T3 Conference Opens With Humor, A Free Spirit And Serious Topics; Havener Advises On ‘Flipping’ Social Media In Keynote Address
This year’s T3 Conference opened in good humor with a brief introduction by conference Producer Joel Bruckenstein, wearing an Orion baseball cap and socks, stating that the firm “gave me more good swag than anybody else.”
After setting a casual tone for the conference, Bruckenstein moved to address a serous topic – cybersecurity – which he and others recently addressed in WSR. He informed the attendees that surveys reveal a lack of knowledge about the need for cybersecurity among advisory firms, and that there would be a special emphasis placed on cybersecurity awareness during the conference.
Havener Advises “Flipping” Social Media
Stacy Havener, Founder and CEO of Havener Capital Partners, delivered the keynote address. In keeping with a casual theme while addressing pressing topics, Havener wore a T-shirt with the word “Rebel” while presenting insightful and sometimes counterintuitive advice to the crowd regarding social media.
“Your portrait lives online and everyone can see it with a Google search, whether or not you choose to paint the portrait at all. If you do nothing, they’ll see that, too, or they’ll see the story in the portrait that somebody else is painting,” said Havener.
Havener presented “four steps to flip the script on social media.” First, she advised the attendees to not worry about creating content, but rather to drive engagement by picking five people with your same target market and making thoughtful, insightful comments on their feeds.
Second, she stated that, “People do business with people, not companies,” pointing out that Bill Gates and Elon Musk both have five times the followers as their companies, to demonstrate that firms must put forward a human name, face and personality for their brand. Havener pointed out that Bruckenstein, for example, serves that function for T3.
For lead generation, she advises not gating content, but giving the best content for free and publicly talking about it across various platforms including podcasts, social media and websites. Instead of relying on software to track results, she recommends asking people who reach out to you.
“Ninety-five percent of decision making is subconscious,” Havener said in addressing messaging, pointing out that people make decisions emotionally, after which the mind rationalizes the emotional decision. In that vein, people often view themselves as the hero and search for a guide on social media.
She advises telling stories through social media that make the prospective connection the hero, rather than writing about yourself, which is the equivalent of presenting yourself as the hero of the story. Instead, you should only serve as the hero in one story – your personal backstory – so that prospective connections will connect with you on a personal basis and choose you as their guide.
Julius Buchanan, Managing Editor at Wealth Solutions Report, can be reached at jbuchanan@wealthsolutionsreport.com
