In sourcing billionaires, while you are aiming for the very top of the financial pyramid, you will most likely end up generating more business with referrals that are less wealthy. Even carefully selected, most of your strategic partners might have some business with billionaires but will probably have the great majority of their revenues coming from ultra-wealthy and super-rich clients. In helping them with business development, coupled with a limited number of billionaire clients and limited influence, they will likely introduce you to whom they can.
A further consideration … this same methodology that lets you source billionaires is applicable everywhere for every type of professional expertise and all manner of prospective clients. Combining thought leadership with generating referrals from non-competing professionals is very probably the most systematic and efficacious way to source new wealthy clients. When it comes to sourcing billionaires, there are few—if any—other approaches that can deliver nearly as well.
Russ Alan Prince is president of R.A. Prince & Associates.