Do a better and more professional job for your clients and you are certain to be more successful.
When you cut through the emotion, the fun and the razzmatazz of this year’s Million Dollar Round Table Annual Meeting in Miami, this was the recurring theme.
Speaker after speaker, both from within our profession and outside it, emphasised the importance of continuing client care, whether it be by simply becoming a better listener, or ensuring through in-depth analysis, that their personal and corporate legacies are in order.
Clients are able to enjoy more satisfying lives when their protection and savings needs are in good orderDoing a better job for the clients you all serve enables them, and you, to live a more comfortable, fulfilling and balanced life.
Over four days, this simple, yet vitally important message was reinforced in countless ways to the 10,000 financial planners attending MDRT in Miami.
We all know that our clients are able to enjoy more satisfying lives when their protection and savings needs are in good order.
With proper financial planning, our clients can look forward to achieving their objectives, or simply the peace of mind that comes from knowing that, if tragedy strikes, their loved ones are provided for.
These are precisely the benefits delivered on a daily basis, and the more effective we can be at delivering advice, the more people we help.
The UK’s acute shortage of advisers means that it is now more important than ever that we look after our customers effectively.
The regulators rightly want to see ‘good client outcomes’. However it cannot possibly be seen as a ‘good client outcome’ if the result of the past 30 years of regulation is an acute shortage of financial advice.
It is a matter of record that consumers who have enjoyed the benefit of financial advice are significantly better off in retirement than those without advice.
It is equally true that financial advice ensures families are better protected from the unexpected, and therefore, in the event of a tragedy striking, are much less likely to have to rely on state benefits.
Again, this is something I urge the government and the regulators to pay very close attention to.
We cannot, and should not, permit an overzealous drive for perfection, to be the enemy of the good, which makes the MDRT’s message from Miami even more timely and important for all of us.
Ken Davy is chairman of SimplyBiz Group
