What Are High Earners Not Rich Yet (HENRY) Individuals?

Attracting new clients to your business is essential for growth, and if you’re forward-thinking, you might be interested in getting the attention of the high-earner-not-rich-yet (HENRY) crowd. These are individuals who have the income to propel them to wealth but lack the assets. There are some definite advantages to working with HENRYs, but the key is knowing how to attract and retain them as clients.

Are you looking to expand the marketing of your financial advisor practice? Try SmartAsset AMP, a holistic client prospecting and marketing automation platform.

What Is a High Earner Not Rich Yet (HENRY)?

The term “high earner not rich yet” refers to individuals who earn substantial salaries but aren’t actively leveraging that income to build wealth. Its origins can be traced to a 2003 Fortune article describing families earning between $100,000 and $250,000. ¹ If you adjust those figures for inflation, a HENRY could be defined as someone earning anywhere from $180,000 to $455,000 in 2026 numbers.

HENRYs are typically younger people who may be just getting started in their careers but are already earning six-figure salaries. However, they lack the assets you’d typically expect a high earner to have, such as a home, retirement accounts or other investments.

Being a high earner who is not rich yet doesn’t mean that someone lacks the motivation to build wealth; it simply means they’re not making the necessary moves to do it right now. That may be due to a higher cost of living, significant levels of student loan debt, a more expensive lifestyle or a combination of all three.

HENRYs may have a low or even negative net worth, depending on their financial situation. A doctor, for instance, might be making $300,000 a year and saving 7% of that in their 401(k) but have $200,000 in medical school debt to pay down. They don’t own a home yet and have only a few thousand saved for an emergency fund, putting them firmly in negative net worth territory. In this scenario, they could benefit from working with a financial advisor for physicians.

Client Acquisition Simplified: For RIAs

• Ideal for RIAs looking to scale.
• Validated referrals to help build your pipeline efficiently.
• Save time + optimize your close rate with high-touch, pre-built campaigns.

CFP®, CEO

Joe Anderson

Pure Financial Advisors

We have seen a remarkable return on investment and comparatively low client acquisition costs even as we’ve multiplied our spend over the years.

Pure Financial Advisors reports $1B in new AUM from SmartAsset investor referrals.

Target New Clients This Year

I am a registered fiduciary*

Book Your Free DemoNot sure? Learn more about AMP.

Benefits of Working With High Earner Not Rich Yet Clients

It may seem counterintuitive as an advisor to try and attract clients who have no real wealth accumulated. After all, your revenues may depend on the level of assets you manage. However, there are some advantages to adding HENRYs to your client base.

As the name implies, they’re not rich yet. That doesn’t mean, however, that they’re not interested in building wealth. They may just need some guidance on how to do it.

HENRY individuals have the income necessary to grow their assets, but they may need advice on things like:

• How to balance paying down student loans or other debts with investing
• Where to allocate the funds they’re investing to further their goals
• How to account for life changes that affect them financially, such as getting married or having kids
• What to do with salary increases as their earnings rise year over year
• How to plan for unexpected challenges, such as a job loss or an illness that prevents them from working

Someone who’s a high earner but not rich yet offers another advantage, in that they’re most often younger. Attracting younger individuals to your business means they have the potential to remain your client for decades, providing you with a consistent stream of revenue.

If you’re looking to attract more high-earning clients, then you may need to find a consistent flow of potential leads to draw from in order to keep growing your business. Finding the right help can improve your chances of hitting your growth goals. SmartAsset’s Advisor Marketing Platform (AMP) offers financial advisors services like client lead generation, automated marketing and more. Learn about SmartAsset AMP today.

Is Your Firm Stuck in 1999?

Modernize your marketing with today's leading all-in-1 advisor marketing automation platform.

Get Started

How to Attract HENRY Clients

Marketing to high earners who are not rich yet often comes down to two things: Understanding their unique needs and knowing where to target your marketing efforts. With that in mind, here are some common tips for attracting high earners who could benefit from your expertise.

Know Who You’re Marketing To

An ideal client profile that’s unique to high earners can provide a framework for developing a marketing strategy. This profile should include every piece of information you can glean about the HENRYs you’re hoping to target.

For example, consider where they live and work, their marital status, age, family obligations and educational background. These things can offer clues about how much debt they might have, their career aspirations and financial goals (or worries).

Also, consider how they prefer to learn about personal finance and investing, and how they consume information online. For example, if Gen Z is your target audience, here’s a notable statistic: 42% of young adults ages 18 to 29 turn to social media for advice, according to a May 2025 Gallup poll. ² If you aren’t leaning heavily into social media to attract clients yet, that may be something to reconsider if you’re hoping to get on a young HENRY’s radar.

Consider Their Knowledge Gaps and Pain Points

High earners may understand the basics of personal finance, like budgeting or the importance of adding to their retirement plan at work. However, they may not know how to fully utilize the income that they have to reach their goals. Or they may be a blank slate and need more in-depth guidance on financial concepts. Those are knowledge gaps you may be uniquely equipped to fill.

The other side of the coin is understanding what’s holding high earners back from moving ahead with their goals. Again, this may be an issue like student loan debt or living in a more expensive city to pursue a career. A HENRY in that situation may be bringing home a sizable paycheck, only to see a large chunk of it eaten up by rent and other day-to-day costs. The better you understand what high earners are struggling with, the easier it is to craft marketing messages that speak to those needs.

Choose Your Marketing Channels

Once you’ve given some thought to the type of messaging you want to create, the next step is deciding where to spread that message. Digital marketing is an obvious choice if you’re trying to attract a younger crowd.

We’ve already mentioned using social media to connect with high earners, but don’t limit yourself to static posts. Create engagement by asking questions, sharing polls or creating short videos to break down complex topics. Tailor the format and the topic to the platform, and repurpose content whenever possible to create consistency in your message across channels.

If you need some ideas on how to create content that appeals to younger investors, you might check out personal finance influencers on TikTok or YouTube. In the Gallup poll, 23% of 18 to 29-year-olds said they got money advice from these digital creators. You might even consider collaborating with influencers in the personal finance space whose followers are the types of clients you want to attract. This involves some networking, but it could pay off if you’re able to leverage their platform to increase your visibility.

Beyond social media, you may consider email marketing, digital ad campaigns and SEO. LinkedIn is another channel to consider if you’re specifically targeting young professionals. You may use the platform’s free features or consider upgrading to LinkedIn Sales Navigator for access to valuable lead generation tools.

Talk to Your Current Clients

Referrals are another opportunity to attract high-earning professionals to your business and bridge generational gaps with your services. If you have older clients who have young adult children, for instance, you can let them know that you’re always happy to schedule a meeting to discuss their finances. They may be willing to refer their kids to you if you’ve taken care to cultivate a positive professional relationship with them thus far.

In addition to tapping your current clients, consider how you might get more referrals from a lead generation service. Lead generation platforms offer a direct connection to people who have already expressed an interest in meeting with a financial advisor and may be in buying mode. SmartAsset Advisor Marketing Platform (AMP), for instance, connects growth-focused advisors with high-intent prospects and equips them with automated email and text messaging tools to nurture relationships with less time and energy spent. Schedule a demo to learn more.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Bottom Line

Working with high earners who are not rich yet can open up a vast range of possibilities for your advisory business. If you’ve overlooked these types of clients up until now, it may be time to consider where they could fit into your long-term growth plans so that you can hit your firm’s growth goals.

Tips for Growing Your Advisory Business

• You may want to find a consistent flow of potential leads by getting help with all of your marketing efforts. SmartAsset AMP (Advisor Marketing Platform) is a holistic marketing service financial advisors can use for client lead generation and automated marketing. Sign up for a free demo to explore how SmartAsset AMP can help you expand your practice’s marketing operation. Get started today.
• One of the most important things to consider when developing a marketing plan is how much to budget. A common rule of thumb for planning a financial advisor marketing budget is to use a percentage of your annual revenue, typically 1% to 10%. However, it’s important to consider what you can realistically afford to spend and how to put those dollars to work to produce the best return on your investment.

Photo credit: ©iStock/courtneyk, ©iStock/shapecharge, ©iStock/Drazen Zigic