How to find clients as a self-employed financial advisor

If you’re a self-employed financial advisor, as opposed to one working for a large advisory or consulting firm, you’ll be in charge of finding your own clients. This can be a challenging task, but there are a few things you can do to make it much easier.

This article will provide you with a ton of advice on how you can find clients as a financial advisor. We’ll look at strategies such as creating a business website, approaching clients directly, and more:

• Freelancing sites
• Approaching clients directly
• Attend networking events
• Create a business website

You might not identify as a freelance financial advisor, but if your income primarily comes from doing short term jobs from many different clients, you might get a lot of use from a freelancing website. These work like an online noticeboard: first, individuals and organisations post jobs that they need doing on the website. 

Next, freelancers will send applications to the individual or organisation explaining why they’re the best person for the job. The original poster can then pick who they want to work for them at their leisure.

Freelancing sites are good for finding work quickly, as the larger ones usually have tons of jobs available. In addition, some freelancing sites allow users to create profiles, so potential clients can seek out specific freelancers and send them job offers. 

Most of the best freelancing sites are non-specific, which means they accept job offers and users from all sorts of industries. As a financial advisor, you work in a specific industry, so you may want to find a freelancing site specific to the financial sector.

One example of this is PARO. While this website needs you to apply and demonstrate that you’re highly qualified before they list your services, the clients it will send your way can make the process worth it.

If you’re feeling bold and confident that you have the necessary skills, you might consider approaching individuals and organisations directly to ask for work. 

This strategy requires a lot of preparation, but it can be an excellent strategy. It’s especially effective if you specialise in corporate finance, as larger companies might not find advisors through normal channels. In these instances, the only way to gain them as a client is to approach them directly.

If you want to approach a client to ask for work, the first step is identifying a potential client. This will vary depending on the services you’re qualified to offer. Many financial advisors specialise in a particular sector, so if you do, start looking at businesses within that industry as potential clients. If you know any that are hiring, you might be able to offer your services as a freelancer or consultant. 

Next, you need to know exactly how you’ll ask the potential clients for a meeting. Depending on the situation, you might be able to receive a work offer the first time you contact a potential client, but they’ll more often organise a meeting to discuss the terms of your contract and pay. 

When contacting a potential client, make sure you explain your relevant qualifications and how you can help their business. You should also make sure you’re using a communications channel they prefer: don’t send an email to a company that conducts all its business operations over the phone.

Attending networking events is an excellent way to expand your network. It provides the opportunity to meet new contacts and introduce your business to them. While only a few of these contacts will turn into clients, meeting as many people as possible is still a good idea. This is because you never know who might create new opportunities for your business or introduce you to potential clients later on. 

If you’re a financial advisor, you’ll be welcome at many different conferences where large corporations gather. This is because your services will be handy to any company that needs someone able to give qualified financial advice. So keep an eye out for any large networking events in your area. Even if they don’t exactly align with your industry or target market, you may still benefit from attending.

Creating an online presence is vital for any self-employed individual looking for work. The first step in developing this online presence is to create a business website. 

A website provides a hub to store your contact information, like social media links, phone numbers, and email addresses. This means that customers can easily get in touch with you after finding your website.

Building a website does require some technical skills, so you might consider hiring a professional to help create the perfect website. There are also a lot of easy-to-use website builders out there that you can try if hiring a professional is too expensive.

Another bonus of having a website is that people who search for ‘financial advisors’ using Google might get sent to your website. That said, they’ll only see your website if it ranks highly in Google’s search results. 

This is where SEO comes in. SEO stands for search engine optimisation: it refers to the process of improving your website so that it ranks higher on search engine results pages. 

Common SEO tips include:

• Making your website easy to navigate.
• Making it load quickly.
• Using relevant keywords in your content.

Because of the complexity of search engine technology, thousands of things can affect your SEO, so make sure you look into a few SEO tips while building your website.

Looking for clients can be much easier when you use strategies like the ones we’ve suggested, but it can still be fairly time-consuming. If you’re using a lot of your time to find clients, take care not to fall behind in other aspects of your business, such as your accounting and financial management. Thousands of self-employed people across the UK use Countingup to make bookkeeping easier and much less time-consuming.

Countingup is the business current account with built-in accounting software that allows you to manage all your financial data in one place. With features like automatic expense categorisation, invoicing on the go, receipt capture tools, tax estimates, and cash flow insights, you can confidently keep on top of your business finances wherever you are. 

You can also share your bookkeeping with your accountant instantly without worrying about duplication errors, data lags or inaccuracies. Seamless, simple, and straightforward! 

Find out more here.