In sum, affluent clients are more reticent than ever about providing financial advisors with referrals. For affluent clients, the “social cost” increasingly outweighs any upside for making referrals. At the same time, financial advisors tend not to be very adept at asking their clients for introductions. For most of them, this is a stressful activity that they fear could antagonize the client. 

While there are very effective methodologies for garnering referrals from clients—including affluent clients—most financial advisors are not learning about them. Fewer than one in five advisors has been given a strategy to ask clients for referrals he or she is comfortable with (see Figure 6).
Powerful methodologies for garnering client referrals do indeed exist. What this means is that advisors need to make a concerted effort to identify those approaches that are viable and that they are—by temperament and disposition—most comfortable with.

Russ alan prince is president of R.A. Prince & Associates.

Brett Van Bortel is director of consulting services for Invesco Consulting.