‘Financial A-team’: Taking a multidisciplinary approach to complex clients

While most advisers are probably no stranger to working with other professional services providers to serve their clients’ needs, Financial Adviser Scale Squad founder Adele Martin suggested that creating an “advisory board” approach may be more effective, particularly for high complexity clients.

In this, Martin explained, clients might engage in joint meetings with their financial adviser, accountant and lawyer together, which not only saves the client time by not having to conduct individual meetings with each service provider, but it also has the added benefit of ensuring that all information is shared accurately.

“Often what used to happen was they go see the accountant, they’d go see the financial adviser, they go see the solicitor … and they’d have to try and remember what they said to get to this person and it’s more meetings for them and then there’s also that, you know, by the time it gets to that person, it’s not quite what you said and stuff can get misconstrued,” Martin said on The ifa Show.

Discussing this ahead of her appearance at the AI Summit this week, Martin said that forming this “advisory board” or “financial A-team” can make it easier for each party to understand what the client is asking for and, vice versa, what they are being told.

“You’ve got that real collaboration because one person might come from wanting to save tax and the other person might come from wanting to protect your assets,” she said.

“To have that input from the client so you can get that balance right and not have to do that in individual meetings, but all at once, you get a much better outcome for the client.”

When it comes to accountants and advisers working together, there is the ongoing perception that it is an “us versus them” situation. However, Martin believes that a key part of these collaborative relationships is recognising the value that each professional brings to the table.

“It’s also respecting each other to know that actually I do need both. It’s not one or the other because a question that often gets asked is, do I need a financial adviser or accountant?” she said.

“Well, for these people with complex [needs], they need both. So, I think if we can get the right one, it can be a real partnership.”

One way this form of collaborative relationship already plays out is through multidisciplinary practices.

“You’ve got those multidisciplinary firms which can make sense because now the client comes to you to buy a house or to upgrade the house or to buy another property, you’ve got all of the mortgage broking and financial planning,” Martin said.

Rather than clients having to provide multiple practitioners with the same information, having all of these services under one roof and even one company, means that information can easily be shared across, saving time for everyone involved.

A key aspect of this, however, is that this is only really possible for larger firms as single practitioners who try to provide multiple services by themselves may struggle to do it well, as they are already juggling a number of competing priorities.

“If you’re doing that, you have to be an established business. Where I’ve seen advisers get themselves into trouble is they’re a start-up and they’re trying to do both. It’s very hard to master skills of accounting, financial planning, mortgage broking and to do all of them at once,” Martin added.

“For me, I think if you’re a solo business more that partnering and doing it external would make sense as opposed to trying to wear another hat.”

To hear more from Adele Martin, tune in here.

To secure your ticket to the Adviser Innovation Summit in June, click here.