Advice in building a client bank / generating leads

[McDermott Wealth M'gement]

Hi,

new member to the site and due to start my first sole trader venture as a wealth manager / financial adviser.

My previous experience has always been bancassurance, retail banking, insurance, lending advice etc so have a covenant with the previous clients i dealt with at previous employer and have never actually built up a client bank of my own.

I have always proven to be successful in what i do mainly from my drive and ambition but any help and ideas would be appreciated.

Ideas i have so far are buy leads (costly and no guarantee on quality) BNI (been twice as a visiter and did not enjoy), other networking events (chamber commerce and less americanised BNI style ones), advertising (newspaper, mailshots etc), social media (linked in, twitter etc), sponsorship for events and local clubs / societies.

Anything else proven or tips i could try.

Thanks

 

[tony84]

I tend to buy leads in, i also work with a financial advisor.
It works fairly well, they pass the mortgages on to me, i pass pension/investment leads on to them.

We take a small cut of eachothers commission on the business referred but nothing major.

Maybe see if there are any accountants you can work with or even solicitors? People said that to me and to be honest its never really worked - but that might be because im a mortgage advisor rather than looking at the wealth side of it?

 

[McDermott Wealth M'gement]

I'm qualified to do mortgages also but haven't yet done one so sharing mortgage leads with an actual mortgage adviser would be ideal. The BNI i attended had an accountant and a mortgage adviser. Both however had an existing IFA within their existing practices.

Any particular sites which are best for leads you can recommend?

 

[tony84]

I used to use Finance Leads online, but that recently closed. That was the best of a bad bunch.

Ive registered with SO leads but theyre more interested in sending me marketing than they are generating decent enquiries.

The other big ones are PAA, but the quality of those isnt that great either - although other people i know say different. I might just be the unlucky one who cops for the rubbish.

Most financial advisors i know dont bother with the mortgages, from what i can gather there isnt enough money it to be worth the hassle??

Dont SJP generate you leads? (Im sure i read it was SJP you said you were with in another thread).

It could be worth putting an email together and sending it out to say 30 accountants/solicitors? I found i received a better response if i tailored it to the company a little when looking for estate agents, but saying that i still didnt get anywhere - but at least they took the time to reply.

 

[McDermott Wealth M'gement]

thanks for all the help. Noticed your in Manchester so not so far from me, if ever looking to share any business half way between the 2 of us say warrington, cheshire, wigan, st helens way and the existing FA's you use are too busy then send me a message.

SJP does allow you to purchase leads generated via several sources but are very limited i think.

Have a few decent contacts already and few network events lined up but proof is in pudding and just trying to keep as many options open as possible. Thanks for the tips.

 

[tony84]

No problem, i will keep you in mind.

Just keep getting your name out there. I went self employed around 2 years ago. Ive only recently started to get people calling me from word of mouth or advertising, i would say unless you know loads of people to pass you the odd refferal or have a decent amount of money to throw at advertising your probably going to be looking at a year or so before you get going.

My first year i did a full time job on the side and then reduced down to part time and about 6 months ago went completely self employed. Get asking your friends? Surely they have pensions that want reviewing?

You said you now realise how bad bank products are (the same goes for their protection products), get reviewing them. I woud say 99% of the time i can undercut someone who bought life insurance from a bank and usually with a better product.

 

[telemax]

No problem, i will keep you in mind.

Just keep getting your name out there. I went self employed around 2 years ago. Ive only recently started to get people calling me from word of mouth or advertising, i would say unless you know loads of people to pass you the odd refferal or have a decent amount of money to throw at advertising your probably going to be looking at a year or so before you get going.

My first year i did a full time job on the side and then reduced down to part time and about 6 months ago went completely self employed. Get asking your friends? Surely they have pensions that want reviewing?

You said you now realise how bad bank products are (the same goes for their protection products), get reviewing them. I woud say 99% of the time i can undercut someone who bought life insurance from a bank and usually with a better product.

Here's what I've found to be successful, as I do some work with marketing pensions.

Call trades people for 2 reasons.

1, They are easy to reach at the end of a mobile
2, Many of them have had employed jobs in the past, therefore have old work pensions they've not looked at for years

It makes for an easy opening line,

I find that 3 hours of calling equals 1 lead ie 2 - 3 per day!

 

[McDermott Wealth M'gement]

thanks to you both. All great ideas noted.

Much appreciated.

 

[tony84]

The old work pensions are usually final salary schemes arnt they?

I managed to get a bit of one with RBS before i left. I dont think you could get a pension transfer on one of those through compliance?

I dont know enough about pensions to say that for sure. Even if you cant it gets you infront of people though - from there you then have the chance to do protection, savings, investments, mortgages, GI etc.

 

[McDermott Wealth M'gement]

The licensing tests i've been doing for SJP have consisted of diploma level (money purchase pension transfer / annuities / sipps etc) and there is an advanced diploma (final salary transfers etc) which i have not yet completed the advanced diploma yet but yes your right. They would be a lot more difficult to justify transferring but if they are business owners they will have the issue of auto enrolment to consider which although may not generate me any business it is a service they will need advice on a foot in the door to review existing pension, more than likely potential shortfalls and as you said all other existing financial needs personal and for the business such as employee benefit packages etc.

Then there is the link on to anybody else they potentially know who may require advice also.

 

[Jester]

For the online side of things you could try building up a contact list by giving away some useful information.

For example, ask yourself what questions your prospective clients are asking and what answers they are searching for online. Pick the 10 most important questions and produce a brief paper called "10 things you should know about financial planning" or something along those lines.

Put an section on your homepage advertising the guide along with a form asking for an name/ Email address to fill in if they want to receive the guide.

You can then set up an autoresponder system that will automatically e-mail your guide. You can then start nurturing the prospect in other ways until eventually you get a new client.