Financial advisors often develop habits early in their careers that are difficult to break, even when they begin to fail. It is only by evolving that we can position ourselves for greater success and a healthier life than we could possibly have imagined.

Case in point: Chris Heerlein, CEO of Reap Financial in Austin, Texas. When he started as an advisor, he was expected to take the all-too-common approach of breaking asset and production levels every year. “It was a total grind—that never-ending hamster wheel of ‘Oh, you beat your goal? Now you need to work even harder!’” he says.

Because of that dynamic, Heerlein often worked 85 hours a week and seldom saw his family. To make matters worse, the expensive traditional media marketing and client acquisition program he’d built was yielding poorer results year after year. He realized he had to find a more sustainable path as his passion for the business began to wane.

The solution: Rather than constantly trying to sign new business, Heerlein implemented a concerted initiative to streamline the service and communication levels he delivered to his existing clients—as well as develop a business that relied on fewer (but more affluent) clients, while also aiming to move upmarket.

To accomplish this, Heerlein launched a series of regular client "touches," which include weekly video messages, educational thought leadership content and virtual live conferences where Heerlein fields questions. “The level of access that clients have now—to me, to information, to answers—it’s impossible to put a price tag on,” he says.

Consequently, Reap Financial has increased its client retention rate and is attracting more additional assets from clients and generating more referrals from clients than ever before. Indeed, a full 63% of the firm’s revenue last year came from those two sources (up from 33% back in 2019). What’s more, Heerlein can deliver these and other tech-driven communications at a much lower cost than his past marketing strategy—resulting in a far greater ROI.

Taken together, these strategies have enabled Reap to double its production, from $60 million per year in new assets to nearly $120 million, while simultaneously allowing Heerlein to take off more than 100 days in 2023. “I've got a significant amount of my time back to spend with my family,” he marvels. “I now have a business that’s blessing my life instead of running it.”

He offers the following advice to advisors seeking a break from "the grind":

1. Be consistent. To make the type of impact that motivates clients to provide you with additional assets and referrals, client communication must be steady, reliable and consistent. “When you consistently give clients access to you and your insights, you can ask for referrals with confidence because you’ve provided them with quality education and access first,” says Heerlein.

2. Don’t be intimidated. A number of advisors believe their outreach efforts must be long and involved every time, which prevents them from getting started. Not so, says Heerlein, who points out that some of his online content requires only around 20 minutes per week and perhaps a few hours every quarter.

3. Get the right guidance. In order to chart his new course, Heerlein enlisted the assistance of advisor coaching firm CEG Worldwide. “Fast-growing businesses require entrepreneurs to make fast, yet educated, decisions,” he says. “Having a coach to collaborate with—one that really understands our industry—allowed me to make what I feel were very educated decisions, likely in a much faster manner than I would have otherwise.”

4. Listen to your clients. It is common for advisors to concern themselves with how to get or create enough content each week. Heerlein’s advice: “The best place to get content is to listen to your clients. Send an email to your top 20 clients asking them about their top three concerns. Then, address those issues in your future messaging.”

John J. Bowen Jr. is the CEO and founder of CEG Worldwide and CEG Insights.