How wealth management courses generate clients for financial planners

Americans today are eager to build the wealth management skills they need to feel confident and comfortable in their financial futures. Part of the interest comes from inadequate personal financial education in the past. 

Only 3 in 7 Americans are financially literate (and only 1 in 3 adults worldwide). Of the people with high financial literacy scores, 73% claim they’ve needed to teach themselves through personal experience — but this is also risky. A poor understanding of wealth management exposes individuals to unnecessary financial risks. The TIAA Institute has found that, when it comes to wealth management, topics related to financial risk are the area in which people tend to have the least knowledge.

Wealth management courses are on the rise

This landscape has led to great interest in self-help resources for managing personal finances and building wealth. We can see this in the enrollment trends for wealth management courses, which have accelerated even as a global pandemic has limited access to courses in a physical classroom. Online seminars from FMT are now attracting 20% more attendees than our in-person courses did even before COVID-19.

How does a financial course generate clients?

You might ask yourself how financial education fits into your client acquisition strategy. After all, if it’s a non-sales context like a classroom, aren’t you teaching attendees how to make decisions for themselves, without needing a financial advisor? In a sense, yes. However, taking a course under the guidance of a licensed financial advisor is like a preview of the value in your services.

An objective approach to generating clients with a wealth management course works because:

• Pre-qualified prospects come to you. Other forms of marketing for financial planners, such as radio ads, cold calls, billboards, and direct mail often reach uninterested or poor fit individuals. By comparison, wealth management courses bring in an audience that has self-selected and said they’re interested in your financial advice.

• You’ll build relationships naturally. A wealth management course gives you the chance to engage directly with an audience without the pressure of a sale, building trust and demonstrating expertise to a conversion-ready audience. Everyone can relax because there’s no expectation of a sales pitch or pressure to commit or buy a financial product during their time in the course.

• Instructing the course establishes credibility. Your audience gains confidence in your expertise on wealth management topics through their time in the course. Becoming an instructor builds your authority, so attendees know where to turn if they need more guidance or information after the course has ended.

• It supports a local marketing strategy. When you teach a course in a classroom setting at a local university or school, you're connecting with interested local residents. Prospects can find FMT courses through a digital course locator that allows them to filter by location.

• After the course, attendees follow up for 1:1 sessions. Over one year, an advisor in our system who teaches 4-6 courses can expect to book roughly 30-45 one-on-one follow-up sessions with course attendees. Just a single course can spark a handful of valuable new relationships.

• You win new clients! A typical course on the FMT platform results in 4 new clients and $2-5M in new AUM.

Take the legwork out of marketing for financial planners and deploy a turnkey educational marketing program with FMT. Our wealth management courses have been tested and proven by advisors like you for more than 20 years, educating over 500,000 attendees. Contact FMT today to learn more about how our courses can generate new clients for your firm.

This article was originally published in June 2022. Updated February 2023.