OpinionJan 30 2019

Keeping your resolutions

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Keeping your resolutions
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When it comes to making changes to our personal or business lives, turning a New Year provides a nice, if arbitrary, point in time to reassess whether we are doing everything we need to as well as we could.

But in reality, it is nothing more than one day ending and another beginning.

Personally, I have an aversion to New Year’s resolutions per se. I might think again about what I would like to achieve the following year, but not to such an extent that I will change my behaviour completely from January 1, like giving up chocolate or beginning a crazy exercise regime.

This is mainly because if the reason you are doing this is down to the year changing over, it is entirely the wrong reason to do it.

If you are not specialising in advice to a particular group already, then define who it is you are looking to get on board.

Telling yourself you are going to do something does not make it happen. For the short term it might work, a regime of getting up early and going to the gym before work might last a week or so.

But if you want to make changes that stick, you have to make changes that you really believe in, really need, and really want. 

What I am saying is, there is no need to make a change specifically at New Year; you should make it whenever it is right for you and your business. But deciding what that is and when it should be applied takes time – something we all know most advisers are painfully short on.

So, let us say that you want to increase your client numbers for the year – I realise some advisers are so successful they are turning people away from their door or have a waiting list for advice that runs into years, but for those that do not, there are a number of things you can do to help boost your marketing capabilities.

First of all, you need to define your target market.

Who exactly do you want as a client? You may already specialise; armed forces personnel, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and so on.

If you do, that will make your life easier and, most likely, you will have built up a number of channels over the years that you have found to be particularly successful in generating new clients.

Even so, you should still question how successful they remain for bringing new business through the door.

But I digress. If you are not specialising in advice to a particular group already, then define who it is you are looking to get on board.

You can do this in a number of ways: by income bracket, geographical spread, profession, leisure interest (golf, for example, is often played by those who are better off), and a number of other ways on top.

Once you have identified your market, you need to look at the way you gain access to them and, most importantly, the message you send to them.

Now, for those advisers who up to this point are thinking they know it all and do not need any advice on this, think again.

I have seen no end of content and messaging – whether it is on social media, more traditional advertising or advertorials – that leaves an awful lot to be desired.

Often the problem is that advisers have to be such ‘jacks of all trades’ that they are happy to make do with what they think is all right.

However, in an increasingly loud, competitive and at times aggressive marketing environment, ‘all right’ is just not going to cut it.

It will get you so far, do not get me wrong, and your loyal customers will tell you how wonderful they thought your blog was, or your tweet was. But they already like you. So, are they really the best people to listen to?

If you really want to make a difference to your business this year, you need to take stock and see where you want to be in 12 months’ time.

Then work out a proper strategy on how to get there. Spend some time working out the best way to target your new customers, to understand what kind of information they engage with most effectively – is it video? Short blogs? Longer form and more educational pieces? Guides?

Whatever you do, do not assume you know the answer because in all likelihood you do not, unless you are already humming along in this space at such a pace you are struggling to keep up.

Most importantly, think of what their perception of you will be, based on the way you interact with them. That is one of the hardest things to do honestly, because you will have spent years building your business and your brand and, quite rightly, you will be in love with it.

If you can not be objective and see what work needs doing to make your brand and business even stronger, then you should get some advice from an independent third party who can.

But do it when you are really ready, otherwise you will be wasting time and money without achieving your ultimate aims.

Alison Steed is a freelance journalist