Financial Advisors Are Getting Hammered

Why financial advisors should stop jumping from one tech to another in search of the almighty solution

A lot Financial Advisors suffer from SOS (Shiny Object Syndrome).

We are in pursuit of growth, which is great, but how we pursue it appears to be a major point of frustration for advisors.

We want growth, we want more ideal clients, we want more efficiencies and lower overhead, we want more time, we want scalability.

We are getting hammered with technology options to help us grow, but...

The problem is that as an industry we have come to believe (for what reason I am not entirely sure) that technology is THE solution to our growth problems. It isn't.

Advisors don't need a larger tech hammer

Technology, when used correctly and in concert with everything else we are doing to grow our businesses can be a very powerful tool. It can help us get the growth, find the ideal clients, lower the expenses, streamline our processes, etc.

But only when it is used as part of a master blueprint, not in a silo.

There are endless brilliant technology solutions out there for us. We go to their website, we watch a demo, we read an eBook, maybe even speak with someone at the company.

Then one of two things usually happen; we buy the service/product thinking of it as our almighty solution (the hammer we have been looking for) or we take a pass and look for a shinier object (bigger hammer) that we think will solve our of our problems.

What happens in both cases almost every time?

The advisor gets frustrated with a lack of results. They get tired spending the money and time on the "solution". They then blame the tech and ditch it, jumping to the next shiny object. I, like so many, have been guilty of this.

Unfortunately, this leads to a loss of time and money for both the advisor and the technology company. And let's not forget, most tech companies are not profitable the second you sign up for their product/service, so the more that advisors keeping jumping from tech to tech it could be argued that the tech companies actually have to increase their prices to compensate for the FA suffering from SOS.

The cure for Financial Advisors suffering from Shiny Object Syndrome

Take a step back.

First, figure out the following before looking for any tech solution:

• What is the single most important thing you are trying to accomplish with your business?
• What are your hopes, dreams, and goals personally & professionally?
• Who is your Ideal Client?
• What is your brand?
• How do you plan on acquiring and serving your clients?

If you truly spend the time and mental energy clearly answering these questions you will be able to figure out where you want to go.

You don't build your dreamhouse with a hammer but no blueprints, do you?

The next step, after identifying what type of "dreamhouse" you wish to build is that you need to know how it all fits together. Installing a shiny faucet for your master bathroom when you haven't put in the plumbing to hook it up to makes no sense.

You have to know how it all will fit and work together in advance, otherwise the faucet will look nice but provide you with no water. Is that the faucets fault? Of course not!

Now, if you have done these things correctly you can easily identify the things you need and where they should go.

• You know you need a website, now you know how it should be designed and what should be on it, this is not your website providers responsibility.
• You want more ideal clients coming in through your digital marketing, now you know who to market to and how to do it. It's not your digital marketing teams fault you don't know who you want to work with or what you should be saying to them.
• You want to onboard and service your clients as they come through your digital marketing funnel, now you know what tech to use to accomplish this.
• You want to create great financial plans for your clients, now you know what tech to use and how it fits into the rest of your sales process.

The list goes on.

The most important part of all of this is knowing how to put it all together.

I call this the Supercar Philosophy. You can read more about it in my eBook for financial advisors here.

How do you figure out how it all fits together? Hire a master architect who has been where you are and built what you are trying to build. Could you figure it out as a financial advisor with SOS and a hammer? Sure, but we know how that goes!

Doing it this way means you can go find the best tech for what you are trying to build while having the right expectations from the onset. We all win this way.

How Technology Companies Can Help With This Process

Although most fintech companies are not in the business of providing "practice management" advice (it's not their job although some do provide some great high level education though) I think it would be helpful if they asked advisors some thought provoking questions about who they are, what they are trying to do, etc. BEFORE they buy the tech.

Things like:

• What are you trying to accomplish?
• What pain points do you have?
• Who are you marketing to?
• What is your existing sales & service process look like?
• What is your brand and messaging that you are trying to get across?
• Do you know what your "dreamhouse" looks like, do you already have the blueprints?

I think that in asking these questions (some tech companies already do) it will force advisors to get crystal clear on what they are trying to build while also helping eliminate the frustration that comes, from the advisor and tech company, when we jump into buying a new solution only to have it fall flat a couple of months later. The tech companies will know who is ready for their tech, and who isn't this way.

Technology is not THE Solution, it's PART of the Solution

At the end of the day technology should be thought of as part of a larger solution. For example, you want to hang a picture on your wall. You need a wall, a nail, a picture, your arm, and a hammer. The hammer is not your solution.

The solution is having all the pieces and knowing how they all fit together!

To my fellow advisors who are frustrated, put down the hammer, walk away, think about what you want and are trying to accomplish, get all the pieces sorted, and learn how to put it all together. Otherwise you will just end up with a hole in your wall!

Rock on my friends,

Derek Notman

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