Insights
By: Alexandra Turner
Building trusted partnerships with families’ advisers - Two minutes with Lexie Turner
What is the value of a relationship with your client's family office?
Why do professional advisers refer business to Stonehage Fleming?
Those that we work with tell us that they come to us for our technical competence. While there are other providers of family office advice in the market, our longevity and in the sector and experience of supporting international clients with complex affairs inspires confidence in us.
What are the challenges to building relationships with professional advisers?
Oddly, one of our biggest assets as a business can also be a challenge. Some intermediaries see our extraordinarily broad range of services as a threat, that we might automatically direct their client’s business to our own wealth management or law teams, for instance.
In reality, Stonehage Fleming Law is one of the biggest ‘referrers-out’ of business. Different family members often require to be represented by different teams. In any case, we are 100% committed to finding the right solution for our clients all of whom have different needs and preferences. We invariably work hand in glove with their existing advisers or refer them to an external provider. We are comfortable with either or both.
How do you decide when and to whom you refer business outside Stonehage Fleming?
We would never do anything to jeopardise our relationships with our clients. To that end, we would only recommend that they work with a service provider – internal or external – if we think it is absolutely the right fit in regard to service and chemistry.
In practical terms, the needs of some would be better suited to a relationship with a regional, boutique accountancy practice and others may be better served by a blue chip, metropolitan, international firm
Not only is this to do with the size of the consideration but also factors like location, personal approach and cultural fit as well as adding value alongside the existing team
What is the key to a good working relationship with external advisers?
Good communication is the most important thing. But also, working as a team, not redlining each other’s advice, doing everything you can to be aligned with the clients’ best interests. Those for me are the most important things. If the client detects disharmony among their team, they will interpret it as complexity, conflict and cost. We want to achieve the opposite.
What do you bring to the market that others can’t?
The quality of our relationships. This is down both to the long tenure of our employees and our long-term client relationships. The two are linked. Our relationships are not transactional; we are – by definition – not focused on today’s deal but on preserving legacies and wealth across the generations. That is and has always been our main aim.
Lexie Turner, Principal – Business Partnerships, is responsible for building and managing our relationships with professional advisers.