How to Grow Without Prospecting – Erik Strid

Let’s not bury the lede: This AdvisorCon speaker is an FA who had a very special year last year. And he’s on track to do it again in 2022. 

How special? Check out these stats:

• $99M in total new assets in 2021
  • $54M in new assets from existing clients
  • $45M in assets from new clients

Best of all, this FA is achieving these numbers without blowing his marketing budget on expensive seminars or his schedule on exhaustive cold campaigns. 

Based just outside Philadelphia, Erik is one of the founding principals of Concentus Wealth Advisors, a team with over $850M in assets under management. 

Where are these new assets coming from? You can sum it up in a single word: 

Connections.

Here’s how Bill Good has always defined a “connection”: Someone you know socially – through your hobbies, religion, charitable pursuits, neighborhood, or these days, social media – that you would like to do business with. For over 20 years, we’ve known that connections could be one of the most powerful sources of growth, ever since Bill and an advisor named Dick Wilson created the Wilson Campaign and raised $50M in new assets in just a few months.   

Erik has taken the concept of “connections” to a whole new level. He doesn’t just use the Wilson Campaign – though that is an important part of the equation, as you’ll see. He has built a massive list of connections (which he calls Centers of Influence) by embracing multiple channels of communication.

We’re talking LinkedIn, Video marketing for financial advisors, Webinars, Events, Networking…

You get the idea. The result? Dozens of new connections made each week. Multiple new appointments each month. And as we’ve already covered, tens of millions in new assets over the course of a year. Because Erik doesn’t just make connections. He nurtures them. That way, when the day comes when each connection needs a financial advisor, they always think of him first. 

At AdvisorCon, Erik will show you multiple strategies for both building a massive list of high-level connections and developing them into full-blown prospects! 

You will learn:

• More about the three types of connections Erik has, where he looks for them, and the appropriate introduction method for each.
• How Erik uses LinkedIn to not only make high-level connections but start a dialogue with them! (In July alone, Erik made 130 new connections on this channel, many of whom he has already met with.)
• How Erik uses optimistic videos, educational webinars, and drip letters to stay in front of his connections, so they always think of him first when they need financial advice. (You’ve got to see what Erik’s doing with video!)
• Erik’s amazing “Lunch with Interesting People” strategy for actually meeting his connections. (Erik’s presentation will be a home run for this one idea alone.)
• How Erik has adapted classic strategies – like the legendary Wilson Campaign as well as in-person events – to take his relationship with connections to the next level.
• What to do – and what not to do – to turn your connections into bona fide Hot Prospects… who will then become clients!

BONUS: Much of what Erik does with his connections is also how he gets outside assets and referrals from existing clients, so you will also come away with invaluable tactics for boosting your client marketing! 

Every advisor wants to grow. Most advisors who achieve the kind of numbers Erik has, though, rely on pricey seminars, massive direct mail campaigns, or exhaustive cold calling. In other words, traditional prospecting. Make no mistake, these channels still work, but they can be hard on your budget and your calendar – and in this post-pandemic world we live in, it’s extra difficult to get going if you don’t already have the right infrastructure in place.

Erik is proof, however, that you can grow by leaps and bounds without prospecting. Instead, by embracing multiple alternate channels of communication, you can build a thriving book of business through your connections and clients alone.

It’s the perfect way to grow in 2023 and beyond. A process that’s both less fuss and more fun. For a result that means less money going out and more money coming in.