value of advice Archives

Sell holes, not drills, to get more customers

by Tony Vidler When people go to the hardware store and buy a fantastic electric drill they are not usually terribly interested in the drill itself. They want a hole. This is an elementary truth about consumers buying behaviour They buy products for what the products can do for them, not because they just […]

Demonstrating Value To Make Prospects Choose You

by Tony Vidler Successful advisers today make sure they are demonstrating value to prospects...before the prospects have agreed to engage and become clients. Having a prospect who is interested enough to hear what you have to offer has always been a necessary step on the path to getting a client, and it obviously remains […]

Crisis Communications: Sending Virtual Hugs

by Tony Vidler ok…maybe it isn’t appropriate for professionals to actually send virtual hug memes. But then, maybe it is. It all depends on the relationship you have with the client doesn’t it? For some it might indeed be right….but that isn’t really the point of this article. It is the concept of “sending virtual […]

If you want people buying your advice, then dumb it down!

by Tony Vidler When it comes to getting people buying your advice one of the best tips I can give is “dumb it down- but don’t treat them like dummies“. There is a big difference between “dumbing it down” and treating people as if they are dumb. The first is about simplifying the message in […]

Here is how to explain, and show, your value to a client in 30 seconds

by Tony Vidler I am a massive fan of using simple diagrams to explain technical ideas, but they are also a fabulous way of articulating concepts that people struggle to grasp. One of my favourites is a very simple picture that anyone can scribble on a scrap of paper in 30 seconds, which is […]

You need to get selling

by Tony Vidler Advisers: Good advice process is not enough. Being technically competent is not enough. You have to get selling. I know that “Sell” is seen as a bit of a dirty word these days, but we cannot back away from the need for it. You have to sell if you are going to […]

How do you create an “Act Now” mindset with clients?

by Tony Vidler One of the ongoing challenge in marketing professional services is simply getting people to “act now”. We have to overcome their lack of urgency. Because our service will still be there tomorrow, right? And usually the need to be addressed by us is a future need, and maybe well into the future….so […]

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 […]

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 […]

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