Prescience launches BDM education initiative

Financial services consultancy Prescience Consulting has launched a training company - Jacana Business Momentum - to fill what it views as an industry void in the level of training available to business development managers.

Principal of both Prescience and Jacana, Wayne Wilson says he is perturbed at the industry’s lack of independent training for BDMs and the perception of many of their employers that they are no more than salespeople driving fund flows.

“Our research shows that BDMs are generally not regarded as doing a good job - either for the company they work for or for the clients they are supposed to help,” Wilson says.

According to Wilson, “Many financial services organisations still regard their BDMs as little more than salespeople, and judge them solely on the number of new clients they bring to the company.”

Jacana will provide two basic program modules with the first giving an organisation a group specific ongoing program for training their BDMs - an approach which also enables an organisation to focus on specific aspects of the BDM role they wish to enhance.

The second offers individual programs to which any organisation can send BDMs - in particular those new to the organisation or industry, with Jacana offering ongoing mentoring for individual BDMs.

Wilson says from a client perspective “financial planners - the target of most effort by BDMs in building distribution - expect BDMs to provide business support, assistance and, most of all, reliable information to help them service their own client base”, adding that research the group has conducted indicates BDMs rarely meet these needs of financial planners.

“At face value, the two quite separate and distinct demands of clients and employers seem to make it impossible for BDMs to satisfy both masters. However, with a change in attitude and approach it can be done,” Wilson says.