Horsesmouth editor Nicole Coulter published a great case study today about Dominic Musso, a now-retired wirehouse advisor who built a $300 million practice in a targeted niche, all through referral.
In a nutshell, here's the approach that Musso used:
Tell the niche members about your plan to serve other members of the niche and ask for their opinion on reaching out to that group. "Ask for help formulating a round-table agenda that would be attractive to other members of the niche," [business coach David] Leo says. "You want to go into a round-table meeting knowing some of the concerns of the group."
Musso, who attracted more than 800 oil industry clients over a 15-year period, concurs: "Take one person or couple in the niche. Take them out to dinner and learn everything about them. Identify issues beyond investments that could pose problems for them," he says. "When you focus on knowing your client, and identifying their issues-if you do that with one couple, that couple can eventually take you to 12 other people. The more you satisfy them by making them happy and demonstrating your interest in their welfare, and teaching them what they need to know about their life, the numbers get bigger and bigger."
The article goes into much more explicit detail about the "how" behind this prospecting-by-introduction approach and considers how it could work for a less experienced advisor struggling to break into a new niche.
You can read the entire case study (free registration required) here:
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