The DFM sale has changed. More of the work is now with larger advice firms, and they don't change their panel often. A decision might come round once or twice a year, after a process that involves the investment committee, compliance, operations and whoever owns the proposition, as well as the adviser who started the conversation.
So the Business Development Director's job has changed with it. Knowing every adviser in the patch still matters, but it isn't enough. The good ones can hold a room full of technical people, and they run the sale more like a project, pulling in marketing, legal, product and operations at the right moments so nothing stalls between meetings.
It works when the whole distribution team is lined up behind it. Senior relationship cover at the top, regional people on the ground, and a post-sale team that gets the firm properly embedded once it's signed. When those three work together through the sales cycle and afterwards, the adviser firm feels one relationship. When they don't, the win leaks away over the following year.
That's the kind of team I help DFMs build.
The roles I place at DFMs and MPS providers
- Business Development Directors covering national and strategic accounts
- Regional Business Development Directors and Managers
- Directors of National Partnerships
- Distribution Directors and Heads of Distribution
- Client relationship and post-sale roles that keep firms embedded
Who I've worked with
I've placed Business Development Directors for Brooks Macdonald, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
How I work
Exclusive or retained, one brief at a time. That means a proper look across the whole market rather than the first ten CVs on a database, and a shortlist of people I've actually spoken to. Usually four, not forty.
If you're reshaping how your distribution team covers the bigger firms, I'd like to hear about it.