Client Meeting Attendance

Gustavo_Fring

We are considering providing additional support for the busier advisers in our business, part of which will be one-on-one Paraplanner support. I've been asked to define what the role might look like. For those of you who provide this type of support and attend client meetings, how many (roughly) do you attend in a month? And when you do attend meetings, do you then follow up with writing up the meeting notes and next steps etc. I'm finding it difficult to draw up some boundaries on what types of meetings we should be expected to attend. Intuitively, it is where we can add some value but defining that is tricky.

Jona

Had a similar situation a while back - came to the conclusion that two of you in the same meeting was counterproductive.

Paraplanner got a lot more done whilst adviser was in advice meetings and had some time to get their head down.........

Could paraplanner conduct initial qualifying discussions (assuming they are experienced enough to know what a good client opportunity looks like)?

Saves the adviser's time on poor leads and only has to onboard the hot ones.....?

Gustavo_Fring

The thinking is that it would free up the adviser's time if we are able to write meeting notes, analyse, assess next steps, make a start on suggesting recommendations. So this would be productive.

I agree it would be counter productive for some clients where action points are minimal .

Anna03

@Gustavo_Fring said:
The thinking is that it would free up the adviser's time if we are able to write meeting notes, analyse, assess next steps, make a start on suggesting recommendations. So this would be productive.

I agree it would be counter productive for some clients where action points are minimal .

Indeed, I've worked with advisers who could not/would not for love nor money produce anything useful at the end of a meeting in terms of notes/soft facts/clear advice for the report to be written. It would definitely depend on your advisers working style and whether a paraplanner would be better off IN the meeting rather than trying to painfully extract notes from the adviser after.

(I do also completely understand not all advisers are like the above!)

I would definitely try implementing a 'screening' of upcoming meetings, much like Jona suggested. That way, you could cherry pick the meetings that would be useful for a paraplanner to sit in on. eg. a meeting because the clients have recently recieved an inheritance as opposed to a simple annual review with no changes to be made.

I personally don't attend meetings but if I think about the % of meetings, if I were to attend, that would be useful for me to sit in on, I'd say maybe 1-3 meetings a week.

Caro

Hi both

I used to go to client meetings at my old place (left in July so still quite recent!), I used to go to quite a few both prospective and existing clients.

For prospective ones, it was usually where we knew that this was going to be a complex or HNW client. There were a number of benefits to it:

• Both the planner and I were able to talk to and ask the client relevant questions, often about different aspects of what they were trying to achieve.
• We would both be able to make notes and compare them when we discussed the case later to make sure we hadn't missed anything that would be relevant to the client's plan.
• If for any reason something had been missed, I could call the client myself and they were happy to speak with me as they'd met me.
• The client got to see that there was a whole team working for them rather than just one person which helps to build and strengthen the relationship.

From a work perspective, whilst all clients are important, I always seemed to feel more engaged in a case where I had been at the meeting and met the client. It made it easier to put the plan together and write any reports as you heard first hand what the client is looking to achieve.

From an adviser perspective, it made the process easier for them as they do not have to worry about regurgitating every aspect of the meeting and didn't have to do follow up meeting notes, as I would do these and they would review and add anything they wanted.

The whole process felt slicker and reports seemed to go the client much more quickly.

For existing clients, I would go to the meetings for HNW clients where there would be value added for the client and the business. With these, I would sometimes present the cashflow and talk a bit about any techy things. The planner manages the relationship, talks about their goals, how their portfolio has performed, if they're on track etc.

The adviser and I would then have a chat and decide on any recommendations, and I would do the client meeting presentation and this would be sent out to the client.

This gave the planners more time to go to meetings and meant that reports / notes got issued to the client sooner as they are easier to write when you've been to the meeting.

I'd only go to meetings where there would be clear value added to the client and the business and was always introduced properly as their technical support so they knew I wasn't just there to make tea and take notes! It worked really well and most clients found it beneficial I think.

Hope that helps?!

Gustavo_Fring

Thanks for this Caroline. I agree with pretty much all you have said. It is your final paragraph that is causing me a bit of anxiety, as although we can provide value in the majority of meetings, my expectation is there will be certain meetings where we are there just to take notes. So identifying that type of meeting will be important. I guess we are somewhat reliant on the adviser to do that, so ultimately it is for me to monitor and manage!

Caro

No problem! I think the rationale behind me not just taking notes is that, to be blunt, if it's a note taker that's needed in the meeting, it's not cost effective to use a paraplanner for that, both for the client and the business.

That said, I would take notes at every meeting, (obviously!) but that wasn't my sole purpose of attending. Hope that helps!