businessUnless you are an employed Financial Planner, being a Financial Adviser is like running a small business. And like all businesses, there is the sales/marketing, finance, operations, personnel and customer relationship management aspects in running a profitable Financial Advisory Practice. Therefore having a good business plan/strategy and being able to execute it well, is the difference between a good and an excellent financial adviser.

“Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make. It is the art of identifying and understanding customer needs and creating solutions that deliver satisfaction to the customers, profits to the producers and benefits for the stakeholders.” Philip Kotler

Marketing involves a deliberate plan to stand out from other financial advisers, and positioning yourself in front of your target audience. Effective prospecting and other methods of marketing will make or break a financial advisory business. For a start most financial advisers will target at their natural contacts and hopefully work their way into referrals. Other Financial Advisers, who are starting out, may do direct mail, canvassing, road shows or cold-calls to increase their prospect reservoirs. There are also other means of marketing to generate leads like Networking, Strategic Alliances, On-line Marketing, Seminar Marketing, Publications and . The key thing about establishing a long-term marketing strategy is Differentiation.

“The fact is, everyone is in sales. Whatever area you work in, you do have clients and you do need to sell.” Jay Abraham

Now that you’ve got the prospects to see you, the next thing is to sell them. It’s not about selling the products, but selling yourself and what you represent. Your clients have to see owner benefit and how you can add-value to them. You have to have first class presentations and supporting materials, to wow them over. A good financial adviser will be able to listen to what the client wants and sell them a solution that answers to their needs.

“Our business is about technology, yes. But it’s also about operations and customer relationships.” Michael Dell.

Being a Financial Adviser also puts you into the customer service line. To have a sustainable flow of referrals and business, you’ll need to convert your customers into clients and clients into advocates. In order to develop loyal clients and therefore a profitable practice, you must adopt good customer relationship management practices. This goes beyond the typical birthday cards and management diaries. Scott McKain put it most succinctly in the book “All Business is Show Business” that customers really want (1) Accessibility (2) Approachability (3) Reliability (4) Customizability (5) Upgradeability (6) Enjoy-ability and (7) Remark-ability.

At the heart of customer service relating to the Financial Advisory business is the word “Trust”. This comes with trust in your competency as well as integrity. According to an article in Straits Times on 12 Dec 08 (Singapore), with study participants 33 to 55 years old earning S$80,000 a year, responded that 49.4% “have not met an adviser whom I am able to trust completely”. In Hong Kong, 68% said the same.

“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” Paul J.Myer

Many Financial Advisers start to struggle in the later years with time between acquiring new clients, engaging the financial advisory process and servicing existing. Which is why from day one, you’ll have to think about systemizing the workflow, and eventually out-sourcing the more routine or mundane tasks. Time effectiveness equals better productivity equals beyoungbiztter profits.

The people what you may have to hire in the future would be personal assistants, admin staff, relationship managers, para-planners and other financial advisers. This would also mean that you’ll have to handle issues like payroll, training and employee retention.

By now, if you realized that being a Financial Adviser is not that simple after all, you are right. If it was easy, you won’t be paid well. Nonetheless, it is a fulfilling and enriching experience, running a business and a practice, just like a doctor. As you can see in the above survey, 49.4% of affluent individuals still lack trusted financial advisers. Wow! What a huge market.

In the next article, we’ll be looking deeper how attractive this market really is … “What’s the Financial Advisory Market Like? Is it saturated?”

P.S. If you are serious, you might like to read about The Million-Dollar Financial Services Practice: A Proven System for Becoming a Top Producer by David J. Mullen



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