Many advisors may hide behind their qualifications and an age gap when considering working with next-generation clients. But these investors want to connect with people on a deeper level, said speakers at the Wealth Management EDGE conference at The Boca Raton resort in Boca Raton, Fla., this week.
Dr. Joshua Wilson, founder of NeuBeFi, argued that all advisors sound the same on their qualifications; most are just another voice in what he calls the “credential choir.” And with so much information and artificial intelligence tools out there, advisors aren’t going to differentiate themselves on knowledge.
“Knowledge itself is cheap,” he said. “We push technology, we push AI. We’ll get to the point where the only differentiator really is the person.”
Wilson said he’s bullish that the next stage is going to be the human connection phase. In that, what’s going to differentiate an advisor is what makes them magnetic and scalable.
“The goal is to get people to have that gut—’this is my guy, this is my girl’—before we ever start talking about the boring stuff,” he said.
Adam Dell, founder and CEO of Domain Money, a flat-fee financial platform founded in 2022, said most advisors spit out a financial plan and then get clients into an AUM model, but that’s not what the nextgen want. A lot of advisors believe they’re differentiated by simply putting them in a sliver of a KKR fund. Consumers can smell inauthenticity.
“They all know that’s bullshit,” Dell said.
Instead, these investors want to be met where they are in life.
“They say, ‘I want to buy a house; I want to go on vacation. Am I on track paying for a college education for my children?’ Those are the most pressing issues they face,” he said.
This is a very numbers-oriented, logical industry, but this doesn’t help people connect with you, Wilson added. Historically, advisors have built their businesses using a script. But if you’re asking what to say, you’re missing the whole point.
“The only thing that can’t be scaled is your voice,” he said.