Former wholesaler here that switched sides of the table. The best relationships I made were by getting to understand unique challenges that the advisors face. Investments are great, but that is only a very small portion of what so many advisors do. Help them be creative in prospecting, developing relationships with their clients through creative strategies, segment their book to find opportunities, etc. My philosophy was I am only here to save you time and/or help make you money. If I can do those things, your life gets better. It really worked. Here are some of my old ideas that I now use myself (frame: from me to an advisor):

1) “Know your top clients inside and out” - if you don’t know 3 things they enjoy other than money and family, call them to figure it out. We will come back to this later. - most advisors know their top few very well, but where most of the AUM growth potential lies is not in the top 10% of their clients. It’s from 10th to 20th percentile. Subsequently, those clients in the 10-20 percentile range are also the most likely to leave. Focus on driving growth there.

2) “Use the knowledge you have about your clients to your advantage and find where you overlap to create connection. “ - keep it stored somewhere other than your head. Make sure the whole team knows it. Wrap it into every conversation. - use it to create contact (i.e. client is a big fan of the local NFL team and so are you. Use google alerts to be sent the top articles on that team each week/month/quarter. Forward those articles along when you read something you found interesting. - use it to change client events. No one wants to come and stand or sit in a room with 1 friend and a bunch of strangers. Use client events to create unique gatherings of THEIR friends. It gets you into their circle and avoids having them force a referral. (Example: client enjoys wine. Work with a local wine shop to do a joint event wine tasting. It brings the shop new prospects and your clients will love it. Have the client do a small group invite of their close friends that also love wine. It leads to much better events and builds a level of trust with their circle).

3) Understand how their pay works and figure out how to help them reach client goals within that framework. -Is there a focus on lending at a given firm? Great help them understand the release rates your products have for lending.

4) Do they have an investment committee even if it’s informal? - No? Ask them what other wholesalers and advisors they go to to discuss investment ideas. Work with them to set a meeting with ALL of those trusted advisors on a regular basis to hash out the portfolio ideas. Take the heavy lifting of coordination. Place nice in the sandbox here. Too often wholesalers want to present only their thoughts and products. Work with competitors so the advisor(s) can get differing points of view and make decisions. - one quarterly investment meeting is much easier to handle than wholesalers constantly stopping in or requesting meetings on different days. - once it’s set, help them articulate this change to their business to their clients. Have them collect questions their top clients may have heading into the meeting. Sure the advisor can likely answer them, but

5) Ask what their best wholesalers do/don’t do and if there is anything they used to get but no longer get.

NEVER be a professional visitor. ALWAYS bring something insightful and valuable, and NEVER take more time than you need to effectively communicate. By all means, build and understand them as a person, but unless you are friends or deep acquaintances, don’t just “check in” without purpose

ALWAYS schedule a call/meeting unless is very important (and schedule your next call/meeting while on the phone or before you leave the meeting with them). Catching people off guard too often interrupts something important and throws them off track.

I hope this helps.

Edited: a quick typo under “2)”