How many times have you gone on to look into a brand or product that a friend or family member has raved about?

You won’t be alone. There are countless studies that have found a positive correlation between recommendations from people you trust, and your likelihood of making a purchase.

And in the digital age, what we think of as a friend might be changing too. Unlike old-school celebrity endorsements, social media gives people access to interact with influential names online – meaning these people feel more ‘real’, and they often feel more like peers or even – you might say – ‘friends’. It’s this phenomenon that’s led to the rise of influencer marketing: brand ambassadors with highly engaged but (often) relatively small audiences in absolute terms.

That said, these audiences are still orders of magnitude larger than your typical adviser customer database. And since you’re busy enough already, you’ll be glad to hear you needn’t devote huge amounts of time cultivating your online persona. Because you’re an adviser.

After all, humans are fundamentally lazy creatures. So are we likely to view those who help us with onerous tasks as our friends? We’ll let you decide. But as advisers, you’re uniquely situated to support customers through one of the most emotionally challenging times we go through.

If you help out your customers with part of the process they may be stressing about (for instance, finding a conveyancer), they’re more likely to view you as someone they can trust – meaning more repeat business for you, and deeper relationships that maximise your revenue generation.

PMS gives you access to trusted partners

As a member of PMS, you don’t just get access to exclusive mortgage deals as part of our mortgage club. You also get access to the selection of trusted providers who make up Zenith protection solution – and since Consumer Duty means it’s on you to protect your customers against foreseeable harm, you should always be having a protection conversation with your customers.

But we also have relationships with many other trusted partners too, and a referral or introduction to one of these can not only save your customers time, effort and stress, but earn you a referral commission too.

Whether you write business yourself (as in the case of our general insurance partners) or merely make a referral (to one of our conveyancing and surveying partners), there’s opportunities for revenue generation. 

Foster your own trusted partnerships beyond PMS

When the property market is a little quieter than usual, proactive advisers are often the most successful. 

Take a leaf out of our book and start cultivating your own trusted partnerships, then make referrals back and forth between yourself – both as a way of generating new leads for both parties, and with the potential for referral commissions in both directions. Many advisers already have relationships like this with estate agents.

And as someone adjacent to the property industry, it may make sense to continue developing relationships with others whose work related to moving and renovating: like removals companies, builders/tradespeople, and even local self-storage facilities.

Beyond that, considering reaching out to local employers to offer your services as an employee benefit – perhaps offering a discounted service to generate new business.

Pick up more guidance about how to make the most of your business at one of our free events.