compliance Archives - Tony Vidler

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 […]

Why we get fee resistance

by Tony Vidler Whether we like it or not there is always the possibility of fee resistance in delivering financial advice, and how we present our service is a large part of that problem. Price is always a problem in the absence of obvious value. It doesn’t have to be…we just need to think through […]

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 […]

How to balance client time with practice development

by Tony Vidler An ongoing challenge for advice firms is balancing client time with all the practice development work necessary to have a better business. There are after all only so many hours in a day, but then there are deadlines for when new standards and rules have to be met if one is to […]

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 […]

Professional Practice Evolution: What Separates Modern Professionals From The Past?

by Tony Vidler There are lessons to be learned from the evolution of the modern professional practice for those who are not quite there yet. When you compare the two – the modern professional financial advisory practice, and the historic product-focussed financial services brokerage business – it seems there are 5 distinct points of difference […]

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 […]

Sales Technique Is The Key To Opening Minds

by Tony Vidler “Sales Technique”…the very phrase sends shudders down the spines of professionals today it seems. Despite the focus on our increased technical knowledge and the emphasis upon good process, financial advisers do actually have to “sell” – even if they don’t want to face up to that. A large problem for many newer […]

How to take the “R” out of FREE Advice

by Tony Vidler Traditionally the financial services sector has been almost entirely remunerated via commission, and many advisers are still grappling with the basic question of how to make the transition – even if only in their minds – from working solely on commissions to charging clients directly for advice and/or service. Consumers perceived […]

Nobody Believes Your Advice Is Actually Impartial AND Free

by Tony Vidler The problem with “FREE” is nobody believes that whatever you are offering is actually free. It might seem free in terms of there being no invoice or obvious price tag, but that doesn’t mean it is “free” does it? Consumers today are alert, have a world of information in their pocket […]

compliance

SEARCH BY SUBJECT AREA

Get financial adviser coach blog updates via email.

Other useful resources

Fresh ideas delivered to your inbox