Mounting research makes it abundantly clear that wealth management is the most successful business model for financial advisors. Supporting your advisors in making the transition to wealth management will help them build more profitable and satisfying businesses. Such success will help your firm generate greater production from existing advisors, attract new advisors more effectively and retain advisors more easily.

That said, the transition to wealth management is far from easy, and it requires substantial institutional support. Your firm must provide the resources and guidance advisors need at each step of the wealth management transition.

Perhaps the most critical step in that process is building the right network of experts such as attorneys, insurance experts and investment specialists — professionals who are highly qualified to meet the wealth management needs of advisors' clients. Such networks allow financial advisors to focus their time, energy and resources on their core competencies —above all, cultivating client relationships — while guaranteeing clients access to top-quality solutions.

Like many financial advisors, CPAs often find the process of building professional networks to be extremely difficult. In fact, our firm has found that task to be the largest single obstacle financial advisors encounter in attempting to become wealth managers. To succeed, they need your firm to provide a framework for identifying, reaching out to and then establishing productive relationships with prospective professional partners.

We have developed such a system. It is built on two central elements:

1. The network road map. Advisors must find professionals who have the requisite expertise, and who mesh well with them, their colleagues and their clients. Advisors should employ a sophisticated and methodical seven-step process for identifying the right professionals for their networks. The steps include assessing clients' wealth management needs-for example, guidance with estate planning, charitable giving or selling a business-as well as conducting meetings with candidates and performing trial runs for the potential relationship.

2. The professional profile. Advisors can leverage their experience profiling potential clients in gauging prospective professional partners. We recommend constructing detailed profiles that assess professionals in ten different categories, including areas of expertise, existing clientele and relationships with other financial advisors. Performed carefully and thoughtfully, this profiling process can lead to strong, lasting and valuable professional relationships.

Advisors need your guidance: They cannot be expected to craft from whole cloth effective processes for building professional networks. Without institutional assistance, advisors' efforts to identify and partner with other professionals are likely to be at best incomplete, and at worst a waste of their limited time and resources.

It's in your firm's best interest for your advisors to succeed in building the strong professional networks that are critical to the wealth management model. For them to do so, you must invest in the necessary training and guidance. The investment will pay off in the form of greater production from current advisors, as well as improved advisor retention and new-advisor attraction.

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John Bowen writes and speaks frequently about fee-based asset management topics. He is the founder and CEO of CEG Worldwide, LLC, a leading research, publishing and consulting firm serving independent financial advisors, CPAs, insurance representatives and registered investment advisors.  Download the latest research from CEG Worldwide or learn more about our coaching programs for financial advisors.