Sometimes Financial Advisors Growth Is At The Expense Of Their Clients – A Marketing Fable
Once upon a time, in a town not far away… there was a little general store. It was a nice little store, full of things that you need every day, like bread and butter and soap and potatoes. It also had things you don’t need very often such as glue and seed and axes but were appreciated by the customers.
The best part about the store was the very nice people behind the counter, Mr and Mrs Chumly. Whenever I went in, they would always say “Hello, how are you today Timmy?” It didn’t matter who came in, they always knew who they were and said hello to them by name.
Outside the store was a petrol pump and cans of oil. When Dad needed petrol, he would stop for a while and chat to Mr Chumly. Whenever I had to go there for Mum, she would give me a list of the things she needed for the week. I would hand Mr Chumly the list and he would walk around behind the counter picking each item off the shelves.
He knew us quite well, because sometimes he would say things like “The list just says ‘soap’, but not what kind. It’s lucky I know that ‘Skin-off’ is her favourite, so I’ll give her that one” or at another times he would say “Your mum’s having another baby next week, so I’ll add some extra tins of food so you can look after yourselves while she recovers.” He never had a very big range of things, but always seemed to have the ones we needed. Mum and Dad would run out of money sometimes, so Mr Chumly let them ‘book-it-up’ until they could pay for it. He even sent us a Christmas card each year.