INFUSE THE NEW WAY WITH THE BEST OF THE OLD

Ryan Holiday wrote a blog about protecting the "old way".  We have instincts to preserve the way it was, and those can be healthy, but they can also be dysfunctional. 

It is likely the old way included some things that are valuable and some things that are detrimental. Few things are purely one or the other. He points out that the "old way" was once the "new way" that someone had to fight for.

This journey of preserving the old and welcoming the new resonates with me in reference to the financial services industry.  

The last two organizations I was affiliated with were very proud of having 50 years of history doing business in a certain way.  One organization had over 50 (now 60+) years of serving the military. The other had 50 years of doing planning a certain way.

Those are fantastic milestones. Fifty years of making a difference! But in both instances, dysfunction had crept into the processes over the years. They had not evolved to keep up with the times.  They were holding too tightly to the "old way," to the detriment of the client and the advisor.

In both instances, the old way was laden with fear-based sales tactics. The old way was highly scripted, and advisors were taught to be machines cranking out business, not authentic humans. 

In both instances, lip service was given to the client coming first, and behind the curtain, that wasn't true anymore.  The process had become dogmatic, and it served the companies more than the client. It had become about the sacred process and production above all else.

How do we preserve the best of the old way while allowing things to evolve into a better new way?

We first have to be willing to see the old way with fresh eyes.

-What was good about the old way? 

-What evolution did the old way represent at the time of its creation? 

-Where has the old way diverged from its original intent? 

-Where is the old way broken?

And with those fresh eyes, envision a new way that brings the best of the past with it into the future.

-The old way was face-to-face and built on a relationship based on trust.

-The old way evolved out of the stockbroker world and was meant to bring an ongoing relationship to a transactional business. 

-The old way was intended to be client-centric, but it became very advisor/firm-centric in reality.

-The old way focused on selling as many products as possible to every client.

I envision a new way that blends the best of the old and the new.  I created Advice-based Financial Planning to codify a new way of doing business that…

-Is truly client-centric and delivers significant value through planning.

-Puts advice first and delivers products as needed.

-Serves the client, advisors, and the firm they are affiliated with.

The baby doesn't need to be thrown out with the bathwater, but we need to ask ourselves what outdated ideas are encapsulated in the old way of doing business. We need to monitor ourselves to ensure we aren't dogmatically clinging the way it always was. 

We can bring forward the best of the old way and blaze a new path at the same time!

With Purpose,

-Lucila

Our industry is broken, but not irreparably so. It is up to us to come together and decide what we will keep and what we will change in the next iteration of financial services. 

If you want to be part of a community of like-minded advisors who have all committed to "be the change" they want to see in the industry, join us in the TIA Mastermind Group on Facebook! I hope to see you there.