AMA: I’m Jessica Lamb, director of Practice Dynamix, Ask Me Anything!
With over 15 years of experience in the financial planning industry and experience working with over 350 advice practices around Australia, I help bring businesses into the future. On Wednesday 24th April from 11am to 11:30am, I will be available to answer any burning questions you might have. Whether it’s about utilising the power of technology in the advice process, integrating sound business processes or uncovering Xplan’s hidden gems – start popping in your questions below and Ask Me Anything! Update: This AMA has now ended but please continue to pop your questions down below or in the discussion forums and make sure you tag me at Jessica-Lamb .655Views12likes21CommentsDoes everyone understand the “why”?
When working with clients, we are often asked to focus on processes and governance so the business can minimise their risks while driving efficiencies and reducing costs. We often find what happens “on the ground” could be their biggest risk. How often are you engaging with staff who are making sure the “doing” is getting done and they understand how critical they are in bringing to life advice provided to clients? How often do you think about what will happen if some/all of your key people involved in admin/support roles suddenly left the business? Who can step in and fill in the gaps to implement advice that has been provided to clients? Does everyone understand the role they play in the advice process and their “why”? Investing in staff is a crucial component in risk management and the success of a business. What are some of the things you are doing to invest in your people? We would love to hear some fun and different ways in how staff are brought along the journey and involved in the vision of the business, as well as ensuring everyone is across the “why”.83Views8likes3CommentsSuccession Plan - Be honest ! How prepared are you?
This is something that is so close to my heart at the moment as I am in the home stretch of realising the dream that I mapped out 8 years ago! A real mixture of emotions and this has been 8 years in the making to get to that realisation. With a number of advisers still looking to transition out of the industry over the next 3 years I am very interested to understand and get comments on how prepared they are, is it documented in an actionable plan and what areas are they focused on to maximise their attractiveness and value. Also, how are they protecting their clients that they have nutured over many years to minimise the impact on them as this will ultimately have an reputational impact on the whole industry and the success of that transition.131Views6likes8CommentsHow to code birthday greetings in XPLAN
Hi Everyone, we are looking for assistance in coding the birthday email for clients. We need help with setting up coding so that the birthday greeting shows only the client who is celebrating their birthday on that day. Currently, the coding is showing both the client and their partner names in the email template that goes out to the client. We want to edit the coding so that it only shows either the client name or the partner name. Can anyone help us with tips on how to edit the coding to achieve the above result? Thanks!Solved241Views5likes14CommentsVirtual office, what are your thoughts?
Back in 2020, we were forced to close our office due to Covid and the many lockdowns that Melbourne had. We quickly had to mobilised the team of 10 at that time to work from home, fortunately we predominately use M365 and Xplan, with any other software being 100% cloud based, hence no server issues, which made life a little easier. Later that year we made the decision to give up our office and work virtually. Many advisers said to me that it wouldn't work for them due to their client base being older, they still say it. I would like to challenge the thinking around that, we focus on pre and post retirees, who are usually the least tech savvy of any age group, but whilst they like to sometimes see us in person for coffee or lunch, the majority of the work we do is all via video, email and phone, after all they all learnt to facetime their grandkids during covid. Our business has grown in people, clients and revenue over the past 3.5 years since we have been 100% virtual, yes it's been a lot of work, trial and error, but it can work, if you want it to. I'd love to hear from others who have gone virtual and what has worked best for you, your team, your business and your clients?85Views5likes3CommentsCreating your vibe
You need one thing above everything else, to create a vibe which is genuine and personal for your clients – you must truly know your clients. Unfortunately, it’s our experience that very few practices are taking full advantage of their CRM functionality to capture the information they need to create that key personal, relationship building information. And, even if it’s being collected at the onboarding stage, few practices deliberately maintain this information. Simple info such as their children’ names (and their occupation or education level), details of the client’s preference for morning or evening meetings, coffee or tea, in-person or virtual meetings, wine or the ballet or both (will allow you to provide interesting content for your communications, plan events which appeal and so on), what the client is planning to do once the retire, when’s their next major holiday and so on. In other words - the ‘life stuff’. What info do you collect (and maintain) to build meaningful, long term relationships with your clients?37Views4likes2CommentsHow do you ensure a consistent client experience?
In follow up to my article No adviser is an island, I'd love to know what practices are doing to keep the client experience front of mind for everyone in the team? How do you ensure the clients receive a cohesive experience from everyone they encounter in your practice?96Views4likes3CommentsOverlaying key life events against portfolio balance reports
We have been discussing as a team if it would be more meaningful for clients for us to overlay key life events (the purchase of a house, paying for a child's wedding, receiving an inheritance etc) over a Portfolio Balance report so the clients have some context as to the drops and peaks in their portfolio balance over a period of time. Obviously we could capture key life events as a data point moving forwards and to some degree populate them looking backwards as well, but thought it would be an interesting addition for our clients. Interested to hear of any other firms taking this approach, and how you go about it?120Views4likes6CommentsClient reviews
G'day All There is always a lot of focus on new client engagement and SOA production. Given most practices have way more ongoing clients than new, how are you finding the process of arranging review meetings and preparing review documentation? Could this area and the report we provide clients at review time do with some focus?393Views4likes17Comments