Bowen, founder and CEO of CEG Worldwide, previously worked as a financial advisor and firm executive. He served successively as CEO of Reinhardt Werba Bowen Advisory Services and Assante Capital Management.

Get Centered

One of the smartest moves you can make right now is to pursue a target market of investors whom you are ideally suited to serve. As I've pointed out in previous columns, enormous numbers of investors are unhappy with their current advisors and are looking for better guidance and solutions. And by targeting the right clients for you and your firm, you'll set yourself up for a great future.

Conducting interviews with centers of influence (or COIs) should play a major role in your efforts. Centers of influence are the key people with whom the members of your target market surround themselves. They are the movers and shakers who have a deep understanding of the market and the unique issues and challenges its members face. As a result, COIs are in the best position to provide you with insights about your target market, to help you establish yourself as a true expert within it.

That's exactly what David DeWolf, principal at Quantum Wealth Management in Culver City, Calif., discovered after doing 15 interviews with COIs in his chosen niche of successful executives going through significant life transitions, such as exiting a business they created years ago. Those COIs included executives who had gone through major life changes themselves, as well as business coaches, therapists and others "There is no better way to understand your target market than by talking directly to the people who are affecting it or being affected by it," DeWolfe says. "If I were to rank my knowledge of my niche before COIs, I might be a 3. Today I'm an 8."

Finding Them
To identify the COIs in your niche, first talk to any existing clients who belong to the niche and ask them who the most influential people in their group may be. Then contact the executive director of the local, regional or national association within that niche, or other organization of their group. An excellent resource is the Encyclopedia of Associations, a guide to more than 135,000 national, regional, state and local associations (available at most libraries).

A combination of these approaches worked best for Larry Heinrich, founder of Integrated Wealth Partners in Centennial, Colo., who was looking to identify COIs to help him with his niche of business owners within three years of a liquidity event. Talking to his entrepreneur clients helped Heinrich find key COI contacts with local business brokers and consultants-some of whom are now interested in forming strategic alliances with him. In addition, Heinrich got help identifying entrepreneurs to interview by reaching out to the local Home Builders Association.

Once you identify 10 COIs, call them. Let them know that you are a financial advisor, that you are focused on serving their particular niche and that you would like to interview them in order to understand the challenges facing them and how you could better serve their niche. "People aren't just open to helping-they are very excited to help," DeWolf says. "They love to share their experiences and their knowledge."

If you are planning to publish an article based on what you learn, make it clear to the COI that this article will benefit all members of the niche and, by association, the COI as well. You could say, for example, that you plan to use your research to create an article or white paper and that you would make the final result available to the COI.

DeWolf is using the information he has received from his interviews, for instance, to write a white paper that he will use as part of his marketing efforts to build credibility among members of his niche and the other professionals that serve them.

Interviewing Them
To schedule and conduct effective interviews, follow these steps:

1.Call to set up the appointment. Explain that you are a financial advisor conducting research to determine how to add the most value for the members of the community given the challenges in today's market. Say you were told that the COI might be willing to share his or her insights and opinions, and try to schedule a one-hour meeting for breakfast or lunch.

2. Open the interview. At the meeting, describe what you would like to accomplish and how it will benefit both members of the niche and the COI. Say, for example, "I think the members of our community will benefit as we uncover how best to solve the problems they face today. My plan is to publish the results of my research in an article."

You may occasionally find that the person is uncomfortable with the purpose of the meeting. Reassure the COI that you are not there to sell anything, but rather to conduct research to discover how you can better serve the community as a group.

3. Conduct the interview. The COI will judge you largely by the quality of your questions. Therefore, it's critical to have approximately 10 to 20 thoughtful, open-ended questions prepared in advance. Each question should be designed to reveal information about the target market that will be useful in attracting and serving members of the market. Consider the following categories when developing your questions:

Questions to uncover the primary challenges your market faces:

• What significant changes are occurring in your community?
• What are the major financial challenges members face today, especially in the wake of the bear market?
• Have people in the community generally been successful in addressing those challenges? If not, why not?

Questions to identify outlets to which your market belongs:

• Which social organizations do members of your community and their spouses typically belong to?
• What activities or sports do they typically enjoy?
• What publications do they like to read?

Questions to identify ways in which you can build your credibility among members of your niche:

• Which industry events do community members typically attend? Do you personally know any of the organizers of these events whom I should talk with in order to conduct more research?
• Are you familiar with the trade publications that members of the community read most often?

Do you know members of their editorial staff with whom I may be able to talk to for further information about the community and its needs?

You may want to consider tweaking your questions as you do more interviews. For example, DeWolf found that open-ended questions like, "What are the biggest challenges your people are facing?" were most effective initially. But now, as he's learned more and heard recurring answers, he's more comfortable drilling down into highly specific concerns, such as the psychological issues that executives in transition often face and how to solve them.

4. Close the interview and gain an ongoing commitment. If the COI has been an excellent source of information and insight on the niche market, ask if you might retain him or her as a resource whom you can contact again on occasion.

5. Follow up. You should express your thanks in a thank-you letter (preferably handwritten) that is mailed the same day as your meeting.

6. Close the loop. From the information you gather from these interviews, it's best to create a list of the top concerns you heard and the themes or challenges you identified. Opportunities will likely present themselves based on that information. Then, you should write your article summarizing your research results and mail it to each COI. You can do this either after it has been accepted for publication or as a pre-publication release.

Not every COI interview will yield a treasure trove of information. However, most will allow you to uncover some great nuggets you weren't aware of before. It is also not uncommon for these meetings to lead to new business. Once COIs understand your focus on their community, they oftentimes will become interested in working with you as well.

That said, however, these interviews should never be about prospecting. If you make the meetings all about pitching yourself, they are certain to backfire on you. Instead, you should be driven by a passion for serving your clients well. And in order to do so, you need to know everything you possibly can about your market—and COIs hold the key to that knowledge.

Reprinted from: Financial Planning