How many clients do you have?

PoppySheppard

Hi all,

Bit of a random question but if you're a paraplanner with a set bank of clients. How many clients do you have assigned to you? I'm just interested to know how my company compares to others.

To give some indication, my company has three advisers and four paraplanners. The paraplanners all have around 100 clients each they do work on and we're currently expanding. Having spoken to another IFA, they were surprised by this amount.

Would love to hear from others on this.

Poppy

Anna03

I currently share paraplanning with 1 other paraplanner and we probably have around 150 clients between us.
At a previous firm, I was assigned to two advisers (and sometimes a third, but only for one off cases) and I estimate their combined client bank was around 400 clients, possibly more. It was entirely unmanageable.

PoppySheppard

@Anna03 said:
I currently share paraplanning with 1 other paraplanner and we probably have around 150 clients between us.
At a previous firm, I was assigned to two advisers (and sometimes a third, but only for one off cases) and I estimate their combined client bank was around 400 clients, possibly more. It was entirely unmanageable.

Thanks Anna. That's interesting. I can't imagine trying to manage 400 clients! Do you currently have client contact as well or just write behind the scenes? The paraplanners at my firm are very client facing and are often the point of contact and sit in a lot of the meetings.

Anna03

It was insane and a main factor in me leaving that company. I currently have a fair bit of client contact but I do things other than paraplanning so I could do with less client contact to focus on other business areas. Conversely, at my previous firm, I had little client contact and it was mainly report writing behind the scenes as I simply didn't have the time to do anything else.

I've definitely heard of firms where paraplanners are very client involved - think it largely depends how much admin support you have and how many meetings you're expected to be in. If I didn't do work in other areas of the business and I was mainly paraplanning, I think I'd be happy to be in meetings etc. as long as I had the admin support.

Gustavo_Fring

I think any more than 100 and it starts to get a bit stressful, if you are providing a full review service with cashflow, decumulation advice, etc.

Interested in how you are defining a client? Husband and wife with young children count as one client? Husband and wife with a child over 18 count as two? Or would you count the latter as 3?

PoppySheppard

@Gustavo_Fring said:
I think any more than 100 and it starts to get a bit stressful, if you are providing a full review service with cashflow, decumulation advice, etc.

Interested in how you are defining a client? Husband and wife with young children count as one client? Husband and wife with a child over 18 count as two? Or would you count the latter as 3?

Generally I'd define a client as a husband and wife and then any child over 18 as a second client. Although we do have some couples who like everything separate and then I'd class them as individual clients.

Gustavo_Fring

@PoppySheppard said:

@Gustavo_Fring said:
I think any more than 100 and it starts to get a bit stressful, if you are providing a full review service with cashflow, decumulation advice, etc.

Interested in how you are defining a client? Husband and wife with young children count as one client? Husband and wife with a child over 18 count as two? Or would you count the latter as 3?

Generally I'd define a client as a husband and wife and then any child over 18 as a second client. Although we do have some couples who like everything separate and then I'd class them as individual clients.

Yes, the same as us then - makes sense. Thanks for the reply!