The fee model is not stated
Fee-only, fee-based, commission, percentage of assets, flat retainer, hourly. It is the first thing a sceptical prospect wants and the last thing most adviser sites say.
Websites for financial advisors
How you are paid.On the first screen.
Custom websites for financial advisers, built for somebody who has been told to get advice and does not know whom to trust.
Hale & Roth is a KustomSite design concept for the boutique law firm category. It is not a client project and the business is fictional.
The moment they land
They have come into money, or retirement is close, or a divorce or a bereavement has changed everything. They have been told to talk to an adviser and they have read enough to be suspicious about commission. The single most persuasive thing you can publish is exactly how you are paid.
What costs you jobs
4 things a template gets wrong here.
No minimum, so nobody self-selects
Somebody with fifty thousand and somebody with five million are different businesses. Stating a minimum is kinder than a meeting that ends in a referral elsewhere.
Written for everybody, therefore for nobody
"Comprehensive wealth management" describes every firm. Who you actually serve — retiring teachers, business owners selling up, doctors early in practice — is what makes somebody recognise themselves.
Credentials and regulation buried
Qualifications, fiduciary status where it applies, regulator registration and how to verify it. In a category with a trust problem, this is the content.
What gets built instead
Mechanics, not features.
The fee model, plainly, high on the page
How you are paid, whether you receive anything from product providers, and what a typical engagement costs. Nothing else builds trust as quickly.
Minimums and who you serve
Stated, so the wrong prospect self-selects out and the right one recognises themselves.
A page per client situation
Approaching retirement, selling a business, inheriting, divorcing. Written around the event rather than the product.
Credentials, regulation and how to check them
With the registration numbers and the link to verify. Inviting verification is itself the argument.
Fair questions
The reasons not to.
“Clients come from referrals”
And they research you before the first meeting, usually alongside one other name. Fee model and specialism are what that comparison turns on.
“Publishing a minimum will lose enquiries”
It loses the ones that end in a polite referral elsewhere, which cost you an hour each. It also signals seriousness to the clients you want.
“Compliance restricts what I can say”
It restricts performance claims and testimonials. It does not restrict explaining how you are paid, whom you serve and what an engagement involves — which is all the persuasion this needs.
Asked often
Before you ask.
What is the single most important thing to publish?
How you are paid — fee-only, fee-based, percentage, retainer or hourly — and whether you receive anything from product providers. In a category with a trust problem, nothing else builds credibility faster.
Should I state a minimum?
Yes. It loses the enquiries that would have ended in a polite referral elsewhere and signals seriousness to the clients you are trying to reach.
Does compliance make this impossible?
Compliance restricts performance claims and testimonials. It does not restrict explaining your fee model, your specialism or what an engagement involves, and that is where the persuasion lives.
Start it.
4 parts, and the trade is already answered when you arrive from here. Nothing is charged and nothing starts until you say so.
Build a brief for financial advisor