# The Business Model Beneath the Business



A company's business model and culture quietly shape an adviser's mindset, habits, and definition of success, often dictating their career path without them realizing it. To build a truly meaningful practice, advisers must look beyond external incentives and rely on an internal compass rooted in the genuine purpose of their profession.



*By Lionel Paul Chng · 30 September 2026 · 3 min read · [Web version](https://lionel.producer.today/papers/the-business-model-beneath-the-business)*



![#02/48: death of the incentive chaser](https://presso-app.s3.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/presso/projects/NemSBjxJ2xPSeP8TK/1790749262898.jpg)



### #02/48: death of the incentive chaser

## How Structure Shapes Mindset

When I first joined the industry almost 30 years ago, I did not realize that I could present products from different companies to my prospects and give them a wider range of choices.

At that time, hardly anyone around me was talking about business models. Most of us simply entered the industry, joined a company or agency, learned the sales process, and began working within the structure that was already there.

Today, things are entirely unique. Someone entering the financial advisory industry may have several business models to choose from, with greater flexibility in the products and services they can offer their clients.

That creates more opportunity. But it also creates a more difficult question.

Having more choices about how to operate does not necessarily mean we know which business model is best suited to the kind of adviser we want to become.

Looking back, my reasons for joining the industry were good. But gradually, another consideration began to carry more weight: how much I could achieve by joining one of the top agencies in the insurance company. Without realizing it, my view of the business began to narrow.

## Extrinsic Forces vs. Inner Compass

That experience taught me something important. A business model does not simply determine how an adviser operates; it can also shape how the adviser thinks and behaves. Which raises a more profound question: Who is really shaping the adviser?

In my experience, the strongest influence is often the culture of the group closest to us. The agency, team, or manager we work under can quietly define what success looks like, what behaviors are rewarded, and what eventually becomes normal.

A business model is not just about products, platforms, commissions, or operations. Over time, it forms habits. Habits influence judgment. Judgment shapes the adviser.

Which leaves me with a difficult question:

Did I consciously build my business model, or did the sales process quietly build it for me?

## The Real Business Beneath

It takes a certain independence of thought to step outside the system long enough to ask what kind of practice we actually want to build. Most of us are shaped by powerful external forces: regulation, incentives, management expectations, group culture, and even the buying behaviour of clients. These influences are real, and they are not necessarily wrong. But if they become the only forces directing us, then our professional identity becomes almost entirely extrinsically governed.

Perhaps the deeper task is to develop an intrinsic compass.

For a financial adviser, that compass begins with the purpose of the profession itself. What are we here to do? What responsibility have we accepted when another person places part of his financial life in our hands?

A mature business model should therefore do more than help us produce business. It should help us fulfill the purpose of the profession.

And perhaps that is the real business beneath the business.


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