Should You Buy Leads As A Financial Advisor?

Financial advisors are constantly looking for new clients. Yes, even the most successful ones.

We call this activity prospecting. An advisor’s ability to prospect and get in front of potential new clients is arguably the number one determiner of one’s success.

Successful financial advisors are able to stay successful because of their ability to generate quality leads. We’re confident that the planning philosophy at Consolidated Planning and the support and resources can help you generate the necessary leads to sustain your practice.

Once you understand what buying leads means for your practice and the tools you can utilize to generate more quality leads, you can decide which lead generation technique is best for building your practice.

 

The Pros and Cons Of Buying Leads As A Financial Advisor

Typically, leads are bought as a springboard for advisors in building their practice. These leads provide an advisor with a pre-set list of people they can call on that may have a need for what they are selling. This process doesn’t work quite as seamless with consultative firms, like Consolidated Planning, because we aren’t just selling things.

Client acquisition through continuous prospecting is essential to your success, especially in this competitive industry. To continually replenish a prospect list and expand your business, lead generation can help you get there. With several avenues to get there, is buying leads right for you?

 

PROS OF BUYING LEADS

 

#1 IMMEDIATELY ACTIONABLE

Buying leads provides financial advisors with an immediate pool of potential clients to connect with. Marketing efforts, while valuable, take time for leads to emerge. With a purchased leads list, advisors can start engaging with these leads right away, potentially accelerating the client acquisition process.

This can be especially true when it comes to client acquisition for advisors who are starting over in a new market. Without existing contacts, or established centers of influence, working off of a purchased leads list can be a good starting point while you work towards building relationships within your market.

 

#2 INCREASED REACH

The phrase ‘cast a wide net’ means to involve a large number of things or people in what you are doing. Expanding your reach as a financial advisor is a necessary aspect of building a practice. Buying leads allows financial advisors to cast a wider net and access potential clients that either may not have learned about them or otherwise reached in their marketing and networking efforts.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Now let’s take a look at potential drawbacks to purchasing leads to build your practice.

 

CONS OF BUYING LEADS

 

#1 LACK OF CONTROL

One of the biggest concerns with buying leads is the quality of information. We’re not saying you’ll never have accurate information, but the quality can vary significantly, leaving you with less control over who you’re actually contacting.

Some leads may be highly targeted and relevant to the financial advisor’s niche, while others may be less qualified or have inaccurate information. It is essential to evaluate lead providers and select reputable sources that offer high-quality leads matching the advisor’s target market.

Poorly sourced leads or consistently generated leads outside of your target market can put a strain on your time and your reputation as a financial advisor.

 

#2 LOW CONVERSION RATE

With working off of a leads list, you’re missing the opportunity to build a relationship that an introduction or referral gives you. The Pareto Principle states that 80 percent of your business is  represented by 20 percent of your clients. That means the majority of your practice is likely to be built through referrals or introductions from your existing clients. That’s because introductions often lead to high conversions compared to a cold outreach, also known as the purchased leads list.

According to Brevet, as of 2021, it takes an average of 8 cold call attempts to even reach a prospect. REACH. This data doesn’t even account for the communication necessary once they actually answer your call. No wonder there are lower conversion rates when it comes to buying a leads list.

The time needed and the lack of relationship building is the reason for lower conversion rates here. When you’re introduced to a prospect by a mutual, trusted connection, the potential client is much more likely to actively engage with you and more seriously consider your services.

 

#3 SUSTAINABILITY

Regardless of the outcomes with the contacts on your leads list, once you’ve crossed names off of your list, it’s part of the best practice to replace those names. So, how will you replenish your leads? Yep, you will have to continue to buy more leads.

Buying leads can supplement your prospecting activities or even act as a jumping off point, but there is no quick fix when it comes to your prospecting. Being a financial advisor is a tough career, and the work necessary to build a client base is a reason some financial advisors fail.

You can’t solely rely on buying leads if you want to build a sustainable practice – a sustainable career.

 

 

What Tools Can You Utilize To Generate Leads For Practice Growth?

The concern with buying leads is an advisor may become reliant on those leads lists rather than learning how to find and cultivate relationships. It’s like the proverb, “if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”

Ideally, for every name you go through, whether they become a client or not, it’s a good idea to replace that name. If that’s true, teaching people to find and cultivate leads can be a better alternative than solely relying on purchasing your leads.

Finding and cultivating those quality leads can happen in a few ways:

 

#1 ESTABLISHING A CLIENT SERVICE MODEL

Your existing clients are one of your best resources for generating new leads. Yes, your existing clients, you don’t have to recreate the wheel. But, what you do need to do is ensure you have an established client service model. A client service model refers to the framework and approach necessary to deliver services and support your clients. This model includes strategies, processes, and standards that guide how and when clients are engaged, served, and supported throughout their financial planning with you.

Because you spend so much time cultivating the right target market for you, establishing a client service model ensures that effort isn’t wasted. Your client service model will revolve around communication touch points, that might include:

• Quarterly email check-ins
• Sending birthday cards
• Sharing relevant articles
• Educational opportunities
• Proactive market updates
• Monthly newsletters

By investing your time and effort into consistently providing valuable and relevant content, educational resources, thought leadership, and simply staying top of mind, you not only establish yourself as a trusted authority, but you continue to build trust and rapport with your clients, leading to higher retention rates as well as the confidence to ask for referrals.

Establishing an effective client service model won’t happen overnight. But, what’s important here is determining a realistic model for your practice that allows you to remain consistent overtime. Remember, building your client base is a marathon, not a sprint.

 

#2 UTILIZING COPILOT AI

Part of the process of generating leads is simply making new connections. CoPilot AI is an Automated Lead Generation Tool for LinkedIn and its largest benefit is finding quality connections for you.

While advisors are always looking for that next client, this career requires the ability to focus on the long game of building connections and relationships. 

So, how can the long game of CoPilot benefit you?

The more quality connections an advisor makes within their target market, the larger your audience becomes, which increases your reach and builds reputability. Think of yourself in this instance, are you more interested in someone’s page and the likelihood to connect when they have 100k followers or 100?

If someone accepts a connection request (through CoPilot campaign), but then goes quiet or says they are not interested in financial advice at the current time or already have an advisor, etc. the advisor STILL benefits. You now have this person’s:

• Attention/Visibility: Content that’s been tagged to their page—featured articles, posts, pictures, podcasts, endorsements, etc. now becomes visible. Going forward, this new connection will be able to see anything and everything an advisor now posts can be seen by this new connection. 
• Contact information: First & last name, email, phone, all of which can then be inputted into Smart Office (with notes if applicable). This information can be used to circle back with them later, target them with relevant content, email campaigns, newsletters, as well as the ability to email them a 1:1 video. Even in 2023, emails are STILL generating better results than most other marketing channels.
• 2nd Degree Connections: This is important for subsequent outreach. When you run a search list on Sales Navigator (this is how it pulls individuals into the campaign), you can only use 2nd degree connections—if you send requests to a large number of 3rd degree connections, your LinkedIn account can get flagged. For example, if you’re targeting doctors at John Hopkins and run your initial search list on Sales Navigator, it only generates 76 possible connections. Once I request to connect with, say, Jane Michaels, a neurosurgeon, and she accepts, her first-degree connections become my 2nd degree connections and my list just got a whole lot bigger.

 

Advisors at Consolidated Planning have the ability to utilize CoPilot AI with support in content development, training workshops, and campaign performance reviews, all to optimize your presence on LinkedIn.

 

Build A Sustainable Practice Through Better Lead Generation

If you are dedicated to maximizing a purchased leads list through consistent efforts, you will be surprised at the conversions you can make from purchased contact to client. But building that consistency will likely take more time than nurturing your current clients for warm introductions and referral business.

Determining the right mix of lead generation for your practice depends on what works best for you. A sustainable financial advising practice is built on meaningful relationships that not only position you as an expert but also give you the necessary confidence to directly ask your satisfied clients for referrals.

If you’re ready to learn how to better nurture your target market for the longevity of your practice, talk with a recruiter about your potential future at Consolidated Planning.

 

 

2023-156610 Exp. 6/2025