{"id":6011,"date":"2010-05-03T03:48:19","date_gmt":"2010-05-02T16:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=6011"},"modified":"2020-05-05T10:57:32","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T23:57:32","slug":"how-to-succeed-with-sme-clients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2010\/05\/03\/how-to-succeed-with-sme-clients\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Succeed With SME Clients"},"content":{"rendered":"

Understanding the basics of business succession planning and then using the right language to communicate its value are the building blocks to success within the SME advice market, according to\u00a0risk store<\/a>\u00a0founder, Sue Laing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

At the risk store’s 2010 annual Life Risk Forum, Ms Laing distilled\u00a0the concept of business succession planning into its fundamental components and showed her audience how to build an SME advice proposition\u00a0by offering solutions that address those fundamentals.<\/p>\n

… business succession planning is simply\u00a0estate planning by another name<\/h6>\n

Ms Laing argued that for advisers looking to simplify their approach to a market sector that may appear\u00a0quite complex, \u00a0business succession planning is simply estate planning by\u00a0another name.\u00a0 She maintains that a small to medium enterprise business is\u00a0a ‘conglomerate of assets of the owners’ that needs to be protected, should the worse happen, and that insurance is\u00a0simply the\u00a0funding mechanism.<\/p>\n

‘The worst’ can be either death or disability, but where the disablement of one of the business principals can often create more uncertainty than in the event of the principal’s death.<\/p>\n

Ms Laing\u00a0stressed the importance of communicating with any client in their own language, and the SME client is no exception.\u00a0 She\u00a0told advisers to apply\u00a0the KISS principle (Keep it Simple, Stupid).\u00a0 In this case, the KISS principle comprises:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Engagement<\/li>\n
  • Empathy<\/li>\n
  • Simplicity<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    For example, Ms Laing suggested that prospective\u00a0clients would be more likely to engage with the adviser if the adviser talked about protection of the\u00a0client’s personal wealth and estate, rather than their business succession plan or business insurance.<\/p>\n

    Having established this approach, Ms Laing outlined the steps involved in the business succession (estate) plan that will in turn achieve three key goals (Control, Cashflow, Certainty)\u00a0for all SMEs in the event of the death or severe disablement of a business principal.<\/p>\n

    Ms Laing covers in detail the\u00a0steps to achieve these outcomes in her one-day Business Succession Planning workshop, but \u00a0in broad terms they relate to funding and guarantee\u00a0issues.<\/p>\n

    In the risk store Forum session, advisers were also presented with arguments by Ms Laing that would successfully overcome client objections relating to alternative funding for partner buy-outs, such as the sale of property or access to additional debt.<\/p>\n

    Ms Laing contends that if the adviser can present a business protection planning solution that is expressed in a language the client understands, with little to no industry jargon, and can offer simple solutions, they will be in a good position to have the client appreciate the\u00a0peace of mind the proposed solution will achieve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Understanding the basics of business succession planning and then using the right language to communicate its value are the building blocks to success within the SME advice market, according to\u00a0risk store\u00a0founder, Sue Laing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-conferences-and-events","7":"category-general","8":"headers-new"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}