Clients today need more reliable retirement-income streams, Meunier adds, and that need places more demands on advisors. "The advisor has responsibility to not only grow the nest egg, but to manage it through retirement as clients live longer. The pressure is on to deliver more in retirement, and advisors are probably more comfortable now sharing some of that responsibility with other people in the practice."
Sometimes, advisors are willing to team up with professionals outside the practice to help with taxes, annuities, insurance or other matters. "A good advisor may defer to a specialist in ancillary areas who might not be permanent members of the team," Meunier says.
Advisors Don't Get Services They Want
Financial company executives continue to misread the types of practice management and technical support programs their advisors truly want, according to a survey by CEG Worldwide.
Nearly nine in ten advisors (89%) want to learn how the best wealth managers in the industry run their businesses and nearly one in three (31.9%) places a high priority on motivational support programs, according to the report, Winning the Allegiance of Top Financial Advisors.
However, research shows financial executives tend to underestimate the importance that top financial advisors place on these practice management support programs. Simultaneously, financial executives tend to overestimate the importance that advisors place on such practice management support programs as time-management solutions and staff training.
Additionally, CEG found that support for life insurance products most frequently topped the needs of surveyed advisors (cited by 41%), but ranked only fourth among surveyed financial executives (cited by just 22%). On the other hand, financial executives tended to overestimate the support advisors required by a nearly two-to-one margin with retirement planning (60% to 36.2%) and retirement distribution tactics (60% to 31.6%). CEG, based in San Martin, Calif., conducted the survey of 2,094 financial advisors and 50 financial executives between 2007 and 2009.
FA/Spectrem Innovation Forum Slated For October
Financial Advisor magazine and the Spectrem Group will host a forum on October 21-22 designed to be a financial services think tank on innovation. The forum, Innovation And Growth In A Post Economic Crisis Era, will be held at the Seaport Hotel in Boston.
Many companies have focused on cost-cutting to survive the recession. Historically, though, disruptive environments such as this have enabled innovative companies to gain competitive advantages and assume leadership roles in their industry.
The innovation forum brings to together thought leaders and innovators from 20 to 30 financial services companies to discuss current challenges and create new ideas. The meeting will help participants better understand the new environment and to frame individual corporate strategies to help them thrive.
As part of the forum, Spectrem will present some of its proprietary investment research on the mass affluent. Meeting topics will include technology, social networking and various business strategies. And meeting participants will get a tour of the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, a research and development facility aimed at transforming business through technology.
Forum members include Ameriprise, Boston Private, Charles Schwab, Contango (Zions Bank), Direxion, eMoney Advisor, Fidelity, LPL, Pershing, TD Ameritrade, UNIFI, USAA, Vanguard, New York Life, Great West and Wells Fargo.