Aside from curating high-value content, financial advisors must be able to deliver the material to wealthy investors in order to become thought leaders. There are a number of ways to deliver curated, high-value content such as productizing it, using social media and presenting at events.
Productizing is where the curated high-value content is made tangible. This can easily take the form of bylined articles and reports. E-mailing has been shown to be very useful in delivering this material. Providing curated high-value content through social media is another possibility with the added complication of targeting the wealthy. For many financial advisors, the ability to use the curated high-value content in presentations, such as conferences and breakfast meetings, has proved to be an excellent way of delivering the information and insights.
It is important to realize that without concerted follow-up efforts, monetization is rarely going to occur. Leveraging high-net-worth thought leadership is essential to creating opportunities to close business.
Examples of High-Value Content
There are a multitude of possibilities when it comes to high-value content. Examples include private placement life insurance, captive insurance companies and concierge medicine. Let’s consider each of them.
Private placement life insurance: Being able to legally pay less in taxes is a high priority among most of the wealthy. Private placement life insurance was once effectively restricted to the super-rich, but that is no longer the case. Aside from being advantageous to many wealthy investors, being adept at providing private placement life insurance can very likely result in bringing in enormous amounts of money for a financial advisor to manage.
Providing high-value content concerning private placement life insurance can help enable financial advisors to become high-net-worth thought leaders. As most professionals do not understand private placement life insurance, those financial advisors who are adroitly sharing an understanding of these types of policies are readily positioned as experts and consequently can gain an unfair competitive advantage.
Captive insurance companies: Being able to better manage business risks is often possible with captive insurance companies. For financial advisors there is the strong potential to manage more assets. As with private placement life insurance, relatively few professionals are knowledgeable about them. By communicating high-value content concerning captive insurance companies, financial advisors can move toward being high-net-worth thought leaders and reap the rewards.
Concierge medicine: With significant problems plaguing the health-care system, the wealthy are looking for better answers. Hence, the ability to—in broad strokes—explain concierge medicine can strongly position financial advisors as high-net-worth thought leaders. This has been shown to lead to new client opportunities. Moreover, concierge medicine and wealth management intersect in areas such as addressing the costs of living a longer, healthy life.
Most financial advisors are never going to be technical specialists when it comes to private placement life insurance, captive insurance companies, concierge medicine or the multitude of other high-value content topics that will result in them becoming high-net-worth thought leaders. Provided they can access the technical support or direct the wealthy to the technical specialists, they will reinforce their position as the experts and their financial advisory practices will likely thrive.
Cultivating Centers of Influence
As noted, financial advisors striving to become high-net-worth thought leaders would be wise to provide the curated high-value content to centers of influence. A solid percentage of professionals, such as private client lawyers and accountants, are under considerable business and economic pressure. They too are looking for ways to better serve their wealthy clients and build profitable practices.
One of the biggest problems financial advisors have in cultivating centers of influence is that these other professionals are themselves looking for more business. This often translates into wanting to “trade” client referrals, which is almost universally a mathematical impossibility. Instead, high-net-worth thought leaders can use curated high-value content as a form of “currency.” The information and insights provided by high-net-worth thought leaders can help centers of influence become more successful, including sourcing new and wealthier clients.
Another advantage of delivering curated high-value content to centers of influence is that it can dramatically mitigate the risk these professionals have in referring clients to particular financial advisors. At the same time, the curated high-value content can act to strongly pre-sell wealthy investors before being introduced to financial advisors.
For example, relatively few private client lawyers or accountants are proficient when it comes to private placement life insurance. By helping these professionals come up the learning curve, a high-net-worth thought leader is substantially increasing the probability that when it makes sense for one of their wealthy clients, that financial advisor will be the expert brought into the case.
Often Fame, Then Fortune
There is an empirically and field-proven methodology for financial advisors to become high-net-worth thought leaders. Applying this systematic process produces a very interesting result: Financial advisors become high-net-worth thought leaders first, and consequently their advisor practices become significantly more successful.
The professional brands of high-net-worth thought leaders tend to precede their economic accomplishments. As high-net-worth thought leaders attract more and wealthier clients, what happens is an ever-expanding feedback loop where fame leads to fortune, which leads to more fame and then more fortune and on and on.
As a practical matter, becoming a high-net-worth thought leader is a commanding and formidable professional improvement and business development strategy for financial advisors at all levels of success. It has a multiplier effect if a financial advisor’s current earnings are $100,000 annually or $1 million annually. Remember: Almost any financial advisor can become a high-net-worth thought leader and benefit.
Russ Alan Prince is president of R.A. Prince & Associates.
Brett Van Bortel is director of consulting services for Invesco Consulting.