KEY ISSUE
The way a business positions itself is also a key issue advisers need to be conscious of.
“I see a lot of adviser websites where essentially they try to be all things to all people and say,‘Here are my qualifications and here’s the number of years of experience I’ve had’,” Nolan says.
But, he says, it’s not those things that ultimately attract new clients.
“They really want to see some case studies and examples of people in a similar situation before they say, ‘That sounds like me, you could help me’,” he says.
Nolan says he’s also seen businesses take on far too many clients than they can handle.
“What we suggest they do is a clean-up on the bottom end of their books,” he says.
“The message is for advisers to buy themselves a bit of headspace, a bit of room, so that they can concentrate on enhancing their offer to their better clients.”
Williams says the majority of lead generation support he provides is fairly common sense “but a lot of people just don’t think about it, or if they think about it, most of them don’t have a way of implementing it”.
“Every adviser should be…saying at the end of the meeting, ‘Out of everything that we covered today, what was the one thing that you found of most value?’” he says.
“Whatever the client says, thats their perception of your value proposition, and one of many opportunities to ‘plant the seed’ regarding referrals.”
Nolan says it’s clear that there’s been retention in the past six to 12 months.
“It’s really been [about] retention rather than lead generation, so I think they’re waiting for the sunshine to come out again.”
