The Practice Doctor is IN

Al Depman, CLU, ChFC, CMFC, BH

The Annual Review

A question I hear frequently from advisors is, “How many touches should a client get from me each year?”  When the topic arose recently, Allison, in Maryland, said that she always looked at the annual review as the centerpiece for the client’s year:

“I have a series of contacts starting with a birthday of the client or primary client in a household. For top-tier clients, this is a lunch, meeting for coffee, or at least a personalized card. But the real important meeting is the annual review. That sets the stage for the coming year of contacts.”

Not surprisingly, Allison has a detailed annual review agenda. Her marketing assistant does most of the preparation work.

“I’m adamant that we do the meetings face-to-face with my A and B-level clients. The C-level client reviews are done via mail or over the phone, unless they have a specific desire to come to my office.”

I asked Allison to share her best-practices annual review itinerary:

 Objectives:

• Keep business on the books.
• Deepen the client relationship.
• Identify or initiate the next opportunity.
• Obtain quality prospects.

Time: 1 hour or less, preferably in Allison’s office.

Who: Client, Allison and Meg, Allison’s MA. Optional: the client’s household members or client representatives.  

Before Meeting:

• Review notes from last client meeting.
• Review client holdings and financial goals.
• Assemble documents for use in meeting (done by Meg). See Supporting Documents section below.

Meeting Checklist:

• Greet client and engage in conversation (designed to connect with the client and uncover life events among important people in the client’s world). These are events that might happen or are planned such as pregnancy, job change, graduation, retirement, etc. in order to identify prospects and/or opportunities.
• Uncover any important issues on the client’s mind.
• Update demographic information and gather additional details for the database to be used for proactive client contact (hobbies, interests, college affiliation, email, contact preferences). Allison uses a standard data gathering form for this purpose.
• Review the global/national/local financial environment from Allison and the client’s views. Examine the client’s holdings within this broader financial environment.
• Discuss any recommended changes to holdings.
• Explain the scope of Allison’s services, including any new products or services.
• Identify and plant the seeds for the next step in securing the client’s financial future.
• Ask how the client feels about the level of service and if he/she wishes to make any adjustments.
• Ask the client for help with Allison’s marketing plan, including quality referral names. 
• Verbally summarize the key outcomes of the meeting.

After-Meeting:

Communicate and/or provide Meg with the following:

• Demographic and personal information updates and notes for database entry.   This includes a reassessed client rating as a result of the review.
• New prospects/referrals for Meg to schedule appointments with. If necessary, adjust the client’s contact preferences for when and how to stay in touch.
• Anticipated opportunities, so Meg can schedule client follow-up and record them on the Opportunity Inventory (discussed in my December 2008 column:  http://mitchanthony.com/eNewsletter/articles/2008-12-Al.html).
• Client service requests and adjustments to be processed.
• A review of the key points of the meeting so a summary letter and thank-you note can be sent.

Supporting Documents:

• Client profile to be updated.
• Client holdings and performance information.
• Applications or service forms for client signature.

“One of the best parts of this agenda,” reports Allison, ”is in populating that Opportunity Inventory. It becomes a roadmap of future business a year or two in the future. It provides great peace of mind knowing that even if 50 percent of them come to fruition, I’ll be having productive years for the foreseeable future.”

Now that’s worth celebrating!

The doctor is OUT.

Al Depman, CLU, ChFC, CMFC, BH, a.k.a. “The Practice Doctor”, is MitchAnthony.com’s Business Practice Consultant. He is the creator of “The Practice Management Assessment” tool and materials and has authored numerous articles in professional publications on practice management, and author of the forthcoming book, How to Build Your Financial Advisory Business, to be published by McGraw Hill in 2009. Al combined his Liberal Arts studies with 10 years of management experience with McDonald’s Corporation to enter the financial services world 25 years ago. Since then, Al has evolved from an MDRT-level sales rep into a full-time consultant specializing in helping others engineer their business practices to the next level. Contact him at al@mitchanthony.com.

© 2008 Al Depman