We have been putting a lot of focus, recently, on fee levels and Advisers Business Models. As much as I love technology, Social Media, Personal Branding & other advanced strategies for improving Service Firms, I have come to realise over the last few years that unless a business has it’s foundations right they will never be able to implement any of those things effectively.
To be more precise, unless your client engagement and service model is producing excess profit for your endeavors, you will never be in a position to create true leverage.
In most cases that means getting your EBIT above 40% sustainably (after a very healthy salary for the business owners).
Almost every firm we encounter is doing too much activity for too little reward.
The only real way forward in this case is to Realign Your Business, that means seriously looking at what you are doing and how you charge for it and then going back and systematically engaging all of your existing clients in a new way.
If you are an Firm Owner I can practically hear the arguments in your head for why that is not possible or for thinking that you are already charging enough or perhaps too much.
By way of example, of the firms we have worked with this year, on what we call the 30/40 plan, we have seen a net monthly increase on average of more than $25,000 of recurring revenue and above $10,000 of additional project fees per Adviser.
That’s just for their existing clients and does not factor the dramatic increase in organic client referrals they are receiving. Or the increase in revenue they are now experiencing per new client.
I’m sharing the above not to boast but to encourage you to take a look at your business and ask yourself, ‘am I truly running this the right way‘.
More importantly to me, the firms who are re-engineering their models are now delivering far better and deeper outcomes to clients.
They are also employing more people and they are in a FAR better position to be investing both time and head-space (not to mention $) into things like technology, systems and Social Media which then create even more efficiencies.
As Advisers, we really need to get away from the way things have been done and start designing business that work far better for us and our clients.
Today more than ever people need help to solve their problems and what they really want from their trusted Advisers is help to project manage their way to better versions of their life.
Creating content that will dramatically boost your organic client referral rate, doesn’t have to take you longer than 10-20 minutes a week.
If you are stuck and need clarity, then get help, because you don’t have time to be in that place.
I am building a community of Advice & Service Firm Owners who are committed to accelerating every element of their businesses and to building their profiles through authentic leadership, innovation, and mutual support.
Want to learn more? Why not come along to our Roadshow – Trust Reach Influence.
www.trustreachinfluence.com
