The adviser in question was a friendly fellow who meant no harm, yet I still felt uncomfortable.
The questions weren’t difficult, yet they were slightly personal in nature and cut to the core of my fears – financial security.
When the polite adviser asked me the question: “What keeps you up at night?” as part of a role play exercise, I felt my heart start to race.
Do I lie? Do I play the cool cucumber and declare I’m a sound sleeper with no ills? No, I caved. I blurted out without seconds thought “money”. The adviser smiled.
I was hoping he wasn’t going to ask me to part with a dollar for his facial expression seemed to say “if I had a dollar for all the times I’d heard that”. Luckily I kept my dollar.
However, the question remained with me. I was surprised by how such a simple question could have such an impact, and how such a simple answer could spur a rather interesting conversation.
The role play was part of an exercise at a recent Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) briefing.
The association chief Richard Klipin used the briefing to suggest Australia’s advice sector has lost sight of the basics of the advice profession – client relationships.
The conversations, the ‘hello, how are you?’ and actually listening to the reply no matter what it is.
Klipin said the advice industry had spent too long focusing on providing technical information to clients rather than on nurturing client relationships.
“We’ve become really good as an industry to talk technical to people,” he said.
“This tactical stuff is where I reckon we’ve gotten sucked in as an industry and that’s why consumers are saying we don’t get what you’re on about.”
Quoting results from an AFA advice survey by brandmanagement/CoreData, he said more than 40 per cent of Australians had never used an adviser, with 27 per cent having used a financial planner in the past but no longer using one.
The survey found only 17 per cent of people said they were using a financial planner and were in an “advice relationship”.
Klipin paused for a moment after delivering the survey findings.
He was quick to note the big opportunity missed by the industry, questioning how poor it has been at communicating with the broader community.
“There is the evidence about what people are not doing and it’s not about fees only,” he said.
“I would argue that it’s about our inability as an industry to communicate the essence in a really simple way why you would engage with an adviser.”
