{"id":1119,"date":"2018-05-16T13:50:29","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T03:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/?p=1119"},"modified":"2018-05-30T13:58:40","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T03:58:40","slug":"how-to-develop-more-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/how-to-develop-more-business\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Develop More Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intro MKTG\">\n<h3>For some advisers, business development is a task left to others while they focus on servicing the needs of clients.<br \/>\nHowever, as Rachel Staggs from SRSCC writes, advisers should not rely on their existing clients or referrals if they want to move their practice to the next level.<br \/>\nRachel says business development may sound like a \u2018promotions role\u2019 but advisers have something very valuable to promote and many ways to do so.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>How do some advice businesses get a steady flow of new clients and others don&#8217;t?<\/p>\n<p>Over the years I have shared lots of proven marketing tactics and strategies that work for financial advisers. Now it&#8217;s time to share a more traditional role, business development. It&#8217;s a role many have either forgotten about or simply not considered.<\/p>\n<p>When we look at other successful advice businesses there is typically a primary &#8216;sales&#8217; person. Someone whose role it is to develop strategic relationships with a broad range of companies, sectors and professions. Their time is split between business development and seeing clients. In some cases they may not even see clients; their role is purely to develop new sales channels and be responsible for bringing in new business.<\/p>\n<p>The term \u2018business development\u2019 means the act of participating in actions that will help grow the business, and I believe it&#8217;s a role that could help propel many advice businesses this year. But what does it entail?<\/p>\n<p>Firstly, let&#8217;s look at why so many financial advisers don&#8217;t actively engage in \u2018business development\u2019?<\/p>\n<p>The following answers may surprise you:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I don\u2019t have time to business develop<\/li>\n<li>Business development is a sales role, and I\u2019m not in sales<\/li>\n<li>We get all our new clients through existing clients<\/li>\n<li>We wouldn\u2019t know where to start<\/li>\n<li>I don\u2019t need any more work at the moment<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When we look at advice businesses that are growing, a large proportion use the act of business development to help that growth. Whether your advice business is small, medium or large, I would suggest that everyone needs to have a business developer within the company.<\/p>\n<h3>7 Benefits of business development<\/h3>\n<p>The benefits are vast. However, I have listed the top 7 below:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Makes the business more visible \u2013 life insurance advice needs higher profile and a steady flow of clients, if no-one is talking about or representing your business you risk the chance of being invisible.<\/li>\n<li>Helps create a reputation for the business &#8211; relying just on existing clients to represent your brand and business limits your growth.<\/li>\n<li>Informs others that you are open to introductions [new clients] &#8211; client research conducted by SRSCC can reveal that not everyone knows you want more business. 80 per cent of people surveyed don\u2019t even know that businesses want more business!<\/li>\n<li>Expands your networks &#8211; the more people you know, the more likely you are to be able to provide advice to more people. Don&#8217;t put your eggs in one basket!<\/li>\n<li>Expands your thinking &#8211; being a continual learner; a curious person can only broaden your horizon of thought which can lead to new opportunities you may never even thought about.<\/li>\n<li>Starts to position you as a thought leader &#8211; business development is a great way to share your vision, share your insights and experience in this great profession.<\/li>\n<li>Leads to increased revenue and more value &#8211; developing business opportunities with other businesses, for example, local businesses in your area or large corporations can only lead to increased revenue.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>7 Tactics you can implement<\/h3>\n<p>Firstly, I would recommend you have a strategy. What is the aim of your business development, what do you want to achieve, what is your message etc.?<\/p>\n<p>Here are 7 business development activities for you to consider or perhaps share amongst the team:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Attend \u2018outside\u2019 industry events. Attend at least one new event each month. An event where you won\u2019t meet other advisers.<\/li>\n<li>Focus on other organisations where your target client works. Propose some educational seminars\/workshops that you could hold to bring their employees up to speed with all things financial \u2013 related to them of course.<\/li>\n<li>Use content marketing to create your reputation and visibility. Commit, share and build your online audience.<\/li>\n<li>Consider developing professional groups where other professionals come and network \u2013 this can be online or offline.<\/li>\n<li>Develop a \u2018call register\u2019 to stay top of mind with all strategic business partners.<\/li>\n<li>Develop some key sponsorship relationships that support your brand value and attend the events.<\/li>\n<li>Participate in some research \u2013 look at partnering with another organisation to complete it. Develop the research paper and attend presentations where you talk about the findings.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Business development should undoubtedly be part of your overall growth strategy; the question is, do you have one? Have you considered giving that responsibility to someone in your business or perhaps it&#8217;s a new role that needs to be created? One with the right key performance indicators so you can measure the success.<\/p>\n<p>Relying on your existing clients to make you more visible and get new clients isn&#8217;t a sustainable proposition for an advice business. Think about where your ideal client works and then develop the stepping stones; the strategy to get in front of them before another advice business does.<\/p>\n<div class=\"AuthorBox\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-309\" src=\"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2017\/09\/Rachel-Staggs.jpg\" alt=\"img-rachel-staggs\" width=\"400\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"blurb\">In her regular Practice Marketing column, Rachel Staggs provides insights to help advisers market their business to potential (and existing) clients.<\/p>\n<p class=\"blurb\">Rachel Staggs is the founder and Managing Director of SRSCC, a specialist financial services consulting firm.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Contact or follow the author:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.srscc.com.au\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Website<\/a> | <a href=\"mailto:rachel@srscc.com.au\">Email<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/+RachelStaggsSRSCC\/posts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google +<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/rachelstaggs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LinkedIn<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Staggsie\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">if (typeof(addthis_share) == \"undefined\"){ addthis_share = {\"passthrough\":{\"twitter\":{\"via\":\"riskinfonews\"}}};}\n\nvar addthis_config = {\"data_track_clickback\":false,\"data_track_addressbar\":true,\"data_track_textcopy\":true,\"ui_atversion\":\"300\"};\nvar addthis_product = 'wpp-3.5.9';\n<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/300\/addthis_widget.js#pubid=ra-53a3668b19172d69\"><\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advisers may not see themselves as BDMs but they should consider how a measure of business development can grow their practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-practice-marketing","category-regular-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magazine.riskinfo.com.au\/35\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}