What Skills does the Market Value in Financial Services?

This is a question I have been asking myself with increasing regularity – and the answers seem to be increasingly disappointing. With regard to the Finance Industry, I am witnessing more individuals trusting their financial security and future to people with a smooth sounding sales pitch but no substance to their production. It is clear that the relationship building aspect of financial advice is taking precedence over any ability to add value. It is difficult to blame the industry for this, as people always have, and always will, respond to appropriate incentives – and the majority of behaviour is not illegal, or even immoral – performance is simply secondary to the relationship.

I am not going to rant about the advisor who literally steals from his clients – everyone knows this is both immoral and illegal – and thankfully, the regulators are clamping down in these instances. What I find puzzling, and somewhat disappointing, is that advisors who devote more time to pitching their business to clients often build a larger book of business, despite an often inferior service offering. Likewise, advisors who invest the time and effort in educating themselves and making more informed decisions for their clients, often find that they are unable to devote as much time to building their book of business.

In addition, there is often an asymmetric incentive involved in the relationship – it is far easier to invest a client’s account in a risky portfolio with two possible outcomes:
1)      The risky bet pays off with a large return, thus cementing the relationship and encouraging further risk taking behaviour.
2)      The risky bet fails (more often) but the advisor has already cleared their commission, and even if the relationship ends, they can simply move on to the next client.

The issue with this model is that there is no outcome where the advisor loses; they are essentially long a call, with their downside risk capped at the time invested in signing up the client.

The best option that I can see to counter this imbalance is to increase public speaking and general relationship building skills in schools – once everyone can relate to another human being comfortably, the emphasis will shift to the actual value added – rather than the client’s comfort with the advisor.

The other solution – which is borderline impossible to implement, is a ranking system for financial advisors. This would need to provide an objective framework for assessing the performance of an advisor against another. There are a multitude of problems with this approach, beginning with the cost (in both time and dollars) of measuring performance to a single standard (see GIPS).

Maybe this is all sour grapes, as I am disinclined to be the gung-ho salesman chasing every piece of commission I can – but there is no doubt that the more clients fall for these simple sales pitches – the more advisers will implement this method. Much the same as in the dating world, where the fact that single guys who are the “nice guys” are marginalised, while the douche bags who will lie, cheat and steal for sex, find themselves surrounded by girls, leads to more of the nice guys saying “screw it – why treat women like princesses when they respond better to disparagement” – advisors will use the methods that generate the most business for them.

So – People of Australia – Please select your Financial Advisor based on what they can do for your finances, not because they have a good sounding sales pitch!