The role of business development managers (BDM) in the financial services industry has evolved from a traditional sales approach to a more valuable and strategic relationship that is beneficial to advisers.
Two groups in the industry told InvestorDaily that revising their business model and approach was necessary to sustain long-term relationships with advisers.
Russell Investments managing director of intermediaries Patricia Curtin said Russell changed the role of its retail team last December and was so far receiving a positive response.
“We’ve reassigned our team as adviser partners who are there to help,” Curtin said.
“It’s no longer about going in, taking a piece of business and leaving.”
The traditional sales-based role of BDMs was obsolete if companies wanted to sustain long-term partnerships, she said.
“There’s a time limit on that style of doing business – the world doesn’t need any more product, so you’ve got to build trust from the ground up and then build respect for what your organisation offers,” she said.
Insurance provider AIA chief distribution and marketing officer Damien Mu said the group acknowledged the changing needs and requirements of its advice partners and, therefore, AIA had to evolve to be able to support its relationships.
“We looked at how we, as a partnering business, can support our advisers in respect to the way they conduct their business and support them to give out the best quality of advice,” Mu said.
The company recently rebranded its AIA BDM title as AIA client development manager and wants to make advice more effective in the current environment of regulatory developments and more sophisticated clients.
A better understanding of the adviser’s role was therefore required, Mu said.
“The model we had was traditionally around more of a sales model and focused mainly on product quota,” he said.
“We asked what advisers needed from us as a life insurance company and while it was still important to talk to them about our product development, what was coming through was that they were looking for outside product support, such as business planning, HR and marketing – a more client development model.”
Advisers have requested educational marketing material for clients and help in segmenting their client base to come up with targeted offers compared to a broad approach, he said.
“It’s not about having a product that we try to push out, it’s about how you can try to add value and how we can best support our partners who are ultimately having those important discussions and giving that advice to clients,” he said.
“Different advisers and practices have different needs so we needed a model that was flexible to meet that if we were going to be a partnering specialist.”
