Are your charges in line with the value you provide?

We got a great reaction to our piece last month in which we explored the theme of providing enough value to justify your trail commission. Thank you for the feedback that we received. To follow up on that theme, we've set out a few thoughts on the whole area of relating the value that you are providing back to what you charge.?

Lots of the conversations that we’re having with financial advisers are in relation to the ongoing value you are providing, and the cost being charged for delivery of that value. However if we are to be completely truthful, it doesn’t always start out from that point….

Quite a number of the conversations start out from the point of, “I’m charging 25bps / 50bps and I’m not comfortable that I can really stand over it and justify it if pushed”. Advisers are looking over the horizon and seeing potentially greater levels of scrutiny from clients and the Central Bank in relation to trail commission. You recognise that you must be able to comfortably justify your trail commission if you want to grow the levels of it, or even to maintain it. This unfortunately often results in advisers remaining in the supposed easier place of a low trail commission rate, in order to avoid any pushback around price.

After all, trail commission has been extremely good to many advisers, who have seen recurring income rise substantially for relatively little effort in some cases, while also building long-term value in your business. Investment markets have delivered excellent returns over the last decade, and your trail commission has increased accordingly. You don’t want to lose this growth, hence the pressure to justify it. However you’re now looking at investment markets today and recognising the significant fall in your income that will happen, should there be a biggish correction in the market. Also if your income is very tied to the investment of your client’s assets, any under-performance against benchmarks also raises a question over the validity of your fees.? These issues arise when the only determinant of your trail income is asset levels. The problem is that when you’re only thinking about asset values and your costs, you’re starting from the wrong place.

The only place that this whole conversation can start is with the value that you are providing. Otherwise, it is a serious case of the cart before the horse… When you work out in detail the different levels of value that you are providing to your different clients, it is only then that you can start to price your services in a structured and robust way. Your income is now tied to the services that you are providing, giving you certainty and control over your income stream. Many advisers who do this properly continue to collect their income via trail commission, however now they have minimum charges for each of their service levels. These minimums protect them against falls in the market, and indeed enable them to meet the demands of clients for high service levels where their asset levels alone do not justify them.

When you get crystal clear about your service levels and can easily articulate and communicate the value that you are adding, that nervousness around your trail levels subside. Instead it goes the other way – it gives you the confidence to maintain and increase your trail levels, when you know that your services warrant these higher levels.

Now you can be firm and brave in relation to pricing. When you are clear about your services on offer, you can stand over your pricing as a premium advice provider to relevant clients. With clients who demand premium service levels from you, you can demonstrate the breadth and value of your services, and then justify that you are more expensive. Yes you can have lower cost packages, but within these packages the clients should be left in no doubt about what is included and more importantly what is not.

Clarity around your value gives you a strong position when negotiating your price. Without it, you’re forced to keep watching your competitors and make sure you are undercutting them. A race to the bottom… However if you want to charge higher prices than your competitor, you have to able to deliver more. So it is very important that you can actually deliver what you promise. The last place you want to end up in is the dreaded “over-promising and under-delivering” experience for clients. This is the certain road to losing clients.

Spend your time now looking at the value that you add. Do this piece well, and the cost side will fall easily into place, giving you confidence to stand over your charges all day long.