How do you build lasting relationships with your clients and make sure they don’t see you as just the provider of an ink-on-paper commodity?

One way to do this is to keep in regular communication, with routine “touches” throughout the year. At the Academy, we find that it’s ideal to make contact with clients twelve times per year. It would be a little odd for your estate planning attorney to call you every month or to send you an email, like clockwork, every few weeks. However, there are a variety of ways to provide value to your clients and remain in regular contact with them. Things like:

• Newsletters, both paper and electronic

• Seminar Invitations

• eAlerts

• Estate Plan Review Invitations

• Client Appreciation Events

A number of our Member firms also have a Client Advisory Board. They invite 6 to 10 loyal clients into the office every quarter to get feedback and to find out what additional services those clients would like the firm to provide.

Using strategies like these to stay in touch with your clients sets the stage for you to have lifetime and even multigenerational clients. Eventually, you’ll meet the children of your existing clients and have the opportunity to win their trust and loyalty. Before long, they will be clients as well.

You want to be viewed as the trusted advisor for the entire family. By remaining in contact through valuable information that is of interest to them, you continue to nurture the relationship as well as be visible and relevant. Make sure you do everything possible to be the sounding board and problem solver most are looking to rely upon.

In your experience, what are the most effective ways to keep in touch with your clients?

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (800) 846-1555
www.aaepa.com