When discussing their best clients, advisors usually talk about their most profitable and largest clients. Generally, these clients are one, more likely two, standard deviations away from their usual clients. However, most advisors want more of these types of clients. So, how do you get more of your best clients?
Based on a 2023 survey of 421 advisors, the answer is referrals (see Exhibit). In a forced choice scenario, a little more than 40% got their five best clients through referrals from other clients. And somewhat more advisors got their five best clients from centers of influence, which are other professionals such as accountants and attorneys.
Exhibit: How Advisors Sourced Their Best Five Clients
| Concerns | <$200K | $200K-$500K | >$500K | Weighted Average |
| COI referrals | 24.4% | 42.5% | 86.2% | 46.6% |
| Client referrals | 59.8% | 46.7% | 11.6% | 43.0% |
| Seminars | 9.8% | 8.2% | 1.1% | 7.1% |
| Events | 1.5% | 2.1% | 1.1% | 1.7% |
| Social media | 4.5% | 0.5% | 0.0% | 1.6% |
Informatively, the more successful the advisor—based on annual income—the more likely their best clients came from centers of influence. According to Brett Van Bortel, director of development & delivery with Invesco Global Consulting and co-author of Street-Smart Networking: How Financial and Legal Professionals Can Cultivate Centers of Influence for a Flood of New Affluent Clients, “For almost all advisors, most of their clients and certainly their best clients come from referrals. When the aim is to work with the wealthy and, more so, the very wealthy, there’s no better way to source new clients than through referrals from centers of influence. The complication is that most advisors are not very adept at getting referrals from centers of influence. Although there is a lot of advice on this topic in the private wealth industry, relatively few advisors are able to build a steady stream of new wealthy clients from centers of influence.”
Getting referrals from centers of influence is certainly not a new concept. Nevertheless, few advisors are proficient at doing so. Yes, many advisors might get an introduction now and again. But this is, at best, an erratic way of growing an advisory practice.
Multiple issues make it problematic for advisors to build solid strategic partnerships with centers of influence. The first obstacle that stops many advisors at the starting line is getting agreement from centers of influence to open their clientele to them. According to Andree Mohr, chief implementation officer for Integrated Partners, a leading financial advisory firm where she oversees the growth initiatives, including the CPA Alliance program, “The ability to connect advisors with accounting firms to provision wealth management solutions to the accounting firms’ clients is what gets everything moving. But just making these connections is not enough. These connections tend to generate some business, but the potential of these relationships is often missed. That’s why we’ve established the Integrated Academy to teach the processes that deliver superior results to clients and produce significant revenues for all the professionals.”
So, how do you get more of your best clients? The answer is referrals, and most likely, referrals form centers of influence. The most successful advisors who are getting wealthier clients tend to rely on referrals from centers of influence. “The key to to gap up in client AUM is to create a strategic partnership with a non-competing professional that aggregates these clients and impacts their purchase decision on financial advice. Advisors need to adopt a systemic approach in proven methodologies,” says Van Bortel.
Russ Alan Prince is the executive director of Private Wealthand a strategist for family offices and the ultra-wealthy. He has co-authored 70 books in the field, including Making Smart Decisions: How Ultra-Wealthy Families Get Superior Wealth Planning Results.