6 Financial Advisor Prospecting Tips to Grow in 2024

For financial advisors, prospecting is essential to attracting new clients and scaling a practice. Finding and developing leads that may turn into prospects can be time-consuming, however. And if you don’t have the right strategy in place, even finding prospects in the first place can be hit-or-miss. That’s where getting advice from successful financial advisors can help. With that in mind, we’ve compiled some of actionable prospecting tips from financial advisors to help you accelerate your business growth.

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Tip #1: Recognize the Challenges

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the face of prospecting for financial advisors. The focus shifted away from face-to-face communications and toward online interactions as social distancing became the norm. Having a professional website that cohesively tells your story and how you can help prospects is one place to start. Turning to alternate communication methods, such as email, text or instant messaging, is another.

“Nothing will ever top referrals from a trusted source, but a strong digital presence will help,” said Julian B. Morris, a Certified Financial Planner™ (CFP®) and chartered financial consultant (ChFC) at Boston-based Concierge Wealth Management.

The goal is to “be accessible in a digital format,” which can help foster connections with prospects when in-person meetings aren’t an option, according to Morris.

If cold calling isn’t something you’re interested in, there are comprehensive services available that can handle lead generation and marketing, like SmartAsset AMP. The platform provides financial advisors with client referrals and even coordinates live, over-the-phone introductions between advisors and their leads. AMP can also help advisors stay in touch with prospective clients who require a longer sales process, automatically sending out personalized text messages and emails.

Tip #2: Make It Personal

Investors can now easily build portfolios without the need for a human advisor, thanks to online investment platforms.

Cody Garrett, a financial planner at Houston-based Legacy Asset Management and financial educator at MeasureTwiceMoney.com, says traditional advisors are now in a race to zero fees with robo-advisors. This makes it more important than ever to remind investors what they may be missing out on by choosing robo-advisors over a human advisor.

“The best way to grow your business and generate prospects is to identify your ideal client and provide value to them even before they know you exist,” Garrett said.

This means reaching out to potential clients through the media they already use, like blogs, podcasts, YouTube or other platforms. Producing your own content can give prospects a sample of what they need for free while opening the door to the possibility of an ongoing professional relationship.

“Remember that your prospective clients are human and they can sense authenticity,” Garrett said.

Tip #3: Assess What’s Working – and What’s Not

Slow periods can happen to any advisor, but an extended slump could be a sign that you need to rethink your prospecting tactics. 

“If an advisor’s business is stagnant, there could be something wrong with their marketing or maybe a process within their client experience,” said Dan Biagini, head of sales at American Equity.

In that case, finding ways to make your planning process more efficient can give you back time in your day to work on other areas of your business, such as prospecting. At the same time, you could be improving client experience, which can help generate new referrals.

Surveying your existing client base is one way to find out what is and isn’t working. Sending out a survey or poll can help you compile feedback on where you’re making your clients happy and where you may be falling short.

Tip #4: Increase Your Value

Effective financial advisor prospecting in a changing advisory services landscape can mean taking a new approach to your fees. “To remain competitive, advisors need to offer more services but expect to charge the same fee,” Biagini said.

In other words, be prepared to emphasize value when prospecting – a sentiment that Garrett shares.

“A financial advisor’s role is to provide clarity through education, helping clients to make their own well-informed decisions,” he said.

This can mean taking the focus off specific investments or the market itself, which advisors can’t control, and looking more closely at how you can solve a client’s problems. As for fees, flat-fee and advice-only financial planning may be the future of financial advice, according to Garrett, as emphasis shifts to transparency and the human side of money.

So does that mean you need to sell yourself short as an advisor to gain new clients?

Not at all. But it does mean you may want to clarify what type of value you’re providing in exchange for the fees you charge and how that value is perceived in the eyes of prospective clients.

Tip #5: Be Consistent

When researching different options for financial advisor prospecting, it’s tempting to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. But this can backfire if it results in an uneven marketing strategy.

Choosing consistency can help you build your brand reputation, which in turn can help you attract your ideal clients who are a good fit for your practice. This means being consistent with not only the way you market yourself but the story you tell.

Your story can be a combination of different elements: how or why you became a financial advisor, what inspires you, how you help your clients and the biggest successes you’ve helped them achieve. If you haven’t developed a cohesive brand story yet, you may want to consider doing so before putting a prospecting and digital marketing plan into action.

Once you’ve done that, you can work on amplifying your story and broadcasting it across the marketing channels where you’re most likely to reach your target market. This may be TV, radio, podcasts, video or a website. You might need to experiment with what works best. Taking a unified approach in your messaging can help with building your brand. Doing so can also help with enhancing your credibility among existing and prospective clients, Biagini says.

Tip #6: Automate Your Prospecting

Prospecting for clients and following up with new leads can be time-consuming. In fact, 85% of advisors say they struggle to find time to devote to their marketing efforts, according to a 2023 Broadridge survey of advisors. On average, they allocate only about two hours per week to this area of their business.

To streamline this process, consider automating your prospecting efforts using SmartAsset AMP, an end-to-end marketing solution for fiduciary advisors. This subscription-based service allows you to choose between a target of three, seven or 15-plus new clients per year. In addition to matching advisors with high-intent investors, SmartAsset AMP can develop nurture campaigns that send automated, personalized text messages and emails to prospects that can help keep you top of mind.

Bottom Line

One of the realities of running a business is that you may spend more of your time rooting out new clients than working with existing ones. Aligning your strategy and tactics for a specific client profile can supercharge your practice. In other words, adapting your current prospecting techniques could help you use your time more effectively so that you’re able to focus your attention elsewhere in your business as well as maximizing the likelihood that it will grow.

Tips for Prospecting Online

• SmartAsset AMP (Advisor Marketing Platform) is a holistic marketing service financial advisors can use for client lead generation and automated marketing. Sign up for a free demo to explore how SmartAsset AMP can help you expand your practice’s marketing operation. Get started today.
• When using social media to market your business and canvas for prospects, be mindful of the tone and style you use to tell your story. For example, the way you approach would-be clients on LinkedIn might be quite different than how you do it on Twitter or Facebook. Also, don’t shy away from up-and-coming platforms, provided they’re likely to be places where your ideal client may spend time.

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