The Future of Financial Advice

< Back to previous page

Video with Audio Description

Video Transcript

[Text] THE FUTURE OF FINANCIAL ADVICE

[Text] WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT TRENDS IN THE ADVISORY BUSINESS AND THEIR RAMIFICATIONS?

[Penny] Isn’t it interesting to ask the CEO managing partner of a 97-year-old company what’s going to happen next, what’s disruptive, what’s changing, what are the trends. I personally believe that we’re a good company to ask because we’ve been thinking about the future and successfully navigating it for 97 years. So what I’m going to share with you though about what those trends look like, I don’t think will surprise you. How do we combine a very human-centered experience, the one-on-one relationship with our financial advisors with technology that raises the level of confidence of our clients and our investors, raises the level of confidence in their plans so that they stick to it. The relationship between the marketplace and our regulators and policy makers, where regulators and policy makers are proliferating,

[Text] THE FUTURE OF FINANCIAL ADVICE

[Text] WHAT ARE YOUR CORE STRATEGIES TO CAPITALIZE ON THOSE TRENDS?

[Penny] our client is an individual investor who values advice, who appreciates a relationship and who is working to achieve greatly for themselves and their families over a long period of time, over their lifetime to achieve really important things. What they are doing is navigating the complexity of multiple goals all at the same time. The ramifications of making one choice on one goal affects the results of another one.

[Penny] The research that we are doing with our clients goes way beyond focus groups. It is going with them into their homes, understanding from an emotional standpoint what is impacting them and their families and how to put together the right EQ and IQ and we are also continuing to grow. We have seventeen and a half thousand financial advisors. Our next milestone is twenty-thousand financial advisors and the point there is not simply to grow for growth sake. Our research tells us that we have forty to fifty million core clients who look like Edward Jones’ clients who deserve the kind of human-centered advice that we provide. So meeting the needs of those clients means that we need more talented associates at our firm to serve their needs. So continuing to grow.

[Text] THE FUTURE OF FINANCIAL ADVICE

[Text] WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL BE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES?

[Penny] We’re not selling product in this industry anymore. Product and services is important, but that’s not where the value is. Where the value is is this navigation across the arc of a family’s life, of a set of complex needs that are changing and that are going to be impacted by all kinds of things that they expect and don’t expect so healthcare and Social Security and taxes and unexpected things that might happen with their family and their loved ones. So putting all of that together and helping our financial advisors, our branch teams build their practices to serve our clients is a challenge and it’s a huge opportunity.

[Penny] Because when you think about this industry, when you think about the future of financial advice, one of the things that I think is so exciting is how creative it is. The creativity that a financial advisor, a client-service professional in our branch brings to the relationship, to the solutions that are put together and tailor made for a family, there’s tremendous creativity to that. Our chief value is that our clients are at the center of everything that we do. It is easy to say why I’m wearing this little pin on my lapel that says it’s the chair that our seven million clients sit in and it reminds me every day that that is who I work for. The future of financial advice has everything to do with technology and has lots to do with understanding the experience that clients want to have today in the future, but we believe so strongly that what doesn’t change about the future of financial advice is that it’s given from one human being to another based on understanding what’s most important to that client, tailoring a set of strategies for them that is going to serve them well, and then partnering with them over their lifetimes to ensure that they are actually able to achieve whatever it is that’s most important to them. We believe that that is what doesn’t change.