As a Financial Advisor, Are You Investing in Your Best Client Opportunities?

Elite financial advisors looking to grow their business need to spend more time with their ideal clients and clients with opportunities. Your existing clients are the catalyst to growing your practice.

Imagine this scenario: tried to fly first class to Hawaii. You’re looking forward to all the perks that come with flying first class. You pay $5000 for your ticket. I sit down next to you and ask you how much did you pay for your ticket. Your answer is $5000. Wow, I only paid $500. Now, how do you feel? Ripped off, frustrated, angry cheated, how are you feeling that the airline decided to subsidize first class with your money?

You cannot treat everyone the same. Your high-paying clients cannot get the same service as other clients. Yet we see this mistake over and over by financial advisors. Today is the day you stop making that mistake.

Make the opportunities list

Elite financial advisors go through their client base and make a list of existing clients to convert to ideal clients and ideal families. This list for most practices represents a massive growth opportunity of 15% or more per year.

Imagine if you could grow your business by 15% or more this year and not add one client? However, you’re converting potential clients into ideal families. This is what I call the top 50 list. Your top 25 ideal clients to spend time with and you’re next 25 ideal client families to grow into. On this list, write down the ideal revenue from ideal clients. Then write down the potential revenue if you convert the next 25 into ideal clients or ideal families.

Map out the time to invest in your top 50

What happens when you spend time with your best clients? You generate more business and more opportunities come your way with more family introductions and referrals. What happens when we go to our next 25 clients and re-engage them and deliver more value to them. Plan on introducing the new you, the new value, and the new process, which I will elaborate on. 

Most advisors spend one hour with their best clients and never reintroduce their value promise, their process, the name of their plan, and additional value that they have created in their practice. Now imagine if you spent two hours with your client, and received an introduction to a friend or family member like them? Imagine if you had a conversation about all of the professionals they work with, and who you work with? Imagine if you found out how to market to them, and at what events they are involved?. Would it be worth spending an extra hour with an ideal client and having these conversations? Imagine if you can clone your top 10 to 25 clients this year, what that would do for your business?

Here is the process

The purpose of this article is to build a stronger relationship, a deeper level of trust, and deeper more comprehensive planning and advice to your best clients and best client opportunities. Imagine if you get to know your clients better, deliver more clarity on their goals and values and help them get organized in all seven areas of their financial life?

Here are the steps. Step one is to build a solid value promise process to reintroduce your best clients. Build a PowerPoint value promise to support your valuable conversations. Step two is to call the top 50 list and book an appointment to reintroduce your process. Step 3 is to plan out your one hour for a meeting, and an additional 60 minutes for additional conversations over coffee or lunch. The additional 30 to 60 minutes is how elite advisors clone their best clients.

Here are the conversations in the first hour

Do you have a conversation to help people get clarity around all of their goals? The advisors I work with get 6 or more goals on paper from their best clients. Do you have a conversation to help them get organized in all seven areas of their financial life?

This includes tax estate investment risk insurance debt and cash flow. 90 percent or more of financial advisors never see tax returns or wills. Do you have a conversation about your comprehensive plan and do you have the name (with compliance approval of course) of your process and your plan? For example our wealth management process and our blueprint plan for your financial life? What other value-added conversations can you offer to your best clients and clients with opportunities to deliver more value? This is all on your PowerPoint value promise process. If you don’t have one consider building your value promise this year. 

Here are the conversations in the second hour

After you spent time with your clients, invest one hour, take them out for coffee or lunch and ask them these questions.

Do you know about our network of professionals? Most clients will say no and that is when you explain your network and find out who is on their network. Collect the data and you will grow your COI database.

Do you know about our family plan? Most clients will say no. Your family plan is a notional plan ( with compliance approval of course) whereby you let them know you work with their family. Elite advisors find out about siblings and parents, not just children. The wealth is in other family members older than your clients. Financial advisors tend to look at it as a family office and get the whole family.

How many ideal families do you have? Are you offering your family plan and having those family conversations? These conversations take a lot of time. That is why we add a second hour to the meeting.

Do you ask your clients what events they are involved in? This includes charities fundraisings sports clubs organizations. How are they involved in the community? Most wealthy people are involved in their community. Imagine if I gave you the data on what your top clients do in their community and you were invited to those events? This will give you tremendous clues on how to find more wealthy people.

The final question is simple. It is a marketing question. If I were to meet a group of people like you how would I find them, where would I go to meet with them, and how would I connect with them? When you ask it from a marketing perspective they will give you some fantastic ideas and how to find more people like them, or realize that they would like an introduction or two from you. The second hour is where elite advisors grow their financial advisor practice.

I can’t afford 25 hours to double my prospect list

I get it. Most advisors are past capacity and that is the typical response I get. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? If I said to any business, invest 25 hours to potentially double your revenue or ideal prospect database, they would find the time to do it. How would you find the time this year to spend more time with ideal clients, clients with opportunities, and grow your business?

Your intention is to deliver more value to your best clients, upgrade clients with opportunities to a higher level of service and increase your annual revenue. If this is you, start today, build the list and start booking two-hour appointments.

How about your goals for your practice in 2022? Our Practice management resources:   

Comprehensive Practice Management checklist

https://practicemanagement.getresponsepages.com/

Fee Audit checklist

https://feeaudit.getresponsepages.com/

88 Marketing strategies checklist

https://famarketingplan.getresponsepages.com/

Technology checklist including working remotely

https://technologychecklist.getresponsepages.com/

Listen to grant speak at MDRT

Download our “Exclusive prospecting checklist” to help acquire more ideal clients this year.

https://prospectingchecklist.getresponsepages.com/



Discover:

• Key processes to finding and acquiring more ideal clients for financial advisors.
• How to enhance your offers and your value promise.
• Blog on the best practice management strategies to help you manage and build your financial advisor practice and team

We are here to serve your practice, let’s talk

Contact us to help get clarity around your goals on paper, and have the goals conversation by contacting Grant at grant@ghicks.com or click on the link to set up a no-obligation 20-minute discussion https://my.timetrade.com/book/JMTNJ regardless if we work together, let’s have a chat and listen to your biggest practice management concerns to help you get clarity around your future business.

Grant Hicks, CIM, is President of Advisor Practice Management and co-author of “Guerrilla Marketing For Financial Advisors” 1st and 2nd edition. www.advisorpracticemanagement.com for speaking, workshops, or coaching, contact Grant at grant@ghicks.com  Grants combined financial advisor clients manage over 5 billion AUM, and earn over $50 million dollars combined! 

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