Courting clients with cigars and whiskey

When it comes to marketing his financial planning services, Eric Reinhold has found there's nothing quite like a fine cigar and a glass of top-shelf whiskey for fueling relaxed conversations.

“I jokingly say that a cigar is just a prop to get guys to talk to each other,” he said. “It is amazing how deep people will go in conversations about life issues when it takes an hour and a half to get through a cigar. You quickly get past the discussions of sports, the weather and what you do for a living.”

Reinhold, a financial adviser with Ameriprise Financial in Orlando, Florida, has leveraged his marketing prowess to upgrade and fine-tune the classic “free chicken dinner” client prospecting event with his more relaxed “Cigar & Whiskey” gatherings.

“I try to make it feel exclusive, but it is surprisingly easy to get clients and centers of influence to bring their friends to a pairing of a high-end cigar and top-shelf spirit,” he said.

Reinhold, 57 and a 28-year veteran of wealth management, organized his first event in 2014 by bringing together a few friends and centers of influence he already knew to enjoy a good smoke.

He then recruited wholesalers to sponsor the gatherings, and Cigar & Whiskey was born.

Reinhold typically schedules eight of these events per year, inviting a mix of between 10 and 15 clients, prospects and centers of influence to each gathering, which usually take place at an Orlando-area cigar bar. But he has also hosted groups at his home.

“It’s amazing how people will fall over themselves to come to something with $15 or $20 cigars,” he said. “It has even gotten to the point where some of my regular client meetings include smoking cigars.”

Reinhold said he intentionally keeps the gatherings “low key” and void of sales pitches from himself or the wholesale representative who will also partake in the smoke and spirits.

Aside from introducing the wholesaler as the event sponsor, if there is any presentation it typically comes from the cigar bar owner describing the evening’s smoke and its whiskey pairing.

Although the sponsor isn’t getting a formal platform to present products and strategies, the casual nature of the gathering offers a different level of value to a wholesaler, said Nicole DeLuise, regional manager at Lord Abbett.

“I really enjoy the events because it gives me a chance to connect with Eric outside the office and meet with some of his clients,” she said. “It gives me a real feel for what investors are focused on and what they care about.”

DeLuise said Lord Abbett typically sponsors one Cigar & Whiskey event a year and “that’s when I smoke my annual cigar.”

“Any time I do an event it’s usually a lunch, or a dinner or a seminar, and those are all great, but Eric is the only one that gets together like this with this kind of shared interest with his clients,” she said.  

Part of what makes it easy to recruit wholesaler sponsors is that Reinhold keeps the total cost under $500.

“There are times when people might ask for sponsorship to bring clients to ballgames or for renting out an entire hall,” DeLuise said. “But this is not a huge monetary commitment, and it is so impactful to his clients. It’s a win across the board.”

While wealth management is never officially on the agenda, DeLuise said she will occasionally get questions from some of Reinhold’s clients about the financial markets. But even those conversations are less formal.

“It’s usually an honest and more candid dialogue where they’re not sitting in a room raising their hand and everyone is listening to their questions,” she said.

In terms of Reinhold’s return on investment, the events are like a good cigar, a slow burn.

At the most recent gathering in late July, the group included four clients, four prospects, and two centers of influence.

“The guys who come regularly know this is something where I’m trying to get clients over time, so I ask them to think of someone they could bring,” Reinhold said. “There’s an attorney in the group, who eventually became a client. He brings people all the time.”

Reinhold, who manages $100 million in client assets, said over the past three years he has added 12 new clients that combined for $7 million in new assets.

“What I have also found is that the cigar clients don’t just refer other cigar smokers to events,” he said. “One of them referred his mother, who doesn’t smoke cigars, and she moved over $1.3 million. Relationships go deeper at these types of events, especially for those that come regularly.  And the new people see the bond and want to be part of it.”

While cigars are the main theme of the gatherings, Reinhold said he isn’t working only with cigar smokers, nor is Cigar & Whiskey his only marketing effort.

“Certainly, this is my No. 1 marketing effort, but I also participate in the events hosted by Ameriprise,” he said. “But I really enjoy the atmosphere when we get together over cigars. I get guys opening up about all kinds of stuff. And it goes way beyond whatever you could talk about while being distracted at a sporting event.”

If you have a unique marketing strategy you think would be of interest to InvestmentNews readers, contact Jeff Benjamin at jbenjamin@investmentnews.com.