YCharts argues that advisors should use the younger generation’s short-termism as an advantage by focusing their value proposition around younger people’s major life events—things that happen to them before and near the mid-career stage, like home purchasing, family planning and building resilience against emergencies.
Financial firms can also make more efforts to appeal to the do-it-yourself ethic of the millennial generation by offering on-demand information and services, said YCharts, and engaging in co-planning and acting as validators, reviewers or coaches rather than discretionary advisors.
Developing more informational and educational materials, especially online, can bolster an advisory practice’s reputation as a source of information for millennials, who are more likely to seek a variety of resources online rather than an individual professional opinion when making decisions, according to YCharts.
Finally, YCharts recommends that advisors alter their services and modes of communication to allow for more frequent communication, typically through digital channels. Millennials are less likely to want to engage in quarterly meetings and read through binders of research with their advisors. Financial firms should keep up with technology trends in order to connect with the next generation of investors through the channel of their choice.
The YCharts survey was conducted online among 600 U.S. participants between July 9 and September 3, 2018.