Please everybody… 

%

Few, if any, advice firms will say they’re content with their margin levels.

Most have found margins at some point stubbornly difficult to move, be they simply looking to improve their firm’s day-to-day operations, realise synergies as part of an acquisition programme, or prepare the business for sale.

With margins being so central to enterprise valuation, however, even a small movement in the right direction is a big idea.

Which is why, in an environment of little/no upward price movement, productivity gains matter so much.

Be productive… 

“That’s the way we’ve always done things round here” might be a good answer, but often it isn’t. Left unattended, businesses evolve to have not just legacy technology but also legacy ways of doing things. Meaning people are busy, but not necessarily productive – something we fix.

Don’t confuse activity with productivity. Many people are simply busy being busy.

Robin Shama

No silver bullet… 

It would be convenient if just one thing needed fixing, but that’s not the usual scenario. The good news being that there’s a lot of upside to go after. Bigger and smaller things, from the obvious to the less so, and all contributing to the build of a better business.

Pull all the right levers…

Productivity we think comes down to three things...

1. Do more business
2. At a lower unit cost
3. With fewer issues to have to deal with

Not rocket science. You can drill these 3 things down even further to find more specific actions that contribute to each one. However, and guess what (?)...you can do this again and again, drilling down ever further. Resulting ultimately in a joined-up programme of activities that individually and collectively ‘move the needle’ in the best way possible. We’ll show you how.

Spend 1,200 hours wisely… 

Not many frontline advisers will do more than 1,200 productive hours work a year. The big question though is not the number of hours, but what they do with them.

We observe a relatively small amount of time spent prospecting, often just to mitigate client outflows and simply ‘stand still’.

The residual time is spent serving existing clients, averaging typically 7 hours per client per year.

This isn’t a problem where fees and/or commissions are at or above a certain threshold, but for lower-value clients it will not yield the margin levels being sought.

The metrics in our world are simple (and a step change from this) – client onboarding times at 5 hours or less and annual client servicing times at 2 hours or less...with a strong client proposition enabling both higher acquisition and lower attrition levels.

These numbers are not theoretical - ZUGO operates in the real world, and doesn’t just envision positive change, it realises it. All highly KPI-centric, all automation-enabled, and all entirely achievable.

Realise the rewards… 

Every advice firm is familiar with this graphic – the distribution of clients by portfolio size. Typically healthy on the right, less so on the left.

Our work typically begins on the left, but extends to as far right as benefits can be realised. (Re-)connecting with often neglected clients in the right way brings with it not just the scope to retain those clients, but also realise initial income and transfer-in benefits through the resultant dialogue. Which, when added to the underlying productivity gains, can lead to margin improvements of £500 a year or more, equivalent to as much as 40bp of AUA.