Test cricket on Boxing Day is a South African summer ritual. This edition borrows from it to help you close 2026 well, say the right things to your clients over the festive season and walk into 2027 with a plan you can explain in one sentence.
This is our festive edition and it is written to be used. Inside you will find messages you can adapt for clients, the questions worth asking yourself before the office closes, a five-question client survey and a game plan for 2027. We have kept the festive touches light. The advice is meant to be practical.
In many South African homes, the festive-season lunch is barely cleared away before the cricket starts. On 26 December the Proteas walk out at SuperSport Park in Centurion to play England in the Boxing Day Test, the second match of a series that runs into the New Year at Newlands (England and Wales Cricket Board, 2026). They do so as world Test champions.
Test cricket is a good teacher for this time of year. It is the long format. Nobody wins a five-day match in the first session. A team can have a poor first innings and still win, provided it is honest about what went wrong and brave about what it does next.
In the World Test Championship final against Australia, South Africa were bowled out for 138 in their first innings and trailed by 74 runs (Ghosh, 2025). Few gave them a chance. In the second innings they chased 282. Aiden Markram scored 136, captain Temba Bavuma added 66 and South Africa won by five wickets on the fourth day. It ended 27 years without a major global title (International Cricket Council, 2025). Bavuma summed it up in four words at the presentation: “The first of many” (Ghosh, 2025).
Cricket also gives us a tool every adviser should borrow. Since 2008 players have been able to challenge an umpire’s decision and send it to a third umpire, who uses replays and ball-tracking technology to check what really happened (Nalwala, n.d.). Each side has a limited number of unsuccessful reviews, so teams learn to use them well. The best captains review when the evidence is on their side. The weakest either never review at all or spend every review on hope.
One more rule is worth knowing. When the evidence is too close to call, the original decision stands. Cricket calls this umpire’s call. Under an outcomes-based conduct regime there is no umpire’s call in your favour. If you cannot show the evidence, the decision stands against you.
Look honestly at 2026. The results in the scorecard below show where many businesses fell short. That is the score at tea on day one, with plenty of cricket left.
Client surveys and business assessments are your review system. Use them before you decide what to change in 2027, not after.
Test sides plan a series, not a session. Use January to write a plan for 2027 that everyone in the business can explain.
Clients remember how an experience ends. Psychologists call this the peak-end rule: people judge an experience largely by its most intense moment and by how it finishes (Kahneman et al., 1993). Your last contact of the year shapes how clients remember the whole year with you.
Thank clients by name and mention one thing you did together this year. People who are thanked feel valued and are more likely to help again, which includes referring (Grant and Gino, 2010).
Point to progress, not to markets. Clients value most the knowledge that their plan is monitored and kept up to date. Emotional factors make up about 40 per cent of the value they place on advice (Vanguard UK Professional, 2026).
The holidays bring families together. Encourage clients to share their plan with a spouse or adult children, check beneficiary nominations and make sure a valid will exists. Two in three South Africans do not have a will. Putting it off is one of the main reasons given (African Reviewer, 2025).
Remind clients that you will never ask them to change banking details by email or text message. Share your festive office hours with an emergency contact. Our November edition has a full out-of-office checklist.
Tell clients when you will be in touch in January and what you will cover. People are more likely to act on goals at a fresh start such as a new year (Dai, Milkman and Riis, 2014). Give them a date.
Dear first name,
As the year draws to a close, thank you for the trust you have placed in us during 2026. It has been a privilege to work with you on one specific thing.
The festive season is a good time to talk with the people who matter most. If you have not yet shared your plan with your family, or if your will or beneficiary nominations need a fresh look, let us know. We will gladly help in the new year.
Our office closes on date and reopens on date. For anything urgent please contact name on number. Please remember that we will never ask you to change banking details by email or text message.
We will be in touch in January to book your review. Wishing you and your family a peaceful festive season and a happy New Year.
your name
A gentle reminder: keep festive messages factual. Avoid predicting markets or promising outcomes. Personalise by segment rather than sending one message to everyone.
Before the office closes, sit down with the year’s scorecard. Ours comes from two sources: the FSP Business 4.0 practice assessment completed by 58 South African businesses (FSP Business 4.0, 2026b) and readiness polls at four industry events with up to 340 participants (FSP Business 4.0, 2026a).
Each stump rises to the maturity score out of ten for that area. Green and gold are the strong areas, red and pink the gaps.
Maturity scores out of ten, self-selecting cohort of South African practices, July 2026 (FSP Business 4.0, 2026b).
The pattern is clear. Businesses are well run day to day and strong on systems. They are weaker on direction: where the business is going, the culture that gets it there and the governance that holds it to account. That gap carries a price. Australian practices with a documented strategic plan earned 125 per cent more profit per principal than those without one (Business Health, 2022, cited in FSP Business 4.0, 2026b).
Each ring fills to the share of poll respondents who gave that answer.
Response-weighted results from four South African industry polls, 2026 (FSP Business 4.0, 2026a).
The Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill had still not been tabled in Parliament at the end of September 2026, more than five months after notice of its introduction (Moonstone, 2026). As we argued in September, waiting does not count as preparation. Use the pause to close the gaps above.
Most advisers believe their clients are happy. In our polls, 84.9 per cent of respondents rated their own client engagement above seven out of ten (FSP Business 4.0, 2026a). Clients are rarely asked to confirm it. Many unhappy clients never complain. They simply engage less, stop referring and eventually move their money (Coulter, 2005, cited in FSP Business 4.0, 2026c).
The business case is old and still strong. Across the service industries they studied, Reichheld and Sasser found that reducing customer defections by five per cent lifted profits by 25 to 85 per cent (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990). Surveys also reveal what clients value, which is often not what advisers expect. Investors in a large study judged their adviser mainly by the sense of security, the peace of mind and the adviser’s knowledge of their situation rather than by portfolio returns (Murphy, Lamas and Sin, 2020).
Ask new clients whether the first meeting helped them feel understood. If the answer is no, the usual cause is that the adviser talked more than the client did.
Ask how often clients want contact and through which channel. Contact patterns are one of the most common sources of quiet frustration.
Slow replies, confusing documents and awkward onboarding are usually small fixes with a large effect on how clients feel about you.
Question one is the single recommendation question made famous by Reichheld (2003). Send the survey with your festive note or straight after your last review.
The survey is only half of the review. In January, write to clients with three things they told you and what you will change as a result. “You told us, so we changed” is one of the strongest engagement signals a business can send.
For a deeper view, the 360 adviser survey asks you and your clients the same six questions. The gap between how you rate yourself and how clients rate you is where the learning sits (FSP Business 4.0, 2026c).
Tip: keep surveys anonymous where you can, share the results with your whole team and repeat the same questions next December so you can measure progress.
Before a Test series, selectors do three things. They read the conditions, they pick the right players for them and they agree a plan for the whole series rather than the first morning. An advice business can use the same three steps in January.
The regulator’s plan to March 2029 puts governance, fit and proper requirements, risk management and complaints at the centre (van der Vyver, Sibanda and Pillay, 2026). Clients are shifting too. Adviser use among employed South Africans fell from 45 to 40 per cent in a year (Old Mutual, 2026).
Decide who owns what in 2027. Under the new conduct regime the governing body is accountable for conduct outcomes. Match people to roles, check capacity and give each priority one owner.
Write a one-page plan with three to five priorities. Australian practices with a twelve-month operational plan earned 172 per cent more profit per principal (Business Health, 2022, cited in FSP Business 4.0, 2026b).
Clients are open to the conversation. More than half of employed South Africans are not sure whom to turn to for financial guidance (Old Mutual, 2026). A business with a clear plan is well placed to be that answer.
In our polls 78.0 per cent of respondents were at or beyond capacity (FSP Business 4.0, 2026a). Captains rotate their fast bowlers through a long summer for good reason. Plan leave now, protect family time over the holidays and build two quieter weeks into the 2027 calendar.
Every FSP Business 4.0 subscriber has 50,000 free tokens for artificial intelligence reports and analysis inside the platform. Run an assessment, generate the report and see what the tools can do with your own business data.
Thank you for playing the long game with us this year. We wish you and your families a peaceful festive season, a proper rest and a strong second innings in 2027.