As the pressures of commoditization on investment advice continue to increase, more and more advisors adopting financial planning and wealth management services for their clients. Yet compared to the world of investing – where an advisor’s value proposition can be clearly articulated and measured in dollars and cents – it’s far more difficult to convey the value proposition of an intangible long-term service like financial planning. Determining whether an advisor provided a good Return On Investment in the portfolio is one thing, but how do you describe the ways an advisor tries to help a client get a better “Return On Life”?
In what may be one of the best clear descriptions of the key value propositions that financial planners provide, financial life planning pioneer Mitch Anthony boils it down to 6 key phrases: we provide Organization, Accountability, Objectivity, Proactivity, Education, and Partnership. While the words themselves aren’t necessarily new and unique, Anthony’s way of weaving them together into a Return-On-Life value proposition for clients certainly is.
Of course, the caveat is that just saying you can deliver on these value propositions to clients is one thing; actually doing so is another. Yet accordingly, this means that Mitch Anthony’s framework for a financial planner’s value arguably provides not only a good description for clients, but also a guidepost for advisors about where they should focus their own energies. Do you think these 6 key value propositions are a good way to describe the benefits of financial planning to clients? And can you really deliver them?
