The Relationship Review

Instituting an annual or bi-annual (every other year) “Relationship Review” with long-term stable clients will keep them engaged and deepen the relationship to ensure they remain with you as your best clients.  Breathe new life into the relationship by bringing them back to a time when they were brand new clients and were at their most engaged.  

One of the most important habits that career-long financial advisors have is a focus on both working in the business and working on the business.  This should include relationships with clients, especially your best and longest-tenured clients.  Even a long and successful client relationship needs refreshing and continuous cultivation. Revisiting the basis of the advisory relationship beyond the day-to-day or meeting-to-meeting cycle will allow you to reconnect with your best clients and keep the relationship fresh and relevant.  

Most clients, with your help, have transformed their finances, their goals, and hopefully their lives through the important work they do with you.  However, regardless of how deep your relationships may be, you must always keep an eye on the business side of a client relationship.  Creating a habitual “Relationship Review” with your tenured clients can provide a grounding element to push past the noise and revisit the most important aspects of the advisory business: trust and connection. 

Client Retention

There are no shortage of companies and advisors that would like a crack at your client base.  Take a moment to Google “How to Break Up with Your Financial Advisor” or something similar.  It is one of the most popular articles written by personal finance sites and challenger RIAs.  

Long-tenured clients are unfortunately one of the most at-risk segments of an advisor’s book.  After 5-10 years, client issues have generally been solved or accounted for within a plan.  Even the best clients can have a selective memory of how their plan was built and why they maintain financial stability.  Plant a seed with your clients on why they should stay before someone plants a seed on why they should leave.  

YCharts reported that since 2020 nearly 30% of clients with >$500,000 under management switched advisors.  An additional 24% considered it.  If those numbers surprise you, you should consider how you can better combat that trend. 

Every advisor seeks to put their clients in a stable, sustainable financial position.  When a plan is complete, risks and concerns are solved, and a client is on track it should be time to celebrate.  However, from a client’s perspective, a successful plan in maintenance mode can leave them feeling like they aren’t getting the service they remember getting in the beginning.  This can create lingering unease for clients who hear about services that are Flashier! Cheaper! Easier! Better!  And believe me, they are hearing about them often.  

The Relationship Review

Creating a successful Relationship Review with clients shouldn’t need to be done often.  Too often the effects are diluted.  No more than once every two years and be selective with the clients you conduct the meetings with.  You are busy and so are your clients so focusing on only the most at-risk or most valuable clients is the most effective strategy.  

Preparation

As you prepare for your Relationship Review, start with the repeatable elements that you will cover with all clients before you begin considering the unique aspects of the meeting you’ll introduce for any single client.  Here are some example questions you can use to draw out the client to talk about their experience:

• We’ve been working together for __ years. What were some of the reasons why you initially hired me?

• If someone asked you why you hired me, what would you say are the top 2-3 services I offer to you specifically?

• What has been most valuable for you about our work in the last year?  Is this the service that was most valuable to you when you first started working with me?

• How have you primarily measured the value of our relationship? 

• Is there anything I need to be sensitive to in your or your family’s life that may be impacting the results of the work we are doing together?

• Are there any services I offer to you that do not meet your expectations? Are there services that you need today that I do not offer?

• How do you plan to measure the success of our work together in the future?

A few other considerations as you map out how you want to conduct this meeting with each specific client:

• Does your client know you as a person or only as a financial advisor? If you remain a mystery, it can be harder for some clients to connect with you.   

• Are there services of your practice that the client doesn’t utilize or know about? 

• How has your practice changed since the client joined? How might this impact, change, improve, or detract from their experience?

• Does the client’s view of your value match your intended practice focus areas?  

• Have you outgrown the client or has the client outgrown you?

Once you’ve established the topics and questions you want to cover, prepare two messages for your select clients.  The first should be an invitation to schedule the meeting where you explain what the Relationship Review is all about and why you think it is important for the client.  The second should be a detailed agenda for the client to review and digest ahead of time once the meeting has been scheduled.  Include your topics and questions, and solicit any additional topics, questions, or information relevant to your client.  

It is important not to rush this meeting so planning enough time is vital.  You neither want to have to rush out the client for other work nor do you want them to be preoccupied with other responsibilities after your meeting.  

Conducting the Review

I trust you know your clients best.  The most important part of the meeting itself is creating a stress-free and comfortable environment for your clients to be themselves and share the type of information that will help both of you get the most out of the relationship over the long term.  

If you can conduct the meeting outside of the typical advisory environment can be helpful to loosen things up.  Sitting across a desk, table, or computer from a client can have a certain dulling effect on honest conversation.  

Meeting outside of the office can add a breath of fresh air to the discussion.  The same goes for outside their home.  Some clients might be self-conscious of things that need to get done around the house.  This type of work should be a reset for you and your client, not a routine business meeting so think through where your clients will be at their most relaxed. 

Review Reflection

Ideally, you’ve had an opportunity to either take notes yourself or use a recording to manage all the details discussed.  While possibly time-consuming, it is important to reflect on your clients’ responses in these meetings.  This kind of work is the epitome of working on your business. 

• What commonalities do you find among the responses from your clients? 

• How have your clients described your real value? Is this the same or different than how you pitch your value to prospective clients?

• What were the surprising elements of each meeting?  What did you learn from your clients that you didn’t know before?

As a follow-up to each of your clients, summarize the discussion you had and any next steps with each one.  Additionally, for those clients who participated in the Relationship Review, I’ve found it enlightening to share anonymized quotes, data, and information from this collection of meetings.  Many clients only see you within the client/advisor relationship and opening the aperture wider to share thoughts, feelings, and ideas from other clients can elicit a bonding experience.  

One of the most successful advisors I’ve worked with used the data gathered in these meetings to not only fine-tune his practice for each client but also play matchmaker for groups of clients who he felt might be kindred spirits at future client events.  

If you can provide a satisfying and personalized advisory experience and offer beneficial social benefits, you’ll engender powerful loyalty among your clients and give them a reason to talk you up to their friends.  

The whole point of the Relationship Review is investing in your best clients to retain and deepen that symbiotic relationship.  During or after a Relationship Review is one of the best times to float the topic of referrals as you demonstrate and reiterate why they work with you.