Referrals

Recently, the team at Chancellor were delighted to read the feedback from our clients and professional contacts from our 2020 survey, which was sent out in December.

Anyone who wished to complete the survey could remain completely anonymous, as we were keen to hear about all aspects of our service, “warts and all”, if necessary. We need not have worried, as the feedback was excellent.

We were particularly encouraged in that every respondent confirmed that they would be likely to refer Chancellor to their friends, colleagues and family, with the majority of 87% confirming that they would be “extremely likely” to do so. Some mentioned that they had referred so many people to us over the years, so there weren’t many left to be introduced to Chancellor!

The footers on our emails here at Chancellor Financial Management Ltd contain the wording “The majority of Chancellor’s business comes as a result of referrals from an existing client or a professional connection. If you know of any family or friends who could benefit from our expertise, we would be grateful for the kind introduction”.

A great example of this in practice, is that of Cheryl Patterson who was referred to our Director, Grant Farnell by one of our connections in the legal profession. After becoming a client, Cheryl states in her testimonial that “Our family have been delighted with Chancellor’s advice and I wouldn’t have a moment’s hesitation in recommending them – in fact, I regularly pass on Chancellor’s details, together with a glowing testimonial to anyone who will listen”. Cheryl’s full testimonial can be found on our website – www.chancellorfinancial.co.uk, if you are interested in taking a look.

Unlike some other financial firms, Chancellor do not buy in new business leads, do “search engine optimisation” on our website to push us up the rankings, buy advertisements on Facebook or other social media, share remuneration with professional introducers, buy in content for our newsletter or pay to use a so called independent “reviews” sites. We know that it is a little old fashioned to shun these methods, but for some reason, Chancellor Financial Management Ltd keeps on growing (we have just further expanded our support team, accordingly). We think that this is down to a combination of providing great levels of service, retaining clients we have dealt with (in some cases), for over thirty years and word of mouth recommendations.

One of Chancellor’s team, David Heaton says “When I am looking to make a major purchase of any kind, I always ask around for recommendations first of all, as the opinions and experiences of my friends and contacts are always helpful, whether it’s something like a car dealership or even for someone who can fix a leaking tap or service my gas boiler.” Where financial advice is concerned, a recommendation from a friend to a trusted adviser can be even more important, both due to the sums which may be involved and the fact that the business relationship could continue for many years into the future.

We recently had a contact of ours ask us if “this is the kind of work that you are looking for” when referring a friend of theirs to us. They did, of course, know the work that we did for them personally, but was not sure that their friend had enough money to invest to meet Chancellor’s criteria. We answered that there was no specific criteria as we consider each case individually, but this then prompted us to sit down and consider what a typical client of Chancellor may look like. So, we analysed our records  and came up with a client “sweet spot”, as we called it, which was:-

Someone who :-

• Has £250,000 or more already invested or available to invest – and requires financial guidance
• Lives in the North West of England or the “M62 corridor”

Often they will have family and are looking to pass their wealth efficiently down through the generations and from a personal point of view, look to make a difference within their community.

Of course, no two of our clients are identical as they each have very different personal circumstances and financial requirements, so there are no hard and fast sets of criteria as to who Chancellor look to deal with. We did feel that it was quite an interesting exercise to do, to focus our minds. Most of our new clients do have at least £250,000 available, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they simply have cash to invest – it could be in an existing pension scheme, an investment portfolio or an existing ISA, for example – but it could be cash! This could be from a recent inheritance or the sale of a business. Very often we take over existing business where someone is looking to part company with their existing adviser. In any event, we are always happy to have a no obligation chat over the phone to explore the possibilities of working together.

We also deal with trustees, companies and Employee Benefit schemes which do not, of course, fall within the “sweet spot” for individual clients.

Sometimes we are asked for a small supply of our business cards, just in case someone asks for our contact details and we can also supply paper copies of the statement which states “Our Values” -and/or a printed document showing a list of our main services along with details of our advisory team.

If you have been kind enough to recommend Chancellor in the past, we would like to say a big “thank you” and if we can help in any way, please do not hesitate to get in touch with one of our Directors and Chartered Financial Planners, Grant Farnell or David Torkington.