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HOW TO
Write Your
Success Story
Top 20 Client Analysis
Practice Analysis
Wealth Management Lifecycle
Wealth Planning Overview
TIMING EVALUATION
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How to Write Your
Success Story
How to Write Your
Success Story
An effective case study provides evidence of
how you add value as an advisor. The challenge for clients
seeking the assistance of financial advisors is to determine
if the advisor is skilled, experienced, trustworthy and has
worked with clients with similar needs. A good case study
illustrates your process, providing insight into your
approach – in effect a test drive of what it would be like
to be your client. Shared with prospective clients, the case
study is a great take-away from an initial meeting that
reinforces points made during your interview. Case studies
enhance your professionalism by revealing not just the
clarity of your problem solving process, but also your
willingness to be compared to competitors. Case studies
should be given to and reviewed with all of your referral
sources and centers of influence as reminders of your added
value.
Tools
to Analyze Your Practice
The Top 20
Client Analysis
After more than 20 years of working with financial
advisory practices, I've reached the conclusion that the key
to success among top advisors vs. their less successful
peers is the CONSISTENCY of their advisory solutions across
the practice. In other words, most good advisors deliver a
valuable and compelling service to their clients, but the
very best solutions and highest quality service are
typically provided to only a select handful of each
advisor's clients. The most successful advisors are able to
deliver their best work to a longer list of clients through
more consistently applied processes and service models.
The Top 20 Client Analysis was first developed during the
formation of a global wealth management strategy for an
international advisory firm and investment bank. The top
advisors, 184 from around the world, each employed the
analysis to quickly and visually determine:
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evaluate the consistency of their current practice and see
clearly what
clients see about the practice
•
opportunities to further develop client relationships among
their top clients
As a result of the Top 20 Client Analysis by each member of
the global team, the advisors realized too much reliance on
investment solutions, especially among their top clients,
and a tendency to allow their best and most complete
solutions to break down after the seventh or eighth
household. Assuming an 80/20 rule of practice profitability,
improving the productivity of just this list of clients can
boost overall practice revenues by 20% or more.
The
Practice Analysis
The Practice Analysis is a dynamic archive of data about
your advisory practice. The process of recording information
about your practice is a valuable exercise on its own, and
advisors who have completed the Practice Analysis report
"revelations" about their structure and focus. Consider the
Practice Analysis first a mirror in which to view your
practice objectively, and then as a tool to focus
discussions within your team about opportunities to improve
productivity and efficiency. Quarterly or annual meetings to
review your practice can begin with updating the Practice
Analysis.
Tools to Use with Clients
The Wealth
Management Lifecycle
The Lifecycle was developed to provide both
advisors and their clients an objective view of a family's
financial progression. The four phases depicted in the chart
refer to stages of financial activity -- from simple
investing to the ultimate succession and transfer of family
assets. Note that there is a "top" and a "bottom" to the
chart, in which the changing needs of the client household
are contrasted with the corresponding role of the family's
advisor in each phase. For example, in Phase I, Investing,
the family is probably just beginning its journey into the
world of financial advice and likely requires only access to
simple accumulation vehicles like mutual funds. The role of
the advisor here is minimal, given that the savings and
investing process is early stage -- likely also through an
employer sponsored retirement plan -- and therefore requires
little attention from an advisor (or no advisor at all). By
contrast, later stages are directed more by a qualified
advisor, who can facilitate more structure to investing - as
in Phase II, and even more complex strategies for tax
planning and asset transfer (Phases III and IV).
Use the Lifecycle with clients and prospects for a number of
clarifying purposes:
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determine where the household is now in
relation to the lifecycle it will travel
•
explain more clearly your role as an advisor in each phase
of the lifecycle
•
reinforce that your relationship and duties as advisor and
client will change
over time and become more complex
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place yourself more specifically in relation to competitors
and other providers
that the household may have today or has contemplated
For more on the use of the Lifecycle, see Chapters 1 and 7
in Advisor for Life and Chapter 7 of The Managed Account
Handbook.
Wealth
Planning Overview - The Risk Audit
The WPO is my favorite financial planning tool. The
beauty is in the simplicity of the single page. With
prospects, the WPO provides immediate clarity of complex and
varied financial needs so you can focus on areas of greatest
concern. With a couple, each person has the chance to circle
areas of need or worry, and then compare "answers" with
their partner and you. The WPO is also terrific to use with
clients at every review meeting to quickly survey each
household's current situation and test for areas of new
concern. One of my great advisor friends says that his job
is to help insulate clients from "the family problem", the
area of greatest vulnerability to the family, and that the
WPO is his favorite tool for identifying that challenge.
For more information
about the Wealth Planning Overview and how to use it with
clients and prospects, please see Chapters 1 and 5 in
Advisor for Life, and Chapter 6 of The Managed Account
Handbook.
Timing
Evaluation Worksheet
The Timing Evaluation Worksheet is a model of the future.
Its intent is to provide a snapshot of life for your
client's family as children and parents age. I've used it
for many years to give advisors and their clients a way to
see the future in an objective format so that they can draw
their own conclusions about the implications of the age
dynamics. Created originally by a minister friend of mine
who used it for pre-marital counseling, the Timing
Evaluation Worksheet is another simple tool to help
understand prospective clients and to update existing
relationships for areas of growing sensitivity.
Interactive
Interactive version - Word document with built-in Excel
sheet. Simple type in "Current
Age" and the rest of the worksheet populates itself.
For more information
about how to use the Future Planning Worksheets, please see
Chapters 1 and 5of Advisor for Life, and Chapter 6 of The
Managed Account Handbook.
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