Dimensional, Riskalyze, and United Capital.

Three companies, three unique messages that transcended what they do.

Evidence-based Investing.

The Risk Number.

Honest Conversations.

You might be able to name a few more examples than I did, but we’ve all been impacted by messaging that’s bigger than the firms that birthed them. The names of these concepts serve a greater purpose than just how to talk about an idea. They become the central narrative of the firm.

Having a central narrative around your value creates powerful alignment in how you go to market. Most companies struggle to find just the right idea to create a narrative that matters.

You couldn’t have a conversation with Aaron Klein over the past ten years without hearing about the risk number. Even if you personally didn’t care about the risk number, you had to sort of care about the risk number.

When I was running Orion’s marketing in 2013, I saw how effective Riskalyze had become in driving their narrative and knew that our software needed to take what they were doing into account.

Figuring out how to work together bettered both firms as we created numerous ways to work together over the following years.

Missing the Narrative

One of the most powerful things we can do is find a central narrative. A central narrative is a story told from the perspective of the main character, that is, your client. They help you keep your team on mission because they help you keep your clients centered on what matters.

Central narratives also lead you to a repeatable mantra that can help you break through the noise of features, buzzwords, and jargon — even if they are some sort of packaged version of all of those things.

Finding Your Narrative

The most effective way to find your narrative is through spending lots of time in the trenches – listening to your clients and teaching key truths that are essential to their success.

If you considered your client’s experience like a course syllabus, what would you want to ensure is included? What would be required reading, and what would be extra credit?

Once you understand what’s important to your ideal client, you can get to work delivering a message that resonates with both your team and clients. Look for the single theme that ties their concerns together.

It’s worth your (and your team’s) time to distill the truth into a name or statement that is simple and memorable.

I’ve spent thousands of hours across the table from advisors during my career. The ones who’ve found their central narrative got there through their own personal ideation in their notebook.

They wrote down a phrase. They underlined it, traced over it a few times. There’s a diagram they sketched out to help them simplify their message.

For SignatureFD, they centered on the idea of Net Worthwhile – a principle that is open ended, intriguing and subjective to their clients. It gives SignatureFD’s team a target to draw up for clients, prospects and advisors.

This wasn’t overnight, it took time and deep focus and it wasn’t just pulling something out of the air. It was the focus that germinated the concept and the concept that became a tangible transformational principle.

What about you?

What is your central narrative or what central narratives stand out the most to you?