Mapping out a planning strategy for each individual client might seem like a daunting task. But that level of individual service can be profitable, says Bob Simpson, president of Synchronicity Performance Consultants in Mississauga, Ontario.

The strategy involves establishing each client’s financial priorities and incorporating them into a year’s worth of meetings and other encounters. It is the personal interaction you have with your clients that will drive revenue.

Says Simpson: “Financial advisors who spend in excess of 60% of their time in client-facing activity earn three to five times [that earned by] those who don’t.”

Why not undertake this project during the summer months when there is more time for long-term planning? This kind of preparation will help ensure you are organized and ready for your clients come autumn.

Simpson explains three steps toward developing a client strategy:

1. Identify each client’s key issues
Pull out and study each client file. What are your clients’ needs and concerns? They could be young parents looking to save for their children’s education, or boomers still saving for retirement while also worrying about their elderly parents’ finances.

Invite your clients to come in for a “preferences and priorities” meeting. Clients will have a chance to tell you what they feel should be essential to their financial plan. Frame this process as a fresh start, Simpson suggests.

Even if you have been working with certain clients for many years, tell them you would like to get a sense of what their priorities are right now.

You might say: “Let’s do all the things we would do for a new client to identify your position and your goals for the next three to five years. We can then set up a plan so that you can achieve those things.”

2. Establish themed meetings
Instead of squeezing in multiple services at one time, spread them out and complete each priority in a separate meeting or phone call.

For example, one client’s priorities might be education planning, insurance and long-term investments. Each of those topics would be covered in a separate meeting. It’s an untraditional way of planning, Simpson says, but you’re more likely to follow through when you’re doing a little at a time as opposed to all at once.

Keep in mind that the number of face-to-face meetings you set up with each client will depend on the size of the client’s account. A client with a $1-million account might receive four meetings and several phone calls while client with $100,000 in assets would need only one meeting and perhaps a couple of phone calls.

3. Create a meeting schedule
Schedule when you will be phoning and meeting with clients throughout the course of the year. This step reinforces to your clients that you will follow through on the initiatives set out in your “preferences and priorities” meeting and also allows for efficient planning.

For example, if you have 15 clients asking about insurance, schedule those clients over two or three days. If you have an outside insurance specialist, he or she will visit your office over those consecutive days instead of having to schedule meetings throughout the year.

This is the third installment in a three-part series on using the summer more effectively.