Sometime ago there was a man who approached me on protection planning and investment. After having some discussion and so on, I found that he was a "shopper" approachng a few advisers. One of them happens to be my colleague. That is fine since all clients must do their due dilligent. Later I found out that he ends up buying insurance from someone else (not my colleague) despite the hours spent (my colleague spent more time on the case than me although I believe I was the first adviser the client met). Later on the client decided to engage my service for investment but was only willing to park a small amount. I decided to decline him. Reasons are:

1. Just as it is the right for the client to choose his adviser whom he wants to engage, it is also the right of the adviser to choose the client whom he wants to help. The rights of choice applies equally to all parties.
2. I recommended superior insurance products, there is no reason why he did not buy insurance from me. There is nothing wrong with the insurance products per se. It must be because of me perhaps having lack of  "chemistry" with this person.
3. The investment amount is so small that it can hardly pay one day's worth of my family expenses and yet I would need to take care of this client for a long term basis.

If the client had bought insurance from me, I would help him in his investment to the best of my ability. Just as it is the client to choose his adviser, the adviser also has the right to choose his client. Therefore with much consideration after 1 week I have to decline the small investment amount.

To prevent misunderstanding, these days I'll specify clearly that (1) I'll charge a fee according to the work done - regardless of whether the client buys anything or not (2) That investment amount must have certain minimum and that client an Accredited Investor (AI).

Actually, although I have stipulated clearly my minimum amount and the client needed to be AI, I still get request from clients to do small sum investment. Other than the above case, I don't recall refusing anyone. The smallest lump sum investment was $0 with the RSP $200/month.