Your HNW prospects likely have impressive homes on beautifully maintained properties. They often don’t do the work. They bring in a landscaping firm. They admire the results and willingly pay those bills on an ongoing basis. You can see where I’m going with this idea.

1. Landscaping adds to the value of your property. You’ve heard the expression “curb appeal.” This is what they mean.
Landscaping: People will spend money for years to get the “wow factor.” In addition to impressing friends, it should eventually help to sell the house quicker when the time comes.
Advisory: People will invest for years with the goal of providing a secure retirement for themselves.

2. People think they can do it on their own. You buy a tree. You did a hole. You put it in. How hard could it be?
Landscaping: Professionals understand the soil needs preparation. Certain plants will (or won’t) flourish in the local environment. Plants need to be fed. As a radio garden expert explained, “Would you give birth to a child, then not feed it?”
Advisory: Some people buy stocks or products friends told them about. They lose interest or don’t pay active attention. They find some suffer significant losses.

3. Everything needs attention. It’s amazing the amount of work it takes to make something look effortless. People see English country house gardens in magazines and assume they care for themselves.
Landscaping: Plants need proper planting, feeding, watering, pruning and dividing. Sometimes a plant doesn’t do well in one location, but flourishes in a different part of the garden after it’s been moved.
Advisory: Either the client, the financial advisor or the money manager “drives the bus.” Someone needs to be paying attention and making changes (or asking permission) along the way. Generally speaking, you can’t “set it and forget it.” A good example is the television industry in the 1940s. Many firms were involved in introducing the technology. Few survive today.

4. Mature plantings. Stately homes have stately trees.
Landscaping: It takes time for trees to grow to impressive size. Homeowners need to plant trees with a long time horizon in mind. You’ve heard the expression: “You don’t wait to buy real estate. You buy real estate and wait.”
Advisory: Investing isn’t about instant results. People don’t get rich overnight. You need to make good investments then give them time to grow.

5. Everyone wants maximum results with minimal personal work. You have friends who say: “I want a garden, but I don’t want to do any work maintaining it.” The answer is rocks. Maybe cactus.
Landscaping: Gardening requires commitment and attention. Either it becomes your hobby, or you bring in a service to maintain it for you.
Advisory: Buying stocks and not paying attention often ends badly. If you aren’t going to follow them closely, you hire an advisor to help you.

6. You need an overall plan. Great European gardens didn’t just happen. There were famous landscape designers involved from the beginning.
Landscaping: Spectacular gardens don’t come about because the homeowner buys a couple of plants now and then, planting them in their flowerbed. They usually have an overall design plan. They do it or they hire a landscaping firm.
Advisory: Retirement planning isn’t putting money aside that you didn’t spend that month and picking stocks. It’s designing a plan anticipating your needs and developing a strategy to help get there.

7. What does DBM mean? Design, build and maintain is the mantra of the landscaping industry.
Landscaping: The homeowner brings in a firm that together with the client, designs a garden plan, builds it and comes around on a regular basis to weed, prune and keep it looking tidy.
Advisory: This is very similar to the financial plan, followed by investment selection and periodic reviews.

8. Professional landscaping vs. Professional money management. In both cases, it’s money well spent.
Landscaping: The homeowner doesn’t know what plants are best suited for their soil or how to arrange them to get the “wow” effect. Professionals do.
Advisory: The advisor brings in professional money managers, each suited to certain style and size categories. Together with the client, they monitor performance.

9. Ongoing payment process. Both have their transactional and fee-based equivalents.
Landscaping: You don’t decide the lawn needs mowing, call around and get a person with a mower in that week. You hire a firm to mow on a regular basis, charged at an agreed set rate per mow.
Advisory: When some clients pay by the transaction, they suspect the motives of the advisor making the suggestion. Asset-based pricing removes that concern.

10. Good clients with bad ideas. Sometimes people go “off the range.” You need to be accommodating.
Landscaping: A homeowner will visit Europe, take pictures of Italian formal gardens and say: “I want that.” The landscaper needs to explain “right plant, right soil, right climate.” They may accommodate the client’s request, yet explain they can’t be responsible for maintaining it.
Advisory: Conservative clients might find a speculative stock they like. Your firm doesn’t follow it. You explain they can buy it, but you can’t follow it for them. The trade is marked unsolicited.

11. It’s too expensive. “This service is for someone else. When I get rich, then I’ll do it.”
Landscaping: These projects can be done in stages. If you forgo professional advice, how much will it cost you in mistakes and dead plants along the way?
Advisory: People can invest on their own. They often sell winners too quickly and hold onto losers too long. How much will not getting professional advice cost you? In both cases, it may be less expensive than you thought.

Your prospect or client has likely tried their hand at gardening. If it didn’t turn out the way they hoped, they understand the value of professional advice.

Bryce Sanders is president of Perceptive Business Solutions Inc. He provides HNW client acquisition training for the financial services industry. His book, Captivating the Wealthy Investor can be found on Amazon.