Why are you on a team?

Explain the rationale, structure, and value of your team in helping clients "pick the lock of complexity" in their financial lives

"Mr. and Mrs. Jones, we have formed a team because of a single concept, and that concept is 'complexity.' I could make a great argument that life has never been this good; however, I could make an equally compelling argument that life has never been this complex. And, ironically, the wealthier you are, the more complex your financial challenges become. They get to a point where you need the fully integrated capability of three institutions: the banking industry, the brokerage industry, and the insurance industry, to handle your complex financial challenges.

“Historically, the only way to accomplish this has been to have a couple of banking relationships, two or three brokerage relationships, and a couple of insurance people, all living in their respective silos, attempting to give you the insights and solutions necessary to deal with your complex financial challenges. The problem with this approach is the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. You often get contradictory information and/or redundancies.

“Because one person is incapable of knowing all that's necessary to deliver these institutional capabilities, we've formed a team of highly specialized individuals with the goal of bringing to our clientele the capability, depth of knowledge, and insight necessary to address their complex financial challenges. We then wrap this capability in an overarching, comprehensive wealth management plan of attack, which we designed shoulder-to-shoulder with our clients to help ensure that everything that must happen does happen."

In closing, basic investment guidance and portfolio management is under immense pressure from discounters, regulators, and robo-advisors. If that's all you provide, your clients are likely questioning why they are paying fees for a service they can either outsource at a lower cost or obtain from another financial professional who also addresses their needs above and beyond what has now become the expected norm. However, if you help relatively wealthy clients solve their complex financial challenges by providing nuanced financial insights, philosophical and historical context meant to keep them “buckled-in" to your investment strategies, and a comprehensive set of solutions built to help bring order to their financial lives, your clients might be more likely to stay, and even better, they'll perhaps be inclined to using your praises to their friends, family, and colleagues.