The core focus of most licensees at the moment is growth; growing planner numbers, and growing clients.

Some are pursuing a growth by acquisition strategy, whereby practices are reportedly being offered inordinate amounts of money to move across to a new licensee.

Regardless of the package and the promises (because let’s be honest, they’re all pretty much the same); success here hinges on whether or not your pockets are deep enough to make you the highest bidder.

This strategy assumes you can buy a planner’s love, which might be true in some cases, but only to a certain extent.

Frederick Herzberg argued in his Two Factor Theory that salary is a hygiene factor (a maintenance factor necessary to avoid dissatisfaction but that in itself does not provide satisfaction).

There’s also plenty of research to suggest that money does not buy happiness. Although there is evidence to support the fact that people who have a financial planner are happier, in large part due to the fact that they have certainty around their financial future – the ‘sleep at night’ factor.

But faced with the pressures of modern day society, one could argue that in fact an attractive remuneration package or a hefty pile of cash upfront is a pretty big carrot – especially considering the intense cost pressure from clients and regulatory reform that is set to further increase the compliance burden, not to mention PI premiums.

Yet even if you’re successful at luring planners using a money-buys-love approach, the stumbling block here is that it’s pretty damn hard to buy loyalty.

So how do you manufacture loyalty among a newly acquired planner base?

Ultimately, it comes down to trust and authenticity. Authenticity is essentially a combination of truthfulness (are you who you say you are?) and reliability (do you do what you say you’re going to do?)

Each touch point you have with the planners must reinforce the way in which you are delivering value to them, their business and their clients.

Building trust and loyalty is about having open and honest communication channels, delivering a high quality, reliable and relevant service (according to CoreData research, service drives more than 60% of adviser satisfaction with their licensee) and creating a shared vision of the network.

Licensees that are able to offer all of these things will increase engagement and retention among their planner networks – and save themselves money at the same time.