Many moons ago I used to be an IFA with a large national company which had no shortage of good quality leads. Great at the time, but in the financial world clients are encouraged not to touch their money for a period of five years or more. This led to the need to continuously find new clients until there was a five-year “rolling stock” of clients to build a sustainable business for each adviser.

Bearing in mind that the average financial adviser stayed in position for an average of two and a half years, you can see why a considerable “hit and run” philosophy built up within the advising community, and large companies would build up a backlog of orphan clients which often remained ignored. There has always been an emphasis on getting new blood as far as clients were concerned, hence advisers still being referred to as a “Sales Force” rather than “Advisory Force”.

This has driven some advisers into a scavenging mentality, grabbing business where they can, picking up scraps, sometimes “over-egging” their proposition to win new clients, and destroying client confidence in the process.

In recent years there has been a greater focus on working with existing clients, and actually attending the one-year review promised from day one, rather than ignoring it. This is good for the client, good for the adviser, and good for the industry as a whole. But there has been nothing altruistic in this approach. It has been born of the lack of confidence and cynicism shown by clients in general after years of bad press, and in many cases bad service.

So what lessons might you learn for your own business? A good friend of mine, Darren of Fulcrum Consulting and Recruitment, posted a Tweet today about win-win relationships. He and I share a deeply held belief that a successful business will always offer the client or customer something extra, a little beyond expectations, in order to secure future business from the same source. This could come in the form of money-back guarantees, fairer (not just cheaper) pricing structures, free advice and service above and beyond the norm.

In these straightened times a business needs to compete against those who offer a cut-down, cut-price service, but needs to do it in such a way as to still make a profit. Why does a business need to make a profit? So that it’s there to continue to offer the service TO THE SAME CLIENT further down the line. The less a customer pays for his goods, the lower the level of service is likely to be, as the vendor must continually seek new customers to make a profit. It becomes a pure volume business, and we’re back to a hit and run mentality.

Seek to be FAIR with your client. Show him that you want his business in the FUTURE, not just NOW. When you’re trying to beat the competition bear the following points in mind:

• Think laterally and offer an alternative solution, not necessarily a cheaper one.

• Assure your client that you wish to be his provider of choice for as long as the product/service is required.

• Remember, there’s a difference between being the cheapest and being competitive.

• Never stop thinking of ways that you can add value without reducing your own bottom line.

• Always think Win-Win.

A successful business should be built on the premise of everyone having an equal share of the cake. Build for long-term need, not short-term greed.

Get in touch now, using our contact details for a discussion on your own customer relationships.