I read question in IFA Life earlier this week from a new CFP planner wanting advice on how to build his business. He’s got the qualifications, done all the training and is ready to take his excellent proposition out to the market place. And of course, that’s where it all gets difficult – he’s finding that solicitors and accountants aren’t really supporting him and don’t really ‘get it’. And where does he start with the general population?

Good question. No-one ever said it would be easy which is why you need to organise you marketing to give structure to your daily marketing activity. The alternative is to risk the ‘all things to all men’ scattergun approach. Fear of missing out on any opportunity makes you spread yourself too thin. Save

I suggest there are three useful strategies to help narrow marketing activity down.

Vertical targeting

Who or what do you know most about? Look at your existing clients and define those where you have more than one from the same industry; it could be farmers, vets, doctors, chartered surveyor – any group that has shared characteristics and can be easily identified.

Once you have selected one or two industry sectors you can quickly absorb yourself in that world. Find out what’s important to them. What are the current issues. What are the financial drivers.

This immediately starts to inform your marketing. Is there an industry conference? Could you exhibit there, or be a speaker? Add areas to your website indicating your expertise in their sector. Join relevant networking groups – social networking (eg Linked In) is excellent for this. Buy or develop mailing lists for that sector. Your promotional material will be better targeted as it will speak their language.

You still have to work at it, but it will narrow your focus and make you much more likely to hit your target.

Powerful strategic alliances

In theory, all the kinds of clients you want to talk to are doing business with banks, solicitors and accountants, so these should be natural routes for referral.

However, I hear time and time again that ‘referrals’ seems to be a one way street – you to them! They don’t seem to really ‘get’ what financial planners do and don’t seem to understand the mutually beneficial relationship that could unfold. However, there are practices that have managed to break through and have very positive results.

My advice would be to select your partners very carefully. They need to fulfil all or most or the following criteria:

• Do they genuinely see this as a two-way opportunity? Test it out – ask direct questions about how many referrals they may be able to offer you; don’t be shy. If you think they see you as a threat (and will protect their client base from you), find someone else to talk to.
• Are they prepared to work with you as a whole practice? Individuals within firms tend to specialise – it’s worth working hard to agree a whole practice approach where you can add real value; for example, where a client needs financial planning alongside complex tax and trust planning, as well as corporate work due to a business sale. Together you can provide a truly joined-up approach.
• Are they prepared to do some joint marketing activity with you – a seminar for selected clients for example where you both invite people from your respective databases?
• Do they have an opportunistic mentality where 1+1=3? You need to sense are they genuinely open to joint growth opportunities.

Benefits for both sides

You will probably have to spell it out to them with case studies showing how they could benefit from a progressive stream of shared business. Don’t leave them to ‘do the math’ on their own. Add up the potential business over the forthcoming year and show them it works for both parties. Ideally you and your key contact should present the plan to all the key players in their business in order to get commitment from the whole team; if you think you are being kept away from other key people, it’s probably not the right environment.

And keep up the dialogue after the initial discussions. If you are going to build a positive two-way strategic alliance, you need to be in touch with one another regularly discussing opportunities and ways forward. Good strategic alliances develop over time as trust builds between you and you both sense that you are as good as your word – and that you are good at what you do!

Not all professional connections will work this way – but some most certainly will. Don’t settle for second best.

Asking for referrals

Just about every financial planner will tell you that they get most of their business from referrals from existing clients. Yet very few of them have a structured approach for asking for referrals from existing clients. And you know what they say about what happens if you don’t ask?!

Of course you want to be discreet and professional, but there’s no reason why you can’t ask people if they know anyone that would benefit from the kind of help you give.

If you believe in what you do you should be proactive in ensuring you can help as many people as possible. If they love what you do, they’ll be happy to help. But you may need to help them help you; for example, it’s a qualified ‘introduction’ you want, not just a name and telephone number and you may need to coach them to achieve this.

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