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Financial Planning > Tax Planning

Build alliances with CPAs

By Daniel Williams

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One way to make sure you have your practice pointing in the right direction from a suitability standpoint is by developing partnerships with CPAs. One advisor, Brandon Stuerke, president of Golden Financial Group, has made aligning with CPAs one of the cornerstones of his business model and has found great success with it.

Stuerke says many advisors see roadblocks and objections when attempting to develop a strong alliance with a CPA. The problem, he says, is that too many advisors approach CPAs with worn-out “sales” pitches. In the three points below Stuerke shows how you can overcome those three primary roadblocks.

1) Offering to Cross-Refer Clients

Let’s be honest. If you’ve ever tried this approach, no doubt you’ve heard the CPA say, “Sure Mr./Mrs. Advisor, I’ll send you clients! Why don’t you give me your card, and I’ll call you when someone has a need?” Enthusiastically, you pull out a stack of cards not realizing they end up in the trash shortly after you leave.

Why? You’re using a worn-out approach. There is no perceived value for the CPA because you sound just like the other 10 advisors that have approached them. You have to think outside the box and create an approach that makes you different. From the CPA’s perspective, if the last 10 advisors who approached them all said the same thing and none of the advisors followed through, why would you be any different?

2) Offering to Split Commissions

Even worse than offering to cross-refer clients is offering to split commissions. If you approach the CPA on this basis, you sound just like every other advisor begging to work with their clients. But that’s not even the worst of it. What happens if you offer to split the CPA 25 percent on any business you write and then the advisor that comes in after you offer 50 percent? You don’t want to get into a bidding war with another advisor.

3) Cutting the CPA Out Altogether

I’m sure you’ve heard this one. “The CPAs won’t cooperate! Let’s start our own tax practice! We’ll charge less than any CPA in town, get all the tax clients for ourselves, and then we’ll be the trusted tax professionals who’ll convert them to planning clients!”

On the surface this doesn’t seem like a bad idea. But while it’s different, it fails at one of the most crucial points: You cut out the person you need most. It’s not doing the tax return that makes you the trusted advisor – it’s the relationship that has been built over the years. So even if you do get to do their taxes, you better plan on doing them for years before you earn their trust. It’s easy to let someone do your taxes, but manage their life savings? That’s another story.

The simple fact is, you need the CPA. You need them because you need to leverage the trust they have with their clients and the credibility they can lend to you as their advisor of choice.

Look for Stuerke at the upcoming Senior Market Advisor Expo Aug. 24-26 in Las Vegas, where he’ll be a featured speaker and he can give you further guidance on how to break the CPA code.

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