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Are your Advisers doing what YOU want them to do?

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A challenge faced by many financial advice firms… The target market is clearly defined, the value proposition is carefully constructed and articulated and a suite of marketing supports are developed to help the team of advisers go out and attract a cohort of new clients. And then…nothing.

Well not quite nothing, but not the results that are being sought by the principals. Instead the advisers continue to work as they always did, going after business as they always did. Hitting their sales numbers (maybe) but not in the way that the firm wants it done – that is building up strong and durable relationships with clients in the chosen market segments, adding real long term value to the business.

This is quite a common occurrence, one I’ve come across in a number of firms, so why does it happen?

The goals are all wrong

This is where the problems usually start… Often the adviser goals are quite poorly constructed and actually are not aligned at all to the goals of the organisation. The principals might be clear about what they want to achieve and have Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to help them track their progress. But unless they link the individual adviser goals to these KPIs, they really have little hope of them being delivered by the adviser. At the end of the day, the more aligned the goals of the adviser are with those of the organisation, the more likely those KPIs will be achieved.

The focus is only on the numbers

When you are trying to influence advisers to change the way they carry out their daily roles, you are actually trying to change their behaviours in their day-to-day activities of finding and targeting prospects, delivering advice and providing ongoing service to clients. But often, the behaviours receive scant attention as the year goes on; the focus tends to be always on the numbers. While the numbers are of course critical, it is the behaviours that actually impact them. It is so important to set expectations around behaviours, to monitor them and to measure them. If they are not being achieved, there needs to be interventions such as training, reinforcement of expectations, encouragement or sometimes good old fashioned pressure to deliver the required behaviours!

Rewards must be aligned with the KPIs

At the end of the day, money drives behaviours for a lot of people, and in my experience this particularly applies to salespeople! They work at the sharp end of the industry, in a role in which it’s pretty nigh impossible to hide, as results are clear for all to see. For this, they expect to be well rewarded.

But if their remuneration is based solely on their overall sales result, well that is where their focus will be. In this situation they will likely pay little attention to;

  • Those all-important behaviours
  • The quality of advice given
  • Product mix
  • Client retention

So what should goals and rewards look like?

The key is alignment between the KPIs of the organisation and the individual goals of your advisers. Obviously income generation will be a significant part of this, as this is going to be a goal of both the organisation and the individual. However, the level of “credit” that is given to advisers may be adjusted to take account of;

  • Are the new clients signed up by the adviser in the stated chosen market segments of the business?
  • The “shape” of the income – the level of upfront commission / ongoing income (i.e. trail) taken
  • An adjustment may be made to reflect the retention of business written by each adviser
  • Overall satisfaction levels of each adviser’s clients (this is surprisingly easy to measure).

One of the biggest challenges facing advice businesses is encouraging the individual advisers to work towards building up long-term value in the business. This is a big ask if their goals and rewards are based only on short terms factors. If you really want your advice team to play their part in building up value in your business, are you willing to reward them for doing so through long term incentive schemes or indeed through a route to a share of ownership in your business? Because at the end of the day, this is what it may take to really get them aligned with your objectives.

Do you use any particularly innovative methods to reward your advisers? If so, I’d be very grateful if you would leave a comment below.

Can you get more from your CRM system?

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In the last year or two, there has been a significant upsurge in financial advice firms wanting to unlock the opportunities offered by CRM systems. For some, this has meant seeking to place it at the heart of their sales processes, for others their challenge has been to use it as more than a glorified address book. For others, they are now taking the jump from an excel spread sheet for the first time! It can be a very daunting task…

Here are a couple of thoughts to help you reap the benefits while minimising the frustration.

Understand what you want it to do

There are a number of industry specific CRM systems that many of the brokers in the Irish market are using today. These systems offer a very broad range of valuable features and offer functionality to help deliver many of the activities carried out by brokers every day.

But when you’re new to the system, the array of features can be quite bewildering and can leave you wondering where to start.

The place to start is not with what the system can do for you, it’s to identify how the system can help you address your own particular challenges. So you need to identify what these challenges are; do you need a system to help you in the segmentation of your client base, is to help you identify the right clients to contact at the right time, is it to track interactions with your clients or indeed is it to ensure you are delivering a more compliant business process?

Once you know what you want from the system, these are the areas to focus on with the system supplier rather than the 200 other features! Once you get comfort that the system can deliver what you need, then it just may be the one for you.

Capture hard and soft data

The record keeping aspect of the system is obviously very important, capturing all of the key information that you need to retain for your clients. Having this data in your system obviously makes it easier to retrieve information and indeed to use it again in the future. And your CRM system can provide a very useful audit trail in relation to your client interactions, which will assist you from a compliance point of view and may prove very useful down the road.

But it’s equally important to pick up and capture softer information about your clients that may not necessarily feature on your average factfind; the client’s financial goals and dreams (which should be central to your advice in any event), their aspirations for their family, their interests and indeed their likes and dislikes in relation to the method and frequency of communications. All of this information can make for a much richer relationship.

 

Talk to other users

Find out how others are using the same system. Ask your peers to even demo what they’re doing – from my experience, most advisers are only too happy to collaborate and help each other improve their business. Ask others at networking events about the features that they are using the most. Another route is through the excellent groups available to advisers on LinkedIn. There are a number of great groups (the PIBA, IBA & QFA groups come particularly to mind) in which you can pose a question with a good chance of getting some feedback from others.

Use all the time saving features

Ok, so now you’re up and running and using the system. Now is the time to start investigating how you can leverage the system beyond your initial aspirations. A good place to start is by investigating the many time saving features of the system. These will come in many forms. The capability of downloading data from providers will enable you to avoid a lot of the tedious initial data entry. Then look at the features that allow you to easily import data from for example factfinds completed online by your clients, which will save you or a member of your team having to type in the information.

Also consider how the system integrates with other systems that you use; capturing your client emails, quotation systems and any scanning and document management systems.

Get help in these areas. Getting help from an IT professional and/or the CRM system vendor will result in a lot less frustration and lower blood pressure!

Stay close to the vendor to leverage the full capabilities of the system

At the end of the day, nobody knows the system like the vendor so stay close to him or her! Give them feedback as they are always looking for ways to improve the system. Tell them what else you’d like the system to do, what you find difficult or “clunky” – after all, their main aim is to retain you as a user! Look for tips and help from them as to how you can better leverage the system. Show them how you’re currently using it and look for their advice as to how you might improve your usage of their system. Also, look for insights into where the system is being developed, as these developments could result in improvements to core parts of your business and advice processes.

Yes, starting to use a CRM system can be a very daunting experience. But it need not be. Focus on what you want from the system, seek help and then commit. The results in terms of saved time and effort, deeper insights into your clients and better business processes will make it all worthwhile.

5 Summer Sales Jobs

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It’s that time of year again… The weather is great and everyone is trying to spend a bit more time outdoors. The downside is that business may be getting just a little quieter for the next month or two.

So here lies the opportunity! It’s quite likely that you’ll have a bit more spare time on your hands over the next while; the question is how will you use this time? We all know how hours and days can just get “lost”; where you get to the end of the day and realise you actually haven’t done a whole lot that day! It can be hard to keep your focus when there’s not the pressure of constant phone calls and emails and achieving deadlines to meet client expectations.

It’s easier to keep focused though when you have a plan. So what sort of things might be in that plan for the summer months? Here are a few ideas;

Arrange to meet your key clients

This is a great time of year for catching up with key clients, outside of your advice process. This is not a business meeting; it’s a game of golf, a coffee, an early pint – whatever works best for them and you! This is an opportunity to show your interest in their business and lives without looking for anything back in return. The cost is small for both of you as you probably both have the time to meet. However there is real benefit in it for you, as the client will appreciate your interest without it being an “advice” or “sales” meeting.

Revisit your LinkedIn presence

As you’ll know from previous posts of mine, I rate LinkedIn as a highly important tool for financial planners and brokers. When prospective clients are researching you, they’ll check your company website and your LinkedIn profile. It’s really important that you’re putting your best foot forward through both of these.

In relation to LinkedIn, there are 2 areas to concentrate on over the summer.

The first is your profile. Go through your profile section by section? Are there areas that you can expand the information a little to make it more engaging? Are there new areas that you can add to your profile? Are there clients that you could seek recommendations from? All of these will provide prospective clients with richer information about you, hopefully making them more inclined to actually do business with you. LinkedIn will also help you edit your profile by prompting you to complete certain areas.

The second area is expanding your network of connections. There are 3 ways of doing this;

  1. Check the “People you may know” section to identify people suggested by LinkedIn.
  2. Check the connections belonging to your existing connections. Are there people here that you should seek an introduction to?
  3. Search for people using the search bar at the top. There are new people joining LinkedIn all the time. They just might not have found their way onto your LinkedIn radar as yet.

And then when you find people that you want to connect with, remember to personalise every invitation. Don’t just use the default LinkedIn invitation.

Update your CRM system

Rather than wasting an hour or two mindlessly surfing the web, set yourself a target to review the records of a number of clients every day within your CRM system. While you may have all the data in the system to meet you compliance requirements, maybe now is the time to populate some of the softer information that can help you build really rich relationships with your clients. Information such as;

  • Their stated life aspirations
  • Their financial goals and objectives
  • Their communication preferences
  • Their interests and hobbies
  • Wider information in relation to their families

Develop a plan of attack for the rest of the year

Plot out how you’re going to approach the final four months of the year, from when everything “gets back to normal” on 1st September. Who are the prospects / clients that you need to contact in plenty of time before “pensions season”? What will this contact consist of? How are you going to get these prospects to engage on the subject of pensions, and equally importantly, how will you ensure they engage with you? Which other clients need to be contacted, either for a regular review or indeed because you’re aware of a change in their circumstances?

While you have a bit of time, put a structured plan in place with clear actions and dates to make sure these contacts then happen.

Take a holiday & recharge your batteries!

The most important one of the lot! Nothing helps you get your focus and your energy back better than a well earned break. I hope you and your family have a great holiday and enjoy the summer!

Photo Credit: flickr

Bowl your Clients over with your Content!

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One of the main marketing challenges faced by many of the financial advice businesses that I meet, is around the production of good quality content that will really help them engage their clients. Here are a few thoughts to help you overcome this challenge.

Be Organised & Committed

The secret ingredient! We’ve all faced that looming deadline for “my turn” to produce that article we’d promised to go into a newsletter or as an update on the website. It’s tough when you’ve no idea what you’re going to write about! The good news is that you’re not alone, this is the single biggest challenge faced by everyone tasked with writing content.

To avoid this, set up a “Content Calendar” for the year. Get all the potential contributors into a room for an hour or so and brainstorm loads of article topics. As potential subject areas come to mind, drop them into the calendar with a few bullet points of what the article might cover.

What will this achieve? First of all, it gets you started each month – you know what you’re going to be writing about. Secondly and as important, as new ideas come along over the year, they get inserted ahead of other articles that mightn’t be as strong. So now you’re driving up the quality of your topics. You’ll actually find after a while that you’ve too much content and now can actually start being selective about what you write. Hard to believe but it happens, every time you have a Content Calendar.

And once you start, stay committed to the process. Don’t stop now!

Be Relevant

Your audience are far more likely to engage with your content if it is relevant to them. So as you develop out your content topics, spend some time thinking about them from your audience’s perspective. The latest developments in investment software or some obscure technical point about pensions might be of interest to you. But your clients probably won’t give a hoot!

They want to know about topics that will impact their lives, so put yourself in their shoes and develop your content with them in mind. Of course you need to know who your audience is before you can do this. Are they business owners, professionals or are you focused on personal protection etc. for families? If you have very diverse audiences, you might need to target specific content at specific people. All pretty straightforward to do with the wonders of modern technology!

Be an Educator, not a Salesman

Your audience will switch off if you spend your time pushing sales messages at them. At the end of the day, they will see your content as simply an ongoing sales campaign and will disengage.  Add value by writing about financial issues or challenges that affect them in their lives, in which you can exhibit your expertise. Aim to be seen as an expert, an educator, someone with valuable insights that will help your clients, rather than a salesperson.

To make this easier for yourself, write about topics you know. This means that you won’t have to spend loads of time researching topics, and this familiarity with the subject will help you write better content too!

You see the world of marketing has changed. Rather than trying to constantly interrupt people with messages to sell, sell, sell; successful advice businesses are establishing themselves as thought leaders, as educators and as experts. So then when potential clients at their own time of choosing have a financial need, they will naturally gravitate towards these advice firms that they already see as valuable.

Be Alert

Great topics to write about will emerge from a range of sources. Presentations you attend, conversations you have, comments from other clients. Once your antenna is up, you’ll start to identify nuggets from what other people say – their challenges, their areas of interest, the issues they want to read about. So write about these!

Also when reading a newspaper or surfing the web, you’ll come across loads of topics of potential interest to your audience. Put your own spin on these topics and write about them too.

Be Brief

Be expert but also be brief. The purpose of your content is to engage your audience, not to demonstrate that you know every intimate detail of a topic. Typically an article of 750 to 1,000 words can be read (and written!) quickly and will perform well in search results. If you only have 500 (good) words though, go with that – don’t pad it out to get to 750 words.

Make your content easy to read too. Use headings and/or bullet points to make it easier for the reader. If the topic is just not capable of being explained in anything close to 1,000 words, break it out into a series of articles. And now the challenge next month has just got easier…

Be Found

What has this got to do with Content? Well, one of the key drivers of strong performance in Google search results is original, good quality content. While this might not have been a driver behind your efforts to produce a regular stream of good content, it’s a very valuable bonus!

At the end of the day, I reckon the initial thought of producing a lot of content is far more daunting than the reality! I hope these thoughts help you with your challenge.






image courtesy of Flickr / Mohammad ALNajdi

Be the Hub of your Client’s Financial Affairs

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I was recently helping a very progressive financial advice firm in Cork with their marketing planning. As part of the conversation, we discussed value added services that advisers can offer today and indeed I got talking about my relationship with my own financial adviser.

I see my financial adviser as the hub of my financial affairs. My accountant does a very solid job in terms of the production of accounts and ensuring I pay my taxes on time and basically don’t break the law! But I really see him in a transactional / compliance capacity.

On the other hand, my financial adviser provides a broader range of value to me. Yes, he has of course developed my financial plan and ensured I have the right investments, retirement planning and protections in place – I’d expect no less! But he also guides me in relation to much broader financial-related issues and I’ve found this a bit unexpected and extremely valuable. He’s now the go-to guy for me in relation to my broader financial affairs – he’s the hub of my financial world.

Having been the beneficiary of such value-added services, I’ve identified below a few areas in which you can add value to your clients beyond the preparation of traditional financial plans and beyond the products that you recommend to your clients. Why bother with these? To build your client’s appreciation of the value that you can bring and to make you the first port of call when changes in their circumstances arise.

Budgeting

I’m starting with an easy one that is often overlooked by financial advisers as not needed by clients because “everyone does it”. I disagree! People tend to do personal budgeting in a very unstructured fashion, usually in their heads. The opportunity is here for financial advisers to bring templates to their clients and help them structure their budgeting and examine all of their day-to-day spending.

Apart from the value that the exercise brings, for married clients it is a great way of engaging the spouse too in the overall process, as their spending is equally important in the overall picture.

Future Cashflow Planning

I refer to this a lot, but only because I see it as such as a valuable service offered by some financial advisers. It certainly isn’t appropriate for every client, but is hugely valuable to those who are suitable. The reason for this is simple. Traditional financial planning focuses on the starting point (as identified within the factfind – where you stand financially today) and the end event (death, investment maturity date, retirement date).

Future cashflow planning focuses on every year between now and your death, highlighting times of particular financial challenge to you in the future. Knowing the challenges that you will face, gives you an opportunity to plan to overcome them.

Tax Advice for Individuals

Business owners and professionals will usually have an accountant. Most PAYE workers probably don’t. That doesn’t mean that they can’t benefit from tax advice; some want help in completing their tax returns, some want general tax advice. There’s a growing trend internationally of financial advisers moving into this space, in fact some financial advice firms are now employing accountants or tax advisers to provide this service and other tax advice to clients.

Now this approach is not going to be for everyone. At a minimum though, you should have a relationship with a good tax expert that you can plug your client into. The benefit for you is that it’s another demonstration of your value, as you are the catalyst for your client receiving the broader solutions needed.

Financial advisers also play a very valuable role in helping clients prepare for later in life and indeed end of life through retirement planning and life assurance solutions. However there are a number of other ways that you can help your clients prepare for these latter years, again helping to position you as the hub of their financial affairs. Some of these areas can also potentially bring you into contact with your client’s adult children, an important target market for many advisers.

Advice about Bank Accounts

Neither my bank manager nor my accountant spoke to me about having multiple signatories on my bank accounts, both personal and business accounts. But my financial adviser did. This is very practical advice, ensuring that in the event of my death or loss of capacity, that my wife would be able to access my money without jumping through all types of legal hoops…

Enduring Power of Attorney

This is a legal document that can be set up by a person during their life when in good mental health. It allows another specially appointed person to take actions on their behalf should they become incapacitated through illness in the future. This prevents assets being frozen and going under the control of the courts and allows the person acting on your behalf to make a range of personal care decisions on your behalf.

Anyone who has been through this situation, needing to access the assets of a relative who has lost their mental capacity (e.g. to pay for their care) will know the value of having an enduring power of attorney in place. It can be incredibly frustrating being unable to carry out simple actions on the person’s behalf without it.

At the same time, many people also draw up a “Living Will” which captures their preferences in relation to areas such as end of life care, their preferences in terms of resuscitation etc. when close to death.

A financial adviser won’t set this up. However they can be the catalyst for it happening through setting out the benefits of it to their clients and guiding them to put it in place. The adviser may even be able to refer them to a solicitor who will carry out this work with the client.

A Will

Again this is an area where financial advisers can guide their clients to ensure that they have a will in place to ensure their assets are distributed as they intend on their death. A simple process usually carried out with a solicitor.

These are some areas that financial advisers can help or guide their clients through. They add real value to your relationships; way beyond the product solutions you advise clients about and put you firmly at the hub of your client’s financial affairs.

Are there any other areas beyond products in which you advise your clients?




image courtesy of Flickr / David Hunter

Increase the Value of your Financial Advice Business

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I’m often asked how an adviser can increase the value of their business beyond the discounted value of your future income stream. This is particularly relevant for advisers who are looking to exit, and want to achieve the greatest sale price possible for their business.

It’s an area that I’ve written about before, but you might want to consider in a bit more detail a few of the factors that could drive up that sale price in your favour.

 

The Shape of your Revenue Model

One of the key factors in driving up the value of a business is the shape of revenue in the business. Is the business mainly living off high upfront commission payments with smaller future payments due, or has the business moved to flatter commissions on protection business and trail commission / fees as opposed to upfront commission on investment and pensions business?

Obviously the latter will be far more attractive to a potential purchaser. There are many advisers actively making this shift or looking to make the shift at the moment, either on their own or with the guidance of some of the product providers.

The size of this future income stream is important, but equally so is the persistency of it. A buyer will look to see your firm’s ability to both build up and then retain clients, to ensure that this income stream will continue into the future to their benefit.

 

Your Brand Value

Is there equity (value) in your brand? Having a brand that is well known, respected, considered better than a competitor’s brand is strategically really important. It is also famous for being very difficult to measure! But there are ways that you can influence this really important factor, to help you achieve a better sale price for your business.

How well known is your brand? How much time and effort to you put into building the awareness and credibility of your brand among your target audience? Is your brand positioned where you want it to be, and equally importantly where a potential purchaser will see as attractive?

Does your brand then actually deliver? Can you prove this through any quantitative measures (brand awareness measures, customer satisfaction results) or through qualitative feedback such as testimonials from clients about their experiences of working with your business?

Being able to demonstrate this brand equity could very positively impact the value of your business at sale time.

 

Your Sales & Advice Proposition

Has your business been built successfully (but solely) around your great relationship building and client acquisition skills? While this has undoubtedly been really valuable for you, what value does it hold for a potential buyer if you are planning on walking off into the sunset?

Alternatively, some advisers have built on these skills, for the benefit of other members of their sales team by developing processes and supports to acquire and deliver advice to clients. These processes and supports ensure that if you are out of the equation, your business should continue to develop sales and deliver excellent advice-based solutions to clients. Now that is really valuable to a buyer!

 

Clear & Valuable Target Markets

A buyer of your business will place a lot of value on your business offering “something different” to them. This might be particular expertise, skills or indeed access to a corner of the market that they have failed to access themselves.

Can you offer a potential purchaser access to a new segment of the market? This might be based on a product offering (for example the corporate pensions market), a geographical area where they currently don’t have a presence or a sector of the economy (a particular business sector or group of professionals). For this to be credible, you need to be able to demonstrate a genuine focus on the area, a differentiated approach that you utilise with this segment and demonstrable results in successfully gaining traction in the target segment.

After all, if your target market is “anyone”, what are you then actually bringing to a potential purchaser in terms of new opportunities?

 

Operational Excellence

A worry for someone buying a business is the skeletons in the closet. Are they suddenly going to be faced with a load of legacy problems – poor advice that will come home to roost, poor documentation that could leave them exposed, lots of clients who are completely disengaged from your business and who really have little loyalty towards it.

These factors will seriously undermine your price. Indeed they will often completely undermine the sale of your business at all, as a buyer just won’t want to take on these challenges. That is except possibly at a real knockdown price.

The challenge for you is to deal with these issues now and address them so that you are handing over as healthy a business as possible. And getting the best price as a result!

 

These are some of the factors to consider when looking to “fatten up” your business for sale. For any of you looking to buy or sell, do these match your experiences and what other factors do you consider? All comments as ever are welcome!