The conversation with your longest-standing client
Telling a household you have advised for twenty years that you are stepping back needs preparation, a meeting in person, and a plan for who comes next.
Telling a household you have advised for twenty years that you are stepping back needs preparation, a meeting in person, and a plan for who comes next.
Telling your longest-standing clients can be the hardest conversation in an exit. Some became clients of the firm because of you.
Tell your longest-standing clients early in the handover, while there is time for them to get to know the next adviser. Avoid telling them in the weeks before a big decision of their own, such as a retirement date or a house sale, unless the next adviser will be helping with it. Tell them before staff or other clients do. If a client hears it from somebody else first, the conversation starts from their disappointment.
Know what you are going to tell them. That means your timescale, who will look after them next, whether anything changes in what they pay or the service they receive, and how they can contact you during the handover. If any of those is uncertain, say which and when you will know.
Read the file before the meeting. Note anything coming up for them in the next two years: a retirement, a property sale, a pension decision, an estate plan to update. They will want to know who will help with it.
Tell them in a meeting, at their review or in a meeting arranged for it. A letter or an email tells them after the decision has been made, and leaves them with questions and nobody to ask.
Tell them early in the meeting. Clients notice when something is being held back, and the rest of the meeting will go better once it is said.
Say that you are planning to step back, when, and why. Say who will look after them, and that you have chosen that person with their situation in mind. Tell them what will stay the same. Then ask what they want to know.
Clients often ask:
Answer each one plainly. If you do not know an answer, say so, and say when you will.
The conversation goes better when the next adviser is already known to the client. Bring them to this meeting, or arrange the next meeting with them present. Introduce them by what they know about the client's situation and by the work they have already done on the file.
If you have advised both partners, tell them together. If one partner has always led the relationship, make sure the other hears the news directly and meets the next adviser in their own right. Ask whether they would like adult children involved in the handover. Some clients want their children to know who will look after their affairs if they become unable to.
Some long-standing clients will decide to move elsewhere. Ask why, and listen to the answer. If they still want to go, help them: transfer their file promptly, give them the information they need, and make sure their investments and any income they take are not disrupted by the move.
After the meeting, write to the client. Set out what you told them, the timescale, the name and contact details of the next adviser, and what happens next. Put a copy on the file.
Whatever you tell the client about contact during the handover, keep to it. If you said you would attend their next review, attend it. If you said the next adviser would call within a week, check that the call was made. The client will judge the firm's future service by whether the first promises are kept.
Under Securo the handover meetings come before the exit. You tell your longest-standing clients while you are still their adviser, with time for them to get to know the person who will take over. The usual pattern is three meetings over about a year, at the pace you set.
A buyer prices an advice firm partly on the client files: review dates, suitability evidence, service agreements and current data.
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How the handover meetings, the client file, the acquiring firm and written commitments decide the service your clients receive after you retire.
Read itSteven Bates, Director of Advisory at Equity & General, takes the first call with every adviser. Ring him on 020 8396 0486 or send a short note about your firm.