Prospecting still requires some level of personal connection. Gone are the days of cold calling—now social media offers that link to prospects and lets you target your customers, connecting with them at your fingertips.
On this Elementality, Abby talks with Colton Etherton, of Out of Office Planning, about why he chose to use Instagram for social prospecting; his content creation techniques which are tailored to engage with potential clients; and the key performance indicators he tracks to gauge if he is getting social traction. Learn how publishing engaging content on Instagram lets you create direct relationships with your ideal prospective clients as they actively interact with your posts through likes, comments, and messages.
Podcast Transcript
Colton Etherton:
Throw some personal stuff in there ’cause again, people are getting into a long-term relationship with us and they want to also know who you are, right?
Abby Morton:
Right.
Colton Etherton:
I personally find it weird if I’m going to look up someone. Like I wanna know more about you than just you sharing just the business stuff.
Abby Morton:
Okay.
Colton Etherton:
And I kind of say that to some of the artists I talk to too ’cause a lot of them will just post their tattoo pictures and half the time you gotta scroll down to like three years ago when they have a picture of themselves. [laughter] Like who is this person? And I’m like, man, the same thing with a tattoo. If I’m gonna sit with someone for four hours, six hours or longer, like if I’m going with my first sleeve or something, I don’t want to get there, and then 30 minutes in, and be like, oh man, I don’t like this person, but I’m kind of locked in. It’s the same thing for us as advisors.
Abby Morton:
Good point. Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
It’s a good commitment to go through our process, sign up, and also I think people want to see who you are too.
Jordan Haines:
Welcome to Elementality. Each episode, we will explore the challenges and the opportunities faced by financial advisors and how advisors can use Elements to grow their business and serve their clients better. We hope you enjoy this episode.
Abby Morton:
Welcome to Elementality everyone. I’m your host today, Abby Morton, joined by Colton Etherton. Hey, Colton. How are you today?
Colton Etherton:
I’m good, Abby. How are you?
Abby Morton:
Good. So we’re coming to talk to Colton again today because we are wanting to talk to advisors who have been able to use something in their marketing efforts and has worked really well. And Colton has particularly had some good responses and good interaction with his Instagram account. So Colton, I really wanted to talk to you today about your Instagram account and how well it’s worked for you as like a marketing engine in your practice.
Colton Etherton:
Yeah, let’s do it. It’ll be fun.
Abby Morton:
Sweet. So I guess first of all, tell me when you decided to focus on tattoo artists and to go down that path, tell me specifically, like was Instagram kind of one of the first things you went towards or did you try a multiple different social media platforms?
Colton Etherton:
Yeah, I mean, Instagram was the first one I went towards primarily because it’s what I used personally the most just out of the different social media. And even what I used in my business before I transitioned and so I kind of… And I was looking into artists to see where they hang out and that was really the only place I found a good amount of artists. They’re not looking…
Abby Morton:
How do you do that research and figure that out? ‘Cause I hear a lot of people saying that, right? Like, you wanna talk to your audience on the platforms they are on. Like how did you figure out that Instagram was where they were?
Colton Etherton:
Yeah, so I mean, I had followed a couple already, so I knew there was some and it was pretty… Instagram’s pretty easy to just look in the search feature and look for tattoo artist. I looked in the other programs like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook. LinkedIn was… That’s easy, right? You can look by the job and I think there’s maybe one low-key tattoo artist on LinkedIn who figured…
Abby Morton:
A little too professional for them, right? [laughter]
Colton Etherton:
Exactly, exactly. Twitter, I’ve found a couple, but not many. So…
Abby Morton:
That surprises me. Well, does that surprise you?
Colton Etherton:
Not really ’cause they’re on Instagram mainly for the visual aspects so they can share their work.
Abby Morton:
Okay.
Colton Etherton:
And I even did a poll recently on my Instagram to see if anyone was on Twitter and there’s a very small number that actually said yes. And if they were, they weren’t really active. You go look at their page and there’s like a tweet from two years ago and so it’s like, okay, well. And then I looked at Facebook too ’cause I was like, okay, well, maybe I can look in groups and get active in like a Facebook group. Like I know a lot of other advisors do that. And I found a couple, but they weren’t… I don’t know. They didn’t seem that valuable to join reviewing the comments and things like that and some of them weren’t even tattoo artists. It was just a group about people or of people talking about tattoos. You know what I mean? So it’d be a lot of people looking for tattoos or just sharing theirs. And so it didn’t really have the same value. At least I didn’t think so than Instagram.
Abby Morton:
Okay. So really you’re looking at all the different platforms, seeing how often people are posting, how often they’re asking questions, but it does sound like you did a little bit of research to really like narrow down and know that they’re on Instagram. I’m thinking as well as you’re saying all of that, you can even just think about your specific niche and if they’re more a professional niche, you’d probably more likely find them on LinkedIn, right? Like every platform does, I feel like, have their own specific like genre maybe of people that you could find there. So that probably, the visual aspect of what Instagram brings, I think you’re right, totally does resonate with a tattoo artist.
Colton Etherton:
Yeah. It’s most artists. I mean, some do, but a large majority don’t even have a website, so it’s they’re sharing their work and trying to get clients through Instagram. I guess TikTok is kind of on the scene now with some of them, not as many, but the photo visual aspect of it.
Abby Morton:
Yeah, definitely. Okay. So you even talked about when you started it, you personally liked Instagram. That’s where kind of your personal account was. How do you weigh and how did you decide… I know you have a business Instagram account that like all it is used for business and then you also have your personal account. So did you find value in like, I have my separate business one that is separate from my personal one. Like how did you make that decision to have two completely different accounts?
Colton Etherton:
Yeah, that’s a good question. So I still keep my personal one and that’s… I mean, I keep that private and everything and that’s more for friends and family and that kind of stuff. And then the business one, I started it out as like a company page and then didn’t really like that ’cause I wanted it to be more personal, personable, but still be able to talk about the business. So I changed it to myself, but it’s technically a business page on or a career page or something on Instagram. And so I wanted to share business stuff, but also some personal on there too, because I’m human and I want people to see me as that and not just a page that shares only financial stuff.
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
So yeah, I’ll share a picture of the kids or something we’re doing. Piper got a airbrush tattoo the other day when we were at the Tulip Festival. [chuckle] My parents were in town and she got a big, like half-sleeve flower airbrush tattoo, so [0:07:07.0] ____ for that. So yeah, it’s a balance, but I…
Abby Morton:
Okay, it is a balance and you keep your business page even a little personal, sharing your family and your kids.
Colton Etherton:
Yeah.
Abby Morton:
But you did break it out separate. Like when I go and look down your feed, what’s like on your… What is it even called? The wall or what’s there like all the time…
Colton Etherton:
Yeah. I forget, but feed I guess.
Abby Morton:
That does seem very businessy, but maybe like in your stories and in other places like that, like your daily updates, you’re keeping it personal.
Colton Etherton:
Exactly. Yeah. I’ll throw some personal stuff in there ’cause again, people are getting into a long-term relationship with us.
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
And they want to also know who you are, right? Like I personally find it weird if I’m going to look up someone. Like I wanna know more about you than just you sharing just the business stuff.
Abby Morton:
Okay.
Colton Etherton:
And I kind of say that to some of the artists I talk to too ’cause a lot of them will just post their tattoo pictures and half the time, you gotta scroll down to like three years ago when they have a picture of themselves. You’re like, who is this person? And I’m like, man, same thing with a tattoo. If I’m gonna sit with someone for four hours, six hours or longer if I’m going with my first sleeve or something, I don’t want to get there and then 30 minutes in and be like, “Oh man, I don’t like this person, but I’m kind of locked in.” It’s the same thing for us as advisors.
Abby Morton:
Good point. Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
It’s a good commitment to go through our process, sign up and so I think people want to see who you are too.
Abby Morton:
That’s a good point and something I didn’t think about, like clients… And we talk about this often, like clients are buying you as an advisor, right? They wanna like you, they wanna see your personality, not just your processes, not just like problems you solve, but they wanna see that you have a sense of humor and like you have a family as well, right? Maybe you don’t have to go super, super personal.
Colton Etherton:
Right.
Abby Morton:
But I think it’s important. Like you said, they wanna understand like who you are and a little bit about you.
Colton Etherton:
Yeah. And I think it’s good for people that do decide they wanna work with you and it’s just as valuable for people that see that and decide they don’t wanna work with you, right?
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
‘Cause yeah, some people probably don’t like me or won’t like me and that’s fine, but at least they see that upfront based on what I’m sharing and then they can… We don’t get into that relationship, and then discover that later.
Abby Morton:
Yeah, I like that. Good point.
Colton Etherton:
Like if someone doesn’t like Star Wars, I don’t know, I’m gonna reference Star Wars often. [laughter] So if that’s gonna bug you, then I’d be your best long-term relationship.
Abby Morton:
Yes. We gotta say we’re recording this on May 5th, but Col and I had a good bit about May 4th yesterday and…
Colton Etherton:
Yep. [laughter]
Abby Morton:
No one seemed to like his jokes. He was feeling a little sad. [laughter]
Colton Etherton:
I know. I did show up to our team meeting though in the Mandalorian mask. So that was…
Abby Morton:
It was pretty awesome. We were loving you coming in hot with that mask. [laughter] Okay. So as far as like actually making money and getting clients through your Instagram account, kind of walk me through how you saw that your account was actually getting traction, it was actually bringing people. When’s the first time you kind of noticed that?
Colton Etherton:
Yeah, so my questionnaire when someone books a consultation specifically asks, where’d you find me from? And Instagram of course is one of the choices. So I see that a lot. I don’t do a lot of other marketing. Like most of my stuff is through there, so it’s somewhat easy to track.
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
And I can then look up the person and see if they actually follow me, or if I’ve interacted with them. Or it’s just people will start asking questions when you post and it turns into a conversation, then we book a call. And so it’s pretty easy, I think, to tell. Even using Elements now like easy invite links, I’m sharing a post about using Elements or a client situation and I drop an easy invite link in the stories.
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
Like I have one labeled specifically for Instagram so I can see what people are coming from Instagram and creating an account.
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
So yeah, just set up a couple processes to make sure I can track that.
Abby Morton:
Talk me through those processes. What are those processes?
Colton Etherton:
Yeah. The first is just the Calendly booking link, right? Like someone’s going to have to choose how they found me and eight, nine times out of 10, it’s Instagram, Instagram referral, and then a couple recently have been Google search, which is cool to finally get those. But…
Abby Morton:
Yeah [laughter]
Colton Etherton:
And then the same thing with the Elements invite link. I’ve just created a separate easy invite link so that way if someone sees the video I’m posting, I’ll make a reel or even just a regular post talking about Elements, talking about a client situation, incorporating that, and then dropping that link in the story for them to click and download.
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
Now when they create that account, I can see… Within Elements, you can see the source. I can see that they came from there rather than like my website. I have a link on in there that’s labeled separately for people and I think I have a couple others, but it’s pretty easy to distinguish where they’re coming from now.
Abby Morton:
Yeah. Okay. Cool. So do you have a pretty consistent cadence that you’re posting? How often are you posting? How does that work?
Colton Etherton:
Yes and no. I used… I was a bit more consistent. I need to… It kind of ebbs and flows, right? I feel like sometimes I go in waves where I have ideas to create something constantly.
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
And other times, I kind of struggle to come up with something which is fine. And sometimes on those days, I’ll just go back and I’ll reshare an old post from a couple months ago, a year ago, something like that. Just share that in my story because there’s new people that have followed since then, or there’s people that were following at that point and they just simply didn’t see it. And so not everyone’s gonna see every post. And so I’m like, yeah, can’t think of anything today or I’m busy. Like I’ll just throw this up there.
Abby Morton:
Okay. So you’re telling me you’re not… You do have problems like finding content and that’s like a normal thing.
Colton Etherton:
Yeah.
Abby Morton:
And sometimes I feel like there’s this vibe of like, it’s so easy and you just post the content and I always feel like this like wall. If someone tells me to sit down and write content, I’m like, I can’t. And when I’m not thinking about it, it’s like, oh, I could do that, and that and that. So it’s nice to hear that it’s a challenge for you too, but like some ways you overcome it. You’ve shared old posts, kind of repurposed material. Okay.
Colton Etherton:
Yeah, for sure. Some days, I can’t think of anything and a lot of my fellow advisor friends share some good stuff, right? So I’ll reshare their post, or even if it’s on Twitter, I’ll take a screenshot snippet, share it on Twitter obviously showing who posted it. But yeah, I mean, just some days it happens where there’s nothing there, like nothing’s working. I’m not creating anything and that’s fine. And other days, it’s like I’ll crush six posts in a row and I’m like, alright, I’m set for a little while. Yeah.
Abby Morton:
So are you scheduling those out? Like you have a day you come up with a lot of good content. I assume you’re not sitting there and posting those all that same day.
Colton Etherton:
No, no.
Abby Morton:
How are you going about scheduling then those out when you do have a day that you come up with good content?
Colton Etherton:
See, that would be the smart thing to do, Abby, would be to schedule it and have it already. Usually I just keep them all saved in Canva where I create most of it. Or if it’s a reel on Instagram and I create it directly in there, just save it to my drafts and then go back in and post it another day.
Abby Morton:
Okay. So you are going in daily and posting it, but if you spent time creating it, the assets, so that’s interesting to use it now as well as like you’re not always creating everything directly into the app itself. Like you’re using Canva to design whatever it may be to pull that over. So talk to us a little bit about that.
Colton Etherton:
Yeah, so I think Canva’s super easy. I’m no designer. I work with people that are much better at designing things than I am. But I think canvas’s easy for anyone to really just create a simple post whether it’s you take a template they have and turn it into something. And it doesn’t even have to be fancy. I mean, a lot of my posts are just colored background with some words and then a caption. I don’t always have to make it fancy. So there’s that. There’s also some videos in Instagram. If I’m creating directly in Instagram, I will remix someone else’s video. So you can just… If they have that turned on, most people do ’cause I think it defaults to that, but you can pull up a video and you can add your own take on what they’re saying.
Colton Etherton:
And so I’ve done that a lot lately, especially with some of the infinite banking, secrets of the wealthy, all those kind of posts that everyone’s trying to sell on Instagram and TikTok mainly because I was getting sent those by people to ask, is this legit? And I was tired of playing defense, right? And I’m like, you know what, I’m just gonna start responding to some. So yeah, I mean, between just creating the app, it’s super easy once you get used to it. It may take a little bit to figure out where all the buttons are.
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
And then Canva, kind of combination of the two.
Abby Morton:
And you do all of the designing yourself in Canva. Like you don’t have a designer that you’ve hired.
Colton Etherton:
No, I don’t. So I just, yeah, set up Canva. It lets you… I don’t know if you can do it on the free version, but the paid version’s like 10 or 12 bucks a month. It’s cheap and you can set up your brand kit and everything, so you can pick… Put your fonts, your logo, your colors, and then you can just click a button and it applies to the full post that you make so you don’t have to mess with it.
Abby Morton:
Oh that’s nice. Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
Yeah.
Abby Morton:
Okay.
Colton Etherton:
Yeah, so I mean, I even set one up for one of the Elements presentations recently and put all of our brand stuff in there and clicked a button and it changed it, super simple. So it might take a time or two again to get used to it, but once you do, it’s nice. And then you can just save it and you can resize it to other stuff. So if you are posting on different platforms, it’s easy for me to take an Instagram post and resize it to something else in another platform and post the same thing.
Abby Morton:
Yeah. Okay. No, that’s great. You hit on this a little bit, like learning Canva, learning Instagram, like you gotta know where the buttons are and I’m sure there’s a learning curve. Did you ever take any classes or like watch YouTube videos? Like how do you come up to speed to learning all the ins and outs of social posting?
Colton Etherton:
That’s a good question. I did not. I didn’t take any courses. I’ve watched some YouTube videos, followed a couple accounts that share some tips, but most of it was just trial and error. I mean, honestly, most of my first one sucked. If you go back and look at them, [laughter], man, I put that out there, but it’s okay. It doesn’t matter. You can always archive it or delete it later so it doesn’t show on your feed. But yeah, it was just a lot of trial and error. I think Canva has some videos and stuff too if you’re trying to figure something out.
Abby Morton:
Yeah. I had to manage the Elements brand social for a very short scent of time and that’s definitely not in my wheelhouse, but I remember I was like trying to watch YouTube videos every day. I don’t know. You see all these cool things that people do on Instagram. So I think that’s helpful as well as you see what other people do and then you think, oh, I wanna do that. Like, it’s not hard to even come up with ideas of unique ways to share things or to emulate what they’re doing as well. And with YouTube, and there’s easy ways to find out as well. But like you said, like even if you don’t do that, you can do a basic post, and something is better than nothing, right?
Colton Etherton:
Yeah, for sure. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy. Just staying active to an extent.
Abby Morton:
Yeah. No, I like that. So for those people, for those advisors who are just getting started and are feeling like Instagram might be the place my audience are, what advice would you give them to start and get going?
Colton Etherton:
I would say, definitely find your people, start following them, interacting with their posts, liking, commenting on things that make sense, replying to stories. I don’t ever cold DM anyone. I know a lot of people like to do it on LinkedIn and other stuff for a couple reasons. One, I just personally don’t like to do it, but two, a lot of tattoo artists also have in all their profiles like no DMs ’cause they just get inundated with messages. So I’m not even… The outreach I’m doing isn’t anything like that. So it’s really just me following their stories, their posts and commenting, interacting that way.
Abby Morton:
Okay. That’s a good point. We haven’t talked about that, right? Like interacting with your following as well. That’s important.
Colton Etherton:
Yeah. So use it in a way to make friends, not just to DM, right?
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
I’ll DM people if they follow me or they follow me back or whatever and I’ll send a message, “Thank you. If you have any questions, I’m always open.” But otherwise, I don’t know. I don’t think sending a bunch of messages makes sense. Just simply talk to people, make friends with them, right? Like that’s really all I’m trying to do, is just replying to people’s posts, making friends with who I’m following, being open to answer questions. I have people reach out with a question and share with me, whether it’s through Instagram or we just hop on a quick call.
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
Yeah. Doing the… Instagram lets you do the… What’s the thing? Where you can ask a question, so that’s been fun sometimes ’cause we can post up, hey, what financial questions do you have? And people can reply and then you can share those responses which is also great for more content ideas, ’cause you can see what kind of questions people are asking and who came up with it.
Abby Morton:
Definitely.
Colton Etherton:
And if no one replies it, you can reply it your own and do it too if you know good questions and it can drive attention. So yeah, I mean, there’s all kinds of fun stuff you can do with Instagram.
Abby Morton:
I love it. Well, I think what you’ve taught me today is like just get started. It’s pretty simple. I think oftentimes in our heads, we always make it out to be this bigger thing of like, I need to invest all this money and do ads and take it to the next level. And I feel like this conversation today, you’ve had really good traction. It sounds like you said eight outta 10 of your clients are coming from Instagram. You’re not even using a scheduler, right? You’re using Canva to help design things and make them look nice and then putting them on Instagram. So it really can be very, very simple and basic.
Colton Etherton:
Yeah, and you don’t even need to… A lot of people think they need to make videos or posts, they’re gonna blow up and they get a lot of followers and I mean, I don’t think you do. I’m barely around 1000 right now but if you think about it, probably I’d say at least 800, 850 are tattoo artists. And so to me that’s pretty good.
Abby Morton:
Right. Yeah.
Colton Etherton:
I only need a handful of them. So yeah, I don’t know. Don’t focus too much on those two.
Abby Morton:
I love it.
Colton Etherton:
Just be consistent and have fun with it.
Abby Morton:
Be consistent.
Colton Etherton:
And be a real person.
Abby Morton:
I love it. Be consistent, be a real person. What a great way to end the show. Thanks so much for your time today, Colton. Appreciate your comments and all of the advice you gave us today.
Colton Etherton:
Thanks, Abby.
Abby Morton:
Next time on Elementality.
Rob Rickey:
So when I think about an employee sponsored plan, I think about people are on their own financial journey and there are different points in their financial journey, and they also like to get things different ways. They want to get advice different ways. They consume things differently. So you really have to have multiple advice offerings within a plan to try to maximize the number of individuals in the plan that get the advice they need for where they’re at which is really kind of go back to your point. Advice is great, but if it’s not for where somebody is at in their financial journey and it’s not the way they want it, it’s probably not going to add the value.
Abby Morton:
To find out more about Elements, go to getelements.com/demo. Elementality’s executive producers are Reese Harper and Carl Richards. Elementality is produced by Tad Henderson and directed by Abby Morton. Have a good one.