Stop doing these six things now to help pave the way to your future growth
1. Stop the sloppy segmentation.
Start using segmentation that means something - to the segments. Two issues here trip up companies.
First, tighten up your target markets and use a more durable approach including how and why they buy. Research shows that the buying process is now more important to most consumers than the product itself. Make fans of your clients and business partners based on how you treat the process of becoming a client of yours.
Second, clients are not solo. The retiring boomer age wave means every individual client has family members, friends and business associates you will want but they may have very different needs and preferences. Don’t lump them in with the primary client - offer them options.
2. Stop hiding.
Your visibility is invaluable in a world where information is readily available. What consumers and advisors know about you makes a difference. Don’t be the ubiquitous stock fund manager or financial advisor. Show your stuff - have opinions - tell your story. What are your values? Who are your (happy) clients? Why should we do business with you?
With consumers doing more and more of their own research of investment and financial solutions, you want a good reputation, which will also be a benefit to your business partners like financial advisors.
3. Stop measuring only results
Don’t be the lazy manager that just tells people to produce more. Know exactly how the results you want are created and focus your time on improving the ability to drive results. But be thorough - there are probably layers here worth exposing before you isolate the real drivers that matter.
For example, the sales process of managed accounts and life or annuity products include illustrations and proposals - often tracked as drivers. But those are later stage drivers. Look farther upstream to the use of planning capabilities and make those offers more central to client engagement - and capture the added benefits of additional solutions. Replace the target of managed account sales with new assets and referrals that encourage the bigger win of better relationships.
4. Stop serving marginal clients
The historic bull market run and shifting demographics have likely earned you lots of clients - and even more one-time customers. Time to weed the garden, as they say.
Many “clients” are just people who bought a single product or gave you a small portion of their assets. So they are really just partial clients not devoted clients. Pareto knew about this phenomenon - the 80/20 rule. Connect better with the 20 percent of your clients - secure that base against rising competition. Don’t let the 80 percent distract you. But now purposefully design solutions for the 80 percent. Or let them go. The Big Box stores of financial services are perfecting the scale game. Don’t fight a fight you can’t win in favor of building a “moat” of attention around your ideal clients and make them your castle.
5. Stop offering marginal products
Marginal products are easy to find but hard to stop. They make some money, they may have a great history, they may be someone’s baby. But they tarnish your reputation and hold you back from deploying resources and energy into something better. Who wants to be the portfolio manager of your worst performing fund?
Create the space and redirect the resources - including the people - to something worthy of their best efforts.
6. Stop marketing your brand
First, this is not a conflict with #2 above because the important part of marketing is to connect each of your capabilities with the people who value them - without confusing the clients with other capabilities they don’t want. Your overall brand reflects a higher level set of values and strengths - the products and services and service models need laser focus on the ideal consumers. Clients seeking solutions get a “feeling” from a brand - so double down on that effort outlined above, but make equally sure your individual offerings are noticeable, understandable and resonate with the ideal clients you built them for.
Related: Retirement Is a Burning Platform – and Your Hurdle Rate Is on Fire