Welcome back to the 374th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Dianne Nolin. Dianne is the Managing Partner of Argent Bridge Advisors, a hybrid advisory firm based in Vienna, Virginia, that oversees $500 million in assets under management for 350 client households.
What’s unique about Dianne, though, is how she has been able to both expand the marketing of her firm, and its profitability, by taking the divorce financial planning work that has been a loss leader service of the business for years, and turning it into a positive revenue diversifier, by getting clear on the value that Dianne’s divorce clients really were already receiving, and getting more focused about actually charging for all of the time that she and her team were spending with and behalf of their clients.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Dianne became conscious of the service offerings of the firm, the impact it has had on clients over the years, and how that realization has allowed Argent Bridge to start to more accurately bill for the actual time spent with each and every client, how sticking with a client through their divorce and transitioning into a post-divorce financial planning offering has become a core growth pipeline for Argent Bridge to establish new client relationships, and how staying focused their coaching with, advocating for, and providing services to the divorce community, has increased their referability in the divorce niche, further accelerating the growth of their pipeline to create more long-term post-divorce AUM clients as well.
We also talk about Dianne’s transition from a firm that had no formality to partnership or a path to ownership to establishing one for herself in which every partner has a seat at the table and a say in every one of the so-called “50-year” long-term decisions facing the firm, Dianne’s realization that if you get clear on your value and can communicate it clearly to both new or even existing clients, they don’t mind paying for it, even if they haven’t been before, and how, through the growth of her career, Dianne came to the realization that she didn’t have to know it all, she just needed to know who to go to for the answers that her clients were seeking.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Dianne shares how it was sitting down with a new, young client, and discovering she knew far more than the client – and far more than she realized – that she finally allowed herself to believe it, how Dianne has focused more on client relationships and really knowing each client personally than trying to know the most about the industry’s products (and instead just making sure she knew the people to ask if she needed product answers), and how Dianne ultimately discovered that building her own advisory business wasn’t as complicated as she’d anticipated it being, due to the team she’d already built around her, that came with her when she was ready to get started on her own.
So whether you’re interested in learning about how to properly communicate your value to clients who don’t mind paying for it, transitioning to a firm with a clear path to ownership and a seat at the table for every partner, or how belief in the things you know will always make you the expert in the eyes of your clients, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Dianne Nolin
