Belvedere had grown their AUM considerably in the last few years and were proud of the service they gave. But clients were still seeing forms and disclosures put together years earlier, when the firm was much smaller and it was largely a one-person operation. The suite was communicating a lack of quality in an otherwise well run business. The job was to bring the things clients actually handle (the forms, the letters, the disclosures) up to the standard of the firm sending them.
UK Independent Financial Adviser
10-20
Seven client-facing documents, redesigned. Content reviewed and tightened.
2 weeks
Client Services Agreement Privacy & E-Marketing Notice Insurance Service Disclosure Beneficiary Form Client Capture Form Engagement Letter Privacy & E-Marketing Form
Start to finish, here's how I completed this project.
We'd already had the discovery call, so I knew what we were aiming for. Belvedere wanted their client documents to match the firm they'd become.
Enough to know the job, not enough to run it well. Too much still sat with the client: how the firm ran day to day, what was locked into their software, who signed things off, and the aim itself, clear in my head but not yet written down. Miss those at the start and you're back badgering them halfway through, which is the last thing a busy firm wants.
So we sat down with Belvedere for the onboarding call. It ran off a checklist, so nothing got missed. Some of it was what I needed from them. The rest was prep: I walked through the plan, wrote up the objectives so Belvedere could see I was aiming at what they actually wanted, and agreed how we'd work together, from contact to feedback to how hands-on they'd be.
By the end I had what I needed to start and the objectives in black and white. So the next job was the content.
Documents drift over the years. Rules change, figures date, the odd thing slips. With compliance wording you can never be too careful, so a second set of eyes that actually understands it is worth having.
My DipPFS background meant I could read Belvedere's service agreement and understand what it said, not just how it looked. So while I had it open, they asked me to look over the content too.
It turned up a few things worth flagging. Naturally I couldn't simply go changing the wording in a client agreement off my own back. So I put together a document of every single recommended change, which Belvedere could approve, tweak, or decline line by line. Nothing changed without their say-so, and it leaves a clear record for any future queries.
With content confirmed and the plan agreed, the next step was the look itself.
By this point I knew what we were building and why. So I could just go and make it.
And what I'd hand back would be properly made, not just nice-looking. A lot goes into a document working that you'd never think to check: legibility, spacing, how it holds up in print and on screen. It would do its job well.
But every client I've worked with has put years into their business, and I know the investment that comes with that. However polished a design is, if they've had no say in how it feels, it lands flat. My clients want a hand in it, and rightly so. So I build that in. Before anything's final, I put together an initial design for people to react to. It asks very little of their time, and it saves them staring at a blank page trying to describe something they can't picture. Looking at a real thing, it's easy to say what you love and what you'd change.
For Belvedere, I built a mockup from our earlier conversations, and we settled on how the finished suite should look.
With the direction agreed and the content signed off, I built the full suite in InDesign.
All seven documents used the same design: the same colours, the same type, all matched to the website. Before, they didn't sit together, each a little different from the last. Now a client can pick up any one of them and know it's Belvedere straight away.
Each was built properly for both print and screen. Most clients open these on a laptop or phone long before anything gets printed, so the digital version was designed on its own terms, not just a print file flattened onto a screen.
I build two rounds of revisions into every project. Once Belvedere had the finished suite, that gave them time to read everything properly, live with it, and make any final changes, with a round still spare. Nobody ends up stuck with something they're not quite happy with.
The result is seven documents that finally match the firm behind them. The paperwork a client handles at the point of signing now looks like it came from an established business, because it did all along, it just didn't show. And because it was built as one system, it carries across whatever Belvedere produce next.
The honest version is that I used to be slightly reluctant handing some of our documents over, particularly to a client who was still deciding. They didn't do the firm justice. James rebuilt them and it's now a moment I feel confident about. They look like a proper, established business, which is exactly the impression you want to give at that stage. He was easy to deal with throughout, which is part of why I've used him twice and will again.
— Jerran Whyte, Belvedere Wealth Management, Managing Director