How to Find Your First Client as a Financial Advisor

Finding clients as a financial advisor involves more than cold calling and running calculations. It means earning a prospect’s trust to manage their wealth and guide them on the path to their goals. Your first client can often be the most challenging to find because it takes time to build your brand and connect with your target audience. Fortunately, there are many strategies to help establish your reputation in person and online as a reliable, skilled financial professional. If you’re looking for tips on how to get clients as a financial advisor, these practical steps can help you get started.

Are you looking to expand the marketing of your financial advisor practice? Try SmartAsset AMP, a holistic client prospecting and marketing automation platform.

How to Find Clients as a Financial Advisor

Finding your first client as a financial advisor requires a combination of strategic planning, effective communication and using different channels to connect with potential clients. Here are seven things you can do to help you land your first client.

1. Pinpoint Your Niche

Niching down as an advisor allows you to narrow your focus to a specific group of investors who can benefit from your advice. If you have yet to define your niche, consider your strengths, interests and expertise within the financial industry. Identifying your specialty can help you better understand how to appeal to your target audience.

Your experience and any professional designations you hold can offer a clue. For example, becoming a certified public accountant (CPA) can hone your skillset for individual tax preparation or corporate accounting. 

If you’re more focused on how to find wealth management clients, you might consider pursuing the Certified Financial Planner™ (CFP®) or certified private wealth advisor (CPWA) designations. Both credentials can convey expertise in financial planning and wealth management for high-net-worth individuals. Or, if you want to manage investment portfolios and funds, you could become a chartered financial analyst (CFA).

Playing to your strengths helps you define your target market and position yourself effectively.

2. Automate Your Lead Generation and Outreach

If you’re looking for a way to kickstart your lead generation efforts, consider SmartAsset AMP, a holistic client prospecting and marketing automation platform. The service matches advisors with high-intent investors and can make live over-the-phone connections with them.

A Broadridge survey of more than 400 financial advisors found that converting marketing leads into clients takes an average of 3.6 months. ¹ To help advisors stay in contact with leads, AMP offers compliant automated text and email outreach.

T.J. Tamura, a financial advisor at Capitol Planning Group in California since 2022, told SmartAsset that he spent his early years refining his messaging and building a solid client base. SmartAsset AMP has allowed him to cast a wide net, targeting leads across a range of wealth tiers and investable assets.

“It was really important to me to get it connected with as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, and to see how my messaging resonated with as many people as possible,” Tamura told SmartAsset.

Over time though, he’s shifted more toward generating leads in the higher asset ranges. However, younger advisors shouldn’t overlook potential clients with fewer investable assets, he added.

“It’s a good place for younger advisors or people on your team to get connected and work on their skills and then move them into the higher asset levels over time,” he told SmartAsset.

3. Craft Your Elevator Pitch

Develop a concise and compelling “elevator pitch” that communicates your value proposition. Your pitch should clearly articulate how you can address the specific needs of your target niche. Remember to adapt your pitch based on your audience. Understand the concerns and priorities of your potential clients and emphasize how you can provide solutions.

When implementing this step, research is necessary to understand the problems your target market is experiencing. For example, if you’re a fiduciary, you can highlight how your investment practices place client interests ahead of your own.

Your elevator pitch can be part of a broader storyselling campaign. Storyselling is a marketing technique that relies on stories about clients’ successes to sell prospects on your advice and services.

4. Develop an Online Presence

Setting up shop as a financial advisor means having an online space that introduces your clients to your services. Creating a professional website that showcases your expertise and skills is part of a solid branding strategy.

When building a website, keep in mind that you will be competing with other financial advisors for a share of online visibility. Strong SEO skills and adherence to best practices are essential. Your web content should then use relevant keywords to increase the likelihood of potential clients finding you online.

Also, make sure that your website is user-friendly and provides clear contact information. Broken links or pages that are slow to load can be a turn-off for first-time visitors and may discourage them from returning.

5. Engage on Social Media

Identify the social media platforms where your target audience is most active. LinkedIn is particularly valuable for financial advisors, but other platforms like Facebook can also be effective. In fact, the same Broadridge survey of financial advisors found that 42% said they’ve converted leads from social media into clients.

Share relevant, helpful content for your audience. Then, engage with potential clients who interact with your content. Your profile should offer value to attract attention. For example, sharing tax planning tips, budgeting advice and investment basics can demonstrate your expertise.

Keep personalization in sight as you craft your content. Consider your target clients’ life stages, goals, and needs as you decide which topics to cover. 

6. Invite Potential Clients to a Webinar

Once you’ve built up an online audience through web marketing and social media outreach, you can invite potential customers to a webinar. Choose a topic that aligns with your niche (such as estate planning or financial literacy) and address common concerns or interests of your audience.

Hosting a webinar is essentially delivering a live online class. To be successful, you’ll need an accessible platform (such as Zoom), engaging materials and a clean space with good lighting. Interactive features, such as a chat box and live Q&A polls, can help clients recognize your expertise and consider working with you.

You may be able to manage webinars and seminars through your customer relationship management (CRM) platform. If your CRM has this feature, you can schedule seminars, send out invitations to prospective clients, and track the metrics of who attends. 

7. Connect With Your Community

Your network and local business community are important resources to tap as you start your financial advising career. Getting involved locally can help you make connections with prospective clients and other professionals who may be able to refer clients to your business. 

Some of the ways you might get active include:

• Joining community organizations
• Participating in local business events
• Volunteering as a pro bono financial advisor
• Sponsoring a local sports team or event
• Hosting or participating in a charity event

If you’re unsure who to add to your network, start with people who may be able to act as a bridge between you and your ideal clients. For example, tax and estate planning attorneys or CPAs may be good candidates. Keep in mind that these types of professional relationships usually operate on the basis of reciprocal action. In other words, you might refer a client of yours to an attorney who recommends a client of theirs to you. 

8. Launch an Email Marketing Campaign

Collecting email addresses through your website, webinars and networking events gives you direct access to prospective clients’ inboxes. If you’re unsure how to get your ideal clients on your list, consider developing one or more lead magnets. This is a free resource you offer to prospects in exchange for their email address.  

Once you’ve built a solid email list, tailor your campaign to specific client segments. Provide relevant content and personalized messages to address each segment’s specific needs and interests. For example, some clients may need life insurance, while others are solely interested in investment services. Understanding these distinctions can help you create targeted emails that drive engagement.

And if you’re looking for a tool to help you leverage email, consider SmartAsset AMP. The lead generation platform also allows you to create automated email nurture campaigns to stay engaged with prospects who may require a longer decision-making process.

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Tips for Retaining Your Clients

Getting your first client as a financial advisor is worth celebrating. But after you give yourself a pat on the back, you will have to shift your attention to another phase of your business: Keeping your clients. Retention is key for long-term success and growth. Here are seven common tips to help retain your clients.

1. Be Transparent

Nothing about your services, from what you provide to what you charge, should be a mystery to your clients. To that end, it’s important to be clear in all your communication. From the beginning of your relationship with a client, define the expectations on both sides of the arrangement. Outline how you’ll serve them, how you’ll meet their goals and what the costs will be.

Transparency means being upfront about fees, potential risks and your communication style. Encourage questions from your clients and provide as much information as possible. Setting realistic expectations helps build trust and reduces the likelihood of misunderstandings.

2. Stay in Touch

If there’s one thing clients overwhelmingly want from you, it’s regular communication. The 2024 YCharts Advisor-Client Communication Survey found that 79% of clients want their advisor to contact them at least every three months. More importantly, 88% say contact frequency would affect their decision to stay with their advisor, while 89% said it would influence their willingness to make referrals on their advisor’s behalf. ²  

Creating a communication schedule can help you stay connected to your clients. Segmenting your book of business can offer insight into how to move forward. 

For example, higher-value clients may require a call at least once a month while middle or lower-tier clients may be set with a quarterly check-in. You may ask your clients how often they’d like to hear from you if you’re unsure how often you should be calling, sending texts, or delivering letters via snail mail. 

3. Let the Numbers Do the Talking

Whenever you provide financial advice, support it with concrete data and numbers. This not only demonstrates your expertise, but it also helps clients understand the rationale behind your recommendations.

Giving specifics will inspire trust and confidence. To that end, keep detailed documentation of your work for each client. Portray different financial scenarios and actual account performances with charts and other visual aids to make complex concepts digestible. For example, portfolio visualizer tools can help you show clients potential outcomes if they do X, Y or Z with their investments.

4. Take Feedback Seriously

Schedule regular check-ins with your clients to discuss their satisfaction with your services. Create an environment where they feel comfortable providing feedback. You can also send surveys asking clients to let you know how to improve and make the answers anonymous to encourage honesty.

Then, act on the feedback you receive. Whether it’s about communication preferences, service quality, or other aspects of your advisory practice, demonstrating a willingness to adapt and improve reinforces your commitment to client satisfaction. Clients often leave their financial advisors because they don’t feel heard or see a way for the circumstances to change.

5. Streamline Business and Enhance Client Experience

Systems can improve efficiency on the business side and establish quality control on the service side of financial advising. For example, you could create an onboarding package for new clients that includes an educational PDF and an email with a calendar link scheduling the client’s first meeting with you. Doing so can benefit your business and guarantee a consistent and reliable experience for your clients.

6. Understand What Clients Want

Understanding who your clients are is critical for retaining their business in the long run. While investment performance matters, it’s not the only thing your clients are concerned with. For example, here’s what influences client satisfaction with advisors the most, according to the YCharts survey:

• 56% say they want an advisor who understands them and their goals
• 55% are interested in portfolio performance
• 52% want financial advice and education
• 48% prefer an advisor who is accessible when they’re needed
• 45% want an advisor who offers a range of services that meet their financial needs
• 43% are interested in a fee-friendly advisor

Talk to your clients about what you could improve to enhance their experience in working with you. Then use that feedback to grow. For example, if multiple clients express frustration over a particular planning gap that might be a clue that it’s time to develop a new service offering. 

7. Be Consistent

From your brand to your online voice to your direct service to clients, it’s important to provide continuity in quality, professionalism and integrity. Consistency creates a positive client experience and contributes to a long-lasting advisory relationship. And doing so means communicating clearly and regularly with clients while remaining transparent about each client’s progress toward their financial goals.

Review the different parts of your branding strategy, from your tagline down to the fonts you use on your website. Then, look at it collectively to determine how cohesive it is. If you’re not sure what, if anything, needs to be addressed, you might consider partnering with a branding agency to refine the message you want to send to current and prospective clients. 

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Bottom Line

Finding and retaining clients as a financial advisor will require a strategic blend of actions. From defining your niche and crafting compelling communication to marketing yourself online and connecting with your community, taking these steps could help you attract and retain clients. Additionally, sharing clear data can help you build trust with clients, and using client feedback could demonstrate your commitment to improvement.

Tips for Getting Your First Client as a Financial Advisor

• Consider outsourcing some of your marketing activities. SmartAsset AMP (Advisor Marketing Platform) is a holistic marketing service that 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 a new client is ready to begin working with you, having an onboarding checklist can help make it easier to bring them into the fold seamlessly and start building trust from day one.

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