In a byline for Wealth Management, FMG Suite Chief Marketing and Experience Officer Susan Theder argues that most advisors’ ideal client profiles describe who their best clients became after years of working together, not who those clients were the day they first called. Profiles built on age, assets and profession send marketing after households that mostly have an advisor already, and they sound like every other firm in town.
Theder makes the case for defining ideal clients by the moment that brought them in: a buyout deadline, a business sale offer, the death of a spouse or a concentrated stock position. Those moments create the questions prospects type into search engines and AI tools, which makes them the basis for website copy, FAQs, content and referral relationships. She closes with a practical exercise: reconstruct the first day of your top 25 to 50 households, narrow the patterns to two or three recurring moments and add a “What made you call us now?” field to every new client intake.
FAQ
Q: What is Susan Theder’s main argument about ideal client profiles?
A: FMG Suite CMO Susan Theder argues that most advisor ideal client profiles are accurate but aimed at the wrong point in time. They describe top clients as they are today, after years of growth with the firm, rather than the situation they were in when they first reached out. In her words, such a profile describes “who your clients became,” not the client you need to find.
Q: Why don’t demographic-based ideal client profiles work well for marketing?
A: Demographics like age, assets and profession are easy to pull from a CRM, but they can’t explain why someone needs an advisor right now. Theder’s example: two 53-year-olds with $750,000 look identical on paper, but only the one whose company is being acquired is likely to be looking for an advisor this month. Demographic profiles also point every firm at the same households, most of which already have an advisor.
Q: What is a moment-based ideal client profile?
A: It defines ideal clients by the life or financial event that prompted them to seek advice. For example, “We work with people in the first months after a financial life change, such as a deal, death, payout or deadline-driven decision.” That might include physicians leaving a group practice, executives holding concentrated company stock, business owners with an offer on the table or a recently widowed spouse managing unfamiliar accounts.
Q: How does a moment-based profile help with search, AI tools and answer engine optimization (AEO)?
A: Prospects don’t search for their demographic. They search for their question, such as “Should I take the lump sum or the pension?” Search engines and AI tools surface the sources that answer those questions clearly and specifically. Knowing the moments that bring clients in tells a firm which questions to answer in its website copy, FAQs and monthly content.
Q: How does this approach change referral and center-of-influence strategy?
A: Theder notes that clients refer people going through what they went through, not people who look like them today. If a firm’s best clients arrived mid-divorce, family law attorneys may be more valuable centers of influence than CPAs. The same thinking applies to next-gen clients: next gen is a moment, such as a first equity grant or a business sale, not an age bracket.
Q: How can advisors rebuild their ideal client profile?
A: Start with the 25 to 50 households identified as your best and reconstruct the day each one came to you: what had just happened, what problem came first, who referred them and what they asked first. Narrow the recurring patterns to two or three moments, since ten will dilute your marketing. Then add one question, stored in its own CRM field, to every new client intake: “What made you call us now?”
