Getting Started as a Financial Advisor: Who, What, and How?

A question I’m most often asked by younger professionals in financial services is: "How do I build a solid book of business. What’s the secret?" The first step is to make sure we are clear on the real question. The real question usually being asked is: "How do I get more clients, faster?"

In my experience, there are two key elements to becoming a successful advisor.

1. Core Competence

First, you must develop competence in the core skills. Years ago, a branch manager said to me, “Competence breeds confidence.” That phrase has stuck with me throughout my entire career. And it’s true—competence breeds confidence.

People can often smell a lack of competence. Today, there are a number of certifications that can help you develop expertise and knowledge in a couple of years that used to take a couple of decades of on-the-job training.

2. Great Communication

Second, you need above-average communication skills. If you're going to advise people, they have to trust your advice—and that means you need to be worthy of their trust. Walking your talk, taking your own advice and having your own written game plan is a great start. 

Being a great communicator doesn’t mean you are great at making a “pitch.” Just the opposite. It means you’re great at listening, asking questions that matter and getting to the heart of other people’s issues. We use the 80/20 Rule – if you’re speaking more than 20% of the time, you are over talking and under-listening. 

Laying Your Business Foundation

After mastering your core competencies and communication skills, you need to lay a strong foundation for your career. To do this, answer three key questions:

1. Who Will You Serve?

2. What Will You Do?

3. How Will You Do It?

Who Will You Serve:

Who will you call? Success starts with your list. Do you have a list of at least 400 people to begin with? Over time, you’ll need a pool of 800 to 1,200 prospective clients, businesses, or households that are open to hearing your message, taking your call, or engaging with you.

Why do you need that many? You need a pool of potential clients that is large enough to produce results and not so large that you can’t effectively manage it and contact with people. ‘Just’ email may not produce the results you’re looking for. You may need to actually talk to people. Otherwise, how will they know if they want to work with you and how could you know if you’d want to work with them?

How do you get 800-1,200 people in your pipeline that know your name, know what you do, have wealth, and will have a conversation with you? 

If you already know 800 people with a lot of money, great. Many of us were not born into that gene pool or the related clans. 

If you’re not already on a first name basis with 800 or more high net worth people, you’ll probably need to contact people you don’t know with an offer for solid, educational content (not marketing spam).

Here's why you need a sizable pool of potential clients to get started. A widely accepted rule of thumb in marketing—often attributed to studies by Chet Holmes and others—is the 3–5% Rule. The 3-5% Rule states that only about 3–5% of a large audience is actively looking to buy a product or service at any given time.

Let's do the math. If you have an audience of 800 high net worth people, and only 3-5% of them are actively ready to buy your service, that is a client book of about 24-40 accounts.

Think of it this way, if you had a stadium filled with 50,000 people and asked how many people are actively in the market for a car, washing machine, tires or a new financial advisor, the likely answer would be 3-5%.

Here’s a breakdown of a typical audience in terms of buying intent:

• 3–5% are actively in the market and ready to buy.

• 6–7% are open to it but not actively searching.

• 30% are aware of the problem or need but not yet seeking a solution.

• 30% are unaware they have a problem.

• 30% are not interested at all and likely never will be.

This model is useful for putting perspective around why high-quality follow-up, education-based marketing, and nurturing campaigns are critical. You’re not just speaking to the 3–5%—you should be building relationships with the 60–70% who could become clients later.

What Will You Do?

What will you say? What value do you bring to a conversation? What can you deliver? If your answer is something vague like “good service,” or “good advice,” or “honest advice,” you’ll need to dig deeper. That’s what just about everyone does. What really makes you different?

Early in my career, someone asked me a powerful question: “What justifies your existence in the marketplace?” You need to be able to answer that question clearly, confidently, and convincingly. How do you justify your existence?

I’m a big fan of what I call “the Rolling Stones Approach” for business development. This is the basic principle I used 35+ years ago and the same approach our firm uses today. The Rolling Stones provide you with free access to their content (a song) on the radio. You can listen, free of charge, and decide if the music is for you. If you like it, you can purchase an album, go to the next level and purchase a concert ticket and merch. Why not use a business model or approach that has proven successful?

You may be thinking: “You can’t call or contact people that you don’t know. That doesn’t work anymore. That’s old school. Only social media works now.” This is a trope of people who have consistently failed to develop and advisory business. 100% of the people who tell me this are people with no success at business development in financial services—or they’re growing very slowly. We’ve had a couple work at our firm. The most recent one, a young man who had tremendous moral integrity, was competent, and had wanted to be an advisor since he was 14 years old, left to go to another firm because I told him he had to contact people he didn’t know (since he didn’t know many people in TN). He worked for nine months at his new firm. And then boom—he’s no longer in the business. His securities registrations are no longer active. He washed out. That story repeats thousands of times every year.

At the end of this article is an example of an approach using the Stones Approach and what a sequence might look like for you.

How Will You Do It?

How will you deliver on your promises? How will you bring your value to life? Do you have the processes, procedures, and protocols in place to take care of people in a consistent, professional way?

This is probably something your firm already has worked out. 

Just one practical example of how we deliver on our promises is in scheduling progress meetings. First, we don’t do “review” meetings because that’s about history, and anyone with a cell phone can have access to their account, up-to-date performance and holdings information and almost no one likes history—and we all love hope, a look forward, and a focus on current and future progress. 

A couple of decades ago, when we started scheduling client progress meetings 6-12 months in advance, other advisors erupted with a chorus of, “You can’t do that. That won’t work. People will never show up. We have people whose full-time job is to track people down to get them to schedule meetings.” Your dentist and your GP schedule your visits months in advance. That’s what professionals do.

You need to be confident in how you will deliver on your promises. That includes how you manage your time and priorities, how that interacts with your CRM and technology stack, how your firm manages portfolios, what are the value additions you provide, your process for financial planning, tax planning. Estate planning, risk management and anything else you have promised to deliver.

Here’s what this might sound like for an initial call from our firm. It won’t sound the same at your firm, but this may give you some ideas.

Make contact with enthusiasm, curiosity and care. Listen to people: what are they really saying? What is it they aren’t saying? Look and listen for people who are ready, willing and able for what you have to offer. 

What if you contact someone that you know has a lot of money, but they don’t sound like they’re ready or willing? Believe them. They’re not. Move on. The Rolling Stones don’t spend much time trying to convince you to like one of their songs you’ve decided you don’t like. They do what they do. You can too. You’re offering something that not everyone will want. The good news is there is a limited quantity of people you can serve. You can’t help everyone.

Once you have clear, confident answers to these three questions, you're ready to take action. To help you get started, below is a sample game plan and scripts I share with younger advisors.

Sample Game Plan for Building a Financial Advisor Business

Let’s assume, to get to your prospect pool number, you’re contacting a mix of people: 

1. People you know well, 

2. People you met networking (or acquaintances), and 

3. People you don’t know at all. 

Calling Scripts:

People you know well. (This may be the hardest group to contact.)

"This is _______, and I know you know what I do. I was just thinking about you and felt like I needed to check in. We keep coming across people who have loose ends on their tax planning—they’re paying too much—or they have some estate planning that needs attention. You probably have an advisor you’re thrilled with and feel great about. If I can ever help in any way, even if it’s just as a sounding board or brainstorming how to work more effectively with your advisor, will you let me know how I can help you?"

(Listen).

"By the way, may I send you our latest report on ______ (tax planning, estate planning essentials, something they expressed interest in)?"

"Great."

(At this point, I wouldn’t go any further. If they know you well, you’ve done what you can do. Why push and make someone feel uncomfortable?)

People you met while networking.

"This is _______, at _________ firm. Is this a good time for a brief call?

I was just thinking about you and felt like I needed to check in. (We met last week/year/etc. at ____).  A lot of people I’ve been talking to are concerned about paying too much in taxes or they’re getting concerned about the huge fluctuations in the stock market."

(Pause… listen.)

"Would it be okay if I send you our latest report on ______ (reducing taxes / making market volatility work for you)?"

"Great. What’s the best email address to send that to? Is there anything I can help you with today?"

People you’ve never met.

"This is _______, at _________ firm. Can you hear me okay?

Great.

Many people we’ve been talking to have been paying more than their fair share of taxes and they’re getting concerned about the huge fluctuations in the stock market."

(Pause… listen.)

{If either of those concerns have crossed your mind…}

"Would it be okay if I send you our latest report on ______ (reducing taxes / making market volatility work for you)?

"Great. What’s the best email address to send that to? Is there anything I can help you with today?"

Call Follow-up:

For group #1, let it go. If they’re interested, they’ll contact you. You may not want to contact them again at all. If you do, email them content a couple of times a year with a note that says something like, “Thought this might be helpful to you. I liked the info on page 7.”

For groups #2 and #3,

1. Send the content

2. Send them a note in a week with the content again that says something like, “I was thinking about you and forgot to mention the second paragraph on page 6 may be useful to you. Let me know what I can to do best help.

3. Call them again in 4 months.

4. Put them in your email group.

5. Send emails once per month by what people are most interested in:

   1. Growth

   2. Income

   3. Tax/Estate/Exit/Advanced planning

Take the Next Step in Your Advisory Career

Building your own advisory business can be incredibly rewarding—but it doesn’t have to be a solo journey. With the right structure, support, and purpose-driven approach, you can create a firm that not only grows but genuinely changes lives—yours included. If you’re an advisor ready to elevate your practice and focus on what matters most, we’d love to connect. Learn more about how Luken Wealth Management can support your vision by visiting our careers page, or reach out to start a conversation. Your next chapter could start here.