The great ongoing question for all advisers is where the next piece of business is coming from? We will all have (hopefully) strong sources of business which will deliver the bulk of the cases – the 80/20 rule in full effect – but it strikes me that it’s always a good idea to mine other potential areas and to ensure you have a strong marketing mix which doesn’t just place all your eggs in one basket.
A comment from an equity release adviser at our recent Peterborough round table got me thinking. He said: “Nowadays we receive more enquiries from the kids and grandchildren than we do from Mum and Dad”. Now, this sort of comment could give the compliance people kittens as they worry about the issue of coercion and children forcing their parents/grandparents to go down a route they do not wish to. However, there are plenty of checks in place which should stop this, and therefore we can perhaps concentrate on the underlying theme here.
If there are greater numbers of children looking to help the older generation in the family, and (as one adviser pointed out) not wanting to get their inheritance early but simply wanting their parents/grandparents to be more comfortable in their retirement, then it would make perfect sense for advisers to pursue marketing channels which talked to these people.
At the round table this led to a discussion of the communication channels used by younger people and of course the more popular social media channels were highlighted. Looking around the room, while most were (in some way) engaged with Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn others seemed aghast at the mere thought of setting up an account, let alone using it. It would be rather brutal to say this is short-sighted in the extreme, given that new technology can appear daunting to many brought up in a different era, but it might certainly be true to say that in the future failure to engage with social media could turn out to be a big mistake. Particularly, if you are looking at a marketplace where children and grandchildren are seeking information and looking to support the older generation.
We now live in a world where anyone can (with a few clicks of a mouse) not only gain all the knowledge they need on equity release, but also source advisers, ascertain their credentials, find their social media engagement, learn their views, interests, and likes, and ultimately select that adviser and arrange a meeting. This takes no time at all and the tech-savvy generation are quite willing and happy to use all these channels to take a view on, and make initial contact with, an adviser without ever needing to see the whites of their eyes.
The problem is if you’re not easily found or not engaged with social media then prospective clients (and their offspring) are less likely to want to take that view and make that leap. I appreciate that, for some advisers, Twitter, for example, can appear to ‘belong’ to a different generation but again if you want those people to recommend you to their parents you need to play on their terms.
Many advisers at our roundtable suggested that even getting started with social media was a bridge too far however there is plenty of support available for free. Just recently, for example, Panacea Adviser launched a free social media guide which can be downloaded from its website explicitly focused on walking advisers through the whole process, helping them generate content and getting results. I know many advisers who are completely engaged with social media and it has not only increased their networking reach, but actively delivered business gains which they simply would not have achieved by any other means.
The point is not to be frightened by it. Of course it requires a degree of learning but what doesn’t? The important things is to be clear about what you want to achieve and who you want to reach with your social media presence. Tailor your content and activity to those audiences and be prepared to be engaged with the media itself and those who engage with you – it is after all meant to be ‘social’. By doing this you will be helping put yourself in the shop window for what might be a completely different demographic to your normal client base. Finally, one point to remember, it’s unlikely these channels are going away anytime soon, in fact their influence and reach is only likely to grow – which means the longer you put it off, the further behind your competitors you will be.
