How to Get Clients as a Financial Advisor

Ask one of your happy clients what you do.

If they say “she helps with investments”, that sentence goes nowhere. Every advisor helps with investments.

If they say “she’s who dentists call before they sell their practice”, every dentist they know hears your name.

Referrals follow a clear sentence.

This guide is about earning one — and then getting it in front of the right people.

step 1Pick one group with the same money decision

Don’t pick a group by income. Pick one by the decision they all face.

Pick a group you already understand — or one you already have three clients in.

This guide follows one example: Ethan, a Baltimore advisor who picked dentists planning to sell their practice.

step 2Write the one guide that group needs

Every group has the same questions, in the same order.

For a dentist selling a practice: price or terms? What happens to the staff’s retirement plan? What do I do with the money? When can I actually stop?

Write the answers down once. Plain English, a few pages, no hype.

Your AI team can draft it from your notes:

Practice-sale guideWorking

Draft a 6-page guide for dentists planning to sell their practice in the next 3 years — the money decisions, in plain English. No predictions, no performance numbers.

Research the questions practice owners ask14/14

Draft ready — 9 short sections, from “price vs. terms” to “what happens to your staff’s retirement plan”. Each one says what to ask a CPA or attorney.

I flagged 3 lines for compliance review before you share it.

Tell your agent what to do…

This guide becomes your introduction. A useful guide gets passed along in a way a business card never does.

It’s also a communication to the public, so it goes through your firm’s approval process before anyone sees it.

step 3Find the people who already serve that group

Dentists already trust a few people with their practice: brokers, CPAs, lenders, attorneys, study clubs.

Those people meet your future clients years before you do. List them:

step 4Offer the guide — not a pitch

A practice broker doesn’t want a sales call.

They want their sellers calm, informed and ready to close. Your guide helps with that:

Give first. Ask for nothing.

One rule before you offer anything else: paying for referrals brings in extra rules. The SEC treats a paid referral as an endorsement, with its own disclosures, and broker-dealers have their own limits. Ask compliance before you offer anything of value.

step 5Teach in the room

Study clubs, CPA firm staff lunches, dental association chapter meetings. They all need speakers.

Offer a 20-minute talk: “The 9 money decisions before you sell your practice.”

• Use slides your compliance team has approved
• Teach the decisions — never recommend a product from the front of the room
• Answer general questions; save personal advice for a meeting
• Offer the guide to anyone who wants it — and send it only to them
• Keep it a talk, not a sales dinner dressed up as education

The people who ask for the guide have told you something. They’re thinking about it.

step 6Ask clients the right way

Your best introductions come from clients who are already happy.

Often they bring it up themselves:

You didn’t ask for a testimonial. You made the introduction easy.

Reviews and testimonials have their own rules. Under the SEC marketing rule and FINRA Rule 2210 they need specific disclosures, and many firms limit them. Ask compliance before you ask any client for a review.

step 7Follow up for months, not days

A dentist selling “in the next three years” doesn’t need you this week.

So stay useful until they do:

1. Week 1The guide

   Send it to everyone who asked, with one line on how you help.

2. Month 1One section deeper

   A short note on one decision — “price vs. terms”, in plain English.

3. Month 3The next talk

   An invite to your next study club session or webinar.

4. Every OctoberYear-end timing

   A reminder of the year-end questions to raise with their CPA.

No predictions. No returns. Just the next useful thing, on time.

The rules, in one place

Everything above sits inside rules you already know. A reminder anyway:

• Promising returns or predicting performance
• Testimonials or endorsements without the required disclosures and compliance approval
• Mass emails to more than 25 retail investors without your firm’s approval process
• Paying anyone for referrals without compliance signing off first
• Personal advice in a seminar, an email to a stranger, or a guide

What to do this week

1. 01
   Pick your group

   One group, one money decision.

2. 02
   Outline the guide

   The questions they ask, in the order they ask them.

3. 03
   List 25 partners

   The people that group already trusts.

4. 04
   Book one talk

   A study club, an association chapter, a CPA lunch.

5. 05
   Send 5 notes

   Offer the guide. Ask for nothing.

Or hand the list and the first drafts to your AI team, and spend the week with clients.

Questions