the three essential components.
by anthony glomski and russ alan prince
your $5-million high-net-worth practice
a lot goes into building a $5 million high-net-worth practice.
it is a given that you will need wealthy clients. for most accountants, most of these wealthy clients are very likely to be successful business owners. but that is not always the case. you can potentially achieve your financial end goals with wealthy inheritors, for example.
more: four steps to a high-net-worth practice | three ways the wealthy use life insurance | help clients avoid fallout from personal complications | why tax planning matters so much to the wealthy
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your commitment to becoming wealthier, your integrity, and doing the best possible job for your wealthy clients all play into your success. all of this is not enough. you need more. consider the following equation:
conviction + process + expertise = $5 million high-net-worth practice
- conviction is your deep desire to succeed.
- process is how you are going to succeed.
- expertise is what you are going to provide the wealthy to succeed.
all three are essential, and all three are very likely entirely within your control. the place to begin is with you.
conviction
consider the extremely successful businesspeople you have met.
how many of them:
- radiate a strong sense of purpose?
- can take command of a situation when they want to?
- convey the impression they know just what is going on and what needs to be done?
- are calm and collected, even in very tense situations?
- project fearlessness?
how many of the wealthy want to work with professionals who do these things? most likely, all of them.
conviction plays a prominent role in your ability to convey a sense of purpose and the belief that you can adroitly handle stressful situations. it is a mental attitude that communicates proficiency and supports the idea that you’re trustworthy. conviction embodies dynamism, vitality and even enthusiasm. it conveys that you are in command of the situation.
conviction is critical to your ability to source and work effectively with the wealthy. it is vital during this crisis and will be just as important once the crisis is over. conviction is ever more important as you choose to source and work with wealthier and wealthier individuals and families.
conviction makes you more successful, which then tends to reinforce your sense of conviction. for example, confidence in yourself and what you are saying can go a long way in getting results with the wealthy.
in many business environments, there are three essential components of conviction. all three may interrelate, but determination is central.
determination: your resolve – aka your determination – is your motivation to excel, often predicated on your commitment to yourself and others. your determination is your fervent desire to achieve the goals you have set for yourself. it is fundamental to conviction and substantially enhances the other two components.
your determination to help loved ones, doing an excellent job for clients, and supporting the causes you care about can be crucial to staying on track and moving forward even in adversity. determination can be said to fuel conviction. it is the drive underlying all the hard work that is often required. it is also the motivation to get increasingly better, resulting in and promoting greater self-efficacy.
self-efficacy: what is self-efficacy? it’s your belief that you can achieve in specific situations. self-efficacy impacts everyone’s business activities from the effort exerted to the level of commitment to finish when confronted with obstacles to what commercial and personal goals people set for themselves. simply put: it is the “i can” or “i cannot” belief. high self-efficacy is “i can.”
most of the wealthy, for instance, have a high degree of self-efficacy when it comes to various aspects of business life. let us keep in mind that self-efficacy is situation-specific. so, one billionaire has high self-efficacy concerning one business environment while another one may not, and so forth and so on.
what is important to note is that the most successful among us recognize they are good at certain tasks and functions, but not all of them. this awareness leads them to concentrate their efforts on activities they are exceptionally proficient in and delegate as much as possible, as they are not as confident they possess the requisite expertise and skills. it is a matter of them doing what they do well.
preparation: having a solid foundation and understanding generates high levels of confidence, supported by knowledge about the situation and the other people involved. there are many aspects to preparing, and they depend on the nature of the situation. sometimes, it is all about getting the education you require to achieve your goals. at other times, it can be very specific, as in the case of a negotiation.
considering bargaining, many hyper-successful professionals focus on at least three areas as part of their preparation for a critical negotiation:
- managing stress through extensive planning: when the stakes are so high, you might feel your heart pumping fast inside your chest. you might get sick to your stomach. you could have cold, shaky hands. all of this is likely to diminish your ability to do well and negotiate effectively. also, it is just plain bad for your health.
- laying the groundwork to build a strategy on: the foundation encompasses all the assessments and evaluations you make based on the intelligence you have gathered. it is the work you do to assemble the pieces of the puzzle and know what each piece represents. groundwork falls into two categories – the characteristics of the deal and knowing the people with whom you are negotiating.
- developing a negotiating strategy gets you started. as you collect information and think through the components of the deal, you will continuously reassess how best to achieve your goals. you must diagnose where you stand, forcing you to evaluate your best approach and stratagems.
conviction is your mindset and is essential to build a $5 million high-net-worth practice. having this conviction does not mean there are not times that you might feel overwhelmed, lost or stressed. it is just that these feelings might slow you up a little, but they will not tear you down.
process
very telling, process is what often separates the most successful professionals and business owners from their peers. by “process,” we are referring to how you work with others:
- how you work with the wealthy
- how you work with your fellow accountants
- how you work with other professionals
process takes on added importance in difficult times. and nowadays, most people would agree we are living in difficult times.
process is not necessarily seen and recognized by others, such as the wealthy and the professionals you work with. but, it is certainly always “felt.” you know when someone understands you. you can feel if someone does not care and is just going through the motions.
from another perspective, you may be the most brilliant accountant who ever walked the earth. you might be a technical savant unmatched anywhere. except in a handful of situations, without process, you are unlikely to be very successful.
process is indisputably critical to you building a $5 million high-net-worth practice. the method we are using is referred to as everyone wins. when everyone wins …
- you win.
- you win now and in the future.
- you win in ways you were not even thinking about.
- you win in the greater success of your practice and your personal life, especially during the rough times.
- you win even bigger than you probably imagined you would.
the everyone wins process drives client-focused business development. it is all about building strong and sometimes optimal relationships with wealthy clients, high-potential prospects and other professionals.
you are probably pretty good at building professional relationships. what tends to differentiate many of the most successful professionals from their peers is how systematic they are when it comes to building strategic relationships. that is the advantage many professionals have gained from mastering the everyone wins process. furthermore, what we are talking about is very learnable. for most capable accountants, it is just a matter of refining and fine-tuning their perspective and skills. that fine-tuning can enable you to move from a $2 million high-net-worth practice to a $5 million high-net-worth practice.
expertise
you might have conviction and be extremely adept at building relationships. however, that is still not enough. you also have to deliver the results the wealthy want and need. your ability to deliver results is very much dependent on your expertise.
when it comes to the wealthy, family offices are the preferred means for many (and a growing number of them) to get the financial as well as several of the personal outcomes they want and need. for the extremely wealthy, the most common option is a single-family office. for those less affluent, there are multifamily offices and virtual family offices.
many accounting firms have family office practices. some have private client or high-net-worth practices. additionally, some accounting firms have wealth management subsidiaries or arrangements with other professionals. there are variations as to how accounting firms are structuring how they work with the wealthy.
another possibility exists to work for the super-rich and single-family offices. this type of work is almost always a different business model than working for the affluent (who aren’t yet at that level of wealth) and providing family office solutions, for example.
whatever structure and deliverables you decide your high-net-worth practice provides, they must be as good as anything available from anyone else. while you are going to need to make a number of decisions concerning the operations of your high-net-worth practice, it is highly likely that most options will lead you to a $5 million high-net-worth practice.
conclusion
you need conviction. you need process. you need expertise. combined with wealthy individuals and families (compliments of process), you can build a $5 million high-net-worth practice.
what is important to realize is that your success – your ability to build a $5 million high-net-worth practice – is in your hands. much of what we are talking about is entirely in your control. you have to decide you want to excel. you have to master the concepts and methodologies. the good news is that there are no secrets. building a tremendous high-net-worth practice is not a matter of knowing what to do. it is really a matter of doing.