best practice financial advice Archives

A Statement Of Advice should be a “statement”

by Tony Vidler When it comes to providing advice in writing to a client there is undoubtedly unnecessary complexity usually. In fact the proverbial “Statement Of Advice” has become anything but a “statement”. It generally takes the form of a tome… And a “tome is a scholarly work…usually large, heavy and laborious in its detail“. […]

Describe Your Advice Services In Practical Terms To Get More Buy-In

by Tony Vidler Advice should, almost by definition, be “practical”. Your advice services should be practical in that can be applied in the real world to achieve real differences, and any advice in any of your areas of expertise should be a clear course of action that a client can use to achieve a […]

Best Practice Advice Means Meeting Client Expectations Too, doesn’t it?

by Tony Vidler What constitutes “Best Practice” advice process is a constant work in progress, but it does not develop as rapidly as either technology or client expectations do. In fact, there is a distinct probability that the gap between what professionals call best practice advice and what clients expectations of best practices are continue […]

How Much You Know Is Not That Important

by Tony Vidler Professional financial advisers know way too much to be used in any given client meeting or engagement. Yet too many think that how much you know is what matters. One of the great skills of the super successful professionals in fact is figuring out what stuff they know which is not […]

Client Focus or Compliance Focus?

by Tony Vidler I support a compliance focus 100% ….but I support a client focus 100% too. All too often it is impossible to achieve 100% for both simultaneously though. Where does a professional compromise? Or does one not compromise? I think this picture captures the challenge of delivering compliant “best […]

Scope Creep: The Number 1 Problem In Fixed Fee Advice

by Tony Vidler “Scope Creep” is the killer for the Holy Grail of professional services business models: fixed fee advice. That ideal model which so many aspire to is having clients who agree to ongoing fixed fees, and the practice income just rolls in month after month. Fixed fee advice being delivered on […]

How To Make More Effective Advice Recommendations

by Tony Vidler If we can make more effective advice recommendations we increase comprehension and engagement and shorten the implementation timeframe. That’s good for everyone involved in the process. More people will follow our advice, we help more people get the outcomes they are looking for, and business is better for everyone. So […]

Professionals Have, And Use, Processes

by Tony Vidler True professionals don’t just HAVE processes, they have processes they use everywhere in their work. All the time. Professionals are in fact process-driven. We need to learn from those professions where the outcome of a poor day on the job is literally life or death. That isn’t generally the case […]

How to introduce a “Guarantee” into your fees

by Tony Vidler It has been proven repeatedly that providing a guarantee in your fees for prospective clients certainly helps them decide to engage – and it is not a difficult thing to do, even though “guarantee” is a dangerous word for financial advisers. Financial advice fees can seem to be enormously expensive […]

Innovation in delivering Financial Advice: Does it have to be this way?

by Tony Vidler “Innovation” and “delivering financial advice” do not usually go together for the majority in the industry. The way advice is delivered by tens of thousands of professionals tends to gravitate to the same methodology. There is safety hiding in the herd, right? Then the type of advice delivered by tens […]

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