April Week 3: The first advisory board meeting

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IN Practice for April: Creating and Maximizing a Client Advisory Board
This week: The first advisory board meeting

Background
First, we discussed the value in creating one or more client advisory boards. These boards consist of a few of your best clients and can provide you with valuable input (see Week 1).

Last week, we completed the selection of advisory board members and created an annual calendar.

This week
The best way to assure the participation of advisory board members is to make sure your quarterly board meetings are memorable, enjoyable and have take-away value. You can do that by focusing on topics of interest to your board members.

Remember the Top Client Background Chart you developed in March? Go over the column on the right — Lifestyle Interests/Financial Concerns — that you filled in for your best clients. From that you will be able to assemble a number of topics that are sure to resonate.
Here are some meeting topics that many top advisers have found to be perennial favorites of their best clients:

Preserving/Transferring Wealth
You can address your top clients’ concerns over children or grandchildren spending their inheritance by inviting an estate planning attorney or CPA to present options, including charitable giving.

Building Family Relationships
For clients with younger children or grandchildren, you may want to bring in an expert on how to raise financially responsible children. If your board members have children or grandchildren of college age, you can bring in an expert on college admissions, financial aid or student loans.

Business Succession Planning
Ask a local attorney specializing in small-business succession planning to review the need for a well-documented plan and review some common problems in succession.

Healthy Heart Gourmet Cooking
Healthy eating is often at the top of the minds of affluent clients. Turn that interest into a fun board meeting topic by holding the session at a gourmet kitchen and having a nutritionist and chef on hand to offer advice. Visit www.showguides.com for programs in your area.

Alternatives to Traditional Health Care Plans
Bring in a respected and knowledgeable insurance agent to explain alternatives to traditional business health care plans, including long-term health care. Make it clear to the agent and board members that the meeting has no sales agenda and is purely for informational purposes.

Once you have selected a topic, set a date for the board meeting about two months out and send a “hold the date” card to board members.

Follow that up two weeks later (six weeks before the event) with a written invitation. In the invitation, include a meeting agenda. Here’s a sample:

6:00-7:30 p.m. Welcome, cocktails, dinner. Discussion of new developments at your firm and input from guests on service and other issues.

7:30-8:30 p.m. Brief remarks (15 to 20 minutes) by invited guest, followed by interactive question and answer and discussion period.

Two weeks before the event, send out a reminder note or e-mail.
Call two days before the event.

Next Week: Executing a follow-up communications plan that engages your board members between each quarterly meeting.

Maureen Wilke has helped thousands of advisers increase the value of their businesses. The founder of Wilke Associates Inc. (connectedadvisor.com) in Glen Ellyn, Ill., Maureen has spent nearly two decades in executive positions in wealth management, sales and training. She has been associated with several highly regarded firms, including Nuveen Investments, and currently advises many product and advisory firms on issues of practice management and adviser productivity.

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