Consistency key to planner value

Consistency of service and a broader lifestyle focus for clients are crucial for financial planners in the current marketplace, according to Matthew Lock, managing director of financial planning consultant Customer Acquisition and Retention Management (CARM).

Speaking at the Total Asset Planning Conference in Sydney, Lock drew on his own experiences as a senior planner with ipac securities in the 1990s.

His presentation on growing value within a financial planning business dealt with two perspectives: client satisfaction; and the higher-level strategic goal of building a marketable business.

In a session on ‘Building a business you can sell’, Lock highlighted the importance of brand consistency, and the difficulty of achieving this within the traditional ‘craft-selling model’ adopted by the industry.

“Brand can only be built if you have something that differentiates it, that you can consistently deliver time and time again to the customer,” he said.

Achieving this requires the adaptation of technology and automation, which Lock described as “industrialising the process”.

He argued that there is a need for reform within the traditional business model of financial planning, with the existing craft-selling model making it almost impossible to leverage the full value of what planners do.

Speaking about the fundamentals of financial planning, Lock contrasted his ‘lifestyle planning’ model with the more traditional approach.

In this lifestyle model, product outcomes are replaced by lifestyle outcomes and cashflow management supersedes risk management.

Lock also said that while many planners offer only an ad-hoc relationship, an ongoing, continuous relationship is required, and that planners must view returns and tax benefits as inputs within the process rather than focal points.