The Best Question to Ask Clients – And Yourself

Cerulli Associates, a leading financial services market research firm, projects that more than one-third (35 percent) of financial advisors will retire in the next 10 years. In its wake, the next generation of advisors will inherit roughly $6 trillion of advisor-managed assets. This begets a crucial question: where will the industry find this next generation of advisors? As it stands, only a quarter of today’s advisor population is under the age of 40, according to the CFP Board, and of this, a mere 10 percent are under 35, Cerulli reports.

Why is the industry experiencing this new talent shortage? Of the myriad obstacles, poor industry perception and a lack of necessary structure to engage and mentor promising young leaders are two worth noting. However, they can be overcome with a commitment to understanding millennial preferences in the workplace and investing in the necessary resources to inspire today’s brightest talent to choose financial advising. It’s an investmentthat will deliver significant returns for both advisory firms and their clients.

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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?

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