Hire to your blind spots if you want your business to grow in 2021 and beyond.
This was one of the core messages at the FTAdviser webinar last week (Wednesday 19) on how advice businesses can grow their client base and future-proof their companies.
During the webinar, which was sponsored by Openwork, Tim Fassam, director of government relations and policy for the Personal Investment Management and Financial Advice association, spoke about how to hire new blood into your firm.
He said: "Hire to your blind spots". He said if the advice firm has identified that it needs to reach wealthy women or an older clientele needing long-term care, or a younger demographic ready to benefit from the great wealth transfer, then it needs to hire people that reflect those demographics."
John Cupis, mortgage director of the Openwork partnership, delivered a striking presentation showing wealth and technology trends that advisers need to build into their business plan.
He agreed that advisers needed to think about hiring where their areas of weakness are if they want their firm to grow and expand.
He said: "You don't necessarily have to hire a wealthy older woman just to advise wealthy older women but you do need to hire someone who has the skills necessary to advise them."
When it comes to capitalising on trends - such as the prediction from the Centre for Economic Business and Research, which says 60 per cent of the UK's wealth will be in the hands of women from 2025 - an advice firm needs to set out a clear plan to tap into that, according to Cupis.
Cupis said it was important to start from an existing base - to make sure that a firm understands its client segmentation, what it already does well, what its strengths are - and then build from there to see where it wants to go in the future.
As one attendee commented: "My admin team spend far more time with insurers, mortgage lenders and platforms chasing things that could/should be automated. This is unfortunately and progressively getting worse rather than better so the industry needs to listen, not just the advisers."
Fassam said it was indeed a challenge but the opportunities for advisers were strong, in communicating with clients and - if it came down to it - voting with their feet and moving to providers and platforms that do support the end client, because technology was improving all the time and those firms moving with the trends would emerge the winners.
The full seminar replay can be watched on this link: FTAdviser Webinar
simoney.kyriakou@ft.com
