Strategy Highlights

Week 36
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Strategy 8: Leverage Economic Glue

The power of thought leadership for COIs

For centers of influence to refer their wealthy clients to you, there has to be substantial benefit for the wealthy clients. You must be able to do a very good job for the wealthy. We take that as a given.

In addition, there nearly always has to be substantial benefit for the centers of influence. Before the great majority of COIs will introduce you to their wealthy clients, you will have to show how you can help the COI become more successful. You can do so with thought leadership.

Exactly as with financial advisors, thought leadership has the potential to help attorneys and accountants overcome key barriers to success, including increasing commoditization and difficulty sourcing wealthy clients. And when these professionals distribute high-quality thought leadership content and adroitly follow up, it’s common for wealthy clients to use more of their services.

It is also common for thought leadership content to help the wealthy better understand the benefits they are receiving from their professional advisors and, as a result, be more inclined to use the services of their professionals more often. And the wealthy clients may share the thought leadership content they receive with friends and associates, leading to additional client referrals.

This scenario sets the stage for you. When you help your COIs implement a systematic thought leadership process and provide a steady supply of high-quality thought leadership content, you can be the reason your attorney and accountant partners become thought leaders. This will create substantial economic glue and make you an extremely valuable partner.

The multiplier effect

Always remember that by helping your attorney and accounting partners become thought leaders, you deliver to them a solution to build larger high-net-worth practices and subsequently earn more while increasing the equity values of their practices. And in return? You will enjoy a pipeline of wealthy clients.

This works because of what we call the multiplier effect—using your thought leadership content and expertise to bring in new business not just for yourself, but also for your centers of influence and even their centers of influence. Like the ripples from a stone tossed into a pond, the impact of your efforts will be magnified, often well beyond what you could have envisioned. In short, the multiplier effect will enable you to reach more high-quality prospective clients than you ever could on your own.

The multiplier effect works like this. You provide high-value thought leadership content, along with guidance on how to use it, to your centers of influence. When your centers of influence distribute your thought leadership content to their professional relationships—wealthy clients, prospective clients and high-end centers of influence—they will likely get more business. This results in your centers of influence referring more affluent clients to you.