Editorial staff
The modern technology handily provides a solution to this question and the key to it is your CRM system. With a close attention paid to the analysis of what already has been recorded in your CRM, you may discover trends that will allow realizing that you have most valuable, engaged, and loyal customers and it is these insights that should be used to inform the growth.
Reviewing Existing Client Data
The initial thing to do is to examine the evidence at hand carefully. Not many advisors recognize the extent to which they have compiled over time some very valuable information such as demographic data such as age, place of residence, family milestones, preferred investments as well as mode of communicating. This information is never passively archived only to be compliant or to keep a record of something, it is an asset that can be actively studied to determine which features of different clients tend to be associated with satisfaction and persistence.
Then, you should focus on the engagement data that is measured in your CRM. For example, who regularly opens your emails? Who schedules annual reviews without prompting? Which clients attend webinars or events you host? These signals of engagement may be too non-obtrusive thus taking some time, but in the long-run, they can inform about who most appreciates your services and deals with your practice regularly.
Analyzing Profitability and Service Fit
Although client engagement is valuable, profitability is important to know too. Consider reviewing your CRM reports and consider clients that generate the most revenue per time and resources committed by your organization. You may find at times that you are serving the not most profitable clients more than enough whereas your CRM can bring this discrepancy in focus. Find out the trends in the size of the accounts, product and service mixes where your efforts are providing the best payoff.
In addition to mere quantities, favor alignment of your mode of service delivery with clientele requirements. In your CRM, there are probably notes pertaining to client inquiries, service requests and summaries of the meetings. You can study them and first identify where you can be of use to clients in terms of what is most desired by clients. Clients with whom you do a lot of business on something you strongly believe in, whether that is retirement planning, or small business succession planning, or giving in charity, all become your best long established relationships.
Applying Insights for Strategic Growth
The ultimate goal of using your CRM data in this way isn’t only to define your ideal client, it’s to act on that definition. Refresh your prospecting lists, your marketing campaigns and your content plan to be more targeted to your dream segments. Develop your staff to identify and focus on leads that fit these characteristics. The enlightenment that comes with analyzing the data assists you in deciding to say yes to the right opportunity and say no politely to the wrong one.
As your business evolves, repeat this analysis periodically. The needs of the clients change, the market changes and your practice might expand to new fields. A CRM for financial advisors is not a tool that is inert, it is one that improves with each feedback of new data that you add and with each successive brainstorming of your strategy.
Using Segmentation to Refine the Profile
CRM systems enable the financial advisors to develop segments, which are groups of clients who share some common features. Use this feature to develop test variables on the basis of, e.g. age, occupation, style of investment, or life stage. Then appraise the respective sections to determine which category is closest to your best customers. This may require challenging assumptions and often can uncover some ignored segments that are quietly out-performing the more visible ones.
Use your current book of business as a benchmark in comparing the identified promising segments. Do you now attract the type of customers that you desire to serve? Otherwise, based on your CRM insights, you can help change your marketing messaging, outreach approaches, and even the services you emphasize in your exchanges and media.
There is no chance that identifying your ideal client is something that you can do once and this is why it is an ongoing process that is technology-assisted, reflective and requires strategic discipline. Your contact details are not the only information in your CRM, there are the patterns and the stories that reveal the direction your true value is at. By carving out some time to examine and respond to this data, you can fine-tune a practice that will be more lucrative and more fulfilling as well. Ultimately what you have written down to take note of the numbers and notes may hold the key to the future expansion of your firm.
Editorial staff
