If you look at the accounts of any substantial financial services firm, whether a bank, law firm or firm of accountants, the three most significant costs are staff, marketing initiatives and office accommodation.
Lockdown has been a massive exposure of the wastefulness of two of these costs; office space and marketing initiatives– as lockdown eases, we will not be returning to normal because boardrooms will want to focus on what they can learn from lockdown, to increase profits, reduce office overheads and cut wasteful marketing costs
I predict that within five years we could see very different working practices and if Boris is lucky, we may even get a greater levelling up between South and North
In this blog I look into my crystal ball based on my research for my book ‘Reimaging the role of the Private Client Professional’ post lockdown and put forward some ideas as to how I think this could happen
The pre-lockdown way of working had many flaws; lengthy commutes, technical superiority, unacceptably high lockup days, poor client feedback, extensive travel to other offices to meet colleagues and prospective clients, huge marketing budgets with poor monitoring and a low Return on Investment.
In the beginning of my book ‘Reimagining the Role of the Private Client Industry’ post lockdown I give the example of Mr Hartley who thirty plus years ago used to go to his Club, every day, for a boozy lunch to ‘win business’. This type of ‘marketing behaviour’ is now a thing of the past – most professionals rarely leave the office for lunch let alone drink alcohol in the middle of the working day and I believe that in less than five years extensive travel, attending events and visiting colleagues across the globe will be considerably cut down.
My recommendation for all private client professionals is to focus first on the experience of the Client – this is where the opportunity lies.
In a survey I carried out with some professionals from a range of financial services firms, 100% of clients asked for more feedback from their private client professionals. Furthermore, the average lock up days for the payment of fees (where there was discretion) was 183 days – which means that the client is delaying payment for up to half a year, - this usually indicates a dissatisfaction as to service provided.
Both these concerns can now easily be fixed given the digital advancement in sophisticated Client Relationship Management Systems. It also means that teams can work together without being in the same office and can be accessed by the client in real time – so the team and the clients can get accurate up to date information as to who is doing what, what progress is being made and how much it is going to cost.
Private client professionals should also focus on building trust with their clients. In my book I go into how to build trust. In essence it boils down to looking at the wider concerns of the client and finding solutions which invariably mean making good and considerate professional recommendations.
I was speaking to a private client professional recently who said ‘I always give property work to Chris’ and ‘US work to Joe’. What sort of property work; development contracts, conveyancing, rights to light, enfranchisement, and all US work; what sort of work and where? Firms spend considerable time and cost in recruiting and training their staff but next to no time in making sure the professionals know what other professionals even within the same firm are doing in different departments so they can make well considered recommendations let alone from different disciplines across their network.
Marketing departments have improved a lot in recent years’, but it wasn’t long ago when they were referred to as the ‘guardian of the firm’s logo’ and the ‘publisher of the firm’s brochures.’ New business in most case is still expected to be won by the professionals who are also expected to do the work and are given little or no training in what to do, so they adopt tribal learning which is to do what everyone else does – jump onto aeroplanes, attend events and pick up business cards which are then put into a drawer and rarely looked at again.
In a survey I carried out some years ago on private client professionals 80% said their efforts at winning business had only a 10% return on investment, and yet most had significant marketing spend.
In the past year during lockdown financial services firms have proved to themselves that a lot of their office overheads is a waste of money, their marketing spend has been futile and the opportunity to focus back on the clients using digital technology is an opportunity which Caroline’s Club can assist you with.
If the mood of the era is grasped and possibly even encouraged by governments to relocate professionals north – leaving only meeting rooms in London we could see a totally different working landscape in a very short space of time
I set up Caroline’s Club post lockdown because I saw lockdown as an opportunity; the time was right. It builds on my extensive research over many years on how to use psychologically proven techniques to bring business back into networking rather than leaving it to wasteful (albeit enjoyable) social chit chat- using education, aggregation, gifts and client stories which will not only win trust, but foster a Culture of Care, care for clients, care for contacts and care for colleagues, this builds trust, gets bills paid and reduces overheads
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If you would like to promote your services and skills to our network of private client professionals and join our Culture of Care click here to find out more and if you would like to join Caroline’s Club simply register here where you can see what we are up to and if you would like to join simply upgrade your membership.