Best Practice Advice Archives - Page 3 of 10

Pro Bono work: it is still professional advice

by Tony Vidler Oddly, I was asked whether pro bono work is still considered professional advice, implying immediately that it carried some lesser responsibility on the part of an adviser simply because they were not earning revneue from it. Why would pro bono clients deserve any lesser standards of ethical behaviour, professional competency or […]

Understand The Buying Journey To Get More Clients

by Tony Vidler The decision-making process – or buying journey as it has become known – that prospective clients go through today is complex, time-consuming for all parties, and is also often an incredibly frustrating affair for all parties. It is less frustrating if we understand what is actually going on and allow the […]

Maybe the client IS the problem

by Tony Vidler What you think is the problem is not always actually the problem. Sometimes the person is the problem. Sometimes, maybe, the client is the problem rather than you. Before talking about clients though allow me to use a non-client example. Picture the scene: a partner in a practice is telling me about […]

You get the behaviour that you reward

by Tony Vidler We tend to get the right behaviour when we see it and reward it repeatedly. Kindergarten teachers know it, so why don’t the leaders of professional services firms know it and use it? Here are a couple of real examples of how this plays out: In one instance it was watching […]

Compliant Advice: Here are the only 3 things that matter

by Tony Vidler Whenever the topic of compliance, or the “advice process”, comes up most advisers see themselves like this: Everyone is throwing everything at you with the sole intention of destroying you, right? As a consequence, compliance is largely considered a burden. As is usually the way of these things a substantial body […]

Financial Advisers Problem? Not doing the One Thing.

by Tony Vidler Advisers have a few problems these days. The biggest financial adviser problem though is getting prospects to engage with us to begin with. Despite a couple of decades of positioning, developing and improving technical knowledge and qualifications, many financial professionals are struggling to get enough clients to engage in holistic planning. We […]

Building Your Reputation: Talk About The Elephants In The Room

by Tony Vidler When Accountants struggle to be highly trusted then financial advisers are going to have a real battle doing so. If the Accountants only get rated as “Highly trusted” in professional ethics and honesty by less than half the population then what chance that an Insurance Broker will rank higher in the […]

The 5 Levels Of Professional Competence

by Tony Vidler Professional competence is now a clearly demonstrable thing isn’t it? Or is it? Can an adviser be considered as having competence and incompetence simultaneously? I think so. Competence has been a primary focus of regulatory reform, and that’s fair enough. Consumers have a right to expect it from their advisers and […]

Segmentation: Why not have everyone as “A” Clients?

by Tony Vidler Segmentation of clients in your database is sensible, and some sort of labelling to differentiate them is necessary. The idea behind segmenting clients into different categories is to introduce efficiency into a practice while recognising that not all clients are of equal commercial value to the firm. It is also a way […]

Compliance Can Be Torture For Consumers

by Tony Vidler Compliance has a lot to answer for. Compliance can be torture for consumers, and that is not good for them or the industry. One of the truly negative consequences of evolving best practice advice standards is the trend to torture clients with excessive paperwork. Now torture is a rather harsh word, and […]

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