Financial Planning as a Growth Strategy

Meet your client’s desire for personalized financial advice

October is Financial Planning Month. As a financial professional, it’s a great time to review your strategy and how you’re approaching planning to deliver great advice and run a thriving business.

More and more, your clients want you to understand their entire financial picture and deliver personalized advice that addresses all aspects of their financial life. Often, they don't have the time, expertise, and confidence to make sense of it all on their own. That's the reason the number of people seeking financial advice has reached an all-time high. Cerulli projects the industry will go from $27 trillion to $37 trillion over the next decade¹ .

This is your opportunity.

Financial planning should be an ongoing discussion based on your clients’ goals now and as they change. So if it’s been a while since you’ve checked in with your clients or created a plan for them, schedule time to connect before the end of the year so you’re ready to start the new year strong.

A trend LPL Financial is seeing that you as a financial advisor can capitalize on is the rising client demand for a personalized financial plan that fits their goals and lifestyle. They’re looking to you to provide those helpful insights and strategies tailored to their individual needs. Today, 60% of clients say it’s important to have a financial plan. However, only 40% of clients have a plan in place with their advisors².

Turn opportunity into growth

With growth as a key strategy for many advisors, scaling to expand is essential. Providing financial planning takes two things: time and knowledge. So how can you scale your practice to provide financial planning if you’re not already, or how can you expand on this opportunity to do it more frequently and for more clients if you already are?

Do you train up someone in your office, hire staff to fill the need, or outsource it?

As a financial professional with LPL, we can help you and your clients wherever you are in your financial planning journey. Our Paraplanning Services team is designed to help you build, enhance, or expand your financial planning practice without having to hire more people. Comprised of planning professionals, including certified financial planners, the team has experience providing an end-to-end strategy. In fact, since launching Paraplanning Services, our team has helped LPL advisors complete 1,188 plans, translating to more than 4.5 years of advisor time saved, not to mention the impact on all of the families with even more confidence in their financial futures.

Leveraging LPL Financial’s team of professional planners allows you to maximize your productivity so you can focus on your business. By increasing capacity in your day-to-day business operations, you’ll have more time to engage new prospects and deepen existing client relationships.

88% of clients say they’ve benefitted from financial planning when offered². Whether you’re looking to scale your business or are new to offering financial planning, the benefits of Paraplanning Services can help you in several ways:

• Up to an 80% time reduction generating financial plans
• No increase in payroll or time spent on employee management
• Drive more referrals
• Reliable handoff of your clients’ plans and quality control of deliverables

Expanding the depth and breadth of your advice can deliver better outcomes for clients

How do you expand your menu of services to deliver holistic advice?

“End investors want advisors to help them think through things like tax planning, insurance, estate planning, philanthropic giving—so really expanding your menu of services to enable a more holistic offering for your clients. And they're willing to pay for it,” says Aneri Jambusaria, managing director, LPL Services Group. “I think what you'll find is that you'll be able to deepen your relationships with your existing clients, perhaps create some new revenue streams, and attract new clients.”

One of the great things about working with LPL is that you don't need to have an ensemble practice in order to provide this kind of holistic advice. Along with our Paraplanning Services for more of those standard financial plans, we now offer Tax Planning Services, which can be a huge differentiator and value-add to help your clients save money on future taxes. You’ll have access to qualified and credentialed tax professionals, CPAs, and JDs who can work with you on projections plan development, as well as one-on-one support. We're also continuing to grow our team of high-net-worth professionals to provide a full-service offering that serves the needs of affluent clients.

So whether you need help establishing a comprehensive financial planning process, are looking to serve more clients, evolve your value, or get more hours back in your day, you can tap in to our lineup of services that continues to expand.

LPL Research helps you stay current with the market

As you consider adding or expanding financial planning in your practice, the LPL Research team can be another resource to you. They deliver deep industry knowledge, in-depth analysis, and dependable insights financial professionals can trust.

LPL Research operates as an extension of an advisor’s team, delivering independent investment advice, serving as a business partner, and helping advisors keep clients informed on the markets and economy. LPL Research also provides multiple publications, data-driven resources, and other items all designed to help advisors best serve their clients. 

Want to build your extraordinary business?

Reach out confidentially to learn how LPL can help you and your clients.