Advice en route to health and wellness space: consultant

Appearing in a webinar by XY Adviser this week, Audere Coaching and Consulting founder Stewart Bell reflected on his recent trip to Silicon Valley, referencing the movements of one of the largest independent advice firms in the US as it focuses on providing financial advice in the context of client health and wellness.

“...after years of leading its marketing campaign with angles such as: 'wall street is broke' and 'advice is conflicted', they've made the decision to change their angle to focus on the link between financial well-being and personal well-being - the idea of seeing wealth creation as something that doesn’t sit separately, but influences your well-being, your spirituality, your health etc,” Mr Bell said.

“There is a lot of people in the industry, particularly younger advisers, who strongly believe in this angle and it’s telling to see a large firm like this going after this space. I think we're going to see an increase in businesses positioning their services as being part of the bigger health and wellness space.

“The health and wellness angle is primarily a way of connecting with clients and bringing them into our world without having to lecture them on financial literacy or give them a glossary of terms they need to learn…”

However, Mr Stewart said advisers should refrain from positioning financial advice as an intrinsic part of lifestyle health if that value proposition isn't genuine.

“If you're going to go down the health and wellness route it has to be genuine. If you find you’re only doing it because you're going with the crowd, or your business model is too expensive for the clients that you're going for, then you need to revisit it.”