Why I Invite COIs to My Client Advisory Board Meetings

Editor’s note: In this edition of What’s Working Now, an AdvisorRADIO feature in which Horsesmouth members tell us about recent success they have had running and growing their businesses, we hear from advisor John Gigliello, who invites COIs to sit in with his client advisory board.

The following article includes edited excerpts of this conversation, or you can watch the full interview below.

I’ve been in the advisory business and securities industry since 2003, now. Before that, I had a long prior career in corporate taxation—a lot of useless tax information in my head there! But financial services, it’s been since 2003.

I’m with Albany Financial Group. There are several advisors here. We’re all self-employed in essence, all competitors, but we all have our little strengths, our own niche areas. Mine would be tax planning. Right now I have a paraplanner and an assistant.

COIs a primary driver of new business

The primary way I get new business is through centers of influence. I’ve really established some key relationships with a couple of local CPAs and a couple of state planning attorneys. Specifically, through the college that we attended—Siena College up here. They have a really tight-knit alumni association. I’ve worked that and the Siena story always comes up. So that’s where I found these guys and we all connect to that.

It’s not something that’s happened overnight. This has been a long-term investment on my part, just getting to know these folks. They know when a relationship is sincere and when it’s not sincere. I try to get them involved in many different aspects of my business.

Client advisory board very fruitful

One other area that has been very fruitful for me would be the client advisory board. Every six months, we have client advisory board meetings to which I invite these centers of influence. I rotate through the members, and COIs are always part of the client advisory board.

I usually ask them to serve for at least a year. These would be all my A and B clients. Those of course, are the ones we want to keep in order to replicate. And so I ask them to sign up for a year.

And at first I was somewhat reluctant, because really when you think about our client advisory board, we’re trying to get some business this year, but you want their feedback. So in my mind it’s like, “Oh, jeez, what’s in it for them?” But honestly they enjoy it very much. They’re happy to give feedback and to know that their opinion counts, which is the most important thing.

Before the virus we would meet in person in our conference room. I typically like to ask at least six to eight clients to be part of the board. Of course, you never get 100% participation. So if we can get five to six clients and then a couple of COIs to join us, then I’m very happy. So that all unfolded obviously before the virus in person. Now, it’s all virtual. We had a virtual meeting in February of this year, and it was just like we were in person.

Have a clear-cut agenda

You have to have a clear-cut agenda. Obviously this is important, valuable time to these folks, so they have to know why they’re there. I send that agenda out typically a week to 10 days in advance. So they get a good look at it. At the meeting I ask them for feedback on the agenda, and then we just go at it. And it’s very informal. They ask questions at any point. I usually bring in some type of food, whether it’s a dinner or breakfast, depending on obviously the time of day, and then a little parting gift. They all appreciate a nice, fine bottle of wine. So I typically have a parting gift.

Typically we go over initially what’s working, what’s not working. What do you like about the firm? What is it that we do really well? But more importantly, I’m always looking for what are we not doing well? Where can we improve? I just don’t want this to be a kumbaya where everybody is, “Oh, we love John,” and that’s it. Nothing else to talk about. I want to hear where we need to improve. So it typically starts out that way. What can we do better? And we have a good conversation about that.

And then I’ll just run some ideas past them about some projects that we’re thinking about. We typically have six to 12 projects a year that we keep on our to-do list here at the firm. One example would be the online calendar. For the longest time, our broker dealer would not allow us for compliance purposes to use an online calendar, but thankfully they rectified that. So we can now, but years ago we would have conversations with clients. What do you think of the online calendar? It’s going to be an additional cost to the firm, but would it be something that you guys would use? And they all said, “Of course, we love the online account.” So just running projects by them to get their input.

Taking a team approach

If I can get an attorney and a CPA in the same room together, it just lends more, I think, to the meeting, especially in the eyes of the clients that are there. It’s so important to have a team approach to everything that we do. You’ve heard that a million times. Right?

As much as I’d like to think I know about financial planning, obviously, I don’t know everything. So that’s why when you can get a couple of these professionals in the room at the same time, it really gives the clients the impression that, “Hey, John’s working on a team approach here.”

The COIs are not necessarily there for estate planning input or to give knowledge to clients. I mean, if that question comes up, certainly they’re there right in their room and they can answer that question. But honestly, it’s there to show clients that there is a team approach, and to show the COIs that, hey, John is taking the time. We want them thinking, “These advisors take the time to pull the clients together and to include us in this team.” It’s really about the team approach. I want these COIs to know that I’ve got a client advisory board and I take the team approach, and I want you guys to be part of my team. So, that’s my motive, so to speak.

It’s all about education

We’ve taken the approach here with my practice that it’s all about education, educating clients. I know Horsesmouth is big on that.

I’ve taught as an adjunct professor at Siena College for many years in many different subjects—accounting, personal finance and other topics—if I weren’t doing this, I would be most likely a college professor or a high school teacher.

So it’s about educating clients and we’ve taken the approach, thanks to Horsesmouth material, of a three-legged stool. We’re really focusing on Medicare, Social Security and tax planning. It’s really important to do as much as we can to educate clients around those three subjects and the COIs again, really important as Debbie Taylor has mentioned many times. With those folks as well, I think we have a pretty good formula there.

An hour webinar is too long

As you know, the rules within those areas of discipline are quite complex, right? So my thinking on a shorter webinar versus a longer webinar is that if I just put on an hour-long webinar on tax planning with all the changes due to the CARES Act and the Secure Act, I can virtually guarantee I’d have clients fast asleep within 15 minutes or so!

I try to keep it short, maybe one potential topic that may interest the group. And a 15-minute segment. I’ve been trying this and it seems to work. It seems to be getting some traction versus the longer content of a webinar. So it’s just something that I’m trying a little bit different and we’ll see.

The simple example would be back when the virus first broke out, it would be something along the lines of Medicare and simply when to apply, just that whole topic about when to apply for Medicare, when to start thinking about it. That’s an example of a little snippet that I took out of the Medicare module, so to speak, and just kept it short and sweet. And that answers a lot of questions for folks. So that would be a simple example.

I’m licensed through United Healthcare to sell insurance. I certainly don’t advertise it. I don’t go looking for that business, but again, it’s one-stop shopping. The age 64 seems to be the sweet spot. I’ve got clients who’re inundated with information at 64.

I often get the question in prior years, “John, do you do this? Do you offer insurance?” But I do offer life, accident and now, health insurance. And they go, “Wow, that’s great. One stop shopping.” Of course, I always recommend “Please, you need to shop around and get the best price.” But a lot of times they just end up right here.

Content is open to all

We try to open the webinars up to everybody. We do send out a master link to all our current clients. But Lisa, my administrative assistant, tries to get some of the content on LinkedIn, too, and on Facebook, as much as we’re able to. I would say that’s open to everybody who’s interested.

Another area that we’re using is a short five-to-seven-minute format presenting a letter that’s issued by my broker-dealer. LPL Financial issues once-a-month commentary on the markets and where we are economically and globally. And it comes out in the form of a ghost letter. So it’s pre-approved, compliance approved. And honestly, in this format I’m just reading the letter. It’s five minutes at the most and probably the most watched webinar video that we have.

It goes up on our website. We’ll send out an email with a link and a note trying to redirect them to the website. Try to get the business going that way. Vimeo is where we’re currently hosting our videos. And again, through LinkedIn, Facebook is what we’re using right now.

My personal Facebook IQ is not very high. My kids make fun of me because I rely a lot on my administrative assistant to manage that process. I’ll be perfectly honest with you, we’re not currently doing any advertising on Facebook.

Jumping the compliance hurdle to live webinars?

Right now my 20-minute webinars are prerecorded. Chris Holman, Horsesmouth Executive Coach, is trying to push me out of my comfort level a little bit, maybe to do something live. That’s fine; I’m open to that idea. Again, we run into some compliance snags with that. So I’ve got to clear those hurdles, but that’s on the fall agenda, try to get a live webinar out there.

It’s always the Q and A session where I run into a snag for compliance purposes. So everything to date has been prerecorded. I’ve asked clients for feedback on that as well, from my client advisory board in particular. And it’s really 50/50 as far as “We would like to see live events” versus “Pre-recorded are fine.” There’s really not one way that’s a majority vote.

The connecting with prospects part of it is slow. The call to action is very important at the end of these. And honestly, I don’t know if I’m managing that call to action properly just yet. It would be clear that since I’m not getting a lot of follow-up from referrals or prospects, maybe I need to manage that process a little bit.

COIs still key for business

But overall business has been very good, actually. Centers of influence, I think, have a major role here. We’re a comprehensive financial planning shop, and we really stress that. Clients, obviously, during these times are under a lot of stress, and there are just a lot of questions about their future retirement, especially those that are in their late fifties, early sixties. And the power of comprehensive planning during uncertain times, it’s just incredible. It really is.

I can’t tell you how many times that I got phone calls about portfolios back in April, March, saying “Portfolios are down 15%, 18%, 20%,” but you have a virtual meeting and you talk to them about the plan, the long-term goals that you’ve established, the Monte Carlo results. And you can just sense the calm come over these folks, that, “OK, this is really not as bad as I thought it was.”

Looking ahead

Before the virus, we typically did both a spring and a fall event for clients. One might be educational content. One might be more social in nature. So we’re looking at doing something in the fall. One of those two formats, we’ll see, we haven’t decided yet. But again, it’s just going to be virtual.

When it comes to advice, I would just say do it. I know that sounds simple, but I know a lot of advisors that have thought about an advisory board over the years and they’ve never done it, but it’s not hard. Really. Just go ahead and do that.