Recently, i talked with two financial advisors who had hosted client events this year. Despite similar costs, the two events had entirely different outcomes: the first advisor had invited clients to her office for an event that felt like a waste of money; the other had organized a thank-you for his top client that resonated at the highest level.
This autumn, an advisor – let’s call her Mary – asked me to moderate her client advisory board (CAB) dinner. One of the items on which she wanted feedback was a client event she had held back in January – an open house that had received a very disappointing response. Mary felt as if she had thrown a party and no one came.
Mary had invited clients to drop by her office on a Sunday late in January for a champagne brunch. Lots of thought had gone into planning the event. She’d had special invitations designed and mailed early that month, inviting clients to stop by to say hello and enjoy lunch. Mary hired a caterer to prepare the lunch and supply wait staff and bartenders. There was a large “Welcome” sign placed outside her office, and extra parking had been rented from an office building down the street. Mary had arranged for a jazz combo to provide music and for a photographer to take pictures of clients.
Despite these efforts, client turnout was very disappointing, with way too much food and drink left over. At a cost of $4,000 (not to mention, a big expenditure of time by Mary and her staff), Mary felt that she got virtually no return on her investment.
Only one of the clients at the CAB dinner had stopped by the open house – and that was out of a sense of obligation rather than from any real enthusiasm. When I asked the other clients why they hadn’t attended, three themes emerged. First, clients are busy. Second, clients did not see the event as compelling or exceptional. Finally, a couple of clients mentioned that the invitation suggested this was a mass event for all of Mary’s clients – which, of course, it was – rather than something targeted toward them in particular.
– recognizing a significant birthday
The contrasting event emerged from a call last spring from an advisor in Atlanta – let’s call him John – who’s a regular reader of my email newsletter.
The catalyst for John’s call was the upcoming 60th birthday of his top client, Phil, a successful business owner with $10 million invested with John, about 20% of Phil’s liquid assets. John had worked with Phil for almost 20 years and they had become good friends. John wanted to do something special to let Phil know how much John valued their relationship and how much he appreciated his business. The challenge was how to do this, given that Phil can already buy just about anything he wants.
I asked John about Phil’s passions, beyond his business and his family – which come down to three things: football, golf and classical music. Phil and his wife, Betsy, support the local symphony and they try to schedule their trips to New York City to attend performances of the New York Philharmonic.
That interest in classical music sparked an exchange of ideas that led to a unique celebration of Phil’s birthday.
Shortly before the birthday, John and his wife invited Phil and Betsy to join them for dinner to celebrate, with John named the designated driver. En route to the restaurant, John asked if they could stop by a local university along the way to pick up some information for one of his daughters. When they arrived at the faculty of music’s building, John suggested that the others come along with him, as he might be a few minutes.
When they entered the building, they were greeted by a middle-aged man wearing a black tuxedo with tails. He introduced himself as both the conductor of the university’s symphony and their host for the evening. He led them to a lounge, where Phil was greeted by his brother and five of his best friends and their wives, whom Betsy had invited to join Phil’s group for the evening.
The conductor explained that the combined group would be participating in a dress rehearsal of a performance by the symphony, which consisted of current students and recent graduates. Phil, Betsy and their guests each would have the opportunity to conduct the orchestra briefly. Everyone helped themselves to a cold buffet dinner and, over the next 90 minutes, the conductor gave them a brief tutorial on how to lead an orchestra.
At the end of the lesson, Phil’s group walked down the hall to the performance hall, where the full orchestra was waiting on the stage. Each of the guests spent three minutes conducting the orchestra; after everyone had had his or her turn, the group left to allow the orchestra to proceed with its rehearsal and went to a nearby hotel for drinks.
The next morning, John dropped by Phil’s office with half a dozen DVDs of everyone conducting the orchestra. He also emailed links to each of the three-minute performances on the podium to Phil and Betsy, which they could forward to their friends. Phil thanked John profusely and, the next day, Phil and Betsy sent a thank-you note and a bottle of wine.
As a result, John felt great about his investment of $3,500 (less than Mary spent on her open house). The bulk of the money was a donation to the orchestra, with the balance covering the cost of the buffet dinner, drinks and the videographer.
And in the category of “unintended consequences,” one of Phil’s friends who’d been a guest later contacted John to learn more about how he worked and to explore the possibility of moving an account over to him. This had not been John’s intent; he had done everything possible to avoid making the evening look like he was wooing Phil’s network – to the point that he made the conscious decision not to bring along business cards and to have the web links to their performances be forwarded by Phil and Betsy rather than himself.
John called afterward to thank me for the idea. “I had no expectations that the evening would lead to more business,” he
said. “I simply wanted to let my best client know how much I appreciated his business and our friendship in a unique, memorable way. And I achieved that in spades.”
– formula for successful events
Unhappily, most advisors have an experience that’s closer to Mary’s than to John’s. The problem is simple: the large-scale client events that worked 10 or 15 years ago – boat cruises, theatre nights and wine tastings – seldom work today. What have replaced them in effectiveness are events that share three characteristics: they are unique, intimate and targeted.
Here are some recent success stories from advisors I’ve talked to:
– At a charity auction, an advisor won a wine tasting for 12 hosted by the high-profile wine columnist in his local newspaper. The advisor made personal calls to five of his top clients who are wine-lovers, inviting them and their spouses to the wine-tasting at his home on a Saturday evening. To his pleasant surprise, all five said yes.
– An advisor whose clients include the owner of a BMW dealership invited 15 clients with high-end cars to a reception at the dealership. The dealer briefly talked about what’s new in luxury cars, then provided guests with the opportunity to test-drive some recently released BMWs.
– A female advisor invited eight professional women in their 30s and 40s to a local spa one Saturday morning, ending with a healthy lunch at a nearby restaurant. She arranged for the spa’s child care centre to be open during her group’s visit.
– An advisor who loves golf invited a dozen clients who share his passion to a pre-season golf tune-up. Just before the links opened, his group met in a cordoned-off section at a local driving range, where a Nike sports rep let them try Nike’s newest clubs and three pros provided tips.
In all of these cases, the feedback from clients was exceptionally positive. That wasn’t because these events cost a lot – they cost considerably less than typical mass events – but they were high-impact. The key to hosting high-impact events of your own is tailoring the right event to a small group of the right clients and investing the effort and attention to detail to make them truly memorable.
One final note: after my conversation with John, I wondered how difficult it would be to replicate his event in Toronto, where I live and work. With a couple of emails and two phone conversations, I had a proposal from a professional orchestra that would allow an advisor to mirror the evening that John had hosted for his top client. For $2,500, you could invite top clients to conduct a rehearsal at the orchestra’s state-of-the-art rehearsal hall. And for $5,000, clients could conduct the orchestra during a full dress rehearsal at its concert hall on certain Saturday afternoons, one of which includes a 130-person choir. To learn more, drop me an email at dan@clientinsights.ca.
Dan Richards is CEO of Clientinsights (www.clientinsights.ca) in Toronto. For more of Dan’s columns and informative videos, visit www.investmentexecutive.com.
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