Great advisors of today are very proactive. They know that when maybe a market drops or clients are feeling stress about something in their finances, they might give them a call and say, “How are you doing?” Advisors of tomorrow know what’s coming next for those people. They might do research about their business; they might see what’s around the corner before clients do. Advisors of today apply best practices. Advisors of tomorrow are going to have to adapt those strategies, and even though what worked in the past is probably still good, it has to be adapted for this future state. They have to stay flexible in order to do that.

Advisors of today listen well. Advisors of tomorrow achieve a Zen-like inner silence and listen from no point of view of what they are listening for. They are listening strictly for how clients are feeling and behaving and what they are needing without looking for buying signals and without looking for all those things that then would take you to a potential next step. That’s the difference.

Advisors of today explain things; advisors of tomorrow engage people in the educational process so that they are learning for themselves. Advisors of today are professionally credentialed. Advisors of tomorrow are personally principled, and those principles come out in everything that they do. That signals trust when people are using their instincts to make decisions about whom they trust.

If you know what a Renaissance man or a Renaissance woman is, you know it’s somebody who does a lot of different things. What’s the inspiration for this? This is a real story from a financial firm that I’ve done some work with. It is a letter that came from a client in May 2020, which was right after all this stuff happened, and it goes like this: “Hey, Joan and Dave. My partners and I” — it’s a business-owner client — “had a meeting this morning, and we’ve decided to streamline the number of advisors that we use for our business planning. We’ve chosen your firm as the one we want to work with. The decision was based on the resources that your firm has in-house that far exceeds the other firms that we have used.”

Some of that is based on logic — they have better resources. But the other part of it that’s not so logical is “I just trust you guys.” And, if you read between the lines, they are really saying this,

“I don’t want this many people in my circle; I’m getting conflicting information. I don’t know whom to trust. My gut says I’m going to trust you. You have the resources, so let’s go. I’m firing everybody else.” And then there were two. And that is what I’m understanding from talking with other advisors — it is not so uncommon today where the circles are starting to get skinnier and skinnier. The question becomes, are you going to be in the circle or not in the circle as it relates to that trust and that relationship? So, the prediction that we made was, most advisors will offer additional services outside of their core business in order to remain competitive. The logic part of it is that you have to be able to do all of this as a Renaissance advisor, but then also they have to be already in the circle of trust. So how likely? Eighty percent. By when? Just under four years. And why? Client attraction and retention. The major implication of this is obvious: If you are expanding into other places in your business, other types of resources beyond the core, others may be too.

Therefore, there is new competition that will be in the mix potentially. To be a Renaissance advisor, what must change? Advisors of today are doubling down on vertical, meaning that what they do really well, they are doing more of. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that, but the advisor of tomorrow will pursue horizontal opportunities. Some may already do that today as in a client accommodation, but advisors of tomorrow will figure out new ways to really integrate those other services into their business model, compensating their partners appropriately and making it part of the big integrated whole that the client sees, as opposed to an accommodation when somebody asks for it.

Advisors of today remember failed attempts. Remembering those failed attempts is fine, but the advisors of tomorrow are going to learn the lessons and adapt. In innovation, we call that testing and learning. What worked about it? What didn’t work about it? Go back and fix the things that didn’t work, and keep the things that did, and then expand in the future because the time is now; people are looking for that. Advisors of today define the business that they are in. What business are you really in, and how do you define that? Do you define it broadly enough? Advisors of tomorrow know what businesses they have the right to be in and then will pursue those opportunities.

It could be any kind of horizontal opportunities that you are looking to expand into. It could be other types of financial services. It could be other types of products. It could be other things that your clients ask you for, but you are not sure how to fulfill on that. Maybe you might make a referral to somebody on an ongoing basis. Those are the kinds of signals that advisors of tomorrow need to be looking for to expand their practices and become a Renaissance advisor.

Advisors of today would tend to be in a situation with an amateur and try to devalue them. Try to say, “You know what? They are incorrect. They don’t have as much experience as I do,” which is true, right? But again, we are not talking about logic here. We are talking about decisions that are being made with gut instincts and emotion. Advisors of tomorrow would embrace the rationale that that amateur might have and lean into it more. In addition to focusing on the client or the consumer, they would focus on that influencer and help them understand another point of view, not necessarily in a battling way but in a way that might help that influencer or that amateur become even better at what they do.

Advisors of today would try to debunk the common myths, where advisors of tomorrow would bridge the gaps in philosophy. Advisors of today try to prove they’re right; advisors of tomorrow will look for ways to make that amateur right because most opinions are right in some way, but we have to find that common ground and, then again, bridge those gaps.

And, finally, advisors of today might look for their clients to change their behavior, where advisors of tomorrow will seek modeling. So, looking at the amateur professional as a potential person who might model that new behavior or themselves is a new area that I think we need to think more about as we expand our practices.

Good advisors of today might refer to somebody in their network and say, “I think I know somebody who has this type of expertise. Why don’t you try calling this person?” Advisors of tomorrow will experience it first. They will make sure that they’ve tasted the food before they recommend it or that they know somebody who has. Good advisors of today are going to look at their social network and their business network and say, “A big network is a good thing.”

And it’s still a good thing. But good advisors of tomorrow are going to make sure that that’s quality, make sure that most of their connections are high, high quality and that they know who they are. And good advisors of today say, “Yes, I’ll help you” or “Yes, I’ll connect you.” Advisors of tomorrow will say, “Yes, if … ” “Yes, if it’s a fit and if I understand what both the connector and the connectee have in terms of their own intentions, because it’s going to reflect right back on me.”

Maria Ferrante-Schepis is the president of Maddock Douglas Inc., an innovation consultancy focused on helping organizations innovate successfully and place the right bets on their future. After more than 20 years as an executive in the insurance and financial services industry, Ferrante-Schepis joined Maddock Douglas Inc. in 2010 to focus on the opportunities for innovation within this field, recognizing the significant public and government demand for change.