professional adviser Archives

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 […]

I sell…You sell…We ALL sell. Or should do…

by Tony Vidler I am a professional. I am a salesman. These two things are not contradictory. We all sell stuff. It seems like I’m selling my time these days…sometimes a product….sometimes it is just selling concepts and possibilities. Mostly it is selling behavioural change & fixing other peoples’ problems though. But I sell. […]

Are sales letters useful?

by Tony Vidler A traditional marketing practice for financial advisers has been sending “pre-approach” sales letters to prospective clients. It seems that very few still do it, and yet I wonder if they are worthwhile in todays world? There is no doubt that most prospective customers are not exactly waiting around hoping a piece […]

Professional Positioning Powers Elite Performance

by Tony Vidler The elite performance achieved by some financial advisers seems to come down to them being better at positioning themselves professionally than average advisers are. That positioning really pays off too: various surveys suggest that they get up to 2.5 X MORE business from new clients than average advisers. And to […]

To Improve Lead Conversion You Need 2 Speeds

by Tony Vidler Every lead is gold, and ideally every lead would result in conversion to a client. The conversion rate really is often the difference between getting a good return on your prospecting and marketing efforts, or perhaps getting no return at all. The short cut to better conversion is often […]

The uncertain road ahead for advice businesses

by Tony Vidler One certain thing for advice businesses is that there is a huge amount of uncertainty. Practice owners have had a lot of “alone time” in the last couple of years quietly contemplating the road ahead and trying to figure out what do they have to do to prepare, or adapt. […]

Innovation, not originality, is the key to better business.

by Tony Vidler Everyone wants to grow their business, and everyone is looking for new ideas to do it. But nearly everyone wants the magical original idea that nobody else has ever thought of before, that will guarantee results quickly. Innovation is by definition original, but originality is not necessarily the same as […]

If It Is Not Simple, You Are Not Working Hard Enough

by Tony Vidler It takes a lot of work to make complex advice simple and succinct, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the creation of a financial plan or Statements of Advice. Those 40 page plans, or worse those 80 page plans and pieces of written advice, are barriers to consumer engagement […]

How To Get Paid For Each Piece Of Advice You Give

by Tony Vidler Here’s a simple strategy for getting paid fairly for the advice you give….and I mean getting paid for ALL the advice you give…every step of the way. There are broadly three possible parts to any client work: 1. Planning 2. Implementing, or “putting in place” any planning recommendations 3. Ongoing […]

Fix the prospecting problem forever

by Tony Vidler You can fix all prospecting problems forever if you generate enough referrals. It is that simple. Get this right, and prospecting problems are non-existent, as the number one source of professional prospecting is going to be “word of mouth” for some time to come. The theory on getting more refrrals […]

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