practice management Archives - Page 6 of 25

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 […]

Blending Old Ways With Modern Comms To Get Attention

by Tony Vidler Blending the old and the new can be a great way to get attention in the digital world, and there are few better examples than this one from an older adviser who was happy for me to share it. He generates excellent engagement and responses…and it is so simple! Remember the […]

The Value of GETTING Good Advice

by Tony Vidler If you believe in the value of advice, then it makes sense to believe in the value of getting good advice for yourself – or rather, for your business. Nearly every small business can benefit from having a robust governance structure providing strategic input (and insight), additional skills, accountability and excellent […]

Be “Someone” if you want to stand out and succeed.

by Tony Vidler A professional service business built around a product is not a good service business. “Someone” is the best service business. A professional service business should be built around either the “service” part, or the “professional” part. Or perhaps both. It is either a “someone” or a “something”, and “someone” is much […]

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 […]

Financial Advisers Should Be Coaching

by Tony Vidler Coaching is about changing behaviour in order to change results. Advising is telling people what, and perhaps how, something should be done. Advising is basically “having the answer” and telling someone what it is in its most simple form. Coaching is a blend of telling and teaching, monitoring and managing, and, […]

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 […]

6 Things Banks Taught Us About Building A Super Profitable Business

by Tony Vidler The most profitable business to have in financial services is a bank. They know how to make money. They understand that the more you know about your customers the more business you can do with them. Not “will do with them”….but “can”. And that makes a lot of money for them. […]

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 […]

Clients need to be reasonable and meet expectations too

by Tony Vidler It is not unreasonable to have reasonable expectations, is it? Whenever we enter into an agreement with somebody else to work together on anything it is fair to say that we both have expectations about how the arrangement is going to work. That applies whether the arrangement is moving into a […]

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