Successful business owners can be exceptional financial advisory clients for a variety of reasons. Privately held businesses are the primary driver of personal wealth creation across the globe. According to CEG Worldwide research, one-third of people with investable assets between $1 million and $5 million are business owners, while the number is three-quarters for people in the $5 million to $25 million range. Among the truly wealthy, those with $25 million or more, nine out of 10 are business owners.

According to a study of 262 successful business owners, about 95% of them want to become wealthier—in order to take care of loved ones and support more charitable causes and change the world for the better.

But even though these prospective clients are often ideal for financial advisors, company owners require a panoply of financial services and products besides investment management, everything from retirement plans to credit to wealth planning. Advisors who can provide these things offer extensive value.

The challenge is finding sources of business owners and finding ways to make them new clients. The most effective approach is to get referrals from other professionals, but there are other effective ways to go about it.

Business Owner Client Referrals and Business Owner Groups

Business owners can and do refer their industry peers to the professionals they are working with. But the research shows these referrals are highly erratic; there is really little rhyme or reason that someone will refer you unless a peer asks that person for help. Then it requires you to understand the economic ecosystem of the business owners and effectively explain to the person referring you how to introduce you before facilitating the connection.

Another method is to attend business owner conclaves such as Chamber of Commerce meetings, industry conferences and mastermind groups. Membership in such groups can help you build relationships with various business owners. When they understand what you do and understand why they need your expertise, you will likely become part of the selection set.

The key to success at these events is to deliver exceptional content in a presentation and add more high-value content afterward that ties back to your expertise.

Still, while these systematic approaches, including reaching out to business owners where they congregate, allows you to tap new, high-quality clients, these methods are not as effective as getting a reference from a third-party professional such as a lawyer or accountant.

Trust and Estate Attorneys and Accountants

For the great majority of financial advisors, T&E attorneys and accountants are the most common centers of influence. Other attorneys can prove very useful as referral sources—corporate and divorce lawyers, for example—but they are not as often approached as T&E lawyers.

Both estate lawyers and accountants prefer business owner clients. In a survey of 239 T&E attorneys, nearly 60% of them identified successful business owners as ideal clients (Figure 1). A survey of 394 accounting firm partners, meanwhile, found that about seven in 10 identified business owners as ideal clients.

Such clients are attractive for the complexity of the work they do (as well as their wealth), which presents opportunities for advisors to help. Business owners have multiple, diverse needs for many special legal and accounting services, and this offers opportunity for advisors seeking referrals.

But for T&E attorneys and accountants to refer you, you must first have a detailed understanding of their practices and you should be able to use your own expertise to help them become more successful.

Creating Value

Bear in mind that accountants and attorneys are under pressure. Their services are being commoditized, just like financial advisors’ are. For example, three-quarters of T&E attorneys and two out of five accountants are experiencing fee compression (Figure 2). This can easily harm their profits and income.

To contend with these dynamics, they have to add value, just as advisors do, and you can help them do it.

Based on the research, most T&E attorneys and accountants will choose to work with financial advisors who are technically proficient and can help them build their practices. An advisor’s ability to develop strong relationships is also important.

The most important thing you can do is help these professionals grow their own practices by generating more revenue. If you do that, you will likely become the preferred advisor they refer clients to, if not the only one.

And you can help them grow by helping them become thought leaders. About three-quarters of T&E attorneys and 90% of accountants recognize the value of being such a thought leader (Figure 3).

You can help them with this by providing high-caliber content they can use with clients and prospects. T&E attorneys and accountants find that talking about certain subjects is helpful when they are trying to win business owner clients: These clients want to know about updating estate plans, for example, or about the benefits of success coaching, or about the common mistakes they make when selling their companies. They also want strategies to limit their personal liability.

You can help accountants and attorneys distribute such content, and when you do, you benefit from the “multiplier effect.” If they get more business, so will you. If the thought leadership content is geared to successful business owners in such a way that they can distribute it, they will usually get more engagements that regularly motivate them to drive more wealthy investors to you. The greater success of their practices can graciously translate into greater success for your practice.

You can also refer clients to them. However, this approach is limited, at best, for simple mathematical reasons: You are unlikely to have as many opportunities to refer business to those professionals as they have to refer people to you. That’s why helping them grow their business and generate more revenue from their own clients is a more productive approach.        

Russ Alan Prince is president of R.A. Prince & Associates.

Brett Van Bortel is director of consulting services for Invesco Consulting.