Where is the Real Value of the Advice Advisors are Giving?

Building a relationship is the basic requirement that enables a trusted exchange of information to take place. Such a trusted relationship becomes even more critical when the information to be shared touches sensitive or personal areas of the lives we lead. Personal finance is historically one of the top no go areas for dinner table conversation. Although, there are people who will always tell you snippets of what they want you to know.? And yet how often do clients openly share details of their financial position with financial advisers just because they are financial advisers?

Very often the client will share the financial basics because that is easy but not the deeper life issues. In reality these life issues are driving the real financial concerns and questions they have. It is these deeper issues that need to be discovered ? the information is hard for advisors to discover and hard for clients to tell you about.

Here are a few thoughts of what advisors really need to know and what clients need to feel safe in talking about:

1. What do you know about the clients bucket list -? the things they want to do before being too old to do them?
2. What do you know about past mistakes the client has made because of poor financial decisions?
3. What do you know about the clients family financial history?
4. What do you know about the clients decision making style; do you know to what degree its driven by instinctive behavior,? emotions, knowledge, peer pressure or something else?

Risk profiling that is singularly directed towards investments wont answer these important questions. However, a behaviorally smart adviser who seeks to holistically understand the clients complete financial personality would be far ahead of the traditional advisor or investment manager. Advisers should position themselves to be selected by clients who want them to recognize and navigate their different behavioral styles and emotions. If advisers really want to build relationships and therefore their business they need to realize that independent research shows 93.6% of their role is managing client behaviors.

Tony Vidler in his article Why Sales Skills Matter More Than Ever comments on the findings of the July 2013 report titled Econometric Models on the Value of Advice of a Financial Advisor, by Claude Montmarquette and Nathalie Viennot-Briot:

...clearly there is a fundamental requirement for the professional to have strong technical competency
in order to be able to use sales skills effectively and ethically ? the adviser has to know why a particular
course of action is sensible before attempting to convince clients to take it! But apparently, the real
value advisers create comes from getting clients to change directions or habits. That requires the
strongest skills imaginable.

The face of financial advice is changing. The financial industry is asking questions about where the next opportunities are; how are advisers going to generate business, etc.. All valid concerns and all easily answered; financial advisers need to become more behaviorally smart, they need to be open to different right brained approaches if they want the best possible outcome for clients.

Now is a watershed moment in the world of financial advice. With the advent of tighter regulatory requirements, competition and the ever changing economic landscape,? the real response to these environments is to focus on knowing who your clients are and building strong, effective and long lasting relationships with them.? They in turn will become ambassadors by placing value on and talking about the client centered approach you have to providing them with advice.

Visit the Financial DNA website to learn more about building the relationship with your clients in the financial planning process.

• About the Author

Carol Pocklington

Carol Pocklington - Chief Insights Accelerator

Carol is a member of our research and development team assisting in the development of our behavioral products, blogger and author. She has worked with Hugh Massie since 2001 since the Financial DNA understanding concept was conceived.

Carol's DNA Natural Behavior Style is - Facilitator

Carol is a Facilitator. Facilitators are persistent, goal-oriented people who promote team effort in order to complete tasks. Facilitators lead by setting examples and by achieving goals. Their strong work ethic encourages others to excel and they have an excellent ability to deal calmly yet firmly with people using a facilitative style.