At Continuum PI is arranged centrally and we benefit from the real value in one common national brand with common, controlled processes.
Generally speaking, having good controls and efficiencies that come from common processes often result in better client outcomes as a whole.
And often good client outcomes lead to good referral rates from existing clients.
At Continuum the way we work with our partners is enshrined in our partner charter, and success thereof is measured via our net promoter scores, which measure client delivery and outcomes.
If this score is high, we are confident we are on the right track.
Culture
Having a good culture is important in any advice business, not least because the regulator keeps a keen eye on it.
What a national partnership model allows advice businesses to do is create a culture where the client, advisers, back-office staff and business as a whole are of equal importance.
But this does not mean putting in place a rigid structure. Partnerships can actually be remarkably adaptable when needed.
This is mainly because the relatively close working relationship between advice businesses, due to the uniformity of approach, means they tend to be open to learning from each other and hence can adapt to change more quickly.
This was highlighted to us when the coronavirus pandemic struck, with the first national lockdown throwing many advice businesses into chaos.
At Continuum we had everyone trained on both video conferencing and our non-face-to-face sales process within 10 working days. This meant we traded well throughout 2020, growing by 20 per cent that year.
Not for everyone
The partnership model may not be right for every advice business or adviser. But for us, we have found the model suits individual advisers who want to deliver their best service and outcomes to their clients.
In our experience, this is an individual adviser mentality and culture that you can only enhance and not teach from scratch.
In order for a partnership business to grow in this cohesive way it is important to be diligent in selecting the advisers, ensuring there is an alignment in philosophy. Brining on individual advisers rather than whole teams can help achieve this too.
The reason is that culture has to be there from the outset and a constant within the business. Advice businesses that have several employees or have not started with this culture will often have challenges in adapting their culture to suit.
Experience tells us it can be difficult for a network to embed culture alignment in their companies as each business will have its own culture.
We believe that our collaborative partnership model helps our advisers achieve the best outcomes for our clients.
