Sourcing new affluent clients for investment management services is unquestionably one of the top priorities of financial advisors, investment advisors, wealth managers and other professionals. The ability to bring in new assets is usually a function of bringing in new clients—especially affluent clients.
For investment professionals, accountants and attorneys are regularly the two most targeted types of centers of influence. The complication is that many of them are not very inclined to provide viable introductions to money management specialists.
There are two principal reasons for failing to build significant high-net-worth investment clienteles in cultivating centers of influence. They are:
• Not knowing what to do.
• Knowing what to do and not doing it.
By integrating the networking best practices of self-made millionaires with the most effective behaviors of ultra-successful professionals sourcing the affluent, we’ve developed a framework for cultivating centers of influence called street-smart networking. This is the “what to do.” There aren’t any secrets involved. In fact, the framework is very straightforward and methodical.
Street-smart networking is an implementation model. The professionals who achieve success with it regularly achieve considerable success. That’s because they put in the time and effort required to get results. Make no mistake: Becoming a street-smart networker is hard work.
The core to becoming a street-smart networker is developing a deep understanding of the respective world of each prospective center of influence. This is accomplished on a one-to-one basis by using the assessment instrument. At the same time, it’s often very useful to have a broad-based understanding of the different types of centers of influence. Here we’ll be addressing key issues in the worlds of accountants and attorneys.
Situation Analysis
At the end of the fourth quarter of 2013, 412 professionals were surveyed. The sample consisted of 223 accountants and 198 attorneys. All the professionals have a minimum of 10 years’ experience. Moreover, all of them have businesses they are responsible for that focus on the affluent.
Overall, more than 85% of the professionals found 2013 to be a tough year (Figure1). Looking forward, about nine out of 10 of them anticipate that 2014 will continue to be challenging. This is proportionately more the case for attorneys than for accountants.
Conclusions
The ability to capably cultivate centers of influence, such as accountants and attorneys, is likely to be critical in building a substantial and noteworthy money management business. Most financial advisors are not being very effective in this endeavor. From the perspective of accountants and attorneys, they’re often focused on the wrong issues and related matters.
Street-smart networking is a framework with a proven track record of success enabling the range of professionals to garner new affluent clients from centers of influence. Those investment experts—financial advisors, hedge funds, wealth managers, private equity firms and the like—wanting to dramatically grow their assets under management are well counseled to focus their efforts.
Russ Alan Prince is president of R.A. Prince & Associates Inc. and executive director of Private Wealth magazine.
Brett Van Bortel is director of consulting services for Invesco Consulting, the sales consulting group within Invesco Distributions Inc. The opinions expressed are those of Russ Alan Prince and Brett Van Bortel, and are based on current market conditions and subject to change without notice. These opinions may differ from those of other Invesco investment professionals.
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