The best way to get referrals for athlete clients is to develop relationships with, and clients among, team physicians and dentists. Athletes tend to trust them so these referrals are golden. But even though this gives you the benefit of the doubt, you still have to earn their trust. If they’ve had a contract for a few years, they may have been burned by an unethical advisor—a wall of distrust you’ll have to climb by showing them difference between advice and sales, and what a fiduciary is all about (without using that eye-glazing term or getting into legalistic definitions). If they’ve been burned, keep in mind that they may be showing everything you give them to an attorney.

• Don’t approach them as you would a wealthy business person. Unlike a corporate CEO, most athletes won’t be impressed by your designations and academic degrees. Instead, they may be intimidated, which increases the distance between the two of you rather than narrowing it. Focus on letting them talk to bring them out about their situation, feelings and goals.

• A higher level of service is required than for most high-income clients. Signing athletes can expand your business significantly, but serving them effectively usually means more time, attention and general hand-holding—especially at first. A good way to think about this to take the amount of time and attention you spend on a typical high-maintenance HNW client and put this to the second power. After some high-performing rookies get their first contract, they’re looking at tens of millions per year with no existing financial structure, portfolio or financial plan to absorb it. That means advisors must start from scratch.

• If the timing of your first encounter permits, try to get them to take a deep breath, waiting a few months after signing a contract and doing any serious spending. This is a heady time for them; their lives are changing in a big way. They need to take time to think and work with an advisor to get their new financial lives together. During this period, you can impress upon them the need to set limits—that anyone can outspend their wealth. They need to learn that, as Schedule C employees, they must pay their own taxes directly every quarter, how this will consume a huge chunk of their income and how you, with the help of tax advisors, can devise strategies to soften this hit.

  Try to persuade them to bring you their impulses to spend on big-ticket items, such as yachts and mansions with 25 bathrooms, so you can discuss not only the purchase prices but also the costs of upkeep, insurance premiums and taxes. After signing, many athletes want to buy a house for their mother, who often helped them succeed. Within limits, this is often OK for big earners. But buying Ferraris for friends or doling out money to them on a regular basis is usually a slippery slope.

• Try to get them on a budget, if only a preliminary one, as soon as possible, while you sort everything out. Meanwhile, after the initial discovery meeting, I usually schedule three more. Meeting two is to set up a cash-flow plan and an investment plan, meeting three is for mutual commitments and meeting four (usually after 45 days) is about their statements and how to read them.