Better Business: Building your brand

Richard Goodall, sales and marketing director at Ascentric, on how to make your firm stand out from the crowd.

Operating as a company in today’s market is increasingly challenging. Operating as a financial planning firm in today’s business environment is the equivalent of trying to run a marathon without any shoes on, where jostling for position with fellow runners is a standard feature and where the marshalling of the course can be prone to inconsistent signage.

The challenges facing adviser firms are numerous, from the day-to-day aspects of running a business to coping with changing societal demands that are driving consumer behaviour, to the spectre of RDR that is casting a shadow in many a boardroom.

Growing demand for service excellence

A key pressure faced by firms is the growing client demand for service excellence that in part has been driven by the many consumer brands entering the financial services sector. These companies have brought with them new ways of working, as well as tried and trusted methods for building relationships with their clients. The net effect has been to raise the bar for the rest of the industry, but it has also heightened service expectations on the part of clients who are now far less willing to put up with what they perceive as being a poor service experience. Gone are the days when advisers could impart their recommendations, select the appropriate solution and then have little, or no interaction, with their client over the course of a year.

Alongside this societal trend, the growth of technology solutions within financial services has meant that clients now have access to their investment portfolios at the touch of a button. Advisers consequently have the added pressures of not only having to stay on top of the investment advice provided, but also the need to maintain a regular flow of communication with clients to keep pace with these heightened expectations.

Your brand should articulate the quality of service you expect to offer

For me the desire to meet these service expectations has got to be at the very heart of a company’s ‘essence’, or in other words ‘brand’. Faced with a range of homogenous solutions from financial planning firms, clients look for one vital element when selecting an adviser: a strong and trusted brand that clearly articulates the level and quality of service they can expect to receive.

A brand can give your company, products and services a personality that connects with your clients. It can also embrace values and benefits that reflect their aspirations and by doing so attract them to your business. By establishing an emotional connection with people, an effective brand can mean the difference between clients choosing you or going elsewhere.

Branding is not just a question of creating a stand out logo; it is about creating distinctive and durable perceptions in the minds of anyone that touches it. Brand identity can be defined as simply the outward expression of the brand, such as using the correct brand name, logos, colours and fonts associated with it. However, if designed and used correctly, a brand can be a persistent, unique business identity that will enable a company to implicitly convey those brand values at every given touch-point.

Importantly, the strength of a brand will also drive expectations around the price clients are willing to pay for that service. Any imbalance will mean that the relationship is unlikely to last for long.

An effective brand requires end-to-end integration

Having an effective brand means ensuring that a company’s brand values are fully integrated within your offering. Not achieving this is like opening a box of chocolates only to find it filled with wine gums! This is where I believe platform technology can come into play.

A number of platforms provide you with the opportunity to integrate adviser brands into their technology solution. Full integration should mean that every screen and output carries the adviser’s logo and colour scheme, and provides a seamless branded experience for the client.

However, a number of platforms do not offer this service.

As the adviser firm you spend time and money building your client proposition only for that service to become associated with another brand? It poses fundamental questions around client ownership and could raise uncertainties around the future management of that relationship. I would also question the degree to which the platform not offering this type of service has properly thought through the client experience.

Having strong brand values that can be inculcated throughout your organisation is a core way of maintaining and building relationships with your clients. It should ensure your company stands out from the crowd and go some way to pouring balm on those feet as they pound the commercial highway.