8) The financial services bureaucracies and regulatory bodies will try, but fail, to prevent entrepreneurial advisors from developing their own privately branded unique processes. The best, brightest and bravest financial advisors in all sectors will increasingly decide to develop their own unique processes. Most head office bureaucracies, sensing a dramatic loss of talent and control, will use financial and legal means to prevent this exodus from their standardized structures and processes. Regulatory and political bodies will be asked to intervene to protect "the integrity of the industry." Advisors will be threatened with lawsuits and loss of accreditation, but, in the end, these efforts will be to no avail. Over time, the most entrepreneurial individuals will opt for greater value creation, opportunity, success and freedom. At the same time, some adaptable companies will transform themselves by developing strategic alliances with unique process advisors.
9) Those financial advisors with successful unique processes will increasingly become immune to the forces of competition and commoditization. A unique process by its very nature, and with copyright and trademark protection, cannot be copied or duplicated by anyone else. The advisors who develop their own unique processes will, with one investment and one strategy, bypass all of the obstacles and frustrations caused by commoditization of the financial services industry. They will find, as they communicate with existing clientele and prospects, that they have little or no competition: Everyone else will still be trying to peddle commodities. Regardless of how the marketplace and industry change in the future, their Unique processes, once established, will continually grow in depth, scope, value creation, reputation and profitability.
10) The advisors with the most successful unique processes will be able, if they choose, to relinquish their licenses and escape from regulation. A growing number of advisors are discovering that their unique processes are in great demand in the marketplace. The reason is obvious: To an increasing degree, consumers are frustrated with the reduced value creation that is taking place in a depleted industry. Increased numbers of clients and customers are demanding what Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin call "psychological self-determination." That is, the ability to feel that they have greater ownership of their personal and financial futures. This is the last thing that any commoditized industry can provide. On the other hand, psychological self-determination is exactly what is provided to a growing number of consumers within the unique processes being developed by financial advisors. The demand for this kind of value creation is so high throughout the financial services marketplace that revenues from unique processes will convince many advisors to relinquish their industry licenses. They will have the best of both worlds: increased client satisfaction and loyalty, and no regulatory or bureaucratic obligations.
11) Financial advisors, through their unique processes, will create more and more fundamental solutions to economic, political and social issues. The value creation that takes place inside of a unique process leads to surprising new opportunities and markets. Entrepreneurial financial advisors with unique processes are creating fundamental solutions to economic, political and social issues in all sectors of society.
12) The entire financial services industry in all sectors will be continually transformed and improved by the unique processes of innovative financial advisors. Over the next 25 years, increasing numbers of advisors with unique processes will create a general bypass of the reactive bureaucracies that make up a depleted industry. As these "industry bypasses" proliferate, many of them will provide the foundation for an entirely new global financial services industry, in which the psychological self-determination of consumers is the single most important organizational focus.
Dan Sullivan is co-founder of The Strategic Coach Inc., with offices in Toronto and Chicago.