The 6th Pillar of Financial Planning

As a financial advisor, you do your best to serve your clients despite experiencing daily challenges. Many of these challenges can be related to struggles with regular client communication and engagements. Most advisors won’t admit that they struggle with ongoing communication, yet almost all would agree that ongoing communication and advice are the foundation of top-notch advisory services.

To empower you to be the best advisor you can be, we have taken the liberty of presenting the 6th Pillar of Financial Planning - what we call Ongoing Communication and advice. Using this pillar to guide your financial planning practice can help you develop successful planner and client relationships and maintain good practice management.

The main and currently original 5 Pillars of financial planning are:

1. Estate Planning

2. Investment Planning

3. Tax Planning

4. Insurance and Risk Planning

5. Retirement Planning

The 6th Pillar of Financial Planning

Successful financial planning and investing involve much more than listening to popular opinion, understanding the latest market trends and crunching numbers. As much as people need to know about financial markets and investments, they also need to know about themselves. Money is an emotional topic, and so investor behaviour and psychology are important components of investing.

In the financial planning profession, effective communication is about way more than

discussing the money and the insurance. Financial planners need to be

adequately equipped to navigate both the rational and emotional

aspects of financial decisions and behaviours.

The problem with communication

The most common complaint clients make about their financial advisors is a lack of

communication. Ironically, these complaints often occur during times of prosperity and

comparative success. Many advisors seem to think if the numbers are good, what is

there to talk about?

Advisors often feel overwhelmed by their extensive task lists and it becomes challenging to keep their clients in the loop through consistent communication, Personal meetings with clients and reporting (especially without reporting software!) are additional hurdles for the advisor to overcome.

Communication is the heart of excellent service

Communication is an ongoing feature of the client relationships we work so hard to

maintain. Managing your clients’ expectations and appetites for risk is an

ongoing effort, not a once-off transaction. Clients are becoming more demanding,

and they want to experience value-added service from their advisor.

Regular communication will contribute positively to the relationship between the

advisor and the client by enhancing trust and ensuring the advisor’s services

stay top of mind.

How can Seed Analytics make your life easier?

We have processes in place with custom-built fidelity and integrity checks to ensure accurate monthly investment reporting. You will be able to send out bulk statements to all your clients in less than 15 minutes.

Take the time; see the change

As a financial advisor, you experience the changes in your clients’ lives firsthand. Whether they are growing in their careers, building businesses or starting families, you are walking a journey with them, and that is a huge responsibility.

Your clients need more from you than just new products added to their current packages. They need solutions to real-life problems and challenges. Remember, your client is always growing and changing. This means their current profile will have to evolve alongside them. You are the expert at identifying their needs and finding the right solutions.

Clients quickly lose trust in you and your service if you only contact them to sell them something. Communication is so important. Even if you’re upselling with the very best solution to their problems, it means nothing if you disappear for the rest of the year.

Take the time to get to know your clients and remember the big moments in their lives.

Whether it’s a birthday, anniversary or launch date of their first business, remember to make a big deal of it. Your clients will thank you for it.

Knowing your clients also means you need to know what is going on in your industry and the world in general. What’s currently happening in the world that can affect your client’s business and their portfolio? Which new technologies have emerged that could solve problems for your clients? Keep your clients updated on these relevant developments by maintaining open lines of communication. This knowledge will contribute to their financial success.

A happy client is a loyal client. Clients that feel validated and heard will be more likely to refer you to their network. These clients will stick with you as long as you give them the service they expect.

Ready to learn more about Seed Analytics and how we can help you be the best financial advisor you can be?

Contact us to book a demo.

How to build a highly referrable business

As a financial advisor, referrals from happy clients help your business grow. Your clients are unlikely to refer you to their networks if you don’t continue to uphold the service delivery standards that you promised them on Day 1. When these standards slip, clients soon become unhappy. These clients will eventually take their money elsewhere. More importantly, they’re unlikely to recommend your business to family, friends, or colleagues.

If you want your clients to sing the praises of your financial advisory business to anyone who will listen, there are three golden rules that your business must follow:

1. Prioritise the Client

Your clients are your business’s most important resource. Without your clients, you have no business. We’re not just talking about the revenue your clients bring; we are talking about client relationships. When clients feel valued by a business, they are happy to refer you to their connections.

Nurture client relationships by ensuring that your clients receive the attention they deserve. Here are a few ways to do this:

• Address your clients by name in your communications with them.

• Message your clients on their birthdays.

• Check-in with your clients on their anniversary of starting work with you.

2. Work Smart

In order to refer your business to their networks, your clients need to know what makes your business different from your competitors’. You want to be known as the financial advisor who provides the very best service and delivers excellent results. Maintaining this reputation becomes more difficult as your list of clients grows. More clients means more reporting and a greater administrative load on you and your team.

To step up to the challenge, your business may need to hire additional administrative staff. However, this will raise your overhead costs and require you to onboard more clients to maintain your profit margin. You’ll soon reach capacity again and get stuck in a cycle of onboarding and hiring new staff.

Alternatively, you can work smart and introduce high-quality reporting software to your business operations. This will free up some valuable time to help you serve your clients more efficiently. If you implement Seed Analytics reporting software, you will have time to focus on building your business while the software handles reporting tasks. We also offer training in our reporting software for your admin staff.

3. Fight the Stigma

Financial advisors have a nasty reputation for onboarding a client, meeting with them once to sign the service contract…and then disappearing. As a result of this stigma around financial advisors, you’ll need to prove your trustworthiness before a client will even think of referring you to others.

A trustworthy advisor keeps clients updated on their investments and is available to answer their questions or address their concerns. Clients don’t want to have to ask you how their investments are performing. You should tell them of your own accord. Equip your business with high-quality reporting software to ensure your clients receive their reports in their inbox, every month without fail.

We can’t control whether a client decides to refer our business to their networks, but we can control how efficiently and effectively we serve our clients. Improve the service you offer with reporting software that serves you. Book a demo with Seed Analytics.

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