If you have an financial advisory service that makes your clients money consistently, it can sell itself. All you need are three elements:

(1) a believable track record;

(2) a rationale for why your track record is so good (its method or approach); and

(3) an explanation for why you’re offering your financial services to the public at this time, in this market.

Bill Bonner of Agora used to insist that the third leg of this stool was a freebie or “sample” — such as a stock recommendation or something that can actually make people money immediately — but I disagree.

After years of testing, I’ve found that prospects will overlook the lack of a “sample,” in fact may even be suspicious when you do provide a sample; but they truly need a explanation for why you are offering your financial services to the general public.

The attitude seems to be: If you’re so smart and you make so much money trading, then why are you willing to give it all away for $1,250… $2,500… or even $5,000? That is a question that simply must be answered in any winning promotion… even if the answer is a very frank, “To make more money!”

Financial advisor marketing has changed markedly in the past few years. In many ways, it’s a lot easier to market financial advisors, financial newsletters, forex and commodities advisories and financial planning services than it was only a few years ago.

One reason: It’s easier today to prove to prospects that you can deliver the goods!

At Financial Copywriting Solutions, we do a lot of product launches for financial advisors, financial newsletters, online trading services, forex and commodities services, and more.  As a result, we get the see the results of hundreds, sometimes thousands of tests for each launch.  In the past few years, I’ve noticed a definite trend in the use of what I like to call “no possibility of BS” social proof in video sales letters — namely, the “video walk through” of an advisor’s online trading account.

As a means of proof, you really can’t be it.

For decades now, financial advisors and newsletter editors have talked about their track records. All that’s fine, but in our hyper-skeptical world — in which no one trusts anything you say — the gold standard of proof is now the brokerage walk-through. That’s because anyone with 10 minutes of trading experience knows that financial advisors or financial newsletter editors can cherry-pick their track records. They know that a financial advisor may have made 856% on his Oil Stock July $65 call… but also lost all of his money on the next 10 trades.

Here’s how a brokerage video walk-through works.

In the first or second video in your product launch, the financial advisor conducts a video “walk through” of one of his (or her) trading accounts. Using online video software, such as Camtasia, the advisor logs onto his brokerage account (with the account numbers blurred out later) and then literally conducts a little tour. He shows when the account was opened… scrolls through the hundreds or thousands of closed and open trades… highlights commissions paid… and then shows bottom line profits as well as “opening day” account balances and “right now” account balances.

“Okay, here I am inside of my eTrade account,” the financial adviser might say. “As you can see, I opened this particular trading account on November 5, 2009, with $10,000. Over the next 24 months, I made 128 individual trades. Here, I’ll scroll down through these so you can see them. As you see, I had a few losers but most of these worked out very, very well. Over all, of the 128 trades about 96 were winners and and 32 were losers. We had an average gain of 58% per trade. I paid $1,282 in commissions. Now, here’s the part I really want you to see. Remember, I told you I opened this account with $10,000. Here, I’ll go back so you can see that again. Now, let me scroll down so you can see the account balance as of the close of trading today. Here, I’ll zoom in on this. As you can see, as of right now this account has a balance of $87,634.23. That means I’ve netted a total profit of $77,634.23 over the past 24 months of trading. That represents a total return of 676.3% — or 178% per year. On a monthly basis, it’s “only” 8.9% per month.”

Anyway, you get the idea. For the Doubting Thomases of this world, seeing really is believing… and this video “walk through” represents a real seeing. This is the gold standard now in social proof for financial advisor marketing. If you’re not using this technique, you should be… because it can multiply the effectiveness of your promotions by a factor of 8 or 9 times!

The bottom line is this: If you want to successfully market your financial advisory service, financial newsletter, forex or commodity trading service, you have to offer your prospects definitive, incontrovertible, no-B.S. proof that you really can do what you claim… which is, make money. The more proof you can provide, the more customers you will have. It’s really that simple.