by Tony Vidler       

Just how much opportunity is sitting inside the typical adviser practice?  How much new business is waiting inside that existing database?

It Is Usually A Goldmine.

A report from a couple of  years ago highlights the point: A lot of clients do not give advisers all their investable funds.

Who knew?  Apparently clients, more often than not, do NOT do all their business with us.

The report looked at the difference between elite adviser performance and that of the average adviser and it did focus on wealth management advisers particularly.  It measured performance in simple terms:  number of new clients added, and amount of new assets under management added.

The findings were that basically the top performers were bringing in nearly 3 x more new business volume than the average performers.  Interestingly, the top performers were also doing it with less people – that is, less “new clients through the front door”.   They were focussing upon getting greater wallet share from the client relationships they had already built….and clearly were building bigger books of business faster, than the average adviser.

What was especially interesting though, and which is a true revelation, is the sheer volume of business which is sitting inside an existing practice.

The problem when we use stats like “3 x more” is that they don’t necessarily highlight the actual impact.  So back to that survey:  the average adviser was getting nearly $3 million in new AUM from existing clients p.a.  The elite adviser was getting closer to $8 million in new AUM from their existing clients.

$5,000,000 more AUM from within their existing practice.

That’s pretty good.

The obvious question which arises is “how did they do it?”

The answer was remarkably simple:  elite advisers spend more time getting personally connected.  It is their primary marketing activity – and the more discerning clients with greater business and advice needs appear to prefer that style and approach.

Two thirds of the very top advisers spent two thirds of their marketing efforts and activities on one of two things:

1.  Strategic Networking

2.  Obtaining introductions

And these two activities accounted for well over 80% of their business results.

No matter how good advisers think they are, or how good a job they are doing with their clients, there is clearly a goldmine waiting for a prospector which is already sitting inside a typical practice. Perhaps more importantly though, there is clearly an ongoing seam of gold within the business that can be tapped with strong personal networking and connection.   Of course, the same treatment delivered to new clients you are adding to the practice then have the potentially to be far far more profitable over the long term too…

Investing in building and strengthening those client relationships clearly pays off.  It uncovers a goldmine it seems.