When a client called on a Saturday asking about the capital gains tax rate to know whether to take an offer on a piece of property that had been for sale for years, he was surprised when Mark Lloyd called him back 10 minutes later with the answer. But it’s that kind of service that has allowed his financial and estate planning business, The Lloyd Group Inc., to grow from the basement of his home about 20 years ago to more than 2,100 clients and $150 million in money under management today.
“We’ve just watched our business grow even during these tough times,” the principal says. “It’s just been continuing to grow leaps and bounds each year.”
Smart Business spoke with Lloyd about how he’s grown the company despite the tough economy.
What’s the key to growing business even during tough times?
It is so easy to get depressed when you’ve got double-digit unemployment and you have a lot of uncertainty about taxes coming up down the road. A lot of people have chosen to be stagnant. We looked at that as opportunities. We’ve been focused on growth.
One of the main reasons why we do that is because we are educators first. We have always gone out to the community and talked to the people. Our focus has always been, ‘Can we make something better for our clients? Can we educate our clients in a better way? Can we offer something different then everybody else out here that we’re competing against?’ There are so many financial planners. They’re a dime a dozen on every street corner with every major firm that’s out there. What makes us different than them? That’s been our focus. If we can give the best customer service — not only promise the best customer service but deliver the best customer service — our business will flourish. If we fail to do that, we’ll be like everybody else.
