Advisor Larry Sprung's Not-So-Secret Marketing Weapon: Joy

Larry Sprung, founder of Mitlin Financial, New York’s only Carson Partners firm, is notable for leading-edge branding and marketing campaigns for his practice.

Now he’s come up with a new wrinkle: not just emblazoning his firm’s slogan on shirts but amplifying it with a QR code that, with a smartphone, brings folks directly to his podcast, “Mitlin Money Mindset.”

“What did you do today that brought you joy?” is his trademarked slogan, and the question rarely fails to attract attention from passersby.

“People comment on it. They really love that phrase. They take pictures. We’ve had so much great feedback from this saying,” enthuses Sprung in an interview with ThinkAdvisor.

Another new promotional connection is Sprung’s book that incorporates the joyfulness theme: “Financial Planning Made Personal: How to Create Joy and the Mindset for Success” (Mitlin, April 2023).

All proceeds go to the Keith Milano Memorial Fund at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, a fund created in memory of Sprung’s brother-in-law.

The book covers accumulating and preserving retirement savings in 205 pages.

In the interview, the certified financial planner, a 2022 ThinkAdvisor LUMINARIES award finalist for thought leadership and education, discusses how to motivate young people to start saving early for retirement.

Further, he cautions about making large investments in mutual funds, which will trigger “a challenge when [the investors] retire because all [that] income is going to be taxable,” as he notes.

Mitlin Financial serves 140 families with investable assets from $50,000 to over $5 million.

Notching 25 years in financial services, Sprung opened his own firm in 2004, in Hauppauge, New York, on Long Island, after working at Bank of America and Salomon Smith Barney.

In the interview, he explains how providing a second opinion can mean acquiring new clients. His method: finding “some minor thing [in portfolios] that could lead to major improvement,” he says.

Another way Sprung expands his client base is through his branding and marketing strategies.

For example, he started gathering client testimonials only three months after the Securities and Exchange Commission’s revamped advertising and marketing rule, which permitted advisors to do so, went into effect in May 2022.

The firm now has about 15 Google client testimonials, which typically have brought in new clients.

ThinkAdvisor recently interviewed Sprung, who was speaking from his office in Hauppauge.

The question arose: What does he do that brings him joy? Answer: He retains multigenerational clients; for instance, one family that started with a couple he’d worked with for 23 years.

Even after the husband’s death seven years ago and the wife’s passing last December, their three sons remain Mitlin clients.

“Usually when Mom and Dad go, the kids scatter in all different directions,” Sprung says. “But all three brothers continue to work with me. That [type of] opportunity brings me a lot of joy.”

Here are excerpts from our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: The subtitle of your book, “Financial Planning Made Personal: How to Create Joy and the Mindset for Success,” shows that you consider feeling joyful an important component of life. But why did you trademark your slogan, “What did you do today that brought you joy?”

LARRY SPRUNG: It was a thought-provoking question, and we wanted to protect it as an asset of our organization. We trademarked it about a year or two ago. It started out as the tagline for my podcast.

I have it printed on many shirts. When I’m walking through the airport or around town, people comment on it. They take pictures.

They really love that phrase.

In fact, we’ve had so much great feedback on this saying that I ended up putting a [smartphone] QR code [for it] on the back of the shirts that takes you right to my podcast.

Has the slogan brought you any new business?

I don’t know if it has.

Well, indirectly, it could have.

Correct. Our branding and marketing have certainly brought us many new clients over the last 12 to 24 months.

In your book, you talk about giving second opinions, which you like to call “a discussion of minor adjustments.” Please explain.

If they have an advisor, most people are set up in a pretty good way. But we find that there are always some minor things that could lead to major improvement.

How do your second-opinion meetings come about?

From our existing client families, we get introductions — people who are kind of exploring. So we offer them the opportunity for a second opinion.

Also, there are people I meet through my daily activities that might say something about their investments or advisor.

I’ll take the opportunity to say, “We’ll be happy to offer a second opinion — to take a look at what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.”

We tell them that we can do a review, and if what we say makes sense, we can potentially work together. If it doesn’t, then we’ll part as friends.

Sometimes we’ll just confirm that what they’re doing has put them in a good spot.

What are some investments in a portfolio that might need minor adjustments?