My book – out now

Screenshot+2020-06-23+at+11.19.31.jpg

My book ‘Reimagining the role of the Private Client Professional – post lockdown’ is available for you to buy here now.

Later in the year we will launch a print version, an audio version and a kindle version which will be available on Amazon and in book shops, but for the time being it is available only to you, the readers of my Note as a PDF version.

The book is for the Private Client Professional who cares for his or her clients. This may sound a bit odd but for many Professionals their expertise is of greater importance than their clients, who pay their bills. These Professionals love to jump on airplanes, attend business conferences and have numerous face to face meetings – but post lockdown many will be wondering whether these activities can be justified since they do not benefit the bottom line. Is this activity just a perk of the job; just fun?

All of us have now worked from home; some of us love it, others hate it, but whatever your reaction, what has been exposed is that a lot of what a Private Client Professional does is a waste of time and money; face to face meetings can be done on Zoom, education can be gleaned from webinars and conferences do not produce much if any new business.

However, if we are not to fall back into bad habits, we need guidance as to what to do instead – the silver lining in the dark cloud of covid-19.

What I see is a growing trend to adopt a Culture of Care – being a specialist but also looking after the wider interests of the client to increase the profitability from the client, through cross-selling and upselling – but also to build trust.

Our podcast professional this week Rebecca Bettany Director of JTC Private Office shows how to put a Culture of Care into action.  She talks about the work its private office at JTC has done for its clients during lockdown such as talking to the tenants of properties in their clients’ property portfolio to determine whether they will be able to pay the forthcoming rent during lockdown.

Her attitude is that if JTC does a good job for one part of a client’s investment portfolio her client will be more inclined to give JTC other work – this is a Culture of Care in operation. It is good for business, good for the client and builds a trusted relationship which is good for JTC .

The attraction of what JTC does for its clients is to save its clients time – which Rebecca calls the ‘next luxury’.

Before coming to JTC so many of its clients waste time managing their investments and business investments using out of date spreadsheets. Rebecca speaks of one client overlooking a £50million bank account. I have also known clients ‘forget’ about a street of properties, or missed a Picasso left hanging on the wall behind a door when they moved houses - luckily the new buyer brought it to the attention of the vendor who then retrieved it.

But with the country’s debt now exceeding its economy these oversights – will simply not be excused – tax not declared because an asset was overlooked will not wash with HMRC and will be payable together with up to 200% penalties! If you do not believe me listen to Andrew McKenna’s podcast Episode 20 former head of HMRC compliance and offshore to learn more

We owe it to our clients to look after their wider interests. Rebecca is a podcast professional on ‘How to Keep your Money’ because if I come across a client who has his or her investments and assets managed on a spreadsheet I will warn him or her of the dangers and introduce him or her to Rebecca who can sort out the muddle which I cannot.

This is what I call a Culture of Care. To do this effectively each of us needs a small actively managed network – what I call my A network  to whom clients can be referred and from whom I expect to be introduced to clients as well.  As I explained in last week’s Note, I started my podcast series ‘How to Keep your Money’  to put together in a dynamic way my own A list of Professionals; the Professionals with whom I wanted to do business. Post lockdown this has now lead to Caroline’s Club – which will give you the tools to network remotely with a matched group of Professionals and zoom speed networking to put this into practice – we aim to launch it towards the end of July

In the meantime if you would like to buy my book ‘Reimagining the role of the Private Client Professional – post lockdown’ simply click here, and if you would like to know more about becoming a podcast professional and why it will be of benefit to your business simply contact deborah@garnhamfos.com or phone 020 3740 7422