Chris Felton & Marlow Felton • Denver, CO
Transamerica Financial Advisors Inc.
We try to incorporate some sort of outreach into just about everything that we do in our practice. This can be for networking, prospecting, or recruiting purposes—sometimes all three together. On average, we are probably hosting an event or have a speaking engagement one to two times per week.
This begins with our involvement with our national firm as trainers on motivational and practice management topics. We speak to large audiences across the country and have trained and mentored over 100 advisors ourselves.
We also do a lot of events at our office or outside locations, inviting prospects and current clients and encouraging them to bring friends. We often feel we are in the event-planning business, making sure that we remind the team to invite, invite, invite. Being a leader, you have to get used to hearing yourself say the same thing 10 times to the same people. We want to drive people to our events, where we might have a money manager come in to do a presentation for clients or potential clients, or we might present our corporate overview and philosophy.
Networking is also very important, although this might be a delayed form of gratification. We belong to many groups and are constantly trying to meet new people and introduce contacts to other contacts. We actually met each other before getting married through networking contacts. We are very intentional about networking and getting other people connected, as well, not just ourselves.
In 2011 we published a book, “Couples Money,” which has created opportunities through workshops and coaching for couples. Though this is separate from our advisory practice, our speaking engagements around the book have certainly fed into our networking and prospecting efforts. It’s been very rewarding to be able to help couples with their relationships and money matters.
We also have special outreach programs for women, both as potential prospects and recruits. This can come in the form of publishing articles and holding seminars on topics such as estate planning for women. We often bring in a guest expert on a topic relevant to women and their money matters, typically getting a nice turnout with a great group of people.
All of these efforts combined help to fuel a stream of contacts and referrals. While we are not hesitant to ask current clients for referrals, more often than not we find that doing a great job for a client will lead them to refer our practice on their own.
Disclosure: Chris Felton and Marlow Felton are investment advisor representatives offering securities and investment advisory services through Transamerica Financial Advisors Inc. (TFA), Transamerica Financial Group Division, member FINRA, SIPC, and a registered investment advisor. Non-securities products and services are not offered through TFA. 5600 S. Quebec Street Suite 325-C Greenwood Village, CO 80111, 303-221-3639. Past performance does not guarantee future results. No investment strategy can assure a profit or protect against loss in declining markets. TFG0006367-04/15
Photography by Diane Huntress
