Downward pressure on fees is one of the biggest challenges facing financial advisors today. Your brand—if carefully managed and properly developed—can be one of your business’s most valuable assets. It can be the key to accelerating growth and profitability and essential to building long-term business value.
Most financial advisors today are so busy trying to run a successful business and deliver financial planning services to clients, they don’t have the time, resources or energy to think much about their brand and whether is still fi ts, given the changing marketplace and the evolving needs of clients. That means 10, 15 or more years may have gone by since the brand was first introduced, and the advisor may find himself or herself out of sync, fighting to compete and struggling to stay relevant.
Why rebrand?
The financial services industry is constantly changing and evolving, and you can’t afford to be left behind. Consider the forces that are continually altering the dynamics of how your business is perceived in the marketplace:
- Increasing competition
- Evolving client preferences
- Disruptive technologies
- Changing regulatory requirements
- Aging demographics
- Fee compression
And the reality is that today’s investor is changing as well. As always, clients are looking for an advisor’s experience and expertise to meet their needs and solve their fi nancial problems. But they are changing how they search for solutions. Yes, they still ask for referrals from friends and family members, but they also access online resources via web searches and social networks. They are now typically looking for convergence—that is, referrals from multiple sources in multiple channels.
Your website is extremely important—if it’s not compelling or lacks clarity, you’ll lose prospects as they quickly move on to other options. Geography is losing relevance as well. With the rise of technology, especially among younger clients, local presence isn’t so important any more.
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