You know that thing they say about waiting ages for a bus?

Well hold that thought for a moment while I tell you that, in a study carried out by Schroders last year, two-thirds of UK advisers said they were anxious about losing business as a result of the great wealth transfer – up from 59% in 2022.

It’s not hard to see why. Right now, around £115bn is said to be passing between generations in the UK every year. By 2047, that figure could reach £355bn annually.

And here’s the connection with buses: just when some advisers are worrying about where the next wave of clients might come from, along come three regulatory and promotional initiatives, all at the same time, which could be a tonic to this very problem.

This year we’ll see the implementation of targeted support, the launch of a multi-year retail investment campaign and the rollout of pensions dashboards. Together, these could generate the most significant spike in public attention for pensions and investing since auto-enrolment was introduced.

“All three initiatives offer a unique chance for ambitious advice firms to get in front of new clients, without having to fork out thousands to fund a promotional campaign themselves.”

The risk and the opportunity

Major brands are busy positioning themselves to support the investment campaign, which already has the backing of the Treasury, FCA, Money and Pensions Service and the Investment Association.

Of those major businesses supporting the investment campaign, a number will also be building dashboards. And many of them will have no problem in meeting the £500,000 in available capital that’s required to offer targeted support.

For advice practices, this represents a risk. If your firm isn’t visible and relevant when consumer curiosity spikes your future clients, including the children of existing clients, will build relationships with those brands before you get a look-in.

Meanwhile data from the lang cat has found just 9% of UK adults have paid for regulated financial advice, so the pool of potential new clients ought to be extensive.

Despite that advice gap, and the rising anxiety about losing clients, the Schroders survey I mention above also revealed the vast majority of advice firms have no marketing plans to reach new clients as a result of the wealth transfer. And that’s before we consider the ‘overspill’ effect that’s likely to result from targeted support and pension dashboards.

Yet together, all three initiatives offer a unique chance for ambitious advice firms to get in front of new clients, without having to fork out thousands to fund a promotional campaign themselves.

Be more Nike

This point in time represents a chance for firms to pursue a form of guerrilla marketing.

The kind of marketing exemplified by Nike’s response when Adidas paid £100m to sponsor the 2012 London Olympics. Its ‘Find Your Greatness’ campaign featured everyday athletes from towns and cities named London all over the world, and outperformed Adidas in global brand recall without ever mentioning the Games.

The good news is you don’t need Nike-sized budgets to pursue Nike-sized ambitions.

The most important thing? Be relevant, be ready, and be distinctly yourself.

The temptation, we know, is to get busy. Post on LinkedIn. Chase recommendations through generative AI. Create content for content’s sake. But busy-ness without direction is how opportunities like this get wasted.

Before you do any of that, take a moment.

There are four things worth getting clear on first:

• Who exactly you want to reach
• What you understand about their relationship with financial decision-making
• What a genuinely distinctive approach might look like for your firm
• How you time your activity to coincide with the three big initiatives as they land.

Take time to get these four things right, and you too can get on board the bus.

We’ve written a paper to help advice practice principals and leaders think this through. You can download it by following the link.

Maxine Cameron is co-founder at New Tradition