How Can You Implement Faith-Based Investing With Your Clients?
Financial advisors have the unique opportunity to discern whether faith-based investing is a viable option for clients—because the way it will fit into each portfolio is as unique as your clients’ individual needs and preferences.
It is crucial to take the time to get to know your clients. What’s important to them? What do they spend their time doing? What are their ultimate investing goals?
When advisors pay attention to these details, they then have the advantage to serve their clients more effectively. This can impact an advisor’s book of business from a retention standpoint and holistic approach.
If an advisor works to make faith-based investing a priority for their client, that relationship is likely to be bolstered, potentially positively impacting retention. Your client will feel that you are on their team and genuinely care about what is important to them. Working together, you can help make the value of the investment beyond just performance a reality. Their portfolio will now hold a notable purpose that it did not hold before.
Ultimately, from a holistic approach as well, identifying and acting on your clients’ preference for faith-based investing will showcase your desire to truly understand the client and how outside forces impact their financial life. When you can humanize the dollars and cents aspect, the client-advisor relationship is strengthened.
Dr. O.S. Hawkins, president of GuideStone, states, “Faith-based investing fuses Christian values with investment decisions. When considering how moral and social principles influence their decision-making, investors have the opportunity to be faithful stewards of what God has provided them by aligning their Christian values with traditional investment management.”
Your clients’ values influence the way they live. It’s time to ask them: Do they want their values to also influence the way they invest?
Will Lofland is head of distribution at GuideStone Funds.