You've Been Framed

CHAPTER 6 Discovering Your Current Frame The ClientWise Conversation™

So here we are in the twenty-first-century world of the financial services profession. As explored in Part I, no longer is the advisor’s role to sell to the client; now it is to partner with the client. In a marketplace where a team is needed, no longer is it effective to operate with the mentality of a lone ranger rather than a leader. What’s more, a transformation is well underway, with advisors moving from providing a single product or service to offering a total wealth management solution for clients.

Whether advisors choose to deliver all of the products and services related to their particular brand of wealth management or not, being relevant in the life of the ideal client, knowing who they serve, and designing a total solution to meet the needs of that client are paramount. Even if the advisor outsources the other products and services, designing a total solution for the client is part of what the future advisory relationship will be about; it’s what will make the advisor and advisory team or firm relevant.

It is also time in the twenty-first century for advisors to review with their clients what kind of value they provide and how they do it. In today’s consumer-friendly marketplace, where the client has ample access to information, opportunities galore to do it him- or herself, and plenty of choices of whom to use as a provider of financial services, the advisor no longer has the liberty of simply ...