OUR BLOG – ARTICLES AND VIDEOS
A tale of four builders
I’ve been visited by four builders over the past few weeks who gave me great insight into why some advisers are more successful when it comes to client engagement than others. To give the background: we’ve moved into a new house and want to get a deck built in our...
Switching to Apple – a case study
A year ago ago, I made the jump across to Apple, with my first MacBook Pro. Since then, I’ve been asked a number of times whether it’s realistic for advisers to do the same in an industry that intrinsically favours Windows. Many businesses asked me whether, given the...
Got an iPad? Then you’ve got an extra display monitor
Advisers who want to wow their clients are increasingly using technology to help do it. This includes embracing innovative ways of demonstrating key concepts using interactive visual tools, such as presentations, mindmaps, calculators and lots more. However, sometimes...
So what happens when you can’t pay the bills?
Pete's story is one that needs to be told. What happens when you hit rock bottom in this business? When what you know and believe in just isn't working out? I wrote a guest blog for AdviserVoice recently which tells the story of one such person. I want to share the...
Good advice takes time, but value is measured in other ways
In this excerpt from my book Pricing Advice, published in Professional Planner, I share some insights into how to present fees to your clients and gain confidence in charging explicit fees for your services. You can read the article here: The problem with costing your...
Our top 5 posts of the year
Well, another year has come to an end, and looking back over all the blog posts we have put up, the top 5 makes some interesting reading. To start with, at number one, and far outstripping the rest of the field (was it the amazing content or the picture of the cat,...
Pricing insurance advice post-FoFA
For advisers providing advice on insurance, it has traditionally been difficult to price that advice. While commissions largely remain post-FoFA, they are banned on some types of personal insurance. In my revised edition of Pricing Advice, I have devoted a much larger...
Outsourced paraplanning – how to make it work
Establishing an outsourcing relationship can be a challenge for those organisations that currently complete paraplanning functions in-house. In my experience, the process can sometimes fail right from the beginning and before the outsourcing relationship even starts!...
What’s your ‘bigger-than-you’ reason?
I recently invited several successful tech-entrepreneurs to a workshop to critique a business I’ve been working with as an investor. The day was full of insightful feedback and heated discussion, as you’d hope for when bringing together strong-minded business people...
When is the right time to quote my fee?
One question we're often asked by advisers, is "when is the right time to quote my fee?". It's one thing to determine how much to charge, it’s also incredibly important to know how and when to position it with your clients. The following is an excerpt from the revised...
How many appointments can an adviser fit in a week?
One question we receive consistently from many advisers is “how many appointments do other advisers fit in in a week?” Now, the answer to this varies with the full job duties of an adviser, but the simple answer is that great advisers routinely do a minimum of 12...
ElixirTV Episode 6 – Client Value Propositions
Client Value Propositions are such an overused term, and yet many advisers still struggle to get theirs sorted. Geoff Pritchard shares some thoughts about what a CLIENT is looking to you to provide, and what to avoid when articulating your value.