“WHAT DO I GET FOR THAT?”
Five words.
Every adviser has heard them.
A prospect sits across from you.
You’ve had a good conversation.
You’ve built rapport.
You’ve quoted your fee.
And then it comes.
“Sounds OK. But what do I actually get for that fee?”
How you respond underpins everything.
Not just whether this prospect becomes a client, but what kind of client they become.
Many advisers respond with a menu.
Superannuation. Investment management. Insurance reviews. Cashflow planning. Estate planning. Tax advice. Structural advice. Maybe property. Maybe debt.
It’s an understandable response.
It’s what the industry trains advisers to do.
And it aligns with what most prospects expect to hear.
But it creates a problem.
A problem most advisers don’t understand until it’s too late.
When advisers justify a fee with a list of services, they lose control of their true value.
Prospects scan the range of services, now aware that they can reduce the fee by deselecting or changing each service.
The adviser is effectively saying, “You play the adviser role and tell me what you value”.
“Maybe we don’t need an insurance review”
“I can talk to my accountant about the structures”.
“The property and estate issues are not pressing at the moment.”
Each item they challenge makes your fee feel less justified.
The comprehensive advice relationship breaks down before it has a chance.
For principal advisers, it’s like agreeing to surgery but asking the surgeon if the anaesthetic is optional.
Every element of principal advice exists because the others depend on it.
Investment returns mean less if risks aren’t managed.
Superannuation strategies might fail without cash flow planning.
Estate plans collapse without the implementation support for all critical stakeholders.
The sum is always more valuable than the parts.
Justifying fees by highlighting a range of advice services educates prospects that buying an advice relationship is like filling their supermarket trolley.
And here’s what most advisers miss: the fee positioning damage compounds with existing clients in subsequent years.
A prospect trained to value the range of services will use that same menu to challenge their ongoing fees.
By year three, the super restructure is done. The insurance is in place. The refinancing is settled.
So they sit in their review meeting thinking, “There’s less to do now, why am I not paying significantly less fees?”
The menu you used to engage them becomes the tool they use to question the ongoing fee.
Meanwhile, the value still to be achieved, the progress toward what they actually value in their lives, remains significant.
But if fees aren’t anchored there, new prospects and existing clients totally miss the connection.
There’s another way.
And it changes everything.
Instead of listing what they get, you reflect back on what they’ve told you is of value to them.
“You get everything we believe is required to maximise every probability of achieving what you’ve told us is of significance to you. Helping your daughter into her first property, transitioning out of the business within five years, and making sure Janie is looked after if something happens to you.”
That’s not a menu of services.
That’s a mirror.
When your fee is anchored to their aspirations, very specific, very detailed, very personal aspirations, it can’t be compared to a competitor’s service list.
It can’t be commoditised.
Not in year one, and not in year five – because what clients value evolves, and their fee will evolve with it.
The technical elements are still there.
The superannuation, the structures, the risk management, the tax work – all critical.
But they’re positioned for what they are: tools in service of outcomes that are of significance to the client, not line items on an invoice.
This is the shift from defending your fee to demonstrating the value of your role as a principal adviser.
It’s the shift from comprehensive advice to Principal Advice, where the adviser isn’t a service provider ticking boxes, but the Principal Adviser of their client’s financial progress.
And it requires something many advice firms haven’t built yet – a systematic way for every team member to identify, articulate, and price what each client uniquely values.
Not just the principal. The whole team.
Jim