Consultants launch fee-for-service handbook

Practice management consultancy E&W Strategic Partners has released a transition to fee-for-service handbook that it believes goes beyond the pricing of advice.

The booklet has grown out of a series of workshops hosted by the consultancy in partnership with the Financial Planning Association (FPA). E&W Strategic Partners managing director Lap-Tin Tsun said it was a comprehensive guide to transitioning to fee-for-service that not only focused on the different fee models and the pricing of advice but also took the planner through a step-by-step guide from the history of financial planning to what fee-for-service and the Future of Financial Advice reforms actually meant, and how fee-for-service impact on a practice.

“Then we start delving into designing the practice from the very beginning,” Tsun said. “What is your business about? How do you actually define your proposition? How do you market and promote your business to your customers? How do you develop your processes and your services to deliver what you’re offering to the market?”

The handbook includes case studies and a tools CD that helps the planner calculate what it costs to deliver on services and how to price them for the customer. Tsun said all of this was fed into a full business model to enable the planner to calculate how profitable the business would be and whether they could replace their lost commission income with a fee-for-service offering.

“That what it’s all been designed to do,” he added.

Referring to feedback from planners, Tsun said they tended to focus on value proposition and fee model and how they actually price their services. But he said there were other things around a business that were also important, including staff, the stakeholders in the business, how you market and promote yourself and how you define your client segment. Tsun said the handbook helped the planner cover all the basics, and for smaller practices he felt it would be more than enough to get them through the transition.

“If you’ve only got a small practice, you don’t need anything fancier than this,” he said. “This will be more than enough to get you across the line, and I think that is the solution that a lot of planners are looking for.”

"The fee-for-service handbook" was reviewed by the FPA and will be available to its members at a discount.