Growing Your Financial Advisory Practice | Insights for Financial Advisors, Planners and Investment Managers

Working well with other professionals is critical to helping your clients and growing your financial advisory practice. But how can you earn the trust and respect of specialists in other fields? Today’s guest will give you practical advice for working effectively with both your clients and other professionals for the benefit of everyone involved.

Jamie Robb is the Principal and Senior Wealth Advisor at FIDUCIA Wealth Management. Since he began his career in 1999, Jamie has worked with Canadian business owners and families to help them successfully manage their wealth. He’s also an expert at working with other professionals and acting as the cohesive force that brings their knowledge together to help his clients achieve their vision of financial success.

Listen in to the episode to hear how Jamie manages relationships with clients and other professionals, how he helps his clients decide what financial success means for them in the first place, and how he managed to build a successful business as an independent wealth advisor.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

Links and Resources:

Jamie Robb

Jamie on Twitter

FIDUCIA Wealth Management

Willing Wisdom Index

Quotes by Jamie:

“When we have specialization, it really falls to the client, the end user, to be the general contractor who’s directing all these people building the house.”

“The only way you’re going to be a long-term client for me is if you really trust me and if you trust that I can deliver value for you.”

“If you just do the right things over and over again, eventually the right things will happen.”

Having spent 20 years in the business and holding seven different professional designations, Jamie has a lot of experience to draw from to help us understand more about the financial advisory business.

Below, we’re sharing three key ideas from this episode:

For the rest of the episode, find the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher, or hit the link above.

One of the most common first questions a prospective client will ask their potential new advisor is “How much do I have to pay you?”

It’s a question Jamie isn’t keen to answer.

Instead, Jamie wants the opportunity to actually deliver value before asking someone to sign a contract and hand their money over to him. It’s like a no-obligation free trial — something common in many other industries.

Hint: In our previous episode, Allan Dib discusses various ways you can apply marketing tactics from other industries to financial services. You can listen to it here.

That’s because he’s in it for the long game, and he wants to work with his clients for the long term. The way he puts it, “the only way you’re going to be a long-term client for me is if you really trust me and if you trust that I can deliver value for you.” He wants to ensure they’re comfortable with him first. Delivering value first is essential to building that trust.

This means that after an initial discovery meeting (or more), Jamie takes the time to roughly sketch out a plan so he and the client have a framework to work from. At this point, he has enough information to make some recommendations about how he can help the client, what kind of value he can deliver, and what kind of compensation will make sense for the situation.

Waiting to discuss compensation has another, more practical, benefit: simply, it’s hard for him to know what exactly clients will want from him just from the first meeting. Maybe they have a family friend who has always managed their money and they just want his advice; maybe they want him to manage all aspects of their finances. Until he digs in, he can’t be sure that he can deliver enough value to justify the compensation he needs.

Once he and the client are clear on what Jamie will be providing for them, then he can come up with how compensation can work for both of them.

Profit-wise, there’s no question that specialization is key — being known as the expert in your niche is the best way to grow your practice.

However, Jamie doesn’t think that approach is all that good for the client. “When we have specialization,” he explains, “it really falls to the client, the end user, to be the general contractor who’s directing all these people building the house.”

And most clients don’t have the skill or knowledge to manage a team of specialists, no matter how amazing those specialists are. What they end up with is a group of professionals with limited perspectives with nobody to bring all that expertise together.

That’s why Jamie believes that multidisciplinary advice is the future for financial professionals. In other words, he decided to “make a specialty out of being a generalist.”

He considers himself to have expertise in a couple of key areas, but his real value-add is that he has enough knowledge of the other areas to be a cohesive agent for his clients. He can speak the language of accountants, lawyers, and other professionals and be that force that connects everything back to the three parameters he uses to gauge a client’s financial success: security, efficiency, and enjoyment.

Working with other professionals can be a risky business.

When choosing to work with you, a lawyer or accountant has a lot to lose. If you fail a mutual client somehow, their reputation with the client and within their firm can be on the line.

And in order to effectively help your client, you have to be able to work well with other professionals; if your relationship with them isn’t solid, you’re going to have a hard time working in your client’s best interest.

A big part of this is having that level of knowledge about what they do, being able to speak confidently about that knowledge, and thinking about things from their perspective — but it’s not just about that.

Jamie views working with another professional just like working with a new client. And true to form, he focuses on building trust and delivering value to them first.

He has made it a point throughout his career to help other professionals solve problems for their clients without much in it for himself. Jamie has earned a lot of respect from professionals who hear directly from their clients about the ways Jamie has helped them — often for free.

It’s a long game to play, certainly.

But Jamie has found that he hasn’t had to do almost any marketing in quite some time, simply because nearly all of his clients now come to him through referrals, many of them from other professionals.

When you take your relationship with other professionals seriously, “they really start to see you as part of their team and they want you involved with not just the clients you already work with, but the ones that you don’t already work with.”

Hint: Jamie is also very strict about never accepting money or paying for referrals; he believes that as soon as the arrangement includes compensation, the trust — which is the whole point — is gone.

For more helpful advice from Jamie, catch the full episode to hear his success mantra, learn why decumulation is a huge opportunity for new financial advisors, and more. You can find the show right here on this page or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher so you don’t miss any episodes.

And to get new episodes directly to your inbox, sign up for our mailing list below.

How much have you thought about marketing your practice? Do you have a plan for finding potential clients, building trust with them, and retaining them? Maybe you’ve resisted because you think a marketing plan is unimportant, takes a lot of time, and costs a lot of money.

Today’s guest not only understands why a marketing plan is critical to your business’ success, but he also has a simple framework for a 1-page marketing plan that you can create quickly and easily.

Joining the podcast today is Allan Dib. Allan is a serial entrepreneur, rebellious marketer, and best-selling author. Over the course of his career, Allan has founded and grown businesses across several industries, including IT and telecommunications.

His book, The 1-Page Marketing Plan, offers a simple, fast, and reliable way to implement a marketing plan that works for your business. Listen in to hear how the plan can work for you, a simple question to help you to identify your ideal target market, and how you can differentiate yourself from your competitors.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

Links and Resources:

Allan Dib

The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand Out From The Crowd

Successwise on Facebook

Download The 1-Page Marketing Plan Canvas for Free

Quotes by Allan:

“If you only ever got paid for getting results, who would you work with?”

“When your target market sees your ad or sees a message from you, you want the reaction from them to be, ‘Hey, that’s for me.’”

“You’re in the business of marketing financial services. You’re not in the business of just doing financial services… That mindset shift alone will be massively amazing for your business. It will make all the difference.”

After spending a decade figuring out how to market a business well, Allan decided to create something comprehensive that people could follow to market themselves. His book and plan are the holistic resources you can follow to take someone from never having heard of you to becoming a loyal fan of your business.

Below, we’re sharing three key ideas from this episode:

For the rest of the episode (where we dive into the plan step by step), find the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher, or hit the link above.

Following a one-page marketing plan isn’t necessarily complicated. In fact, the major mistake business owners make with marketing has nothing to do with the plan itself.

Rather, what they have is a mindset problem. It’s thinking, “Well, I’m a financial planner, so I’m just in the financial planning business.”

Sure, this mindset works for employees who just deliver a service and then go home to their lives at the end of the day; all they have to think about is the deliverable, and that’s fine.

But as a business owner, you need to think differently. The deliverable you provide is important, sure — you have people’s financial futures in your hands, after all. That’s a major responsibility and honour.

But your clients will never know how great your services are if they don’t know about you in the first place. Your marketing will lay out their path to finding you — it’s the critical first step to getting them through the door to begin with.

As Allan puts it, “You’re in the business of marketing financial services. You’re not in the business of just doing financial services.”

If you’ve already taken a look at Allan’s 1-page marketing plan canvas, you might have noticed that a third of it focuses on steps you take after someone has become your client.

Many financial advisors believe that marketing ends once someone has signed the engagement letter — that all that’s left now is delivering the service.

But that’s just not the case. Here’s why marketing is important even once you’ve signed on clients:

Of course, part of the reason for this work is to retain the client; you don’t want them looking elsewhere because they’re not satisfied with your service.

Amazing marketing creates raving fans. And these fans are more likely to buy more services from you because they already trust that you have their best interests at heart. But more than that, happy loyal customers are less likely to complain, they’ll always pay on time… simply put, you can help create your own ideal clients.

Think about it: by the time you’ve signed a client on, you’ve already done the most expensive and difficult parts of marketing. You created a plan, spent time (and likely money) putting yourself out there, and shown yourself to be the best person to meet your clients’ needs. Why waste all that hard work?

It takes just a little bit more effort to ensure your marketing continues to pay off. There’s maintaining regular communication with the client, showing them that you really care about them, and asking them for referrals. That’s what the marketing encompasses: everything outside of just straight delivering your service.

For example, this might mean spending a few minutes every month writing out handwritten cards for all of your clients who have birthdays coming up. It could mean making it easy for them to offer value to their network by referring you to friends and colleagues.

The key is to have all of these activities as part of your plan and systematically ensuring that they’re happening when they need to.

Hint: For a great example of an advisor who goes above and beyond for his clients, listen to our interview with Jamie List on successfully growing a practice with high service standards.

Even with limiting your marketing plan to one page, you might feel overwhelmed by all the marketing activities you need to do to make your business thrive.

The thing is, you don’t have to do them all alone.

Allan explains that every business needs three types of people:

If we had to guess, we’d say you’re the entrepreneur, the specialist, or both. That means that making sure the office runs efficiently every day — that clients are taken care of and marketing campaigns are happening — probably isn’t your favourite activity.

And by all means, focus on your strengths: coming up with great ideas and delivering an amazing service.

There are people who do love the systematic aspect of taking care of day-to-day tasks. Those are the people you want to hire to take care of your marketing (and other business tasks you may not love).

Implementing your marketing plan is key, but you don’t have to do it all yourself. Plan out what needs to get done every day, week, and month in terms of your marketing efforts, and then decide who can implement them for you.

Make sure you listen to the full episode to hear an in-depth explanation of the 1-page marketing plan and how you can apply it to your financial advisory practice — including how you can differentiate yourself from other financial advisors and what really drives referrals. You can find the show here on this page or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher so you don’t miss any episodes.

And to get new episodes directly to your inbox, sign up for our mailing list below.

Everyone wants to build wealth for their family, but so many investment portfolios have nothing to do with clients’ lives and the goals they are trying to achieve. Too often, advisors just sell financial products without looking at the actual needs of their clients. Today’s guest is an expert in creating a good financial planning foundation for his clients’ investments.

Gregg Filmon is the President of Value Partners Investments, one of Canada’s fastest-growing financial firms. Gregg works side by side with his clients, helping them build wealth to finance their dreams for the future. Value Partners Investments has already created over $820 million in investment gains for families across Canada. Listen to the episode to hear Gregg’s insights about the critical importance of planning and how he leverages second opinions to bring in new clients.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

Links and Resources:

Gregg Filmon

Value Partners Investments

Quotes by Gregg:

“We fundamentally believe that the financial decisions that people make in their lives should reflect their values. It should reflect who they are and what they’re trying to accomplish.”

“We’re going to change their lives by helping them make the most of their life’s work.”

“I could make the argument that you should not be investing anybody’s money until you understand specifically what the money is intended for.”

Owned and operated by independent financial advisors across Canada, Value Partners Investments is a great example of a firm that centers financial planning in everything they do. As the president, Gregg has a unique view of how critical this is both for clients and for the company’s sustainability.

Below, we’re sharing three key ideas from this episode:

To listen to the full episode, find the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher, or hit the link above.

Every day, Gregg sees portfolios that bear no resemblance to what clients need or want from their lives. Portfolio managers select securities based on commissions or what they’ve seen work in the past without looking at the client’s specific needs.

Often, plans are added on as lip service or one small piece of a massive checklist. A plan is drafted, then sits gathering dust on a shelf and is never revisited — making it essentially pointless.

At Value Partners Investments, though, the plan is the very centre of the service.

Gregg illustrates the reason with the example of a corporate farm, which has huge risk and cash flow variability from year to year. If land becomes available, it’s usually a good idea for them to snatch it up right away. In a case like this, a 100% cash portfolio might actually be ideal — definitely not a one-size-fits-all option. And when it comes time to transition their land to the next generation, the portfolio would have to switch up once again.

In Gregg’s view, any investment should begin with the goal in mind. According to him, “you should not be investing anybody’s money until you understand specifically what the money is intended for.”

With 51 people on staff, $3 billion AUM, and about eight thousand clients across Canada, Value Partners Investments is by no means a small firm. Gregg pinpoints four key reasons for their success:

Gregg feels that the core of any successful business is the belief that people need what you are offering. If you don’t even believe that what you provide is valuable, you’ll have a hard time putting all your focus into it — or convincing anyone else that they should use your services.

So many advisors who help their clients plan their financial futures don’t write down their own goals. Gregg suggests writing down very specific goals and working back from them to find out what actions you need to take to reach them.

For example, Jim Lawton, the founder of Value Partners Investments, decided he wanted to double the firm every 5 years. This meant 15% growth compounded annually. From there, they had to figure out every single piece that they needed to get there: the systems, people, processes, marketing, service level, software, and so on.

Furthermore, Gregg’s team has a scorecard — which has targets for new clients and new assets, as well as a clear action plan — that all employees keep front of mind. Without it, they couldn’t evaluate how well they executed on action points, how that translated into results, or what they could improve on for next time.

Growth is stressful and challenging — what works early on in your business won’t necessarily translate as your client base and staff grow. And it’s impossible to do it all yourself.

That’s why it’s important to bring the right people onto your team. Whether you grow your staff or keep an informal network of specialists you can refer to your clients, you need motivated and invested people to help you bring your vision to life.

Hint: To hear how Steadyhand’s Tom Bradley works with other professionals to best serve his clients, check out our recent interview with him.

The other side of this, though, is relinquishing control. Once you bring people on board, you have to give them responsibility and trust that they’ll be accountable for their actions. At Value Partners Investments, the staff members are all owners, so everyone is invested in the long term success of the company — and of each client.

You already know that an ideal client is one who really sees the value of good financial advice. Unfortunately, the flip side of this is that most ideal clients are already working with a financial services professional.

Maybe they don’t have a financial planner, but you can be pretty sure they have somebody — maybe an insurance advisor, an accountant, or a portfolio manager.

However, very few Canadians are getting the full picture of their finances or the personalized service that will help them make the most of their life’s work.

For this reason, Gregg and his team have been working hard to position themselves as experts at providing a second opinion. They focus on reaching out to folks and being bold enough to ask them, “Are you getting the service you need from your advisor?”

There’s definitely a fearlessness required to ask people this — but that fearlessness is also critical to growing your business.

For the consumer, a second opinion is a win-win. Either they walk away knowing that their affairs are indeed in order, or they get specific recommendations to improve their financial situations (and hopefully choose your practice to implement them).

Hint: For more on identifying your ideal clients and convincing them to work with you, listen to our episode with Grant Hicks.

To learn more from Gregg, make sure you catch the full episode where he dives further into the qualities of ideal clients, the importance of an ownership mentality for investors, and more.

You can find the episode right here on this page or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher so you don’t miss any episodes. And to get new episodes directly to your inbox, sign up for our mailing list below.

You’re a pro at helping clients handle change in their financial plans, but how can you navigate major transitions in your own business? As an entrepreneur and advisor, you have to continue to give clients excellent service even during times of change; today’s guest is very familiar with this professional challenge.

Jim Greenwood is a Managing Partner at Blue Sky Lasting Wealth. A CFP with 25 years of experience, he most recently transitioned to IPC Securities and founded BlueSky Lasting Wealth. Listen to the episode to hear what Jim has to say about managing changes — both in your career and in the industry.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

Links and Resources:

Jim Greenwood

Blue Sky Lasting Wealth

Quotes by Jim:

“Our clients recognize the need for professionals or specialists in all areas of their life – doctors, accountants, mechanics, you name it – and we are that person for them when it comes to their financial situation.”

“I didn’t necessarily identify exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew what I didn’t want to do, and that was be in some sort of unionized or corporate situation where all of the hard work I do wouldn’t really be reflected in my level of success.”

“I think too many people who might want to call themselves entrepreneurs or businesspeople are afraid to take chances.”

Jim not only has 25 years of experience in the business — he is also in the thick of some major changes in his practice, including moving to a new office, transitioning to serve more and more high net worth clients, and working with another advisor on a succession plan. Today he’s sharing his advice for keeping your clients happy while navigating major transitions in your business.

Below, we’re sharing three key ideas from this episode:

For the rest of the episode, find the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher, or hit the link above.

Jim has always been interested in the financial services industry and always thought he would be an accountant — until he did a work term with an accounting firm and hated it.

During his co-op terms, he realized he wanted to be self-employed. “I didn’t necessarily identify exactly what I wanted to do,” he says, “but I knew what I didn’t want to do, and that was be in some sort of unionized or corporate situation where all of the hard work I do wouldn’t really be reflected in my level of success.”

Eventually, this led him to financial planning.

Jim recalls his time starting out as an advisor wasn’t easy. But he sees that today, the barriers to entry, and in particular the expenses of being in the business, are even higher.

So when people ask him how they can get started as advisors, he doesn’t recommend doing what he did.

Instead, he suggests that aspiring independent advisors start their careers at a bank or an insurance company, or work for another advisor, to experience the business and get their credentials while earning a salary.

Hint: To hear another perspective on starting out in the business by working in an adjacent industry, listen to our interview with Jason Pereira on how to compete and win in the Canadian HNW segment (his advice for new advisors starts 42 minutes into the episode).

Jim and his staff are currently working on a succession plan to help another advisor, Grant, transition out of the business over five years. They’re spending the next year and a half combining their clients and staff.

The shift is bringing up a lot of questions for Jim and his team. But he’s focused on two priorities:

These two competing interests mean that Jim and his team need to make some hard choices. They need to very carefully and explicitly define everyone’s roles. And even with additional staff, they’re realizing that they can only really serve 250 clients well (which is how many they currently serve). This means that they will inevitably have to let some clients go — any more, and they would either have to work more or cut down on service levels.

One of the main ways Jim offers such a high level of service is through excellent communication with his clients. You’ve probably already heard that the main reason clients leave their advisors is because of a lack of communication, and Jim wants to take that issue off the table.

Keeping in touch with so many clients can be a struggle, so Jim has made it as painless and automatic as possible. He segmented his client base, determined how often he should meet with clients in each segment, and broke down how many meetings he needs to do every week to fit everyone in — then, it’s up to his assistant to fill those meeting times with clients.

Additionally, he’s decided to check in a certain number of times with each segment of clients — he calls some once a quarter and others once a year. Every month, he gets a list of clients to call and makes his way through the list over the course of the month.

Jim never wants a client to feel like they need to check in with him because they think something is wrong. So recently, his office started a new initiative around proactive communication to really go above and beyond.

For example, pension transfers can often take weeks to complete, but no new client wants to be waiting for weeks or even months with no word, wondering if Jim has forgotten about them. Instead, his assistant sends them an update every Friday to let them know where the transfer is at, so they don’t have to worry.

In addition to the above initiatives, Jim’s clients get a Blue Sky Bulletin every other month with updates about the market and other information they may find valuable. His head office also sends out an automated newsletter.

However, Jim is thinking he’s going to cancel the newsletter — he doesn’t want his clients getting so inundated with information that they don’t open the important emails.

Good communication is always a matter of balance: sharing high-quality, relevant information that people actually find valuable.

Hint: How can you more easily automate communication with clients? Whether it’s setting up automatic reminders to check in with certain clients or sending out a newsletter or bulletin, there are plenty of opportunities to make it simpler for yourself.

We’re sure you want to hear more from Jim, so listen to the full episode where he talks about overcoming the most difficult aspect of advising clients, combating the number one concern around referrals, and more. You can find the show here on this page or, better yet, subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher so you don’t miss any episodes.

And to get new episode updates right to your inbox, sign up for our mailing list below so you never miss an episode.

You can promise a lot as a financial advisor, but do you always provide the value your clients are paying for? Today’s guest, Dean Trudeau, thinks the key is as simple as setting out clear expectations ‒ and then making sure you meet them.

A Certified Financial Planner, Dean began his career in the financial services industry in 1987. Over the years, he has served as Principal of Horizon Financial Services, Sales Manager of Manulife Financial/Manulife Securities, and District Vice President of RBC Global Asset Management. His firm, OPES Wealth Management, is a boutique wealth management firm that caters to business owners and professionals.

Listen to the episode to hear what Dean has to say about providing value to clients by always delivering on what you promise.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

Links and Resources:

Dean Trudeau

The OPES Wealth Management

Quotes by Dean:

“I love when we put a plan together and people share their goals and dreams with me, and we’re able to find out where they are, figure out where they want to go, and then put a great plan in place and have it get there.”

“Everybody pays fees. And we want to make sure that they get the value of the fees they’re paying.”

“Most advisors actually don’t do that. They don’t create a plan, they don’t follow the plan, and they don’t update the plan.”

It’s Dean’s passion for delivering on promises that has made his practice so successful, and he’s here to share his insights with you.

Below, we’re sharing three key ideas from this episode:

For the rest of the episode, find the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher, or click the link above.

Dean suspects there are advisors who don’t necessarily earn the high fees that they charge.

Sometimes this happens because they take on too many clients and can’t give anyone their full attention. Maybe it’s because they’re charging simply for assets under management regardless of how much work a particular client requires. Other times, people who call themselves wealth advisors, financial planners, or the like don’t offer the full set of planning and advising services their title or designation would suggest.

For Dean, it comes down to always doing what you say you’re going to do. As a wealth advisor, he creates, follows, and updates financial plans for his clients, advising them on all aspects of their wealth.

This also means he reviews his clients’ plans every single quarter ‒ and he’s upfront with his clients as to how often this happens. Looking at the goals and targets, he measures them up against a simple goal tracker to plot their progress and see how close they are to reaching a particular financial goal (within a certain range, of course, to account for typical market fluctuations).

While he doesn’t meet with most clients every quarter, they can be at peace knowing that he’s monitoring their situation to make sure they’re on track to reach their goals.

Hint: More recently, Dean has made a habit of explaining to his clients what he does for them between meetings, and many appreciate hearing that he’s always keeping an eye on their progress behind the scenes.

As mentioned above, one reason that some advisors can’t deliver on their promises is that they take on too many clients. This is why Dean has made it a point to take on no more than 125 clients at a time. Knowing his limits is an important strategy, but he came to the number with some pretty simple math.

First, he figured out how many weeks he works every year (he takes about 3‒4 weeks off every year for conferences and vacations).

Next, he divided his weeks into free days, buffer days (when he’s catching up on work, planning, or working on other aspects of his business), and focus days (when he’s actually meeting with clients). He also calculated how many clients he can reasonably see in one day.

Finally, he decided how frequently he needs to meet with each client; for most, three meetings a year does the trick, in addition to electronic follow-ups and updates throughout the year.

Putting all this together, he realized that if he serves more than 125 clients, he won’t be able to give them all the attention and level of service that he wants to deliver.

Hint: Dean has worked with coaches at a couple of points in his career to help him with strategic business planning. If you’re interested in learning more about driving business growth strategically, check out our episode with Chris Paterson on creating a solid business plan.

Even with a strict limit on the number of clients he takes on, Dean and his team still have to do outreach to meet new people.

While referrals are a great source of new clients and social media marketing is becoming increasingly important, too, small events are a unique way of getting in front of prospects.

Dean invites current clients to what he calls “senses seminars.” These are fun events centered around the senses (sight, taste, smell, etc.) that also have a certain message that he wants to impart to his guests. He’s upfront with his clients that these events have two purposes: to thank them for being great clients and to help him meet new people.

One recent example was a cooking contest where groups of four competed in a gourmet cooking competition that included mixing two boxes of Kraft Dinner with high-end ingredients. The event tied into Dean’s message that “ingredients matter” in financial planning. And since each team typically included one couple that he currently works with, he also got to meet whoever that couple brought to compete with them.

Hint: To hear about another way you can do client appreciation events, listen to our show with Chris Rawles and Spencer Tilley about differentiating your practice from the big banks.

To hear more from Dean, including how he plans his clients’ business and personal finances, the steps he’s taking to turn his office into a lifestyle concierge service, and how he prices his services, listen to the full episode on this page or subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher.

And to get new episodes directly to your inbox, sign up for our mailing list below so you never miss an episode.