Andrew Dolan shares how digital-first relationships are redefining trust and accessibility for the next generation of clients.

Show Notes Info:

If you’re interested in connecting with Andrew, you can visit: https://www.ameripriseadvisors.com/Andrew.Dolan/

I’m John.

And I’m Julie.

We’re the hosts of the Hartford Fund’s human-centric investing podcast.

Every other week, we’re talking with inspiring thought leaders to hear their best ideas for how you can transform your relationships with your clients.

Let’s go!

Andrew, welcome back to the Human Centric Investing podcast. We’re so excited to have you here with us today.

Thanks for having me on. I’m super excited to be here.

Well, Andrew, I know that Julie and I have spoken to you before about what it’s like to be a next-gen advisor, but we’d like to spend time on the podcast today talking about really the expectations, desires of the next- gen client. Because I think one of the mistakes that I see being made is there are certain stereotypes in the industry, things like, well, Millennials don’t have any money. By the way, millennials are now in their mid-40s, some of the older ones, right? So it’s kind of like time has passed us by on some of these old overused statements, but what do you think is key in terms of the desires of a next-generation client searching for an advisor? Because sometimes I think from the advisor perspective, another one of those stereotypes. Hey, you know, these are the people that grew up during a time where there was not an internet. They’ll just jump online. They’ll use technology to do everything. So why would I bother getting involved with them? But from your standpoint, why do you think they are a valuable client base to address and what do you the keys are in terms of how they determine the value of a given advisor, any given advisor?

A great question, John. And yes, I mean, in my career, I face stereotypes all the time. And then one of them, as you mentioned, is for whatever reason, sometimes people think, oh, hiring an advisor is too big and too scary for me, or it’s not the right time. And especially with those millennials who are, like you said, now 40, there’s a tremendous amount of work and planning that can be done with that generation and even Gen Z as well. One, the opportunity is they’re sending their kids to college, they’re planning for retirement, they have important financial goals that they want work with, they have estate planning needs, right? So there’s current work right now. And eventually, when the greatest wealth transfer in our country happens, when about $100 trillion gets passed down from the baby boomers to the Millennials or Gen Z. They’re going to be the recipients of a tremendous amount of money, a whole new financial picture that they’ve never experienced, you know, they had never experienced with before, and they’re gonna need a trusted advisor to help them and coach them and manage that situation. I think a huge threat in this country is that that that money that’s gonna come and pass down is gonna be mismanaged. Um, and so there’s a tremendous matter of work there now. And there will be even more work to come when the wealth transfer happens.

That makes sense. I’m curious, as you think about the next gen clients and you compare them maybe to a bit more seasoned client, are there differences in how they wanna be communicated with or some non-negotiables that they have that haven’t necessarily been displayed by other generations?

I found that, and this is my opinion, I think that clients in that ballpark there, they want stuff to be done digitally, right? They want to be able to have collaboration with their advisor on an app or a client compliant way to text with them or email or phone call. So I found those clients want me to be very accessible to them. However, they don’t need me to across from the desk. So. We are able to communicate via Microsoft Teams and I’m able to share screens with them and catch them for an hour after dinner to go over some important things that they’re working on. So from a collaboration and a working standpoint, I think those clients want accessibility with digital platforms, but they don’t necessarily need me physically present with them. Although I think it’s important to be present At some point... Whether that’s talking about finances or not, to continue to build relationships with that generation.

That makes sense. Do you mind if I ask a follow-up question? Because I’m always curious about sort of the technology component in a practice within everyone’s compliance restraints, of course. But would you encourage an advisor, no matter what age or stage they are in their career, but if they’re working with that next-gen client to really be utilizing all of their firm’s technology solutions to the fullest, so whether it’s using. You know, in video applications or if there’s a compliant texting option to communicate with clients or, you know using videos or any of those types of things. Do you think that’s a really important component of the communication process?

Extremely. I think whenever, you know, I’m glad to be partnered with a firm that really sees the importance of the technology and tries to make sure that we have the best resources at our fingertips to be able to collaborate with clients on. And every time there’s a new rollout, whether that’s in the financial planning software I use, whether that’s a new scheduling tool or digital texting capability, I try to make sure that I’m trained and ready to use that if needed. As soon as it is rolled out. Because I think if you do not keep up with the technology advancements, you can get left behind. I think you wanna stay on top of what clients want and how they wanna communicate with their advisor. And I think that’s extremely important. Extremely important part of how you should operate your practice.

Andrew, how much research do you think potential clients are doing online outside of the proactive call that you make or the successful networking event that you’ve done? Maybe in addition to those things, how much researcher people doing online and how important is it to you as an advisor to make sure you’re marketing yourself in those venues?

And you know what’s weird, John, is that I think the research is actually starting to come to the clients. It’s popping up on Reels, on various different social medias. I think if you’re interested in something, these ad agencies have figured out a way to get stuff in front of you, right? So they’re getting a financial tip, people talking about IRAs just videoing themselves and posting it out on social media. So it’s in front of, I think, my clients all the time. And I think my job is to kind of funnel the information and get my clients specifically tailored advice to them with all the information that is out there. I think it’s become some good and some bad with the abundance of information out there, but I think that honestly stresses the importance of working with an advisor to be able to tailor all this information to one person and their needs.

Have you made it a priority to keep your website up to date and dynamic, your LinkedIn profile, any other social media approved platforms? I mean, is that a major component of your proactive marketing plan is really keeping all that fresh and up to day so that if and when clients and our prospects are searching for you, you’re putting your best and most comprehensive foot forward.

Yeah. I think like anything you buy, um, you, you do a verification step, right? I think when I’m thinking of, of buying something, whether it’s financially related or not, I checked a, you know, website, make sure it’s a credible source and see what other content they have out there on their, on their Instagram pages or, or LinkedIn’s. Uh, so I think it’s definitely, uh, an important step for verification to make sure that that is, um. You know, all up to date. I’m not super, I don’t post a ton on social media besides maybe when I do a marketing event or something of that nature, but what I do do is pay attention on social media, on LinkedIn specifically, to know what my network is doing, right? I make sure that I’m connected with people when I do go to network events, COIs and things like that, but I also can see what my work is doing from from a lifestyle standpoint, are they changing jobs? Have they just got promoted? Are they posting about what their kids are doing? Maybe their kids just graduated college, right? There’s all sorts of things that you can be proactive in your reach outs, right, if you want to offer your help to a particular person that just changed a job, you can see that and use that to your advantage on LinkedIn to gain clients. And so I think it’s important to stay up to date on social media. However, I’m not a big, big poster for myself. Maybe I should be doing it more, but I’m a big poster.

You know, Andrew, when I think about other industries and some of the changes that we’ve seen, take the medical industry, for example, we find that many times that people have to change doctors. They actually say they prefer a younger doctor, right? Because they don’t want to have to change doctors again over time, so on and so forth. But my question is for the next-gen client, do you think the next gen client sees advantages of working? With someone approximately their own age versus someone that might be a decade or two decades older than them? Are there pros and cons to those kind of relationships?

Definitely, and I stress the importance of that when I do work with, when I do have my initial prospective client meeting is I plan to be, my retirement date on my financial plan is not for many years from now, so I can be with you and celebrate all the great things that you’ll accomplish from now all the way up and through retirement because I’m working in the same boat. I’m experiencing the similar difficulties. I’m facing this, you know, similar challenges. Might be in different boats, but we’re at least in the same ocean right now. So I think that’s really important. I think people really do like that, but I think you need to be one, credible, and two, they need to know, like, and trust you in order to kind of make that commitment with you going forward for a long time.

Andrew, I’m curious, you mentioned earlier, you know, really understanding how clients want to be communicated with. Is that something that you’ve made a proactive effort to find out and then note in your CRM and make sort of part of each individual, especially next gen clients service model and contact plan.

I have. Yeah. And I understand what, you know, I have clients of all different ages and they like to be communicated with differently. And, I think that’s definitely one thing I note in my CRM is how they do like to be communicated with. I’ve found that just the millennials and the Gen Zs, they like the texting capability, you know, via our compliant way to text with clients and to just keep them updated. Hey, let them know that money came over or that money was invested for them. Um, I think that’s a huge, huge way that people want to be communicated with, with their advisor for years to come.

So, Andrew, I have a question. We were talking about technology earlier, being a double-edged sword, right? Because clients now have more technology available at their fingertips. They can watch videos, they can listen to podcasts, they have all kinds of things coming over their social media accounts, whatever it may be. How do you, as an advisor, deal with a first-time client that’s never had an advisor before but comes in loaded with a bunch of stuff in their head? Day. They think they’re pretty good at this stuff. They think they have a pretty good handle on the financial planning angle of things. How do you position yourself as an advisor with that potential client that feels they’re educated and if they just had the time, they could probably do this themselves.

Great question, and the thing I focus on the most with a client or a prospective client like that is the accountability feature, to have me by their side handling the financial stress and important conversations and making sure that their savings are going to where they need to. And I track where their savings went throughout the year and are they staying on track to get where they want to go or to optimize. Their financial plan to the fullest or take advantage of the strategies that they already came to the meeting with me and wanted to discuss. So I think that’s the separator. People can get information, maybe it’s good, maybe its bad, I don’t know, but to have a professional by your side through the ups, downs and through everything in between to make sure that they’re sticking to that financial plan is the differentiator and that’s where there’s just so much value. That an advisor can bring to a client relationship like that.

It seems like technology has been a common thread through our conversation, whether that’s how the next-gen client wants to be communicated with or wants to use it, or how you are structuring your practice proactively by leveraging the technology. For those that have not fully embraced all the technological features that are available to them, what advice would you give? In order for them to continue to evolve what they’re doing. I always say that the most dangerous word an advisor can use is because we’ve always done it this way, right? It really kills all innovation. So how would you guide an advisor that really hasn’t wrapped his or her arms around all those features, or maybe has been hesitant to weave them in because they feel busy or stressed or like there’s already too much to do in a day?

I would just try to emphasize that it is a big threat. If you are not adapting to the ways in which the next generation wants to work and wants to collaborate with the advisor, then assets and clients are in danger of leaving you. When the beneficiaries of accounts want to work in a different way than you’re currently working, that might be a threat to your business, and honestly, a... A threat to the, to the client relationship. So I think it’s something that should be worked on, right? Not every client wants to be the most tech savvy, um, advisor client relationship, but there is a bulk of the, of the people that do. Um, and I think to, to get yourself up to speed and at least maybe 75% of the way there, it would be hugely valuable to, to your, to your client base.

Andrew, I’m curious about the financial planning topics that you cover more with next-gen clients than maybe older clients. And when I think about this, some of the research that Julie and I have been exposed to tell us that, you know, for many people under age 35, they’ve already had more jobs in their job career than people over age 55, right? It’s it. Like the new world of job changing and demand and the ability to do things online from home in person, all this makes for a more fluid job market, for example, or maybe dealing with family planning issues, you know, cost of specific medical care for people who are younger versus older. Do you feel that these conversations do come up more in your next gen? Client conversations, like are there particular areas that are emphasized more, whether it’s student loans, college planning, family planning, job changes, all these kind of things, do you think there are, obviously everybody’s individual and different, but do you see a trend there, or is it pretty much the same no matter the age of the client?

I do. And with the job changing comes different benefits packages, right? So that becomes a huge part of somebody’s financial plan or somebody’s family’s plan is how do we manage the benefits of the employer that we already have, right, the benefits that are offered to us? How does that affect our protection coverages with maybe other things we have or don’t have? What does the retirement plan look like, right. How is that different and then the other plan that I just left. It’s a, it’s a conversation. I think, you know, when my clients, you know, change jobs, I go and schedule a meeting right away because I want to go through the whole new package, right? The, the, the benefits, uh, the income, the um, the insurance is offered, right. I want to go through all of that with them. So then they can strategically manage their cashflow and their savings and their expenses to their new situation. So I think that is a, you you know. Might be a good thing that clients can change jobs, send a laptop back to the company and get a new one and work on Monday somewhere else. But at the same time, I think it provides another opportunity for the advisors to deliver even more value and help clients navigate these job changes when they come about because they’re happening. The time people spend at a job is far less than it used to be.

Andrew, I’m curious. As we think about sort of the under 35 client versus the older generation client, and obviously every client is different, and I realize that you personalize their experience, but if you had to sort of generically bucket those two groups and talk about some of the differences or maybe similarities, how would you capture that in terms of a compare and contrast just based upon your experience?

Yeah, so I think about two things, right, that become a common theme is the housing. The money that people have to spend right now per their take-home pay is a lot greater for the housing bucket than it was previously, right? So that’s eating up more people’s take-ome pay, which means they have to be very much more strategic with what to do with the rest of their monthly income. Uh, in order to, to build wealth and carry out, you know, future goals. Two is the education, right? A college education is traditionally, uh, rose more so than the general in inflation. So two things, education has become more and more expensive. So is housing. So how do we manage our income even more diligently with those two challenges or obstacles in the way? And that’s why I do believe that. Should be working with a professional to really help you with that because it’s even harder than it was.

Well, Andrew, I wanna thank you for the insights that you shared with us today on the Human Centric podcast. And if it’s okay, before we say goodbye, Julie and I would like you to run you through the ringer of what we call the lightning round of questions. And then this part of our podcast, we’re gonna fire off some questions, if you’re willing, just to help our audience get to know you a little bit better as a person. So nothing to do with the next-gen client or how we appeal to them, but really about... Andrew Dolan and what makes you tick. So if you’re game, I’ll ask Julie to get us started. Sounds great. Do you prefer a beach house or a lake house? Beach house.

Are you messy or neat?

Oh, gosh. Depends who you ask. I think, I think I’m neat in important aspects of life. And I think a messy and others.

Make sense.

Got both sides covered there.

Yeah.

If you could travel anywhere in the world for free for vacation, where would you go?

Ooh, I like surfing. Surfing is one of my hobbies. So I would maybe go on like many different spots in Hawaii and maybe South Africa. So I’d kind of go around the globe and have myself an endless summer.

That works.

That sounds amazing. Would you rather travel to the past or to the future?

Wow, I’ll go future.

And are you a morning person or a night owl?

Night out.

What was your favorite board game as a kid?

I liked Monopoly.

And would you rather binge a TV show or watch a movie? And we wanna know any recommendations that you have in either of those areas.

I always joke that when people say, have you ever seen? The answer for me is probably no, because I’ve seen very, very little movies, but I have seen a decent amount of TV shows, so I’d rather go and binge a TV show.

Any recommendations?

Uh, right now I’m watching Gossip Girl, it’s okay.

Are you spontaneous or a planner?

Well, this wouldn’t be good, I guess, if I was spontaneous. So I would say plan it.

My last question, Andrew, would you say you’re an introvert or an extrovert?

I would say, oh that’s a tough one too. I would the nature of my business is forcing me to be an extrovert, but I’m not the one that’s just gonna light up conversation in a room when I walk into it either. So I’m a little bit of both.

Probably on the mid-range of the spectrum there, yeah. Yes.

And what’s the first concert you ever went to?

Florida Georgia Line.

Oh, that’s a good one. I love it.

Well, Andrew, we can’t thank you enough for joining us today on the Human Centric Investing podcast and sharing your perspective on the next generation advisor and specifically the challenges, but most importantly, the opportunities. And for our listeners, if you’re interested in learning more about Andrew, you can visit his website at www.ameripriseadvisors.com forward slash Andrew dot Dolan. Thank you again for all of your insights today, Andrew.

Thanks for having me, it was a blast.

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The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the guest who is not affiliated with Hartford funds.