A decade ago the idea of advisors paying a consultant $20,000 per year for coaching would have seemed preposterous. Very few advisors earned enough money. That has changed dramatically. The average annual net income of current CEG participants is $600,000, with the incomes of some advisors ranging to well over $1 million, according to internal CEG statistics.

Today, many top wealth managers are making in excess of $900,000 a year and some are willing to re-examine their business by breaking out wealth management implementation into three basic units: investment consulting, advanced planning and relationship management. Sound simple? CEG surveys show that while up to 75% or more of financial advisors claim they are involved in some sort of wealth management, only about 6% are actually implementing the strategies and tactics necessary to build that sort of practice.
Explains Bowen: "Our research indicates that the affluent are concerned about preserving wealth, enhancing wealth-tax planning, really-wealth transfer, wealth protection and charitable giving. In order to provide these services, the financial advisor needs to become not the quarterback but the general manager of a team of experts."

Exclusive, But Worthwhile

There are plenty of arguments about wealth management-from what it actually is to who can participate. But CEG is obviously finding a niche in attempting to broaden and deepen the concept. Company execs enthusiastically preach that while advisors can perform the investment function for the client, other services must be inevitably parceled out to relevant professionals-that's where the managerial function takes place.

"There are ways to build a simple, elegant wealth management business," Bowen says. "We understand them, though we also understand that not everyone is cut out for it, or has the wherewithal. It takes commitment, time and resources. We won't work with everyone, and neither will the financial advisor with a true commitment to wealth management. There's a courtship phase in both instances, and for the truly committed financial advisor, there may be at least a little bit of pain as well."

For advisors working with CEG, the rewards apparently are worth it. By generating advisor-specific research to determine wealth management best practices-what brings revenue through the door and helps ensure client retention-CEG aids in the expansion and support of businesses such as those of Thomas and Owens.

"In the 1990s, Russ Prince [formerly CEG's top research consultant] was a pioneer in the area of applying empirical research to the insurance community," Thomas points out. "But John Bowen perceived an opportunity in the financial advisory field. Early in the 2000s, he partnered with Prince and applied Russ's methodology to the financial advisory world. He started providing advisors with these large-scale best practice surveys that showed you in detail how to move from a transactional or even financial planning business into full-scale wealth management."

To be sure, plenty of other groups commission investment research, resell it or customize it for clients. And Prince continues to expand his services, providing empirical research to numerous groups, including private financial advisory entities, Wall Street shops, mutual fund companies and the "superwealthy" with hundreds of millions, or even billions.

But Bowen and those advisors who use his programs believe he is pioneering the use of such research and analysis by offering it to the financial advisory community as part of a coaching process. Although Prince is now focusing on other interests, his influence at CEG remains. "Russ is a superb researcher," Bowen says. "However, the foundation that Russ provided to us, and the discipline of his shop, have been extremely valuable and have helped us build a corporate culture that involves the most rigorous frame of reference for data generation, research and analysis."

CEG's businesses have, in fact, expanded into three separate areas, all based around wealth management and its application-research, training and consulting. There are also avenues or channels for distribution of CEG research. The first is the so-called independent channel, the second is the Wall Street channel and the third channel would be constructed of the myriad independent small shops that could benefit from CEG services but are fairly disparate and thus harder to reach.