Know Your Financial Advisor (www.KYFA.com) is planning to become Canada’s largest online directory of financial advisors with over 80,000 names. According to their website, “You’ll be able to read reviews, communicate, and get to know more about advisors and their industry.” They hope to match people who are looking for advisors with to the right advisor for them. Do you think this will work?
To me, this concept of matching advisors and clients is not entirely new. For example, I’ve worked with www.ProfessionalReferrals.ca or AdvisorWorld.com They too, tried to match advisors with potential clients. Obviously the approach and strategy might be different but the basic concept is the same.
Another startup company called TrueBlueConnect.com also hopes to make a mark in the same niche. Their website says “TrueBlue Connect is on a mission to connect investors with the expertise they need to reach their financial and personal goals. There are many kinds of financial experts, so we have designed a service that will match each investor with a Financial Advisor who has the right training, background and personal experience for that investor. We believe every investor deserves a great Advisor. Let us help you find yours – at no cost to you.”
When I talked to Liz Metcalfe of TrueBlue Connect, she used the metaphor of an online dating site for advisors and investors.
My two cents
I think the concept is intersting and it beceomes more relevant as technology becomes the primary way we communicate. I still beleive the client – advisor relationship is about trust and communication. Becaue money is one of the most important things in our life, the relationship investors have with their advisors is a very important one. I recently wrote and article about social media and how success will come from and advisors ability to engage or participate because at the end of the day it is still about relationships and communication.
Online dating has become a big business of it’s own. Will this concept of meeting a financial advisor through a website work? Only time will tell but from a technology and business perspective, it sure intrigues me. What do you think?
Good article!
I’ve been online since 1996 ( the dinosaur age of the internet), but have been a late adopter of social media – Twitter only for now. Social media is difficult for financial advisers because the companies they work for, have only very recently approved the use of these platforms for advisers. Plus the usage of these are very restrictive. In my case, all tweets have to be pre-approved by head office which certainly makes live conversations less-than-spontaneous.
In the early years, many advisers may have perhaps, spent too much time prospecting for new clients on the internet. The internet is a very large place and what I do now is to use these tools as resources for my existing clients rather than for prospecting for new clients.
Am I missing out? Maybe. Too old of a dinosaur? Perhaps.
Jim is quite correct. Social media is hard as the regulatory environment generally frowns on the practice, tolerates it to some degree as the investment business is traditionally – a verbal business. This is definitely changing – but slowly.