I recently received an email from an advisor who subscribes to this blog, asking for advice on the single biggest source of frustration in his business.He has a wide circle of personal acquaintances. While some have become clients, many have told him they don't want to work with him for fear of jeopardizing their friendship. He finished his email with the question "Any thoughts?"

Translating personal relationships into clients is a sticky issue for many advisors. On the one hand, we all know people socially who we'd love to have as clients. On the other, the last thing we want is to be seen as pressuring friends or imposing on university classmates, colleagues in previous jobs or people we've met through community activity.

There are three principles to converting personal contacts into clients.

1. Accept that many of the people we know are happy in an existing relationship and will never be clients.
2. Send contacts a low key signal that you're open to doing business with them.
3. Once you've made the initial approach, leave it up to the people we know to choose to whether respond.

There are lots of different ways to initiate contact with our network.

If you periodically forward clients articles of interest, for example, you could send people you know a note saying: "In light of recent market developments, I have sent my clients the attached article outlining some of the lessons from past market downturns as they apply today. I thought you might find it of interest as well - should you wish to receive future articles, drop my assistant Joan an email at joan@financialadvice.com".

Similarly, if you send clients regular newsletters or market updates, you could forward a sample copy along with the note: "Stock markets of late have given many investors pause for thought. Given that, I thought you might be interested in the attached analysis of the prospects for the global economy and the implications for markets." Again, be sure to make it easy for them to get on the distribution list for these updates if they'd like to.

If you wanted to be a bit more aggressive, you could turn up the heat with a note along the lines of "Each quarter, I send clients a newsletter summarizing recent market developments. In light of the market turmoil over the past while, I thought you might find this of interest and have taken the liberty of adding you to the distribution list for this". If this is the tack you take, when you run into the individual you've added to your distribution list, tackle the issue upfront by saying something like: "A while back, I added you to the people who receive my market updates, because I thought you might find these of value. I know many of us struggle with the amount of email we get - if you're not finding the updates of value or are having trouble getting around to them, I'd be happy to stop sending them to you."

A couple of final examples:

If a market strategist or economist from your firm or a leading US player is interviewed on BNN, you could send people you know the link, with a note that you thought they might find it of interest.

Or if you hold round table luncheon sessions or evening workshops for clients, you could forward an invitation to your network with the words: "Attached is information on a lunch taking place next month for my clients. Let me know if you'd like to sit in on this, while these are designed for clients I'd be delighted to have you along as my guest".

Note that there is no overt sell to these approaches, no follow up calls asking if they got the article or the invitation to the workshop. What this approach does is send people you know the clear message that you'd be interested in doing business with them if they'd like to do business with you - and then leaves it up to them to decide if they want to carry this further.