Competition for wealthy investor assets is greater than ever before. More diverse professionals have moved and are continuing to move into the money management business. Furthermore, robo-advisors are slowly and steadily gaining traction, and some of them are likely to eventually cultivate wealthy clients.

Complicating the scenario is the increasing commoditization of just about all financial services, especially money management. These factors are resulting in a number of industry complications, such as greater fee compression and greater difficulties in financial advisors being able to effectively differentiate themselves.

For the great majority of financial advisors, one powerful solution is to become a high-net-worth thought leader. It is so very telling that almost any financial advisor can become a high-net-worth thought leader and benefit. Before addressing how to achieve this goal, let’s look at the advantages of becoming a high-net-worth thought leader.

The Benefits of Becoming a High-Net-Worth Thought Leader
By becoming a high-net-worth thought leader, a financial advisor is creating a professional brand that translates into:

• Substantially more opportunities to do business with the wealthy. From multiplying over-the-transom opportunities, to facilitating client referrals, to using thought leadership content as currency with centers of influence, high-net-worth thought leaders connect with disproportionately more wealthy investors and are excellently positioned to close business.

• Meaningfully greater affluent client retention. From a wealthy client’s perspective, working with a high-net-worth thought leader is like a warm down blanket on a bitterly cold night—it is an extra layer of protection. The wealthy greatly want to work with leading experts, which is just what high-net-worth thought leaders are.

• The ability to considerably speed up the sales process. High-net-worth thought leaders, when engaging with prospects, are to some degree pre-sold. Their stature makes the transition from prospect to client both more likely and relatively quicker.

Another very meaningful advantage for financial advisors to become high-net-worth thought leaders is that it ensures they are knowledgeable about the issues, concerns and the panoply of (usually more sophisticated) solutions for wealthy investors.

What Are High-Net-Worth Thought Leaders?
To begin, a thought leader is:

• A financial advisor whom prospects, clients, centers of influence and even competitors recognize as a leading authority in selected areas resulting in him or her being the go-to expert.

• A financial advisor who significantly profits from being recognized as the expert.

A high-net-worth thought leader is a particular type of thought leader. A high-net-worth thought leader adds one additional criteria to this definition. He or she is …

• A financial advisor who understands the needs, wants and possibilities when it comes to the wealthy and is able to deliver appropriate guidance and solutions.

A high-net-worth thought leader is able to provide wealthy investors with information and insights that can enable them to live better financial as well as fuller lives. This includes being able to direct them to professionals who can help them address a variety of matters that impact their lives. At the same time, the high-net-worth thought leader is recognized as the expert concerning investment management and related services.

The foundation of high-net-worth thought leadership is high-value content, which is information and insights you provide the wealthy that help make them wealthier or more successful or live a better life.

How Financial Advisors Become High-Net-Worth Thought Leaders
As curators of high-value content, financial advisors are pulling together concepts, ideas and solutions that the wealthy will often find very useful. They are taking cutting-edge information and effectively distributing it to prospects, clients and centers of influence.

A number of high-value curated content topic headings prove very useful for those financial advisors working to become high-net-worth thought leaders, including:

• Elite wealth management: State-of-the-art solutions that deliver incredible value to the wealthy.

• Family office insights: What the super-rich are doing and how the less affluent can attain the same results.

• Enhanced lifestyle opportunities: The services from concierge medicine to family security that the very wealthy are using to improve their lives.
 
Financial advisors who are high-net-worth thought leaders are the experts where expertise means being able to find and deliver the right answer for wealthy investors and their families. This does not mean that a high-net-worth thought leader is a polymath. A very, very small number of financial advisors and their teams are going to be adept with all the topics, all the categories of information and all the potential solutions impacting the wealthy.

Clearly, then, the way for the great majority of financial advisors to become high-net-worth thought leaders is to become curators of powerful and useful information and insights. This includes knowing the technical resources that can deliver services and products not provided by the financial advisor.

One of the essential dynamics of becoming a high-net-worth thought leader and maintaining that stature is being able to provide curated high-value content on a regular and consistent basis. Without question, consistency is critical for a financial advisor to become that go-to expert.

There are various ways financial advisors can ensure they have the high-value content they need to become high-net-worth thought leaders, including curating the content in-house or subscribing to services or professional development resources that are providing a constant stream of information and insights in demand by the wealthy.

First « 1 2 » Next