And I don’t mind doing that once a year or so. But if people want more regular meetings, then I’d really rather not fly to Houston, rent a car, get a hotel for three days, and spend all that time away from all the other stuff I need to be doing. That easily turns into a $5,000 trip (by the time you include lost revenue because you’re not servicing other clients for three or four days). It’s hard to recoup $5k on a $250/month planning fee.
Now, if they have $10m in investable assets and they’re paying me $50-60k a year in fees, that’s a whole different story.
Also, I’ve never understood why we punish our most valuable clients by forcing them to have meetings 4x or 6x a year. I mean, my $1k per year client (that’s $1,000 in revenue) only has to stop what he’s doing, leave his job, get in his car, fight traffic, wait for road rage to wear off, and trek into my office once a year. But the guy who pays me $60k per year? He has to do it every other month! And why? So we can talk about how we think the market is going to perform? When we have a 30% chance of being right, and even if we’re wrong, there’s nothing we can do about it?
For my service model, I use a combination of face to face meetings, telephone, periodic review summary, and email as the touch points based on client tier.
If your client has $10MM in investable assets, then quarterly meetings should be sufficient. Typically their situation is much more complicated and you need to be meeting on a more frequent basis to manage the planning and investments. (And some may require more frequent meetings as you noted if their planning hasn’t been looked after and you need to get it all in order - then after that meeting twice - quarterly a year may be fine).
When I talk to the prospective client, I like to ask them about what their expectations are, in terms of meetings and service, and find out what type of service they are getting right now - and what type of service they want (or think they want). Then I can decide if they fit into my service model, pricing for fee only based on AUM and so forth.
I am trying to get away more about talking about what is happening in the markets per say, and focusing more on the clients financial plan and strategy. I provide commentary on their investment portfolio - but you don’t want them judging you based on the performance of their investment returns, or what happens in the stock market.
So many investors don’t bring their analytical mindset to marketing, because they see marketing as fluff and not central to the business. In their mind, clients come for the brilliance of the investor or advisor, not because of good marketing. Think of it like an investor, if you went to visit a company you are considering investing in, and the CEO/CFO told you I don’t talk to my customers because it might inconvenience them or because I don’t want to spend the money, or it takes too much time…would you buy that stock? Your not wasting time or money, your investing in your business.