You’ve successfully filled that empty desk in the office, and now you want to let clients know about your great hire. Is it time for a new brochure?

“Advisors often worry that clients receive too much paper in the mail from the fund companies and don’t want to add another brochure to the pile,” says Mark Michaud, senior vice president of Ariad Custom Communications in Toronto. “But with that line of thinking, you’re allowing someone else’s message to dominate.”

That’s not to say that a brochure is a “one size fits all” solution for introducing a new team member to your clients.

“You need to ask yourself why clients will care about the new hire, and think about how to communicate this message in a meaningful way,” Michaud says, adding that your team’s function figures heavily into how the announcement is communicated.

In practices in which team members provide support to a lead advisor, Michaud argues that an announcement in your regular newsletter is the best method of getting the word out.

“Feature the new employee in an everyday way,” he notes. This might take the form of a photo of the advisor and the new hire, with specific information about the new team member’s area of expertise.

“You really need to build up the skill set of the team,” says Julie Littlechild, president of Toronto-based Advisor Impact Inc. “Instead of saying, ‘Here is Anne, she will be doing our admin,’ detail Anne’s experience and the reasons why she is the best person for this role.”

FULL-SERVICE APPROACH

If your team is a group of specialists, a brochure is a more appropriate medium for your message.

“You want your clients to be aware of the broad, full-service approach that is available to them,” says Michaud, stressing that the brochure must be positioned as a service to the client and not as a laundry list of each team member’s qualifications and designations. “You want your clients to know how they can benefit from this information.”

The experts all recommend outsourcing your brochure’s creation. “You might think it’s cheaper to do it yourself, but then you might not take the time to do it right,” says Joanne Ferguson, partner at consulting firm Advisor Pathways Inc. in Stratford, Ont. She notes than an effective brochure should highlight your mission statement, the roles and responsibilities of each team member and the products and services your practice offers.

“We often find that clients are unaware of the full spectrum of services available to them,” says Michaud.

A photo and short biography of each team member are two other crucial components of your brochure, but it’s imperative to tailor both to your audience.

“I once saw a brochure for an advisor who worked primarily with farmers, and in his photo he was dressed in a suit and tie,” recalls Ferguson. The advisor eventually swapped his Bay Street attire for a black shirt and dress pants and posed for a new photo against the backdrop of a white picket fence. “You need to connect with who your client is,” she adds.

Similarly, any personal information about the team that you want to include needs to fit with the style of your practice.

“If you take a casual approach with clients, include some personal information,” says Michaud. “But if you’re dealing primarily with high net-worth clients, they don’t need to know that you like to knit.”

Once you have your hands on the completed product, accompany it with a signed cover letter.

“The letter should be from the advisor that the client knows the best,” adds Michaud. “Clients will look at your brochure if you tell them why they should.”

— MAUREEN HALUSHAK