DISCOVERERS & EXPLORERS
A great influencer of mine died last week.
He was 95 – a close cousin of my father.
He fought, laughed and played hard until his last tough weeks.
A showman. A preacher. A rebel. A community-builder.
Gawd, he could talk and boom his way through debates.
A dinner with him went to rowdy and ridiculous hours, exhausting fellow diners.
He engaged those who surrounded him and knew how to open people up respectfully, authentically, and valuably.
He gave all the time in the world for anyone engaged in his conversations who might be on the verge of possible discovery.
DISCOVERIES
Financial advisers conduct discovery conversations all the time.
They discover the details about the financial lives of their clients.
Their discoveries unearth a prospect’s income and funds.
Number of kids.
Superannuation balances.
Debts.
Attitude to taxes.
Desirable retirement dates.
Bucket list of travel destinations.
Sometimes, the significance to them of their pets, religion and extraordinary hobbies requires either money, advice, or planning.
For many advisers, the discovery is done once initial ‘facts’ are understood.
Armed with the details and ensuring compliance is ticked, a discovery-led advisory team creates a plan, obtains acceptance, and implements its promises.
Today’s advice models rely upon discovering over exploring.
DISCOVERERS & EXPLORERS
My Dad’s cousin was more an Explorer than a Discoverer.
He’d enquire beyond responses like “I don’t know…”, “I haven’t had the time…”, “I haven’t thought about it…”, and the “I’m OK thanks…”.
His mix of curiosity and creativity was purely designed to create discussions to help others explore their habits, arguments, one-liners and excuses and possibly reveal new and better options.
That’s what Explorers do – their curiosity probes into assumptions that Discoverers may regard as a ‘fact’.
While both are trying to enhance the value in the lives of others, the Discoverers believe their value is based upon uncovering the needed details to deliver their expertise.
For Explorers, however, their value is not just to build plans but to test all assumptions to potentially uncover new options that might provide better progress along more valuable and productive paths.
The industry is entering a phase when exploration skills become a differentiator, particularly for the most valuable client propositions in the second, third and ongoing years when firms hope to earn good fees from valuable relationships continually.
As the approaching fintech tsunami overwhelms today’s boundaries between robo-advice and financial advice, Explorer advice skills will grow in demand for those firms seeking to maintain or even lessen their adviser/client ratios rather than increase them.
The real meaningful and valuable discoveries advisory teams create are the discoveries the advisory teams help their clients realise about themselves.
Great advisory teams can learn from my Dad’s favourite cousin, who rarely failed to notice how extraordinary everyone else was.
That’s a valuable skill in the future of financial advice.
What do you reckon?
Vale Jimmy – adieu.
Photo credit: shutterstock_737784337
ABOUT JIM STACKPOOL
Since 1989, Jim has influenced, coached, and consulted financial advice and accounting firms across Australia. His training firm, Certainty Advice Group, skills comprehensive advisory teams to price and deliver valuable, methodical, non-person-dependent advice relationships with their clients. He has built a collaborative community of firms aligned to his firm’s comprehensive advice model – Certainty Advice – Australia’s only Certification Mark accredited by ACCC and IP Australia for impartial financial advice. He presents at conferences, has judged professional advice awards, written industry white papers, chaired practice management curriculum for tertiary institutions, and authored four books on financial advice – his latest being What Price Value.