When Accounting Today and Cetera Financial Specialists set about identifying leading CPA wealth managers for our Seeking Success project, we chose firms whose revenue growth from wealth management was higher than for their other services. But we could have chosen other measures, such as growth in assets under management, or number of new clients.
[IMGCAP(1)]As it happens, our pacesetters attracted over a third more new wealth management clients -- and one of the ways they did that was through a proactive approach to referrals. Firms in general report that just under half of new clients come from referrals.
But the pacesetters are more likely to specifically ask current clients to refer new ones, more likely to tell current clients that they accept referrals, and less likely to passively accept referrals without actually soliciting them.
Created in partnership with Cetera Financial Specialists LLC. Visit
All data from an October 2013 survey.
