Asks if you can increase penetration of your existing markets with your existing services. Considering how little most people have done about financial security and wealth accumulation planning, "maxing out" market potential is rare, so there's usually room to grow from within. Profitable untapped business may be waiting in your existing marketplace.

Example: Clients' needs, wants and capacities change with age (sometimes in big ways!), as do their circles of personal and business contacts. They may not be coming to you for plan reviews as often as they might; yet for better or worse, their personal and business situations are changing — right along with their financial security wants and needs. They could be traveling in brand new circles of friends and associates or have new lifestyles, new careers, entire new families since you last laid eyes on them — and they may be out starting their own careers, opening businesses, getting married, buying houses, raising families — and becoming very hot prospects for your competition!

On average, each client has 52 friends, family members, and business associates — and your on-profile clients have a lot greater persuasive impact on those people than you ever will. So, the advantages of "Client-Focused Marketing" — uncovering client assets held by other firms, identifying cross-selling opportunities and improving referral rates — speak for themselves. (You do the math!)

At the same time, those overlooked marketing opportunities can be the easiest to develop through frequent and consistent client communications — e-mail, e-newsletters, media advertising and your Web presence — or by simply doing a much better job getting on-profile referrals, networking and being alert to the sales opportunities in your own client files. More about that later.

Cell 2: Geographic Expansion

Asks if you should be offering your existing services to the same types of people you're working with now, but in new geographic areas, such as adjacent counties and neighboring towns or cities.

If that's an option, see what you can do without stretching yourself, or your resources, too thin. In some ways, it will be like starting all over, so understand the risks and opportunity costs. Not only will they be harder to reach, prospects in new areas may not have the same characteristics as those in your familiar marketing area, for instance, nor will your name recognition and reputation be as strong. You may have to establish new networks and competitive positioning, and build brand loyalty from scratch — in which case, using on-profile referrals and centers of influence will work best.