Win the Wallet—Smart Ways to Manage More of Your Clients’ Wealth – Episode 53
Growing your advisory practice doesn’t need to mean adding more clients. Instead, business growth can start with what’s right in front of you: your current clients—retaining them and attracting additional assets from them.
Most advisors manage only a portion of what their clients have. And when life throws trigger events at your clients—a business exit, inheritance, market shocks and the like—those assets can suddenly be in play. The question is, are those assets going to move away from you, or are you going to capitalize on the opportunity and capture those assets?
Know the triggers
The key is to recognize the major trigger events that tend to put clients’ assets up for grabs, and get out on front of those events by having discussions and presenting planning options. According to Cathy McBreen at CEG Insights, they include:
- A business ownership exit. The sale of a business is often the biggest financial transaction in an entrepreneur’s life. You need to be aware of when a business owner client is thinking of exiting, and get involved in the pre-planning.
- An inheritance. We all know about the transfer of wealth going on today. But are you engaging with your clients’ heirs to show them the value you can bring to their financial lives before and after they inherit wealth?
- Philanthropy. When clients decide to make their giving more formal—through a foundation or donor-advised fund, for example—they may very well seek out new professionals for help if you haven’t discussed this type of planning in the past.
- Fee transparency. It’s important to talk about your fee from time to time and how it’s connected to the services and value you deliver. Otherwise, they’ll be more receptive when someone inevitably mentions the lower fee they’re paying their advisor. And if you notice clients bringing up your fees, it’s a clear sign that a conversation is in order.
- Communication snags. If you start to have fewer contacts with clients, it can put the relationship in danger. Likewise, if you notice a client that isn’t returning your calls or emails (or missing reviews), it could be a sign that the relationship is at risk—and that you need to get in front of them ASAP.
(Check out the video podcast above for 4 additional trigger moments that demand your attention.)
Time to rediscover
When these triggers arise, perhaps the best step you can take is to invite the client in for a rediscovery meeting—a check-in to ensure that you’re really on top of what’s important to the client so that you can advocate for them. Conducting rediscovery meetings is one of the best asset-gathering practices that we’ve seen. It helps you address any issues or concerns that might be new to the clients, of course, but it also enables you to learn about new developments (marriages, divorces, inheritances, etc.) that impact their financial picture and their goals.
The upshot: Rediscovery helps strengthen the relationship while also potentially identifying other areas of a client’s wealth that you can seek to manage going forward. By capturing more wallet share, you can build a better practice without adding a single new client.
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