Best Practice Advice Archives

How to validate your preferred solutions

by Tony Vidler Most experienced advisers have preferred solutions that they go to first. But the variety of preferred solutions from those very good advisers often concerns regulators and industry observers…and that’s usually because there is a process lacking for validating those preferences. Everyday the situation arises where one adviser recommends Company A as a […]

Eliminate tyre kickers, and value your expertise properly

by Tony Vidler Being properly valued for your expertise and eliminating the time-wasting tyre-kickers is an ongoing problem for many financial advisers. That is even more true for those making the transition from purely commission-based remuneration to generating fee-paying work where they are charging for that time or expertise. Managing the remuneration transition whilst also […]

Paying COI’s: Should You Be Sharing Fees Or Commissions?

by Tony Vidler Is it appropriate to be paying COI’s a share of your success from their introductions or referrals? Should you share fees or commissions in other words. Personally, I think not. However, it is just a little more complicated than a simple “yes” or “no” because there are perhaps conflicting views. So […]

You need to get selling

by Tony Vidler Advisers: Good advice process is not enough. Being technically competent is not enough. You have to get selling. I know that “Sell” is seen as a bit of a dirty word these days, but we cannot back away from the need for it. You have to sell if you are going to […]

There are 2 big questions before you fire a client.

by Tony Vidler I encourage you to try this: fire a client. It is liberating, and it moves your thinking and sense of self worth onto a different professional plane. Pretty much everyone who has been in professional practice for more than a year has at least one or two clients who are just a […]

Client Complaints: Fight it, or just Fix It?

by Tony Vidler Client complaints are a fact of life. It is virtually impossible to run a service business where everyone is happy 100% of the time, as human beings are involved and they are unpredictable creatures with ever-shifting expectations. The art of good client complaint handling is knowing when to fight and when to […]

How can you be sure that your advice will pass the test?

by Tony Vidler The nagging worry for financial advisers in today’s environment is “how can I be sure that my advice will pass the test?” The concern is understandable given that policymakers typically do not understand the difficulty of applying any sort of objective assessment of suitability to professional opinions – which is fundamentally what […]

Is Insurance Churn Really The Issue We Think It is?

by Tony Vidler Any time an insurance product is replaced by an adviser with an alternative one someone complains about “insurance churn” or the “twisting of policies” and the immediate inference is that something unethical just occurred. Sometimes that is true of course, and there are undoubtedly bottom feeders in the industry who survive by […]

The Top Challenge In Shifting From Product Sales To Advice Delivery

by Tony Vidler Lots of financial advisers are still figuring out how to get paid for advice delivery, not just implementation of product solutions. Now, the simplistic answer is of course: “easy…just position for it and tell clients that’s how you work now.” That answer really is glib though and doesn’t touch upon the […]

Top Of Mind Awareness: Being Present Without Being A Nuisance

by Tony Vidler Promoting our personal professional brand is essentially all about creating top-of-mind-awareness. Being the person that our target market thinks of, and then calls, when they recognise a need or desire is our goal. We want to be “top of mind”. To achieve that we must master the art of being present, but without […]

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