Are You Getting What You're Worth? Moving Your Practice from ROI to ROL

Mitch Anthony

Return on Life™ (ROL), and the coaching program we’ve developed to support it, address the two major dilemmas many advisors have told me they continue to experience as their practices evolve:

1. Building a high-level practice while still maintaining a balanced life.
2. Being properly compensated for the intrinsic value advisors bring to the advisor-client relationship.

The existing value propositions of providing financial products, financial planning, and managing assets are undergoing rapid commoditization. As a result, advisors are having an increasingly difficult time differentiating themselves in a crowded, “me too” marketplace.  

The value proposition that transcends “becoming a commodity” is one in which advisors sell their wisdom, experience, and insights while clarifying to clients that personal attention to the client’s life situation along with strategic insights are the chief values they are paying for. This philosophy is the essence of Return on Life––otherwise known as ROL™––and it’s the underlying foundation of all financial life planners. Asset management, financial planning, and financial products are positioned to support ROL.

Participants in our ROL coaching program are taught how to sell this relationship, including their experience and wisdom. They are equipped with the necessary tools and presentations for communicating this value proposition to their clients. The program helps advisors move from financial planner to a financial life planner, which not only results in a better life for clients, but also for advisors. The amazing thing about ROL is that both advisors and their clients reap the rewards of the program.

A New Standard of Success

The central measure of a successful relationship should be determined by whether or not a client's life has improved as a result of her relationship with her advisor. All other measures, such as return on investments, should be positioned to serve this core proposition of helping clients make progress in their lives. Not only does the ROL measure guarantee that money is properly utilized to bring maximum impact, it also guarantees an advisor’s own sense of significance and fulfillment within the framework of his daily work.

Today’s clients are cynical––they demand something more than the “old school” modus operandi of “being sold” or put through sterile processes. Clients want a personalized level of engagement that explores their history, current challenges and opportunities, principles and goals and helps them build a bridge between their means and sense of meaning. In other words, they want an advisor who listens and acts on what she hears.  Clients don’t care about an organization’s product du-jour, or whether or not an advisor meets his sales goal. As they should, they care about themselves. If a client feels he is being treated like a commodity, he will simply find another advisor.  An advisor’s level of success depends on the success of that advisor’s clients.

A New Kind of Planner

Traditional industry models are not properly designed to meet this evolving level of need––it will take a new class and caliber of financial professional who understands the skill-sets necessary to rise above the clutter in the marketplace. The financial life planner is equal parts philosopher, strategist, and capitalist––with equal capacity and competency in terms of intelligence, intuition, and inspiration. In other words, one who embraces ROL.

As illustrated above, integrity is at the core of ROL, permeating everything a financial life planner does––who he works with, and how he conducts every aspect of his business.

The roles of the financial life planner are one part philosopher (asking the tough questions that lead to discovering meaning and motives), one part strategist (utilizing experience and strategic insight), and one part capitalist (aggressively pursuing opportunities that will result in the well-being and improvement of the client’s situation). 

The accompanying competencies of the financial life planner are intelligence (mastery of systems and processes), intuition (mastery of human emotion and motives), and inspiration (mastery of encouragement and motivation). All of these roles and competencies are at the heart of ROL. 

Finally, at the surface level, this new breed of advisor is absolutely transparent on all matters, including who they are (and are not), what they do (and do not want to do), who they work with (and who they do not care to work with), and how they are paid (and how much and how often). There are no shadows to hide in and no confusing rhetoric to hide behind. The same integrity that drives from the core is manifest on the surface. These are the marks of true financial life planners––ROL is embedded in everything they do, whether it’s for themselves, their clients, or their team members. Advisors who embrace ROL reap both financial and non-financial rewards, and so do their clients.

This approach is for everyone in this business who is willing to play all of these expanded roles and who want to dedicate themselves toward possessing the competencies required. Financial life planners are perfectly willing to be transparent with their clients. They have nothing to hide––and expect the same from their clients. 

Existing industry models are also not designed to deliver a life of balance to advisors. To become successful with the current blueprint, it’s necessary to sacrifice far too much in terms of time, energy, and balance in life. This reality does not bode well for advisors or their clients. How can advisors propose a lifetime relationship with clients if they themselves are on a burnout track?

ROL focuses on helping advisors “own” the value they seek to sell. A transforming training session is the entrée into a new manner of conducting business and building more discriminating relationships at the retail level.

Advisors will never be able to deliver optimal value in the marketplace until their own sense of well-being, balance, and purposefulness is at the center of their business proposition. Failure to do so will result in over-selling an advisor’s time (often to the wrong clientele), underselling her intrinsic value, and being paid for functions and processes far below one’s inherent value––all of which are paths toward burnout and feelings of futility.

The first phase of the ROL process is focused on helping individuals discover their own unique and saleable intrinsic values regarding intelligence, intuition, and inspiration. The focus is on discovering and capturing the values that make their personal lives worth living. The net outcome of this first phase is the realization of the pursuits in life that provide advisors with the most fulfillment and the abilities they possess that are most valuable to their clients.

The second phase is focused on a practice management design engineered to capitalize on each individual’s chief strengths, experience, and willingness to care for and pay attention to the right type and right number of clients. An integral aspect of the second phase is the thorough examination––internally and externally––of the participants’ individual pricing structures and the commensurate agreement to raise their prices to the level that best reflects their true value to clients.

My own research indicates that many of the top quality people in the financial services industry lack the confidence to charge what they should for what they provide. Many also lack the confidence to exercise wise discrimination toward building a clientele that is totally aligned toward the value they can best deliver.

Mitch Anthony is the founder and president of The Financial Life Planning Institute, the leading provider of financial life planning tools and programs. 

For more than a decade, Mitch and his team have provided training and development for both individual advisors and major organizations throughout the world. Mitch personally consults with many of the largest and most-recognizable names in the financial services industry on both financial life planning and relationship development.

Mitch has been named one of the financial service industry’s top “Movers & Shakers” for his pioneering work, and is interviewed by the media on a regular basis. The Institute is partnering with both Texas Tech University and the University of Georgia to develop financial life planning programs for their undergraduate programs. Mitch is a popular keynote speaker, columnist for Financial Advisor magazine, and host of the daily radio feature, The Daily Dose, heard on approximately 100 radio stations nationwide.

Mitch is also the author of many groundbreaking books for advisors and consumers, including From the Boiler Room to the Living Room, StorySelling for Financial Advisors, The New Retirementality, Your Clients for Life, and Your Client’s Story. For information on these books and more resources, click here.

Contact him at mitch@mitchanthony.com.

© 2008 Mitch Anthony