After decades of research, we find the biggest problem investment professionals face is increasing their assets under management. It rarely matters how they describe themselves—as investment advisors, financial advisors, wealth managers or multi-family offices. Their primary objective is to increase the monies they manage.
After all, AUM fees are how they generate the bulk of their revenues. Unless an investment professional is winding down or exiting the business, we find that they want to grow, and that means finding more assets to manage.
There are only two ways to do this: get more assets from existing clients or get more clients.
It’s common for established investment professionals to not focus very much on existing clients. They’d rather find new ones. That means they are usually failing to maximize the opportunities with the people they’re already working with. And if you want to greatly boost your assets, it is frequently wise to optimize relationships with select current clients, not just find high-value new clients.
The Power Of Wealth Mapping
Over the last 20 years coaching investment professionals, we regularly hear them say they already have all their current clients’ assets.
And we regularly find they are wrong. There are often additional pools of money and cash flows they could conceivably manage. And they could likely be delivering wealth planning strategies to clients that would net them additional AUM.
When you’re thinking about adding AUM, ask yourself these things:
· Is a large percentage of your book composed of successful business owners?
· Are you working with clients that have entrusted $2 million or more to you?
· Are your clients’ lives complicated? Do they require the expertise of other professionals such as attorneys or accountants?
If so, you very likely can grow your AUM fairly quickly—by 20% or more.
By using what we call the “wealth mapping process,” you can develop an in-depth understanding of selected clients. Why not all clients? Because, for one thing, it’s not likely you could increase AUM by 20% with all of them. Also, the process takes time and effort. You are probably already pretty busy, and it only makes sense to concentrate on those clients who are undoubtedly going to get you the greatest return on your efforts.