Survey: Highest-Performing Advisors Do the Most Public Speaking

As we compiled the results of our 2019 CPA/Wealth Advisor Confidence Survey™, we wondered if there were any data points separating the most optimistic advisors from all the rest.  Every type of advisor seems to be more concerned about the economy, the high value of the stock market, the inverted yield curve and Trump tariffs and retaliation than they were at this time a year ago. We also saw across-the-board increases in client outreach and marketing efforts beyond word-of-mouth referrals.

But, when it came to thought leadership tactics, that’s where we started to see some separation. Take public speaking, the highest rated of the 15 thought leadership tactics we asked our nearly 300 respondents about. Two-thirds (66%) of firms that were expecting to grow by 10 percent of more in 2019 found public speaking to be “very” or “extremely” valuable. By contrast, only 60 percent of firms expecting single-digit growth considered public speaking to by highly valuable and only 54 percent of firms expecting flat or negative growth put a high value on public speaking. A similar trend followed for most of the top thought leadership tactics including publishing articles and books, getting mentioned in the press, producing videos, blogging and holding client events and webinars.

It was not until we got into the bottom the rankings that the under-performing firms placed the same value (or more) on lowe-rated thought leadership tactics such as Facebook (15% vs. 12%), Twitter (7% vs. 5%) and Instagram/Snapchat (4% vs. 1%).

Survey co-author Rick Telberg (CPA Trendlines) and I will be presenting our findings at the NYC Accounting and Finance Show on Thursday afternoon at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. Can’t make it to the show? Send me a note if you’d like a copy of the presentation.

If you’ll be at the show this week in NYC or in two weeks in Los Angeles, make sure to catch the presentations of our clients. Anthony Glomski, author of the new book (Liquidity & You) will discuss habits of millionaire CPAs and CFOs. Cecil Nazareth, author of the new International Tax & Compliance Handbook will discuss cross-border transactions post-Tax Reform and Molly Grubb, author of the forthcoming book Build Your Dynasty will discuss Keys to Entrepreneurship.

Are you sensing a trend? They make time in their busy schedules to speak, publish and share their knowledge regularly.

Conclusion

Even if the prospect of a microphone, video camera or podium makes you break out in a cold sweat, you’ve probably got more of a story to tell than you think. As with so many things in life, the more you practice public speaking the better you get. Like many of your peers, over time you may actually start to like it. Speaking is certainly one of the very best way to get yourself noticed and to attract new prospects, strategic partners and talent. What’s not to like about that?

# Public Speaking  #Practice Development #Wealth Advisor Confidence #Accounting & Finance Show

*** Take our latest InstaPoll: To what extent is the Inverted Yield Curve a reliable recession indicator?