Planners able to do this efficiently and effectively will have tremendous success and virtually unlimited markets.
Katz: It's important to remind ourselves that we manage people, not portfolios. That means we cannot offer advice in a vacuum, but must put context around our client goals and objectives. The consumer is demanding advice--and life planning techniques are the framework for that advice.
Congress and regulator agencies are confronting important issues like fiduciary responsibility. Whatever changes may come, the fact remains, however, that legal standards can be raised but integrity can never be legislated.
In the financial services industry, there have been far too many broken promises--or in many cases, no fiduciary promises being made at all--with no standard of accountability. The industry, birthed in a boiler room ethos, is being pushed and pulled into evolving into a living room profession.
One of the great encouragements for the future of the financial advice profession is demonstrated by the type of individuals choosing to enter the field--those with an inherent sense of community responsibility and personal responsibility. No matter what standards are set by law, these young people will strive to transcend those standards with their service.
The Texas Tech and University of Georgia programs are placing close to 125 students per year between them. Their programs have a history of backed up demand for simple reasons-competence and integrity--which never go out of demand.
If these two leaders and the programs they have labored to shape are any indication of the future, then the future is indeed a place of promise ... and, thank goodness, the fulfillment of those promises as well.