Breaking Free of Adviser Traditions

Our traditions can be wonderful, powerful forces in our lives.

They can give us a sense of who we are; of where we come from.
A sense of those who strived yesterday… to create our today.
A sense of belonging.
Of Familiarity.
Of Security.
Of Moorings.

This week, I immersed myself in such traditions.

I visited the order of nuns who shaped my childhood. Me and many children like me.

They provided consistency and comfort in our time of chaos and crises.
All of that in a stunningly beautiful setting.

As I joined their small Lockdown Bubble this week, their traditions and rituals transported me back to the age of 7.

The evocative smells of candles and polished wood.
The hymns and prayers and chantings and liturgies.

I recognised that I was in the presence of seriously bright, talented, strong-willed, courageous women.

Yes, they’ve created shelters and sanctuaries and homes and nurturing for generations of us.

They even started the UK’s first children’s hospice!

But, what’s more amazing is how these courageous women have – in recent years – broken free of some of their own traditions!

For some that break was liberating.
For others it was destabilising and threatening.

And so it is with us.
With Financial Advisers and Planners.
We’ve become steeped in traditional behaviour patterns, passed down to us.

Some are helpful.
Some… paralysing.

One tradition I’ve observed, across the last 20 years, is the tradition I call OUTPUT.

An exhausting litany of yearly actions.
In many cases, designed to justify our fees.

Meetings…reviews…investment reports…newsletters.
And now blogs…podcasts.

Each component perfectly reasonable.
Yet, each one having very little empirical evidence as to its effectiveness.

Collectively, they consume our time, energy and resources.
With little proof as to the individual Return on Investment.

Traditions with short-term impact at best!

Thankfully – in recent years – some firms have discovered the far greater impact of focusing on OUTCOMES.

Whereas OUTPUT is about what your team frenetically, exhaustingly does to prove your worth…
OUTCOMES are about the impact we have on our clients’ LIVES (not just their money).

They’re about what THEY can now do.
Not what YOU and I do.

And that break in tradition makes all the difference.
To our sanity.
To their happiness and wellbeing.

This Summer we’ll be providing a series of Webinars showing how to start moving from OUTPUT to OUTCOMES.

I invite you to join us by signing up here.

For some, what we share in those Webinars will be liberating.
For others, it will be unsettling.

The deciding factor – as is often the case – will be COURAGE!