How to Communicate About Your Advisory Board and Drive Referrals

John Gugle's experience is typical of advisors who effectively engage a client advisory board. In an interview last spring, he reported "the best referrals we have gotten have come from board members." We hear this a lot, and it is great - but limited. If you have a dozen clients on your advisory board, you will have strong referral sources among those 12 people. But that may be only about 10% of your client base.

Here is the challenge: how can you package the experience of the advisory board and get better referrals from the other 90% of your clients? The answer is an effective communication strategy.

There are four opportunities to communicate about your client advisory board. Each provides a fresh chance to initiate a conversation about your client orientation and your service, and to provide another reason to recommend you to new prospects.

Each of these opportunities can be expressed in multiple ways. They can be the basis of an article in your client newsletter or on your website, they can be the subject of a press release, or they can be added to the end of meetings with clients or centers of influence. The key idea is that you take what happens in the advisory board and translate it to more people than can participate in the board itself at any one particular time.

The first opportunity to communicate about the board is to broadcast its existence. We have heard from many advisors that the mere fact that they have created an advisory board attract positive attention.

The next chance is to publicize the feedback you received from your board. It is proof that you are listening to your clients and looking for ways to improve. You can offer a summary of the issues raised by the board and that you will consider what to do based on the feedback.

Third, you can announce plans for improvements you intend to make, following the suggestions of your board. You might describe generally what changes you plan to implement, and invite additional feedback.

Finally, unveil the actions you took based on the feedback you received. This is the most powerful of all of these communication opportunities. The commitment to steer your practice in the direction your clients have suggested is the strongest statement you can make about your dedication to providing your best clients an experience that is tailored to their wants and needs.

The client advisory board is the most powerful tool for soliciting actionable client feedback. Because of this, board members are usually the top referral orders for the firm. Communicating the outcomes of your advisory board can help each client and centers of influence get a little taste of the advisory board experience, and you can help them become better referral sources as well.

A Change Of Mindset Can Be The Event That Drives The Client To You

The best time to get a referral is before the prospect is ready for a change.  It is when their thinking shifts to accommodate the possibility.

We are in an event driven business. Clients don't change advisors out of the blue – they look for a new advisor when something happens. We are used to thinking about the obvious changes: selling a business, taking a retirement offer, having a baby. But there can be more subtle ones that present as big an opportunity – like a new mindset that leads to those changes. For example, a shift from accumulating assets to a desire to conserve them, a client realizing he has more than he needs and starts thinking about the good he can do, or the recognition that a client has run her business for a long time and begins to consider what might be next.

The opportunity arises when those people start talking to their friends about what they have been thinking. If one of those friends is a client of yours, the right preparation can produce a referral to you. Your challenge is to understand the mindset shift that leads to the need for your unique services. Design a communication strategy that sensitizes your clients to the things their friends might say that can trigger a referral.

At the end of a client meeting, for example, you might say "in working on refining and improving our service, we realize that we have a special skill in helping clients discover what kind of good they can do in philanthropy, like we have with you. And we also realized that we can do the most good when we meet someone who has just started considering charitable giving. Someone who is only starting to think ‘I have enough to take care of my needs and to leave the kids is much as I want. And I just started wondering if there is some other kind of good I can do.’ You have been in that position before we helped get you started in philanthropy. If you were in my shoes, how would you find people who were just at that point?”

You may get some ideas and guidance from your clients, but you are also preparing them for the opportunity to refer. Reinforce the client scenario you are particularly good at addressing, and when a client hears a friend described it they will think of you.

Thinking changes before a prospect starts planning action. This could be the best time to catch them. Once plans are concrete, that prospect will probably already have an advisor. Catching them early and helping them work through the process positions you to have a loyal client when they are ready to consummate the life change they are considering.