As a financial adviser, the integral aspect of the profession is to offer unbiased advice given with clients' best interests at heart to positively impact their financial well-being. If you have trouble making that transition to an advice-based approach, here is how to get started:
As shared by LIMRA in its January Monthly E-Newsletter - Leading Advisors to an Advice-Based Practice - How to Transition from a Focus Solely on Products by Gary Schwartz:
Client Segmentation: All clients are important, yet they are not equal. Break the client base into at least three categories based on criteria that is important to you. For example, revenue generated per client, referral centres of influence, and potential. The key is to identify 20% of the clients who produce 80% of the revenue.
Menu of services: Outline the menu of services each segment will receive. It could be purely transactional work, money management or a comprehensive advice model.
Robust client-service model: To align the segmentation project with the menu of services. This means proactively engaging each client segment with the services they desire. In this way, the adviser drives the service model, not the client. As a result, the service work is profitable at each of the service levels. Also, the best clients will be receiving the top service they deserve, turning them into advocates who are more likely to refer other top prospects.