Most founders of advice dream about this.
The niche that fills the new business pipeline with quality opportunities, keeps clients coming back, and doesn’t depend on one subject-matter-expert adviser to survive.
Is there such a thing as the perfect advice niche?
I saw one last week.
I was coaching David, who runs a great advice firm in Eltham.
They had just met with new prospects Jenny and Johnny.
Lovely people. Good earners, good savers, good planners. They seem financially solid.
But they have incredibly busy lives.
What defines a ‘perfect’ advice niche?
I reckon it needs:
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- A reliable supply of new opportunities driven by solid referral rates from existing niche clients and alliances
- A good re-engagement rate of satisfied niche clients every year
- A growing, enjoyable, and unique ability that resolves and/or manages the common and consistent complexities affecting the niche
- A niche that a skilled and agile advice team can advise, avoiding the capacity and dependency demands that ‘specialists-only’ niches require
- A deepening advice team skill set that increases an advice team’s agility, confidence and returns, and
- Rewarding profits per client
There’s something about perfect niches that provides an element of being perennial.
So, how are Jenny and Johnny a perfect niche for advice?
Here’s what struck me about busy clients like them.
Think about any great sporting contest. Players can’t be trusted to umpire themselves—not because they lack skill or integrity, but because they’re in the action without objectivity, unaware of the greater game, beyond their individual efforts.
The same applies to clients whose busy lives make it difficult for them to make informed, objective decisions at the right times for their own best outcomes.
Initially, they may be harder to get the attention of than less time-pressed clients, but busy clients are often the best niche for advice.
They usually have the plans, the drive, and the discipline.
However, the busy world they live in is surrounded by many different projects, plans, commitments, and requests from their family, social, business, and personal lives, making them too deep in their many activities to see the big picture.
The Comprehensive Advice Approach
Here’s where advice firms can miss the opportunity.
Yes, Johnny and Jenny value advice about their investment returns, financial modelling, tax planning, restructuring, risk management, property decisions, and debt reduction.
But those are the parts.
And it’s relatively easy for financial advisers to focus on the parts of their clients’ financial lives—recommending products, optimising structures, finding better returns.
But when there are so many different parts, particularly for busy clients, affecting the performance of the whole, it’s surely in the best interests of clients to focus on the whole that is often buried beneath the parts.
Johnny and Jenny’s most valuable takeaway from David’s team isn’t advice.
It’s the reality and feelings of being in control, aligned and confident that their entire financial life is on the right track for them.
This is so much more than an advice engagement managing their money, doing their tax, or minimising their risks.
Their value lies in having access to a team that sees how all the pieces connect, understands what is truly important for them to achieve, and can help them make better decisions about their entire financial life when time is scarce and their focus on their big picture is opaque.
The Business Case
This is a valuable niche for advice firms because:
Sustainable demand: Busy, successful people aren’t becoming less busy. They’re becoming more time-poor and more aware that they need help managing the complexity embedded in their lives.
Higher engagement value: Comprehensive advice relationships command more valuable fees because teams are resolving bigger problems —the coordination and governance of their financial life, not just the management of individual parts.
Stronger retention: When teams perform the financial umpire role — an objective voice helping clients make better decisions across their whole financial life — the team becomes more indispensable, not replaceable.
Team capability: Unlike narrow product or service specialist niches, comprehensive advice to busy clients allows the whole team to develop valuable engagement, pricing and management skills. Each team member can contribute meaningfully without needing to be the one irreplaceable expert.
Quality referrals: Busy, successful people know other busy, successful people. As busy clients gain greater confidence and focus in their financial lives, they naturally refer others facing the same challenge.
These are the best of times to build skilled, comprehensive advice teams that provide the objectivity, accountability, and governance busy clients need to stay focused and confident on what’s most significant to them and their lives.
What do you reckon?
Jim
Photo Credit: CANVA_photos_MAEOhxn5PAA