Keeping clients between deals

Every mortgage you place has an end date. The deal runs its term, and when it ends the client either comes back to you or goes to another broker. Retention affects whether a brokerage grows or spends its effort replacing clients it loses.

Clients stay with the firm they think of first when a money question comes up. Introducing them to us at Equity & General for wealth advice gives them another reason to stay with you.

When the deal ends

A remortgage can be followed by years without contact. You place the deal, the client moves in or fixes their rate, and you may not speak again for two, three or five years. If the only contact in between was the paperwork at the start, the client will compare your rate with the next firm's quote when the deal matures.

What brings a client back

A client is more likely to come back to a broker who was useful between deals: who answered a question about their cover when a second child arrived, or helped when they asked what to do with a bonus. If the client hears nothing from you in the years between deals, the next renewal is open to any broker.

What one client is worth over twenty years

Over a client’s adult life there is the first mortgage, then a remortgage every few years. There is protection as the family grows. There is a move to a bigger home, and the larger loan that comes with it. There may be a buy-to-let, and years later a first mortgage for their own children. Running alongside all of it are pensions and savings that, over decades, can grow large.

At each of those moments the client calls you or someone else. If they keep calling you, one client brings work and referrals over a working lifetime.

Questions outside your permissions

At some point the client asks a question you cannot answer: what to do with cash, whether their pension is any good, whether to invest, or how to deal with a parent’s estate. If the reply is that this is not your field, the client looks for someone else, and that adviser may become the person they call first.

Becoming the route to advice

With Pecunia you introduce the client to us, we give the regulated advice on the pension, the investment or the estate, and you stay in view throughout. Because you pointed them to the answer, the client stays with you and sees you as the person who looks at their wider finances as well as the mortgage.

How the introduction works

You notice the moment and make the introduction. We handle the regulated advice, the paperwork and the ongoing responsibility for it. You watch progress through the partner portal, so you know where an introduced client has got to without chasing anyone. As those clients build assets under management with us, you share in the value that creates, and that income recurs after completion.

Where the regulatory line sits

You can advise on mortgages, and on protection under your own permissions, as you do now. You must not advise on pensions, investments or estate planning; that is our regulated advice, given under our FCA authorisation (No. 474163). Your job is to introduce and to stay in view. Your own permissions stay as they are, and the authorisation and compliance for the advice sit with us.

Why introduced clients stay

A client who holds a mortgage through you and has a pension being advised by your partner firm has two reasons to stay, and you connect them. Another broker would have to offer more than a lower rate to replace you, because your relationship now reaches into the client's long-term finances.

Competing on rate

If all you do is find a rate, a comparison site or another broker with a slightly better quote can replace you at any renewal. Being the client's route to wealth advice gives them a reason to stay beyond the rate.

Clients already on your files

Look at the clients you placed three, five or ten years ago. Some will have had pay rises, sold businesses, inherited money and built up cash that is sitting idle. Some have pensions they have never understood and questions they have not asked you, because they did not know you could help. Working back through those files is a good place to find your first introductions.

Questions brokers ask

Does introducing a client to E&G put my mortgage relationship at risk?

No. We advise on the areas you do not cover, and we work alongside you. The client stays yours for their mortgage and protection needs, you keep placing that business as you do now, and you see every introduction's progress in the partner portal. The arrangement is designed to keep you as the client's first call at the next renewal.

Why does a wealth introduction help retention more than a good rate?

A rate can be beaten the following week. A relationship that touches a client's pension, investments and mortgage at once cannot be replaced by a single quote. When a client trusts you as the person who connected them to sound advice on their long-term money, moving away means giving up more than a number on a mortgage.

How much of a client's lifetime value am I currently missing?

We would not put a figure on any individual client, because it depends on their circumstances. A client's mortgage work is intermittent and ends at completion, while the advice they need on pensions, investments and eventually their estate runs for decades and grows as their assets grow. Without an introduction, that value goes to whichever adviser the client finds. Through Pecunia, a share of it comes back to the firm that introduced them.

Do I have to sell financial advice to benefit from this?

No, and you must not. Selling or recommending pensions, investments or estate planning is regulated advice that only E&G provides. Your part is to recognise when a client has a need and to make the introduction. We take it from there, carry the regulatory responsibility, and keep you informed. You stay a mortgage broker throughout.