Four partners.
A well-regarded firm in Perth’s western suburbs.
Two majority partners are quietly lifting their fees. Clients staying. Clients paying. Clients value the advice relationship at rates well above inflation.
Two minority partners are watching. And refusing to move. Ignoring.
Not because they’re lazy. Quite the opposite.
Rhona and Matt – I’ll call them that – are two of the hardest-working advisers I’ve met. Weekends. Early mornings. Late nights. Always in meetings. Constant stream of referrals. Always busy.
And that’s exactly the problem.
COMFORT ZONES THAT LOOK LIKE SUCCESS
Rhona and Matt’s clients keep engaging. They keep paying. They don’t complain.
So why would you lift fees?
Here’s the answer Certainty Advice has been giving for over a decade: clients confirming your worth is not enough.
What matters is whether clients are confirming the growth of your worth.
There’s a critical difference.
As a firm’s experience, knowledge, service offering, networks, and talent grow, it’s logical for its value to grow.
Not just for new clients, but also for existing clients.
But when advice teams fail to consistently test the growth of their worth, they drift into what I call a fee comfort zone, continuing to charge for services they’re comfortable providing at fees they’re comfortable charging. The treadmill starts slowly. More clients. More delivery. More busyness. Less time. Less capacity to lead, coach, or build the team around them.
As our client base grows, many continue to pay fees that reflect past value rather than today’s offerings, experience, knowledge, capacity, and growth.
It is not only an issue for Rhona and Matt, but also a ticking time bomb for their up-and-coming team members who are not learning the skills crucial to their thriving in the new era of advice-based on value.
They’re learning that it is better to stay comfortable inside the paradigm of their immediate seniors. If junior team members’ technical and compliance skills were restricted to past models, it would be professional suicide. So too restricting their pricing and value skills.
That’s a quiet but compounding problem for the whole firm.
TWO FORCES KEEPING THEM STUCK
Confirmation bias leads Rhona and Matt to believe their approach is fine. The evidence? Their clients are satisfied.
New business is good. Other firms charge similar fees. The system is working.
Prospect theory tells them the risk of change is too high. Losses, such as a client leaving after a fee increase, feel twice as painful as the equivalent gain. So the rational response is: don’t rock the boat.
Both forces are completely understandable. Both are keeping this firm from building something genuinely valuable.
The two majority partners are proving, week by week, that the fears are mostly unfounded. Clients aren’t leaving.
They’re staying, paying, and engaging more deeply. Rhona and Matt don’t need to test this themselves; their confirmation bias is sufficient to support their approach.
WORTH ISN’T WHAT THE REGULATOR THINKS. IT ISN’T WHAT YOUR PARTNERS THINK.
Worth is confirmed by clients.
But only when clients are fully aware of what they’re paying, with no hidden fees, charges, or incentives.
Rhona and Matt’s clients are confirming their worth.
But they’ve not been asked whether they’d confirm more.
Running a breakthrough fee plan in parallel, continuously testing the growth of worth, is not a luxury. It’s the discipline that separates the advice teams building enduring value from teams stuck in enduring busyness.
CERTAINTY CONFERENCE
In early July at Manly Beach, I’m bringing together advice teams who are working through exactly these challenges – seniors, juniors, and partners – all grappling with the gap between what they charge and what their clients would actually pay.
The two-for-one early bird seat offer closes in 12 days.
If you’re a principal or advice team member watching this dynamic play out in your own firm, or if you’re quietly wondering whether Rhona and Matt’s story sounds uncomfortably familiar, this is the room to be in.
Reply YES, and I’ll send you the details.
Jim
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