A Client Segmentation Model by Complexity, Not Just Portfolio Size

A client with $1.2 million sitting in a single super fund and nothing else going on is, honestly, a simpler advice engagement than a client with $400,000 across a family trust, a small business, an investment property and a blended family. But most practices still segment marketing content and service tiers by dollar figure, because it's the easiest number to pull from the CRM. The result is content that talks about "wealth" in the abstract instead of the actual thing keeping a prospective client up at night. 💖 Portfolio size tells you what someone has. Complexity tells you what they need — and needs are what people actually search for, ask friends about, and eventually pay to solve.

What most practices get wrong

Segmenting by AUM makes sense internally for revenue forecasting, but it leaks into marketing in unhelpful ways — "high net worth" landing pages that talk in vague, aspirational language instead of naming a specific structural problem. It also means practices under-market to clients who are complex but not yet wealthy: a young business owner with a company structure and a growing family is exactly the kind of client worth investing in early, but a portfolio-size lens filters them into the "low priority" bucket where they get generic content and slower follow-up.

The flip side is just as costly: treating every large-balance client as automatically complex leads to over-servicing simple clients and under-pricing genuinely complicated ones, which shows up later as scope creep and adviser burnout rather than as a marketing problem — but it starts as one, because the marketing promised the same experience to everyone regardless of their actual situation.

How to actually do this

1. Run the worksheet across your existing client base first. Use whatever notes or fact-find data you already have — you don't need a fresh interview for every client to get a rough tier.
2. Map your current content and lead magnets against the tiers. Most practices discover they have plenty of Foundational-tier content and almost nothing for Integrated-tier prospects.
3. Write one core piece of content per tier — a landing page section, a downloadable guide, or an email sequence — using the language from your scoring criteria, not generic "wealth" language.
4. Adjust your enquiry form to ask two or three questions that let you roughly score a new lead before the first call (e.g. "Do you run a business or have any trusts/companies?").
5. Route enquiries to the right first meeting format — Foundational-tier leads might suit a shorter intro call; Integrated-tier leads may need a longer scoping conversation before a formal engagement is even proposed.

Mistakes to avoid

• Using the worksheet to gatekeep who you'll take on, rather than to sharpen how you market and communicate with them.
• Assuming higher complexity always means higher value — some Integrated-tier clients are complex but low-margin, and some Foundational-tier clients are simple but highly profitable and loyal.
• Building content for every tier at once instead of starting with the tier that's currently underserved in your existing content library.
• Letting the CRM tag go stale — if nobody owns updating it, it becomes as meaningless as the old AUM bracket it replaced.
• Forgetting to brief your referral partners (accountants, brokers) on the tiers too — they're often the ones spotting complexity jumps before you do.

Frequently asked questions

Isn't portfolio size still relevant at all?

Yes — it still matters for pricing, capacity planning and revenue forecasting. The point isn't to throw it out, it's to stop using it as your marketing segmentation when it doesn't predict what content or messaging someone will respond to.

How long does it take to score an existing client base?

For a book of a few hundred clients, expect a few hours using existing fact-find notes rather than fresh interviews — it's a rough sort, not a forensic audit, and it doesn't need to be perfect to be useful.

Will this model work for a solo adviser as well as a multi-adviser practice?

Yes, arguably it's even more useful solo, since you can't rely on different advisers naturally specialising by complexity — the worksheet forces the segmentation to be explicit rather than living only in your head.

Does complexity-based segmentation replace formal risk profiling or fact-finding?

No — it's a marketing and content-planning lens, not a substitute for proper fact-finding, risk profiling or advice documentation, which still needs to happen in full regardless of which marketing tier a client sits in.

Keep reading 🤍

• How to Market a Risk Insurance Advice Practice
• A 12-Month Content Calendar for Financial Planners
• Lead Magnets for Financial Planners: What Works (and What Compliance Rules Out)