their eyes to the importance and significance of the work that they do. And the truth is the best origin stories, they don't start with credentials.
They really has nothing to do with your education or designations. Now that might be woven into it to a certain degree, but most importantly, they start with emotion or experience. And, you know, in my experience, when I've heard some of these over the years, a lot of them use the hero's journey format. And if you're familiar with that, even if you're not, I'll kind of walk you through four of the main pieces of the hero's journey that you may want to weave into your story. And the first is the call. What first drew you to financial planning? Why is it that you even got into this industry in the first place? Then the second piece of it is the struggle. What challenge or frustration did you notice inside of the industry or, you know, maybe you were looking at a scenario where clients were underserved. And this to me really becomes maybe the defining moment for a lot of advisors, where they realize that the power of good advice or perhaps the pain of bad advice meant more than anything. In my mind, this was kind of that aha moment that an advisor experiences where Boy, you really made a difference in somebody's life and it no longer was just about earning a living. It was about making a change for the better in others' lives. Or you saw the other side of it, the pain of bad advice or a failure to take action. So that struggle is that light bulb moment and then the shift. What was it that made you start to do things differently inside of your practice?
And from there, that became kind of the fourth piece or transition to that fourth piece of the hero's journey, where it really truly defined your mission. And what is it that now drives your firm today as a result of the struggle that you saw in the shift that took place inside of you, inside of your practice? in terms of helping you think about what your story is. And obviously that needs to be very personal and one can't just give you a story to go out and tell. You need to craft it yourself, but to help you think through some of that, I want you to really think about what do you want clients to feel when they hear your story? You want to make sure that you're keeping it conversational and not biographical. It should not you know, read like a resume. This story should sound like something you would share over a cup of coffee. I'd encourage you to record yourself telling it and make sure that it doesn't sound like a resume and you're not trying to beef up, I have this designation or now maybe that works its way in. You know, you had a certain pain that you saw take place and part of the shift was I really realized that I needed to get more education on this or this or this topic in order to serve your clients better. That can be a part of it, but that's not the core of it. So I, you know, I encourage you, this becomes a foundational story inside of your practice. And, you know, it will ultimately be the why behind what it is that you're doing today and why you've made changes inside of your business and your practice and how you handle and treat clients inside of the work that you do. It really starts to define that meaning behind your practice and what it is that you're doing.
The second story is your client's transformation story. And the entire purpose of this is to demonstrate proof and empathy and understanding. And you really want your prospective clients to see themselves inside of the story. I think that for some advisors, you might serve two or three different niches or types of clients. And so you might have to have two or three different client transformation stories just so that they can see it. And this is really almost framed as a before and after, not necessarily in dollars because we don't wanna sit there and lead with, well, my client earned X percent and as a result, you know, you will too. That's not what, that's not the purpose of this. The focus in terms of that before and after is not dollars, it's in confidence, it's in clarity, it's in feeling better about their situation and finally feeling at ease and like, I understand what is happening inside of my personal finances. So I encourage you to focus on the emotional journey, you know, from confusion to clarity, from anxiety to assurance. You know, from kind of drifting and floating out there with, with uncertainty to, wow, I have guided direction and I know what path I'm on focus on that as a part of the story. And as you're telling these stories, obviously I would encourage you, you know, use real examples, but obviously we want them to be anonymous. We don't need to sit here and, and out clients. And you know, you, you want to make sure that they are real, that you're not creating fictional scenarios because that will certainly get sniffed out, if you will. I also encourage you to emphasize process over product that kind of comes back to the whole focusing on return issues. We really don't want the product to necessarily be the driver. We want the process that you took that client through and what you guided them through, not what you sold or recommended to them. And I encourage you to kind of end with a reflective takeaway, you know, from your perspective, like after we went through this process with these folks, that's when I realized that great planning isn't about beating the market or anything like that. It's about helping people gain the confidence and clarity that they need to make the right financial decisions in their lives.
So again, you might want to think about whether you need more than one version, depending on who your audience is when you're telling this story. But certainly I think demonstrating that social proof because people want to have the confidence to know that they're not the first one that's going through this process with you and knowing that others have traveled this path alongside you and had the kind of results that they are looking for as well. And then the last story is your philosophy story. And the purpose behind this is really to start to position your beliefs as a differentiator. The goal is to really define what you stand for and why it matters. And in my opinion, this is kind of the what you do, but told in a little bit different way. This is why we exist story. What do you believe? What do you believe about money, about planning, about life? This is not about again, not about products. It's not about strategies. This is about core principles that you hold dear with, you know, in that it might tie back to that why story that that our origin story, because it might have been that shift that took place. But now we're really getting a chance to put out there the things that we believe that help define what it is that you do. Maybe it's, believe money should have a purpose and I'm just winging it now. Or we believe in planning backwards, starting with the life that you want and then designing your portfolio and your plan and the strategies around that. That's kind of the whole beginning with the end in mind concept. Or maybe you're going to have the core belief that retirement shouldn't feel like an ending. It should feel like a beginning or a transition to the next chapter. Really, you have to understand that the goal of this story, and this isn't lengthy, this doesn't need to be this drawn out story. This is kind of some core beliefs, but the goal for it is as somebody's listening to it and a prospective client or existing client is hearing it, we want them to say, you know what, that makes a lot of sense. It's actually exactly how I feel. This story will help to drive consistency across your marketing and messaging and even your team culture. As you're building the team culture within, this is going to really put that stamp on your brand in terms of what it is that you stand for, what it is that you believe inside of your practice. And this will be a differentiator because there are, I can assure you, the vast majority of financial planning firms out there don't even have this. They're not using, they're not laying down a core belief or foundation for their clients to understand what to hold onto and really sink their teeth into about what it is that you and your firm stand for. And I'd encourage you to test, if you think that you have one now, I'd encourage you to test it. Like if you can't summarize your philosophy in one sentence, that people remember, it's time to refine it. It's time to kind of rethink that. Some questions that I'll float at you, I guess, to kind of get your wheels turning if you're wrestling with what this means or how to craft this story. What do you believe is most important about financial planning? What's the most important thing that if there's one thing, one kind of core message you want existing clients or prospective clients to hold on to about your firm, what is that? Or maybe you want to think about, you know, what's a common misconception that you wish people understood better or had more clarity around with, especially our industry can be very confusing. There's financial advisors of quote unquote financial advisors of all different types. And I think that's one thing that I've learned over the years in doing this that, you know, if you tell somebody who has no idea about the industry, you say, I'm a financial advisor. They have one thing in mind, but chances are it has no connection to what it is that you do. you know, I know maybe you'll get lucky and what you do and what their view of financial advisor is aligns. But my guess is the vast majority of people. When they hear financial advisor coming out of your mouth, they have a preconceived notion that is different than what you'd like them to have about who it is that you are and what it is that you believe inside of your practice. Another important question to help you kind of get to some of this might be, how do you define success for your clients beyond money?
Now, obviously we know the money side of it. we want their money to grow. We want it to be protected. We want it to be effective and tax. Forget that. How do you define success for your clients? And maybe you want to work that into the core belief story that you're bringing to the table. What principles guide your advice and the process that you take with clients? And maybe you could almost take that same thing and step back a little bit and think of it like this. If your firm were a person, what values would it live by? It's a really interesting question to think about and it might help you in terms of framing this third story. now you do the work and I hope that you do. I hope you take the time to think through these stories and really kind of craft them and hone them. And now we have to put it all together because the truth is these stories work best when they interlock and your origin explains your why your client transformation proves your how in your philosophy defines your what your belief system and what it is that you're doing beyond the products and the services that you recommend. It's really the belief system inside of inside of your practice. And then it, now we have to take that and do the practical applications that that needs to go inside of your website. It might become a part of the first five minutes of your discovery meeting when you're first spending time with a prospective client. they, all of it should be reinforced through any social media video, video clips that, that you're creating any client presentations, any prospect workshops that you're doing. So again, I encourage you to think through this. If a stranger watched your video, read your bio, checked out your website or sat in your office, would they walk away knowing your three stories? And if not, maybe that's your next marketing project. Hope you enjoyed this episode of the Playbook. Please be sure to subscribe, give us a like and follow us wherever we may be and wherever you're listening to us. Appreciate you and take care.
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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.
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