Tony Vidler
Tony Vidler is the expert in professional services on creating strong personal branding and target marketing positioning. Tony has been in financial services since 1990, including roles in agency management; starting, growing and selling a sizeable brokerage business; expert witness; as a senior executive in sales and marketing and been a leading figure in the NZ financial advice profession for a decade. Qualifications include Certified Financial Planner, Chartered Life Underwriter and Chartered Financial Consultant, and his expertise is recognised in Financial Standards Power 50 most influential people in social media in financial services, together with recently being named as one of the Top 250 Online Influencers in Financial Services Globally. Learn more here .
Articles by Tony Vidler
- Practice Growth
One Word in a Conversation Can Make or Break a Sale
We can break a probable sale or make the sale in an instant. It can turn on a phrase or sometimes even a single word. The words we use matter.
- Practice Growth
The #1 Reason Ideal Clients Choose Another Advisor
- Practice Growth
Advisors: Where Do You Add Value?
Fairly predictable steps that a prospect will tend to go through on their way to finally deciding to engage the services of a professional adviser
- Practice Growth
Twelve Prospect Barriers That Prevent Clients From Hiring Financial Advisors
The first step in understanding how to negate them is of course being able to identify them.
- Practice Growth
Client Contact Frequency: Are You Communicating Too Little… or Too Much?
Whether client contact frequency makes a discernible difference to the strength of the adviser-client relationship, or enhances the perceived value
- Practice Growth
The Most Profitable Client Conversation Advisors Still Aren’t Having
For most practices creating an up-selling strategy should be relatively easy too all the more reason to make sure you do it!
- Practice Growth
If Your Content Isn’t Engaging, Your Future Clients Are Gone
You must continually think of those prospective future clientele as an audience until such time as they choose to do business with you.
- Practice Growth
Not Every Client Needs Custom—Here’s Where To Draw Line
It is our livelihood in many respects, yet one of the vaguest phrases we use is personal service.
- Practice Growth
Decisive Leaders Outperform in Uncertain Markets Every Time
All know the stories and admire the folk who have built incredible professional services businesses and we continually fail to learn from their successes.
- Practice Growth
Better Negotiation Starts Earlier Than You Think
The reason why that is so, according to professional negotiators, is because most people tend to go about negotiating the wrong way.
- Practice Growth
Advisors Under Pressure Are Overlooking One Investment That Drives Growth
Everything is else is more pressing and demanding than a practice leaders own people most of the time.
- Practice Growth
Three Questions Every Client Asks Before Saying Yes
A great marketing process helps prospects move along the buying decision-making path by pre-empting their concerns and need for answers.
- Practice Growth
Which Service Should Lead Your Marketing Strategy?
That is critical to having an effective value proposition anyway, right? So this establishes the cornerstone of the marketing strategy.
- Practice Growth
Marketing Messages That Convert Follow a Simple 7-Step Structure
For any marketing message to be effective there are a number of things that one has to get right – but there is a bit of a formula!
- Practice Growth
Attract Ideal Clients by Distinguishing Your Brand From Your Firm
How the marketing efforts and messages of the two differ, but still be complementary, and the types of messaging which each should employ….
- Practice Growth
Four Levers That Drive Higher Valuations for Professional Services Firms
The emphasis upon growing renewal commission income or setting ongoing fee for service or advice contracts with clients.
- Practice Growth
The Easiest Way to 10x Your Referrals (Almost No One Does It)
The easiest method for anyone to generate and get more referrals and favourable introductions is to GIVE more referrals and introductions.
- Practice Growth
Why Great Advisory Practices Pay for Values—Not Just Production
Figuring out what one should reward is the first step to getting your compensation & motivation package right.
- Practice Growth
Not Just Money: Explaining Time, Effort, Risk, and Price to Clients
When you consider cost from the perspective of what are the range of possible costs then you rapidly realize that there are 4 potential costs for a client:
- Practice Growth
Where Referrals Really Come From in Professional Services
Virtually all consumers who are prospective professional services clients are discriminating in that they are increasingly selective, wary and critical.
- Practice Growth
How to Reach the Point Where Ideal Prospects Call You First
They all have one thing in common, and that is the professional has secured the position of being the Trusted Adviser
- Practice Growth
Stop Burning Prospects: How Patience and Process Turn Interest Into Clients
Whether we realised it or not in financial services we were selling off the shelf solutions and making them fit clients needs.
- Practice Growth
How Strategic Alliances Can Solve Your Lead Generation Problem for Years
It is hard work perhaps but creating strategic alliances is one of the smartest business building moves a practice can make.
- Practice Growth
Why “Good Enough” Is Costing Advisors More Than They Realize
Average adviser performance can be turned into outstanding adviser performance by making the changes that make the difference.
- Practice Growth
Thinking of Acquiring a Practice? Ask These Questions Before You Make a Costly Mistake.
Generally there appears to be 5 main reasons that advisers suggest as their reasons for acquisition of another business. They are
- Practice Growth
Why Profit Isn’t Enough: The 3 Pillars of a Truly Valuable Financial Practice
Profitable practice is is the first objective for practitioners, but building a sustainable profitable and valuable practice is even better isn’t it?
- Practice Growth
Why Your Marketing Should Never Stop—Even When Business Is Booming
Clients have an unfortunate habit of leaving, or dying, or no longer needing advice….there is continual attrition in even the best client bases.
- Practice Growth
How Top Advisors Create Unshakeable Top-of-Mind Awareness With Their Clients
Who do most people turn to first for financial advice? Whoever is top of mind…and who is that usually? Their family.
- Practice Growth
Who’s Really Paying Who? The Question That Will Redefine Financial Advice
For many advisers yet to experience it, full transparency on costs and fees is good for business.
- Practice Growth
Why Some Clients Hurt Your Business—and How To Attract the Ones Who Build It
We are ARE running commercial enterprises and need to think about who we take on as ongoing clients.
- Practice Growth
Great Advice Means Nothing if Clients Don’t Act on It
Getting the technical part of financial advice right – or advice that will work for a client – is rather like that it seems to me.
- Practice Growth
Mastering the Urgent vs. Important Call Dilemma
An incoming call from your top Centre-of-Influence comes in while talking to your best client.
- Practice Growth
Stop Selling Products. Start Selling Ideas That Convert.
Sometimes the best thing an adviser can do is admit to themselves that their sales numbers suck.
- Practice Growth
The 4-Part Growth Formula Every Advisory Firm Misses
It’s easy to use external factrors to justify why growth doesn’t happen, but usually the reason is internal factors.
- Practice Growth
Why Clients Won’t Buy Your Advice Until They Buy Into You
A basic professional relationship rule: People will not buy what you can do until they trust you, or rather, trust the process.
- Practice Growth
Why Your Current Clients Might Be Your Biggest Growth Opportunity
A report from a few years ago highlighted the point that a lot of clients do not give advisers all their investable funds.