Five steps to a successful business

“Segmentation is about providing appropriate service profitably because you can’t afford to offer your A-class service offer to someone that’s paying you C-class fees.

In addition, “they communicate regularly with their clients, with all clients, exceptionally well”.

“Don’t get me wrong, they don’t sit in the corner and burn fifties, but they’re willing to prudently invest in the future of their business”

“They’ve found ways to profitably and effectively touch all of their clients regularly and with stuff that’s relevant,” Bertino says.

“The information kept on their databases is exceptional and it’s a lot more than just the product-type stuff that we may have traditionally kept.

“They’re keeping more relationship-type stuff, they’re keeping a lot deeper information that stems to perhaps the children and the grandchildren especially of their aging clients,” he says.

“They’ve found ways to leverage information to get to the next generation and the people that will inherit the wealth.

“So they all make client communication the core of what they do…planning their touch points for the year.”

Bertino says, “the fourth common attribute, and it’s one that we get a lot of pushback [over] especially a lot of the older principals, is that good businesses nowadays is always willing to invest in the future of their business”.

“They’re willing to spend money. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t sit in the corner and burn fifties, but they’re willing to prudently invest in the future of their business,” he says.

“The best practices around the world continue to invest in those initiatives that will deliver a long-term return.

“As you know, that’s tough to do when the balance sheet is not looking as healthy as it was, so to invest in those longer term initiatives takes some courage.

“What we have seen is that the guys that have been willing to do that and have done that well have received a real return on their investment.

“When things have turned they’ve been ahead of the curve, they’re in a position to take advantage of the opportunities that inevitably arise in times of change,” he says.

Bertino says IT infrastructure is ”a given now”.

“You cannot do what you guys do effectively, efficiently, profitably without a really up-to-date, scalable IT platform and that costs money; and get used to throwing it out and updating it every 18 months not every three years.

“The other thing they generally do quite well is that they’re willing to invest in their own profile or the profile of their business.

“They know where their new clients are likely to come from, so if you’re targeting engineers, what are you doing to be top of mind with people that don’t even know you exist yet?

“Are you speaking at the conference for engineering, are you writing articles in their newsletter or journals, are you sponsoring awards for their graduating class?”

Finally, the fifth common attribute Bertino sees in all successful businesses is that “the owners of these firms are willing to ask for help”.

“They come to [events] like this on a cold Monday night and they talk to their peers and they usually do more listening than talking,” he says.

“They understand that they don’t have a mortgage on all the good ideas.

“They don’t think they’ve made it, they listen, they ask questions and they understand that there’s other people out there that can help them.

“They have a business coach or a mentor or a board of advice.

“They get objective, independent, third-party input into the strategic positioning of their business,” he says.

Successful businesses are “not too proud to share ideas, to bounce things off and in fact they welcome the accountability that quite often comes with that, especially the bigger practices that have formalised a board of advice-type structure”.

Bertino says that Business Health focuses solely on “the business issues associated with running an advisory practice, so we’re not advisers, we’re not platform gurus, we’re not technical experts, we focus on the business”.

“We say all the time that if you need our help to be better advisers then we’re both in a lot of trouble because that’s not our skill set, that’s your skill set and that’s what you’re good at.”