Tag: advisor-practice-management

Remember that episode of “Seinfeld” where Uncle Leo gets Jerry’s father a last-minute appointment with a top notch back doctor? And when Jerry’s father accuses the office of stealing his wallet, Uncle Leo is mortified since he gave a personal recommendation and asked the back specialist for such a big favor.

Although this scenario was from a sitcom, it is not far off from the view of the financial advisory world held by Mike Garrison, a business coach and best-selling author. In his just-released book, “Can I Borrow Your Car?” Mike highlights the importance of knowing and trusting both parties in a referral: who you’re referring and who you’re referring to. If you “loan” a key relationship out by making an introduction, you want absolute confidence the individual will come back to you without dings, dents, or scrapes.

Recently I was skimming through minutes from a weekly Blueprint Leadership Team meeting and something made me stop and chuckle. Each person had shared some good news from their week, and one had offered that she and her husband managed to shop for AND assemble several pieces of IKEA furniture without any squabbling.

It made me smile because I can relate (furniture assembly is now something I refuse to do, since it has been the biggest source of a fight I have ever seen). But it also made me realize how much I appreciate Blueprint’s tradition of sharing things for which we are grateful at the start of team meetings. It’s an opportunity to learn more about each team member, what they value, and what brings them joy.

Gratitude has a huge impact on business culture, and I thought the topic was spot on for a blog.

Call me a luddite if you like, but few things annoy me as much as when I navigate to a new webpage and that, “How can I help you?” box pops up on the lower right. That chatbot entering uninvited always sends me on a frantic search for how to make it disappear as quickly as possible.

Those bots have fully infiltrated the online world: banks, municipal governments, dental offices, nonprofits. Even a robot for my neighborhood grocery store recently wanted to talk to me when I simply needed to verify the hours!

I think about this scenario as it relates to investors. With so much money moved into robo-advisors, what is the experience going to look like when REAL people have REAL questions? “How did the S&P close yesterday?” is easy for a robot. But what answer is going to pop up when the question is, “The market is collapsing! What should I do?” or, “How do I reduce risk in the midst of this volatility?”

More to the point of this blog: How different would the answer be if it were coming from a trusted financial advisor?

How does that saying go? Something about how the more things change, the more they stay the same?

Within financial advisory practices, this sentiment rings abundantly true in the area of portfolio construction/management.

So much has changed in the past few years. For one, the pandemic altered how investors interact with their advisors. Potentially more importantly, due to the prolonged bull market and relative outperformance of passive strategies, advisors have increasingly focused their attention on generating alpha from tax and financial planning.

And yet, nothing has changed at all: this same up-up-up trajectory in stocks shields many advisors from having to face the critical decision on whether to outsource the investment function of their business.

Like many others, I’m drawn to “comeback” stories. It’s no surprise, then, that the history of the world’s rarest and most ancient dog has stuck with me.

For more than 50 years, the New Guinea highland wild dog was thought to be extinct. But in the 2010s, a few reported sightings led researchers to take blood samples that confirmed the existence of a healthy, viable population hidden in a remote region.

You might be wondering how this story can possibly relate to the question posed in the title of this blog. Well, for me, it’s that the past 10+ years have led too many investors to devalue the role of a financial advisor by turning advising into an à la carte menu. Many still value financial planning, but they’re second guessing whether they need an investment quarterback. However, at Blueprint, we see signs of revival.