- Define the growth you want before deciding which clients to prioritise.
- Build client groups around needs and service requirements, not just a single financial measure.
- Review pricing together with delivery costs, service commitments and the client experience.
Define the kind of growth you want
Growth can mean more clients, greater revenue, a more resilient business or more time for the owner to lead the firm. Those aims may require different choices. Before changing a service model, agree what the business is trying to achieve and the constraints it needs to respect, including people, management capacity and the experience it promises clients.
For an owner-led advice firm, a useful question is whether the next group of clients will strengthen the business or stretch an already difficult way of working. The answer depends on how those clients will be served, not simply on how attractive the opportunity appears.
Group clients in a way that helps decisions
Client segmentation is useful when it informs a practical choice. Start with differences in needs, complexity, desired support and the work involved in delivering the service. Financial measures can contribute, but using one measure alone may obscure why two otherwise similar clients need different levels of attention.
Create a small number of working groups and test them with advisers and support colleagues. Can they place typical clients without lengthy debate? Can they describe what each group needs and how the firm will respond? If the categories do not help people make decisions, refine them before introducing new labels into everyday work.
Connect the service promise to delivery
For each group, describe what the firm commits to provide and how that service is delivered. Include planned meetings, preparation, follow-up and the handling of additional requests. Then compare that description with actual working practices. The gap may reveal promises that are unclear, unnecessary variation or work that has not been recognised in planning.
Consider a hypothetical firm where clients receive different levels of ongoing support depending on which adviser they work with. The first decision may be to clarify the intended service and how exceptions are agreed. Changing prices before resolving that inconsistency would leave the underlying delivery question unanswered.
Make pricing part of the same review
Understand the resources required to deliver the service, including time from advisers, support teams and management. Be explicit about the limits of the available information. An initial estimate can help frame questions, but it should not be presented as a precise measure of the profitability of every client relationship.
Review fees alongside the service clients receive, the firm's commercial objectives and the practical consequences of any change. Avoid reducing the exercise to a target margin or assuming that more complex clients automatically need the same response. Decisions affecting existing agreements or communications require their own careful consideration and appropriate specialist input where needed.
Choose a focused next step
Bring the findings together in a short decision paper: the clients the firm is best placed to serve, the service it intends to provide, the capacity required and the questions still to resolve. Use that picture to guide marketing, referrals, recruitment and operational priorities. A growth plan is more useful when those choices support each other.
Start with a representative part of the client base rather than classify everyone at once. Test whether the approach improves decisions and can be maintained with the information the firm actually holds. The aim is a clear relationship between client needs, service delivery and a sustainable business, not a segmentation exercise that becomes another administrative task.
This article provides general business considerations for professional firms. It is not personal financial advice or an assessment of your firm’s regulatory compliance.
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