For most advisors, success means getting their business off the ground, supporting a growing client and employee base and still making time for their family. A noble achievement.

But for others, that's not enough. Some have developed procedures or tools in their practices that they want to share with others. For instance, they may have created software for themselves that turns out so good they form side businesses to sell the programs to other advisors.

One advisor trying to share what he's learned about dealing with executives and business owners is Brett Ellen.

As the CEO of advisory firm American Financial Network in Calabasas, Calif., Ellen is one of Securities America's top fee advisors and top producers. But he's also the founder of the Collaborative Services Platform (www.afn-net.com/section10.cfm), a program that trains advisors in high-level methods for working with business owners, including rarefied executive compensation plans and tax strategies.

"We started CSP three years ago," Ellen says. "Working with small businesses all the way up to Fortune 500 companies. We take great plans and make them come to life for executives when the rep doesn't know how to take all the steps."

After three years, CSP has trained more than 70 advisors in these strategies for business owners. "My goal is to have 250 'green beret' advisors in the next few years," he says.

The CSP consists of three components: corporate benefit advisory services, premium executive planning and another Ellen creation-the Financial Solutions Alliance, a consortium of some of the most respected and accomplished professionals in the financial, business and legal arenas who serve shared clients.

Ellen, who founded the American Financial Network 26 years ago, is the son of an insurance professional. "When I was younger, I traveled with my father to see his clients-many of them farmers insured for disability by Pennsylvania Life Insurance. I didn't meet too many people with five fingers on each hand, but I loved hanging out with dad and watching him interact with people."

Ellen worked in his father's firm while in college, but decided he was more of a wealth manager than insurance agent. When he started his own company, he knew he wanted to collaborate with other professionals. "I developed 'think tanks' with those professionals and the client sitting around a table and hearing what the client had to say," he says.

His business veered toward business owners, most of them high-net-worth individuals, and that forced him to bridge the gap between planning for businesses and planning for people. His financial advisory unit eventually built up a roster of 2,700 clients for whom it does financial planning and investment management with a team of 22 employees.

But that wasn't enough for Ellen. In his efforts to foster greater interaction with different professionals, he started creating other entities, starting with the Financial Solutions Alliance. "We believe the opportunity to collaborate with other professionals is great, but alliances are better. FSA meets once a month with business owner clients and asks, 'Where's your pain?' Is it retaining key people, reducing insurance costs, preparing for exit, estate planning?

"Developing relationships through our alliance allows each member and their clients to benefit from our collective knowledge, experience and independent point of view."

The experience of allying with others in the FSA eventually created the germ for the CSP platform. The CSP's compensation and benefit advisory team helps members analyze and implement executive compensation plans, allowing them to set up qualified and non-qualified plans and deferred comp plans, purchase custom group life and pursue other business strategies.

When joining the CSP program, reps working with executives discover opportunities they were formerly unable to exploit. Ellen says many advisor reps don't know, for example, that if they construct a deferred compensation plan for an executive client and delay withdrawals for more than ten years, they can pay state taxes on that compensation wherever they're living at the time of the time of withdrawal-perhaps in a state where it might be cheaper.

In other words: "Reps don't know that their executive clients can defer compensation in states where tax rates are high and take the compensation later while living in a state without an income tax.

"In fact," adds Ellen, "in working with Fortune 500 companies, we find we can do a lot of neat things at that level-like pay-for-performance plans, or 401(k) matching-that can be brought down to smaller companies."

For members dealing with corporate executives and key employees, the CSP offers a premium executive planning component, with a custom, comprehensive financial planning and wealth management program. Members also get an entrance into the FSA.

How does one join CSP?

"The cost is $7,500 to go through a one-and-a-half-day session," Ellen says, "more an exercise in collaboration than training, per se. We have an open dialogue about our successes and how to ask questions of business owners. Then we walk through how we deal with high-net-worth individuals, themselves usually business owners. Some reps say they learn more in those one and a half days than in their whole career."

The sessions are conducted by experts who have worked extensively with owners/executives of middle-market private and public companies and focus on four key practice areas: financial planning, asset management, risk management and corporate benefits.
How does the rep work with the CSP once he's completed the training?

"First, the rep may find she has opportunities to help a client but doesn't want to take the time to learn how to implement them," he says. "We pay the rep a finder's fee of 25% of the client revenues and our back office does the work. Second, let's say the rep has a great relationship with the client but not the ability to create proposals. We do the heavy lifting, putting together a proposal for their clients. We do conference calls and provide support and share the revenues 50-50.

"Finally, the rep can choose to build his own alliance and create his own model for collaboration; CSP will then act as a coach and take just 25% of the revenues."

Ellen says about half of CSP members choose the second option, typically planning for business owners and/or individuals with $10 million or more of net worth. The revenues are often $100,000 or more from a middle-market company client, he adds. Those who select the third option, though, are entitled to use CSP's relationships, some of which may even be in the advisor's local community.

"We show them our alliance model, meet once a month, look at their client base and figure out where they need help," he says. "About 20% of my own new business comes in from relationships in once-a-month meetings." He adds that he was recently introduced to a $350 million public company this way.

"A lot of advisors look at these demanding planning situations as being overwhelming. If their practices are successful, CSP is a great way to enhance what they're already doing. They can almost always be doing more for their business owner clients."
Not only is Ellen's CSP doing good things for advisors, he and his family spend considerable time doing good for others in need. As part of a program he calls "Turn Kindness On," his son collected $1,400 in three days from kids at school, just $1 of which will bring 40 days of clean water to an African orphanage. For efforts like these, Ellen was named "Humanitarian of the Year" by the Muscular Dystrophy Association in 2008. He also promotes financial literacy in classroom conversations and on his blog at www.kidsfinancecoach.com.

To the extent that we, as advisors, achieve success for ourselves, our families and our clients, we are all stars. Yet, some stars shine a tiny bit brighter for the work they do to further the industry and make the world a better place. Brett Ellen is an example of such an advisor.