It’s extremely common for financial professionals these days to advertise how well they focus on their clients—and with good reason: After all, you’re probably more likely to consider working with people in just about any capacity who say that they will make the experience “all about you.”
The good news is that, in our experience, more financial advisors and wealth managers today are paying greater attention to their clients’ needs and concerns than they did a few decades ago. But although advisors have become better at understanding their clients on a deeper level, we see that advisors don’t always go far enough. In contrast, elite wealth managers actually use a process for becoming intensely client-centric—getting to know their clients extremely well so that they can offer a broad range of solutions that are both impressive technically and highly aligned with the results their clients want most.
With that in mind, it’s a great time to assess your advisors’ level of client focus and determine whether you’re getting the experience you want and need.
GAINING DEEP KNOWLEDGE
When it comes down to it, you want to see whether an advisor takes the time to truly understand you—as a person, a member of your family, an investor, or whatever the case may be.
One of the signs that can indicate that an advisor is client-centric is if they employ a process that helps them see you as a total person across many different areas. For example, consider the following form of client profiling that hones in on seven areas of a person’s life:
- Values. What is truly important to you about your money and your desire for success, and what are the key, deep-seated values underlying the decisions you make to attain these things?
- Goals. What do you want to achieve over the long run—professionally and personally, practically and audaciously?
- Relationships. Who are all the people in your life who are important to you?
- Assets. What do you own—from real estate to investment accounts, restricted stock to retirement plans—and where and how are your assets held?
- Advisors. Whom do you rely on for advice?
- Process. How actively do you like to be involved in managing your financial life, and how do you prefer to work with your valued advisors?
- Interests. What are your passions in life—including your hobbies, sports and leisure activities; charitable and philanthropic involvements; religious and spiritual proclivities; and children’s schools and activities?
Note that just one of the areas concerns assets. A full six of the seven are focused on helping the financial professional better understand who you are (and what you want to achieve) as a person, a spouse, a parent and so on.
The reason that’s important is because if financial professionals understand you at that deep a level, they can potentially be far more comprehensive in terms of the types of strategies they can offer you—and they can better identify the specific solutions within those strategies that really line up well with what you want to accomplish in your life.
Example: If all a professional knows about you is your investments and your retirement goals, the solutions he or she offers you will probably begin and end with those topics. In contrast, if that professional understands the hopes and dreams you also have for your children or grandchildren as well as the concerns you have about their ability to achieve those outcomes, the advisor can potentially craft a broader, more far-reaching plan.
Ultimately, you can think of all this as a process of deep discovery—about you and the people who are most important to you, and what you want most.
Conclusion
It makes sense to learn about the process that an advisor has in place to understand you. A process that seeks to help an advisor know you in a full and comprehensive way can be a good sign that an advisor “walks the talk” when it comes to being client-centric.
Fidato Wealth LLC is a Registered Investment Adviser. This brochure is solely for informational purposes. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where Fidato Wealth LLC and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital. No advice may be rendered by Fidato Wealth LLC unless a client service agreement is in place. Copyright 2018 by AES Nation, LLC. If you are not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are notified that any review, copying, distribution or use of this transmission is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please (i) notify the sender immediately by e-mail or by telephone and (ii) destroy all copies of this message. Please note that trading instructions through email, fax or voicemail will not be taken, as your identity and timely retrieval of instructions cannot be guaranteed. If you do not wish to receive marketing emails from this sender, please send an email to sayhello@fidatowealth.com.
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