Raising it at the year-end meeting
Firms rarely fail at this because the model is wrong. They fail because nobody ever raises it. This is about closing the gap between intending to have the conversation and having it.
Firms rarely fail at this because the model is wrong. They fail because nobody ever raises it. This is about closing the gap between intending to have the conversation and having it.
Most firms that join a partnership like this do not fail because the model is wrong. They fail because nobody ever raises it with a client. The gap between intending to have the conversation and having it is where the whole thing usually dies, so this guide is about that gap.
The year-end is the natural moment. The numbers are in front of both of you, the client is thinking about money, and they came expecting a conversation about it, so nothing has to be manufactured and nobody is called out of the blue.
This matters more than the wording. A question asked in a meeting the client expected to have lands completely differently from the same question in a call that arrives from nowhere.
Do the company work first. Sign off the accounts, cover the tax position, deal with what they came for. The personal question belongs at the point where the business conversation has finished and neither of you has stood up yet.
“We have covered the company. Can I ask what the plan is for you personally?”
That is the whole intervention. It is open, it is not about a product, and it gives the client room to say anything from “all sorted” to a fifteen-minute answer about a business they want out of by sixty.
Most of the useful information arrives in the first thirty seconds of their reply, and it is usually information your firm has never had before.
“I keep meaning to sort that out.” The most common, and the clearest opening. Offer the introduction now, while it is live.
“I have got a guy.” Ask when they last spoke. An adviser they saw once in 2014 is closer to no adviser than to one. If the answer is recent and they are happy, that is genuinely the right outcome and you leave it.
“It is fine, the business is my pension.” True for many owners, and worth one follow-up: has anyone worked out what the business would need to sell for to fund that? Almost nobody has.
“What do you think I should do?” The moment to stop. That is a question for somebody authorised to answer it, which is what the introduction is for.
An introduction offered and accepted in the meeting happens. One that becomes “I will send you some details” mostly does not. If they say yes, raise it there and then, and tell them who will be in touch and roughly when.
That it costs nothing and commits them to nothing. That they will meet one named adviser rather than a call centre. That if there is nothing worth doing, the adviser will say so. And that you stay involved, because they are still your client and the whole point is that the two halves talk to each other.
If the answer is no, it is no, and nothing about your relationship has changed. The question can be asked again next year, in the same meeting, when something in their position may have moved. Over a client book, an annual question asked well beats a campaign every time.
In most firms the partner is not in every year-end. The client managers are, and they are the ones who will hear “I keep meaning to sort that out.” An hour with them on the six moments and this one question is the difference between a partnership that produces introductions and one that produces good intentions.
No cost to your firm, no FCA authorisation, and a named partnership director who sets it up with you.