(3 Minute Read)
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the industry of financial advising is only going to expand over the next five years and is the fastest growing career in America. This means that existing advisors must stay ahead of the curve in order not to get edged out. Fortunately, there are plenty of avenues to do so. Here are a few tips to get started.
Give More Value to Get More Value
As you grow your business, you’ll have to consider how your fees grow with you. Analyzing how to make these changes is best done by the old adage: imagine yourself in the clients’ shoes. They judge your fees on how much value they believe that you’re providing. Although efficient, simply creating investment plans for your clients isn’t as effective as with working individually with each client in person to tailor a plan to their wants and needs. Another easy way to provide value throughout the process is to automate reports to reflect changes in your clients’ investments as they happen. Lastly, we all crave transparency, but especially with a person managing our money. You can give more transparency to your clients by providing resources on how various investment processes work and what they can expect. If you create content to educate your clients, you also have content to educate those in your community. Sharing your expertise at colleges and community events can help you generate, even more informed, in-bound leads.
Age-Diversify Across the Board
It’s important to hire across the age spectrum. The age of your advisors reflects the age of your clients. While you want to ensure you have seasoned, older employees to work with long time investors, if you aren’t hiring younger, you’re missing out on the opportunity to gain lifetime clients as well.
Now, in terms of who your firm serves, it’s important to keep seniors in mind. They’re a huge market but research shows that they suffer a lot of anxiety when considering their finances. Your team needs inside perspective, plenty of nuance, and plenty of resources to help guide this population. It’s an often unconsidered, worthwhile way to grow your company.
Think Outside of the Box
With the proliferation of technology and resources today to help people make decisions on their own, it’s important that your business learns how to compete. That means thinking outside of the box. Of course, that means like tip one, you’re providing not just information, but thoughtful resources on your website that can help your clients both learn and self-select. Once they’re informed, they can come to you with more specific requests and knowledge of how investing works. This ultimately makes your processes more efficient. But, just providing resources isn’t enough though.
You have to stay on top of trends, and know what other investors don’t, (?) especially when considering diversifying the age range of your clients. Younger investors want to know about the investing technology that will make their lives easier and older clients want to know about revenue streams they might not have previously understood. For example, many seniors don’t understand that those high premiums they’ve been paying for life insurance are actually an investment that can be converted to cash through the process of life settlements. If you’d like to learn more about the life settlement process, download our e-resource “Serving Senior Clients: How to Turn High Life Insurance Premiums into Financial Liquidity.”
Case Study:
Norman sold his business and retired due to health concerns. The term life insurance policy his business purchased was no longer needed and the term conversion was going to expire in a few months. Norman’s financial advisor suggested he explore a life settlement. Norman sold his life insurance policy for $80k and retained $20k in death benefit.
Leo LaGrotte
llagrotte@lsa-llc.com
317-863-5936
