Based on how financial advisors distribute and follow through, this approach can range from being fairly mechanical to very personal. With greater financial advisor/client interaction, results are usually better. Nevertheless, even when material is sent out with little or no financial advisor follow-up, new business from existing clients is very common.

What About Accountants And Trusts And Estates Lawyers?

While a sizable percentage of financial advisors are leaving money on the table, they tend to do a good if not great job of maximizing their client relationships compared with most accountants and most trust and estate lawyers. Both these types of professionals are regularly less proactive and systematic than financial advisors. Also, they often do not develop in-depth understanding of their clients, save for what they need to know to do what they are explicitly hired to do.

In a survey of 173 accounting firms that share in wealth management revenues, about 70 percent of them are “severely underperforming” or “underperforming” (Figure 3). When the issues are dissected, the reason the wealth management groups are underperforming is that they are not receiving qualified referrals from the accountants in the firms.

Processes can be put in place that can exponentially increase the profitability of underperforming wealth management groups. Additionally, the use of high-quality thought leadership content and supporting actions, such as targeted events, could generate qualified introductions to an accountant’s clients without him or her having to get very personally involved.

As for trusts and estates lawyers, they are often transaction based and, for various reasons, are not disposed to initiate contact with their previous clients. Complicating the matter is that a great many of them are intensely focused on their services, and unless the client explicitly asks for a referral to a financial advisor, the lawyers are not inclined to approach their clients with recommendations.

While a large percentage of these lawyers find it difficult to refer to financial advisors, often a plethora of opportunities arise for them to do so. Again, as with the accountants, it is commonly very effective to provide high-quality thought leadership content to their clients and former clients. The result is that some of the lawyers’ clients will connect with the material and connect with the lawyer. There are also other ways trusts and estates lawyers can leverage their clientele to generate significantly more revenues.

It is worthwhile to note that most accountants and trust/estate lawyers want to be more successful and wealthier. Financial advisors that can help them leverage their own clients for more revenue and referrals are able to build solid strategic partnerships. For example, by providing the accountants or lawyers high-quality thought leadership content and the ways to best use the material, these professionals will produce more business for themselves. Consequently, the financial advisors benefit by receiving a fairly consistent steam of new clients for their expertise.

Maximizing Existing Client Relationships