Community first: Adrián Nardelli on growing his referred client base 9x

Adrián Nardelli spent almost six months giving his broker partnership little attention, even sharing his referral link somewhat timidly. Less than a year after changing his approach, The Exness Team Pro member says he multiplied his Exness referred client base ninefold in less than a year after he began taking a more active approach to the partnership.

His perspective changed after meeting other Exness partners and seeing how they had developed their businesses. Adrián began testing new approaches, investing in advertising, and creating educational experiences for people beyond his academy. According to Adrián, this shift helped him multiply his referred client base in less than a year.

In the Exness Team Pro Podcast, he speaks with Nicolás Palacios about the changes behind that growth, the role of his community, and what he would do if he were starting all over.

Recognizing the opportunity

“I started trading in 2008 after being invited to a stock market class at college. I was fascinated by financial markets, so I began taking my first steps and making many mistakes. It took me three years to become profitable,” Adrián explains.

As people began asking him how they could learn to trade, Adrián opened his trading academy. Education became a second part of his business, alongside his own trading. The broker partnership followed, after Adrián saw an opportunity to recommend a broker that suited his trading style and what he taught. At first, however, he gave that third part of the business little attention.

Taking the partnership seriously

“At first it was very calm, very organic; I really made the mistake of not giving it the importance it deserves,” he says.

Support from the Exness team helped him gain confidence. When a referred client had a question or a problem arose, he had people he could turn to. But meeting other partners prompted Adrián to reconsider the scale of his ambitions.

He recalls telling fellow partners that he had 100 referred clients and receiving a rather underwhelming response. “That’s when I realized I was really just a small fish,” he says. “When I found that out, I said, wow, what huge potential there is here.”

Those conversations gave him practical ideas and motivation. He asked partners how they acquired clients, what worked for them, and which approaches might fit his academy. “I wasn’t going to copy everything, obviously, but adapt it to my business model as an academy,” he explains.

Testing before scaling

Adrián began making adjustments. Some worked; others did not. Academy launches and campaigns that attracted prospective students proved particularly effective in bringing people into his audience.

Advertising helped him expand that reach. In his experience, organic growth had a ceiling, and investing in acquisition allowed him to develop the partnership further. His approach, however, was to establish that the model worked before committing more money.

“First you test it, see that it works,” he says. “You scale it with a little money, and then once you see it works again, you scale the capital further.” Reaching more people was only part of the opportunity. His launches attracted a much larger audience than the number who eventually bought his mentorship. Initially, his Exness referrals came from his students, leaving many of those other prospective traders outside the partnership business. That gap became the focus of his next change.

Giving the wider audience a reason to join

To explain the opportunity, Adrián uses an illustrative example: if a launch attracted 20,000 leads and 2,000 people enrolled, that would leave 18,000 potential Exness clients.

Although these leads may have shown interest in trading but not in purchasing his premium mentorship, they could still offer Adrián something valuable.

“What I did was create another free product, in this case, live rooms, not the course itself, not the mentorship,” he says.

People who registered through his partner link could access those live trading rooms for free, subject to the offering’s entry conditions. This gave him a way to serve an audience beyond paying academy students with an offering connected to his partnership.

“I think one of the keys was finding a product for Exness clients—thinking about what product could serve everyone, not just those who buy my premium mentorship,” he explains.

Adrián identifies this change as a major contributor to his growth. “That’s what really made the client conversion rate on the broker take off, and it’s what really helped me scale a lot.”

Building the relationship through live trading

Live trading was already central to how Adrián taught. Making it part of a separate community offering built on something he practiced regularly.

“I always lead by example, so I try to run live trading rooms practically every day, sometimes with my community, some days I open it to everyone,” he says.

The sessions also give him opportunities to answer practical questions that can make newcomers hesitant: how to open an account, make a deposit, withdraw money, and how to minimize risk.

His experience informs the trading approach he shares. As a scalper, he dedicates a fixed hour to trading and accepts that the session may produce successful trades, losing trades, or no trades at all. “Sometimes not trading is trading,” he says. “You don’t need to trade every single day doing scalping.”

The broker’s suitability for that approach also matters. Adrián describes choosing different account types for different strategies. On the partnership side, he highlights the importance of receiving commissions on short-duration trades, given that some of his own trades last only seconds.

Together, these considerations explain why broker fit was part of his decision to develop the partnership: it needed to work alongside the trading and education he already offered.

Continuing to give people value

Bringing people into the community is followed by keeping them engaged. Adrián describes this as an ongoing effort to understand what members need and what he can add to their experience.

Part of his approach involves reinvesting partner earnings into community giveaways. He also points to mentorships, live talks, and exclusive trading rooms as ways to provide continuing value.

“You earn a partner commission, and part of that commission you can reinvest, give it to the people trading with the broker through your link,” he says.

In short, Adrián calls his approach “giving to retain.” Education and community benefits let him maintain the relationship after someone joins.

What he would build first today

Looking back, Adrián would begin with the community if he had to start again. His existing academy helped him develop his partnership, but he does not see a paid education business as a prerequisite.

“If I had to start from zero, without a doubt the first thing would be to focus for a year on growing a community,” he says.

For someone with trading knowledge, his starting point would be free educational content, such as YouTube videos or a free course, with access to the community connected to the Exness referral link. The partnership would provide a way to monetize that free offering from the outset.

“If you want to sell something later, you can, but you don’t have to sell anything,” he explains.

His own growth followed a process of recognizing an overlooked opportunity, learning from other partners, and testing ways to reach and serve more people. The ninefold increase in his referred client base came after he began giving the partnership that attention.

Even now, he sees further possibilities. “I still feel I have a lot more room to grow,” he says. “There’s always more.”

Full Episode here