Prospective clients are now making amazing comments that I’ve never heard from them before:
Are you a fiduciary?
An advisor charging a percent of AUM won’t tell me to pre-pay my debt.
Why shouldn’t I just invest in index funds without you?
You can choose whatever benchmark you want to always make your performance look good.
How academic is your approach?
I think this increased intelligence on the part of consumers is a very good thing. This is because it means that clients are going to get better advice by seeking out those professionals with the skill set and the infrastructure to provide that higher-level advice – with the skill set being implementing a systemized approach and the infrastructure being opting for the fee-only and fiduciary model.
Goodbye to the Old Way of Business
Ideally, capitalism thrives on the survival of the fittest. Those advisors not bringing their game to the highest level will be passed up by increasingly-smarter consumers. The old guard won’t survive for long.