A financial advisor marketing plan built around a book

Who this plan is for

This plan is for an independent advisor or small team, either a registered investment adviser or a broker-dealer representative running their own practice. It assumes you grow mostly through referrals, can give the plan a few hours a week, and have a book, or are writing one, that answers the questions your best clients ask before they hire you. The advisor guide covers why a book suits advisory work; this page is about running the year.

Step 1: choose one client segment

A segment is a group of people who share the same financial decision and can be reached through the same places. "Pre-retirees" is too broad. "Engineers within five years of retiring from two regional employers" is a segment: they face the same pension and 401(k) questions, they talk to each other, and their employers' HR teams are reachable.

Write down four things about the segment first:

• The decision. What are they deciding in the next few years that they cannot easily undo?
• The questions. The five questions they ask in every first meeting. These should match chapters in your book.
• The advisers they already trust. Usually an accountant and an estate planning attorney. These become your referral partners.
• Where they gather. Employers, professional associations, congregations, alumni groups, clubs. These become your seminar venues.

Harris Nydick's firm specialized in 401(k) and 403(b) plan sponsors, a niche most advisors avoided, and that niche became the book's wedge (story). The Scribe Method chapter on audience explains how to narrow a book's reader in the same way.

Step 2: give the book one job per channel

The client process guide covers the book at first meetings and in proposals. In the marketing plan it has four more jobs.

For more ways to turn the book or a chapter into something a prospect asks for, see the lead magnet examples.

Step 3: referral partners (CPAs and estate attorneys)

Accountants and estate planning attorneys see your future clients at the moments money decisions surface: tax season, a business sale, an inheritance, a new will. A bad referral costs them a client, so make referring you low risk.

1. List ten partners, not fifty

   Pick firms whose clients match your segment. Five accountants and five estate attorneys is a workable first year.

2. Lead with their clients' problem

   Ask for a short meeting to learn what their clients get stuck on. Bring a signed copy of the book and point to the chapter that touches their work, for example how retirement income decisions affect a tax return or an estate plan.

3. Offer copies for their office

   A stack of books in a waiting room or on a desk lets the partner refer you without a sales conversation.

4. Report back

   When a partner sends someone, thank them and, with the client's consent, keep them informed.

5. Teach together

   Offer a joint session for the partner's clients, with each of you covering your part of a decision. This is the step that turns a contact into a partner.

Harris Nydick's firm does a version of this inside companies: executives get the book first, then the firm runs education sessions for employees.

Step 4: seminars and workshops

A seminar is a talk to a group, usually 45 to 60 minutes with questions. Built from a book, it gets easier to give every time. Mark Baird did no speaking before Rules to Riches; afterward he averaged about one talk a month, all through word of mouth, and describes each talk leading to more referrals (story). Mark Aho hands out his book at church, conferences and speaking events.

Build one talk and repeat it all year:

• The title is your segment's decision, phrased as a question: "Pension lump sum or monthly check?"
• The content is two or three chapters, taught as principles and trade-offs, with no products or performance figures.
• The venue comes from Step 1: an employer's lunch-and-learn, a professional association, a library, a congregation, a partner's client event.
• The take-home is the book or one chapter, with one next step: a short call or an email sign-up on a name-and-email sheet.

Chris Belchamber made a simpler video from part one of Invest Like the Best for people who will not read a finance book (story). A recording of your seminar can do the same job on your website.

Step 5: the website and email

The website's job is to confirm what partners and seminar guests heard and give them a next step. Jake Falcon (story) calls his book "the new website" because it says more about his philosophy than any web page; the website's role is to point to it.

• A book page that says who the book is for, what each chapter answers, and how to get a copy.
• A chapter offered free in exchange for an email address, with the full book offered to people who book a meeting.
• A seminar page listing upcoming talks and offering the recording.
• One clear way to book a first meeting.

Email keeps you in front of people who are not ready yet. A monthly note is enough: one idea from a chapter, a few hundred words, an invitation to reply. Sam Marrella's readers told him the book felt like a conversation with him (story); the emails should keep that same voice.

The year, quarter by quarter

The calendar below assumes the book is published, or will be by the second quarter. Accountants are busiest before the tax filing deadline, so partner meetings sit mostly outside the first months of the year.

What to measure

Track counts you can collect yourself, by channel, every month. Compare this year to your own last year, not to anyone else's benchmarks.

Also note what you cannot count easily, such as prospects who arrive having already read the book, as Harris Nydick's firm found with Common Financial Sense. The results in the stories linked on this page are strong results from individual Scribe authors, not typical ones, and nobody can promise them.

Compliance review points

The book itself goes through the review set out in the FINRA Rule 2210 section and the SEC Marketing Rule section of the advisor guide, including the item-by-item compliance table. A marketing plan adds new pieces that each need their own review. Raise these with your firm:

• Emails to one person versus your whole list. Under FINRA Rule 2210, a written or electronic communication distributed to 25 or fewer retail investors within any 30 calendar-day period is "correspondence," which is subject to the supervision and review requirements of Rule 3110(b). One distributed to more than 25 retail investors in that period is a "retail communication," which a registered principal must approve before use. A monthly newsletter to your list is likely the second kind.
• Seminar slides and handouts. Rule 2210 treats scripts, slides, handouts and other written materials used in public appearances as communications. Submit the seminar deck and anything you hand out, including a printed chapter.
• Paying referral partners. For registered investment advisers, the SEC Marketing Rule treats an endorsement or testimonial the adviser pays for, in cash or in kind, as an advertisement. It requires clear and prominent disclosure of whether the person is a client and whether they are compensated, plus disclosures about compensation and conflicts. Paid promoters generally need a written agreement unless the compensation is $1,000 or less, or the equivalent in non-cash value, over the preceding twelve months.
• Keeping copies. SEC guidance says investment advisers must make and keep copies of all advertisements they directly or indirectly disseminate. Keep the approved version of every page, email, slide deck and recording, with the approval date.
• Joint events with partners. Accountants and attorneys have their own professional rules. Ask your partners to check theirs before a joint event or any shared material.

Sources: FINRA Rule 2210, Communications with the Public (definitions in paragraph (a), approval and review in paragraph (b), public appearances in paragraph (f)); SEC Small Entity Compliance Guide, Investment Adviser Marketing. Both checked October 21, 2026. Nothing on this page is legal, compliance or financial advice; your compliance department decides what applies to you.

Where real advisors did each piece

To map these pieces to your own practice, use the practice worksheet. It asks about your clients, referral partners and first meetings, and gives you a one-page plan you can print. It runs in your browser and sends nothing unless you choose to.