Six of us sat down to lunch the other day. Three men and three women and suddenly talk of marriage came up and we realised that three of those in the group had been married twice and the other three not at all.
On average we’d each been married once. And another interesting statistic that I considered was that of those who had experienced marriage, 100 per cent had been convinced of the benefits and had continued to believe in marriage despite the overall unsuccessful experience they had.
Similarly, your financial planning clients seldom say they have bad experiences or do not value what you do. It is really those without experience who surveys find are not convinced of the merits of seeking financial advice.
So how do we educate them? How do we tell the greater public what it is that a financial planner does and how it can benefit them?
The AFA’s “make a plan” campaign is a great start. What is the point of financial planning and how can it make one better off is a great way to introduce the idea. But the media tarnishing financial planners also needs to be redressed.
It’s a big like the chicken and the egg. Do we need to sell the idea of a professional financial planner before the value of planning or should the value of planning come first. Or is there a way of presenting both in concert?
Do we need to attract people to advice slowly, in a bit by bit manner – first advising on super or insurance and then a savings plan?
Distribution has become so much easier for most products and services since the explosion of the internet – but the regulatory system makes it difficult for financial advice. Perhaps when someone cracks it a new era will emerge and this will affect pricing and the value chain and the landscape as we know it.
Everyone is trying to get out there the best that they can – through bank channels, super funds, fund manager websites but it’s not yet cutting through to the clients that everyone is missing.
Can a government agency help, will an experience website do it – Red Balloon offering financial planning services for a family? Or perhaps ebay – what would the highest bidder pay for financial advice?
It’s a new world and we’re still working on how best to operate within our new parameters.
But it’s first mover who will win the greatest advantage – any ideas you can share?
According to research by CoreData/brandmanagement commissioned by the AFA in July it was found that financial advisers are highly trusted by the advised, coming in third behind doctors and dentists, although the unadvised awarded a much lower trust rating of 4.5.
Some well made points Julia. With well know brands moving into what would traditionally be unknown territory for them and performing better than industry standards–Google comes to mind with the mobile phone market–it’s a wonder no one has thought ‘we can do it better’ before.
Perhaps we can ask Fairfax ‘how much better they are doing it’ in a years time.
The issue is that we need to ease back on the promotion of Financial Planning and concentrate on discussing the issues which our community needs to address. So less about the profession and more of us as individual professionals raising things which need attention.
While it is important to lower the fees a client pays, it is as important to help the community understand how to employ the money they save to empower their lives.
How are we going to provide a flexable housing solution for as many people as need it?
How are people going to deal with the reality of mortality risk?
How can you better manage your cash flow?
There are many of these issues which need more public airing and how we are paid and how we extract the maximum Alpha needs less.
John Darwin