NOBODY KNOWS UNTIL YOU TELL THEM

I want to let you in on a little secret…nobody knows what we do! They think they know, based on whatever narrow experience they have had with "advisors" in the industry. But they don't. 

MANY people think we are stockbrokers or just investment managers. For some advisors, that is true, but as an Advice-based Financial Advisor, you do so much more! 

Others think you are an insurance salesman who has a few investments available because that's what they encountered in the past. 

A few may have actually read an article or two about Advice-Only Planning and think that is the "high road" in the industry. 

Nobody actually knows the full breadth of what you can do for them! You have to tell them. 

Advice-based Financial Planning is an evolutionary advancement that blends the best of all worlds into one flexible service model.  

The easiest way to describe Advice-based Financial Planning is "Advice first, product as needed." 

Because it's Advice-First, it focuses on planning and allows us to work with clients from every background and varied resources. 

It allows us to work with HENRYs before they build a nest egg. It frees us up to work with people whose investments are tied up in their 401ks. How about the divorcee whose assets aren't mobile but they need advice more than ever! 

Advice-First also requires a fiduciary obligation to our clients. Clients are beginning to understand that there are fiduciaries and there are salespeople. They don't really know how it works in practice, but they want a fiduciary! 

If that desire to seek out a fiduciary lands them in an Advice-Only Planning engagement, they may actually be missing out on the implementation support that the vast majority of clients need. 

Clients don't just need advice. They need someone to guide them to fully implement that advice and stay on track as the markets fluctuate and their lives evolve. 

This is where the Product As Needed part of the equation becomes so powerful.  Clients need an advocate in the marketplace to help them select the right product or investment. 

In an Advice-Only scenario, the clients get the recommendation and are on their own to implement it. The advisor may give them guidelines, but they are not enough to protect the client from potentially unsavory salespeople hell-bent on selling what they've got. 

Only advisors who work in the different insurance, annuity, and investment spaces can really understand the nuances of product differences.  

This is the beauty of Advice-First and Product As Needed. We may legally take off our "planner hat" and put on our "insurance agent hat" when we offer a policy for sale, but in practice, we owe an overarching duty of care to those clients because they paid us for unbiased advice. 

Advice-based Financial Planning is great for clients and fantastic for you as an advisor. 

You don't have to do planning as a loss leader to try to get assets or sell a policy (as many advisors do). You can build a profitable business based with significant recurring revenue based on advice, AND as you take care of your client's many insurance and investment needs, you will deepen the profitability of those relationships. 

But nobody understands this! It's not the way it has been done historically. They have no context for it in the industry. You have to explain it to them! 

"People don't know what they want until you show it to them." -Steve Jobs. 

Clients think they want an asset manager or an Advice-Only Planner. They don't know that there is another option to meet all of their needs in one trusted advisor. 

It's on you to go out into the marketplace and explain this! Your website, your Linked-In, your initial meeting with prospects… should all prominently feature Advice-based Financial Planning as a differentiator. 

You aren't like the guy knocking on your client's front door. You aren't like the insurance agent hitting them up for more product lines. You aren't the wealth manager hanging out at the club looking for whales with big accounts to roll over. 

You are a fiduciary who gives unbiased advice and supports the long-term implementation of those plans.  

My question to you is HOW, WHEN, and WHERE are you telling this story to your existing and potential clients? 

With Purpose, 

-Lucila 

PS It's hard to shift a paradigm. It doesn't happen overnight. I have seen amazing advisors implement Advice-based Financial Planning and then struggle to understand why they don't need account minimums anymore. The old way is so deeply embedded in us.