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A quote from Russ appears in a paper that MMI just published. In this ground-breaking article, Russ and other industry leaders contributed their perspectives on the future of advising.
Comfort Zone is produced by our patented financial planning technology. It simultaneously evaluates your goals, investment strategy, assets, and all other financial resources to determine a level of confidence for you that you’ll meet or exceed your goals.
Financial advisors need an edge. As the industry changes, the battleground for keeping
and growing a book of business is being fought on two connected fronts – providing a
better wealth experience and deepening client relationships.
Winning this battle starts with asking clients great questions.
People don’t go to Starbucks for the coffee.
Millions of people make Starbucks a stop in their morning routines. They pass other
nearby shops with similar quality coffee in order to wait in line at Starbucks. Why do
so many people choose Starbucks? It’s not for the coffee – it’s for the experience.
Starbucks has created an entire brand identity around delivering a predictable, rewarding
experience for customers across their 13,000-plus locations nationwide. They’ve
mastered what’s been coined the “experience economy.”
Most financial plans are worthless.
They are created based on responses to a static survey in an effort to instill
confidence in a client’s retirement. They are evaluated quarterly and when the
markets move. They don’t reflect real life.
Every advisory business experiences growing pains. But with margins tightening and
competition for top talent at a premium, many advisors are enduring the squeeze and
delaying the critical choices about how to push their business growth to the next level.
As a result, these advisors are finding themselves over-servicing current clients,
chasing unqualified leads and managing nearly every aspect of business operations.
It’s unsustainable, and eventually something has got to give.
The challenges that plague nearly every advisor at some point along their path to
growth fall into four distinct categories. Fortunately, there are clear steps advisors
can take to turn these obstacles into opportunities.