Build trust by aligning your business model with what Millennial investors value. Millennial investors tend to be confident and independent.
They want an adviser to do something they can’t do themselves. Business models – supported by appropriate technologies that include taking the time to understand where Millennial investors are getting their information, what influences their decisions, and what matters to them – can be essential to building relationships on a foundation of transparency and trust.
Suze Orman’s “Can I Afford It?” segment on television highlights the fact that many people don’t know as much about finances and investing as they should. At the same time, wealth management firms have pursued digital strategies that rely less on recommendations and more on self-reliance and expanded access to investment options.
While one may assume this gives the investor greater control, it effectively pushes decision making to the least informed – and, more likely than not, confuses participants in the process. For the most part, these are the same people whom wealth management firms want to attract with technology-enabled, seamless client experiences.
Too few organizations build trust by providing good content. Think about the blogs and guides your firm uses – do they communicate simple, understandable insights and help prospects and clients with the investment process? Do they emphasize your firm’s expertise and the fact that you have your clients’ best interests in mind?
Think E*TRADE – the firm provides ongoing, informative webinars even though a lot of that content probably isn’t relevant to its average client. Does your content provide financial, budget, student loan, and investing education to Millennials?
Many Millennials have a low-to-medium level of financial knowledge; do you have content geared specifically to this audience? Is the language clear, simple, and understandable for inexperienced Millennials? Are you taking technical and complex products and using your content to make the education process more fun and interesting than your typical finance datasheet?
Remember to monitor client content consumption, as this will indicate clients’ needs and interests and provide the data necessary to personalize their experience with your firm. The result is increased loyalty and satisfaction.
Share that data with your advisers; they can help you identify and predict future topics of interest as well as make better investment recommendations to clients.
You should give Millennials the opportunity to clearly think through their investment objectives, philosophies, methods, and strategies with an advisor who can sense a client’s personal situation, determine a suitable risk tolerance, and implement investment and planning strategies based on a nuanced understanding of important life events. This will build the relationships necessary for clients to trust a complex, multi-strategy digital advice algorithm capable of reviewing thousands of instruments and scenarios.
We recently published a guide exploring how to build trust in wealth management. You can download the guide below or by clicking here.
