September Week 4: Gaining top client referrals

Background: This month, we’ve focused on preparing for year-end client reviews to uncover and identify clients’ retirement assets. If you haven’t started, don’t miss an opportunity to talk with your clients right now during this time of financial uncertainty. Last week’s InvestmentNews webcast, What To Say To Clients Now (click “View the Archive”), in which I took part, covered several effective approaches to calling clients. Since study after study confirms that clients leave a practice due to lack of communication from their adviser, now is the time to take action and call. If you haven’t put your year-end client review plan in place and need some help, go back and review the steps of the past three weeks. You’ll review how to segment your top clients and schedule their reviews first using your review calendar template. The retirement checklist from last week reminds you that clients should bring in their financial statements and tax returns when you do their review. Simply copy the checklist onto your firm’s letterhead (of course, get a compliance approval) and make a copy for each client to use in the reviews. The challenge: Now you have uncovered assets. How do you track them? The solution: Use the Top-Client Background Chart to keep all your clients’ assets — as well as assets you uncover — in a concise format. It is critical for you to do a thorough review of your top clients’ backgrounds, past jobs and inherited retirement assets. Then track them. Ask your assistant or partner work on the second- and third-tier clients to be sure no client is ignored. You will discover that some of your lower-tier clients have substantial retirement assets. Create a repeatable process for all clients, and offer to review their asset allocation within their current plans. Add value, and keep positioning yourself as a retirement resource, even before they retire. Your preparation for reviews will pay off. You have now created a repeatable process to prepare for reviews, a calendar to manage the amount of reviews, a follow-up plan and a tracking tool so you know exactly where your clients stand. At the end of each review and after the follow-up is completed, ask for a referral. I really like the practice of completing a week of reviews and then using the following week to follow up on the reviews. One successful adviser has found that by improving her process with top clients, alternating reviews and follow-ups and not offering in-person reviews to clients with fewer assets, she has taken back control of her practice. Before, she felt she operated at the whim of clients; now she feels balanced. Ask for a referral. You have earned it. Once the follow-up is completed, simply ask your clients if they found the year-end review to be beneficial. The answer will probably be yes. Then ask if they have any family, friends or colleagues who might like a year-end review like the one they just received. That’s it. You don’t need lengthy scripts to ask for referrals trying to prove your value. You have just done that. Without a doubt, this will bring in referrals. Set a goal of one or two referrals from each of your top clients. If you have 50 top clients, you should be able to generate 50 to 100 referrals. Next month: Communicating in a time of crisis. Maureen Wilke has helped thousands of advisers increase the value of their businesses and now offers The Connected Advisor: 8 Steps to Building an Extraordinary Practice (connectedadvisor.com) to distribution firms, wholesaling teams and advisers. She has spent nearly two decades in wealth management, marketing, sales and wholesaler training at firms including Nuveen Investments Inc. of Chicago and can be reached at [email protected]. Read our weekly online columns: MONDAY: IN Practice by Maureen Wilke TUESDAY: Tax INsight WEDNESDAY: OpINion Online by Evan Cooper THURSDAY: IN Retirement FRIDAY: Tech Bits by Davis. D. Janowski