Retirement planning is dying and being replaced by a reimagined client experience

Financial advisors used to get paid for managing money to help clients safely reach their retirement goal. Going forward, financial advisors will get paid for creating a client experience that shepherds their clients through a lifetime of experiences and transitions that taken together, add up to a life well lived.

In today's podcast, I touch on a major shift I see happening in the industry. The shift is from the destination (retirement) to the client experience (here and now).

Three forces are coming together to give rise to this shift from the destination to the client experience.

First, as the millennial generation becomes more pervasive in society, this idea of retirement gets obliterated. Most millennials will never stop working. Instead, they'll seamlessly blend their work and life to create a way to make money and have fun at the same time.

Second, events such as The Color Run, Tough Mudder, Comic-Con (and the hundreds of other "Cons") are stoking our interest in a live client experience that allows us to "do" something as opposed to passively consume something. Research clearly shows that humans value experiences more than things. Experiences bring us more happiness than do possessions. So, become an experience maker!

Third, big brands are moving away from interruptive advertising and creating an immersive client experience where the product is part of the production. If you watched the finale of American Idol, you couldn't tell where the commercial for Ford ended and the Idol show began--it was all integrated into one seamless production.

These forces make it imperative that you reimagine your client experience and make it one our clients want to remember and experience over and over again.