3 Rules Experienced Financial Advisors Follow to Get New Clients

You could be the most brilliant financial advisor in town, but you won’t last very long in this business if you can’t consistently find new clients for your planning services. Clients are the life source for your practice, even as an experienced financial advisor.

Consolidated Planning has spent 40 years developing financial advisors. We’ve seen hot fads come and go and have discovered our time-tested approach works in all environments when properly executed. We help advisors of all experience levels build overflowing pipelines of new potential clients using three simple rules.

We’ll focus on how our three rules apply to your practice and share actionable steps so you can start building your prospective client pipeline today.

 

Established Financial Advisors Always Need To Find Clients

Before we dig in, let’s answer this question first. Why do you need to find new clients as an experienced financial advisor? Isn’t the whole point of this career that you can build up a book of business that pays you recurring income forever while you ride off into the sunset on a golf cart?

The temptation to sit back and rest on your laurels can be great in this career. Unfortunately, the stagnation that occurs when you stop growing can quickly poison your practice and lead to going backwards instead of simply staying put. In this business, you are either growing or you’re shrinking. There isn’t much middle ground.

You may not need the same volume of clients you did when you were first starting out, but client acquisition should always be a focus for your practice.

 

Rule #1: Experienced Financial Advisors Market To Their Existing Book Of Business

Yes. You have to keep finding new clients forever. But here’s the good news. As an experienced advisor, you have a tremendous advantage versus when you were new in this career. You have an existing book of business.

There are several ways that you can grow your practice and find new clients by marketing to your existing clients.

• Referrals – Asking for referrals should be a part of every client meeting you have. If you don’t ask, you won’t receive. Getting in the habit of asking will also train your clients to help you grow through introductions to their network.
• Offer Additional Services – Most experienced advisors that come to Consolidated Planning don’t initially offer the full range of planning services our firm provides. As you shift from transactional to consultative, you will find additional opportunities to work with your existing clients.
• Enhanced Service Model – Adopting a planning process and following a defined client service model helps you be proactive in your practice management and results in happy clients. Happy clients do more business and help you grow.

 

Retaining your  existing clients is the first area to focus your efforts to start growing your practice. As you evolve and add more services, go back to this well to ensure no one is left behind. Our Marketing Administrative & Practice Solutions (MAPS) team  works with advisors to create and implement client service models and practice marketing plans to help assist you with these efforts.

 

Rule #2: Experienced Financial Advisors Specialize To Serve A Target Market

You might already have a specialty. If so, great. Let’s go even deeper. If you don’t have a specialty, what are you waiting for?

Today’s clients are more discerning than ever. They have tremendous amounts of information literally at their fingertips at all times. If you want to get their attention, you need to

Financial advisors develop target markets to more effectively communicate their value and implement strategies to elevate their client experience. Today’s affluent market requires a tailored value proposition and specialized client experience.

A recent survey conducted by the Weylman Center found that 87% of affluent individuals belong to an organization or network that supports what they do for a living, recreation, or interests. More importantly, 71% of those individuals want to work with an advisor in their network.

Why?

Affluent individuals want to work with an advisor in their network because they want someone who knows:

• who they are,
• what they want,
• what they need

When a prospect discovers that you know and care about these three things, then they have the curiosity and confidence to engage with you.

 

Rule #3: Experienced Financial Advisors Ask For Referrals

Experienced financial advisors must become masters of asking for introductions from existing clients, prospective clients, and centers of influence. Why must you master this skill? Your success depends on it.

Referrals and introductions are some of the most powerful marketing strategies out there. The numbers don’t lie:

• 92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know.
• People are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend.
• 77% of consumers are more likely to buy a new product when learning about it from a friend.
• 84% of consumers say they either completely or somewhat trust recommendations from family, colleagues and friends

Wow.

It should be mentioned that once you have a niche market that you’re targeting, you ask for referrals from those clients as well.  Referrals and target markets work great together.

Who knew referrals could be so impactful. If you are looking to improve your closing ratio, look no further. Implementing a process around collecting referrals can set your practice on a course for exponential growth. You simply can’t manufacture a better prospective client than a warm introduction from a client or center of influence.

 

How Can You Implement These Rules In Your Practice?

The odds are good that you are already following these rules to some extent or else you wouldn’t still be in business. That being said, you can likely stand to brush up on some of these skills and may benefit from having a process in place to ensure your client acquisition efforts are humming along with optimal efficiency.

There are two ways you can fully embrace and implement these rules in your practice. The first way is the hard way. It’s your own through trial and error. The good news is, this way is not expensive in terms of cash coming out of your pocket. The bad news is, this way is expensive in terms of lost opportunities.

The second way you can internalize these rules in the processes of your practice is to partner with a firm to help you. But how do you know what firm is best for you?

Consolidated Planning is that partner for our advisors. Reach out to our team below to learn what a partnership with Consolidated Planning could mean for your practice and receive a custom playbook with a plan to double your practice income within five years.

 

 

 

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