The challenge
Before using Family Office Access (FOA), the team was spending too much time building prospect lists and not enough time talking with advisors and families. There wasn’t a single, reliable place for up-to-date Family Office contacts, so hours went into list creation instead of conversations.
“We were living in spreadsheets, CRM exports, personal networks, and Sales Navigator,” says Matthew Bennetter, Associate Director, Partnerships, leafplanner. “It made it hard to identify the right Family Offices that would actually benefit from leafplanner. Hours went into list building instead of conversations.”
What changed with FOA
When leafplanner adopted Family Office Access, the workflow shifted from manual prospecting to targeted discovery. The team now starts with FOA’s filters to focus on the U.S. Northeast and Midwest, plus a few other markets where families are actively planning transitions, which is leafplanner’s sweet spot.
They look for multi-asset, private equity, venture, and impact investors and use check size (often $5M to $25M) as a proxy for planning complexity. Saved searches live inside FOA and refresh as new offices are added. Lists export straight into HubSpot sequences, and FOA profile notes help the team tailor each first touch.
“We combined geography and sector into saved searches that continuously surface ideal prospects,” Matthew says. “Then we take FOA’s context to personalize how we talk about centralizing information, streamlining planning, and supporting advisors.”
The result: more fit, more speed
The payoff showed up quickly. leafplanner now saves hours each week on manual research and reaches about three times more qualified Family Offices per campaign. Meetings are with the right decision makers, and the pipeline moves from introduction to diligence to contract faster.
A recent example: FOA surfaced a Midwestern Single Family Office that was explicitly looking for organizational planning tools, an exact match for leafplanner’s use case.
“FOA gives us back time,” Matthew says. “And the time we win back turns into better conversations.”
Founder perspective
“I thought you couldn’t be better prepared than I was; a trained lawyer who took my father’s estate-planning class in law school, with 18 months alongside him before he passed away.
I was wrong.
I knew the entity and deal names and even some of the people, but context was missing, and without context it’s hard to make intelligent decisions.
- Why did we have these structures?
- Who did we do these deals with, and why?
- Who did my dad trust, and who didn’t?
So much history and detail never shows up on a balance sheet or in the documents. That led me to build our family’s first ‘owner’s manual,’ and later to build leafplanner to help all families. That experience still guides our product decisions. We design for clarity, context, and decision-readiness.”
— Josh Kanter, Founder & CEO, leafplanner
Beyond data: education and community
leafplanner also leaned into FOA’s MasterClass to show, not just tell. The session gave the team trusted visibility with Family Offices and advisors while grounding the conversation in real problems and practical workflows. The combination of focused targeting and credible education helped leafplanner reduce friction, increase trust, and earn time with the right people.
“Danielle’s MasterClass sessions are so helpful. She brings a range of expertise to the table to talk about issues that affect all of us in the Family Office world; family members, family-office staff, and advisors. I take something away from every session I’ve been fortunate enough to listen to.”
— Josh Kanter
How leafplanner works with FOA today
Matthew’s advice for new FOA users is simple: start tight, then scale.
FOA is the front door to outreach. Saved searches set the scope. Exports keep the CRM clean. Notes shape the message. Community touchpoints, MasterClass, and Lunch & Learns, open the door to warmer follow-ups.
“Build smart saved searches and pair them with a clear, differentiated message. Begin with your city or state, learn fast, and expand from there.”
About Leafplanner
leafplanner is a secure digital platform that helps ultra-high-net-worth families, family offices, and multi-generational families organize and centralize their most important wealth, legal, and legacy information. It streamlines collaboration with family members and advisors, highlights gaps in planning, and ensures smooth continuity across generations. leafplanner is trusted by hundreds of the world’s most successful families.
General inquiries: leafplanner.com/contact or hello@leafplanner.com
About Family Office Access
Family Office Access helps teams find aligned Family Offices quickly and start better conversations through targeted data, saved searches, exportable lists, profile context, and a member community that values practical education over pitches.
