Rhys Williams works with providers on client engagement, a subject that, Paul Robertson finds, has rather a lot of adviser overlap.
This is all very well, but it does rather be the question of if, in a sales environment, there is a point at which the use of language becomes actually dishonest, there is definitely an ethical debate to be had about whether it’s okay to manipulate someone else.
The way that you frame a sentence and the way that you frame a question has an effect on the other person and can change the answer.
Williams points to a certain inevitability on this one: “The things that we’re doing, we’re doing subconsciously all the time, so why not do it consciously? Why not make it a conscious decision and really think about it and really look at words?”
Sweet spot of connection
Of course, a small IFA firm is unlikely to be paying for consultants, so what are their most common failings? Williams warns against the mentality that says a small company should look at big companies and we look at what they do.
“I think there’s a perfect sweet spot of small companies getting big, where they’re still connected to clients. You sit in a room with them, you have that conversation, even on the phone.
What you’re trying to do as the company grows is trying to hold onto that and there’s a beautiful spot on the curve with companies, where they have the resources and the budgets to do really well. And they still have the willingness to do it in a way that really works for the customer.
The larger you get, the more everything gets wrapped in process. Process is important because it makes sure that we make the right decisions and in the case of financial services, it protects the consumer. But the unintended consequence of it is that things get much harder to do well.”
Provider failings
A failure of support from providers causes another set of problems: “When providers produce material, they think they’re producing it for the IFA. Whereas what the IFA will really thank them for is communication that makes sense to the consumer.
“At the moment, they think the adviser knows everything. They think: ‘The adviser is an expert; we’re an expert. We’ll cut out those bits of this story that the adviser knows.’ Therefore, that material wouldn’t work for somebody who knew nothing or who knew a lot less.”
Williams also cites a parallel assumption across financial services, including protection and health, that the customers know a lot more than we think they do.
“A classic example: I was in a research group about critical illness cover. Do
we think this is a sensible thing to buy?
And someone in the research group said, quite genuinely, ‘I don’t see the point of critical illness cover, I’ll just buy it if I get cancer.’
“That’s the level of knowledge we’re dealing with.”
One of his bigger industry bugbears is the word ‘process’: “The word process doesn’t make the person who is being processed feel very good. Because who gets processed? It’s not a nice thing.
“Also, if you’re a provider, how does it feel for people who work for you to be a processor? If you say actually your job is to look after this application, or to look after this customer while they apply, that feels really different than you’re processing this person.
“Because if you process them, you’re in a process, you’re a work unit in a system, you’re not allowed to be an individual and not allowed to really care. You get what the word tells you to expect.”
