Centers of influence—such as CPAs, estate planning attorneys and other financial and legal professionals—are the single best source of affluent referrals for top advisors.

But that doesn’t mean you should try to build relationships with every COI out there.

Instead, you need to be selective by identifying a small handful of top COIs who can really help you grow your practice and who also can benefit by associating themselves with you.

To hone in on potentially ideal candidates—and avoid wasting too much time on people who don’t fit the bill—CEG Worldwide’s Elite Advisor Strategist Jonathan Powell recommends that advisors have two meetings with the COIs who end up on their short list:

1. Exploratory call. This should take 15 to 20 minutes, max, and focus on five key questions:

* What type of person is the COI’s ideal client—and how many of those ideal clients are they currently working with? You want to see alignment between their ideal clients and yours, and a large enough pool of ideal clients under their roof.

* How many households are they serving currently? Can they manage their current workload effectively and are they able to provide exceptional service?

* What’s their growth rate been over the past three to five years? Firms that are shrinking or coasting aren’t good candidates. You want to work with growth-oriented, entrepreneurial COIs.

* Are they at capacity? How many new clients are they onboarding each year on average? That will help you see how many ongoing referrals you might expect.

* What is their fee structure? How do they get paid and does that structure fit well with your approach?

2. Discovery meeting. If a COI seems like a good fit based on that call, the next step is to conduct a one hour exploratory meeting with them. This is when you’ll do some deep fact finding as well as share your vision about what working together would look like. To develop a clear picture of the COI, focus on these areas of discussion:

* Personal. You want to build rapport and get to know the person.

* Practice goals. Where does the COI want to see the business go over the next three years?

* Areas of expertise. What is their specialty area within their field and what do they think they do better than their competitors?

* Practice management. What processes do they have in place to manage their internal teams, back office and other key day-to-day operations?

* Client process. What does their client experience and service calendar look like at each step?

* Experience with financial advisors. What have been their best, and worst, experiences working with financial advisors, and what made them that way?

Then capture your assessment immediately after each interview, while the details are still fresh. The information and data you gather will help you make an informed decision—rather than one coming “from your gut”—about whether a COI would be a good fit for your practice. Armed with the right COI relationships, you can ramp up your business and achieve greater success than you may have thought possible.

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