OMGeee I’m in the FTeee
OMGeeeee I’m in the FTeeeee.
It’s possibly not very cool to admit how excited I am about being in the newspaper.
Part of me worries that getting all ‘extra’ about it reveals me as the rookie I still am round these parts.
But Emotional Finance is still a young, fledgling business. So being quoted in the Financial Times by the erudite Claer Barrett has felt worth celebrating.
When I first started Emotional Finance, I sometimes felt as though I was singing Taylor Swift songs in a room full of synth musicians.
“Guys, guys, just listen to the lyrics. Hear the meaning behind what Taylor’s sharing with us.”
“Dink dink blink blink duf duo.”
We were clearly speaking different languages.
But things ARE changing.
Firms and financial professionals are beginning to recognise that AI and digital self-service have altered the information asymmetry on which financial advice has historically rested. Clients now have access not just to financial information, but to tools and platforms that allow them to manage investments and pensions themselves.
As a result, technical expertise, pensions and portfolios are fast becoming commoditised.
And yet clients still want and need financial advice.
They want someone who has their back. Someone to whom they matter. Someone who understands them. Someone they feel safe sharing vulnerabilities with. Someone who can help them make sense of the barrage of information and guide them towards decisions that are right for them, in the landscape of their lives.
Simply put, relationships themselves are becoming the product. The relationships that advisers offer are what clients will value. That is what they will pay for. And that is what they will tell their friends, family and colleagues about.
And, as Claer’s fabulous article suggests, inheritance tax is a perfect lens through which to look at this.
An adviser might understand the most complex IHT planning scenario imaginable from a technical perspective. But if the main vibe is ‘awks’ when the conversation reveals an estrangement from an eldest child or resentment towards a daughter’s fiancé, they are snookered.