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Don
was a CPA for 20 years before he decided to get into the
fee-based asset management business. He had been doing
financial planning for his accounting clients for 15 years.
After converting all of those eligible clients to fees
Don sold his accounting practice so he could concentrate
on building his new fee-based asset management business.
Here
is Don’s story. “After I sold my CPA business,
I had about $5 million under management. I didn’t
really know what to do to get new investment management
clients. I didn’t have a marketing plan to make my
new business happen. I started looking around to see how
I could get help. I had read some of Steve Moeller’s
articles in Investment Advisor magazine. And then I read
Steve’s book, Effort-Less Marketing. It all made
perfect sense to me and I said to myself, ‘I’ve
got to get into this guy’s coaching program.’
“I
enrolled in the coaching program to learn how to attract
great clients for fee-based asset management. The main
benefit I got was a clear vision of my ideal life, ideal
practice, ideal employees and ideal clients.”
Before
he started working with us, Don was taking on anybody
who could fog a mirror just to generate revenue. But as
he started implementing my tactics and strategies, he
started screening people out who did not fit his ideal
client profile. He says, “I started interviewing
them as much as they interviewed me.” Effort-less
Marketing is based on attracting great clients, not just
people with money.
He
now has relationships with about 90 households. His average
account is about $400,000, but he has recently raised
his minimums to $500,000. The tactics he learned are attracting
larger and larger accounts over time. He has two primary
niches, widows and dentists.
Don
says, “The process Steve taught me is working great.
We’re right on target. We set goals in our first
coaching session on where we wanted to be each year. We
are right where we said we wanted to be at this point.
We now have $35 million under management and we’re
adding about two million every month.”
According
to Don, the most important things are knowing what kind
of business you want and interviewing your clients in
the niches you want to serve. “Doing research interviews
was a big help for me. I still do them today. I have a
goal of doing four each month but I am so busy with new
clients that I can’t always get to them. When I do
the interviews I always get referrals to ideal prospects.”
Don
has done over 100 interviews over that last 2.5 years.
He says, “When you’ve done that many, you’re
not really nervous, you’re not looking at the questionnaire,
you already know what the questions are you’re gonna
ask. It’s really all about client service, how can
we serve you better? People want to tell you that.”
Don
interviews his new clients after he has completed a financial
plan and moved their assets under management. “You
know, I’ll have a dinner or lunch with a client.
It’s almost like one of my regular meetings, but
the focus is what we can be doing better for them. I incorporate
Steve’s research interview questions into a casual
conversation. I don’t even have to ask for referrals.
It’s just a natural part of the process. They always
tell me about people they know who can benefit from my
services.”
Initially
Don did research interviews with estate planning attorneys.
He now has a couple centers of influence who send him
great clients on a consistent basis. He is so busy doing
financial plans and opening accounts he does very few
interviews with people who aren’t already clients.
He says, “I seem to get the most bang for my buck
just doing them with my clients.”
“Some
of my first clients were pretty well known in the dental
community and they’re not shy about telling their
friends about me. So that was a good niche for us to get
into”, he explains. This is one of the key benefits
of focusing on niches. If you are truly client-centered
and have good processes, your clients will tell their
friends and you will get multiple endorsements. That’s
a very effort-less way to build your business.
When
Don gets a referral he puts them on his mailing list and
sends them some information on his firm. He mails them
his newsletter each month. If they don’t call him
in a few months, he calls them. His script is simple.
“I basically say, ‘Joe Client said he thought
we ought to sit down and talk. Would that be something
you are interested in doing?” He says 3 out of four
say “yes.
“Sometimes
they’ll say, ‘call me in a month. You caught
me at a bad time. So we’ll put them back in our drip
cycle of sending them mail outs. It might be two or three
months before I call them again. I try to do a few of
those calls every other day.”
When
Don meets with a client or center of influence, during
his initial interview he tells them his story. He explains
that, “I was an accountant who did 700 tax returns
a year. I saw very few people making money in their investments.
This was when the market was booming. There was a lot
of disjointed transactions, but not a systematic process
for acquiring their goals. I thought there had to be a
better way.”
“So
I did a lot of research and realized there was a better
systematic process for managing money. That’s when
I decided to run our portfolios based on modern portfolio
theory and strategic asset allocation. I tell my prospects,
‘this is what we know works and it’s how most
of the major institutions manage their money.’”
“We
average four pretty good new clients every month. After
they’ve been with me two months, I will do a research
interview with them. Then I get their referrals and I
start the cycle over. Of course it’s helped using
modern portfolio theory. Because of our management style
our clients haven’t gotten killed. They are obviously
happy about that! Most of our new clients coming over
have lost a lot of money from their previous advisors
and are looking for a better system and better service.”
When
Don started in our coaching program he didn’t have
any employees. We helped him hire his first phenomenal
employee and he has just hired one more, a junior planner.
He says, “I guess the second thing that really helps
is getting a competent staff person to help me so I can
get out of the office as much as possible and meet people.”
“I’ll
work hard for another three or four years and then take
care of my 200 clients. It really calms me down knowing
that by December 31, 2005, we are going to be done. I’m
looking forward to the day when I can devote one hundred
percent of our time to our clients and not have to market.”
“Steve
helped me develop the vision. We want about 200 clients,
a half a million each. That’s really all I want,
and once we get there, I will focus more on quality of
life. At this point I am focused on doing the work that
will build my business. I think my number one job is to
take care of my clients. We want to make sure that we
take such good care of our clients that we never have
to worry about losing anybody. My two number job is to
get new clients--primarily through research interviews.”
When
I asked Don what advice he had for my readers he said
without hesitation, “Do the interviews. They will
give you confidence and they are also a very indirect
way to get the message across to your clients that you’re
looking for referrals and introductions. There’s
no magic to it. You’ve got to do the work, but you’ve
got to do the right kind of work. With any marketing process,
you don’t usually see immediate benefits. When you
keep doing the right strategies the business comes. Steve
helped us to implement the right strategies and processes.”
“It’s
not about studying the market, or finding the hottest
new product. It’s about getting out and seeing the
people. I pretty much follow the time management system
that we completed during one of the coaching sessions.
Friday is my marketing day, Monday is set aside for administration
and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I meet with clients.
When
I asked Don about his future, he replied without pause,
“I’m excited. I was in the doldrums for a while.
The accounting wore me down. But with my new vision and
business I have renewed enthusiasm and look forward to
coming to work every day.”
Don
started from scratch three years ago and now has crossed
the chasm. He is building a super-profitable business
and a wonderful life. It doesn’t get much better
than that!
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