Last week, I set out why it is so difficult to win business from private clients – and how we all hate being victims of product push – or the event bore – it is due to our ‘innate fear of the influence of strangers’, but before we look at the four ways to get around this – let’s digress a little – as a private client professional what are you good at, who are your best clients and what do you do for them which your competitors may not? Once this is established, you then need to go about getting your message across to the right people and in the right way.
Most books about winning business – talk about the SMART approach, which is the acronym for setting goals or targets which are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. I am a trust and succession lawyer – and there are lots of trust and succession lawyers out there so why should anyone come to me rather than anyone else?
I was privileged to work for one of the wealthiest families in the Middle East. The founder wanted the protection provided by a trust, protection from greedy heirs, opportunistic creditors and overzealous tax authorities, but also control reserved to the family and its close advisors and binding wishes.
We were fortunate that money was not an issue so we could explore all possibilities from the traditional solution of having a Protector with power reserved to fire and hire the trustees, increased powers, advisory boards, private trustee companies and foundations. My client wanted a solution which could cope –with difficult business or family decisions in times or crisis, disharmony or disputes while at the same time giving the professional trustee freedom to administer the trust without concern as to being liable for breach of fiduciary obligations.
We came up with a solution which was robust, satisfied the physical presence test, substance over form test and did not threaten tax residence status of the trust. Since then we have introduced this solution to many families across the globe and throughout numerous jurisdictions and it is now available for clients with more modest means. This is my Unique Selling Point – but how could I get this message out to my network – I needed to find a way to give them something, educate them and aggregate with client stories to make them want to listen to each other and refer business
I am lucky to have worked with clients over many years and there are plenty of opportunities to introduce my clients to other professionals – but if I was honest, I did not refer as much business as I could because I did not know who in my network did what in sufficient detail to introduce them with confidence
The answer I decided was podcasts – I interviewed my close network of private client professionals – so that I could find out what they did for their clients which I published on Apple ITunes and Spotify under the banner ‘How to Keep your Money’– and then came covid-19 and lockdown.
Published podcasts are unthreatening because they are not about me, they are aggregated in one place and are educational – so it is hardly surprising that they are ranked within the top 160 investment podcasts in the UK.
And then came covid-19 and lockdown.
With nothing better to do last Easter, I decided to write up my research and put it together, in a book ‘Reimagining the Role of the Private Client Professional’ post lockdown which focussed my mind on building a platform designed specifically to provide the means to network effectively and efficiently.
Podcasts I decided after the book was written were not enough – remember I wrote 120 articles for the Weekend FT and did not win any business. It was important for my private client members to have their own platform where they could see the contact details of other members and follow up. But they also needed to meet and build personal relationships without putting up resistance – I still had one tool left in the box – Client Stories
My idea was to build a platform – Caroline’s Club (htpps://carolines.club) bring Private Client Professionals together on a zoom call once a month to hear a pre-recorded private client panel share Client Stories around a theme which we could publish on You Tube and then divide the attendees into client focussed curated network bubbles – so that each private client professional could share their Client Story with others and upload it against their profile so it would not be forgotten and can be referred to at a later date.
The platform took about 4 months to build and was ready by August 2020 – Caroline’s Club and much to my delight the research paid off – after every meeting members follow up and clients are being referred - effective and efficient networking!
Caroline’s Club is not therefore an events business – we are unashamedly about winning business and building trust – we aim to squash the innate fear of the influence of strangers, through a Culture of Care: care for clients, care for colleagues and care for contacts – using aggregation, education and client stories.
If you would like to find out more simply register here
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.