Your Niche Gives You a Reason to Reconnect with COIs

Lost touch with your centers of influence? Your niche just gave you a reason to reach back out.

Most advisors I know have at least a few centers of influence (COIs) they simply lost touch with over the years. And there comes a point when reaching back out makes sense, especially now, when face-to-face and human interaction is so important. But reaching back out feels awkward when you have nothing to say beyond “Remember me?”

If you have recently focused your business on a niche since you last contacted your COIs, you have a great reason to reach out. “I’ve refocused my practice on [niche]” is a real reason to reach out, especially if they work with the same types of clients.

Here’s how to act on it.

Build your list. Think about which of your dormant COIs are most likely to work with your niche clients. You may not know for certain, and that’s fine. Make your best guess, rank them, and start at the top. Don’t rule anyone out. A COI you assume is a weak fit may have more access to your niche than you realize.

Reach out. Keep it short. Acknowledge it’s been a while, share your new focus, and suggest a conversation. Position it as a two-way street: You are as interested in learning about what they are up to as sharing your own news.

When you meet, make it about them. Ask what’s changed in their practice. Ask what kinds of clients they’re working with. Ask where their clients run into financial questions they’d rather hand off. Then explain your niche clearly enough that they could recognize a good referral when they see one.

Follow up with something useful. Send a thank-you within a day or two. Include a link to a one-pager about who you serve. Offer to add them to your niche newsletter. Then set a reminder to reach out again in a quarter.

One meeting doesn’t rebuild a dormant relationship. But a niche gives you the opening, and consistency does the rest.

The takeaway: If you’ve been putting off reconnecting with old COIs because you didn’t know what to say, your niche just solved that problem. Reach out with your new focus, make it about them, and follow up. The referrals follow the consistency.