As Chartered Financial Planners and Wealth Managers with around £1 billion of client funds under management, we understand the value of supplying expert financial advice and building good client relationships.

We believe that the provision of financial services can help to enhance your business relationships too.

Next month, we’ll be running a webinar on the topic of ‘Creating a successful financial services solution for you and your clients’. It will be your guide to understanding how you can use financial services to enhance your client relationships.

Here’s a taster of what we’ll be covering.

The need for high-quality financial advice

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) has highlighted personal financial planning as a key growth area. They argue that ‘In this increasingly complex and important market sector, clients need high-quality advice from professionals.’

Building a successful relationship with a financial planning firm can have benefits for you. These include:

• The potential for a recurring ‘annuity type’ income for your business
• Increased brand awareness and brand strength
• The potential to attract new clients through new marketing endeavours
• Protecting your business during economic downturns
• Delivering better outcomes for your clients

From an authorised Third Party Agreement to a Joint Venture, you can put together a formal arrangement and service level agreement with the ultimate aim of ensuring your clients get the right advice for them.

Your options explained

There are three main ways to introduce your clients to financial service solutions. Each has its benefits and drawbacks and our seminar will help you arrive at the right solution.

1. Introduction on an ad-hoc basis to multiple contacts

The benefits of opting for ad hoc introductions are:

• It puts you in control of who you choose to introduce to
• You can introduce specific clients to different types of adviser/professional
• The possibility of reciprocal introductions and goodwill

There are negatives too, though:

• You won’t have any control or direct impact over the level of service delivered to your clients
• You’ll not create any revenue for your business (or if you do, it will be transactional revenue only)
• Your clients won’t see brand continuity from one service to another

2. Creating your own in-house financial services offering

You might decide to create your own financial services offering and supply an in-house solution. This way, you could:

• Retain complete control over the service and offering you supply
• Retain all the profit created
• Generate cross-selling between different elements of your business

On the other hand, though, setting up in-house could have drawbacks too:

• Establishing an in-house proposition is difficult – gaining authorisation, implementing a compliance function, sourcing the right skills
• You could leave your company vulnerable to dependence on one or two key employees
• Inexperience in delivering such an offering
• The initial and ongoing costs might be high – direct or network-based regulation and compliance, recruitment, professional indemnity insurance, all come at a high cost

3. Creating a Joint Venture company to provide financial services under your own branding

While there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, we believe the most effective way to provide financial services to your clients is through a fully branded Joint Venture.

Creating a Joint Venture will allow you to supply financial services under your own branding. It will also offer the following benefits:

• You and your clients gain immediate access to considerable experience and skill
• You build brand awareness and expand your client confidence
• Joint Ventures have a proven ability to supply recurring income streams

On the negative side, a joint venture means that:

• Profits are shared
• Client experience is controlled by the authorised financial services firm
• These ventures are only as successful if the accountant introduces clients

Challenges versus rewards

Providing a consistent and effective financial services offering isn’t easy.

There can be barriers to overcome. Commonly perceived issues include lack of confidence in the adviser firm, added regulation, and compliance, and prohibitive costs.

Our webinar

On Thursday 24 September, we’ll be presenting a webinar providing you with more detail on all the options above, and the benefits we think they can bring.

We’ll also be sharing our top five tips for how to get it right for your business.

There’ll be more information to follow, so stay tuned for further updates.

Get in touch

If you think you’d like to discuss any aspect of selecting – and implementing an agreement with – a specialist partner, get in touch. We can help talk you through the pros and cons of each of the available options and supply further detail on our due diligence procedures.

If you would like to discuss the possibility of a Joint Venture agreement, please get in touch with us. Email enquiries@boolers.co.uk or call 0116 2407070.