This is Your Wake-Up Call – Are You Prepared to Deliver Value in an AI World?

By Rick Swygman | August 5, 2024

I’m starting this piece out with a little personal perspective about a point we believe is vitally important. After more than 25 years working in the wealth management industry as an advisor, market leader, and executive leader, in early 2005, I left the industry for 7 years to work in a completely different field (education). When that adventure came to an end, my plan was to re-enter the wealth management industry and I therefore engaged in numerous interviews with several wealth management firms to find the right fit. What I recognized through those interviews was that very little had changed from the 1990’s in terms of the issues wealth management firms faced and the way they all went to market – e.g., the same value prop (holistic wealth management, team of experts, capabilities of large institution with local service, great people, etc.), same strategies, and the same approach to advisor training and development.

Based on that realization, instead of going back to the front lines with a single wealth management firm, I chose to join Greene Consulting whom I had hired three times over those 25 years given their passion and commitment to help organizations and their advisors drive revenue by delivering meaningful and lasting value to the clients and families they clients serve.

Over the last 12 years – despite significant advancements in technology, investment capabilities, and planning platforms – I’ve come to the head-scratching realization that the way most of our industry engages prospects and clients remains right where it was when I was on the front lines! All too often we see firms and teams that are using the same approach to communicating their value, and the same focal points on what they think is valuable as they did in the 90’s and early 2000’s.

For whatever reason, it seems that most advisors and firms are getting by doing the same things, with the same value prop, and the same strategies as were employed in 1995. But in short order, due to the advent of AI, our industry is due for a serious wake-up call!

“What made you successful before, will not necessarily take you to the next level.”

FORCED CHANGE IS COMING

SO, WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE?

In 2019 we initiated an Executive Forum with 25 of the best executive and market leaders we know and with whom we collaborated to isolate the most critical skills and disciplines necessary for firms and advisors to thrive in the new era of wealth management. Through that collaboration, it became quite clear that there were two key attributes that must be mastered and made a top developmental priority:

Intentionality– The importance of becoming fervidly intentional in WHAT you are doing for your clients, WHY you are doing it, and HOW you are doing it. Those advisors we’ve worked with who ARE rabidly intentional are leading the pack in terms of productivity and the impact they make on the lives of their clients. But more often when we ask advisors or their leaders how they go about consistently delivering meaningful value to their clients, we’re met with awkward silence or confusion. This lack of intentionality in our industry to me is frankly shocking given what’s at stake for the client, the advisor and the firm.
Emotional Quotient (EQ) – This is about the ability to effectively engage prospects and clients in a way that is so compelling, thought-provoking and “other-centered” that it leaves them thinking differently than they did before you met them, and thereby recognizing the unique value they are getting from you … beyond the tactics, solutions and strategies that are quickly becoming solvable by AI.

“The single greatest people skill is a highly developed and authentic interest in the other person.”

Bob Burg, Author of The Go-Giver

THEN HOW DO I CHANGE?

Whether you are an executive leader, market/team leader, or a front-line advisor, here are a few of the questions we pose to firms and advisors we work with that can help you assess how prepared you are for the future world of advice – particularly as AI continues to make in-roads into our business. We’ve found that clear and confident answers to these questions will lead to greater intentionality and the enhanced EQ skills that will be increasingly more important than your IQ.

How do you articulate to your prospects and clients the unique value they receive by working with you? And once articulated, can you concisely convey the process you employ to deliver that value?
Do you have a clearly defined Sales Process that you employ for new prospects, including the specific steps to it, the outcomes you are seeking to accomplish in each step, and HOW you will go about achieving them to provide immediate and recognizable value?
Do you have an objective benchmark for your Discovery process that assures you are gathering the full scope of information necessary to make a complete initial assessment of not only the prospect’s expressed needs, but also the unrecognized needs they might have and need to address?
If your intent is to engage your prospects and clients in a goals-based planning experience, how do you inspire them to engage in the process, and how do you scale that experience across your entire client base to ensure this goals-based planning approach increases your productivity?
Once you identify and confirm the issues your prospect or client needs to address, how do you engage with them in a way that leaves them motivated to address those issues with you?
In the Relationship Management Process, what specific strategies and tactics do you and your team use to expand existing relationships and develop lasting client loyalty and client referrals?

With the advent of AI storming onto the scene, it’s critical to up your game through greater intentionality in what you are doing and the EQ skills that AI will never be able to replace and set you apart from the pack. Having clear and confident answers to questions like these will help you do so.

Call to Action

With our passion to help our clients make a meaningful impact on the lives of the clients they serve, and do so in a way that accelerates productivity, we’ve developed the advisor2.0^© Forum, which is designed to equip firms, teams and/or advisors develop their answers to these and other questions that ensure they deliver differentiated and recognizable value in this new era of wealth management.