Whether you're a veteran financial advisor with a long client list or a rookie looking to build your book, you might consider focusing your efforts on a particular niche. After all, people searching for a financial advisor look for someone compatible with them and knowledgeable about their needs and goals. If you choose your clients as carefully as they choose you, you may perform at your most effective level.

Ashley Folkes, a financial advisor in Hoover, Alabama, said this could be key for advisors stuck with a diminishing book or someone newer wanting to navigate their early career. "Identify a niche early in your career and become known for it," he suggested. "Some of the most successful advisors specialize in specific strategies or planning techniques. Prospecting can be challenging, but being recognized as the best in a particular area will attract prospects to you."

You can begin by taking a closer look at your client base. This will help you target the type of clients you want. Are there client discussions that get you particularly excited? Do you have an ongoing interest that your advisory career could dovetail? Then, forming a niche practice—or at lea𓂃st part of y🅠our practice—might be for you.

Sifting for Gold

We'll begin by presuming you have clients and return to those new to the business in a moment. First, print out a list of your clients and grab a few highlighters of various colors. We'll use green, yellow, and pink.

Now, go down the list, stopping at each name. Consider what it's like to work with each person.

Let's say the first client is a couple named Jones. They are pleasant, open to new ideas, and committed to following your plan. When the markets tumble, they shrug off market volatility as a part of long-term investing. They put away money each month. They've even referred a few friends to you. If all your clients were like them, life would be peachy. Highlight this one green.

"I first thought about who I liked to serve and what parts of planning I liked best," said Jeremy Keil, a financial advisor at Keil Financial Partners in New Berlin, Wisconsin, who focuses on people nearing retirement age. "I looked at how and why my clients from the previous five years had come to me and the age they were at the time. Virtually every new client was roughly 54, and their kids just graduated, or 62, and they were just about to retire. Perfect! I liked those people and their situation, and they seemed to like me!"

It's also important to consider the flip side: the types of clients you don't like working with or prove the most difficult to assist. Imagine that next on your list is a couple named Lee. When they call, you reach for the antacids. They complain about your fees, how the neighbor makes more on their investments than Lee does, and how the person on the radio said your recommendations stink. Do you want more like Lee? Heck no! Highlight this one pink.

Most other clients will likely fall somewhere between th🐻e Jones and Lees of the world. Highlight these clients ▨in yellow.

Look for Common Traits

Now, revisit the clients in the green group. Look for commonalities. Here's an example list:

• Profession
• 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Generation X or Baby Boomer
• Business owner
• Family responsibilities

The possibilities are endless.

Next, you need to fine-tune your results. Suppose women aged 35 to 55 make up most of your green group. What do they have in common besides gender identity? Some commonalities might be marital status, occupation, net worth, and number of dependents. For example, let's say that most of your green group are single women who own their own companies.

That's a niche.

Once you've done this exercise with your green group, do the same with the yellow group. You might discover a few more clients who just need some of your time to become green clients. Below are examples culled from niches found among Investopedia's top 100 financial advisors.

Assess Your Clients' Needs

You⛦r next step will be to consider what financial conce꧋rns these clients share.

A few of them could be as follows:

• Income volatility
• Healthcare costs
• Retirement income

To addr🌼ess these concerns, you might offer products such as the following:

• Medical insurance
• Disability insurance
• Certificates of deposit (CDs)
• Traditional individual retirement accounts
• 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Simplified employee pensions
• Keogh plans

Forming a🅰 niche often makes it easier to support your clients because mꦚany who fall into your niche will have the same problems or concerns.

Forming a niche "really helped my business because then I could use my one process and keep improving on that one process to plan for all my clients," Keil said. "Now all my clients get great service, and they know exactly what I’ll do for anyone they refer to me."

Clone Your Best Clients

Now that you know whom you enjoy working with, their common problems, and how to meet their needs, you'll want to work with more people like them.

One approach is to find out w☂hat organizations they belong to, such as the following:

• Professional organizations
• Social clubs
• Charitable foundations

A 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:good strategy i𝕴s to become involved with these organizations. There are many wa𓆉ys to do this:

• Write articles for their newsletters. Most organizations have a monthly newsletter, and their editors are almost always looking for interesting pieces relevant to their members. Be sure to include your contact number and email in the article (typically, it's at the bottom of the article).
• Offer to speak. Program directors often need speakers. Let them know that you're available. This can put you in front of a group that shares your niche. Be informative in any talks and avoid pitching them too directly, which can be a turnoff.

Networking is a lot of work. However, you'll be meeting people who are your ideal clients.

What If I Have No Clients?

Suppose you're 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:new to the business and have no clients at all.

No problem. You can determine your niche by using the same strategy. For example, what's your favorite hobby? Let's say you live and breathe golf and know the golf pros at every course for miles around. These professionals can pair you up for a round of golf with qualified prospects. What generally happens when riding around in a golf cart for three to four hours? Sooner or later, the other person will ask: "What do you do for a living?"

Imagine how great it would be to have clien𒁃ts as passionate a𒈔bout the game as you are.

It won't happen overnight, but after people see you around the club, they'll feel like they know you and will be more likely to choose you when they need the help of a financial professional.

You can start building a niche very early, even while studying to be 💖a financial advisor.

Jay Zigmont, founder of ChildFree Wealth in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, told us how he arrived at his niche. "I chose to serve child-free people because my wife and I are child-free, meaning we don't have kids and don't plan on having kids," he said. "When I was studying to become a CFP professional, I was surprised to find that there was never a mention of being child-free in any of the education programs. That means that nearly all financial planning has assumptions in it that don't fit child-free people." 

About a quarter of U.S. households don't have children, but the financial planning community wasn't representing them, he thought. "They deserve to have a financial planner who serves people like them; that's why I started Childfree Wealth," Zigmont said.

If you already know who you want to serve, you can start your business with a specific brand and focus. Then, you can gear some of your studies toward learning more about your target clients.

The Bottom Line

Finding a niche is one of the best ways to grow your clientele an💮d level of success. Growing a niche allows you to become an expert at assisting a specific group of people and build a name for yourself that will help with networking and word-of-mouth advertising. Indeed, clients might sometimes seek you out instead of the other way around.

If you haven't found your niche yet, try to identify one based on your top clients, then focus your services and products on that group so you can most effectively meet their needs.