Issue link: https://resources.envestnet.com/i/1527487
Taking the Measure of Advice © 2022 Envestnet. All rights reserved. 10 • Addressing the emotional side of money: Delivery of financial wellness meaningfully correlated with advisors' tendency to help clients understand how their attitudes and behaviors toward money affect their ability to reach their goals. Advisors who made discussion of these issues a standard part of their practice produced better outcomes for their clients than advisors who didn't address these issues. • Engaging the spouse and other family members: Delivery of financial wellness meaningfully correlated with advisors' tendency to include the spouse and other family members in meetings and conversations about financial goals. Advisors who involved both spouses in the advisory relationship produced better outcomes for clients than advisors who worked with the client alone. • Breadth of capabilities on platform: Delivery of financial wellness meaningfully correlated with the breadth of capabilities that are available to an advisor in crafting and implementing a plan, even if the advisor doesn't utilize the full range of capabilities for all clients. Advisors whose wealth management platforms enabled advisors to address a full range of advisory needs produced better outcomes for their clients than advisors whose platforms were not as robust. All advisors in the survey received a score for each of the five categories based on the extent to which their survey responses showed that they engaged in each behavior. The five individual category scores were then combined into a single overall metric called the Intelligent Financial Life Advisor Practice Score. With this metric, advisors can easily determine how effective they are in delivering financial wellness. Across the 483 surveyed advisors, the scores ranged from 37 to 97, with a median score of 75 (Figure 3). Elite advisors—those who rank most highly in delivering financial wellness—scored 86 or higher and make up approximately one-eighth of the total population surveyed.