Referral Relationships

For those of you in the southwestern region of the U.S., we thought you may be interested in attending this upcoming event held by SCI (Southern California Institute).

California Forum for Independent Collaborative Advisors

This California educational event concentrates on the new topics that have materialized in California’s laws, and new wealth planning strategies and techniques developed over the previous year. This condensed two-day program presents a variety of topics for Advisors, and provides tools to help them protect their clients and recognize possible liabilities.

Click Here to View Agenda 

Monday, July 23rd

12:00 Registration

12:30 - 5:10 General Sessions; Topics to Include:

• A New Way to Attract Business Owners
• America's New Gold Rush: Working with Affluent Foreign Nationals
• Your Client Will Run Out of Money Without Proper Distribution Planning
• Understanding the Liabilities for Business Owners as Fiduciaries
• Today’s Real Estate Market – The Values of Plans for My Home, My Residential Investment Property, and those “Other Investment Classes”

6:00 – 9:00 Poolside BBQ

Tuesday, July 24th

7:30 - 8:00  Breakfast and registration

8:00 - 4:00  General Sessions; Topics to include: 

• Captive Insurance Companies – Opportunities and Hazards
• Is Life Insurance Really Only About the Illustration of a Bucket, Two Graphs, and Five Needs?
• Secrets from the Boardroom? Trusts & Public Mutual Funds
• Realities and Benefits of Using Alaska Trusts
• Social Media - Creating Your Online Presence and Keeping Compliant?
• Afternoon of Marketing with Mark Merenda

Cost: $200

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.  If you are interested in a personal consultation for your office regarding how to make your office more efficient and how to improve the productivity of your attorneys, staff and advisors, contact us today at 1-866-754-6477 to find out how you can receive a free 30 minutes consultation.  Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Reposted from The Trust Advisor | By Barbara Kotlyar

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

Reposted from Financial Advisor Magazine | By Eric L. Reiner | May 2012

The financial crisis has been blamed for a lot of things. Setting in motion the events that launched a topflight planning boutique isn’t usually one of them.

The Ponzi schemes exposed by the crisis affected clients at the firm CPA Robert S. Keebler was with at the time. As he delved into the tax issues surrounding clients’ losses, Keebler, a nationally known speaker and writer based in Green Bay, Wis., came to a realization. Few, if any, noted experts existed in the obscure world of theft-loss deductions. So he set out to become one.

“I just knew someone had to step up and figure it out,” Keebler says. He invested time in learning the ins and outs of this little-used itemized deduction, then produced seminars and articles on the subject for practitioners.

Keebler is perhaps best known for his work in retirement plans and advanced estate planning, as well as for making private letter ruling requests from the Internal Revenue Service. Certainly he handles plenty of other matters as well, but foraying into the deep recesses of theft losses turned out to be a confidence builder and springboard. “Once we did that, we weren’t afraid to do other things,” he says.

Given such conviction, plus a little career coaching and encouragement from industry icons Sid Kess and Steve Leimberg, he made the inevitable move. In late 2010, Keebler left Top 20 accounting firm Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, where he had been a partner for years, to found Keebler & Associates with key members of his long-standing team. Guess what?

“The phone continues to ring,” says Keebler, 51. Frankly, the 18-month-old firm is doing fine, thank you very much.

In addition to serving the firm’s clients’ needs, “we do a lot of work for financial advisors, CPAs and law firms,” says Keebler, who remains down-to-earth and approachable despite his professional stature. “Most of our referral work comes from people who have heard me speak.” But then that’s always been Keebler’s rainmaking methodology.

How To Find Work In Green Bay And Beyond
“When I came up to Green Bay from Milwaukee in 1990, the only way to bring in work was to go out and teach local professionals like the Green Bay Estate Planning Council. You hoped if you spoke to enough people and showed them you had expertise that they would send you work,” he says. And they did.

As a speaker, “Bob is exceptionally good at breaking down high-level planning so that everybody in the room can understand and apply the ideas in their practice,” says Las Vegas attorney Steve Oshins, a prominent asset protection and estate planning expert with whom Keebler recently conducted a full-day seminar for a national accounting firm.

Keebler claims he was “driven to teach” once he discovered he was good at it, and that propelled him to the next level. Workshops for large insurance and financial-services companies, along with seminars for financial advisors, accountants and attorneys, take Keebler coast to coast these days. He also expands his reach with technology—through podcasts, webinars and teleconferences accessible through www.keeblerandassociates.com. The result is a clientele more national than local.

Skill Set
Like his teaching, Keebler’s writing for CCH, Leimberg Information Services and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants emphasizes clarity and usefulness.

“Bob is able to get ahead of the curve in how to use estate planning tools and techniques and explain what they look like when they are modeled. He is a visionary,” says one of his editors and mentors, estate planning legend Steve Leimberg, namesake and CEO of the tax news and analysis service.

Keebler also holds awards such as the “Distinguished Accredited Estate Planner” designation (there are only 66 such individuals), which bears further testament to his technical prowess. But that alone does not a firm build. The truth is, Keebler is a pretty sharp cookie when it comes to marketing, too.

Staying on the cutting edge is vital to his teaching and writing brand. “So we move very quickly,” Keebler says. For instance, when the IRS recently announced an extension of the deadline for certain estates to elect the spousal portability of the estate-tax exemption, within hours Keebler & Associates blasted an e-mail to practitioners spotlighting the affected clients and steps advisors should take.

“We try to be the first people on the block with the news and how it’s going to apply,” says one of Keebler’s three partners, Stephen J. Bigge.

Inside The Engine Room
Each morning at the firm, another partner, estate-planning attorney Michelle Ward, begins her day with a visit to the Web sites of the IRS and a variety of subscription services. Her purpose is singular: to sift through the myriad news alerts and find the nuggets. “I’ll check to see whether anything relevant to our clients has come out and, if so, I’ll post it to our Twitter account and Facebook, and then pass it on to Bob,” says Ward, who has worked with Keebler since he hired her into the tax profession in 2000.

When Keebler deems a topic worthy of dissemination, he then turns to one of his partners. “We’ll figure out how the pronouncement applies to our client base and do a brief write-up on the rule,” explains Bigge, who Keebler hired right out of school from their shared alma mater, Lakeland College in Sheboygan, Wis., in 2001.

Backed By A Power Trio Of Experts
Keebler is the front man, enabled by his three partners’ strong, complementary backgrounds. Ward, an attorney with a master’s in law (LLM), tends to handle the research for private letter ruling requests while Bigge, a CPA, crunches the numbers for Roth conversions, sales to intentionally defective grantor trusts and other strategies clients are mulling.

The other principal, Peter J. Melcher, holds an LLM in tax plus an MBA from the University of Chicago. “Pete does the heavy tax research for white papers and opinion letters,” Bigge says. An executive assistant, Emily Rosenberg, rounds out the five-person operation.

Many accounting firms thrive on audits and tax-return preparation—dubbed “annuity work” by the CPA profession because of these services’ recurring nature—but that’s not the case at Keebler & Associates. There is no audit practice, and preparing returns accounts for only about 10% of total revenues. “Most of our revenues come from either Bob’s speeches or new tax-planning work from existing clients or referrals,” reports Bigge, who doubles as the firm’s chief financial officer.

An Eye On The Future
Despite the shop’s solid performance since inception, Bigge contemplates the future like a good CFO should. “The challenge is continuing to bring in work,” he says. “A lot of times we get called in as a specialist, and once we have resolved the client’s issue or helped him put a plan in place, he moves on and we have to look for our next planning client.”

A potential damper on the firm’s unique private letter ruling business is a recent hike in the fee the IRS charges for some ruling requests. That will make the requests feasible for fewer taxpayers, according to Ward.

In the firm’s estate planning business, a big question mark is what will happen to the federal estate tax exemption. Under current law, it will revert to $1 million per person at the end of the year. That would expand opportunities for estate planners. But if the exemption were maintained at its current $5 million, it would continue to constrain the market. In that case, says Bigge, “we’ll focus more on tax-sensitive retirement planning. That’s really at the intersection of finance and tax, where no one else wants to play.”

Developing drawdown strategies for retirees is one area Keebler has been putting time into lately. “If the client has Roth money, pretax money in an individual retirement account and after-tax money in a personal account, what does he spend first and how does he take it out in the most tax-efficient way? That’s where the action is,” Keebler says, adding, “Everyone is going to need a financial planner because this is so complex.”

Planners, for their part, will need to know more about taxes. “With the compression in tax season—because 1099s are going out later and later—having a 1040 prepared at a CPA firm is becoming more expensive” as accountants attempt to make a full year’s living in a shorter period, Keebler says. “The result is non-CPAs are preparing more income tax returns, and because of the seasonal nature of their businesses, often they are not equipped to do tax planning. So financial planners will have an opportunity to take a larger role in income-tax planning with more middle- and upper-middle-class families,” Keebler predicts.

Plans to grow Keebler & Associates stop at the point where the partners are managing the firm instead of bringing in lucrative speaking fees or national billing rates. From that perspective, an experienced practitioner, rather than a neophyte needing training, could be a more viable addition to the firm.

But no matter where the boutique winds up, it will have taken Keebler a long way from those local speaking gigs 20-plus years ago, even if ascending to the national stage and circulating with some of the biggest names in planning-dom were not his original goals.

“I was never shooting for the stars,” Keebler says. “It just kind of happened.”

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.

Sources: fa-mag.com

Reposted from RegisteredRep.com | By Matt Oechsli

Houston—“I’ve never had much success with CPAs,” groaned Peter, an advisor in a workshop I was conducting. “Even the CPAs I’ve referred clients to—nothing ever comes back my way. Do you think it’s realistic to develop a true referral alliance with a CPA?”

My short answer was “Yes.” But I recognize that many financial advisors feel Peter’s pain. They refer clients to a handful of CPAs in their community, fully expecting the law of reciprocity to engage, and nothing happens. Few if any referrals come back. Essentially, Peter is asking, “What’s going on?”

As I told this group, when it comes to CPAs, there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that most CPAs don’t trust the financial services industry and therefore don’t trust financial advisors. The good news is that many elite financial advisors have earned the trust of CPAs in their communities and have developed excellent working relationships with them. Yes, it can be done, and now is the perfect time of year to begin.

With tax season finally behind them, most CPAs are taking a deep sigh of relief and giving themselves some time to relax. What elite advisors are doing is using this period of CPA decompression as a time to organize social outings with the select group they work with. The following are a handful of events that have been used effectively:

• Social dinners: CPA and spouse with advisor and spouse. These are dinners with two couples, with CPAs where a healthy referral alliance is already established, and specific CPAs who are being romanced into a healthy referral alliance relationship.
• Group wine tasting with spouses: CPAs of top 25 clients invited.
• Drinks at a martini bar with spouse: CPAs of top 25 clients invited.
• Saturday afternoon cookout: CPAs and families of top 25 clients invited
• Golf outing: CPAs with a healthy referral alliance, and targeted CPAs (two foursomes; drinks with spouses to follow).

Sure, in some of these post-tax season events you’ll have competitive CPAs in attendance. That’s okay as you’re establishing a blanket of good will. The secret is to follow up and begin building a relationship with every CPA, one-on-one, following the event.

I know what many of you are probably thinking: “How can I call a CPA for a social event when I don’t even have a relationship with him?” And the answer is—easily. This is no different than inviting a prospect you’ve recently met to some fun event you’re hosting, but in the case of CPAs at this time of year, it’s even easier.

First of all, you might find it helpful to think in terms of four CPA buckets:

Bucket 1—These are the CPAs with whom you already have a healthy referral alliance relationship. With this group, you’ll want to make a personal telephone call and invite the CPA and spouse to dinner. The idea here is that they’ve worked hard over the past four months, you appreciate their hard work, and you want to make certain they have a relaxing evening with you and your spouse. It’s important to emphasize: no business, all social.

Bucket 2—CPAs of your top 25 or so affluent clients. For these CPAs, you should plan an event; whether it’s a wine tasting, martini evening or a cookout doesn’t really matter. The key is to make it fun. Here, either you or your assistant (if he or she has a good relationship) calls and personally invites each CPA and spouse to the event. Again, you’re recognizing the hard work they’ve been engaged in over the past four months, you express appreciation for the work they’ve done with your clients, and this is your way of saying thanks. Remember, your objective is to follow up and begin building relationships one-on-one.

Bucket 3—Oh, those thankless CPAs who you’ve given referrals to but haven’t experienced the reciprocity. These rascals in Bucket 3 need a wake-up call over a social lunch. Call and invite them to a lunch with a slightly different twist; now that tax season is over, you simply want to catch up. Yet during that lunch you want to express your appreciation for how well they are handling the clients you’ve referred to them (mention each by name), and after a brief discussion you bring down the hammer by directly asking, “I’m very curious. I’ve sent X referrals to you over the past Y years and I haven’t received even one from you. Why?” You’ll want to soften this to your own personality, but here is where you shut up and watch the CPA squirm. Either you’ll get an apology or an explanation why you’ll never get referrals. This will have one of two outcomes—either you’ll never get referrals and you’ll never give another referral, or you’ll start getting referrals. In which case, this CPA moves to Bucket 1 and it’s time for a social dinner.

Bucket 4—These are those CPAs you’re targeting but have yet to develop any type of relationship. This group requires a bit more homework. You will want to ask CPAs in Buckets 1and 2 if they know these individuals. If so, you’d like to invite them, as their guest, to your upcoming Top 25 CPA event. If not, you should conduct a social media search as you are looking for a connection. If you find a connection with anyone you know, you call the person you know, explain that you want to meet this particular CPA, describe the event, and invite them both, using your connection to invite the CPA you’re targeting.

I recognize that Bucket 4 CPAs are more challenging, but you’ve got nothing to lose. Tis-the-season to socialize with CPAs. Yet, you’ll need a game plan; not all CPAs are equal and not all will allow you to develop a healthy referral alliance relationship.

Yet all you need are three or four good CPA relationships to become a master rainmaker. It will take time, patience, and persistence—but over the next eight months you can significantly strengthen your branding with CPAs.

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.

Source: RegisteredRep.com
Photo Credit: prssasdsu.org

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.

Reposted from RegisteredRep.com | By Jerry Gleeson

inancial advisors and RIAs may have more handholding to do with clients. The glum outlook for American retirement appeared little improved with the release this week of two separate reports that showed continued worker skepticism about their prospects.

In its annual survey on the state of retirement, the Employee Benefit Research Institute said the percentage of workers who feel confident about having enough money for a secure retirement is at just 14 percent, statistically unchanged from a year ago.

It remains at the lowest level since EBRI began its annual survey 22 years ago. It also showed that just 21 percent of workers were getting advice from an FA, down from 33 percent two years ago.

Meanwhile, the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards reported poll results that found 49 percent of respondents were worried about their retirement savings, and 44 percent don’t feel any better about their financial security than they did a year ago.

It wasn’t all gloom. EBRI found that 81 percent of eligible workers are contributing to workplace retirement plans, a figure that has remained relatively stable over the past three years. And the CFP poll found solid optimism among respondents about their financial shape in the months to come—51 percent were “more positive” about their financial situation a year from now, while just 9 percent were “more negative.”

Stronger optimism could support the economic recovery, CFP Chief Executive Kevin Keller said. Concern about their current financial conditions appeared uppermost in the minds of the respondents in the two polls.

“Retirement is not Americans’ major concern. Right now job security and financial security are,” Jack VanDerhei, EBRI’s research director, said during a conference call with reporters this week. “Many workers report they have virtually no savings and investments.”

Indeed, 58 percent of workers with less than $35,000 in income report having less than $1,000 in savings. The percentage of workers who feel they are on track with their retirement savings is just 31 percent, down from 44 percent in 2005.

“Workers are falling further behind, and they know it,” said Mathew Greenwald, co-author of the report.

Scott Mings, associate vice president of Hensley & Mings, a Raymond James & Associates practice in Greenwood, Ind., said he was surprised at the dropoff in Americans using FAs. He said he doesn’t get a lot of pushback on the fees he charges, although questions about fees tend to come up more often during tougher economies.

And more people are investing on their own, he added, spurred on by marketing campaigns by large on-line brokerages that encourage a do-it-yourself approach.

“The market’s going to have to show people some positive returns. Quite frankly, there hasn’t been a lot of added value from advisors on 401(k)s; maybe that’s a reason for a little bit of the dropoff,” Mings said. “If you’re getting advice but your accounts aren’t growing, then what’s the value of the advice?”

EBRI’s finding that 81 percent of eligible workers are contributing to workplace retirement plans bodes well for both investors and advisors; 64 percent of those who contribute to such plans say they are “very” or “somewhat” confident that they will have enough to retire comfortably on, while just 48 percent of those who don’t contribute to such plans feel that way.

The workplace is a good place for advisors to grab a larger share of the market, Greenwald said, as plan sponsors seek ways to help their employees manage money in 401(k) and other plans.

“I think that’s a natural,” he said. “I think there’s various ways a lot of people are going to step up to the plate and try to get more involved in managing money in retirement…It’s just a question of how it’s going to get done. I think we’ll see a lot of experimentation and a lot of success in that area.”

EBRI surveyed more than 1,200 workers and retirees by telephone in January. The CFP telephone survey polled 1,000 Americans across broad income ranges on March 1-4.

Pessimism about economic prospects abounded in the EBRI report. Just 16 percent of workers and 11 percent of retirees were “very confident” that their investments would grow in value; 8 percent of workers and 10 percent of retirees said they were “very confident” that the economy would grow an average of at least 3 percent a year over the next 10 years.

To offset reduced retirement savings, many workers are resigned to postponing retirement and working longer. EBRI noted that workers who expect to retire at age 70 or older has risen from 12 percent in 2002 to 26 percent this year.

But it may not be an option for many, EBRI warns. While 70 percent of workers expect to work for pay in their retirement years, just 27 percent of retirees report actually doing so. Greenwald said many workers underestimate their prospects for this period.

“In many occupations it’s difficult to get the job done as people get into their 60s,” he said. “So the plan to work longer is positive in some respects but risky in other respects.”

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.

Source: RegisteredRep.com

Reposted from ClientWise.com | By Ray Sclafani

For top-performing financial advisors, introductions from centers of influence and other professionals are a key to client acquisition success.  And client acquisition and net new assets are key identifiers to a wealth advisor’s growing business.  In fact, our research suggests that the most effective financial advisors find more than 70% of their new assets come from two sources: referrals from clients, and introductions from other professionals.  In the ClientWise customized coaching for financial advisors, we find this to be true as well.

However, in our view these prime sources for financial advisor referrals, especially from other professionals, are misunderstood, misused, and…untapped.

Having trained and coached top performing financial advisors in this area for more than nine years, here is what I’ve observed.

Most financial advisors have experienced mixed results when it comes to working with other centers of influence and other professionals.  Many have become discouraged and given up entirely.We have observed that most financial advisors have made ineffective attempts to partner with these other professionals, have focused on working only with CPAs and attorneys and typically start and stop the approach, rather than maintain consistency in building a true partnership for the benefit of others.  Since many of these referral outreaches have been weak and poorly-conceived, other professionals have become somewhat hardened towards working with financial advisors and see the approach as just another “solicitation.”

Before jumping into this topic much further, here are a few observations that help set the stage:

• In order for today’s financial advisor to be truly successful in building a network of other professionals with whom to partner, she or he must…and I mean must understand that the primary reason to partner with another professionals is not to simply build a referral pipeline.  Instead, the primary reason is to build a network so that today’s financial advisor can deliver the promises of wealth management.  There is no way today’s financial advisor is going to be all things related to wealth management for every client.  (i.e. banker, financial planner, primary insurance provider, asset manager, business valuation specialist, business broker, corporate real estate developer, etc.) 
• In today’s competitive landscape, financial advisors need to have a group of other professionals who recognize the value that they create for the benefit of clients. 
• The financial advisor should recognize the value that the other professionals create for the benefit of their clients and be able to articulate that value.
• The very best wealth advisory businesses make a habit of partnering with both clients and other professionals in order to serve the client in the most complete wealth management way possible.
• Most clients enjoy and value the idea of their network of trusted advisors partnering and communicating with each other for their own benefit.
• First and foremost, this type of network is grounded in client service. To receive introductions from other professions and to be a provider of introductions to another, the financial advisor must care deeply about their own clients, as well as the professional advisor network that they create.

For those financial advisors who partner with other professionals to create a wide-ranging wealth management network for the mutual benefit of their clients, introductions between professionals become a powerful byproduct of the network… rather than the main objective.

That’s all for now. This entire topic, of building professional advisor networks, cannot be addressed in one blog post. We plan on coming back to this subject again in the near future.

As they say…watch this space!

________________________________________

The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc. and President, Philip J. Kavesh, push the model of referral relationships, particularly between financial advisors and estate planning attorneys.  With over 20 years of experience in successfully developing multi-million dollar producer referral relationships, Mr. Kavesh has put together a number of tools and training on successfully developing the referral relationship, so that it's ethical, legal and a win-win-win for the advisor, attorney and, more importantly, the client!  For more information about the Client Meeting Forms and Practice-Building Products to help you successfully develop attorney/financial advisor referral relationships, click here.

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: clientwise.com