it can result in a firmwide multiplier effect.
by russ alan prince
accounting firms are professional services firms. many accounting firms have expanded into other areas. one of those areas is wealth management. when wealth management is part of a well thought out accounting firm’s strategy, it can be instrumental in delivering greater value to clients. an elite wealth management practice can also be core to generating substantially greater revenues for the firm.
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an elite wealth management practice – as opposed to a traditional wealth management practice – results in a firmwide multiplier effect. most importantly, it can be central to optimizing clients’ financial lives. your elite wealth management practice will also contribute significant revenues – directly and indirectly – to the accounting firm.
direct revenues are the monies earned by delivering wealth management. indirect revenues are the monies earned by other practice areas because of wealth management. also, because of your firm’s elite wealth management practice, you can produce a pipeline of new high-quality clients.
while many accounting firms have established wealth management practices, only a tiny percentage have achieved anything close to their potential. relatively speaking, very few of them can be considered elite.
the most successful accounting firms with wealth management practices – let alone elite wealth management practices – have aligned all the resources and support of the firm’s partnership. the best results come about when the partners have the same strategic vision and perspectives regarding wealth management. when there is a serious disagreement, the ability to maximize the opportunity diminishes.
for most accounting firm wealth management practices, the starting point is often with the firm’s current clients. the objective is to identify those clients for whom elite wealth management will add significantly greater value. it is essential to understand that this is just the starting point when it comes to elite wealth management. regularly, when clients receive meaningful value, they – with some direction – will introduce the accounting firm to a stream of new high-quality clients.
it is essential to recognize that, even with elite wealth management, just doing a sensational job for the client is often not enough to get a substantial number of viable referrals. systemic processes in conjunction with elite wealth management will produce the flow of high-quality referrals. still, without elite wealth management, these referrals are not forthcoming.
in thinking about clients at your accounting firm, elite wealth management is most appropriate for clients with complex business situations. the more complex the business situations, the more value your elite wealth management practice can deliver. the same is true for clients with complex personal situations. one more category benefits greatly from elite wealth management, and it is clients with significant personal wealth. by thinking through the elite wealth management potential within your accounting firm’s clientele, you can reasonably approximate the possible revenues over the next one to three years.
to be very clear, elite wealth management is a powerful way to deliver significantly more value to clients. the more complex client situations and wealth is involved, the more elite wealth management can help optimize their financial worlds. at the same time, elite wealth management combined with specific systematic business development processes can easily become a 10x (or more, usually much more) revenue growth generator for many accounting firms. included in this calculation are the direct and indirect increases in revenues that are a function of providing elite wealth management.
while elite wealth management can deliver tremendous upside to accounting firms, there are costs to the practice, and it takes commitment to achieve the promise of elite wealth management. therefore, you need to take everything into account when deciding if an elite wealth management practice is right for your accounting firm.