What does it take to stand out from your peers? How do your clients decide who to work with for their financial advisory services? Are you preparing your team to create stronger relationships with your clients and partners? How will you develop your next great advisor?

I believe we are on the edge of an incredible future for the financial services and advisory markets. There is a tremendous amount of wealth changing hands over the next 20 plus years. What will top professional advisors have to do to leverage this incredible opportunity?

Over the past year I’ve had conversations with many leaders in the financial services industry and their clients, well over 100 CXO level executives from around the world. I believe it’s a single word that is going to transform everything for both advisor and advisory services and the clients they serve.

That word is convergence. Digital transformation is beginning to blur the lines of what services we provide our clients. Almost every executive leader I’ve spoken with talked about increasing wallet share of their client’s money and services. I’m amazed at how many ways consumers can buy and pay for their merchandise.

I believe we are about to enter a digital age for the financial services industry. The advisor role will be evolving.  To succeed we need to become faster learners. We need to increase our trust with our clients and partners. We need new tools and mindsets to succeed.

I attended an executive briefing on Amazon entering financial services this week. it was like I had gone several rounds with a professional boxer. My head was swimming at the infinite possibilities being shared with us. Point after point seeing how they could leverage their customers to sell new financial products and services. Not only here, but globally. Many of the global numbers were staggering.

Amazon has over 310 million active customers and over 100 million Prime Customers. (link) You can read more about Prime customers here at Jeff Bezos finally revealed how many people pay for Amazon Prime 

Before you tell me, they’ve failed several times in the past with their financial products and services, I know that. That’s exactly why I believe they are ready to grow again. Their Ready, Fire, Aim strategy is one of the reasons they find new ways of winning faster. I will be sharing this key strategy in a future blog. I’d like to see more advisors employing this more flexible, speed-based strategy.

Financial services is going to be disrupted. There are several immediate hard trends that will transform how we do business in the future. Even the most conservative organizations are looking for ways to transform their relationship with their best customers and commercial clients. Are you preparing your organization to take advantage of these emerging opportunities?

Many leaders see FinTech as the magic bullet for targeting and developing the next generation of financial customers and clients. I say today’s technology may beat me in a game of chess but when dealing with people about their financial futures I’ll bet on our human advisor, today.

I’m not saying this because I have an intense hate for new emerging technologies. I’m a top 25 Onalytica Global Influencer in Fintech and Data Science. I’ve been in artificial intelligence since 1996. I’m an IBM IoT Futurist. My partnerships include New York/ Times Wall Street Journal best selling Futurist Daniel Burrus. His latest book The Anticipatory Organization was an Amazon Business New Release best seller in 2017.

People are your best bet in developing deeper, long term relationships with your best clients in financial services. It doesn’t matter what age! By the way, the combination of people and technologies are going to help ensure your clients their best financial future for their families. Get ready to have your people upgrade their technical skills. These new tools could be key to adding great people to your practice in the coming years.

How do you beat the odds and develop your next generation of successful top advisors?  How do you keep them around to help you build a more successful growing advisory practice? I believe it’s by building a high performing team-based culture where you’re able to leverage all your team members’ strengths and experiences.

I find that we are finally at a stage of business evolution where the most anticipatory and agile people thrive and grow far beyond the capabilities of past generations.  We can create a better world faster and more easily than in the past.

Your clients and customers are demanding it. If you want to earn more of your clients’ business in the future, you need to create a business culture and business models that transform your clients’ lives.  You need to learn a new way of helping your people perform at higher levels in all aspects of their lives.

See you next week!