Promoting, supporting, and recruiting female advisors is not only an over-arching diversity and inclusion effort on the part of financial services firms, but is simply smart business when you consider the statistics.
The hybrid RIA model is alive and well as its attractiveness and flexibility continues to prompt advisors to maintain an affiliation with both the corporate RIA and their independent broker-dealer partner.
The Solo Advisor may appear to be the lone wolf of the financial services industry. As we discussed in Part 1 of this series, the rise in competition presented by multi-advisor teams, the importance of service differentiators, and the customer perception of succession planning are all posing a threat to the Solo Advisor’s ability to achieve.
The Dodo Bird, the Tasmanian Tiger, the Woolly Mammoth – the one thing these animals have in common is that their inability to adapt, evolve, or weather change in their environment ultimately resulted in their extinction. Translate this to today’s financial services industry. The Solo Advisor appears to be on the precipice of extinction.
The relationship between advisors and clients is changing and it is important that advisors not only understand the current playing field but prepare for the new game ahead. Recent statistics reported by the Wall Street Journal show that advisor fees are dipping below 1%, driven primarily by emerging technology and millennial customers.
