The Lumiant Update - September 2023
Welcome, all you client-first advisors!
We’ve had a big few weeks in the Lumiverse, participating in Netwealth’s Accelerate Summit in Australia, as well as the WealthTech Arena by the Founders Forum in America.
These were great events for us and enabled us to showcase the full power of Lumiant to life-first advisors in both America and Australia.
But we didn’t stop there. We’ve been talking about Lumiant and the industry A LOT over the last few weeks. So, this newsletter update is going to be one for your ears, with podcasts galore! Plus, a couple of resources that we hope can help you and your firm:
As always, let us know what you think of this week’s newsletter:
Let’s dive in
— Ash
??? Customer stories
Lumiant Live: The Interpretive Advisor with Wayne Titus, Savant Wealth Management
Let’s start with one of our latest episodes of Lumiant Live and what an episode to start on. Mark is joined by Wayne Titus, Financial Advisor and Managing Director at Savant Wealth Management - number 31 on Barron’s list of Top 100 RIA Firms of 2023.
Wayne has been a huge advocate of Lumiant and has been leading the implementation and coaching of the Lumiant enhanced goals conversation. In this episode, Mark unpacks Wayne’s approach to Lumiant, including:
What I love about this discussion is Wayne’s views on delivering advice, where he talks about the Japanese concept of ‘reason for being’ - called Ikigai (something we’re quite familiar with here at Lumiant thanks to one of our Australian customers - Ikigai Wealth).
What stands out for me in Wayne’s explanation is that as an advice industry, we need to reflect on what is our reason for being.
For Wayne and Savant, it’s helping clients build their ideal futures. And a big part of that is helping clients understand their reason for being - no easy feat and not something that can be summed up in one to three financial goals.
Instead, through Savant’s Ideal Futures process, enhanced by Lumiant’s client experience, Wayne and his team are identifying 15-20 goals. This depth of discovery is what is helping clients truly define what their ideal future looks like. It’s only then that Wayne and his team can look to deliver that future through wise counsel and guidance.
I love this, and it is so aligned with Lumiant’s reason for being. That is to support advisors in defining, co-creating and guiding clients to live healthier, wealthier and wiser lives. Giving clients a digital platform that empowers them to live their best lives.
There is plenty more to unpack in the episode, as Mark and Wayne talk through the Savant process and journey. So, give it a listen and see what you can apply to your process to help your clients lead better lives.
Case Study: Empowering women to find their identity
Michelle Smith, CEO of Source Financial Advice, is a specialist independent advice firm offering comprehensive wealth management and investment planning to high-net-worth women - specifically those who have divorced.
She’s been using Lumiant for more than a year now and has found the Lumiant Values session as a great tool to get to the bottom of client behaviors and uncover the drivers behind their financial actions.
In fact, this particular client referenced the session as “financial therapy,” as reflecting on her past through the values session enabled her to breach a mental barrier and permit herself to spend her untouched funds more meaningfully in other areas of her life.
So, how does Michelle get such a great reaction? She lets the client do the talking.
Michelle’s advice: don't solve a problem that doesn't exist yet. Don't assume what an answer is going to be. Don't over-engineer the meeting. Let them talk. Just ask the open-ended question.
Once they’ve picked a value, that’s when you say: Wow, talk to me about that; What does that mean; ?or that's really cool, tell me more.” Then shut up.
Michelle even keeps a glass of water in front of her and drinks it so she doesn't open her mouth.
The Lumiant process lends itself to the client sharing. Michelle believes you don't need to over-direct. And, in fact, it'll cause faulty output. It becomes your story, not theirs.
So, sit back, listen, and let the client define their story so you can co-create a plan they’ll stick to and guide them to live their best life.
??Latest Tips & Tricks
Using HALO to create better longevity lifestyle planning decisions
In this episode of Beyond the Numbers of Retirement and Longevity Planning, co-hosts Robert Foley and Reid Stone spoke with Lumiant’s Chief Evangelist Officer, Heather Holmes about how financial advisors can use HALO.
My favorite bit: “A financial plan is only as good as how long you’re going to live for.”
Seems like common sense, really, but too often we rely on actuarial tables, averages or guesswork to determine how long we need money to last. It’s also a tough conversation with clients - would you know how long you need your money to last?
That’s one of the reasons why Heather created HALO. To give advisors an unbiased, engaging, data-driven longevity assessment that enables advisors and clients to have more personalized conversations about their lives.
The 40-min episode doesn’t just cover why Heather created HALO, with the trio also covering:
Want to learn more about retirement and longevity planning, then you can sign up to their newsletter here.
Using frameworks and life planning to transform the financial advisory experience
In this 45-minute episode of Bridging The Gap, Matt Reiner is joined by Lumiant’s head of product, Mark Akeroyd, to discuss the art of guiding clients and helping them define their best life.
Now, if you know Mark, you’ll know he loves a framework and a process. In this episode, he outlines how the Lumiant process and the framework he’s helped develop can bring more clarity in defining a client’s best life.
领英推荐
He also discusses how the right framework can empower advisors to become more than just money managers, driving greater value in the advisor-client relationship and better results for clients.
My favorite part:
“Your role as a leader is to find what it is that person truly wants to do, how they might think about it, and create that environment where they can use their own personal flair. You’ve got to celebrate their differences, get the frameworks and processes right, and allow them to be individually brilliant.”
He then uses Steph Curry as an example of how taking regular 3-point throws probably isn’t in the playbook. But because he’s got the foundations right, shown he can follow the process, he then gets the freedom to be individually brilliant.
And that’s what Lumiant is allowing you to do. It gives you the process, the framework, for an excellent client experience. It’s then your job to work out what makes your process individually brilliant with your own flair.
Best Life Plan: Transformational values-based advice
Another episode featuring Mark, this time speaking with Rory Henry from the AFO | Wealth Management Forward podcast.
In this 45 minute episode, Mark covers:
What I love about this episode is finding out that the Lumiant record for number of goals captured for a client in our platform is…drum roll please…
26!
That’s a lot of goals and I can imagine many of you getting overwhelmed at the thought of managing that many goals for a client.
But as Mark mentions in this episode, while it can seem overwhelming, getting the client's goals out in the open and on paper is probably the most beneficial thing you can do for a client.
Why? Because you’ve given the the tools and the experience that has empowered the client to define their best life. And then you’re not measured against the returns of the stock market. But instead how you’ve helped support them to achieve all their goals over the course of your relationship - which might be quite a few years if they have 26 goals they are looking to achieve.
Lumiant Live: Getting your marketing strategy right
Marketing isn’t easy in today’s digital world. No matter what your social platform of choice, you’ll see hundreds of posts from strategists, influencers, performance marketers, growth hackers and even ninjas telling you the perfect tactics to increase your revenue.
And tactics is just what they are. In this hour-long episode, I join Mark to discuss marketing strategy and what firms must do to get it right before they jump into the world of tactics.
For those looking for a shortcut - marketing is about centering your brand around your client, creating products, placements, pricing and promotions that appeal to your target buyer and position your firm as the perfect choice for them.
We talk through some of the tools I use and the step-by-step process to take - which you can also find in written format in our latest guide.
Give it a whirl and let me know how you go in defining your marketing strategy to differentiate your brand and win new customers.
?? Product Update
The Academy is now live in the US and Australia
In today's rapidly evolving financial landscape, advisors must go beyond traditional transactional, product or performance-based advice and embrace a client-centric approach.
Lumiant Academy fills this critical need by offering training that equips advisors with the tools and knowledge to create engaging experiences, build trusted relationships, and drive positive client outcomes. By elevating emotional intelligence and helping advisors connect authentically with their clients, Lumiant Academy paves the way for advisors to unlock additional growth opportunities and increase revenues.
The Lumiant Academy is available to all financial professionals in Australia and America. The first course available in the Academy - The Lumiant Advice Experience - sets the foundations for financial advisors to create a values-based advice experience, based on Lumiant’s best-practice advice process. ?
The course has been accredited for seven hours of continuing professional development by the Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA), ?and 3 hours continuing education by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards (CFP Board), making it a valuable resource for advisors’ ongoing education.
We heard you loud and clear
We’ve been listening closely to your feedback and are thrilled to introduce some new enhancements tailored to improve your experience with Lumiant!
Client filter enhancements
By popular demand, we’ve added a new client filter that allows you to customize your client view. Now, you can easily set your default client view to show all clients or just the ones you manage, ensuring you can work the way that suits you best.
Governance CSV Download
With Lumiant, you can now effortlessly export client data from Governance with a CSV file. This feature provides you with the flexibility to access client details in a convenient format, enabling you to import it into other technologies and services.
We hope you find these updates useful in your Lumiant journey. Your feedback drives us and we’re committed to making Lumiant the best it can be for you. So, a big thank you to all those who continue to provide us with valuable feedback on how we can make our platform better!
We hope you enjoyed this newsletter. We’d love to hear what you thought and how we could make it better and support you in creating extraordinary client experiences.
So, what did you think?
Lumiant. Empowering individuals and their families to live their best life confidently.