This article is taken from the program I delivered at the IMCA Consultants Conference on March 3, 2004. If you ever wanted to make a name for yourself and show yourself as different and better – this is how you do it.

Most marketing programs in the financial services industry are duplications of each other. They talk about products or services. Why in the world would you want to promote something virtually everyone else promotes. How could that help you? Would you like to do something different and better with your marketing? Let's look at how to do it.

Level I. Credibility Marketing

Credibility Brochure. These show you as a friendly, approachable professional. They show your character and they tell a story illustrating how you got your character. It's easy to tell people what you value, but when you tell them the story of how you learned those values, you increase your credibility.

For example, an advisor in Minnesota told me that he learned his values while visiting his grandmother and elderly relatives during summers. An advisor in New York told me that his values were beat into his head at his school by the kindly Dominican nuns.