Although technology continues to greatly change the way advisors do business there are some things that will remain the same whether we’re talking about today or 25 years from now
Recently, the head of Wells Fargo’s advisor business wrote about the evolution of wealth management and the role advisors will take 25 years into the future.
The first question advisors might ask of Mary Mack: Will mutual funds still exist or will ETFs have stolen their thunder? Legitimate question but that’s not what Mack was interested in discussing.
For her it all comes down to service.
“Twenty-five years out, clients will likely expect more from their financial services firms,” wrote Mack in Wealth Management.com. “Today’s millennials will be nearing retirement and looking forward to a much longer life span than their parents. Will we see cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease in our lifetime? I hope so. But with longer life expectancy, tomorrow’s retirees will need more resources to live out their retirement years in comfort.”
Technology certainly will play a part in how advisors operate their businesses.
“In the not too distant future, eye scans will determine everything we need to know about a person’s financial picture. A simple fingerprint on our phones already helps us buy groceries and pull up our airline boarding pass,” Mack wrote. “But will biometrics and other technologies be able to show us a person’s hopes and dreams—their goals for a financially successful life?”
However, no matter where technology goes over the next 25 years, success for advisors will come from caring about your clients and having the conversations necessary to bettering their financial lives.
“Financial advisors will have so many more tools available to them in the future, but they will still need to have conversations with clients. Those conversations may come in many forms, but they are conversations nonetheless,” said Mack. “The life of a client is not made up of one-dimensional transactions. Their celebrations, setbacks and all of their life events affect how financial advisors work with them—both today and in the future.”
