Implementation - Client Advisory Boards
There is one group that knows exactly what products and services you should offer, how you differentiate from the competition, the marketing messages that are effective, and how to generate referrals. This group is also exceptionally invested in your success. Who are these people?
Make Your Clients a True Part of Your Business Success
Creating an engaged Client Advisory Board is the best marketing, product development, and strategic planning investment you can make in your business. With a Client Advisory Board, you will be able to...
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Engage with your Client in a new, respectful, and disciplined way.
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Elevate Client dialogue as a core competency.
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Create a unique, sustainable competitive advantage.
ActiFi has partnered with the nation's premier provider of Client Advisory Boards, CABHQ, to offer CABs to the financial services community. Founded by Bruce Peters and headquartered in Rochester, New York, the CABHQ team has delivered thousands of Client/Customer Advisory Boards and the results achieved by the sponsoring companies have been phenomenal. Read an article about CABs in Financial Advisor Magazine.
How Can a Client Advisory Board Benefit Your Practice?
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Build stronger, more meaningful ties with your clients.
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Gain critical insights into both the obvious and the below-the-surface problems your clients might be experiencing.
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Create "client evangelists" by bringing the Advisory Board Members into a more personal relationship with you and your business.
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Generate a built-in source for referrals by clients truly invested in the success of you and your business (or at the least, learn why your current referrals aren't what they should be).
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Receive direct client feedback on how your services are delivered and how your products, both longstanding and new, are perceived.
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Receive direct, unfiltered, and frank feedback on new initiatives.
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Allow senior management to get face-time with a number of clients at once — not otherwise readily available with everyone's busy schedules.
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As CABHQ CEO Bruce Peters told Financial Advisor magazine, “CABHQ aims to elevate CABs to a strategic-level tool. While advisors who create CABs might be inclined to aim the effort toward getting referrals, the return on your CAB investment can actually be much greater than a handful of referrals. A CAB can help you redirect your marketing campaign and even reinvent your business.”
The CAB Process and Your Firm
The ActiFi/CABHQ Client Advisory Board program is designed to meet the unique needs of your practice and to elevate the client dialogue to the level of a core competency. Our mission, combined with yours, is to make your relationship with your clients your true sustainable competitive advantage. We have developed a proven Six-Step Process to ensure achievement of these results, and we track those results through our innovative Client Success Index.
A Client Advisory Board begins with the careful selection of 12 - 15 clients, typically across various areas of your business. Meetings are scheduled on a regular basis, for most firms three to four times per year. The CAB team is responsible for recruiting members, meeting with your executive team to identify key focus areas, and establishing a very tight agenda based on helping you achieve your goals.
The "magic" of a Client Advisory Board is the meeting, facilitated by an ActiFi/CABHQ expert. This third-party facilitation is critical to ensure everyone's voice is heard, that members are willing and able to speak freely and frankly, and that members stick to the meeting agenda. It is critical that members of your firm's executive team attend each meeting. However, it is also critical that the firm's participants don't lead the meeting; rather, that they listen, observe, and participate when asked.
You'll find a CAB absolutely invaluable as you strategically plan and build your business. You'll also notice that you'll become closer with your clients, and they to each other, and over time you'll begin to grow a client base that is truly vested in your success.
For more information on Client Advisory Boards, contact ActiFi today.
