Building strategic alliances with other professionals has long been one of the most effective ways to attract a steady stream of new clients and grow your business. Of the many advisors we coach, most of those who achieve breakthroughs that propel their practices to the highest levels of success are those who build great relationships with outside advisors such as accountants. In today's challenging times, these relationships are more important than ever.

Although many advisors struggle to make headway here, there is a process that will get you in front of the right professionals and allow you to demonstrate to them the value of a strategic alliance. The difficult environment we continue to face actually enhances your ability to put together a win-win deal between you and another professional.

The Right Way

CEG Worldwide's research has shown that the partners formed in strategic alliances tend to recommend the best clients to top advisors (see "The Right Ally," May 2008). But in order to get the benefits of working with an accountant, you first must learn the best way to form the alliance in the first place.

The first step is to identify and prioritize the CPA firms you might want to work with and find a partner at each firm who can serve as your cheerleader. The most effective method is to identify the best small- and medium-size accounting firms in your area. These firms would most likely have clients who are ideal for advisors pursuing affluent investors.

Read online what you can about each of these firms, talk to your local chamber of commerce and rely on word of mouth to identify the best possible local firms. You might also ask your top clients about their accountants. A referral and recommendation from a client can go a long way toward opening doors. Or you can search a free list of thousands of CPAs at www.cpadirectory.com.

Once you have identified three to five suitable firms, pick up the phone and make the initial contact. Simply say that you'd like to get together and explore whether there's a basis to create a strategic alliance. We've found that most CPAs are amenable to discussing how to better serve their own clients and build a secondary revenue stream.

After you get a "yes," arrange a meeting with your contact at the firm. At this meeting, communicate the opportunity that exists in the current environment. Present the research I've mentioned in my recent columns showing that 81% of affluent investors intend to leave their advisors and only 2% plan to refer their friends to their current advisors. Then bring up industry research showing that about half (50.9%) of all CPA clients would be very likely to buy financial investment products from their CPAs, were they available, and about three-quarters (74.6%) would be likely to buy insurance products. That should make it clear that their clients need help-and in fact are practically begging for it.

This initial discussion should also address four important aspects of the potential relationship:

Foundational aspects. If you don't feel you can work together from the beginning, it's unlikely you'll be able to develop a relationship over time. During your conversation, ask yourself if there is chemistry between you and the CPA. Do both parties value integrity?

Collaborative aspects. You will want to walk through the basics of how you would collaborate with the CPA and the firm. Collaboration is about whether you and the firm could play well together in the professional-services sandbox. So ask if the firm's culture is truly open and ready to work with a financial advisor.

Process aspects. At this point, you should also describe the process that you use with your clients in some detail. This will demonstrate that you are first and foremost concerned with clients' overall financial well-being. Show that you have a process that really sets you apart, such as the discovery meeting discussed in last month's column. That's exactly what allowed one of the advisors in our coaching program to develop a key alliance. By walking the CPA through his process and showing that it was clear, compelling and different from the norm, the advisor recently obtained a $3.5 million relationship, thanks to the CPA's referral.

Financial aspects. Explain that there has to be "economic glue" and clear financial understanding between the two parties. Typically, CPA firms receive between 20% and 50% of the gross revenue generated from a strategic alliance, which means the financial services provider is receiving between 50% and 80% percent of the gross revenues. You can do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation to show how financially successful this arrangement can be for the CPA firm.