Connecting with “influential clients” can lead you to more high net-worth referrals.
And making those connections can be much easier than you think, says Simon Reilly, a business coach and founder of Leading Advisor Inc. in Parksville, B.C. In fact, your “keys to the VIP” (very influential persons) could be close at hand.
“Start by really getting connected with your own high-net worth clients,” Reilly says. “Influential clients will share values with similar like-minded people.”
Although you shouldn’t assume all high-end clients are the same, Reilly says, they often share many common concerns, such as specialized tax planning.
Reilly offers the following advice on how you can become better connected with clients of influence:
> Set up an interview
In order to attract more high-end clients, get to know the major concerns of your current clients.
One way to do this is to set up a short (10-minute) interview with two or three of your top clients. Develop a standard schedule of questions that will help you identify the kinds of advisory services that are most important to them.
This exercise, Reilly says, will help you get a deeper understanding of each of these clients and, in turn, that segment of clients as a whole.
“Understanding the values of influential clients,” Reilly says, “is like setting up a table of contents for down the road.”
> Develop quality content
Empowered with the feedback you have acquired in your client interviews, your next step is to develop content to address those client concerns.
For example, Reilly recommends doing some original research and creating a whitepaper that addresses those concerns. The benefits of doing this research, Reilly says, are twofold. First, it gives you original material that you can use to start conversations at networking events.
Second, will give you useful information for your social-media channels, blogs or newsletters.
This step, Reilly says, will help you stand out from your competition.
> Leverage your clients’ centres of influence
After passing along your content — a whitepaper, for example — to your top clients, invite them to forward it to any friends or associates they think might benefit from it.
This strategy can help you gain referrals.
> Get in touch and stay in touch
Your goal with influential clients or prospects should always be to arrange a face-to-face meeting.
That doesn’t mean that you should not use social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, to get an introduction, Reilly says. But social media should be used primarily as a tool to help you maintain and deepen existing client relationships, rather than establishing new ones.
“You can nurture the relationship on social media,” says Reilly. “But financial services at the high net-worth level is a relationship service.”