Financial Advisor Blog on Marketing, Lead Generation, Prospecting and Sales

Financial Advisors Earn More

The tremendous benefit that accrues from status as a true financial advisor is that you have no agenda, no product to sell, and no objective other than to do what’s right for the prospect and the prospect can sense that. Because prospects do sense the difference between a financial sales person and financial advisor (no matter what term you use to describe yourself), financial advisors gather more assets per client and have longer term, far more lucrative client relationships. And, at the end of their career, financial advisors have a practice to sell—their client relationships have value.

Few people make the transition from sales person to advisor. Consider these figures: there are approximately one million people in the U.S. with a securities or insurance license. There are approximately 78,000 people entitled to use either the CFP® or ChFC® credential. That’s not to say that only people with one of these credentials is practicing as a true financial advisor (or that some with these credentials are product sales people and not advisors), but those that are serious about their financial advisor status do pursue one of these designations because they know that these designations are the best chance of quickly communicating their status as an advisor to the public. In short, about 8% of people with a license to sell financial or insurance products have made the effort to “brand” themselves as a financial advisor.

So the first step in the transition from sales person to advisor is to get educated—whether by enrolling in one of the recognized designation programs or through self study. You cannot advise if you don’t have adequate knowledge. Does this take a consistent effort to study each week over an 18 month period? Yes. Do most people make the effort? No. Do the people who make the effort get rewarded? Yes—the CFP® Board reports that financial planners with the CFP® designation earn 50% more than non-CFP financial planners. So if you struggle to earn more, knowing more is the first step to your goal.

Specialty Knowledge Attracts More Business

Of course, the CFP® and ChFC® credentials are indications of a fundamental and general knowledge base. But depending on your business, you should get specialty credentials. For example, if you do have a product specialty, such as long-term care insurance, then get one of the long-term care credentials like Certification in Long-Term Care (CLTC) or Long-Term Care Professional (LTCP). If you specialize in working with seniors, then you want to get the Certified Retirement Financial Advisor™ (CRFA) credential or Chartered Advisor for Senior Living™ (CASL). If you focus on estate planning, then consider the Accredited Estate Planner designation.

The important aspect of credentials is that they not only provide knowledge that allows you to deliver value, they have marketing value in attracting new clients. The more you specialize, the more attractive you become to potential clients.

Continual Learning is Mandatory

Once you earn a credential or reach your goal, you’re not done. You need to invest about 200 hours annually in self continuing education. I know that most credentials require 40 or so hours a year of continuing education but this is insufficient. Not only do you forget what you know, and must spend time staying current, you need to continually add to your knowledge base. Since your prospects and clients are getting more knowledgeable in financial matters, the value you add will diminish if they keep growing and you don’t.






Professionals Charge Fees

You must become a registered investment advisor so that you can charge fees for investment advice (check with your State about any licensing requirements if you want to charge fees for insurance or estate planning advice). Even if you work primarily on a commission basis, why are you doing analysis or preparing recommendations for free? That’s insane and no other professional does it. All you’ve got to sell is your time and your insight and giving it away for free is no different than Home Depot having customers take whatever they want off the shelf—no charge. You do not have a legitimate business when you give away your primary asset for free.

Now some advisors are stopped by the prospect of becoming an RIA because they think it’s difficult. Yes, your State may require you to pass the FINRA series 7 and 66 exam. But passing exams is the minimal mark of a professional as passing of an exam is not a mark of competence. Take initiative and take a review course if necessary. But don’t wait for someone to push you because it won’t happen. No product company, insurance company or broker dealer will call you up and say “I’m calling to tell you, you need to be an RIA and collect fees.” It won’t happen because there may be nothing in it for them.

This is an age of self learning. There are dozens of articles that have appeared in the industry press covering RIA status. There’s no shortage of information—you just need to go get it. Many agents will simply be able to use the RIA of their broker dealer or insurance company to charge fees, but either way, charging fees is essential to professional status and to survival in this business.

In fact, the only way you can provide full and complete service is to charge fees. For example, when doing a financial plan, would it not be a good idea to review your client’s P&C coverage? Most planners don’t since they don’t sell P&C insurance. This lack of attention leaves the client exposed. If you charge fees, you get compensated for complete caretaking of your client.


Form a Network With Other Professionals

You need to affiliate with other professionals because you cannot know everything. Those that have the CFP® or ChFC® credential use other professionals more, not less. They realize how much there is to the tax, estate planning, employee benefits and financing issues that they don’t know. But they know enough to be the quarterback for their clients and call in those professionals when needed. So stop going it alone. That’s not how professionals bring value to their clients. If you need a heart operation, does your family doctor say, “no problem, I’ll do it,” or does he bring in a specialist?

If you don’t make the most of every client relationship by filling all their needs either yourself or through your network of professionals, another advisor will and take your business away from you. If you don’t upgrade your knowledge and the value of your service, the public won’t need you because they are rapidly increasing their financial knowledge and will soon have no value for someone who simply has product knowledge.

About 3 years into his career in financial services career, Bill recognized a “hidden truth” that allowed him to triple his business, from $320,000 to $1 million in 4 years. Here’s what he noticed. He was more motivated to avoid pain that to obtain pleasure. When he became a branch manager, he noticed that every other rep in the office behaved the same way. Most reps will produce just to the level that avoids their pain. See if this is also true for you.

If pleasure were a strong motivator, you would have no problem going to the gym, no problem earning $1 million a year and no problem achieving your goals. But pleasure is not a strong motivator for you. It’s the avoidance of pain that motivates you: by pain, I mean psychological pain.

When you look deep enough, you see the psychological pains you seek to avoid: avoiding poverty, protecting your children from harm and hardship and avoiding angry calls from clients. You will do most anything to avoid pain. So face that truth and then let’s see how to use it to your advantage. You may not like the fact that pain is a stronger motivator than pleasure. However, accept it and embrace this fact for extraordinary power.

If pain is the item that best motivates you, why not intentionally inflict pain to get what you want? If you want more clients, schedule a seminar, call the location you will use, reserve the room for one date next month and send them a $250 deposit. You will be motivated to get the room full, master your presentation and use the best technique for closing appointments right at the seminar. Why? Because you will work hard to avoid losing the $250 deposit and to avoid embarrassment. You will find yourself motivated to avoid the negative outcome, the pain. Another way to say this is that you are better at reacting than proacting. If we were all masters at proacting (rather than reacting), there would millions of Bill Gates and Warren Buffets. So set up your circumstances to do what you do well—react.

If you have a goal to join three associations (e.g. the local estate planning council, the industry association you want to court, the chamber of commerce) you can best assure that outcome by pushing yourself into a corner with significant painful consequences. Call each association and tell them you want to sponsor the lunch at the next meeting. When faced with a forthcoming lunch bill for several hundred dollars, you will be sure to make the most of your contacts at that association.

If you have a goal to increase your productivity (e.g. make 120 contacts next month rather than your budgeted 100) tell your branch manager to advance you $2000 for marketing. Make him the deal that if you do not increase your documented activity by at least 20% over budget (or over last year), you will pay him back $4,000.

If you have a goal to meet three CPAs in your town next month, then have your assistant call three from the phone book to tell the CPAs that you have the ability to refer clients through the year. (This is true whether you have realized it or not because you probably meet more new prospects and obtain more new clients than they do). Have your assistant set a date and time for you to take each to lunch. It sounds like this: “Mr. CPA? My name is Joe Johnson. I am calling from the office of Tom Stewart at ABC Securities. He is seeking a CPA that he can refer his clients to. Can he take you to lunch next Wednesday to see if you would like to work with the types of clients he has?” Once you have the appointment in your calendar, you will prepare for it and keep it. Of course, one of your agenda’s at the lunch, in addition to learning about the types of clients that CPA can best serve, is to determine if he has the types of clients you can best serve.

Here’s another idea to get business coming at you. Run advertisements that offer a fee booklet. The reader of the ad calls to request a copy. All you have to do is react and send it. The negative consequence of losing the money spent on the ad motivates me to follow up with a call. You will have set up the game to be the victim of my self-created circumstances.

Look a your business. List the ways in which you obtain clients. Ways such as :
Client Referrals
Professional Referrals
Seminars
Cold calling
Networking

In what ways can you set up a game that burdens you with painful outcomes if you do not react? In what ways can you set a system to react like the examples explained above?

There’s no revenue in continuing to believe that your income will rise by becoming more motivated, more inspired or by rising to the top of Maslow’s hierarchy. Rather, confront the hidden truth—most of your actions are reactions and serve avoidance of pain. Set up some painful consequences to get yourself moving to higher revenue.

Why buy someone else’s stock? Can you trust their management’s intelligence, ethics and honest financial reporting? Will you see them on the nightly news, behind bars after they’ve used the shareholder’s money as a personal piggy bank? The person you most trust is yourself, so why not create your own stock? In fact, you already have; it’s the equity in your business and this article shows you how to make that stock the best equity investment you have ever owned. Being a financial advisor or insurance professional is the best possible business with infinite leverage.

Would you consider annual returns of 200% to 900% fairly attractive? Microsoft would kill to get these returns which are easy for you. Here’s how to get those kind of mafia-sized returns while being totally honest, completely legal, and serving your clients:

Step One: Invest $2,000 to do a seminar and earn $20,000+ in commissions; a 900% return. (if these numbers do not reflect your experience with seminars you simply need to market them correctly so hire a consultant or buy a system). I know hundreds of advisors who have done this regularly throughout their career. One well-executed seminar raises $1 million of new money (when done correctly!) Depending on the mix of your business, how much you earn will vary from one million of assets, but it’s conservative to say that those assets are worth at least 2 % to you or $20,000. Doubt that you can do that well? It is indeed very possible so get on Google and find the right seminar system and get going.

Step Two: Invest $35,000 to hire an assistant to increase your income by $150,000; a 300% return. If you don’t have an assistant, you need to hire one. If you already have a service assistant, it’s time to hire a sales assistant. Already have two assistants? How can you profitably employ a third -- to arrange appointments for you with CPAs, attorneys or other referral sources? To get you speaking engagements at local companies or organizations? To call and book appointments for you?

The only barrier to how large you grow your business is your insistence on keeping it small. The only difference between Ray Kroc and the McDonald brothers was that Ray Kroc had the vision of thousands of locations and the McDonald brothers could envision only a regional group of outlets. The McDonald brothers sold out to Ray for $1 million each. Ray took their business and turned it into billions and billions. How big is your vision?

How large (or small) are you willing to go? Every time you think you could increase your business if only you had time to do “x,” it’s time to hire some help and do “x.” Scared? You should be—that’s the sign that you’re onto something meaningful. If you don’t get scared about your business at least annually, you’re not growing at the rate you could.

Step Three: Invest $500 in an annuity ad, gross $5,000: a 900% return. We've have shown thousands of advisors how to run compelling small ads in local publications and offer a booklet about a specific topic. The well-written booklet convinces the prospect that you are an expert so that when you call them you’re not a sales person, you’re an expert. The result is a 20% appointment ratio.
Here are the numbers:
• 2 ads in that each cost $250 in 2 senior publications=$500• Calls received 20-30• Appointments made 4-6 (20% of callers)• Sales made 2-3 annuities at $50,000 each
You will actually make far more than the $5,000 of commission indicated in the previous paragraph but let’s use that figure and the 900% return as the conservative assumption or worst case. This lead system has now been converted to the Internet and is even easier to implement.

Why invest in stocks when you already are the 100% shareholder in the most lucrative company you can find?

They Specialize

They have a target market and they won’t waiver. They turn down business that does not fit their niche and they don’t prospect outside of their niche. They understand that “birds of a feather flock together” and they use that to their advantage to dominate a well-defined niche. They specialize in a type of person or particular type of solution and become supreme experts in that one niche.

They Have The Right Business Model

Top producers have researched or observed a target market and have gained enough market information to construct a business model consistent with success. Many financial advisors have the wrong business model such as believing that they can drive their client acquisition based on networking, or providing information rather than insight or by being a nice person. The average producer does not have a target market (they do business with anyone) and therefore, can never construct a winning business model.

They Are Sales Professionals

Selling is a skill. It does not evolve from being in the business for twenty years and repeating the same mistakes for two decades. It is developed through training one self (books, tapes, modeling others) or formal classes (Dale Carnegie, Sandler Institute, etc). Every top producer has studied the science of communication and influence, i.e. selling. They do not take this skill for granted or simply wing it, as many average producers do. They understand, as explained in earlier posts in this blog, that selling has nothing to do with persuading or convincing, educating. Selling is enrolling prospects in their vision and a conversation that must be learned.

Top Producer Marketing is on Autopilot

Top producers don’t worry on the first of each month, “where will my gross come from this month.” They have a business with staff that works a marketing model to continually generate new business. They never abandon the model but keep refining it to be better and better. This super-refined marketing model then becomes a barrier to entry so that other advisors can never catch them. The average producer uses a poorly developed marketing approach and as soon as it doesn’t work, abandons it and goes looking for the next Holy Grail. They spend their career always looking for the easy road to riches rather than develop and use a consistent approach month after month.

They Have a Business

Top producers understand that they run a business. A business has a CEO, staff and functional specialists. They recognize their personal talents and devote their day to using those specific high-value talents. Average producers resist hiring staff, try and do everything themselves, never discover what they do really well, and spend a career with most of each day inefficiently used being jack of all trades. They never develop a business. At best, they have a practice, much like a doctor or lawyer, which requires them to be in the office to generate revenue.

Top Producers Have Prospects Come to Them

There is no way to gain trust of high net worth clients by chasing them. Affluent clients respect people who are referred, who write books, appear in articles and travel in the right circles. They won’t respond to an advisor who believes in the motto, “Don’t give up until you hear no six times.” As Tom Stanley puts it in his book Marketing to the Affluent, top producers know how to surface in the middle of the convoy of high net worth individuals, thereby being noticed by their prospects, no chasing involved.

An average producer can begin transforming their businesses with any one of the above approaches of large producers. For example, by selecting a target market or product/service specialty, just doing that one thing, will increase business by producing focus.

Or hiring an assistant. One cannot begin to be creative when the whole day is spent on administrivia. An assistant allows the professional to not only free up their day, but also free up their mind.

Or for some, the best place to start is taking sales training. How many appointments do you have that get away? It takes no more work to get a “yes” than it does a “no.” Knowing how to sell has fantastic leverage.

Start with any of these tactics of top producers, just start.

Many financial advisors would like more and better clients. But their client prospecting is often wasted and misplaced. Here are three concepts that can help you attract more and better clients:


Make yourself scarce

We live in a culture where people want what they cannot have. In order for people to want you, you must make yourself scarce. That means you only deal with people who fit your profile (yes, turn away business). In all financial marketing you do, communicate that you only deal with a certain segment of people.


Here’s an example. Bob, a 10-year financial advisor, only deals with people age 60 and over. His firm is called Senior Alliance. His business card says “Retiree Investment Management.” He does not deal with people under 60. If his client says, “Can you help my son—he’s 48 and he has some money,” he declines and refers the son to a colleague. By being so picky, his clients refer him to others as “He’s a specialist in dealing with people like us.” No client wants to go to a generalist. They want a specialist. What do you specialize in? If you come up short with an answer, then you cannot attract clients as a generalist and need to select a focus.


Another example is the financial advisor who specializes in an industry, For example, an advisor who only prospects chemical engineers. He becomes known in that circle, writes a columns for the engineers’ magazine and becomes an invited speaker at conventions. I know a guy who sold hundreds of life insurance polices to United Airlines pilots by visiting their layover facility at major airports. He gave talks to a group of pilots as they were waiting for their next flight.
Be different. Every time you open an account, it’s because you offer something different than the client’s current advisor. Yet most financial advisors look alike—many do the same activities, offer the same products and services and are indistinguishable from the next financial advisor. Why should the prospect deal with you?

You distinguish yourself from others by crafting your business differently. One way is to focus on a certain niche as described above and making yourself scarce. Another way is to run your business differently. For example, if most financial advisors recommend mutual funds, then you recommend stocks (and have a well researched argument with evidence as to why stocks would be better). If other financial advisors offer bond funds for fixed income, you offer individual bonds (and have a good presentation as to why individual bonds would be better). If other financial advisors have no system for selecting stocks, then you specialize in quantitative systems like the Dow Dividend Strategy, Value Line or CANSLIM (as documented by William O’Neill in How to Make Money in Stocks). Show people why “guessing” about stocks is no way to invest and why a structured system brings all-important discipline to the process. If other financial advisors raise money for third party money managers, you be the money manager (if you use a structured system, the time it takes to manage portfolios is negligible as the system does the work).

If every one in your office sells growth stocks, then specialize in precious metals or whatever interests you. Team up with the other financial advisors in your office and split commissions. They are not talking to their clients about metals and this business will be lost. It would be smart for both of you to split commissions and have him introduce you to his clients (other brokers will bring you business if they you are not competing with them, that you specialize in an area they don’t know about—metals, options, 401k, etc).

Write
In our culture, people who write are considered experts. If your name is in the newspaper or on the spine of a book, you will stand out from other advisors. You do not need to write a word. Many firms and others have an article service and ghost writing service to make you an author overnight (be sure and comply with the FINRA disclosures on ghost writing).

Think of the difference when you can give a prospect a copy of your book. Do you think he is more inclined to open an account with you? What about sending information to a referral and you include in the envelope two articles from the daily newspaper in which you are interviewed and one article you authored. Have you increased the probability of that prospect becoming a client?

As you implement your marketing, ask yourself each week how you are being different and distinguishing yourself from every other broker in town. Why will prospects leave their current advisor to join you?

We don’t do what we’re told. It starts at a young age, and we continue to resist doing what others tell us to do. So it’s no wonder baby boomers are sick of being told and continue to resist saving for retirement.

This problem won’t be solved by greater tax incentives. It will also not be solved with more financial education. Financial education assumes ignorance but is there a baby boomer that does not already know they don’t save enough? If you're committed to educating babay boomers please know that if you educate people, you will never earn more than a school teacher. People don't need to be educated, they need to be motivated and not 1 in 10 financial advisors know how to do that.

The basic problems we have not solved as financial advisors are:

1. We tell people to save for retirement by having less fun today.
2. We try to have people realize the importance of retirement planning by telling them, yet realization is a self-generated activity (i.e. baby boomers won't learn by being told).

We can fix both of these problems if we communiate the right message in the right way.

First, let’s stop telling baby boomers to save for retirement at the cost of less fun today. They won't do it. Rather than taking money from consumption, we need to be smarter, and show boomers these solutions:

a. How to make use of dead equity in their homes—so few people realize that home equity has no return. Their home will appreciate the same amount whether they put the equity to work or not. (Hopefully, you still have clients with home equity)
b. How to reallocate assets for greater returns—most people are under-invested because they don’t watch their investments or have an unstructured plan. As a result, they don’t get the return they should.
c. How to restructure debt for greater cash flow—people have high rate credit card debt and automobile debt rather than low cost deductible mortgage debt. Yet, to a large extent, financial advisors focus on managing assets, not the debt of their clients.

Baby Boomers will be happy to save for retirement if they can do so painlessly—without giving up the BMW and exotic vacation. If you want to get a crowd at a retirement planning seminar, start with the title “How to Plan a Comfortable Retirement without Giving up Your BMW or Exotic Vacation.” Since we have already programmed boomers to believe they won’t have enough and they will need to sacrifice today, we will need to yell the new message that they can still have their fun.

Next, WE need to get it. No matter how much we tell people what to do, they rarely do it. But if they realize what to do and believe it’s their idea, they do it. People have such self-realizations when they need to think for themselves and you can initiate that by asking them questions.

Here’s how that sounds:

Advisor: Bob, what’s your plan for retirement?

Bob: I don’t know…

Advisor: How come you don’t have a plan?

Bob: I already spend too much—where would I get the funds for a retirement plan?

Advisor: I don’t know—what places are possible?

Bob: Sure—I could cut out lots of things, but that’s not what I really want to do.

Advisor: Like what?

Bob: I have a late model BMW. I could drive a Chevy, but who wants that?

Advisor: It sounds like you’ve been pre-programmed to believe that preparing for retirement means you need to sacrifice today. Is that correct?

Bob: Yes, but isn’t that true?

Advisor: No. Let me ask you—do you have any credit card debt or debt on your car?

Bob: Sure I do.

Advisor: If I could hypothetically show you how to save $300 a month on that debt, would you be willing to put that into a retirement fund?

Bob: I won’t have to give up anything?

Advisor: Nothing.

Bob: Yes, please show me.

Notice that in the above dialog, our brilliant financial advisor avoids doing what most advisors do—telling the prospect what action to take. Instead, the advisor only asks questions and the prospect has their own realization.

If we could control our own excessive talking and telling, and teach ourselves to enlighten through our questions, we may just be able to save 78 million people from financial disaster.

Prospecting the high net worth prospects, the person with a million dollar portfolio or the one that buys million dollar (or multi million dollar life policies) can require different tactics than prospecting the “mass affluent” market (i.e. those with less than $1 million of investment assets).

I say “can” require different tactics because there are two equal-size wealth markets—the half who have accumulated significant assets but do not think of themselves as rich and those that have similar financial circumstances yet do think of themselves as wealthy.

According to a study by the Spectrem Group, there are 107,023,917 households in the United States. Of that number 3,737,000 have investable assets in excess of $1 million. On a national basis, that means that 3.49% of the households have a million in liquid funds, even though the average would exceed 6% in more affluent communities like Nassau County, San Jose or West Palm Beach.


Strategies for prospecting the down-home wealthy

The first half of the high net worth market comprises the “millionaire” next door as described by Dr. Tom Stanley, “The real American millionaire is John Doe, age 57, who has been married for 32 years to the same woman, owns a highly productive small or medium-sized business, has two children, and works 10-14 hours a day, six days a week.” You can picture this guy—a real “Sam Walton type,” driving his older pick up truck and sill living in the same 3 bedroom 2 bath home even though his net worth is $5 million. These people have created their wealth by starting businesses or investing in real estate and still behave like “salt of the earth” people.

This fellow responds to the same type of marketing as the buyer from the mass affluent market: general seminars, direct mail and advertising. There is nothing different you need to do to reach these folks if you are already prospecting the middle market. In fact, there is little you can do to isolate these folks as they live in middle-income neighborhoods and they are inconspicuous as they don’t buy luxury cars or rent the presidents suite when taking a cruise. Because multi-millionaires are fewer in number, a seminar that attracts 50 people will only have 3-5 attendees that are multi-millionaires from the high net worth segment.

This group is heavily populated by real estate owners and small business owners. Therefore, one way to isolate these folks is to obtain a list of residential rental property owners or commercial property owners and of business owners with fewer than 50 employees. (Any list broker can help you). Not only can you contact them individually, there may be property-owner associations or business owner associations that can become a prospecting platform (for talks or getting published in their magazine).

Mass marketing techniques, however, will not work on the other high net worth group, the Armani-suit wearing crowd. These people do not respond to the same tactics that work with the mass affluent and need to be met through introduction, social or professional circles. They live in rich neighborhoods, drive late model luxury cars, belong to ”the club” and may be immersed in their self-importance.

Strategies for prospecting the wealthy

You meet them on their turf. Dick Heckman joined the best country club in Palm Springs, played golf 3 times a week at 2 pm and met wealthy business owners and retired and large shareholders of major companies. Never having more than 62 clients, he became one of the wealthiest financial producers in the US.

Each year, when the opera in your city has the annual gala, you buy a table for $2500 and bring your best clients (a nice treat for them). You will get noticed. The following week, if you are not called to volunteer on one of the opera committees, make the call and volunteer yourself. The committee will be populated with usually wealthy older patrons of the arts. You make friends, get invited to heir parties and leverage each contact to the next.

You dominate an industry. One planner I know has realized that franchise owners are wealthy folks. So he found out that they had a local association at which he could give a talk. He called each franchise owner individually and set a time to meet. He did not call them to get immediate business, but rather called them with a soft sell approach, “I understand you are a successful franchise owner. I am building a financial planning firm that assists franchise owners. Could I interview you about the greatest challenges that franchise owners face?” He has written an article on pension plans, for their newsletter, specifically addressing the franchise owner situation.

You focus on money in motion. Money is in motion during the following events:
Death—do you prospect estate attorneys?
Employment termination—one successful advisor contacted an outplacement firm. He offered his 2-hour class, “How to manage your money between jobs” to the outplacement firm’s clients—executives that had been laid off. These executives need to rollover some hefty 401k balances—who do you think gets hired?
Sale of a business—do you prospect business brokers?
Sale of Real Estate—do you prospect commercial real estate brokers?

You develop a specialty that wealthy people seek. A financial advisor, in order to fill a room with wealthy real estate owners, secured a list of people that owned at least $1 million of real estate. He sent a seminar invitation entitled “Estate Planning for Owners of Residential Income Property.” He had 58 millionaires in the room.

You cultivate relationships with people that can introduce you to their wealthy clients. These are called host-beneficiary relationships. You find a host that has relationships you want and you become the beneficiary of those relationships. Think beyond CPAs and attorneys.

What about the owner of the Mercedes dealership? Might he be interested in inviting his best clients to lunch and a talk (by you) on “Maximizing the Tax Benefits from Business Use of Luxury Cars, Boats and Vacation Properties.” Would the commercial real estate broker like to have you write a booklet or give a talk to his prospects, “How to Use a Capital Gains Elimination Trust to Avoid Capital Gains Taxes?” (I always start a discussion of charitable remainder trusts calling them “capital gains eliminations trusts” so that people listen before they prejudge). What other hosts can you think of that have wealthy clients where you can be the beneficiary?


What do the wealthy want?

Seventy percent of high net worth Americans feel that preserving wealth is their most important goal, according to a survey released by the Lincoln Financial Group of Philadelphia. Right behind preserving wealth was avoiding excessive taxes, listed by 59% of the affluent group as a “very important” goal. In fact, avoiding excessive taxes was ranked higher than accumulating additional wealth. Yet, surprisingly, less than a third of the affluent said that they feel that they have adequately protected their assets from excessive taxes, according to the survey.

The number one income-consuming category among the affluent is income taxes. Yet financial advisors have done a poor job in developing ways to help the high net worth crowd. Many do not have expertise in the more powerful income tax saving vehicles:
412i plans
VEBAs
Private insurance companies (see
Defined benefit plans
This is the type of expertise to develop.