A Web of advisors

The following is based on one of The Covenant Group’s clients. All of the names and telling details have been changed.

However, as Jennifer told us when she first met — she wanted more.

When I first sat down with Jennifer she explained that she wanted to explore ways to expand her business, but with the caveat that she didn’t want to do a lot of cold calling — the thought made her shiver — or a lot of expensive direct mail or advertising.

As we often do with new clients, we began by asking Jennifer to describe what her life would look like in ten years time.  “I want a business that generates $250,000 a year,” she said. “I want to work with interesting clients. And, I want to spend more time with my family.”

We were pleased to see that she had given some thought to her future. As we explored her attitude towards the future further, we could see that she was determined to reach her goals, and, even more importantly, realized that getting there would require patience and a lot of hard work. The table was set for the concept, that I thought would revolutionize Jennifer’s business.

We explained to Jennifer that over the next five years, what she needed to do was, in a sense, to stop selling investments and insurance, and start selling herself. What we proposed to her was that she works on developing her ‘brand’ or identity within the markets she wished to work in. We wanted her to begin building her image so that people working in her chosen markets would have confidence in her. But that wasn’t all.

Going one step further, we explained that, once she had built her own brand, she should use that positive image to begin working with collateral professionals within her chosen markets. By collateral professionals we mean experts in fields different from, but complementary to the investment business. Fields in which professionals would have clients who would need Jennifer’s services. For instance, lawyers and accountants would all have clients with investment and insurance needs, clients that Jennifer could help. The only challenge was going to be to persuade those collateral professionals, who didn’t know her from Adam at the moment, into referring their clients to her. Obviously they would need to trust Jennifer and her skills. That’s where building her brand would come in.

The key piece to developing profitable relationships with collateral experts is to build your ethos. Ethos is a Greek word which describes what people think about you. When you build your ethos, people see you as honourable, trustworthy, a person with integrity who can be relied upon to do a good job.  

Jennifer was intrigued by the idea of developing relationships with collateral professionals in order to gain referrals. She was excited by the idea that she wouldn’t have to cold call and would not have to waste time and money on the direct mail campaigns that hadn’t worked for her in the past. However, she was curious about how she should go about building her ethos.

The first thing we told her is that she had to understand that building ethos is a long process. There are no shortcuts. It’s like making a restaurant successful — it always builds on word of mouth, which takes time. Similarly, it would take time for Jennifer’s word of mouth to spread through the professional community.

The first thing she needed to do was to use Best Practice Number 1: Develop and Utilize a Marketing Plan, to identify which professionals she might work with and strategies for developing relationships with them. Within her marketing plan, she would have to identify a number of initiatives she could put into place to meet and work with her chosen professionals.

In our next meeting, we brainstormed the types of things she could do to meet collateral professionals in her market. She came up with joining an estate planning group, a business owner support group, a board of trade, and a professional networking association. She knew it would take time to build her network, but she was anxious to get started.

However, before she began meeting professionals, Jennifer would have to start building her ethos. I explained that she would need to research the areas that these professionals worked in, become comfortable with the issues they faced and the knowledge they shared with each other. Only, if she intimately, understood, those things would they accept her as one of their own.

As well, once she had made some connections, she would need to start referring her own clients to the professionals she wanted to work with. We told her that confidence is a two-way street and it is unlikely that any professional will refer their clients to her unless they see a little quid pro quo. However, if she could implement those few strategies effectively, she would have no trouble developing true and profitable partnerships.

At the end of that meeting, we told her to remember that building ethos is a long-term project and not to get discouraged if she didn’t see results right away. We decided that we would meet every six months and check to see how much progress she was making.

Over the next few years, we saw Jennifer’s ethos grow steadily. At each six month check-in, she was further ahead than the one before. First, she started working with one lawyer that she had an existing relationship with. A year later she had a handful of partnerships with collateral experts. At the end of five years, she was working closely with dozens of professionals. And, each time, we met I saw that the revenue item in her financial statements was getting larger and larger.

Lessons Learned

When we met with Jennifer and asked her to summarize her experience in building a network of collateral professionals.

The first thing Jennifer did was laugh. She said she remembered how much she hated having to make those cold calls when she first started out. She was glad she didn’t have to do that anymore.

She admitted that developing good relationships with experts and gaining positive introductions took a long time. But she had been prepared and was glad that we had been there to offer coaching and support along the way. She suggested that anyone else trying to establish a network of collateral professionals would also benefit from a coach or mentor.

Jennifer also told me that she had discovered a surprising side-benefit of using collateral professionals. Making sales had suddenly become much easier. She said that once she had gained the confidence of the professionals she targeted to work with and they were willing to make introductions, she found that their clients’ confidence in the professional was transferred to her. Often, when she first met clients that had been referred to her by a professional, that client had a positive bias towards her and was quite willing to listen to what she had to say about their investments. This was because the client assumed that if their lawyer, doctor or accountant had recommended Jennifer, she must know what she was doing.

Once she had developed a reliable network of experts, Jennifer also started to use them as co-advisors when she went to call on clients with various needs. For instance, when making a presentation on charitable trusts to a private school, she brought along a lawyer that she had been working with. He was an expert in those trusts and made an excellent presentation, that helped win them the business.

Jennifer deemed her network of collateral professionals an unqualified success.

And, most importantly, she had reached her $250,000 target and, furthermore, had more time to spend with her family. She had become a big believer in the power of building your business using collateral professionals.

If you are willing to take a long-term view of your business and spend the time to build your brand or ethos with those you want to work with, you will also realize the tremendous benefits of working with a network of collateral professionals.

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The Covenant Group is referred to by many as where entrepreneurs go to become Business Builders. They are considered to be thought leaders and authors of the best-selling books, The 8 Best Practices of High-Performing Salespeople, The Entrepreneurial Journey, and The Business Builder.