We need them to abandon the machine work that has become such a distraction. Oftentimes, smart advisors use less than superior tools to do their darndest to serve their clients and in the meantime have lost human connection. It is time to alter our expectations of financial advisors. We primarily need to expect them to act in human, not machine ways, and in doing so more than earn their fee. What are the human things great advisors do?
I’ve sat in those rooms, and you have too. You know the ones, where some war-weary veteran of the good old days of financial services talks about how they used to walk uphill both ways in a blizzard to every client meeting.
How the account application was as small as a postcard. How they didn’t even have calculators and surmised rates of return on the back of a napkin.
We are all told that a return to such days would be a good thing for clients and advisors alike and that all of this technology “stuff” is simply ruining a business that at its core is about helping people save for their future, not do calculus.
But those are not the only rooms.
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To those who haven’t witnessed it first-hand, guardianship may sound like a heroic assignment in which bigger, stronger, more seasoned protectors keep individuals who are unable to fend for themselves. However, as the ragtag super hero team the Guardians of the Galaxy has come to learn, the reality of assuming guardianship (over a single person, let alone the entire galaxy) is far less than ideal.
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