Interview with AdviceTech.LIVE Speaker Robert Sofia of Snappy Kraken
Robert Sofia
CEO at Snappy Kraken
AdvisorTech.LIVE Panel: Advisor Marketing Tech
How did you get your start in financial services?
In 2004, a friend who was an advisor showed me how far behind financial advisor marketing was, and I immediately saw a chance to make a big impact.
Shortly thereafter, I left the auto industry where I had been working in business development for Ford, to join an independent RIA as their VP of Marketing.
What’s something that you know now that you wish you’d known when you started your career?
Marketing is more science than art. Trust the data over your gut feelings. If you aren’t sure whether something will work, test it. Challenge all your own assumptions.
What excites you most about the financial advice profession right now?
The opportunity! In many ways, the financial advice industry is still like the Wild West. There’s so much more to build and improve upon.
Tech companies often add so many features and tools that advisors can lose track of everything available to them. Is there something your company does that you don’t think advisors know about that they should be aware of?
We’re using Facebook to generate exclusive, high-quality leads for advisors at costs as low as $19 per lead. Most lead providers charge 7-10 times this amount, and they sell the leads to multiple advisors. All the leads we generate only go to one advisor per area. That makes a big difference in lead performance!
Any words of advice for advisors looking to update their tech stack?
I sure do! Three points actually. You can read all three in the article I wrote for ThinkAdvisor here. In short, they are:
Focus on goals, not tools
Look beyond the sales glitter
Choose the right person for the job
What are you looking forward to most about attending AdviceTech.LIVE?
Learning from and networking with other people who care about helping financial advisors grow and scale. That’s the whole point of technology, after all.