As a financial advisor, you understand the value of strategic partnerships, especially with CPAs. These partnerships can be a goldmine for high-quality referrals and expanded service offerings. However, many advisors struggle to establish and maintain these relationships effectively. This 9-step checklist, inspired by best practices from successful advisor-CPA partnerships, will guide you through the process of partnering with CPAs and maximizing CPA referrals.
The foundation of a successful partnership with CPAs lies in identifying the right potential partners. This step is crucial and deserves careful consideration. Not all CPAs will be a good fit for your practice, and partnering with the wrong CPA can lead to frustration and wasted resources.
When defining the characteristics of your ideal CPA partner, consider the following key factors:
Based on these factors, create a detailed profile of your ideal CPA partner. This profile will serve as a guide in your search and help you quickly identify promising potential partners. Consider ranking these characteristics in order of importance to your practice to further refine your search criteria.
Remember, the goal is not just to find any CPA willing to partner, but to identify those with whom you can build a long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationship. This careful selection process at the outset can save you significant time and effort in the long run, and set the stage for a truly successful partnership.
Once you know what you're looking for, it's time to find potential CPA partners:
As an action step, begin with creating a list of 10-15 CPAs who match your ideal partner profile.
Before reaching out, you must clearly define what you bring to the partnership:
As an advisor reaching out, you will need to create a concise "elevator pitch" that articulates your value to both the CPA and their clients.
First impressions matter. When reaching out to potential CPA partners:
Action step: Draft a personalized outreach message for each CPA on your list.
Also, joining a program like Elite Resource Team will give you multiple ideas on exactly how to reach out to CPAs, including exact templates!
CPAs need to trust your expertise before they'll refer clients. This is why you’ll need to focus on education, such as:
Developing an educational presentation or writing an article specifically for CPAs and their clients would go a long way to accomplishing this step.
For a partnership to thrive, both parties need to clearly understand the terms:
While this is a difficult step for many, creating a partnership agreement template outlining roles, responsibilities, and expectations is essential! Also, be aware that much of the potential revenue sharing with a CPA is made possible only if you connect to a Virtual Family Office, which opens up to you a wide variety of services that you can’t fulfill on your own. The Elite Resource Team program connects advisors to a VFO and also outlines exactly how to create agreements, responsibilities, and expectations with any CPA you reach out to.
Develop a system for working together effectively:
Action step: Without a system, collaboration will be difficult, so you must create a system for collaborative planning and client management that you each can follow. As a reminder, our program opens up to you—and any CPA you work with—a system to collaborate in that is already built, which includes a connection to a Virtual Family Office of over 75 specialists.
Keep the partnership strong by consistently adding value:
One way to provide value is simply creating a content calendar to follow where you are reminded to share valuable insights with your CPA partners.
Regularly assess the effectiveness of your CPA partnerships:
Implement a system for tracking key metrics and schedule quarterly reviews of your CPA partnerships. Like any successful partnership, regular communication and discussing things that can be improved upon are essential for success.
While this checklist provides a solid foundation, leveraging advanced strategies and resources can significantly accelerate your success in partnering with CPAs. Programs like Elite Resource Team offer tools and training specifically designed to help financial advisors build profitable partnerships with CPAs.
These advanced programs should provide:
To that last point, any advisor-CPA relationship is supercharged with a connection to a Virtual Family Office. In fact, we would go as far as to say that an advisor-CPA relationship that doesn’t include a third-party VFO connection is incomplete. This is because a VFO greatly expands your potential service offerings to things such as:
The goal is not just to trade your expertise with a CPA’s expertise, but rather to connect to a national network of specialists. By following this 9-step checklist and considering advanced partnership-building programs, you can build strong, mutually beneficial relationships with CPAs. These partnerships will not only increase your CPA referrals but also enhance your ability to provide comprehensive financial services to your clients.
Remember, successful partnerships with CPAs are built on trust, mutual benefit, and a commitment to serving clients' best interests. Start implementing this checklist today, and watch your practice grow through the power of strategic CPA partnerships.