|
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
TrustAdvisor.com: 5 Ways to Get More Referrals
Reposted from The Trust Advisor | By Barbara Kotlyar
Accountants and estate attorneys can be excellent referral sources for your firm, but that means every advisor in your area looking for an opportunity here, too. Take a pinpoint approach.
 In general, the better you understand the people you want to work with, the more success you’re likely to have.
For example, if your niche is women or HNW clients in Boston or Gen X/Y clients, you want to find a CPA that serves that same market.
Likewise, if you are an entrepreneurial professional in a small or mid-size firm, you probably want to work with someone with a similar mindset and size.
Culture and temperament matter here. If you find a good fit with an accountant or attorney, you’re probably going to be a good fit for his or her clients as well — and vice versa.
Once you create a list of ideal traits you want in a referral partner, here are five ways to build relationships with them to create an effective referral network.
1. Find them. Ask your existing clients to introduce you to their CPA and/or attorney or ask if you can reach out and mention their names.
Take advantage of your local business associations such as the Boston Estate Planning Council or the National Association of Estate Planners and Councils’ local search option. (Also check out WealthCounsel or The Advisors Forum for a list of local professionals)
Use social media to do your homework. LinkedIn is an especially great way to network with professionals in your area or who target your niche. Follow local CPAs and attorneys on Twitter to start a conversation about topics that interest you both. For example, if a local CPA is running an event or a seminar, retweet the announcement to your followers, then follow up to see if you could add value to the event.
2. Differentiate Yourself. Before you set up a meeting or make any calls, make sure you can clearly and quickly articulate your value proposition. Here are some questions you need to be able to answer:
-
What is your unique selling proposition? What makes you stand out from your competition?
-
How long have you been in business?
-
What services do you offer?
-
Who do you target? Who is your ideal customer?
-
What do you do to ensure your clients are happy with you and your team?
-
What is your standard procedure when taking on a new client?
-
What do you look for in a strategic partner?
-
What strategies are you implementing with strategic partners?
3. Make the First Move. Once you have your list of firms and a sense of how you want to stand out in their eyes, reach out. It’s best to start with the firms your clients already work with and then work your way down to the colder part of the list.
I would suggest sending out an email or letter asking for an introductory meeting. It often makes sense for you to come to their office so you can get a better feel for their practice, not to mention make it easier for them to accept.
Once you are in the meeting, talk to them about their business goals and how you might work together to solve the needs of their clients and the benefits of having a referral relationship.
4. Follow Up. Immediately after the individual meetings send a thank you email and a postal letter about three days after that. In your email and letter, outline three or four ways the two of you can start sharing referrals immediately. Start the process by recommending one person you would like to introduce to your new partner. This shows that you are serious about the relationship and that you are making the first move by offering them a specific introduction
5. Consistently Over-Deliver. Check in with your partner on a regular basis. Emails are good. Phone calls are better, but nothing beats meeting your referral sources once a month or at least once a quarter. Make sure that you give extra service and care to the first few referrals they send over so they will hear good things from their clients and see immediate value in the relationship.
Building a cross-referral network does not happen overnight, but with this referral marketing strategy you will be able to start generating new referrals within just a few short weeks.
This post has been brought to you by The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc., providing practical, tested and proven technical and marketing products to help estate planning professionals throughout the country build their practices. Check out some of our Continuing Education Seminars, used by professionals to develop referral relationships with other local advisors. We have plenty more coming down the pipeline, so stay tuned!
Source & Photo Credit: thetrustadvisor.com
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Attract, Engage & Work with Families with Taxable Estates and Their Advisors
For decades many of us, as wealth strategies planners, have wondered not only how but if we should attract, engage and work with affluent families and those with complex taxable estates. Their advisors are more protective. The solutions are more complicated and create larger liability. Though the fees may be greater, are they enough to cover the time and effort – especially if we only do it occasionally?
The Laureate Center for Wealth Advisors has the training and education needed to attract, engage, and implement work in the taxable estate arena. You owe it to yourself and your clients to learn more about The Laureate Program, especially if you desire to:
-
Quarterback a team of advisors or be called in as a team member;
-
Find your quiet confidence as a leader and resource to clients and their advisors;
-
Identify, explain, and implement complex tax, wealth, legal, and other technical strategies in an understandable client language;
-
Price for your intellectual property and the value you create;
-
Improve closing techniques while practice with energy, freedom, and passion;
-
Have an effective, process-oriented, and profitable business, not a job
This program should seriously be considered by wealth strategies practitioners and advisors interested in the Families with Taxable Estates market and having the quiet confidence to quote six digit fees.
Below is a summary of The Three Pillars of the Laureate Curriculum: Counseling, Practice Management, and Case Studies. These pillars seem to separate the successful cases from the wildly successful and have helped to truly address the clients’ concerns, increase advisor compensation, and provide an established process through review, design, and implementation.
Counseling – Interpersonal Labs
The training and counseling labs provided through the Laureate Program helps each member decide and recognize which type of client you would like to work with. We believe that expanding from a “client engagement” to “client partnering” deepens the relationship and leads to more productive plans and results.
Client Partnering achieves the client’s specific goals through the process of Review, Design, and Implementation through authority on and clarity of:
-
Problem and what’s behind it;
-
Possible Solutions often resulting in former goals as less or not important; and
-
Implementation and commitment to solution, timeline, and responsibilities for new goals.
In Client Partnering we facilitate a safe environment to explore the client’s and advisor’s true drivers. The common characteristics of facilitating a safe environment are:
-
Rapport – a continued feeling of connection
-
Relevance – current personal perspective related to the subject
-
Expanding engagement
-
Encouraging “new and clearer thought about the situation and what’s behind it”
-
Understanding and committing to “We Can Help”
-
Proactive commitment to process
-
Expectations – setting, continuously reaffirming, achieving, and “whole plus one”
Practice Management - Processes & Protocols
Processes that worked before may not support a practice serving wealthy clients. Practitioners need to review and fine tune their processes and systems to support themselves and their team’s implementation, considering changes in technology. It is even more critical to continue to include the other collaborative advisors in communications, being sensitive and respectful to each professional and his or her role.
In short, continue to enhance your protocols on how you and your team interact with clients and advisors. Remember to work on, not in, your practice.
Case Studies – Review, Design, and Implementation
It is important to stay abreast of changes caused by new laws, economic conditions, financial products, and the impact of the media. Even though counseling and practice management are stronger players in attracting and engaging families with taxable estates, financial, tax and legal competency is required to design and implement successful client strategies. Through the technical and strategic training provided by The Laureate Program, we not only teach the “ins” and “outs” of stand-alone strategies but the more integrated strategies that should, or should not, be used together in the more hands on world of wealth strategies planning.
The art of working with affluent families is in the combining and layering of strategies that we have learned in order to accomplish our client’s deeper goals – identified through counseling. Laureate Program Members, through the Three Pillars of study and its members’ various professional experiences, continue to learn and practice to not only the variations of combining and layering complex strategies through case studies, but also ways to present these strategies to clients in an understandable fashion.
Enjoy Practicing Law – Join The Laureate Program today!
The Laureate Program facilitates discussions and provides process on how to counsel at a deeper level, manage our practices with more process, and to practice case studies that challenge ourselves, make more money, and appreciate what we do. Collaboration is king! Join The Laureate Program to learn more about how working with affluent families can be profitable and pleasurable with the right team of advisors at the table.
The Laureate Center for Wealth Advisors provides cutting edge training from industry leaders in advanced wealth, business, estate, and income tax planning. This year’s three 3-day session starts May 10-12, 2012. Visit www.laureatecenter.com or call (858) 200-1919 for more information.
This post has been brought to you by The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc., providing practical, tested and proven technical and marketing products to help estate planning professionals throughout the country build their practices. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Full Report of The 46th Annual Philip E. Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning
At The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc., we are committed to providing our fellow estate planners access to the information, products, education and various resources that are available to help individuals be better practitioners and provide better service of both estate and financial planning, to their clients.
Therefore, we are extremely pleased and privileged to provide to you through the graciousness of the American Bar Association's Real Property, Trust & Estate Law (RPTE) Section the full and complete report from the 46th Annual Heckerling Institute of Estate Planning Conference, one of the nation's leading conferences for estate planners, including attorneys, trust officers, accountants, insurance advisors, and wealth management professionals.
The 2012 conference was just held on January 9-13 in Orlando, Florida and had over 2,600 people in attendance.
Click here to download the Complete Report (Reports 1-16A)
You may also download individual reports and/or reports from prior years by visiting the ABA RPTE Section's website.
The University of Miami School of Law has also announced that the 47th Annual Heckerling Institute will be held next year from January 9-13, 2013 in Orlando, Florida.
This post has been brought to you by The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc., providing practical, tested and proven technical and marketing products to help estate planning professionals throughout the country build their practices. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Lawyers & Social Media - What You Need to Know
By Philip J. Kavesh, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation), CFP®, ChFC, California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law
I just finished the last educational program needed to meet my continuing legal education requirements for my California State Bar license. I took an on-demand course that I thought was not only timely and relevant, given that I have recently done quite a bit of work with my law firm (and with The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc.), with respect to this topic, but also a topic that many attorneys should be looking into as well.
The course I took was entitled "Online Networking Media and Lawyer Ethics: How Many Tweets Are Too Many?", offered by the California Continuing Education of the Bar ("CEB"). It was presented by attorneys Jonathan T. Rubens and Colette E. Vogele. I initially had a few hesitations about this program, because I thought that it was going to be all about posting tweets on Twitter, which we don't do that much of. But, the speakers put together an excellent program that included a lot of great information about the ethical responsibilities of attorneys pertaining to all kinds of online social media, including maintaining blogs for your law firm or other companies, Avvo, LinkedIn, Yelp! and Facebook.
I learned quite a bit about some different things that I need to consider and look into further with all of these various online networks so that I am meeting my ethical responsibilities as an attorney. What I got from this program is to be extra judicious and deliberate in your thought processes pertaining to anything you post online or electronically. As attorneys, we are held to a higher standard of responsibility for what we say and do and with the internet, the second you publish, post or tweet, you are creating permanent records to be judged upon.
If you are an attorney in California and are any online networking sites, I highly recommend this program. If you're not in California or an attorney, definitely try to find a comparable program on this topic!
That being said, I leave you with the following disclaimer. I am an attorney. I am not your attorney. You are not my client. But, please feel free to find me online and check out all of the interesting things I have to post. :)
Happy Friday everyone!
This post has been brought to you by The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc., providing practical, tested and proven technical and marketing products to help estate planning professionals throughout the country build their practices. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
Photo Credit: alexlovellsblog.blogspot.com.jpg
Saturday, January 07, 2012
New Website Launched!
We are pleased to announce the launch of our newly designed website. We think that the navigation and ease of finding things are among the many improvements to the site.
There are still many areas of the website that we will be building up and improving over the course of the next few months. Here's just a preview of what you can expect to find in the near future:
In the meantime, please take a moment to browse through our website. If you find any problems or issues with the website, please feel free to e-mail us so that we can address any issues right away. Also, please be advised that any previous links to teleconferences or pages to download handout materials from our previous website are no longer available. If you need to access a certain page and cannot locate it, please contact us and we will be more than happy to help you.
A special thanks to the help of folks over at Amicus Creative and the hard work of The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc. staff for getting this website launched in such a short period of time!
The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc. was formed to assist in the development and growth of estate planning professionals throughout the United States, including but not limited to estate planning attorneys, financial advisors, CPAs, life insurance agents, paralegals and much more. Through education, products and coaching, it is our goal to help estate planning professionals throughout the country unlock their practice’s potential.
|
|
|
|