Connect clients to the story of your firm

Do your clients appreciate what sets your brand apart?

That 81 per cent of advisers love what they do would hardly constitute a sparkling disquisition of the status quo. That is unless it were allied to one other key fact: of the relatively small proportion of advisers who lost clients unintentionally with the introduction of fees, only 21 per cent claimed to love what they are doing.

This goes to show that strategies, plans, tactics and tweets (however well integrated and aligned) will not amount to much if your hearts are not in it – if you don’t have a reason why. It drives us and sustains us – and is what people respond to most.

Boris didn’t ride, all wibbly-wobbly, flipperty-flopperty, both follically and politically, to power because of great logic. Boris’s was rather an illogical victory – however short-lived it may be. He won because of personality (ahem, and possibly other Machiavellian reasons). How can we organise our businesses to ensure that with all the emphasis on efficiency and compliance we do not lose what really sets us apart?

One key consideration is the relative merit of employment versus self-employment for advisers, and how contractual arrangements and remunerations are best structured. Much of this debate centres on who owns the client. The answer, of course, is no one. It is a relationship. The more pertinent question is, what sustains the marriage?

From our conversations with some of the most successful advisers, the key is multiple touch points. The best businesses free their people to deliver great service but within the context of an advice proposition that is more than just an adviser.

Employment or self-employed? Both have advantages and getting the detail right, such as ensuring the parameters of post-employment dealing with clients are defined and understood, is critical. But, as one adviser put it, “I could run the firm like a solicitor’s, with each adviser earning 30 per cent of fees without owning the relationship… but I wouldn’t want to work there.”

What matters most is that your brand personality – or story – is greater than any individual who plays a role in delivering it. Logic is a bit of a battering ram, one that might work if your case is overwhelming but, mostly, people are moved by stories. What’s yours?