By Damian Hartley

Damian Hartley is an Estplan Practice Mentor in Victoria.  He has extensive experience in Financial Planning and Accounting Advisory practices and has run a small business himself. Damian has worked extensively with small and large organizations in recruitment, marketing, staff development and succession planning.

A consistent complaint amongst allied professionals – planners, lawyers and accountants is that “it is hard to find a partner to work with that reflects our client philosophy and understands our values.

This common refrain may lead you to believe that there are many cooperative networks of complimentary professionals. And, perhaps because of this complaint, there aren’t too many successful collaborative networks. This is sad, particularly from the client’s perspective because the overall service that they receive is negatively impacted. So they continue to deal with a host of advisers, sometimes offering inconsistent advice because they have tunnel vision rather than being able to see the whole picture.

You would rightly ask why aren’t these professionals connecting, it is in their own interest to offer a superior client experience in a volatile market? Why is it then that they advisers are not investing the time and effort it takes to build these collaborative networks?

I have researched the cause of this complaint and found that often professionals approach each other with a view to secure referrals. An ad-hoc relationship results and because neither party views this agreement as a formal arrangement, one of the 2 parties perceives it to be a “one way” arrangement and it gradually falls apart.

In an Estate Planning engagement it is quite normal for at least three professionals to be involved with the client. One of those is the trusted advisor of the client and therefore automatically (or when approached by the client) becomes the primary or lead advisor.

The lead advisor is responsible for making sure the client’s goals are achieved. They also have in-depth knowledge and understanding of the client and are able to direct other professionals to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome for the advisers and the client. Sounds simple doesn’t it?

However, in my experience communication becomes the hurdle that causes problems to occur. The lead adviser either refers the client to another professional (hence diluting his/her own relationship with the client to their detriment). They provide no facilitation and do not communicate the client’s needs to the referring adviser, who then needs to complete another discovery with the client, which negatively impacts the time poor client and is costly.

Many clients don’t end up seeing the referred adviser and because there is no follow-up by the primary adviser, the entire matter is often put on hold. This is not satisfactory for the client and could be risky for the adviser given the current focus on fiduciary duty

As a Practice mentor, I often find myself in a similar position. However, my experience has taught me that embracing the involvement of other professionals is a good opportunity to develop a network, offer a superior service to my clients and ensure longevity.

For example, I have been working with a client on succession planning for her business. After completing a series of workshops, it became obvious that she needed to look at a number of aspects, including trust structures, SMSF, business valuation, risk insurance and financial planning, as well as a will and some solid estate planning advice.

As the “project manager” in this engagement I recommended several professionals and provided each with thorough brief of what the client wanted to achieve, and the expected end result of the project.  Subsequently I accompanied my client to meetings with the other advisers and:

• Developed the scope of engagement of each adviser;
• Set the timelines for each stage of the project;
• Determined pricing structures  relating to everyone’s services; and
• Agreed on joint meetings to be held with all advisers during the course of the project so that as a group we could review the progress, and make any changes to the project scope as needed.

This is not hard to achieve, it merely required a strong project and client focus and a move from providing a transactional service into developing an empathetic relationship with the client and ensuring that the client expectations are met.

In the context of estate planning some of the keys to the success of such collaboration are:

• Educate yourself (understand the Estate planning process);
• Educate your clients (it’s your job anyway);
• Approach professional advisors that you can help and that can help you;
• Develop the relationship around what they can do for your clients first;
• Educate your fellow advisers about you and your practice;
• Together, develop a process by which each of you is being proactive (provide each other with checklists relevant to each profession, hold discussions, run seminars for each other); and
• Formalise the relationship (document your agreement and manage everyone’s expectations from the outset)

Relationships in business are the same as in your personal life. They require trust and consistent work to keep them on track. In my collaborative network we don’t tolerate egos, because it can be detrimental to the clients and ultimately our goal is to deliver a satisfactory client outcome.

We welcome your comment; send us an email   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to give us your opinion on collaboration issues impacting your practice. You can also contact Damian directly   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .