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Have you heard about the referral myth? When you ask an elite advisor how they grow their business they will usually tell you it's by referrals. They don't want to tell you how they're growing their business and how you can too. We know that elite advisors use different marketing strategies to grow their practice. For example, does someone with $1,000,000 refer someone with $5 million? Not usually, so how do you move upmarket?
Your network of professionals- financial coordinators
How many other professionals and centers of influence do you network with on a monthly basis? Building a network of professionals takes time and it is a process, but here are some tips from elite advisors. Select the categories that you need to help your best clients. For example, if you deal with business owners, they're going to need. Accountants, lawyers, and commercial people such as commercial realtors, commercial mortgage brokers, and commercial insurance people. They may also need for personal reasons, a realtor. a mortgage broker or banker? Elite Advisors usually have 10 to 20. people in their network of professionals. Now here's the key difference between knowing these people and really engaging with them. Elite advisors coordinate their advice with these professionals by having joint meetings with their best clients and those professionals. They also expect reciprocation, and if they don't reciprocate, they eliminate that person from their network. It's what I call financial coordinators. People that will coordinate planning and advice together to help people reach their goals. Only about 50% of professionals are financial coordinators, so you probably have to eliminate half of your network today.
What events do you do with your network of professionals?
Elite Financial advisors are always networking with their professionals. What events or activities do you do? What events do you coordinate with your professionals? For example, they may play golf on a regular basis and meet at the clubhouse or golf with their network professionals. It is a chance to meet other people. They go where other professionals go. For example. I always took the semi-annual tax course with my accountant so I could go and meet other accounts and get introduced by my accountant. Your job is to find out what your network does for events. This is where Elite Advisors meet and get introduced by other professionals to other people. They also do monthly strategic networking meetings or roundtables with their professionals. The easiest way to do it is by a webinar that brings your network together. You can also do a luncheon. Or meet a local brewery late in the day and have your own networking event.
Centers of influence come in all forms.
We know that the wealthy spend 22% of their free time playing sports, pursuing hobbies, or doing volunteer work. When I ask financial advisors where they met their best clients usually volunteering comes up. Meeting people on boards, associations, charities, and fundraising is critical to the success of an elite advisor. What are you doing in your community to meet ideal people? Another way Elite Financial advisors can meet wealthy people is through different types of influencers. For example, the golf pro knows all the members at the club, the tennis pro knows all the important people at the Tennis Club and the fitness trainers at the gym where the wealthy go. People who run car clubs, wine clubs, and yacht clubs are great influencers to have in your network. A friend of mine I played hockey with a friend who was a plane broker, and at his event, there were people that were interested in buying planes or owned planes. Since I used to work with retired pilots this made sense. Get creative. Write down one or two people who you know who are influencers that you could add to your network. Then plan on buying them coffee or lunch and thinking about potential events that they are already involved with or you might plan together to meet other people. Find out how you will meet these people.
One of the hardest parts of being a financial advisor
Finding people is easy. Meeting people is one of the hardest parts of being a financial advisor. You need to meet more people on a regular basis. Wealthy people always meet and get to know their new financial advisors before they hire them. What opportunities do you have in the next month to meet ideal prospects? In a future blog, we will talk about how to engage these people once you meet them. You cannot wing this conversation and hope they will do business with you. Finding, meeting, and spending time with new ideal prospects takes a lot of time. That is why most financial advisors don't do it. This is also why elite financial advisors never tell you where they meet their best clients.
Related: Should You Position Your Wealth Management Firm Like a Family Office?