The first principle of good financial advice is to truly understand clients. This is what creates long-term value for clients and mutual trust. 

However good a firm thinks it is, and, whether it provides excellent advisors, quality service and well researched advice solutions, those qualities are just expected ‘what’s’ of any self-respecting advisory firm. 

All of those elements will matter little, if the firm doesn’t invest properly in getting to clients’ hopes, fears and dreams. 

In simple terms, if an Adviser doesn’t understand what a client is trying to achieve, how can he or she diagnose what approach to take with them? The success of any Financial Planning or Wealth Management can only be measured objectively, if a destination (the hopes and dreams) is shared candidly at outset and the adviser also allays any client ‘fears’ during that process of discovery.

This can be challenging for clients, as many have never clearly articulated their financial and life goals in any depth. Many  firms mythologise their worth and cleverness with ‘things’ (products & software) rather than focussing as we do, on clients’ desired outcomes and goals. 

We have all of the ‘expected’ professional elements detailed above. However, whilst we could spend lots of time telling clients how ‘whizz-bang’ clever we can be with ‘things’, we simply prefer to spend more time talking to them about what they need and want, so that we can be more effective with smart things, that work hard to help clients reach their hopes and dreams.