9 Ways to Be the Advisor Your Clients Really Need

What You Need to Know

Clients today want the professionals they work with to be more than just their lawyer or accountant or banker.
This doesn’t mean you need to suddenly be an expert in everything.
It means being your client’s thought partner, sounding board or friend — when they need you to be.

There are a lot of talented financial professionals serving families and businesses with complex needs: wealth advisors, investment bankers, accountants, insurance brokers, attorneys ​— you name it. 

When asked what they do for their clients, their responses are generally along the lines of “I prepare their taxes,” “I provide legal counsel” or “I manage their investments.”

All of those responses are accurate, of course, but they are also unnecessarily narrow and miss perhaps one of the most important aspects that the best professional service providers understand: Clients desire more than just specific technical advice. They want to work with someone who can provide a more global perspective. 

Yes, these advisors and other financial professionals are experts in their fields, though too often they’re experts in only their fields. They really know their stuff when it comes to, say, tax law or investment advice, but that’s where their contributions end ​— because the advisors decide that’s where it ends. And therein lies the frustration for some clients. 

Clients today want their financial advisors and the other professionals they work with to be more than just their advisor, lawyer, accountant or banker. They want you to appreciate and understand the full scope of their financial, familial and business situations.

They want you to be their thought partners in more areas than the one in which you happen to have subject matter expertise. Often, they want you to be their friend. In short, they want you to be human.

The two of us share a client who used to run a dynamic company. After taking a COVID sabbatical, she’s working on a new business in an industry that neither of us knows much about. 

But we talk with her regularly about her plans, her capital needs, her market position … in summary, her hopes and dreams. And we’ve opened our networks to help her raise capital and find distribution channels. Our approach is holistic. And she’s our friend.

We can, and more importantly should, take that holistic approach with all of our clients. It doesn’t mean you need to suddenly be an expert in everything. That would be equally impossible and irresponsible.

Rather, it means you should make the effort to help where you can (if a client is interested in connecting with venture capital and you have a deep VC network, connect them), sympathize when you should (if the client’s dog dies, send flowers), and demonstrate at every opportunity that you have the client’s back, however the client needs it. It’s not that hard. 

Below, we provide nine suggestions to be the advisor your clients need you to be.

1. Change your mindset.

It all starts with reframing your role in your clients’ lives. Are you just their advisor, lawyer or accountant, or are you their strategic partner, however they need you to be? Become the latter.

Remember, you are a human first and (insert professional title here) second. You have more to offer than just your specific area of expertise. Be good at what you are trained to do, but be better at being human.

When you start and end a meeting and focus 100% of your time exclusively on your client’s business problem, you miss the opportunity to learn about what may really be driving that client’s business and behavior. Understanding a client’s motivation and what their goals are by talking about the personal often leads to deeper and richer counsel in the subject matter where you are the expert.

2. Focus on what your clients need, not simply what you have to offer.

With a new mindset in place, put it to work by continually asking yourself, “What do my clients need now?” This is more effective than myopically focusing only on what you have to offer. If you are a CPA and a client needs help with their taxes, great. Focus on that.

But if that same client calls a week later and is distraught because his adult daughter has just declared she has no interest in joining the family business, pivot to be sympathetic about the situation and (a) provide your suggestions and advice on how you would address the situation as a parent or business owner, and (b) offer to connect him with others who have either faced a similar situation or whose practice helps with the dynamics of family businesses. That’s what your client needs now.

3. Talk less, listen more.

And when you do talk, ask more questions. So you are doing well so far in reframing your mindset and being the advisor your clients need you to be, but be careful not to overdo it. By that, we mean spend more time listening and less time talking.