Someone wants to steal your clients
By nowmost financial planners would have begun to send out their clients’ annual statements and some will be bracing for the phone calls questioning why there are negative figures on the page.
This scenario has already been covered in this column as has the potential for clients to punish planners for those poor returns. But now comes the news that other planners are doing the same.
Recently aMoney Managementjournalist caught up with some financial planners who told the story that a number of clients had been approached by other planning groups asking if they were happy with the returns their adviser had gained for them.
While this type of behaviour is unprofessional and unethical, it is also a little bit short-sighted because it is based on the idea that returns are the only factor where a planner is competitive.
It should also serve as a warning sign that if you work in a practice where returns are the key issue, you can easily be replaced, or that if you have clients who are going to jump ship based on returns alone, the adviser/client relationship is not as good as it should be.
On the other hand, if these clients are so easily distracted, their loss, while unfortunate, may be better for the business as it can concentrate on those clients who see financial planning as a service proposition and not just a way to increase investment returns.
It may not be the best times to be considering these issues but these are the tests which will bring the quality planning practices to the fore, while driving out all those which do not understand what it means to be a financial adviser today.
AUTHOR
Jason Spits
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