Insurance is an important part of financial planning and wealth planning. Technology can help insurance brokers more effectively bring useful products to their clients, which can in turn help those clients maintain and protect their wealth. Today’s guest understands how cutting-edge technology can help advisors streamline processes, manage tasks, and discover unexpected efficiencies. Most importantly, he recognizes the importance of maintaining a human touch in the process.
Aly Dhalla is the CEO and Co-founder of Finaeo, a startup that was created to help insurance advisors thrive in a digital world. Finaeo provides advisors with a digital tool-kit and an on-demand concierge back-office. This enables advisors to create what Aly calls the Bionic Advisor – a human advisor empowered by technology. Listen to the episode to hear more about what Finaeo is all about, what a bionic advisor looks like, and how technology impacts the advisory field now and in the future.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
- What Aly’s firm does and who they serve
- The core problem that Finaeo seeks to solve
- The typical process for a financial, wealth, or insurance planner
- How Finaeo reinvents the front end of the planning process
- How advisors can work with Finaeo
- What a bionic advisor is and does
- How technology is impacting the financial advisory space
- How data can be leveraged to power advice
- The customer personas that Finaeo targets with their services
- Characteristics of successful insurance advisors
- Aly’s advice for advisors who want to scale their business
- Lead acquisition tips for advisors
- The importance of continually learning new things about your field
Links and Resources:
Quotes from Aly:
“Our vision and mission is to empower advisors around the world with technology that makes their lives easier.”
“I think technology is a great solution to do the same activity over and over again without making a mistake. And effectively, that’s compliance.”
“Go back to your last five sales, go back to your last ten clients, and ask yourself: which one of these ten did I go above and beyond for?”
We haven’t spoken much about insurance yet on the podcast, so we’re thrilled to have Aly lend his expertise to the show. Here we’re highlighting our favourite points from the recording:
- What the heck is a bionic advisor?
- How technology is impacting the financial advisory space
- Aly’s advice for advisors who want to scale their business
To learn more from Aly, including his rock-solid planning process, his best on- and offline client acquisition strategies, and more, listen to the full episode through the link above, or on iTunes or Stitcher.
What the heck is a bionic advisor?
Don’t be fooled: we’re not talking robo-advisors here.
Aly defines a bionic advisor as a person (yes, a real human person) who is empowered by technology and leverages it to their advantage. Bionic advisors aren’t about to be replaced by robo-advisor technology; instead, they use that technology to cut out inefficiencies so they can spend more time actually serving their clients.
Like us, Aly believes that human advisors are essential to Canadians’ financial well-being. However, advisors who aren’t making the most of all the technology available to them are being left behind. That’s why he stepped in with Finaeo: to arm advisors with the best technology possible and help them do good by their clients.
Hint: Think about the biggest time-wasters in your practice. Do you wish you could easily identify serious prospects and weed out the tire kickers? Or more quickly find appropriate products for your clients? Find out what technology or service is out there that can help you solve these problems.
How technology will impact advisory business
Aly identified three ways in which technology can change (and is already changing) the financial advisory space:
- It can remove the compliance burden. You can admit it: nobody likes dealing with compliance. It’s time-consuming, tedious, and possibly risky if you make any mistakes. As Aly puts it, “technology is a great solution to do the same activity over and over again without making a mistake. And effectively, that’s compliance.”
- It can allow you to leverage data. This is a broad category, but in a nutshell, “data’s important because it gives sight to the unseen. It uncovers secrets for you that you never would have had before and it gives you the information to make better decisions about your business.” For example, many businesses can instantly find out if a potential customer is a good fit by calculating their expected lifetime value and weighing it against the time and effort it takes to acquire and serve that client.
- It can help you with the human aspect of your work. First and foremost, technology should ensure you have more time to nurture relationships with your clients. Another example is a quick nudge to remind you which clients you need to check in with this week. It means no one slips through the cracks!
- It’s what customers expect: The reality is that consumers now expect technology to be a part of any service or product they’re using. They don’t want to be sitting in meetings with you and filling out forms to pass along basic information about themselves. They’re looking for convenient, efficient ways to work with you, so you can help them meet their financial goals.
Aly’s advice for advisors who want to scale their business
Aly speaks to us in the show about what differentiates the best financial advisors from the rest of the pack. However, he also thinks it’s a mistake to see yourself only as a financial services provider: he wants you to remember that first and foremost, you’re an entrepreneur in the financial services industry. The following three tips can help you scale your financial advisory business, but they’re also relevant to anyone running their own business:
- Setting goals: What is your purpose? Is it to be a top insurance advisor in Canada? Is it to earn a certain income? Is it to do the best you can for your clients? Identify the values you want your business to exemplify.
- Mapping the journey: Map out what you do every day or every week, and tear it apart. Is each activity worth it? Can you partner on any of them, buy a quicker solution, or offshore the work? Be pragmatic and ruthless.
- Tracking progress: Break your goals down into smaller objectives and identify reasonable milestones so you can track your progress.
Hint: Here’s another area where technology comes in really handy. Find out what data you need to collect to know if you’re on track to reach your goals, and start tracking!
To learn more from leaders in financial advisory business, make sure you’ve signed up below to get an email every time a new episode comes out. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher ‒ and definitely listen to the full episode to catch everything Aly has to share about technology in the financial advisory space.