Send me a sample toolkit.

Please complete the form below and we’ll send you a sample toolkit.

Please fill all the fields marked*

*Thank you for the interest. Kindly note, we will forward the material request and follow up with you directly for the purpose of a one-to-one review between you and our team lead. You will NOT be contacted if your details are not complete or industry specific. We will NOT provide your contact details to others, we will NOT put you in an email list, or SPAM you.

Insights | December 10, 2021

The Most Desirable Client Trait and How to See More of It

Each time we begin working with a new advisor, team or firm, we complete a discovery process that covers, among other things, the ideal client profile. We want to understand who they’re looking to attract and what type of individual is best suited to their offering and objectives.

And from a list of client traits, there is one descriptor that gets selected almost every single time: open to advice.

If you’re like most advisors, you likely have stories about investors who are resistant to new ideas or slow to trust in the opinions of others, even if those opinions are informed by experience and expertise. 

New assets in is one thing, but the quality of the relationships attached to them matters, too—not only because it determines the quality of your day-to-day, but also because the opportunity of taking on a new client doesn’t end when they come on board. Retention, referrals and wallet share are all enormous contributors to your practice’s success.

So advisors value clients who value them. But how do you build a practice full of these kinds of people? Is “openness to advice” something you can search for or influence?

One way to approach it is to forget about prospecting for the moment. Focus on the earliest touch points with new clients and consider what you’re doing to set the tone for the relationship. 

This is just what an independent team out of Indianapolis decided to do. Once they had the foundations of an outward brand in place, their priority was to have the tools they needed to set expectations with new clients. 

We worked with them to develop an onboarding process that would grant each new client a welcome kit with a personal introduction letter as well as information on next steps, resources, team contacts, and the firm’s communication standards. We also developed polished presentation materials that would allow the advisors to take new clients through a deep dive of their planning and investment methodologies. The material had both print and digital components, so that the various touch points would be both flexible and resonating.

If you’ve just won over a prospect, the last thing you want to do is take your foot off the gas. Client onboarding is the time to start fulfilling the promises that attracted attention in the first place and to foster the trust that your new client has only just begun to develop. 

Because being “open to advice” isn’t just a personality trait. It’s what happens when someone thoroughly understands the nature, quality and suitability of the guidance being offered to them. And that’s a perception that you have the opportunity to create. 

SHARE
< Previous Post
How will you thank your clients this holiday season?
Next Post >
Retention, referrals, growth—where do you start?

Top Posts

Sign up for our newsletter

Sign up to get growth, branding and practice management tips right to your inbox.

Subscribe for Our Content

Learn how to take your practice to the next level, with ideas and resources from some of the best practices in the industry.

By subscribing, I accept the privacy terms and I give my consent to receive AdvisorBranding e-mails about the latest newsletters.

Top