Strategy Highlights
Week 28
________________________________________
Strategy 6: Build Your Professional Network
Define your ideal network member
Create a profile to define your ideal professional network member. This profile will guide you as you select the best candidates to support your wealth management process and serve your clients extremely well. Considering each of the following nine characteristics of professional advisors.
- The person. Consider include how long the professional has been in the business, what he or she most enjoys about the work, and personal goals and dreams.
- Areas of expertise. You are bringing professionals into your network in order to help address specific client challenges. You therefore need to determine whether the professional has the requisite skill and know-how.
- Practice goals. You want professionals who are motivated to be more financially successful or who are seeking to enhance their lifestyles without decreasing their incomes, and who will respond to the opportunity that being a part of your network offers.
- Practice management. In order to understand how you can best work together, you need to understand how potential network members manage their own practices.
- Clients. You are looking for professionals with an established track record of not just working with affluent clients, but of serving them very well. In addition, you want there to be at least some overlap between the types of clients he or she serves and the types you serve.
- Financial advisors. Your network professionals should enjoy working with financial advisors, have a clear understanding of the types of advisors they want to work with and how those relationships can benefit them and their clients.
- Compensation arrangements. Compensation is the economic glue that will hold your network together, and any professional should be motivated to join your network by the boost in income that it may mean.
- Teamwork. Your goal is to build a close-knit network. Therefore, you want professionals who are open to working closely both with you and with other members of the network.
- Professional contacts. Since one of the best ways to locate additional needed professionals for your network is through existing members of the network, you should find out what a candidate can bring to the table in terms of contacts for such individuals.