The Future of Financial Advice

Facing unprecedented situations in the markets raises stress levels for both advisors and clients. Fortunately, it’s still possible for advisors to have positive, productive conversations with their clients when the news is negative or uncertain.

Essential to this process for advisors is first examining how they do business. Face-to-face meetings shouldn’t be a requirement for a regular review meeting. Flexibility in how advisors deliver information to their clients is important.

For those who weren’t yet offering their clients ways to connect virtually, the spread of COVID-19 has forced our hands to explore options through channels like Zoom, Join.me or Go-To-Meeting. We can go kicking and screaming, or we can embrace this change and look for the opportunity. Now is a great time to add these options so that clients can still get the information they need in a comfortable setting.

We’ve spoken with many advisors over the past few weeks. It’s an uncertain time for everyone. But throughout these conversations, it’s become apparent that advisors need something positive to talk about with clients. After the longest bull market in history burst into oblivion, we can no longer count on positive performance to delight our customers. We have to dig deeper.

There’s power in community. When a group of like-minded people come together for a common purpose, the potential is limitless.

Chalice (the community) brings advisors together. CEO Keith Gregg kicked things off with some engaging and entertaining examples that highlighted the power of community. With the rise and mass-adoption of the internet, people find themselves looking to reconnect with the world around them. Advisors working solo or in a small shop can feel the solitude after a short amount of time. This community can help.

The current market correction has hit the industry hard. It's the steepest decline since 2008, and in the wake of a global crisis, the investment horizon has never looked less clear.

Multi-account management – ESG – asset location – AI – diversity in financial services – and personalized digital experiences. These were the key themes of this year’s T3 conference. The breadth of vendors focused on solving for these growing industry themes.

Clients come to advisors seeking strategies to maximize the probability of achieving their goals. In working with their advisors, they wish to evaluate trade-offs, understand risks, and see how their investments will work to achieve their goals in a simple, intuitive manner.

While digital investment advice platforms (a.k.a. "robo advisors”) rose to prominence by addressing an improved digital experience, they fail to fill the void of many elements, along with other uncoordinated strategies.

When an individual makes an appointment with the Social Security Administration, they often believe that the representative will be able to instruct them on how best to file and maximize their monthly benefit. In actuality, the representative is legally prohibited from giving any advice on how someone should file for their Social Security benefit, which could affect approximately 50-90% of their retirement paycheck.

Smart-householding is the art of creating an actionable investment plan based on the aggregated view of all accounts within a household. When an advisor uses smart-householding, they can reduce costs, manage risk, and increase tax-efficiencies of all of the accounts. We have examined why householding is important at a high-level (as it relates to devising investment strategies that result in the most optimal outcomes for investors), but let’s take a look as to why it’s the most optimal method of planning for advisors.

A high-level rundown of #NationalLinc 2020.

Invest in yourself. This was a key theme of this year’s TDAI Conference. Many sessions at Linc noted this as the key to moving your practice ahead in 2020. The advisor-client landscape is shifting to a hybrid of digital and human advice, and we need to dive deep into the technology systems that will help us create the best outcomes for our clients. The better you can leverage technology, the better fit you’ll be to manage the next generation of wealth.

Growing your network on LinkedIn helps build your brand awareness and form connections with potential clients. It’s also a great way to stay informed about trending topics and relevant news, but the best way to stay vigilant is to follow industry leaders.

With all the compliance rules that need to be followed in the financial services industry, it can be intimidating to leverage a controversial social media platform like Facebook. But once an advisor understands the necessary parameters that should be followed, they will come to realize how impactful Facebook can be to amplify marketing efforts, increase brand awareness, and offer engagement opportunities to prospects.