Very often for wealth managers to meaningfully grow their practices, they have to communicate that they are indeed the experts the wealthy want. With all the wealth managers and related professionals seeking to raise their profiles, the ability to cut through the clutter and stand out is increasingly a requirement for significant success. Wealth managers can communicate their expertise to desirable audiences—the wealthy and centers of influence—in a number of ways.
Almost everyone has a website, so just having one will rarely distinguish a wealth manager from the crowd of competitors. Most of the websites of wealth managers (and many of them are firm sites) are predominantly firm centric as opposed to being client centric. This is ineffectual when it comes to business development on most web sites.
Just about every wealth manager has some form of collateral material. High-quality collateral material can be useful in reinforcing a wealth manager’s expertise, but it is not going to be the reason doors open. At best it is useful to support the capabilities and perspectives of wealth managers.
Relatively few wealth managers are using advertising aside from the yellow pages and the occasional website ad. If they are advertising, it is most likely a firm initiative, which might or might not be beneficial for any individual wealth manager. Still, leveraging social media advertising can generate leads. However, these leads are usually not coming from the higher end of the private wealth spectrum.
Distributing high-quality content, done well, can be a very powerful way for wealth managers to communicate their expertise. It is worthwhile to note…distributing content that fails to effectively showcase a wealth manager’s expertise with respect to particular audiences can actually be counterproductive. For example, it can be disadvantageous if the material was written for other knowledgeable professionals but sent to business owners. Today, the ability to curate high-quality content is often just as successful an approach as creating the content. What proves extremely important is consistency.
Getting quoted fairly consistently on substantial matters is another way wealth managers can capably communicate their expertise. Then, by leveraging the quotes, wealth managers can reinforce their stature as experts. This approach has consistently been proven to be one of the more effective strategies available to help garner wealthy clients and win over centers of influence.
Wealth managers standing up and making their case forcefully but subtly is for most of them the more common and usually efficacious way for them to communicate their expertise. As a presenter they have the opportunity to:
• Get their audience involved and excited
• Validate that they are indeed a leading authority
• Start a dialogue that should lead to action
Because of the new communication technologies, it has never been easier for wealth managers to get their name out there. The problem is that standing out from the crowd of similar professionals has never been harder. The “easiest” and most effective way for the majority of professionals to get their message out is to curate and distribute high-quality content, be quoted in the media and to speak at select venues.
Russ Alan Prince, president of R.A. Prince & Associates, is a consultant to family offices, the ultra-wealthy and select professionals.
