Dan Wiltshire: Why do some advisers fail?

A few months ago, there was a spate of confessional LinkedIn posts from aspiring advisers, who had decided to leave the profession.

These were highly credible individuals (often with successful previous careers), who had clearly put in a lot of effort, but it hadn’t worked out.

It got me thinking about why this might be – there’s a lot of discussion within the profession about ‘what it takes to succeed’ but I think inverting this and asking ‘why do some advisers fail’ could be more enlightening.

There are of course certain hygiene factors like competence and qualifications, but let’s take this as given (if I were being mischievous, I’d suggest that neither has been a barrier to success in the past). The central issue these advisers report encountering is securing clients.

This is indeed a big challenge and a topic that requires more than 500 words to do it justice. But a fundamental mistake, in my view, is that people often focus too much on finding clients and not enough time attracting clients. This is a relatively subtle but crucial distinction – and has a huge influence on everything that follows.

If you’re blundering around on Linkedin or stalking a prospect at a networking event, you have to be incredibly lucky to find someone who’s a) in your target market b) ready to engage and c) trusts you enough based on your brief (and probably awkward) interaction to take things further.

Creating incoming leads is really not that difficult, but does take a bit of time and consideration

If miraculously you manage to bag yourself a lead, the dynamic of the meeting that follows has already been set. You approached them, so naturally the onus will be on you to pitch your wares. This will result in you doing most of the talking while the poor prospect tries to figure out why they’re there and whether they’re about to be fleeced.

If, instead, you’re able to attract enquiries from prospects who have already self-identified as needing financial advice and carried out some initial research into you/your firm – the conversations that follows will be completely different.

The meeting will typically be them doing the talking; explaining why they contacted you and what they’re looking for. All the adviser needs to do at this point is explain how they might be able to help.

Creating incoming leads is really not that difficult, but does take a bit of time and consideration. You will need a website, some form of online/physical presence and – over time – a reputation.

Dan Wiltshire: Advice and the wisdom of doubt

People within the profession often use the terms ‘hunters’ and ‘farmers’ to describe different types of adviser but I think fishing is a better analogy. You need to invest in a bit of infrastructure and then be patient. Overactivity will only scare people away.

There will be advisers out there who completely disagree with me – the ‘always selling’ brigade – and that’s fair enough. They’d argue that what I’m proposing is just another form of sales technique. But the key point is I’d never try and sell anything that someone didn’t already want to buy.

This is why I don’t think of it in these terms – I go to work every day to try and help people with their finances. There is of course the awkward fact that I have to charge people for my services. But clients are reasonable people who understand this unfortunate reality.

The point is that, as long as you’re not totally commercially naïve, if you help enough people, then getting paid will become a by-product of your efforts, not something that motivates your every action.

Resilience in the early days is so important, as well as sticking at it for enough time for luck to happen

One final point that I’d like to acknowledge is luck. You need a bit of luck when starting out in financial advice – I certainly had a few lucky breaks early on. We can agree or disagree about the best approach but there will always be things outside of your control.

That’s why resilience in the early days is so important, as well as sticking at it for enough time for luck to happen (I’d say it takes two years, at least, to establish yourself).

As we all know, attracting new talent is a big problem for the profession. And it does sadden me when I see on social media that some incredibly impressive candidates have felt they’ve had to give up. I’d be interested to hear others’ views on the topic.

Dan Wiltshire is an independent financial planner at Wiltshire Wealth