Financial Marketing

I’m sure you understand having a website these days is very important. Even if prospective clients are not directly searching for you, they may check out your credentials using the net. But why are so many advisers and financial planners getting poor results from their websites? In my experience it’s because of fundamental mistakes which I shall outline below. Fortunately for you, these mistakes are easy to rectify.

Yesterday, I undertook my third annual assessment for ISO22222 Personal Financial Planning. This is the British Standards for Personal Financial Planning and assessed by Standards International. I would like to thank Standards International for their support and guidance for yesterday and the past three years we have been working together. You have allowed our IFA business to grow. The assessment went well and I look forward to the results in due course.  So, why am I blogging about this? The reason is that, in my opinion, this is one of the most important qualifications that can be achieved in the financial advice industry.

Unfortunately I think with this blog post I bring bad tidings. I think it has been well documented that many IFAs do not intend to continue with their business post RDR. Instead for the majority the plan seems to be to build up as much trail or renewal commission within the business with the intention of building up its value with the ultimate aim of a profitable sale just before RDR hits. With the logic of the pre-RDR world that a business is valued based upon its level of renewal or passive income and the FSAs assurances that any trail arrangements put in place before the RDR curtain falls would be regarded as historic and in some way protected. This logic still stands up if your intention is not to retire but rather continue with the growth of the business however it falls down if you plan to retire! The FSA have indicate that in the post RDR world that every new client must agree their remuneration with their adviser and that on a transfer of Agency, trail will not be automatically transferred on to the new adviser who must instead put together a remuneration agreement with his new client.…

When I originally started this blog I had no intention of posting myself preferring instead to try and attract posts from Sales & Marketing experts who could perhaps offer some insight in to how we as IFAs and mortgage brokers should be marketing our services and communicating what we can do to the general public. As the blog has aged however it has been quite difficult to keep up the pace of inviting guest bloggers and organising their posts etc. So recently I decided to throw the blog open to all IFAs and Mortgage intermediaries who felt they had something useful to tell others. If you are interested in submitting a post to the blog then please drop me an email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it detailing what you would like to post about don't write the whole blog as I might not think it's a suitable subject, just send a summary. I don't feel that I am really qualified to position myself as some sort of IFA marketing expert so I thought I would kick off by drawing your attention to a document that I think every independent financial adviser and mortgage intermediary should have read by now yet I have seen…

It’s that time of year again! Time for the annual company or neighborhood holiday party and all the other social events that come with the holiday season. The truth is that these seasonal events are also a great place for networking. And even if you don’t look at them as a ‘networking event,’ you likely will be meeting new people and making an impression in the process. You may as well make the most of it! Here are four easy tips for maximizing your interactions at holiday parties this year:

The Six Psychological Needs That Influence the Behaviors, Expectations, and Preferences of Affluent and Wealthy Individuals 1. The Need for SecurityTwo types of security issues that must be addressed in marketing, sales, and relationship strengthening activities are emotional security and economic security. To effectively address the emotional security issues with clients and prospects, it is essential that advisors convey that they can speak to them in confidence. Clients and prospects alike need to know and feel comfortable in discussing issues with advisors that are sensitive and perhaps ones that they may not feel comfortable sharing with anyone else. It is critically important that advisors guard and protect the privacy of their clients and prospects. Even casual comments or gossip about other people can be seen as a breech of client privilege.