For many advisors, managing a book of business is more than a full-time job. Add the task of bringing in new business, and few advisors have time to do both jobs to the best of their ability.

A marketing assistant can not only bring in new clients but also free you to spend more time doing what you do best: working with existing clients. This can reduce your workload, increase your book of business and make your practice more profitable.

Wayne Baxter, senior associate at Investment Planning Counsel in Mississauga, Ont., has had a marketing assistant for more than eight years. Baxter himself was originally brought into the firm as a marketing specialist. Now an advisor, he and his team help more than 350 families achieve their financial goals, managing more than $90 million in assets.

“Having a marketing assistant gives a huge benefit,” Baxter says. “It gives me more time to deal directly with my clients.”

IPC founder Chris Reynolds brought Baxter on board in 1994 to help with a marketing plan that involved setting up financial education workshops for employees of large corporations. Arranged through the companies’ human resources departments, the seminars gave IPC the opportunity to meet a large number of potential clients. The experience taught Baxter the importance of marketing and the level of success a well-executed marketing plan can achieve.

When Baxter took over Reynolds’ book eight years ago, he continued to come up with creative ways to meet prospective clients. He is well known for his highly successful marketing technique, the “fishbowl strategy.” While Baxter didn’t invent the strategy, he turned it into a successful method for getting new clients for his practice.

He started by placing on the counter of a nearby dry-cleaning store a fishbowl bearing a label advertising his services. It invited customers to drop their business cards into the fishbowl for a chance to win free dry cleaning and a shot at a $500 travel voucher.

The fishbowl filled regularly with the names of prospects, and Baxter added fishbowls in other stores and restaurants. The program generated business, but Baxter found that managing the fishbowls was a job in itself. He hired a marketing assistant, Leigh Ann McGenerty, now a senior associate, to work full-time on the campaign. McGenerty expanded the program to 50 fishbowls, which brought in new clients every month.

While the fishbowls are no longer Baxter’s main marketing focus, he still has a full-time marketing assistant, Lee Mallia, who has her hands full arranging educational seminars and wine-and-cheese events and following up on inquiries generated by Baxter’s radio show Right on the Money, which airs Saturday mornings on Toronto station AM740.

Like Baxter, Gary Rasiuk, vice president and senior advisor with the Rasiuk Nelson Group at Toronto-based Blackmont Capital Inc., says his full-time marketing assistant is an asset to his team, along with the firm’s marketing support.

“We weren’t really taking advantage of all the help when we first came to the firm,” says Rasiuk. “Now our marketing assistant has several campaigns that are done on an ongoing basis, and potential clients are getting to know who we are.”

Since Baijul Shukla joined Rasiuk’s team 18 months ago, he has helped bring in $4 million of new business, with solid prospects worth another $10 million-$15 million.

The marketing assistant is an often misunderstood position, Shukla says, and many people underestimate how much a marketing assistant can accomplish.

“A lot of people automatically think ‘cold callers’ when they hear the title,” he says. “But it’s not about that at all. It’s beneficial to bring in someone who has some knowledge about marketing and has ideas that the advisor can put to use to develop a personal business relationship with clients.”

Although Shukla does some calling of prospects, they have all received personal invitations identifying the firm prior to the call.

“We want to work on building a rapport with our contacts,” he says. “When we send them the seminar invitation, even if they don’t attend, they know who we are when we do a follow-up call later on.”

Advisors should look for a background in marketing when hiring a marketing assistant, Shukla says. More important, hirees should know exactly what it takes to run a campaign. Shukla has a degree in marketing and a post-graduate degree in marketing for financial services, both from York University in Toronto. “It’s important to have an assistant,” he says, “because it’s a ton of work.” IE