What are clients seeking in advisors?  

After college, my father decided he wanted to be able to build his own home.   With that goal, he took up a mason’s craft path with trowel and strong hands.    He built our first home after working all day on others, out of wood, brick, sweat and callused hands.   That home stands today in the Midwest, outliving my father’s short span on this earth.   My learnings from my father always began with the importance of taking time to understand how best to earn the trust of others, before starting any building effort.  

Dad was passionate about his tools. He studied and understood the usage, quality and methods of the tools for use in his trade. He demonstrated to me how various tools serve different purposes, and how each individual using those leaves marks of their individuality on whatever was built.

I fancy myself a builder of a different sort over my career, seeking ways to help advisors build trust with their clients.   Most recently, I focused, on the daunting task of building client trust through the development of a risk management tool.   One designed to better understand the often-misunderstood levels of risk sought by their clients, and ultimately delivered in custom designed portfolios.  

Everyone has individuality and we all have a “story” to share.  I learned first-hand, an Advisors most challenging task, is the journey to understanding a client’s unique goals and personal needs.   The best Advisors I have known, seek out the best tools as craftsmen seeking to build a foundation.  Ultimately, the goal is to fulfill an agreed upon and planned series of ever evolving outcomes…. human outcomes.  Such an amazing challenge deserves state of the art tools.  

After sharing my father’s craftsman journey and my learnings with a dear friend of mine, he wisely spoke:  “If the hand is the cutting edge of the mind, I see now how the tool is the cutting edge of the hand, and the crafted object the cut edge of an infinitely complex web of material, cultural, and spiritual relations.”

I felt his statement was a powerful way, in a parallel universe, to state an Advisors true client challenge.  We must weave and hone a result using experiences, intuition, education and carefully selected tools combined with fine teams for an optimal client result and experience!

I would like to credit the quote of my dear friend who shared the words:   Michael Lorence - President and Memeber of Innermost House Foundation.org.