If you are a financial advisor, you would probably like to add more successful business owners to your client list.
After all, many affluent business owners have very complex financial lives, and they are usually striving to increase their wealth.
Many of them need your help. A recent study by The American College confirmed that:
• Only 40% of small business owners have worked with a financial advisor.
• Less than 33% have a personal financial plan.
• Less than 25% have a formal plan for transitioning or selling their business when they retire.
That represents a lot of work to be done—and a lot of opportunity. As you probably know, helping this target audience can pay off. Usually, they are good clients as well, for several reasons:
• They are usually short on time, so they are happy to delegate this responsibility to you once you can earn their trust.
• They are usually experienced in working with professionals and appreciate the expertise you bring to the table.
• They have broad needs, including insurance, estate planning, tax planning, and asset protection concerns.
• Their financial planning is usually more challenging, since it is likely their personal financial situation is too closely tied in with that of their business.
• Helping business owners can lead to multiple new sources of business, including managing their company’s retirement plan, helping their employees, or possibly later helping their adult children who work in the business.
But first, you need to catch their attention. With so many advisors out there, how can you stand out in a crowded marketplace?
In today’s digital economy, the more you can specialize, the more effective your marketing efforts can be. If you can start doing in-depth work with business owners, you can gain expertise and experience in helping address their many pain points. These are ideal topics for writing about in a blog or talking about in a video or podcast.
This focus on marketing can be highly effective for financial advisors, since prospects want to see what you can do for them before contacting you. In other words, this in-depth service provides a positive feedback loop to fuel your marketing and sales.
Providing High Value to Business Owners
Can outsourcing free up your time to offer a more sophisticated service to successful business owners?
Yes, it can, since the more time you spend problem-solving for your business owner clients, the more value you can provide them—and the more you can help others like them. Think about what these clients generally need:
• Help diversifying their personal finances away from their businesses
• Help shielding assets from liability
• Help developing a succession plan
• Help structuring business sales
• Help offering benefits to their employees (retirement plans, insurance, etc.)
• Help managing their retirement plan correctly as a fiduciary to avoid potential liability
Also, their employees may need help understanding and making the best use of their retirement plans and benefits.
Pain-Rich Targets
The reason these business owners can be great clients is that they may have more pain points than the average person:
• “What happens to my business and my investments during the next recession?”
• “How can I reduce the amount of taxes I pay?”
• “Will my business be enough to fund my retirement?”
• “How can I protect my family’s personal assets from potential business creditors?”
That list can go on. Of course, business owners have many of the same pain points as the general population, but their lives are often more complex—more bank accounts, more tax returns, more responsibilities, and their attention goes to taking care of clients and employees first.
Compound that with having busy schedules and you can see that they are a market that could use your help. You can even choose to go deeper and specialize in specific types of business owners:
• Family business owners
• Business owners in partnerships
• Startup entrepreneurs
• Business owners who are ready to sell in the next five years
There are many directions you can take this.
