Why your clients leave you

An article in last month’s newsletter about when it’s time to fire a client drew a lot of attention! It proved to be a situation that many financial advisers have experienced. However, now it’s time to take a look at the flip side of the coin – when clients leave you.

We’ve set out below some of the reasons that clients might leave you, and what you can do to prevent it happening.

 

They lose the feeling of love

You are busy, lots of new clients coming through the front door and business is great! However at the same time, you need to guard against existing, valuable clients quietly slipping out the back door. Have a really clear activity plan for all of your valuable clients, making sure that all of them continue to feel the love every year.

Make sure your ongoing support packages are really clear in the eyes of your clients. Manage their expectations on what they can and should expect, and then deliver a quality service time after time.

 

They lose sight of the plan

The development of a financial plan is a big deal for clients. They get a strong sense of direction and can see a pathway to future financial success. If required, this often entails you putting products in place.

It’s so important to recognise that you’ve simply started the client on their financial journey. Your role then becomes one of an ongoing guide; keeping the client on track for future success and ensuring the plan is continually pointing them in the right direction. If you don’t keep the client focused on the plan (and not just the products), they can fall off the path. And this is where you risk losing them.

 

They don’t believe in the plan

This is a trickier one as you may be sailing along blindly, thinking the client is 100% committed to the plan. It is worth getting positive affirmation from the client that they are happy with the plan, that it comprehensively covers all of their aspirations and concerns and that they are fully satisfied with the proposed strategies and solutions to achieve the plan.

Of course this becomes a lot easier with cashflow planning as the client can see before them the progress they are making, the further progress needed and whether they are on track or not. This clarity builds their financial confidence.

 

They don’t understand the plan / and or solutions

People don’t like to feel stupid. Some clients may appear to understand everything you tell them, but in fact may be bamboozled by the language and terminology that you use. Be careful that you talk to them as clients, keeping your language simple. Don’t talk to them with language you use with fellow professionals as your client may not understand you. This will undermine their trust in you and rather than appear stupid, they may prefer to deal with someone who they understand and connect better with.

 

They think the grass is greener elsewhere

Some clients leave because they believe another adviser will get better results for them. If another adviser is developing a better, more comprehensive plan for your client, you’ve got a problem. However if another adviser is promising “better returns”, you need to confront this. Clients can get greedy and blinded when confronted with unrealistic opportunities. You need to constantly remind your clients that you (and other advisers) have no control over markets or timing and that your role is identify a portfolio that reflects their specific needs, and not simply to suggest a portfolio with the highest potential returns (and risk). You need to remind them of the valid expectations they should have and how this relates back to the financial plan.

Some clients will leave anyway. Keep the door open to them – they may return when they recognise the grass was greener elsewhere.

 

These are just some of the reasons clients leave you. Ongoing, open communication with your valued clients is the key to preventing them slipping out the back door. Getting new clients into your business is hard work, keeping them there requires the same level of energy and attention.

How good are you at following up potential clients?

A question often asked by financial advisers and planners is how to effectively get prospects “over the line”. Some cases are very straightforward – you meet a prospect, find out a bit about them, set out how you might help them, and they immediately decide to move ahead with you. But sometimes it’s not like this.

There is a myriad of reason for this. Some clients are just fishing around, some are at the early stages of thinking they need a good adviser, some are talking to a number of advisers to find the right one and others don’t really know what they want! It is very hard to know after just an initial chat what is preventing your prospective client from using your services – they often don’t feel they know you well enough at this stage to open up and give you the reason for their (lack of) speed to commit.

On the other hand, you are busy. You have other clients who are making the leap with you and you have all your existing clients to look after. You just don’t know what is going on in the prospect’s life that is stopping them from moving forward with you, so what are supposed to do with these prospects who aren’t yet committing to you?

You need to stay on their radar.

The great thing about marketing today is that it is so much easier to stay on the radar than in years gone by, with a wide range of tools available to you. It is easier to practically do it, but it will require time and commitment from you to do so. Think of all the ways that you can stay in touch,

  • Diary to give them a call periodically: This might be once a quarter or at whatever frequency you think is best. Yes, this can be hard! You can be rejected a few times – but often the prospect is simply not ready to move forward as yet. Be patient and resilient – don’t give up. Effective follow-up phone calls are one of the most powerful tools available to you.
  • Add them to your regular newsletter: In my book, every financial adviser should have a regular (at least 4-6 issues a year) newsletter going out to clients and prospects. It’s hard to beat having high quality content landing regularly in their inbox. After all, this is a place that most people go to, many times a day. Encourage all prospects to sign up for your newsletter, positioning it as a valuable free resource that you offer to clients and contacts to educate them in personal finance matters.
  • Connect with them on LinkedIn: OK, not every prospective client is on LinkedIn, but many are. If your target clients are business owners, senior executives or professionals, they most likely have a presence on this platform. LinkedIn offers you an opportunity to share your own content, share useful content generated by others and participate in discussions with your network, including of course your prospective clients.
  • Invite them to your next client event: You’re not going to invite every prospect to every client event, but if you have a seminar about a topic that you know from your previous conversation with them is important to them, invite them along. You are now adding value and also demonstrating that you were listening to them when you spoke previously.
  • Invite them onto a webinar / phone conference: For the same reason as above, if the topic is going to be of interest, invite prospects onto particular calls and webinars. It won’t cost you anything and may just get them over the line.

The main point is not to give up. Clients can be slow to move for many reasons. They key for you is that when they are ready to move ahead with addressing their personal finance challenges, that you are top of mind. For this to happen, you have to stay on the radar.

When did you last refresh your website?

This is the latest instalment in our series of “12 StepChanges to a better business”, where we explain some of the services that StepChange brings to our financial adviser clients. This month it’s the turn of websites.

 

Creating a world class website is within the reach of financial advisers. The secret to it is to follow some simple guidelines, put a lot of work into creating excellent content and then pay a very high level of attention to the detail. If you’ve an old website or haven’t revisited your content in a while, it just might be time for a refresh.

At StepChange, we assist advisers and planners in establishing top quality, effective websites that portray a very professional look for your business online. In doing so, we follow a couple of basic rules.

 

We Keep it Simple

The days are long gone of auto-loading videos, animated graphics and the latest technical fads. The best websites today are ones that guide the user quickly to what they want and communicate in concise, engaging content. We focus on simplicity and getting your message across quickly – long explanations and technical details about every product available will just bore users. We help you refine your messages in as few words as possible.

 

We Make it Easy to Navigate

We make sure it is very easy for a user to find their way to the specific information they want, while also enticing them to “have a look around” the site. A coherent site navigation approach is critical to retaining the user’s engagement with the site for as long as possible.

 

We Focus on Financial Planning

Too many adviser websites talk at length about products, while not focusing on the real value that you add – helping your clients to make sense of their financial circumstances and to plan effectively for their financial future. This is the focus of the sites that we develop.

 

We Like Nice Design

While simplicity sits at the heart of the websites we develop, this is not a substitute for nice design. We’ll deliver an attractive site layout, will help you source beautiful images and we’ll give your site that wow factor!

 

We Demonstrate your Credentials

Client testimonials, particularly where the name (and better still a photo) of the client is included, are a very valuable asset. We’ll help you request these in a professional manner from your best clients and get maximum visibility for these much-valued endorsements of you and your business.

 

We Identify Clear Calls to Action

You want to make it easy for users to “do something” when they visit your website, rather than simply leaving. This may be connecting on social media, signing up to your newsletter or picking up the phone to you. We’ll identify a number of different Calls to Action and will include them in an effective way.

 

We Know Mobile is Key

The number of views from mobile devices is rising all the time. We develop sites that reflect the importance of the user experience when viewing your site on a mobile device. Mobile users are often looking for different information than desktop users. Our sites recognise this and provide that key information at a glance.

 

We Keep it Fresh

For many of our clients, we continue to work with you after your website is developed. We help you communicate effectively with your clients on an ongoing basis, and as part of this we help you to continually add fresh content to your website. This ensures that users of your site will see that you are an active business, looking to add value to users on an ongoing basis.

 

For some of you, these changes will mean a few hours work. For others they might mean a new site. For everyone though they are worth it. Is it time to give us a call to discuss how we can help you establish a great presence on the web?

Do you need a marketing overhaul?

In this latest in our series of “12 StepChanges to a better business”, we set out the details of how we help advice firms in Ireland to completely overhaul the marketing side of their business. With clients having a bewildering array of choices available to them and receiving approaches from other advice firms and financial businesses through many different channels, it is becoming harder and harder to stand apart from the crowd.

The StepChange Marketing Overhaul programme will help you to stand out, both in terms of your visibility and the quality of your interactions with your clients.

How we work with clients has changed quite significantly in recent years. When we started out back in 2011, our formula (which still stands the test of time!) with a client commenced by carrying out a detailed marketing planning exercise, followed by assisting in the delivery of a variety of marketing activities, This is still our launch point with many of our clients today.

However we also came to recognise that quite a number of advisers had similar challenges. For some of them, they came to us looking to start all over again on the marketing side! And so we developed our Marketing Overhaul programme, which is a pre-defined programme of 12 marketing related activities that will enable you to set your business up in good stead for the years to come. And because our clients take the programme as a package, we can apply a healthy discount to the cost.

The programme consists of the following,

 

  1. Developing & documenting a robust, repeatable Client Value Proposition that will help to build trust, engage clients, sell solutions and aid retention. This includes reviewing every aspect of the client proposition – what it is at initial advice stage, articulate on-going service packages, review meetings, how much it costs, how it is paid for (fee / commission) etc.
  2. Developing a new website for your business, built in WordPress. An approx. 10-page responsive website, with focus on financial planning, along with the inclusion of blog module. To include development of website, writing of content and project management of implementation.
  3. Provision of a bi-monthly newsletter for a period of 2 years.
  4. Updating newsletter content to your website & social sharing for 2 years.
  5. Developing a corporate brochure as a hand-out at all prospect meetings, at next meetings with all clients & a supply to be given to introducers.
  6. Leveraging LinkedIn – how to use LinkedIn effectively
  7. Developing a 6-10 slides credentials presentation (including development of PowerPoint template) for 1st meeting with a prospective client – covering Advice proposition, Investment philosophy, Service packages, Review meetings, credentials / endorsements etc.
  8. Completing segmentation of your client base to identify high value & high potential (income value, multiple transactions, ABC1) “relationship” clients. Deciding criteria, analysing database and allocating clients to segments.
  9. Implementing an activity tracking system using Excel. This will track the sales contacts of every sales person and the sales “funnel” activities completed. It enables you to view potential clients and activities that are being carried out with each client.
  10. Developing Service Overviews – 1. Pensions, 2. Investments, 3. Protection, 4. Review meetings. These single page A4 documents set out the depth of your services and demonstrate the work involved (justifying both initial and ongoing remuneration).
  11. A templated website video, branded for your advice business.
  12. 2 x Business Building consulting half days.

 

Should you wish to hear more about this programme, please contact Eamonn Twomey at eamonn@stepchange.ie or at 086 2519895.

Take action when it’s time to fire a client

It’s hard enough to get clients in the first place, I hear you say… But sometimes relationships just don’t work out and it’s time to part ways. This arises relatively infrequently in personal relationships, and it also arises fairly rarely in adviser / client relationships. But just as it doesn’t make sense to stay in a bad marriage, it also doesn’t make sense to stay in a toxic or doomed adviser / client relationship…

 

Relationships can turn sour with clients

We’re not talking here about the odd grumble that a client may have. When markets take a bit of a dive, the natural reaction of a client is to get nervous. Some will have an open conversation with you about their concerns, others will stew silently, some might lash out a bit at you. There’s nothing wrong with any of these reactions – your skills as an adviser need to stretch to noticing client reactions, dealing with them accordingly and bringing your client’s attention back to what matters – their financial plan.

Instead we’re talking here about the client who is simply never happy – your service is too slow when it’s not, your charges are too high when they are in fact fair, their fund performance is not good enough when it’s not your fault and the client also doesn’t want to take any risk. If the client can find an opportunity to moan, they immediately take it. When your phone rings and your heart sinks when their number comes up – everyone knows the feeling.

Let the client go – fire him or her. A client who doesn’t recognise your value is no good for you or your business.

 

The time comes to break free

I was chatting today to an adviser that I really respect about a specific client of his. It’s about the tenth conversation we’ve had about the client, who is simply never happy. My adviser friend has jumped through hoops for him over the last few years – regular draining meetings and phone conversations, numerous excellent and time consuming reports, meetings arranged with providers, exceptional service at every turn. All the time having developed an innovative financial plan for the client, that is on course for delivery via a solid investment strategy. And all of this has been delivered for a very reasonable fee.  There has never been a word of thanks or even grudging positivity from the client.

The adviser has ploughed on as the annual fee, even though extremely reasonable is not insignificant. The adviser didn’t want to lose the fee… until recently, when the client started arguing over the fee level (again). The adviser told me today that, about 4 weeks ago he fired the client. He told the client he would not deal with him any more and would facilitate fully his move to another adviser or organisation of his choice.

The client took it badly, told the adviser he was going anyway and went off to talk to other advisers. The faraway hills were not greener – the client soon arrived back a bit sheepishly saying that he(!) had reconsidered and would stay on the existing fee. The adviser said he was no longer a client and wouldn’t be taken back.

 

Don’t look back

Yes the adviser misses the fee a bit. But the cost of that is far outweighed by the liberating impact that getting rid of the client has had, both for him personally and for his business. He knows his proposition is excellent, his fees are fair, his communication is excellent and his results for clients are as good as can be achieved. However this experience caused him to re-evaluate what he does and question that maybe the fault lay with him as the adviser and not the client.  Having done this exercise though, it re-confirmed to himself that his offering is excellent. He has more time for other clients, renewed confidence in what he offers and a certain pride that he stood up for his own principles. He doesn’t dread phone calls, and the slog associated with that particular client is gone. All of this is worth a lot more than a fee.

I’m not suggesting that the decision to fire a client is easy and should never be taken lightly. But do you have a client who is dragging you down, takes up too much time, keeps you awake at night, moans about you to others and makes you question yourself and what you do? Because if you do, you should consider whether they deserve a seat on your bus.

 

Every day you help your clients to live the life they want. Do yourself a favour and live the life you want – don’t suffer clients who don’t deserve you.

Help your clients retire properly

One of the primary reasons why clients reach out to financial planners is to plan for financial security in retirement. Of course, financial planners today deliver far more than helping clients to simply save money for the future. You help clients to visualise what their retirement will look like, you put a cost on this life and then develop a plan to help your clients to achieve the life that they want.

This is very valuable, but clients need more help than this.

Retirement has a huge impact on clients, who overnight go from being very busy people to well, maybe not having a lot to do… Not working any more creates a huge void in their life. Of course for some, this is a very welcome space, for others it brings a range of issues with it. When they’ve hung up their boots, it is often only then that people recognise how important their colleagues were as part of their social fabric. When this daily interaction is no longer there, loneliness can ensue. Of course on top of this is the loss of a sense of purpose every day. Before retirement, your client got out of bed every morning to go to work, to earn money and to achieve their work objectives. Now these are no longer there, what drives them every day?

As their financial planner, you can help your client prepare fully for retirement by expanding your conversations far beyond the financial aspects of their later lives. Here are some areas that you might help them consider,

 

Being with their partner every day

This is not a punishment! But it will definitely take adjustment for both your client and their partner. Routines will now change for each. Your client needs to develop a new routine and the immediate thought might be to hang out with their spouse every day. However their spouse may be happy with their own existing routine (that doesn’t include your client) and might not want to change it.

Of course the answer is in finding a balanced approach. It is about awareness of each other’s space, routines and hopes for the future together. The key to this is talking about it and working through it together. As their financial planner, you can gently guide this conversation.

 

There is time to fill

The thinking around this needs to begin long before retirement. The working day, including commuting time often punched in 11 or 12 hours every day. That’s a lot of time to fill now, so how is your client going to do it? Are they going to play lots of golf? Are they going to study or do voluntary work? Are they going to travel to all those places they had long promised themselves to see?

Your clients need an activity plan, as well as a financial plan. You have worked with many clients as they transition into retirement. Tell the stories of these other clients, how they transitioned, the activities they carried out, how they made retirement work for them. Hearing other people’s experiences is always a useful guide.

 

Encourage clients to mind their health

You have seen the cost of clients getting ill. Bring good health practices into both your client’s financial plan for retirement and also their activity plan. Will they join a golf club or a leisure club with a pool and gym? Will they go for a walk every day?

Also encourage your clients to stay sharp mentally too. Their plan should include cashflow for meeting friends, getting out and about and maybe even going back to college to study? All of these will help your clients stay fit and strong.

 

Remind your clients of their value

Your client has so much to offer in terms of experience, expertise and time. Some people can retire with a perceived loss of value. Previously a company and colleagues relied upon them, and now that is gone. All that actually needs to change here though is that while previously your client was paid for their time and expertise, they can still use their skills, but maybe without payment or for lower payment. Your client will now work on their terms, for someone / a charity that they want to work for, at times that suit them and in ways that make them feel good about themselves. Your client will add enormous value, whether that’s to a voluntary organisation, coaching a sports team or mentoring less experienced business owners. Many retired people build up nice little income streams for themselves in retirement, by putting their skills and expertise to work, all on their own terms.

 

Helping your clients to get their finances in order is very important for them to enjoy a happy and satisfying retirement. But it’s the other factors that will make them feel good about themselves and will help them to live their life to the full for many years to come. As their financial planner, you can guide your clients to think about these areas and help them achieve a full life after retirement.