Younger advisors go mobile

The recent Digital Experience and Attitudes survey, conducted by Toronto-based BlueRush Digital Media Corp. in partnership with Investment Executive, included mutual fund sales representatives, insurance advisors, brokers and other financial services professionals.

“The advisor population of Canada is amongst the oldest in the world and many advisors who fall into the 50-plus age group are just not embracing the new digital way of merchandising and distributing themselves as much as they should be,” says Anthony Morris, CEO of Cambridge, Ont.-based Top Advisor Program Inc.

Morris says that older advisors who have not yet embraced the new way of doing business may not know that they are putting themselves at a huge disadvantage by not keeping up with the times.

“Many of them are still under the incorrect assumption that their clients who are over the age of 60 are not using Facebook or Twitter and that is costing them money,” he adds.

As older clients look to transfer their estates to their children, Morris says advisors should be able to talk to the new “YouTube” generation that is 35 years of age or younger.

However, some advisors may not want or need to access digital devices, given the composition of their client base, says Gary Teelucksingh, senior vice president of BlueRush.

Although the survey indicates fewer older advisors have latched on to mobile digital technology, this may not be an immediate negative. It may simply reflect the fact that in some cases the advisor’s clientele is not moving into the digital world.

“Older advisors are more likely to be established in the industry and are likely mimicking what their clients are doing, ” adds Teelucksingh. “In addition, older advisors are more cautious and look for the overall business return vs. the ‘coolness’ factor and this may be why they are not adopting these business practices at the same pace.”

Chris Stewart, a 35-year-old financial advisor with Mississauga, Ont.-based Edward Jones, says there has been a noticeable shift as the younger generation of clients gravitates toward digital devices.

“It’s common practice for clients to prepare for meetings with their paper statements ready but now I’m starting to see more clients prepare for their meetings electronically,” says Stewart.

Although Stewart owns both an iPhone and iPad, he makes it a priority to arrive at client meetings with paper copies of all documents, in case the client prefers paper over digital.

Survey results show that 70.5% of younger advisors use digital devices as a business productivity tool — meaning they use smartphones and/or tablet devices as a task manager, to manage client contacts, record notes as well as a daily calendar — compared to 64.8% for older advisors.

“The single difference I see with using these devices in my business is when it comes to managing my time,” says Stewart. “These tools provide me with efficiencies in my scheduling and my time management overall — and that is what we all need in this industry.”

Similar results are seen in preparing for client meetings — 29% of younger advisors use their digital devices for this function, vs 23% of older advisors.

However, roughly the same percentage employ the devices during client meetings, — 24% of younger advisors vs 23% of older advisors.

When it comes to hardware, both age groups favour BlackBerry phones over any other smartphones — 63.6% of younger advisors own BlackBerrys, 30% own iPhones and 13.3% own Android phones. More than 55% of older advisors own BlackBerrys, compared to 28.2% with iPhones and 19% with Android phones.

For the tablet user, iPads are by far the most popular with both age groups — 62.6% of younger advisors owning iPads vs. 30.8% with Playbooks and 13.2% with Android tablets. For the older advisor, 70% own iPad tablets vs 21.1% with Playbooks and 11.4% with Android tablets.

Older advisors are more likely to use mobile digital devices for remote access to a computer — 30.4% of older advisors vs. 24.4% of younger advisors.

Matt Wilhelm, a 46 year-old advisor with Waterloo-Ont.-based Sunlife Financial (Canada) Inc., has been using his BlackBerry for the past five years on a daily basis to access his online bank account as well as his business email account.

“Our clients know I have a BlackBerry and since they have one too then they are more likely to be emailing in a lot of requests directly, ” says Wilhelm. “These devices provides clients the ease of communication and allows me to handle these requests in a timely fashion because regardless of where I am I can send those requests on to our office.”

For the moment Wilhelm does not work with a tablet device, but does have some clients who bring their iPads to meetings. With 100% of his client meetings conducted at the office, Wilhelm prefers to use his laptop computer. However, he notes that for colleagues who conduct client meetings in the field, the iPad is definitely more convenient than a laptop.

“Having these electronic devices as part of our business allows people to interact much more efficiently because having email connection with a client allows us to have a record of the conversation and for compliance reasons I like to have that paper trail vs. being on the telephone with them,” says Wilhelm.

The largest discrepancy between the two age groups relates to their use of digital devices to access social media. Forty-eight per cent of younger advisors surveyed use their devices to access social media, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, vs 25.3% of older advisors.

Morris, who runs a coaching program for advisors in the financial services industry, says when it comes to social media many advisors are missing the boat.

“The older advisors are not equipped to attract the young talent that they could be attracting because they are not tech-savvy enough,” he says.

Over the last year, Morris has seen a number of advisors 35 years of age and under who, after completing his workshop, upload YouTube videos and access social media sites to produce client leads.

“I think when you see advisors who are a little bit older, they’re a little bit less interested in trying to learn how these devices can advance their business,” says Neil McIver, a 45-year-old financial advisor with Toronto-based Richardson GMP Limited in Vancouver. “But once they’re shown, I think they’re probably equally enthusiastic about using it.

For more articles on the Digital Experience and Attitudes survey, see the June issue of Investment Executive, or click here.