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Financial planning, Investment and Self Managed Super Fund Article
The 7 Key Traits of the New Generation of Financial Adviser
By Ian Hutchinson
1st August 2003
This article may be out of date.
Financial advisers are at a turning point in the evolution of the profession and must become more relevant and influential to clients or risk losing the central advice position. Managing a client's lifestyle outcomes, not simply their money, will become core to the future new generation advice model.
To these new generation advisers, the flat market is an enormous opportunity to become more relevant and valuable to their clients, not to feel threatened and insecure.
Best practice advisers will change the dialogue they have with their clients, right from the first introduction meeting to annual review meetings. The new generation advisor will ask more questions and have a more consistent, systemised process to clarity their clients’ lifestyle.
But financial planners are like most people: resistant to change unless there is a sufficient consequence for not changing. That day is approaching, when clients will challenge the validity of a financial plan to give them comfort and peace of mind. And clients will ask planners fundamental questions, like "How well do you really know me? How well prepared are you, your staff and your practice for that day? In fact, how prepared is this industry?
Here are the seven key traits of the new generation financial adviser:-
1. Get ‘Em, Keep ‘Em
The New Generation Advisor consistently maximises client acquisition, conversion and retention through lifestyle planning. By really getting to know the client’s lifestyle needs to a much more sophisticated level, greater than ever before, the new generation advisor can help the client achieve a greater quality of life throughout their life transitions and engage the client in a lifetime partnership of trust and understanding that means that you’ll get ‘em and keep’em.
2. “Yes please!” clients
The New Generation Advisor always looks at ways to increase client satisfaction by really knowing the clients lifestyle. They achieve a double benefit, in keeping in touch and constantly reviewing and communicating and in doing so researching their clients and gauging their satisfaction levels both formally and informally in the process.
3. Set free their UVP
The New Generation Advisor clearly knows and demonstrates their unique lifestyle based value proposition in everything that they do. The new generation advisor understands what clients want (a better lifestyle), and has developed the skills and services to provide clients with a better quality of life and communications it throughout all their marketing materials / communications from words used in client correspondence to even their receptionist tone of voice. The simple equation is Q1 x Q2 = I. That’s Quality of UVP x Quantity of sales & marketing = Impact on business. So set your UVP free!
4. Can / can’t control
The New Generation Advisor mindfully focuses on what they can control and doesn’t waste time on what they can’t control. They understand that they can’t control the economy, but they can control the client experience. The new generation advisor assists their clients and becomes the catalyst in achieving greater lifestyle success for them. They have more engaging interactions with their clients, use lifestyle planning tools and systems, stay in touch regularly, are reliable, proactively listen, coach, track and mentor their clients. They are aware that to be meaningful they can’t talk about finances all the time, but rather lifestyle dialogue and conversations are much for meaningful. The new generation advisor lets go of what they can’t control and turns what they can’t control into a winning competitive advantage.
5. More with less
The New Generation Advisor has efficient business processes and easy to use lifestyle systems that allow them to do more for themselves and their clients because they are proactive productivity perfectionists. They are always on the look out for more efficient business techniques and systems that can create more time, so that they are doing more with less, while also being a role model for personal work life balance.
6. Lifestyle role model
The New Generation Advisor is an excellent role model for their clients and have benefited from lifestyle planning through a better quality of life themselves, and “walk the talk”. They use and benefit from the lifestyle planning tools that they use in their business with clients personally which reflects authenticity, integrity and inspires and motivates clients along a similar path of success.
7. Tomorrows Skills Today
The New Generation Advisor constantly improves their skill sets, those of their team so that they are relevant to the evolving clients’ needs. 95% of advisors said that they would be actively planning the lifestyle goals of their clients by 2007. The new generation advisor already is getting the skills, the rest will be playing catch up. 90% of advisors say need to reskill themselves to stay competitive, but how many are getting training and education in client relevant ways that focus on what clients really want – lifestyle. The qualifications for financial advisors are still all very technically based rather than having a balance of both hard technical and more humanistic lifestyle planning.
* Ian Hutchinson (G.Dip.Psy, B.Bus, APS), is founder of Life by Design® (02) 9420 8280, or visit www.lifebydesign.com.au
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