🪄 Everyone is chasing a magic number. Here’s the problem — it doesn’t exist. 🌈 🦄
Since launching The NexStage, we’ve been busy. Trains, taxis, trainers… teas and ☕. Speaking with different people – advisers big and small, platforms, CEOs, Chairs.
But in every meeting, no matter who we’re talking to, it’s not long before someone leans in and says a number. We’ve heard …. 1:2.
2.2:1.
1.6:1.
3.6:1.
Someone said 9:1 – with a straight face 🤔
Another admitted they couldn’t work out their number but knew “it had to change.”
They’re all talking about the same thing – the back-office:adviser ratio.
One CEO mentioned an adviser who only sees clients one day a week because the rest is swallowed by admin. Not sure what’s going on there 🧐
Another adviser wants to go from seeing 8 clients a day, 4 days a week, to 9. Can’t work out what’s driving that either – profitability or an internal prize…? 🌟
It’s become a kind of industry folklore – the search for the magic number.🪄
But what they’re really talking about is efficiency, profitability, growth.
Efficiency is on everyone’s mind, but for different reasons.
And the number is really just a number. It’s irrelevant to anyone else’s number, and hugely influenced by your business model, trading style, and client proposition.
The real question is: what’s the right number for your business, and is today’s number sustainable or desirable for the future?
What’s driving it is what needs solving. Admin. Processes. Systems. Data.
Everyone is stretched. Everyone is fatigued by change. And no one wants client service to slip.
In fact, historically, client satisfaction tends to go up when advisers have more support – not less. And that’s where the conversation keeps circling back to the same themes:
Standardisation. Automation. AI. For everything that isn’t the personal bit – the bit no system can replace. (An aside: one “guru” said 54% of advisers said they had fully integrated AI, but when he dug-deeper it turned out Ai was just meeting transcription and note production… 😟)
Which brings us back to what we, Claire and John, are actually doing. We’re not helping firms chase a magic number.
We’re helping them understand what sits behind the number 🧩 and what number is right for them, not the business next door.
And the way to do that is pretty old-fashioned: being in the room, listening, asking questions, assessing workflow and the people behind them.
So yes, there is a number for every firm. But it’s not universal.
The important thing is that efficiency should free advisers to do the work only advisers can do – putting clients at the centre of their everyday – not squeeze the humanity out of life.
And that’s why we’ll keep travelling, talking, drinking ☕, and keep helping firms find the number that works for them.
A number that makes sense.
A number that supports better conversations, not fewer.