A quick reprise.
The W-I-N Model is all about you developing your practice the way you want to develop it. There is no right and wrong in building the practice you want but however you chose to do so there are three pillars that you will always need to deploy or at least consider.
W – Winning New Clients
I – Increasing the average spend of your existing clients
N – Nurturing client relationships so that your never lose your best clients
In this 3 part series we have already looked at W, in this the Part 2 we will look at I.
Every firm I have ever spoken with have wanted to increase the average spend of their existing clients. Firms use phrases like “farm what we’ve got” and “grow from within” – but very few firms have a organised approach to how to do this – yes?
Putting increasing fees to one side as being “difficult conversations”, upselling and cross selling are also a bit scary to many firms.
So what can you do? Or as maybe I should say, what should you do?
Well, some of the best firms we have met, some of which we work with, use a client onboarding processes not just to onboard new clients but also to transition a proportion of their existing clients base from compliance led relationships to advisory led relationships so that these clients become advisory/compliance clients.
By onboarding, I do not mean the internal admin and MLR and setting up payment arrangements, which are all important, I mean guiding the clients through a review of their personal and business affairs that ensures you fully understand them and their current priorities and identifies fee earning help and advice that they want – not just need – now. The output from this is an agreed set of actions that you will undertake to help them.
OK I hear you say – that is fine for onboarding new clients but what about increasing spend with existing clients.
Well, as I said above, you can use the same review of personal and business affairs with existing clients.
Some firms will position as “we’ve just started to implement a great new onboarding process with new clients and we have decided to offer this to a select group of our best clients”
Other firms include this in their client care programmes.
The key is to make it part of what you do across the firm and identify fee earning help and advice that the clients want – not just need – now.
The Business Onboarder™ and Corporate Onboarder™ Apps within the Complete Advisory Solution are worth looking at to do just this.
These advisory led approaches will enable you to manage the growth of your firm from within, identify clients that no longer fit your ideal client profile, and establish processes that you can easily teach other team members to use, maintain quality control, and measure.
And increase your average spend per client!
In Part 3 we will look at nurturing client relationships so that you never lose your best clients.
