Five mistakes I see in IBs who don't grow
When I review the portfolio of an IB who's been stuck for months, I almost never find a lack of work. I find the common IB mistakes: the same ones, repeated for months. And they all have something in common: none of them hurts on the day you make it. You pay for them later.
1. Treating every client the same
The one who trades every week and the one who hasn't logged in for a month get the same message, at the same time, in the same tone. It feels fair, but it isn't: you bore the active one and you don't wake the dormant one.
A portfolio isn't a list. Every client is at a different moment, and the job is knowing which one.
2. Only reaching out when you have something to offer
If your clients only hear from you when there's a promotion, a new package or a campaign, they quickly learn what your name on screen means: they'll read you less every time.
The relationship is built in the messages that ask for nothing. Those are what give the message that does ask for something any chance at all.
3. Getting new clients without fixing why the ones you have leave
Acquiring always matters. An IB who stops bringing in new people has a limited number of months left, and that isn't up for debate.
The mistake is a different one: bringing in new people only to cover the hole, without ever looking at the hole.
Do the maths. You start the month with 50 clients and 10 leave: you're down to 40. You bring in 10 new ones and you're back at 50. You worked a whole month to stay where you were, and the next one starts the same way, because the hole is still there.
With the same acquisition, if 3 leave instead of 10, you end the month at 57. The same new work, a completely different result.
That's why acquiring and retaining don't compete: acquiring only makes you grow once the leak is plugged. Until it is, every new client comes in to replace another.
4. Reviewing your numbers once a month
When you close the month and see it came out weak, there's nothing left to fix: the month is over. The information arrived late, and arriving late to your own numbers is like finding out a client left from the account statement.
A week can still be corrected. A month can only be regretted.
Log your numbers every night —it takes two minutes— and sit down with them once a week. That way, when something's off, you see it on Friday, not on the 30th.
5. Never asking why a client left
When someone withdraws and leaves, almost every IB does the same thing: nothing. It hurts, it's uncomfortable, and it looks like there's nothing left to gain there.
But that person has the one piece of information you can't buy: what failed and when. A short, honest message —without trying to win them back— gives you more than any analysis. And every so often, that conversation brings them back on its own.
Something like this: “Hi [name], I saw you withdrew. I'm not writing to get you back: I just want to know what went wrong, so I don't repeat it with others.” One question, no defence and no offer.
What they have in common
All five are comfortable. None of them feels like a mistake while you're making it: treating everyone the same feels fair, bringing in new people feels like growth, not bothering the one who left feels respectful.
That's why they last for months: because they disguise themselves as good judgement. The only way to find them is to look at them head-on, one by one, with your list in front of you.
Start with the third one, which is the hardest to see. Open your list and do one count: how many clients you had on the 1st of this month, how many came in and how many stopped trading. If the ones who stopped trading equal or outnumber the ones who came in, you already know where your month went. Then mark the three you haven't spoken to in more than two weeks and message one of them today. Without offering anything.
And if what stops you is not knowing what to say when someone is already leaving, I wrote about that here: Why your clients deposit and withdraw within days. And the ones that happen inside a single conversation, in three mistakes I see every week when talking to a client.
Your portfolio, organised: Stage 3 of the academy
In IB ACADEMY, Stage 3 —Retain and Multiply Your Portfolio— works on the first three: how to split your clients into groups by the moment they're in, which signals warn you that someone is going cold, and what to do in the first 24 hours. The weekly numbers are Stage 2. And retaining costs a fraction of what acquiring costs.
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I work with the IBs in our network so their community grows with a system, not with improvisation: attract, support, retain and organise a portfolio. Here I write about that work, with no income promises.