Typically, many advisors tend to onboard all types of clients when they start their practice. Over time, advisors evaluate the psyche of each client and decide to work with a certain set of clients whom they are more comfortable with.
We asked advisors as to what is it that they look for in an ideal client.
Faith
Faith is an essential factor to forge a long term relationship between an advisor and his client. “According to me, my ideal client should have faith in me and he should also willing to trust me. There have been many instances where we have parted ways with clients solely because of lack of trust,” says Vinod Jain of Jain Investments.
Suresh Sadagopan of Ladder7 Advisories says that although every client has a different story to say, he prefers only those clients who follow what he advices. “Doubting a financial advisor is never helpful. I have met many clients where they do not follow our advice.”
Comfort
Lovaii Navlakhi of International Money Matters says “A certain level of comfort should exist between us and the client.”
“My ideal client should be someone that I feel totally comfortable dealing with,” agrees Vinod.
Openness
A financial advisor expects openness from clients. “We expect clients to be open. Unless, they give us the freedom to know about their investments, our advice will not yield any benefits,” says Vishal Dhawan of Pan Ahead Wealth Advisors.
“My clients won’t appreciate if I give incomplete information to them. Similarly, I also expect my clients to be open about their investments. This is essential otherwise the trust cannot be built,” points out Suresh.
Set a target audience
Narrowing down on a target audience is one of the way advisors can find their ideal clients. Shifali Satsangee of FundsVedaa says, “Defining our client base has helped us in identifying our niche market where we desire to build our focus. Our ideal client base comprises prospects who desire to achieve their financial aspirations and those who recognize the importance of financial planning and wealth creation as a means to reach them. We focus only on HNI segment.”
Also, having a well-defined target audience helps advisors improve their expertise in specific areas and in turn improve their efficiency. “We deal with wealthy clients who come with a certain minimum ticket size. Catering to a niche helps us to improve our efficiency,” says Vishal.
To sum up, besides the ticket size, faith, openness and comfort level are the main traits which advisors look for in their ideal clients.
Let us know what is your definition of an ideal client?
