How centers of influence can help build your book of business

In many ways, expanding an advisory business is like dating. Similar to the way people turn to friends to set them up, some financial advisers, such as Eliot Weissberg, have relied on local professionals to help recruit clients. When he started The Investors Center Inc. in Avon, Conn., in 1999, he had to start from scratch, even though he had been in the business for 19 years. Due to a non-solicitation agreement with his previous employer, Mr. Weissberg couldn't take any of his clients with him. He tried all the usual techniques: attending seminars, posting ads in local newspapers, sending out mass mailings. The only thing that Mr. Weissberg didn't do was cold calling. “People want a relationship; they don't just want a name,” he said. So instead, Mr. Weissberg focused on arranging meetings with the estate-planning attorneys and tax planners that he had met throughout the years. Since he had been an adviser since 1980, he knew a lot of people. “I reached out to those people and said, "I have helped you over the past 20 years — now I need you to return the favor,'” Mr. Weissberg said. He sees professionals in related fields — so-called centers of influence — as a crucial resource for advisers to take their businesses to the next level. But relying strictly on people that Mr. Weissberg knew wasn't enough. In approaching accountants and attorneys for the first time, he employs a strategy that he says works very well. “I tell them, "Give me your most complicated cases,'” Mr. Weissberg said. “Then when they see that we can handle them, they start passing us the easier cases.” Starting off working on clients' most complicated tax matters also helped him develop stronger relationships with them, said Mr. Weissberg, who has $125 million in assets under management. One mistake that advisers often make is using certified public accountants or estate-planning attorneys to get referrals, but not focusing on maintaining those relationships, he said. “It's really a matter of understanding their relationships with the clients and keeping them in the loop on how things are progressing with you and the client,” Mr. Weissberg said. In many ways, treating these professionals as he would treat clients has helped him build his business, he said. E-mail Jessica Toonkel at [email protected].