Soapbox: Your Best Resolution for Growth in 2010 

Here’s an achievable New Year’s resolution for advisors who want to build an affluent practice: revamp your marketing. Even as advisors worry about falling profits, client retention, and attracting new business, with the right marketing plan it’s possible—and more critical than ever—to improve your performance with both wealthy and affluent investors.

The first step is to become a student of the affluent and their expectations, and re-examine your approach to marketing to reflect this knowledge. Old techniques such as public seminars, mass mailings, and cold calling no longer yield strong results. Nor do presentations that focus primarily on product offerings. This means your focus should be on people, not simply selling your services as products. In other words, building long-term, mutually profitable relationships with the affluent and wealthy requires a full understanding of how they define value and make purchasing decisions, as well as the psychological needs that drive and influence them.

Step two is to make a conscious decision to expand your practice. Think about how you can grow your investment offering or client base to capitalize on opportunities as the financial markets and economy rebound. Focus on specific groups and become the go-to financial resource for them. It’s not enough to target business owners or doctors or money-in-motion in 2010. This year and in the years ahead, to be successful requires you to narrowcast.

Think about today’s major broadcast TV networks, which are losing money and audience to cable networks that know and deliver to their market base and are thus growing at substantial rates. The same goes for advisors. Instead of believing you will target business owners, identify specific groups within that market: tool-and-die shops, auto repair, fast food restaurant owners, and so forth. If you wish to target doctors, narrowcast by focusing on cardiologists, radiologists, or pediatricians.

Once you’ve determined how and with whom you want to expand, you can position yourself with the right centers of influence in your chosen markets. By this I mean the leaders—executive directors, presidents, board members, or other professionals such as attorneys and bankers—who support and work in the markets you’ve chosen.

The next step: Raise and exceed your clients’ expectations. Again, your focus should be on building long-term relationships, not executing transactions. Use as a model the average hourly employee at every Ritz-Carlton hotel, who receives 240 hours per year of education on topics such as service, decorum, presentation, and communication. The Ritz knows that elevating client experiences, not just service, in every area is crucial to their marketing strategy because it creates delighted advocates who help build and sustain the brand’s image of luxury and excellence. In contrast, the average sales professional reads only one book a year on marketing and elevating client experiences, according to Sales Management Magazine.

Communication will also be crucial to growth in 2010. Resolve to engage in open, proactive and interactive communication with all your clients and prospects throughout the New Year. Remember that people who entrust you with their portfolios need reassurance and connectivity. If you don’t have a communication plan in place, get one. If you already have a plan, update it so that if and when there’s another downturn, you’re prepared to keep clients informed, lessening the risk of defection.

Finally, stay committed to quality advice by knowing and then integrating your core values into your practice. Seriously consider involving yourself in charitable organizations that support your targeted markets, building both credibility and visibility for your practice.

Taking personal responsibility and accountability for improving your success in the affluent market requires having a clear vision for your business that will help you achieve specific goals, grow your practice, and make your vision a reality in 2010 and beyond.

Richard Weylman
Founder, Richard Weylman, Inc.
Boca Grande, Florida