April Week 1: Creating a client advisory board

IN Practice appears on the web and in IN Daily every Monday. Comments and questions are welcome at IN Editor@InvestmentNews. INPractice for April: Creating and Maximizing a Client Advisory Board The Challenge: Successful advisers want to build deeper relationships with their best clients and leverage outside resources to build their practice. The challenge — considering all the daily demands of running your business — is finding a practical way to do this. What few key steps can be taken to deepen client relationships and outside resources in an effective, easy-to-manage way? The Solution: Create an advisory board. There are two types to consider: a board composed of your top clients and a board composed of strategic partners, such as accountants, estate planning attorneys and insurance specialists. The two board types have important, but different, roles in the growth of your business. This month, we’ll address client advisory boards; we’ll tackle strategic partner boards next quarter. Our goal is to help you have both types of boards in place in the coming months in order to increase your year-end business and help jump start 2009. As we do each month, we’re going to look at client advisory boards in four weekly steps. By the end of April your board will be well under way, and you will be set to hold its first quarterly meeting in May or June. WEEKLY STEPS 1: IDENTIFY your board focus and invite 8-10 key clients as members. 2: DEVELOP an annual calendar with quarterly board meetings. 3: SET the first meeting topic with a guest speaker. 4: EXECUTE a follow-up communications plan. Maureen Wilke has helped thousands of advisers increase the value of their businesses. The founder of Wilke Associates Inc. (connectedadvisor.com) in Glen Ellyn, Ill., Maureen has spent nearly two decades in executive positions in wealth management, sales and training. She has been associated with several highly regarded firms, including Nuveen Investments, and currently advises many product and advisory firms on issues of practice management and adviser productivity.