Why Up To 72% Of Your Financial Planning Client Book Costs MORE To Serve Than It EARNS. - Pillar Client Services

An adviser told Brian McLaughlin he was about to disengage 300 clients because he simply could not service them anymore. He did not want to. He just could not see another option. Brian McLaughlin is the founder of Pillar Client Services, and he has spent 27 years in financial services, from Prudential through to Rathbones and Octopus. Two and a half years of MBA research took him inside around 250 IFA firms, and what he found was a time problem dressed up as a client problem. Firms know they carry a tail of clients who cost more to look after than they bring in. Very few can put a number on it at client level. Pillar Lens plugs into the back office system and does exactly that, showing what each individual client costs to serve. Pillar Client Services then runs the reviews on those clients under the firm's own brand, so the client sees continuity while the adviser gets the time back. The headline from the research, drawn from roughly 150 firms: between 44% and 72% of the average advice book costs more to serve than it generates. This one is for financial planners, IFA principals, practice managers, and anyone buying or selling an advice book. In this episode: The stat that stops most principals in their tracks, and why recency bias hides it Why "my best clients" is a feeling, and what the data says instead How 100 clients end up carrying 70 to 80% of a firm's revenue The three options every firm has with a subthreshold book, and why two of them hurt What clients actually notice when reviews move to a white label team How 340 hours goes back into a business, and what firms do with it Why a clean review trail protects the firm as much as the client Financial Planner Life is sponsored by Redmill Advance Whether you're starting out, already qualified, or building a training academy, Redmill Advance delivers expert-led learning, exam support and CPD from Level 4 to Chartered. ✅ Trusted by top UK firms 👉 www.redmilladvance.com/fpl Be sure to follow Financial Planner Life on YouTube for extra content about  career development within Financial Planning.  Want to appear on the Financial Planner Life podcast? Reach out to [email protected] Reach out to [email protected] in regards to sponsorship, partnerships, videography or podcast production.