Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
Recently, an advisor based in a community of 500,000 people emailed me, seeking advice on a client appreciation event.
He has tried boat cruises, a car rally at a BMW dealership and VIP screenings of movies for his best clients, plus a few other things.
While he takes photos of the event, he is reluctant to put them on his web site as those clients who were not invited might be miffed.
He is thinking of an event for next year that all his clients, small, and large, could attend – since this would be a rather large affair, he needs to think of the cost.
He has thought of a summer picnic, but the weather could destroy the event, even in a roofed venue.
He has considered renting the arena where the local minor hockey team plays for a one-hour skate, followed by some sort of meal, but he’s concerned that not all his clients skate.
He ended his note: “Any thoughts would be welcome.”
Targeting top clients
It sounds like this advisor has done a good job of organizing events for his best clients – and suffers a bit from the “done it all” syndrome.
That said, I encouraged him to continue to run selective, by-invitation events targeted to top clients – the consistent feedback I get is that not only do these pay the biggest dividends in goodwill and additional business, but it’s often hard to get bigger clients out to “mass” events.
The challenge is breaking through – when it comes to events for top clients, you need to pick one of two strategies.
Either do something dramatically different that stands out – and keep repeating it, so it becomes your signature … or mix events up so they’re always fresh and different.
Go big or go home
As an example of a repeated “signature” event, every January one team based in another mid-sized community invites its top clients to a Friday night dinner and overnight stay at a local inn (owned by a client).
While not cheap, this generates huge feedback and goodwill – it’s become something clients eagerly anticipate. In fact, they get emails from clients planning winter vacations asking for the date so they can plan around it.
Along similar lines, another advisor and his associate (along with their spouses) host his top six client couples for an annual outing to an internationally renowned theatre festival located in a high-end town about two hours away – it starts with a reception and early dinner on Saturday, followed by a play, and ends with brunch Sunday morning.
Again, not cheap (he estimates the dinner, theatre tickets, hotel rooms and brunch next morning cost $5,000) – but clients love it and look forward to it each year … and he estimates that he almost always recovers the cost in the first 30 days through referrals alone.
As an aside, this doesn’t have to be an annual event. When it comes to communication of any kind, there’s a “go big or go home” syndrome – you’re better off doing a more unique and compelling event every two or even three years than a less memorable event annually.
