Chasing dollars can cost clients

Advisers who look at clients as a means of boosting declining revenues will lose both, a practice management consultant has warned.

“In these times, advisers can be distracted by the need to make a dollar,” Elixir Consulting managing director Sue Viskovic said.

“It is important to meet targets in a practice, but not at the expense of building client relationships.

“Advisers have got to put dollar sales out of their head if they want to get clients onboard.”

She said the best advisers in Australia have the longest relationships with clients.

“They don’t think about the money situation when they talk to these clients,” Viskovic told the Kaplan Financial Adviser Roadshow in Melbourne.

“Stronger relationships with clients will lead to better disclosure from clients as they tell you everything about themselves.”

With full disclosure advisers can give better advice and this will improve the type of client the adviser is handling.

“This leads to fewer clients, which means the adviser can service the client’s needs better,” she said.

“Better service leads to greater profits leading to better advice.”

Viskovic believes that if an adviser has happier clients, the need to find high-net-worth individuals no longer exists.

“When the adviser has the ideal client, they will get better revenue,” she said.

“It also leads to inter-generational relationships with the children.

“And there are more referrals, meaning the adviser spends less time on marketing, which they don’t like doing.”

Viskovic said the key to strong relationships is building trust with the client and to do this there has to be some prerequisite values.

These include integrity, putting the client’s needs ahead of the adviser and caring about the clients.

“Traits of a trusted adviser are the advice is consistent and they only tell the truth,” she said.

“The adviser will criticise the client gently, but they are still made to feel comfortable.

“And the adviser will always take the client’s issues seriously.”

Viskovic said if the adviser can’t build that relationship with the client, they will inevitably give the wrong advice.